Blog Posts - Graphic Design

If you’ve been designing logos for brands or working in print design for more than the last 7 years or so, you likely felt the earth shake a bit in 2010 when Pantone introduced their Pantone Plus color matching system, which was developed to help printed PMS colors reproduce more accurately on computer displays. It was a move meant to better connect on-screen color with on-page color, but it came with unfortunate side effects to the average designer’s workflow. The worst of these side effect

Ahhh the logo. Even the word itself is unique. In order to be successful in business, every company will need a unique logo to represent their brand and to build equity with. Brands come in many forms such as companies, products, organizations, groups, causes, places, achievements, events…all things that need to be readily recognized through a single graphic element. It is the graphical tip of the brand iceberg, the spearhead of identity programs, the symbol of all that is good about your busi

A few months back our agency began working with a new client called “The Little Bottle Company”, a small business that sells custom arrangements of, you guessed it, little bottles. They were interested in boosting their online presence and jump-starting their brand awareness in the Alamo city with a Facebook campaign. The Goal: Get Page Likes! In all honesty, their arrangements are actually quite impressive and fun to look at. They’re also made of alcohol. Our team kicked off the project w

Fonts. They’re literally everywhere you look, on everything you read. Many times, they are a core component of graphic design and website development. Type purists like to point out, “You can’t even design without type.” And that’s true, assuming your work requires something to be read. With our eyes so trained to recognize words thousands of times throughout the course of any given day, it’s no wonder that the legality of font usage can be so easily overlooked. It’s almost akin to

It’s 2016, a new year — new opportunities and a chance to reflect on our successes of the previous year. Brought to mind during these moments we spend in observance of the passage of time are the tools and processes in which I spend the majority of mine. 2015 was a year of great progress for TXC. All of it for the better. In an effort to continue to embrace change that has served us so well, what follows is a set of considerations for the designer in the New Year. 1) Make Adoption Routine Pr

… or, That One Time Word Didn’t Make Me Want to Walk Off the Job and Sell Used Tires for a Living. There are a handful of phrases that make designers want to tuck their tails between their legs and run home to mommy: “Let’s fill up this white space to take advantage of the entire spread.” Or, “Can we make this pop more?” And, perhaps the king of them all, “Can you give me this layout in a Word document so I can make edits myself?” Ah, Microsoft Word. The one piece of software t

You may remember that in an earlier post I talked about “How To Get The Most Out Of Your Designer” and the four building blocks to helping me be the best designer I can be for you. I outlined a brief methodology of design and we took a look at the type of information I, as a designer, want to review and study before the design process begins. Next, I want to explore the steps that follow, which is sometimes where the REAL fun begins! Once discovery sessions, organizational goals and creative

I think I'm finally ready to admit it. I've known for quite a while and it’s time to lay it out there. I'm a hoarder. Thankfully, not a hoarder of the frightening danger to oneself and others variety, but a pack rat nonetheless — always stashing away a digital amassment to use in my creative development. To create great things, a designer's mind must be fed. My hoard is a massive bricolage of the bits and pieces I've culled from collective consciousness of the age. I index this digital ephem

[INFOGRAPHIC June 2014] Can you remember the last time you stopped and thought, “It seems like quite a while since Facebook last changed its layout”? Now, I may be stepping out on a limb here, but I’m fairly certain you’re aware of just how often social media platforms update their designs and requirements, including image sizes. For marketers, graphic designers, social media specialists and small business owners, it can be difficult to keep up. So what are the best photo sizes to upload

Creative people have a knack for finding inspiration in unexpected places, and for following lines of thinking into new spaces. It’s an effective way to keep unique ideas flowing, even if some of them turn out to be useless. The hunt is always on, though: What’s the one great concept that could make a single piece of creative or an entire advertising campaign exceptional? I recently started handpicking audiobooks that I would listen to while driving to and from work each day. I was surprised