Questions tagged [best-practice]
Questions about preferred methods of achieving an effect or other result. Using best practices may affect, amongst others, compatibility, degradation, and usability.
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Is there a reason Hillary Clinton's logo has hidden notches?
This question is not political in the least!
While looking at the SVG version of Hillary's logo found here, I noticed there were notches in the two vertical bars of the H. The arrow crossbar covers ...
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Tips and resources for beginning designers
Thanks to the internet, graphic design and programming are becoming increasingly overlapping fields.
As a programmer, I constantly find myself needing basic knowledge of Graphic Design, but have ...
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Why should I ever use Unicode’s special characters for Roman numerals?
This is to answer a question which arose in the comments on this question on the Unicode characters for Roman numerals:
Why is this necessary or preferred over the usual way of typing ai, ai-ai, ai-...
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In a sentence ending with a bold or italicised word, does the period need to be bold/italicised too?
Maybe this will be considered a bit of a nitpicking argument, but I constantly find myself asking: In a paragraph where the last word is bold or italicised, should I make the period at the end bold or ...
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If a logo implies movement, should that movement be mirrored to match the movement of a vehicle it's placed on?
I've designed a nice logo for a company's charity food-drive campaign that incorporates a tilt and some speed lines to imply forward (rightward) movement. I matched the tilt of the art to the italic ...
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Favicon best practices regarding size and format
I'm busy on a WordPress site and have come to the stage to add the finishing touch, being the favicon. I'm primarily a developer so graphics and icons aren't my strongest point.
What are the best ...
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Methods for improving color choice and combinations?
I often struggle choosing proper color combinations. I'm self-ware enough to realize that I'm most comfortable with, and often settle on, colors which could be seen as more corporate or retro - blues, ...
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When should someone use ligatures?
What decisions and factors should be considered to determine when to use ligatures? Only in headings? Only in body? Purely by eye?
I ask because about seven people looked over a poster design and ...
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What technical/objective qualities do good logos have?
What objective (that is, not aesthetic) qualities should (almost) every logo have, that should you take into account when designing a logo or ask for when hiring someone to create a logo for you and ...
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Which format is better for saving images intended for websites; PNG or SVG?
When exporting / saving images with a transparent background that are intended for websites, should I save it as PNG or SVG? Why?
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Why would I ever NOT use percentage for sizes?
I am an embedded programmer (no GUI), who codes Angular, and, occasionally, Flutter, for fun.
In general, my apps work, but look like an early 90s GeoCities site :-)
On thing that I just can't get my ...
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What are the best practices for dealing with desired line breaks in responsive web design?
I design a great deal of simple single page web items for sales or email. I often find I run into issues with headlines and my desired line breaks at different media widths.
For example, I could ...
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"Correctly" vertically center text in a box
Is there a canonical rule how to vertically center text in a box? Or, in other words, how to align a box around text?
I could imagine three options based on typographic metrics (see my non-exact ...
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Just how much information should you share with a former client?
I know this is subjective to a degree. I am asking for best practice or experienced input.
TL;DR: How willing should a designer be to share specific job specifications with a past client after the ...
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Best way to send layouts with editable text to writers/editors who don't have design software
Here's a common design workflow problem, probably most relevant to in-house designers, but also to agencies who have a lot of non-design writing or research staff, or freelancers who work with in-...
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How do big design companies share art files
Many projects with many files all uploaded by humans on one server will get messy, by definition. Even if they have a structure, when 1000 of people work on projects there will be made mistakes.
How ...
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Should a designer flatten/restrict images when sending to another designer?
Scenario.....
Client sends Photo A to you for use in a design. The photo is a portrait with a background.
In the course of work you remove the background and color-correct the photo for your use. ...
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14
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3
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How should you web design with foreign typography
Some web design and development projects client's will request capabilities for a foreign translation in their site.
How can you account for this and what are some good practices for
content mockup?...
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3
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The role of the designer in content – should he have one and how big should it be?
I'm a designer, not a marketer, and not a writer (at least not professionally). A lot of the work I do involves working with material in a field that can be above my head. Because of that, I'm content ...
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Is it necessary for me to have an email address in lower case
I'm designing a flyer which has an email address on it.
Is it necessary for me to have the email address in lower case?
Or can I have it in upper case to put more emphasis?
I did my research on ...
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Is it unprofessional to use whimsical names as sample data in your designs?
I'm a junior developer/designer at a startup so I am wondering if it is unprofessional to make designs and use mock data that have puns. The company I work for is not strict and wouldn't mind if the ...
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How to give back as a designer?
What are some places or areas where one could donate graphic design services for the greater good?
I don't really mean local not for profit organization, but more on a regional, national, or global ...
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What are the pros and cons of embedding images in InDesign?
I used to be against embedding but realized recently that it's possible to disembed and retain the original data (layers, etc.). Here are the pros and cons I already came up with. I'm interested to ...
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What is your file naming convention you use for version control? [closed]
I'm trying to figure out the best way to link a printed piece to the electronic file name. What are the best practices for file naming and version control? Do you use a log of sorts for graphic design?...
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Scrap-work Methods
Should one start their scrap-work / mockups in an ordinary notebook or scrap-paper to be thrown away ?
What is the recommended practice?
Keep older drawings ?
