As an educator, Alma Hoffmann has learned that one of the most challenging aspects for an aspiring left-hand letterer is to apply everything that a right-handed person is teaching. It is almost like doing mental gymnastics. In this article, she will help you get started with the fundamentals of lettering with the left hand: the position and placement of the arm and wrist, the position of the paper, and holding the tool (brush pens). Alma will share theoretical as well as practical advice, demonstrating some points using her student Talondra Keeton, who is left-handed, to create lettering. She started back in January, and throughout the semester she has been consistently improving. Let’s get started.
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Humor is an important aspect of life. It has many positive benefits, like reducing stress, increasing psychological well being and increasing tolerance for pain. Humor is integral and inherent to human relationships. You can use humor in your design to create a positive user experience. We want to develop positive relationships with our users — humor can help make that happen. In this article, Victor Yocco will show you that you can incorporate humor in your design, maintain your brand identity and not look like you are trying too hard in the process.
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Vision is perhaps the strongest human sense, a hero image is one of the fastest ways to grab the user’s attention. As long as it is high quality, interesting to look at and works well with the content, a hero image is a great option and a powerful communication tool. Design with sufficient contrast and a clear call to action to make the most of this technique. In this article, give you a few tips on using hero images. Also, if you’d like to get started and take a go at prototyping and wireframing your own designs a bit more differently, you can download and test Adobe XD for free.
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Oh yes, it’s Summer alright! Nature is where Vitaly Friedman finds most of his inspiration as it sets his mind free. Hopefully, you’re enjoying some sunny days, too. Give yourself a moment of repose. Sit back, relax, have a refreshing drink and let the stream of inspiration come in.
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It used to be enough for user interface elements to “look professional” or simply to “add polish” to a website. But in the past few years we’ve come to expect more personal interactions and stronger relationships with the apps we use. Our relationship with the web has evolved dramatically over the past few years. It is a much more intimate relationship than it was before we had smartphones and tablets. Physically, the web is in our pockets. It’s on the couch. Custom images are a powerful design tool. They can tell a story and convey a distinct personality. Custom illustrations can be especially impactful. They can make our audience feel personally connected to an app or website, while being an integral part of the design.
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As the number of chart types and approaches keeps growing, the things are getting worse, and sometimes even top experts get confused with identifying the goals of one chart type or another. Stacked bar charts are often worthwhile and should be considered when the occasion demands. In this article, Vitaly Radionov explains why you should be careful when and where you use them.
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By using colour, typography, hierarchy, contrast, and all the other tools at their disposal, designers can take an unordered jumble of information and turn it into something that’s easy to use and pleasurable to behold. Like life itself, design can win a small victory against the entropy of the universe, creating pockets of order from the raw materials of chaos. For years, web design was dictated by the designer. The user had no choice but to accommodate the site’s demand for a screen of a certain size or a network connection of a certain speed. Now, web design can be a conversation between the designer and the user. Now, web design can reflect the underlying principles of the web itself.
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As UX specialists, you have varied and diverse backgrounds, but visual interfaces are what you spend most of our time on. You are visual thinkers with a highly trained eye. That’s why it’s tempting sometimes to jump straight to the visual UI design stage when starting a new project, and one of the reasons why you may be bored by some other tasks. In this article, Javier will give you some hints and tips on how to put that app design you are working on to the test, and to see whether it’s ready to be released into the wild. Changing your workflow might be challenging in the beginning, but after a while you will enjoy working within the constraints. This will also transform the way you think, and hopefully help you to move away from focusing on the visual details.
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Most of the time, the weather can’t quite make up its mind, and so the days pass by with half of the sky sunny while the other half gray. With springtime lurking around the corner, our need for extra inspiration is even bigger. So, today, Vitaly Friedman hopes that this month’s set will give you just that spark you need to cheer you up and boost your creativity.
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Typefaces are always telling us something. We receive information through typography. Type influences us, adds coloring to words, sets a mood and atmosphere, assists, teaches, scares us, brings us joy and inspires us. The contemporary world has its own rhythm, aesthetic and philosophy; while we are changing, everything is changing around us. In studying historical lettering in calligraphy, we can understand the character and potential of a writing instrument, and, as a result, we can manage its expressive means.
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