Looking To Teach Myself Graphic Design

[DeSiRe]

hey fellas...

im looking to teach myself how to do graphic design...nothing too fancy...just editing photos and making flyers

what program (for a mac) do yall suggest?

photoshop? indesign?

what would be the best and most user friendly program to learn?

[Hellfish]

I recommend Photoshop. On the surface it can be very intimidating but once you get the basics down you'll enjoy the learning experience. Plus their are so many great tutorial sites to help you, and you of course have the masters on this board.

[JustASista]

Once you get Photoshop, there are tons of sites, and lots of torrents (if you use those) for premium tutorials. Lynda.com is a great site. YouTube is also a good point of reference if you're a visual learner.

[the artist]

GIMP is a free one that You can download. It's pretty cool.

[hotnicklez]

I agree with what everyone said but they fail to tell you one thing you can't learn talent you can get pretty close but be prepare to be able to field what the customer wants and not just be able to spit out work from a tutorial. Open up photoshop and get familiar with the program itself all the function and tools. Learn what everything does first and then train your eyes for colors and perpective so you can get a feel for all your layouts! Second and most inmportantly if print media is where you want to be as far designing please remember the one to two font system and take it easy on the text effects everything doesn't need a bevel or thick shadow or glow. I do this for alot of people if you are in Charlotte or near here pm me. If not I can Skype with you to help out fam, good luck!

[neoafrican]

Definitely get a subscription to lynda.com or download the tutorials off the net. Usually a lot better than the VTC.com tutorials. Also you want to check out the "working with type tutorial" (great to teach you how to design with just text).

You will also likely need a stock photo/graphics site. Check out www.shutterstock.com they have the best shit. Use thumbnail images to work out your design and purchase the actual asset once you have approval from the client. Pass the cost of the photo/graphic on to them.

Search this forum for a link to a font download website. There are many with clone and official fonts for free download (they also have search tools).

Finally, you need to learn how to design/layout a page as well as use color.

You can work out color palettes using kuler.com. Or just hit barnes and noble and purchase a cheap color palette book (usually $10) with tons of color combinations and underlying meaning.

A good mix of apps for print/web design would be:

Photoshop
Illustrator
Blender 2.53 beta (nothing lower) or C4D
Dreamweaver

Start with Photoshop and Illustrator
Play with Blender 2.53 or C4D in your spare time to get exposure to 3D.
Also play with Dreamweaver and learn how to use html tables and sliced up graphics from PhotoShop to lay out web pages (as a start). Hard not to take client money when they ask you "can you make a website?"

:-)

[kotf]

Where can the software above be downloaded FOR FREE?

for mac

[kotf]

Where can the software above be downloaded FOR FREE?

for mac