Home Studio

With the convenience of the internet, it is no longer mandatory to work from the company offices if you can do everything from the comfort of your home. This has encouraged many designers to set up professional home studios. This way they can work effectively without bothering with the normal inconvenience associated with commuting to work every day. The home studio also provides you with a familiar environment which might add to your productivity.

However, if you are a graphic designer and you are planning to work in a home studio, you need to be prepared to be disciplined. Since there is no one supervising you or any boss around in your home studio, it is easy to relax and get distracted, leading to late delivery of projects. Also, with the family members, TV and all manner of distractions around, levels of productivity might go down if you are not very focused.

Shared Design Studio

When you are working from your home studio, it is possible to have the peace and quietness you need for extra productivity leading to greater gain. But as noted earlier, a graphic designer is wired differently, and some will never be productive when it is quiet and peaceful all around. They prefer to work with fellow graphic designers in a shared studio rather than lock themselves up and work alone.

One great advantage of working in a shared environment in this manner is that you are surrounded with like-minded individuals. You can share design inspirations, discuss common challenges, and get some sort of “refreshment” if you feel you are getting tired or fatigued. These, however, would not be possible when you are holed up in your room all day long. But if you feel that such an environment would be distractive, then it is advisable that you stick to what works best for you.

The Coffee Shop

The coffee shop is another place where many graphic designers and other freelancers like working from.  Such people find coffee shops to be alluring due to the great scenery and the energizing caffeinated drinks only for the cost of a cup of coffee. Additionally, the coffee shops have lots of power outlets as well free WIFI and the workers are always very friendly and will never turn you away.

On matters of inspiration, most of the coffee shops normally exhibit sophisticated art work on the interior décor. If you are low in inspiration, sometimes walking in for a cup of coffee would be sufficient to kick your design mind into action. This allows you to use the various designs you will see in the coffee shops as the basis of your inspirations. Besides, the ambiance in the coffee shop is also cool with fewer disturbances.

Free desk at an agency

It is not common for a graphic designer to ask for spare desks at design agencies and set up their workstations in such places. However, it is very possible that there are many design agencies which allow other graphic designers who are not necessarily working for the agency to rent a desk and work from there. This option is almost similar to working from a studio only that you can have access to superior design resources at the agency than you would have had in the normal studio.

Again, such agencies would be a great choice if you are looking to launch your freelance career. Some are located in prime locations where it would be very convenient for holding up client meetings. However, you must be prepared to part with some good amount of money for rent for you to enjoy all those facilities.

Working in the wild or nature

Finally, some graphic designers cherish a lot working in natural environments where they tend to gain more creativity and be more productivity. Some graphic designers would take their materials and head over to the park or the zoo and do their works. Other on the other hand mind find working on the beach to be very refreshing while others would prefer to head over into the woods to work. This is very common among painters or pencil artists who do not require being around computers and the internet to do their work.

In conclusion, a graphic designer prefers different working environments to do their work. Find what works best for you and stick to it.

Check out some of the most recognizable fonts here!

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Unless you are a designer who has specialized in the creation of the vintage black and white designs, you will most certainly have to use an assortment of color tools to make the process of choosing and playing around with colors easier for you. Here are some of the best free color tools that every graphic designer should add to their design arsenal-:

Color Hexa

Color Hexa is a cool color tool for both graphics and web designers. This tool enables you to get all the information you need about a particular color. It will let you know if the color is safe for the web and also suggest for you shades, schemes, and stints that will possible blend well with that color. Additionally, it presents you with various color codes and also help you visualize how the visually impaired will see the color.

Color Hunter

Just as the name of the tool suggests, this graphics design color tool will go out hunting color information for you. All you have to do is to enter either the image URL or upload an image to the tool then it will produce a comprehensive color palette for the image. The Color Hunter tool is an awesome tool if you are looking for inspirations for an image or an artwork project.

Check My Colors

Check My Color is a free color tool which makes it easy for designers to get the right color combination for backgrounds and foregrounds for various dome elements and help in deciding if the applied contrast is okay or not. Though the tool is primarily designed for web designers, a graphic designer working on projects intended for use in websites will find it an amazing tool as well. This is not to mention artists interested in working with large advertisement projects such as posters and banner advertisements.

ColorZilla

ColorZilla is an extension for both Chrome and Firefox browsers. It is one of the must have color tools for both web and graphic designers. It allows you to pick any color on your computer screen with great precision then all you have to do is to copy paste the color into your designs.

Contrast Studio

If you have any problems setting the colors of your design, or you want to be sure about the readability of the text you use, then this is the right color tool for you. The Contrast Studio will grade the contrast of the colors you are interested in using then make for you a helpful suggestion regarding the best ways to apply those colors to your designs.

