Common Sense

Hello,

Quick question. I have a pdf I need to make some changes in, don't know it's history, just need to add some text.
After making my corrections in Illustrator - I save. And the file jumps from size 3.34MB to 44MB.
When I un-choose "Preserve editing capabilities" it jumps down to 21.2MB

I would like to know how I can prevent this, or do something else, so the file don't become this big.

UPDATE - I tried saving again, and this time I picked "No conversion" in Color Conversion.
And boom, the file size is back at 3.34MB.
I must confess, I have never paid much attention to this field, when saving documents in Illustrator. So I don't know if it is a bad thing.
But the pdf looks the same, and have the orginal size...so?

Thanks for any advice.
Mikado

I'm sure most of you have done some kind of 'free' design work, whether it be for a friend or a cause. My question is, have you ever had one of those jobs become so demanding that it seems you're being used? If so, what's the best way to go about cutting ties without offending anyone and burning bridges?

I've done a lot of work recently for someone who is very, very indecisive and manic in what they want. I've had to do many different versions of things and I've even brought a photographer friend of mine into it. Now, we're just too weary of the whole situation to continue. I need to know how to excuse myself without making any enemies.

I don't have InDesign, just to get that out of the way ;)

So I need to use a table in Illustrator. I'll need to edit the text and edit the table (margins etc). I found a webpage that sais you can copy/paste tables from Word into Illustrator but it definitely is not working - what it pastes is rows of this:
I@C'"%L"(.$;;%D+#:%/@:.%M@3"
etc.

Is there a way to make an editable table in Illustrator, or another program that's not InDesign (I KNOW I should be using InDesign but it's not installed on this computer. Either is PageMaker) - or a way to do in Illustrator? Or just tell me what I'm doing wrong copy/pasting with Word.

Thank you!!

So I'm finally jumping on the bandwagon (or at least testing the waters). I am working on a website and would like to include a twitter feed right on the page. Anybody have suggestions on the best way to do it? Or some tutorial sites that work?

The other element I would like to include is something I'm seeing on many websites. I'm not sure how to google for it. It's a small bar that sometimes says "Share" and has the twitter, Blog, LJ, and facebook icons on it that allows people to easily find the company on social networking sites. I'm not even sure what you would call it?

Help?

Hello all,

I am supposed to send a bunch of logos in DXF format to a guy who's going to use a router to cut them in wood. I was told to export to DXF from Illustrator and check a box that says "plines"... I'm not finding anything like that, and he couldn't give me any more information, so I was wondering if any of you have had experience with this and can tell me what's going on? Googling isn't getting me anywhere and I looked in the memories but couldn't find anything there either. I already sent one batch of files and was told I hadn't saved it out right, and apparently it was the "plines" thing that was the problem.

I did make sure all the logos were 1-color, but I am sort of out of my depth here...

Edited to add: My research is slowly leading me to believe that Illustrator will convert bezier curves to splines if you just export to dxf, while the software our people are using requires polylines instead of splines. So. Anyone know how to convert bezier curves directly to polylines? I find lots of results for going the other direction...

So I'm an undergrad graphic design student and one of the things in my Final Critique that my prof told me was that my designs seemed unfinished to him, does anyone have any links where I can look at how elements are used in a creative way and to create a more finished design? I feel like I'm putting all this effort and the end grade for each individual project is decent but the final grade hasn't budged since Intro.
Thanks!

Edit: Here are my designs from the semester: http://www.strangedaysthese.com/fall2009designs

Design 1: Design a Web Banner for Mediabistro's Unbeige Blog.
Design 2: Design a Music Poster for the All Points West New Jersey Music Festival
Design 3 a,b: Research a Typeface time period, "Post Modern", "Art Deco", "Modernism"
Design 4: Design a Classic Novel...
Design 5: Create a letterform logo using your initials

I apologize for the quality of the images my school server isn't connecting for some reason and all of these are on there.
The class was typography and the main thing he said that they looked unfinished need to work on composition and angles.

Hi there - I have a client who just hired me to design a custom photo book of his mother's 60th Birthday Party images. He doesnt want to get a regular photo book that you can order from flickr or iphoto. He wants something higher quality and has the $$ to spend on it. Does anyone have any recommendations for super high quality photo book printing companies online? I found one that seems pretty good but would like some recommendations from folks that have actually used some. And I will be designing this in indesign and sending them the files so I need one that accepts files (most have those online page layout programs).

Thanks so much!

Hi,

I'm currently a Graphic Design grad student, and I would like to make a mini studio in my bedroom. I have a pretty spacious bedroom, and I'm pretty much just working on a little dining room table. It's cramped, and I need space to design, do production stuff, etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions on making my wee bedroom into a decent workspace? Furniture, knick knacks, shelving, etc? Photos would be lovely too! Thanks so much.

Hi Everyone,

I am making my first graphic design geared resume! Thank you to everyone who has helped me on my portfolio. You can check it out now with some of the changes. NOTE: It is still in progress!!!

Anyway, I thought I would post some good links to graphic design resume articles.

30 Artistic and Creative Resumes
These are kind of crazy and sometimes ridiculous. I don't know if these resumes actually got their foot into the door. I don't know. Has anyone made an unconventional resumes and it got you the job? By unconventional.. I mean unhorizontal content and not 8.5 by 11!

