Avoiding Tangents: 9 Visual Blunders Every Artist Should Watch Out For

Have you ever been caught off-guard by a visual tangent in your art? The word tangent usually just indicates that two things are touching, but in art the term describes shapes that touch in a way that is visually bothersome. When creating a composition, there are so many different things to juggle that it’s easy to miss even the obvious flaws—and that’s when tangents sneak in. Most tangents can easily be avoided, however, as long as you know what to look for during the early stages of the piece. 1. When a shape completely covers any corner of the artwork, it visually isolates that corner from the rest of the painting. Solution: Find another way to crop the image or soften the edge of the object so that the tangent is not so distracting. 2. When a symmetrical shape is cut in half by the edge of the painting it creates an uncomfortable, chopped-off feeling for the viewer. Solution: Bring the entire shape inside the picture plane or crop the image somewhere other than the halfway point. 3. 4.

The 10 laws of Photoshop etiquette | Photoshop Designers, freelancers, lend me your ears. Whether you work as the former or the latter, at some point in your career you will have a job where end goal is to to pass your Photoshop files onto someone else. Many of us have been on the receiving end of that relationship. And there's come a time when we've opened up that PSD file and thought "What the hell?". I've personally experienced an instance in which a creative agency's contract for a particularly large design job was terminated due to the fact that they had supplied messy PSD files that no one could make head or tail of. Want to avoid damaging client relationships and getting yourself a bad rep within the design community? 01. As boring and mundane as it sounds: name your layers. Once labelled, organise these layers into group folders; allowing you to move and show/hide various large sections with ease. 02. Establish a simple naming convention that not only works for you, but would also work if your granny had to read it. 03. 04.

HOW TO: Market yourself as a designer In order to attract great clients and interesting projects, grow your business or land that job you’ve always dreamed of, you need to show the world your value and make yourself stand out from the crowd. The design arena is a very competitive field, so chances are you should be spending some time and effort on making yourself noticed and putting your name out there. Or, in other words, you need to start thinking about marketing yourself as a designer! If you have no idea where to begin, here’s 5 simple steps you can try right now. 1. In order to market yourself, you first need to define yourself and your brand. A great place to start is to create a nice personal website. Look at the personal websites of other designers for some inspiration and create something that neatly expresses who you are and what you are passionate about. 2. In order to market yourself, you need to put yourself out there. You don’t have any projects to show off yet? 3. 4. How can you do this? 5. Not enough?