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16 votes
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Illustrator: what is this black dotted box? How can it be disabled?

It's the print tiling indicator, basically showing you what and where your artwork will print with the print page size you currently have set. You can turn it on and off from the view menu (View ...
Cai's user avatar
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16 votes
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How do designers choose shapes in a design?

Actually there may be a great deal of thought put into such usage, well beyond personal preference or some client directive. Style If you know you want a more friendly, loose "feel" then ...
Scott's user avatar
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12 votes
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How to quickly generate rectangles in place of text

The visual effect that you refer to is called "Greeking". Greeking obscures portions of a work for the purpose of either emphasizing form over details or displaying placeholders for ...
Kris Van Bael's user avatar
11 votes
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How to indicate dark mode / light mode options on a user interface?

You could simply be straight forward with it....
Scott's user avatar
  • 211k
11 votes

How to quickly generate rectangles in place of text

You can use any text you like (e.g. a Lorem Ipsum text) and use a tool that supports Regular Expressions, such as Notepad++. Search: \S (upper case S), \S means "no whitespace" (a lower case ...
Thomas Weller's user avatar
10 votes
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Why are these two designs considered outdated and old-fashioned?

Okay.. simply looking at the first design... This is merely my opinion.... First. The logo needs to be reworked. it is the #1 factor lending things to a "dated" or "old-fashioned" ...
Scott's user avatar
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9 votes
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Why does material design recommend a 2dp border radius for buttons?

The answer to your question lies in the psychological concept called Contour Bias as illustrated in the book Universal Principles of Design. As the book quotes: Objects with pointed features ...
ikartik90's user avatar
  • 359
9 votes
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Do I need to be Creative and Artistic to be a graphic designer?

Yes But being creative or artistic does not necessarily mean "ability to draw". Creativity is a must-have. A good designer needs to be able to imagine/see information in various constructs, ...
Scott's user avatar
  • 211k
9 votes

How to quickly generate rectangles in place of text

If seeking something which does not possess font dependencies... Option 1 for Illustrator... Draw strokes.. then erase... Chances are I'd do this once and save it to a Symbol Library so I could ...
Scott's user avatar
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8 votes
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Meanings of mouseover colors (outlines) in Adobe Illustrator?

Color of the outline does not mean object type. Color is associated with the layer, as such it is something you define. So it has no intrinsic meaning beyond what you want it to have. You can change ...
joojaa's user avatar
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8 votes
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User Input Color Restrictions

I'd stay away from showing all color options in a color picker like this for a couple reasons: 1) it's frustrating for a user to see (or even choose) options that they can't end up having. And more ...
Zach Saucier's user avatar
  • 13.4k
8 votes

Why large companies never use flat design?

Because they are not followers of trends. They are trend setters. Whole thing about Apple is "think different". You got 20 e-mails with "see what's IN in design in 201X" and it's something that Big ...
SZCZERZO KŁY's user avatar
7 votes
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Noto Sans vs. Noto Sans UI

Some simple google search gave me the Guidelines for using Noto, and in there you find: For an Arabic website that needs to use an UI font for UI elements, such as buttons and tabs, that have more ...
Luciano's user avatar
  • 8,254
7 votes

The graphic design theory behind the landing page

Blame the grid frameworks like 960.gs and Bootstrap. They made it very easy to build this exact layout: http://getbootstrap.com/examples/carousel/ These frameworks solved a lot of the problems of ...
TunaMaxx's user avatar
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7 votes
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Complex Rounded Corners in Ai or Sketch

Any AI version Draw a circle Object > Path > Add Anchor Points Select the 4 original anchors on the circle Double-click the Scale Tool and enter a value less than 100%. Roughly 90-95% will provide ...
Scott's user avatar
  • 211k
7 votes

Can I combine rounded and sharp corners in the same design?

There are no rules. If it looks right, it's acceptable.
Digital Lightcraft's user avatar
7 votes
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How to begin designing PDF Business Reports

It is possible to learn how to do this. However, you should realize that graphic design is a design field you need to know quite much more than, PDF template with different styles to begin with. ...
joojaa's user avatar
  • 58.6k
7 votes

Why are these two designs considered outdated and old-fashioned?

This looks exactly like a programmer trying to design something. Unfortunatelly it does not work and it is indeed, very outdated and old-fashioned by today's aesthetics: overall it looks like a ...
lmlmlm's user avatar
  • 29.6k
7 votes
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Is a teaser with no image still a teaser?

A "teaser" is typically defined as anything which entices the viewer to look further (or keep watching in the case of multimedia) without actually giving away the "offer". Coming ...
Scott's user avatar
  • 211k
6 votes
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Live update duplicate artboards in Illustrator

Symbols Create your first screen, and drag the art to the Symbols Panel. -- Or drag the individual elements to the symbols panel. Symbols act sort of like "master elements". You can then edit the ...
Scott's user avatar
  • 211k
6 votes
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Make Inkscape UI completely dark except the document

I have a similar dark theme. Unfortunately, the background colour of the pasteboard is not styleable separately from the colour of the page. You can use File > Document Properties and "Background ...
Billy Kerr's user avatar
  • 89.5k
6 votes

User Input Color Restrictions

I'm going to be very blunt. We want to allow them the option to customize the background color, as well as the 'highlight' color on their page. Don't. Seriously, don't. Unless you are certain that ...
Vincent's user avatar
  • 25.4k
6 votes

How to deal with "poor design" client feedback

If that is their feedback, 'the design is somewhat poor', then I'd like to turn that around and tell them that their feedback is 'somewhat poor' as well. And then I'd be mild. Seriously, this is a ...
Vincent's user avatar
  • 25.4k
6 votes
Accepted

What is the name of this UI Element?

This is called a SlidingUpPanel - given that one has this sort of interaction behavior with the element in mind: https://pub.dev/packages/sliding_up_panel Searching for SlidingUpPanel as UI element ...
ChrisBean's user avatar
  • 260
6 votes

Emulating global 3D light on a functional web page

The only ways to do this are to: Use "actual" 3D rendering (like WebGL) for the UI which isn't usually recommended for UI because it's harder to make UIs with just WebGL, especially making ...
Zach Saucier's user avatar
  • 13.4k
6 votes

How to quickly generate rectangles in place of text

If you intend to use InDesign, you can set up a Character Style that uses a thick underline to cover the entire wording. Then you can create a Paragraph Style and under that, a Grep Style, that ...
lmlmlm's user avatar
  • 29.6k
5 votes

How do designers choose shapes in a design?

This is probably going to get hammered shut but in brief; the basic shapes, circles, squares and rectangles are invaluable as the fundamental elements of design. Shapes and curves can provide feeling ...
Webster's user avatar
  • 4,189
5 votes

Design workshop at conference

A workshop would typically imply you will be expected to perform some tasks, otherwise it would be a "seminar", "lecture", or "presentation" If there are required materials they should be listed ...
Scott's user avatar
  • 211k
5 votes
Accepted

What is Gmail's new login page effect called?

This is known as Float (or Floating) Label or Adaptive Placeholder and it is a well known and extended UX pattern that solves the usability problems of not having a label (a very common design error) ...
Devin's user avatar
  • 534

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