TinEye Labs

TinEye Labs is an awesome color tool for those interested in using images of specific colors in layouts or when making mockups for their designs. With this tool, all you have to do is to pick a color then it will make useful suggestions on cool images that are likely to do well with your designs. No need to worry about the copyrights of the images provided by this tool since they all belong to the Creative Common images.

Color Names

Most graphic designers know colors by just observing them or mastering their color codes, but they are never sure about the specific names of the colors they use. If you want to increase your proficiency in color names, then this is the right tool you will ever need. The tool has up to 147 colors whose names you can learn so that you name them properly all the time. This will help you become a better designer so that you can impress your fellow peers or probably your date when she walks into the studio and asks you the name of some colors.

Spy Color

Spy Color is another awesome free color tool that every designer needs to have. It offers distinct information about any color including the various conversion models such as CMYK, RGB, etc. With every color page, the designer will get variations in schemes such as clash, triadic, monochromatic, complimentary and analogous colors amongst others

Mudcube Color Sphere

With Mudcube Color Sphere, you get a chance to know all hex numbers for all the colors so that you develop a compact and a comprehensive color scheme for the various shades you are interested in using. MudCube Color Sphere has lots of themes to choose from, and it can be a very handy and useful resource for beginners just starting out with colors in graphics design.

These free color tools for graphics designers and web designers will help you immensely in mastering colors and increasing your proficiency in using colors for different design applications.

Check out the top graphic design software for mac here!

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There you are seated on your desk staring at the canvas and your client logo design is due on Monday.  You are definitely having the Logo Design Blues. –> But how do you get out of it?

The irony is that you are looking at a blank canvas and your mind is also blank!

You have zero clues as to what you are going to put in the space right in front of you to make the design process going.

If you have been designing for any length of time, then you are probably aware that having the Logo Design Blues and not being able to get ideas to move your designs forward.

For the new designers however, this is not some sort of a terminal disease hence you need not to go and jump to the ground from the tenth floor because you don’t know what to design.

As designers, sometimes we run out of inspiration and since it is like a fuel to our “design engine”, it needs to be replenished to keep us moving.

Here is exactly what you can do when you are stumped to overcome the blank page whenever you are trying to design a logo.

Read Everything You Can Find Around

When you get the Logo Design Blues, read as many materials as you can find.

Leave you design desk or studio and take a walk down to the library and look for magazines and books which you can get some design inspiration from.

Head over to the children section and look at the various illustrations on the book covers.

Be keen on the use of colors, fonts, and other design aspects so that you can try to give your creative mind something to talk about.

With all the information and the materials in the library, it will take just a few minutes before your creative mind kicks back and you start visualizing the kind of design you would like to implement.

Hop Online to Behance or Dribble

Hopping to creative sites, you can unearth immeasurable sources of design inspiration each time you feel that you are unable to come up with something.

The good thing about the internet is that you can get very specific information and inspiration for each and every design you are working on.

All you have to do is search for your inspiration ideas for the industry in which you want to design a logo on any of the creative sites, you will be presented with more information than you care to check each into details.

The internet is a quick way to get your mind thinking and hurling design ideas to you so that you don’t get stumped each and every time you need to work on a new design project.

Check Out Your Local Street Art!

The street is another awesome place to get design inspiration if you feel you are stumped.

Take a walk down your streets while observing the various arts made by the street artists in your area.

These could be in form of wall painting or graffiti, and though you may not have noticed them before, you will be amazed at how they become apparent and unfold before your eyes when you are in great need of design inspirations.

Some of the street artists are usually very skilled and out of their works, you can draw an inspiration or two.

Your City’s Architecture

While still taking a walk down the streets and looking at the street art for inspirations, why don’t you also start looking at the city architecture with particular reference to some of the prominent buildings?

You will discover that there is always some design inspiration that had led the city architects to come up with the various city buildings.

This is a great way to relieve the Logo Design Blues!  It’s simply relaxing and enjoyable.  Take a cool picture with your iPhone or android and post it!

Try and give the various building design meanings and out of this, you are likely to understand the inspiration behind the structures, and this might as well be your source of inspiration when you get stumped.

Look at Your Past Logos

If you have been designing logos for any length of time and you feel the logo design blues, take out your past works and start looking at them while thinking about what might have inspired you to come up with the designs.

This won’t just refresh your creative memory but also it can make you get new inspirations from your past works.

Do Away With the Fatigue

Not everyone who has the logo design blues usually lack the ability to come up with something creative.

Sometimes it is because the mind is tired and is refusing to be creative.

Perhaps you have been working for a long time without taking a considerable rest, and now your mind could be reminding you that it would be an appropriate to take that rest.

Perhaps all you need to regain your creativity is doing some exercises and freshen up your mind, body and soul and you will find yourself overcoming the blank canvas.

Check out these design trends for 2016 for more inspiration!

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