Graphic Design, Illustration, Concept Art

Whether creating work to tell your own story, or developing branding to communicate the message of a client, this type of visual design can take many forms.

For long term projects, ensure that you are producing an appropriate amount of work. So rather than a single logo or poster, you might develop a series of images or variations for diverse use cases.

Project types

• Branding and/or print design
  • Design system or style guide
  • Logo design
  • Stationary or merchandise design
• Posters and Infographics
• Typeface design
• Digital illustrations
  • Concept art for pre-production (character, vehicle, environment design for comics, games, film, etc.)
  • Sequential comics (print or web)
  • Storyboards for narrative media (\see animation page for more)
  • Children's book
• Architectural renderings
• Product renderings
• App or website mockups (see those respective development pages for more)
• Data visualizations or Infographics
• 2D or 3D assets for games including character design and environment design
• Code-generated art

Production requirements

1. Research

   • Visual and theoretical works and publications that can provide a context for your work.
   • Collect inspiration images.
     • Go to the library or your local bookstore!
     • Book Cover Archive
     • Rebrand — Gallery of real world branding work
     • Standards — Collection of style guides from real brands
     • Daily Branding
     • Branding Style Guides — More style guides
     • Dribbble — A great showcase of work in UI, branding, illustration, typography, etc.
     • Logo Lounge Annual Trend Reports
   • For branding projects, complete a branding research document.

   • Creating mood boards

   • Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler and Debbie Millman (PSU Library eBook)

   • Everything you need to know about Design Systems

1. Design ideation

   • Generative processes including kit bashing, photo bashing, or other means.
   • Thumbnail sheets
   • Create low fidelity sketches to create LOTS of quick sketches and brainstorm a variety of looks or forms:
     • Traditional drawing
     • Digital illustration
     • Digital design
     • Digital art
   • Common shot types — A quick summary of shot types like "close-up" and "wide shot" that make up the grammar of films, comics, animation, and other cinematic work.
   • Page layout for children's picture books: a blog post by DMD faculty Benjamin Andrew cataloging common page layouts and ways of integrating text and imagery; including low-fidelity storyboards.

2. Design iteration and improvement

   • Image Assets
     • The Noun Project — Creative commons vector icons
     • Unsplash — Creative Commons stock photos
     • Pexels — More CC stock photos

   • Typography

     • Google Fonts — Premiere library of free fonts and "Knowledge" articles, including a fantastic free ebook about typography.
     • Adobe Fonts
     • FontShare — Excellent library free, high-quality variable fonts.
     • Font Squirrel
     • Butterick's Practical Typography — Short but insightful guide to type principles
     • Web Typography Learning Game — Useful for any type context

   • Software

     • Adobe Illustrator — Vector editor; great for logos, screen design, layout, illustration.
       • A few tutorials on making simple illustrations in Illustrator
     • Adobe Photoshop — Raster editor; great for editing photos and digital painting.
       • Removing images from backgrounds with the Select and Mask tool.
     • Adobe InDesign — Dynamic Publication editor; great for multi-page documents or anything with a lot of text and images assets.
     • Figma — Free cloud-based vector design app, excellent collaboration and UI prototyping features.
     • Sketch — A paid vector editor favored in software industries, includes powerful collaboration tools.
     • Illustration
       • Desktop:
         • Photoshop (for intuitive raster painting)
         • Illustrator (for more precise vector artwork)
         • Clip Studio Paint
       • iPad:
         • Adobe Fresco (free for PSU students, great and slightly more robust than Procreate)
         • Procreate (One time affordable purchase, very similar to Fresco, simpler UI )

1. Packaging and presentation.

   Consider how to present your work in a professional distribution package. How can you provide context for your design beyond simply exporting some JPEGs?

   • Project website
   • Printing a physical book
   • Poster prints
   • Formatting for digital devices
   • Digital publication (PDF)

   Often brand projects are presented as a style guide which can be a splashy presentation of the brand assets in action, and/or an authoritative "handbook" documenting all the visual assets that make up the brand's design system. If you're making a PDF or slide deck, you might include:

   • Primary logo
   • Logo variations
     • Simplified logo versions for small scale
     • Multiple lockups or variations of logo pieces.
     • Improper variations of the logo to showa client what not to do.
   • Color palette
   • Fonts and text styles
   • Decorative icons, patterns, shapes, etc.
   • Sample product or advertising images, social media posts, etc.
   • Value statements, copywriting, slogans, etc.

Proof of concept

A proof of concept should demonstrate drawing skills, ability to use the elements and principles of design, and proficiency with your software of choice. Showing process is important for the proof of concept, consider recording your screen, show ideas written on paper or journal, and your ability to approach a personal or client project critically and with an industry standard process.