Welcome

- My name is John McWade. I'm a graphic designer, author, and the publisher of Before & After magazine. Design is everywhere. From the time you get up in the morning until you walk out the door, you have encountered a hundred designs, and maybe a thousand. From the logo on your alarm clock, to the label on your toothpaste tube, to the story on your cereal box, books, magazines, newspapers, your iPad, the internet. Design is everywhere. Pictures, and colors, and typography, and layouts, creating the images that you see and forming the impressions that you make. Ready or not, our modern world has made designers of all of us. It's no longer enough to have a good product, it must be a good-looking product. And it's no longer enough to have good words, they must be good-looking words. Design, how things look, is an essential part of how well they communicate. So, how do you do it? In this course, I'll share with you some of the principals, techniques, and even the shortcuts that I use, to get good results fast and reliably. I'll show you that knowing your story is where design begins. And it's the key to visual communication. I'll show you that turning a busy design into a simple one, makes it more beautiful and more effective. I'll show you the importance of having a focal point in your design. You'll see how supersizing an object can be an easy, fun way to excellent design. You'll see how to design with white space, and why you can?t design without it. We'll look together at how to un-box your designs so they are naturally beautiful. I'll show you how to set type, boldly and artistically. And finally, we'll learn how to choose color and use it beautifully. All of this is coming up in the following segments. Let's get started.