36 Beautiful Resume Ideas that Work:
38 More Beautiful Resumes Ideas that Work:
Good collections of resumes

The 20 Most Creative Resumes I've seen in a Long Time:
Some Overlaps of the first link, sorry

24 Great Examples of Non-Conventional Resumes:
So fun to look at, right?

How to Create a Great Web Design and CV?
Smashing Magazine usually has great stuff. There's like 20 resumes with the same information. It's called the Stevenson Challenge.

Now, questions to all you graphic designers of livejournal:

I've noticed that a lot of these resumes keep their job descriptions in the experience area very succinct. Example: This resume has kept each description to under like 5 or 6 words. Is that good? Should I try to do the same?

For graphic design, how much do we have to worry about getting past Human Resources? I am thinking about doing something a little creative, but I want to know what my limits are.

Also, lots of the resumes I've seen have five categories: employment, experience, education, skills, and sometimes interests. And well, awards if they have any. Does any one think there are more important categories?

Hum, I am out of questions. Feel free to add more questions and maybe we can help each other.

I'm putting together an email for a company whose main typeface is Trade Gothic Bold Condensed #20. Their branding is really sparse, and the typeface is a big part of their overall identity, so I need to get it as spot on as possible.

I've had this problem with them before, and it's time that I need to figure out how to resolve it. When they use the type, in all of the flat images I have from them, the type weight is a little bit lighter than when I use it. When I work with the actual font, it is slightly heavier

(See this image link. The top is their flat version: the bottom is my version using the font)

This is the case in Photoshop CS4 (no matter which type rendering settings I use: smooth, strong, etc.) and it's also the case in Illustrator CS4. Have you run into this?

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen!

I am new to this community and I'm really excited to get some input from everyone. I am a film student who is coming over to the graphic design side. I would like to get into illustration and animation. It's hard to say... there's so much out there to do it scares me!!! I really enjoy art, installation, and architecture. I don't really know what I want to. I'm spending my last semester in college trying to discover a path.

Anyways, enough about me... please check out my portfolio and tell me what you think.

Some questions to get the ball rolling:
Is it too messy and unclear as to what this portfolio is? Should I separate art and design?
Does it need more color?
What particular pieces are not strong?
Does the organization make sense?

Thank you in advance.

Have you seen the new America Online logo?

I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks before I give my opinion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/22/new-aol-logo-aolcom-photo_n_367115.html




(nevermind, I'm giving my opinion -- I threw up in my mouth a little)

*edit -- I'm leaving the above line here because of the comments that follow, but would also like to note that I shouldn't have written it. I should have been more constructive: I question the design of a logo/brand that depends on ever-changing images, when a brand by definition is supposed to bring consistency to your "look and feel."

Hello -
We are producing a document (a law enforcement training manual) that we want to be able to "check out" on CD, but prevent copies from being released. I know how to prevent the document from being opened without a password, and to prevent it from being printed, but is there a way to lock the PDF in acrobat to disable the "save as" function, or to prevent it from being copied to the desktop of a user's computer? Is there a way to make digital copies of the manual "self destruct" after a certain time? If that means we have to encrypt and burn to CD each time a user wants it, that is fine, since we will have the master copy, it's not like we will be distributing 100s of these, more like 2-3 but we need to be able to protect the security.

I know this isn't so much a *design* question, but it is sort of relevant - so....anyone? Thanks!

I posted this in Wed Design but didn't receive much of a response so I'm trying here!

I need to make a digital portfolio on cd. I know that I should have a portfolio website online, and I'm working on it, but for my interview next week Wed, I need to have something on a disc. I need a format that will look nice (I'd like to do something more than just files in folders), show images AND flash movies.

Has anyone done something like this, or know of any examples I can look at?

I have done some research and it looks like you can embed flash movies in PDF's - has anyone worked with this before? I have Acrobat Professional 8 - the only instructions/info I can find in a search is using Acrobat 9 :/

I'd appreciate any suggestions or examples you can give!

Hey guys, I checked through the memories and havent found this posted before. I have a small production gig coming my way for taking PDFs created from indesign files on a mac that need to be converted to XPS format. After a little research, it looks like there are very specific programs to do this, but i was curious if anyone has had any experience with this particular problem before.

any help would be appreciated, thanks!

I have a question about equipment. How many of you use Macs and how many use PCs. If you've used both, which do you like best? I learned on a Mac and I use one now where I work, but I'm becoming more and more displeased with the quality and usability. I feel as if Apple has thrown some things to the wayside in efforts to be the 'coolest' and I'm often very turned off by their elitist attitude as a whole. I'm considering getting a new computer for home use and I'm strongly considering a PC. Input is greatly appreciated!

Hey Peeps, I need some InDesign help.

I don't know if this is even possible, but at work, I have to use InDesign CS3 pretty extensively for creating documents. These documents are usually exported to PDF for everyone to use, but I am in charge of making them.

The problem is, every time I make an update to the IND file, which is fequently, I have to export new pages and add them to the PDF file, which is time-consuming and a pain.

Is there a way to link the documents so that when the IND file updates, the PDF updates automatically as well? Is this even possible? My Google-Fu is not finding much.

Please comment if you need me to further clarify.

Thanks a million!!