Design is omnipresent

Hey everyone. I am back and all set to keep this blog going!

Design is omnipresent. It could be a corporate mark on your coffee mug, a box of your favorite chocolate, a cover of a magazine in your living room or the logo of a nearby fast food place. You name it, design is everywhere, in everything!

I developed an interest in graphic design when I was sixteen years old. I was an active participant of discussions at various forums related to the Indian Film Industry and it was at these forums where I got an inspiration to design something, something of my own. I saw that other forum members designed signatures for themselves and others and I thought that those were the best designs in the world, when, of course, I hadn’t seen many of the better designs. I, too, wanted to join the bandwagon and design signatures of my own to display under each post that I made in the forum. Just yesterday, I came across one of my very initial “designs” and let me tell you, I felt awful when I saw it. Just awful, not embarrassed. The design, needless to say, was a bad one, lacking any contrast, symmetry or appeal. Nonetheless, it was one of my first designs and I am proud of it.

Over these three years, I like to believe that my designs have improved in a way that they don’t reflect amateur skills, rather somewhat developed skills. I started learning about Adobe Photoshop and began to experiment on it to see what I could do with it in terms of designing. I didn’t read any books, magazines or tutorials, but observed a lot of designs on the forums that I visited. Those weren’t the best designs to observe but that seemed like the best option at the time. I have learned a lot of Photoshop over these years but there’s a lot more to be learned. After I was done experimenting with Photoshop, I jumped to Adobe Indesign, which is a great software for designing print layouts of any kind. I took a class in spring of 2006 which was solely based on teaching the basics of Indesign. I designed three projects in that class and I loved every minute of it. Just recently, I have started looking into Adobe Illustrator, another fine product from Adobe, which helps designers create logos and allows them to create graphics for print, video and the web. I haven’t looked at Illustrator in depth but from what I have experienced so far, all I have to say is that a designer can do great things with this software and I intend to learn more about it.

Over these couple of years I have discovered my love for logo design. I like creating logos for different websites as a practice. I also like to observe and critique logos that I come across in everyday life. This is a part of what I will be doing on this blog, among other things. I hope you’ll enjoy my blog posts and give your input on them.