Throw them away ?
Is it better to ...
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Best practices for full width browser images?
What are the best practices people follow in respect to images on larger viewports?
What size browser should we design for? Meaning how do we deal with high resolution monitors and what % of users ...
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Is Illustrator accurate for business card sizes?
I've just created my first business card in Illustrator. It has the standard UK business card size of 55 x 85 mm, a 3mm bleed, 300 DPI and the rest of it, and my smallest font-size is 8.94 points, ...
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How do you deal with amends from a client?
I'm a web designer currently working with a very demanding client.
I presented them with designs back in May and I'm still working through amends with them. They are making changes to everything and ...
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What's procedurally important in web building circa 2022?
I'm essentially seeking a "crash course" or explanation in any web building changes over the past few years - best practices, new methods, new pitfalls, etc.
It's been a number of years ...
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InDesign: How to create lines for form design?
Every once in awhile I make forms (applications and whatnot) in InDesign, and, as it often is with ID, there is more than one way to get it done.
I have a few techniques that I use, but I often float ...
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Optical corrections - is it ok to make a logo mark a little off center to balance it off?
Here is an example I am working on:
The left one if is visualy more balanced to me (it's compensating the off balance of the mark which is lighter on the right) and the right one is perfectly ...
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Best practice: keep icons as strokes or outline?
I am currently working on generating the icon assets for the company I work for. I am using Sketch, and am creating a large library of the icons. They are all Line icons (the style) and basically ...
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How to explain "achieving good Usability"
I have a quite hard task right now:
I need to explain agencies and graphic designers, how to design a usable website concept and visual design.
The goal is to give designers a workbook/tips&...
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How many logo variation is too many? [duplicate]
Some background & context
When including third party logos, we often get given low quality files. Mostly these are low resolution JPGs, but I have seen badly hand drawn scans (expected to be used ...
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Export InDesign to Excel or Word
I’m working with an InDesign file and now I need to get the file translated in a few languages. The translators that I’m working with asked for an excel or word file. Is there an integrated InDesign ...
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InDesign CS6: How should I structure pages of lists?
I'm having several different parts of a publication I'm doing where I'm presenting essentially a list of compound data. Examples are contact specifications (data points are [Name,Phone,Email]), recent ...
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Universal Icon for Religion [duplicate]
Is there a culturally-universal symbol to represent religion or a place of worship?
I would like to avoid having an icon containing multiple religious symbols because that opens up a whole mess of ...
Haedrian
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Proper use of ligature and kerning [duplicate]
I had a disagreement about the correct use of a ligature and kerning in a headline and would appreciate any help in seeking insight on the issue. The issue is with the "f" and "t". One side believes ...
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Can multiple designers work together?
I've been wondering if it is successful to have two or more designers work on the same graphic design.
I have tried a few times, but I ended up with a design that was not good enough, even though we ...
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Typographic styling when writing about UX elements
Any thoughts, standards, or good practices on typographical styles to set off UI text in a user manual?
For example, how to style the text of the label on a button in:
"Press the Submit button."
Or ...
4
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4
answers
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Technically, what are the prime gotchas that could affect your logo further down the road, if it incorporates justified* fx & blend mode treatments?
Explanation
(*Justified meaning they favorably add to the identity and aesthetics; i.e. we're assuming that they make perfect sense in a structural meaning.)
I'm looking for technically specific ...
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Best File Management Practices when you have thousands of Files
We publish over 100+ textbooks and growing (1-color, 2-color, 4-color) maninly designed in CorelDraw & Indesign with associated Image and Font Files. We also have merged multipage PDF & EPS ...
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General-purpose fonts for beginners?
I'm a programmer and a beginner in graphic design. When learning design, I found it very hard for me to decide which font to use in my website. In fact, when viewing separately(i.e. not in a side-by-...
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Should the font in a logo be used otherwise in the corporate identity?
I'm currently working on an small project and want to know, if the font which you use in the logo, should also be used as, for example, headlines?
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Drafting Designs - Do you start from paper first, or straight on the computer? [closed]
When you are initially drafting the design for something, do you usually start from the paper first and draw thumbnails of the design, or straight on the computer first?
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What illustration agencies or service sites provide the greatest benefits to the artists?
[NOTE: THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION FOR APPLICANTS.]
I'm a graphic designer in the fortunate position of having enough work that I'm looking to hire an illustrator for some overflow work. Finding a ...
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How to show that an image is also a link?
I'm creating a PDF and it should contain a hyperlink to google maps. The link must be represented by the Google Maps logo. What is the right way to indicate to the reader that the logo is a clickable ...
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Is there best practice when displaying other brands, such as partners or clients, on your website? Full color or greyscale?
We're debating an issue which I'm not entirely sure should be up for discussion.
We have a dozen or so partners who's logos we're displaying on our website. Both our web/marketing designer and I ...
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0
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Arguments for or against adopting design guidelines in a different context than intended
I'm working on the educational exhibit signage for a forest-preserve visitor center. The forest preserve has a book of branding standards, but the standards seem to apply mostly to outdoor ...
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Logo design: shape overlap?
I am in the process of cleaning up a relatively complex logo, and am unsure as to what the best way to manage the joins between different colors. Should I leave the vector shapes in such a way as they ...
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