Book review – Color Inspirations

Sorry for another late post, especially right after resolution to keep it going more properly. I had my best friend staying over for a week though so it did change my schedule a lot 🙂

Color inspirations by Darius A. Monsef the IV is a book created by colourlovers.com in collaboration with HOW Books. It is very interesting collection of various palettes created by users of this site presenting them in very easy to browse form.

The book is opening with introduction into color theory presenting most important rules to keep in mind and explains how to use tools that colourlovers.com provides on their site for creating palettes. Color theory here is very condensed and limited to most important rules but it does what it wants well – creates good basis for future exploration of this topic for people who would like to learn more about it. It gives good foundations for anyone who just wants to get the basics though. Short description of tools you can use to create palettes on site is really very nice for someone not familiar with that system but willing to learn it and start their own adventure with palette creating.

After the introduction into color theory book provides us with long chapter divided by colors. Each color category is separated into 2-paged palette sections – monochromatic, analogous, triadic, split-complementary, complementary and other. Each palette is followed by palette’s name, name of the user of colourlovers.com site who created it and CMYK, RGB and HEX information about all colors included into palette. To makes things even easier to use, there is CD included that carries all palettes that are shown in the book in digital versions – in ASE, Expression, GIMP and HTML formats. All that is followed by Read me file that includes all information about files you need for proper usage of them.

After palette chapter comes chapter called Color In Nature which features palettes created on basis of nature’s photos – from landscapes to animals. Palettes included in this section are followed by same information as palettes in Color Palettes chapter and also are included on the CD. Last section of the book is Index of URLs of palette creators. All palettes can be tracked here and found on the colourlovers.com website.

In my opinion book is beautifully designed, easy to read and very inspirational. The color combinations presented there aren’t always the most obvious ones which makes them more unique and outstanding to use. I also admire the fact that CD is included, providing users with any info that is required and making use of external palettes extremely easy.

The other thing I like is the way CD is mounted into the cover. It is set inside the cardboard and covered with plastic cover that prevents CD from getting damaged or falling out. Personally I keep all my CDs in separate binder but this is a very nice touch.

The only thing that bothers me with that book is its’ binding. I think that spiral bound books are easy to use but because of being bound by shorter side of pages the book seems bit wobbly and I am often scared to use it afraid it would simply break. It does please me esthetically though so I cannot complain about it too much. Be aware though this is a book to be rather used on desktop in calm environment, not really on-the-go solution.

In general I think it is a great addition to my design book collection and I really like to look through it. It sometimes gives me inspirational kick that I need from time to time and it is great source of color combinations in case of any struggle on that area.

The truth is that you can get those palettes directly from site but this book is a great catalogue of those and makes browsing palettes easier. Since book was released in 2011, the collection of palettes on site definitely grew greatly but colors do not age, do they? 🙂

The book may seem useless but I still consider it a great tool and source of inspiration. It is not a book I would call must-have, but it is worth having.

To have a closer look on the book please visit colourlovers.com post about it HERE.

The book can be bought on Amazon or on HOW books website.

I hope you did enjoy that post 🙂 I plan to review some other books from my collection so please stay tuned!

designer’s wishlist.

Since christmas is coming up I decided to think over what is a best way to please a designer during christmas season. Of course the knowledge about your designer’s friend collection does help a lot, some of those may be ones that are useful anyways.

• Calligraphy set

For any designer that is interested in typography and lettering but haven’t started their adventure with calligraphy. They can be found in many versions and it’s a gift that can be figuratively afforded by everyone (dependable on size of set you will set your heart on)

• Typometer

If your designer is interested in typography this is definitely a go-to gift. It’s a kind of ruler that has all important measuring sizes for typographers and can be found in numerous shapes and sizes on Amazon.

• Typography home decorations

This comes to plates, posters, wall decals, lettering wall decorations – anything of this kind could be a great addition to designer’s workspace as a decoration as well as a source of future inspiration.

• Organisation tools

Most designers I know aren’t the best in organising their stuff, especially if they are young and just starting their career. I still have lots of problems with that aspect. So any calendar, planner, magnetic/chalkboard/white board are definitely a go-to if your designer doesn’t own one yet.

