{ Wine Bottle Designs }

Since my 21st birthday, everyone I know has been asking my all kinds of questions. Such as what  your favorite drink, or what your favorite brand of wine or beer. Since I'm not a big drinker it can be hard to come up with an answer. So recently as I was doing my daily check on Buzzfeed I came across something that may help me when it comes to giving people an answer. Buzzfeed had posted the 33 most brilliantly designed wine bottles. So now when someone asks I can just answer with the wine bottles that in my option are designed the best. Here are some of my favorites, if you want to see all 33 wine bottle designs just click here.



{1} This wine bottle has a very unique design, the crystalline fox creates a very visual pleasing design. Sadly this is not a real brand of wine, it was part of a student project by an unnamed designer.

{2} The pull away strip idea on this wine bottle is a great idea. It also is making a abstract interpretation of the Spanish flag, which when you pull the strips becomes the regional Catalan flag. This bottle design was created by La Fonda Grafica and can be found around Barcelona.

{3} This is my favorite wine bottle design. The idea of using the wine bottle to look like a bouquet of flowers was genius. It does a great job of showing a loved one how much you care for them. This was designed by PACKLAB and can be found in Finland.

{4} This wine bottle has a lovely colorful and geometric pattern that is visual pleasing to the eye. The color scheme is a perfect representation of the wine itself. The designer and where this wine can be found is unknown.

{5} These wine bottle designs are great examples of how three different bottles can appear similar as long as you stick to the same color scheme. The use of simple colors, black and white makes the design both stylish and smartly designed. These bottles were designed by Tsilili and can be found in Greece.

{6} These wine bottle designs are wonderful examples of simplicity. The simple star design and layout of the constellations make for a great layout. These bottles were created by White Fences Vineyard that has unfortunately gone out of business.

{7} It may come as no surprise that many graphic designer including myself are fans of sans serif especially Helvectica. The simple layout and design of this wine bottle is the perfect example of san serif wine. Unfortunately there are only around a thousand bottles of this wine available in the world. It was designed by WildWildWest in Spain.

{8} These wine bottles have made the list because they are an unique example of what a wine bottle can be, they don't have to be the generic size that many wine bottles are. This bottle is perfect for drinkers who don't intend on drinking the whole bottle of wine. This was created by Stack Wines and can be found on Amazon and other sites that sell wine.

{9} This design is similar to number four on this list, because of the geometric pattern. Unlike number four this design is simple and has a much more open color scheme. It's can be assumed that the design was based on a kaleidoscopic illustration. This wine design was created by designer Simon C. Page and is not available for sale, but you can download the pattern as a wallpaper on his website, for the link click here.

{10} The last design on the list is a much simpler designer that sends a lovely message to the person whom your giving the wine too. The whimsically design makes for a wonderful gift to give to friends or a host of a dinner party. This was created by Small Talk Wine and can not be found in stores or online.

{ Inspirational Quotes }

I came across some inspirational saying and wanted to share them with you guys. Hopefully they can inspire you to achieve greatness and be the best that you can be.

{ Saul Bass }

Saul Bass is one of the most well known designers and personally one of my all time favorite designers. As a young designer he is such an inspiration, his use of simplicity is something that I truley admire. Saul was an American designer and Academy Award winning filmmaker, best know for his design of motion picture title sequences, film posters and corporate logos. It can be hard to believe all the things he created. Here are just a few of his amazing creations.

Girl Scouts of America 

North By Northwest title sequences 

Bell South

AT&T

The Quaker Man

United Airlines

Vertigo movie poster

United Way 

Kleenex 

The Shining movie poster 

Exxon

Frontier Airline 

Anatomy of a Murder movie poster

And many many more, Saul Bass is an amazing artist and is such a great inspiration to designer everywhere, especially to a youth designer like myself.

{ Computer Shortcuts for Windows }

When I started graphic design around six years ago one of the first things I learned was how to use keyboard shortcuts for programs such as Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign, little did I know that there are shortcuts for just computer in general. As the time passed I found that a lot of my friends and family members were unaware that some of the computer functions can be done with key shortcuts. In this post I will give you 20 of the most known computer key shortcuts that can make your life a lot easier.

Program Shortcuts

• Ctrl-a highlights everything in a folder or document
• Ctrl-c copies the selected item or text to the clipboard
• Ctrl- v pastes the content of the clipboard into the active program
• Ctrl-f opens the search in many programs. All web browsers and the majority of Office applications for instance support this. If not try F3
• Ctrl-s saves a document or web page in many programs, including Office and web browsers
• Ctrl-z undo the last action
• Ctrl-left arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word
• Ctrl- right arrow to the beginning of the next word
• Ctrl- Shift- left arrow or right arrow highlights the full previous or next word
• Ctrl- Backspace deletes the word on the left of the cursor
• Ctrl- Home moves the cursor to the top of the document
• Ctrl-End goes to the end of the document
• Esc cancels the current task

Window Shortcuts

• Ctrl-Shift-Esc opens the Windows Task Manager
• Ctrl- Shift-click on a taskbar icon to open the program with administrative privileges
• Shift-click on a taskbar icon to launch instance of the program
• Alt-Tab lets you switch between open programs and windows
• Alt-Shift- Tab walked through the listing backwards
• Alt-F4 close the active item or exits the active program
• Alt-Esc cycles through the list of open programs in the order they have been opened
• Windows-d displays the desktop
• Windows - m minimizes all windows to show the desktop
• Windows- Shift-m restores the window to their original position
• Windows-e opens My Computer in Windows Explorer
• Windows-r opens the run box to start programs from there

{ The Anatomy of a Graphic Designer }

I recently came across this image on Behance and it really made me think because all of it was true, right down to the font choice of the title. The picture also came will a percentage of what each element of the graphic designer is. A Graphic Designer is made of .... 

