We tend to think we know everything. In fact in reality we don’t know very much. Always keep yourself learning. Do things that promote your self in a way that you never have before. Learn from your mistakes. (Advice #79) Learn from different experiences you’ve been through. Haven’t had any? Well looks like it’s time for you to go out and adventure. Maybe that in itself will become an experience. Look at what other people are doing and try to see if doing that might make you choose a different path. Take that path. See where it leads. Take it all in and just learn from it all.

Mistakes. We all make them. As human beings we all show error. Now why do we keep making them? Because we never can know everything. The same thing goes for design. Sometimes we make mistakes. They can be good or bad. When they’re bad we tend to hide them, and shrug them off. However, when they are good we tend to gloat about them. Neither is right or wrong. We can learn from both. When you make a bad mistake acknowledged it. Admit you made the mistake, learn from it, and move on. Furthermore, good mistakes known as “Happy Accidents” are always just as swell. Since we discover something that we were not thinking of before. This allows us to replicate this thought process to further our knowledge until we make another mistake.

The quantity of elements can hinder your ability to produce an effective visual contrast and hierarchy. Mashing in unnecessary elements that’s not in the project requirements can result in visual clutter. You should have a balanced amount out elements to avoid this. You don’t want your composition to look like the Sunday paper sale/coupon section.

Hello Daughter! Never feel embarrassed in front of your DAD! So how should I approach this?

The hardest part about it would have to be picking the color. Since I go in a random order I feel it’s much harder to pick. What I usually end up doing is closing my eyes. Next I open them and the color of the object I’m looking at will be the color I use. (Takes a few times though) The easiest part I would have to say is nothing! I tend to micro design every advice. So it ends up with me spending some time with each section.

I don’t think I have a least favorite advice. I wouldn’t make anything that someone couldn’t learn from. For my favorite. The one yet to be done is always my favorite. That always pushes me into putting everything I have into each and every advice. However if I had to pick one. It would be Advice #25. Thou shall call Concept king.
Hope I entertained you a bit!
Love,
DAD

To me it always sounded like a dance. Juxtaposition is when the placement of contrasting images are side by side. Another way to put it is that there are opposite elements near each other. Juxtaposing creates a sense of oddity that people generally are attracted to. It’s very good to experiment with this while thinking about your overall composition. It could create a strong visual tension that might just be what you need in it.

Hello Daughter. This could be quite tricky when you have to do a magazine article. It would be appropriate to follow his style for your feature. (Also don’t forget to reflect it also in your cover!)

If you look at his paintings section, and look in The Gay 90’s Show. He has a font that’s pretty neat. I would say try to replicate this for the feature title. Furthermore maybe use a font like he has done in the Bunnies & Bees section for sub headlines and such. Remember to have pull quotes as well as images to break up your text.

As for color. The color of the headlines is up to you. Just don’t forget Tip # 75. I would leave the title the same color as he does in The Gay 90’s Show. Or I would heavily suggest pulling a good contrasting color from the images you are using in your article.

I hope I answered your question. -Grin- If you have any further questions you can always ask.
Love,
DAD

Time is all about management. If you manage your time correctly you’d be surprised at what could come of it. Try and get on a good sleeping schedule, don’t forget about it, and certainly don’t procrastinate. If you get your design work done, you have room to maybe do some of your own design, or possibly take on something else. Or you could use the time to work out. We all know being on the computer for the amounts of time we do is not the most healthy choice.

Don’t ever do something just because you liked it. Always make choices based on a reason. Sure your overall composition could be made on what you like. However, colors, shapes, placement, text, etc. should always be put there with deductive reasoning. How else are you supposed to express to a person your whole concept and how you executed it?

Ever lost a file? Was it right in front of you face? It’s quite annoying when you have a bunch of untitled stuff on your desktop or in folders. Naming your stuff correctly can help you find files quickly. With naming your files correctly it shows professionalism and good organization skills and thus finding things will be no problem.

Being well Organized is key. Not only does it save you time, it also doesn’t make you seem like a slob to yourself and others. It’s okay to at first be a little messy. However, before you save make an organized structure. It will help when trying to link files to certain documents, or finding a piece work that you want to show/work on.

Color as we all know is used to attract attention to itself. It can be quietly subtle or in your face bold. Color can be used to evoke specific emotions and reactions. It can also attract for a purpose and much more. (Hints toward a Month of Color?)

The Texture in your composition is what gives it the feeling of depth/a surface. It’s It’s what connects the viewer to know how it would feel like by their sense of touch. Even though texture is visual, it provides the illusion of the physical texture without one being present. Just imagine if everything was flat basic colors? It works for swiss design and a few other things. However, not everything can work in just flat basic colors.

Mass is the size of things. Every composition has a physical mass. Additionally, each element within the composition such as lines, shapes, textures, body copy, titles etc. have their own mass. Mass usually goes hand in hand with balance. Since to have balance the mass of things should apply to the things balancing out your composition.

Shapes are made up of closed contours objects placed into a composition. Shapes are used to express meaning, organize information, show unity, pattern, movement, emphasis, and much more. Most of what we see are 2 dimensional shapes. However, there could also be 3 dimensional shapes as well.

Hello there Daughter/Son. (I choose to lean more towards Daughter. Sorry if I offended you.) This is a pretty good question. Text and images are pretty tricky when trying to attempt a composition. First you should ask yourself which will be the hero? Do you have a hero image? Or is your type going to be the hero? Remember to follow some basic rules. But don’t go crazy trying to stay within them. In design if you know the rules. Then you can certainty break them sometimes. It also depends what the composition is. Is this for a magazine, invitation, bill board?

It’s kind of tough to find inspiration on certain stuff. I would recommend you look at the list I gave someone who asked me a question a few days ago. There you would be able to find some pretty neat stuff, and maybe the inspiration you need.
Hope I helped.
With Love,
DAD