Looking to get into graphic design? Not sure where to start?
Maybe you’re not wanting to do it full time, maybe you just want to dip your toe’s in the pool of “kerned type.”
Well you have come to the right place my friend. Here is my personal list of everything you will need to get going and thankfully the design community on the internet is one of the best places to start.
Many designers/programmers saw the need for creating software and resources more accessible to the average user.
Let’s get started…
Graphic Design 101
Just because you have the software, a computer, and a killer idea.. does not mean you know the basics. Here are a few resources you should check out before diving in.
Or freshen up if your feeling stale!
- Vectors vs Bitmap
- Looking Closer 5: Critical Writings On Graphic Design
- Graphics Techniques for Web-Design
- Advanced Photoshop techniques
- psd tuts
Now that you have an understanding for what graphic design is, let’s get to the goodies.
Software
Open Source and “free” is your friend! You don’t need thousands of dollars to do thousands of dollars worth of work!
- Gimp – Probably the most popular open source photoshop alternative.
- GimpShop – A hacked version of Gimp to make it prettier on a mac.
- paint.net - Windows only Photoshop Alternative.
- Seashore – Simple image editor (mac osx only)
- Inkscape – A great alternative to illustrator and other vector programs.
- Avairy – A browser based suite offering many tools.
- KompoZer – html editor, Like Dreamweaver
- Text Wrangler - Open source text program great for xml, css, html (mac osx only)
- FileZilla – Ftp Client to get your files online!
- Cyberduck – Free Ftp client get your files online! (mac osx only)
Cheap but good alternatives:
- Pixelmator – amazing Photoshop alternative. ( mac osx only)
- Acorn – The image editor for humans (mac osx only. Free version also available )
- Line Form - Illustrator alternative (mac osx only )
- Coda – One of the best coding environment out there. ( mac osx only)
- Espresso – My personal favorite for writing code.. plus it’s named after coffee! (mac osx only )
Fonts
Make your designs stand out a bit. here are some common fonts you will want in your arsenal.
Textures
How About Some Homework?
Now that you have some knowledge, software, fresh new fonts, and a few textures what are you going to create? How about your own custom desktop background?
- Find out your screen resolution (most are 1280 x 1024 Pixels NOT INCHES! ).
- Start a new document with those sizes and go at it!
- Don’t forget to share it with us!
Let us know if I have missed a resource or application and leave a comment below!
This is awesome! Gotta go pick up my daughter from school, but will be back for a detailed read ASAP! Thank you for sharing.
Great resources on this post. Thanks!
Thought I’d mention a couple more I have found helpful.
http://en.flossmanuals.net/DigitalFoundations – general digital art instruction using all free, open source alternatives; this also has a link to the original version of the ebook that uses the proprietary (and expensive) counterparts if you’ve already bought into them
http://scribus.net – Scribus is a desktop publishing application similar to InDesign
Also, my recommendation would be to try Gimp as is instead of trying to use GimpShop. GimpShop is farely out of date (it’s based on 2.2 and the current version for Gimp is 2.6). However, if you’re used to Photoshop and GimpShop helps you make the jump into open source software, then more power to you.
Thanks again for the resources and references to free and open source software!
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
Thanks man, totally forgot about scribus.
This is cool. I see a contest here. Winner gets to shave the head of @human3rror so he fits in more with his 8BIT team. @dewde is of course exempt. The world will crumble if his hair is cut.
btw, this is a book that hits several different media related open source software:
http://www.amazon.com/Crafting-Digital-Media-Audacity-Blender/dp/1430218878/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1N2BF40OR9FCE&colid=YPO8TD3KRMMH
I have only thumbed through it, so I can’t give it a personal recommendation, but it might be worth a look if you want to get your feet wet in several different programs.
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
wow, that a stack of resources and a half.
nice one
Jared, holy moley.
This stuff wears the pants.
Just saw the Google just announced it’s Font Directory with all free, open source fonts. While it’s pretty minimal now, I would expect it will expand and become an even better resource in the future.
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
Thanks, I saw that yesterday.. but it ties in more with web based fonts.. where I wanted to create more of a resource for beginners.
That’s a good bit of resources. Nice work!
Thanks for the post Jared! I have a friend who just graduated from college with a graphics arts degree and this may be a good place for me to direct him to begin learning what he really needs to know to work in the industry!
Just watched this video from this year’s Libre Graphics Meeting. It has cool advice at the beginning about EULA’s to be wary of when purchasing closed fonts to make sure you can use them in all the mediums to want/need to. The last half is a summary of the best open and free (as in freedom) fonts to use for many purposes. It’s about 20 minutes, but worth the watch and especially informative for beginners like me.
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com