10% Music

20 % Coffee or Tea 

5% Skinny Jeans 

10% Leather Heel Boots 

40% Apple Enthusiast

15% Glasses 

https://www.behance.net/gallery/17242147/The-Anatomy-of-a-Graphic-Designer-(female)

{ The Art of Using Color}

Colors affect us in countless ways, mentally and physically, consciously and subconsciously.  Psychologists have suggested that color impression can account for 60% of the acceptance or rejection of product or service. Good color choices should never be neglected in web design. A bad color combination can have the same negative effects as a poor copy and slow load times. In this blog I will briefly discuss color coordination and how you can use this to your advantage when designing with colors.

{1} The Color Wheel

The Color Wheel is a simple tool that's used to discover and coordinate color harmonies, especially in web design. The first circular color diagram was designed by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666

Warm and Cool Colors - The color circle can be divided into warm and cool colors. As a general rule, designing a website with an excessive combination of warm and cool colors can confuse the viewer. It can often make the site or design look busy, dirty, and untrustworthy

The warm colors are Red, Red Orange, Orange, Yellow Orange, Yellow and in some cases Yellow Green. Use warm colors in your design to reflect passion, happiness, enthusiasm and energy.

The cool colors are Green, Blue Green, Blue, Blue Purple, Purple and Red Purple. Use cool colors in your design to give a sense of calm or professionalism

{2} Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colors

The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. The secondary colors are green, orange, and purple and are created by mixing two primary colors. The six tertiary colors are created by mixing primary and secondary colors.

{3} Color Harmonies and Schemes

Certain color combination look very pleasing, while other are painful and abrasive to look at. Why is that? It's more objective than you think, it's based in the color wheel. Color harmonies or color scheme consist of two or more colors with a fixed relation  on the wheel.

Complementary Colors are those which are directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Due to the powerful contrast of complementary colors

Analogous Colors are those which lie on either side of any given color. Analogous color scheme are often found in nature and are harmonious and pleasing to the eye

Triadic Colors use the power of three colors which are situated at 120 degrees from each other on the color wheel. Triadic colors harmony is considered by some to be the best color scheme. You could use one color for a background and the two remaining for content and highlighted areas.

In conclusion color can be your most powerful design element if you learn to use it effectively. Coordinating color between layout elements and photographs is a great way to create unity. Coordination makes everything look as thought they belong. Keep this in mind when designing.

{ Fonts to Never Use... Ever }

As a graphic designers I have a list of fonts that should never be used in designs. These typefaces should not only not be used, they should be condemned and then never used again. In my own personal option these fonts shouldn't just be fonts that designers can't use, they should be fonts that no one can use ever again. Here's the list of what I like to call No No Fonts.

 {1} Papyrus, so why is this font terrible. Well Papyrus has a bad proportion in both height and width, which can make it look just plain awkward. It is a overused and awful font that is more than deserving to be on the No No Font list.

{2} Comic Sans , so why is this font awful. Well Comic Sans was designed after comic book type and has unfortunately been used widely for serious designs such as legal contacts, letters and posters. One of my favorite design quotes of all time is " Comic Sans is never an acceptable font. Unless you are an eight year old girl writing a poem about unicorns" So unless your eight never use Comic Sans

{3} Bradley Hand, so why is this font awful. Well Comic Sans look like it was written with a marker and it really lacks consistency and shape. In generally most handwritten typefaces are hard to design and there are very few of them out there.

{4} Zapfino, so why is this font awful. Well Zapfino has such bad proportions and the letters do not fit together. Just look at how tall the "f" is compared to the other letters and the huge width of the "z". Find a better script and your work will look much better.

{5} Stencil, so why is this font awful. Well Stencil is a hard typeface to pull of, because it automatically makes your work look dated, cheap, and even worse it looks like it was spray painted. If you aren't going for that look go find an alternate display typeface.

{6} Curlz, so why is this font awful. Well Curlz is again a font that should only be used by an elementary student. I recommend never using this typeface or any other typeface that looks like it, because its just a plain terrible font.

{7} Apple Chancery, so why is this font awful. Well Apple Chancery has been overused for far to long. If you want to be taken seriously as a designer, switch this out for a better script that looks like it wasn't designed by a calligraphy robot.

{8} Tekton, so why is this font awful. Well Tekton is another little kid font. This font should never be used unless you are throwing a princess/cheerleader or some other kind of little girl party for a six year old. 

{9} Scriptina, so why is this font awful. Well Scriptina is an overused typeface that also happens to be tragically ugly. The bad proportions of the letters make it hard to use, the "t" has major problems making it impossible to fit in with the other letters and even harder to read.

{10} Wide Latin, so why is this font awful. Well Wide Latin even though this typeface is called Wide Latin the widths of each of the letters are really difficult to use. The letters are inconsistent and the shapes of the serifs are truly ugly