• Design books

Those maybe bit tricky since designers usually own quite a collection of books. There are some less obvious though and I would make a short list of those:

1. Making Handmade Books by Alisa Golden – suggested for designers with bookbinding aspirations or DIY lovers.

2. The stroke. Theory of writing by Gerrit Noordzij – great book dedicated especially for font designers and calligraphers. For those it’s definitely a must-have.

3. Color Inspirations by Darius A. Monsef – book released by Colourlovers site might seem unnecessary since you can browse those palettes online. I still love this one though, it has a vast collection of palettes and is an amazing inspiration tool.

• Dot grid notebooks

That may be not the every designer go-to, but most designers I know use those with dedication. There are many of those available, even in my country (I would love to lay my hands on some from USA or UK though). From experience I know the best ones are spiral bound, but there aren’t as much of those on the market as of usual book bound. In Poland I recommend Memobooks and Brambla, UK – Monsieur Notebooks, USA – Rhodia, Dot Grid Journals by Behance.

• Pantone Universe

This i think is quite obvious – most of designers adore Pantone guides and they are integral part of their lives. Owning item like Pantone Universe mug (or a set, as they are usually sold as) is definitely pleasing to the eye, just as something smaller, like Pantone Universe USB drive. You have to be aware that those are rather more pricy gifts though 🙂

• Desk supplies

They are definitely rather a small but nice addition for a designer. Any kind of fun post-it notes (interesting print and/or shape), sharpies, fun duct tape or washi tape (paper tape that comes in variety width and patterns). For any designer that likes to keep their notes fun and organised such mediums will definitely find a place in their drawer. Those are rather smaller items so should rather be treated as a small gift or as addition to bigger one.

I hope that if you have some designers to make happy this christmas you will find something that is both fun and just the right gift for them 🙂

Freebies – free december wallpaper.

I was thinking about trying to make some bigger projects than what I was getting involved with lately. Still, I wanted to keep it rather simple, since I don’t always have a lot of time to dedicate it to specific topic. This is why I am starting new series of designs – monthly wallpapers. At first I wanted to start from January, but I do not like delaying my ideas too much so I just got onto it, even if I am couple days late ^^’.

Since there are different people of different religions and I am not a fan of Christmas decorations and pictures attacking from every corner I made it rather neutral yet pleasant to the eye.

So, since there are first snow falls and the whole atmosphere gets more wintery, I decided for a very wintery theme.

The wallpaper is available in 2 versions – with and without monthly calendar. Clicking on the picture will allow you to download whole pack of wallpapers in both versions and 4 sizes.

You can also download them separately here:

Calendar version: 1920×1080 | 1600×900 | 1280×720 | 1024×768

Clean version: 1920×1080 | 1600×900 | 1280×720 | 1024×768

Other wallpapers I did that are available for download (click a picture for download):

I hope you will enjoy my little creations 🙂

Print design – paper as source of inspiration for design.

Yesterday I attended a lecture „Paper as source of inspiration” which appeared very tempting to me but turned out to be one big advertisement of printing paper distributing company. The very name of lecture inspired me though to create my own small version of how this lecture should look in my mind. Since I am print designer I decided to try to create series of posts print oriented including different aspects of it. I hope it will work out as I wish 🙂 They will definitely be part of my usual Talking Saturday post routine so I won’t overflow you with too much posts at once 🙂

It happens sometimes that we find the PERFECT PAPER that we feel big need to use in our project and not wanting to let go (which is necessary in many cases) . In cases we need to use specific type of paper though it is important to match properties of paper with our design. The main properties we should consider is: color of paper, type of finish and surface as well as its’ thickness. Good idea is to get your hands on some paper guides from manufacturers or distributors to be able to get to know what paper you are working with before getting on with design. They are especially helpful when it comes to decorative papers. Often manufacturers provide you with some information what is possible to do with this type of paper (printing method, embossing, hot stamping etc. )

