Graphic Design Archives

nathvibe 2015 Shockwave Calendar

November 16, 2014 / Graphic Design / By Nathan Vidal

Every year I design a set of calendars for SeizerStyle Designs to help promote brands, concepts or fun ideas. This year I decided to include the nathvibe brand in the mix and the 2015 nathvibe Shockwave Calendar was born.

This calendar is an example of a clean and simple design which is meant to send a message of inspiration and motivation. The slogan Now All Things Happen emphasizes the ability to change your present conditions by initiating actions immediately. The Shockwave name implies that there may not always be a smooth transition when change is involved and this should not intimidate you.

Download the 2015 nathvibe Shockwave Calendar

2015 calendars are coming

August 20, 2014 / Graphic Design / By Nathan Vidal

Every year I design a collection of calendars exploring various ideas, concepts and brands. This year I am going to be focusing on the SeizerStyle Designs brand and the many other brands that I have created such as Isle Cloud and of course nathvibe. This will demonstrate how branding can be incorporated into devices not directly associated to the brand itself and still be effective. Calendars are an ideal form of marketing because they are useful for a full year.

As always I will also be designing custom calendars for clients so if you are interested in getting yours designed please contact me. Let me know early so I can have enough time to experiment with different designs and give you options to choose from. Look out for these 2015 calendars which will be featured on the SeizerStyle Designs Blog in the coming months.

Copyrights & other considerations

June 24, 2014 / Graphic Design / By Nathan Vidal

A valuable part of graphic design is having a library of images, illustrations or icons to help speed up the design process when a client comes in with a job. It is not always practical to do a photoshoot or design the intricate elements of an peripheral element yourself due to time and cost constraints. It is tempting to just search the billions of images available on the internet and use these instead. The touch ups you may have to do would be minimal compared to creating the image from scratch. Copyrights and other licensing issues make this method of acquiring imagery very risky though.

Images have owners

Even though it may not be stated directly, images have owners or copyright holders. These copyright holders may or may not consent to your use of their imagery in your designs, especially if it is of a commercial nature. Imagine seeing your vacation picture being used on a billboard advertisement without your permission. The design firm would have gotten paid for the design while you received no compensation for the use of your image. As a designer you would love to have access to a wide array of images which are free to use, but you would also like to protect your work so that it is not stolen or missused.

There are alternatives

There are certain images which you can use in your designs without getting prior permission. Public domain pictures are images that are available to the general public for reuse and redistribution.

There are also various versions of the Creative Commons licence which allows authors to specify the permissions given with published material. Permissions such as whether the image can be reused for commercial purposes, be freely redistributed or whether modified images need to be shared with the public can be specified using Creative Commons.

Safest Route

The safest way to avoid copyright infringement and possible lawsuits is to either ensure that you have permission to use images or create your own. I see images that infringe copyrights on promotional posters all the time and this goes unpunished. Regardless of this, designing in this way is a liability and will not reflect well on you in the design industry. As much as possible I try to create my own library of files which I have created or found in the public domain for future use.

Related Links

Creaive Commons

U.S. Copyright Office

Business cards with a difference

May 14, 2014 / Graphic Design / By Nathan Vidal

My business card is one of those items I carry with me without giving it a second thought unless I need to use it. Although its importance can be overlooked, especially in a digital age, the business card does have it’s uses. I use it to share my contact information to potential clients and it is much more professional than scribbling down on a piece of paper. There is a problem with business cards though that often sees them tucked away and forgotten. They are just another piece of paper that takes up space in a wallet or drawer. With this in mind I decided to try something different for my most recent business card designs.

As a more creative approach I decided to create foldable business cards that could contain related but distinct pieces of information while taking up half the space. This way I could promote both my business brand as well as my personal brand on the same business card. It could be argued that I could just reduce the size of the business cards and print on both sides but then this would defeat the second benefit of these types of cards – the ability to stand by itself on a flat surface.

For more information on business card designs including these and foldable designs feel free to contact me at SeizerStyle Designs.

nathvibe brand featured on SeizerStyle Designs “Design of the week”

May 15, 2013 / Graphic Design / By Nathan Vidal

This website, the nathvibe logo, and my business cards have been featured as the Design of the week for May 12 – 18 2013 on SeizerStyle Designs blog today. I chose to feature this brand on there because it is an example of a brand conceptualized, designed and materialized into a mature product. It shows how a loo can be incorporated in different forms for a complete branding experience. I hope to work on a lot of other branding projects in the future and these too will probably be featured on the SeizerStyle Designs blog.