paulscottondesign
41 Years Experience
Marbella, ES
Male, 58
I have been in the graphic design industry since 1981 working in London, Los Angeles & Spain. My career started in the traditional way on a drawing board, using Rotoring Pens, Magic Markers, Pantone Pens & Letraset working as a Designer/Visualiser/Artworker. My design career has taken me through the music, toy, t-shirt, packaging & print industry. I am now a freelance graphic designer (British) based in Spain with many clients worldwide ...now using Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign on a Mac.
UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Using live trace is a very rough option for turning photos into vectors ...the results will never be perfect and will always result in tidying up rough edges by removing points on the path and recurving the line to how you want it. You can play with the settings and choose the option of how many colours you want the end result to be ...but you still may have to tidy it up after.
I prefer not to use live trace and always place the photo into Illustrator and draw the image over the top and add in the colours after. Once finished I remove the photo.
Hope this helps.
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UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . To be honest, I don't really know. I guess the only way is to do as the guy on the link is offering ...to have someone like him draw the people (a big job) or have an ariel view photo of people in the shape they are required ...other that that I am not sure ...you may have to Google the answer.
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UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Hi, I guess I have to very honest here and say I do not know ...it has never happened to me before and I have not known it to happen, so unfortunately I cannot help with an answer. Also Word it not a program I use so cannot help there too.
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UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Did you agree on a price and are you following her brief? ...and did you take 50% up front? Unfortunately at the end of the day if the client is paying you and the brief hasnt changed from the original, you need to get it right for them.
But if you have had many attempts and they are still not happy you need to ask them if they have seen any designs that they like the look of for you to see the exact style they are looking for. But if that doesnt work you may have to say that you have already put a lot of time into it and need ask for more money if they want you to continue.
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UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . To be honest I am not up with the qualifications and educational background these days as I done all my college training in the late 70's (well before computers) and so it has changed drastically since then. You need to contact your local college or university to speak about what requirements you need to study for and what is available at the college to get you that far.
Salary ranges can vary according to your experience ...for example, straight from college you will be classed as a junior and the wage will be low ...you need to work your way up the ladder to earn good money. I do not recommend going straight into freelance work, I suggest getting some agency experience first as it is a tough world out there in this field and lots of competition worldwide.
The benefits of being a graphic designer is that you get to do what you love every day and be creative every day ...but be warned you do get very boring and not so creative jobs to do a lot of the time depending who you work for.
The potential for advancement depends again on who you work for ...but usually takes quiet a for years working hard to get to the top. I started in 1981 forking for great companies around the world ...but only now (after 8 years working for myself) my company has merged with a large media company and has probably secured me an early retirement (fingers crossed) ...so you have to be very patient as I have ...unless you get a lucky break early on in your career.
Hope this helps.
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UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Well I am not sure how college courses last for nowadays. I was at art and design college back in the late 70's and had a 3 year course to get my qualifications.
I do not recommend going straight into being freelance ...you need to get experience within a company or design agency first to get a realistic view on how it works in this industry. So I guess (if you havent already) enrol into a design course first, then after a few years you really need to find a job within a company before thinking about being freelance.
Hope this helps
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UPDATE...I have now written a guide to becoming a graphic designer. It is available as Kindle or in print ...check it out here... AMAZON LINK . Loving graphic design and being good at it are 2 different things. If you are very creative, fantastic at design and know your design softwares inside out there is always a need for you out there. And it is always a bonus if you are a good web developer too.
But if you are poor at design you will struggle ...apart from getting small underpaid jobs from clients you will not make money from it.
You need to be creative on paper as well as on the computer to impress bigger clients. I have been in this industry since 1981 and so been creative well before computers. I am never short of clients and have even recently merged with a large media company as they saw my potential to help grow their company.
If you are only average at design but better at web development I think you should concentrate on the web side of things and only offer a bit of graphic design on the side as part of the web package. You will make more money this way.
Hope this helps
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