The first one is quite obvious – color of paper. When using paper other than white it’s important to include into your design some thinking about how color of paper will affect colors you want to print – this is very important, since printing inks are not opaque. Printing with magenta on wine red paper is absolutely ridiculous and that rule is quite easy to understand why it’s not a good idea. On other hand – it’s less obvious with more natural colors of paper – such as ecru, light beige and especially popular – craft paper. Using colors on light yet not white surface simply needs some correction (for example using blue without using yellow or reducing its’ amount to not allow printed color to get greenish). With any intensive color though I wouldn’t recommend using any other colors than black or opaque inks (such as gold for example). If you really want to use any other colors on colored paper (for example printing cyan on yellow paper in order to get green) the best way is to simulate paper color on project (while working on it and removing it before printing of course).

If you are thinking of other surface, such as i.e. glass or foil, it’s important to remember that inks are overlaying – sometimes it’s worth to use additional layer of ink in white. This allows colors to pop on transparent surface and makes them opaque (if that’s what you are going for – transparency itself isn’t a sin 🙂 )

Except colors themselves its’ worthwhile to match font to ‘soul’ of paper too – handmade beige paper will look best with more traditional font – prefereably serif or even blackletter. The crisp white looks best with straightforward shapes – such as sans serif sharp looking fonts or neoclassical serif fonts. The most important is to feel the paper and make sure font corresponds to it – of course experimenting with that rule is also encouraged, it can produce amazing results too.

It’s quite broad property, but most basic is if paper is coated or not. Coated paper doesn’t suck in ink into the paper (and if it does it happens in much smaller degree than with uncoated type of finish) which gives completely different effect than in case of using uncoated paper. This should fully explain existance of Pantone color guides in two variants. Final look deeply depends on that and it should be considered on the designing phase – good idea is to intensify colors that are supposed to be printed on uncoated surface if we want to get effectcloser to one we can aquire on coated one. It’s especially important if we want to create coherent look on various mediums (good example is ad in magazine and newspaper).

When it comes to choosing a font it’s just worth to remember that on coated paper letters will look much more crisp which is important when printing small font size. With uncoated paper the letters can become unreadable with tiny font size if paper absorbs ink in big amount.

Depending on type of surface varies level of coverage we will gain. As the smoothness of surface rises, the surface of ink layer is smoother and more even. This is very important in case you are printing areas with 100% ink coverage.

Another very important paper property that belongs to that category is papers’ weight (in grams per inch or centimeter). The thicker paper is and its’ weight rises it can absorb bigger amount of ink – this is even more important if using uncoated paper.

Font choice also has importantrole in this case. Most improtant factor is font size. On rough surface tiny font size (like 5 ir 6 pt) can become completely unreadable – it definitely should be taken into consideration. Perfect font choice for such type of surface is the one designed to be used in really small sizes – such as famous Bell Centennial, which design includes ink traps that raise legibility of text printed in small font size.

The thickness of paper plays major role too (again, together with type of finish surface has). To match design to surface of paper it is supposed to be printed on it’s suggested to use proper total ink coverage. It’s a suggested number of summed up coverage of all ink layers that should not be surpassed on any printed area. Good example of that is: when we have specified total ink coverage on 280% it means we can’t make color deeper than C 90% M 80% Y 75% K 35%. This means that deeper colors by default will be more bleak. You can see that effect in most newspapers – the deeper and darker colors are they often look bleak and their contrast is lowered.

When it comes to font – thickness pays an important role only if it is really thick and rigid (like, for example, bookbinding board). when printing on such material on offset machine is impossible. The best technique for printing on such materials is screen printing where layer of ink is much thicker and in case of big dotgain can cause text to become unreadable.

So here you go, I hope this small guide will come in handy at some point to you (if not now). All my knowledge is based on my experience and knowledge from printing courses I taken before. As dedicated print designer I know how much trouble paper (or any other surface) can cause so I hope this short introduction to that topic would be helpful. If you have any questions about topics I barely touched here (which are most, I just decided to keep that post rather short even if you could write book about some areas of that topic) feel free to leave a comment 🙂