Need help finding your graphic design identity? Try this...

In a world absolutely packed full of branding, colors, and graphics it can be hard to determine your personal style. Over the last 4 years as an industrial design student at Georgia Tech, I have been asked to design brands for several projects ranging from a UV sensing sport clip to an abstract company that creates a system to 3D knit and recycle clothing. To be one hundred percent honest, I love branding, but I really struggle to create branding that I feel like conveys my style. Of course, the branding is driven by the market research and what the brand is trying to achieve, but it also comes from your stylistic choices on how to convey the research findings. Since I am growing as a designer, my graphic style has developed and changed with me, but over time I got a little bit lost. Do I like bright colors or muted, funky fonts or clean, simple graphic design or ones filled with pattern? My struggle with my graphic identity became really apparent when I started working on redoing my portfolio, because the old graphic style of it didn’t feel like me anymore. I ran into the question of what is my current graphic design style, and I came up with this muddied ball of mixed aesthetics that I felt like I recycled from others. I searched on google how to find my graphic design style to look for some help, and a great video by Every Tuesday called “Tips for Discovering your Design Style” was one of the results. The video outlines a few ways you can figure out your style, so I decided to follow the video’s steps to “reset” and rediscover my graphic design identity.?

Step 1: Learn the basics?

Instructions: Follow tutorials, Learn Common tools, Experiment: The purpose of this step is by understanding the tools, they give you the freedom to find your own style without running into technological barriers.

Do not skip this step. It is critical to developing your graphic design style. This step definitely takes the most time as I have been doing it for the last four years at Tech. I have watched so many Youtube, Instagram, and Pinterest tutorials on how to create a myriad of graphic effects and really explored the design landscape. I knew this step was one I already completed, and wasn't something that would help me on my quest to "reset".

Step 2: Get Inspired

Instructions: Look at lots of different types of artwork and see what you are drawn to. The designs that you like play a large role in informing your own personal design aesthetic.

I thought I had this one totally nailed down, as I am a prolific Pinterest user. The problem was that I found that a lot of my pins were things that I had saved, but I didn’t really like anymore since my style and aesthetic has changed so much as I’ve been growing as a designer. I started being very intentional with my pins by saving something particularly for a reason such as the color scheme, font, or graphic element. Once I collected a board of pins that I thoughtfully saved, I continued with the tips in the video. It explains that once you have a group of inspiration look at what things those images have in common or if there are any specific themes that are prevalent.

*** Please note that all the images shown above are not my work. They are other people’s work that I have saved to take inspiration from. All of the images can be found on my Pinterest @laurenduderstadt if you want to look at the origin of any particular design.

From my Pinterest board, I noticed I was particularly drawn to a large use of contrast and bright colors. I also observed that I enjoy design with large fields of a base color either just plain or contrasted with a bold graphic element. A particular theme that I noticed with this is that most of the graphic imagery I saved was very two dimensional with only a few designs had a three dimensional element in it. A lot of the designs I saved have some wavy or funky graphic element, that was conveyed in a simple way, which added a lot of visual appeal to the design beyond the text elements. Lastly, the fonts used in the designs were varied but always very readable and highly contrasted to the background of the design. Overall, I came up with a short list to describe the themes I noticed.

·??????Bright, Contrasting colors

·??????Large fields of color

·??????2 dimensional

·??????Simple graphic elements

·??????Varied form but high contrast fonts

Step 3: Replicate

Instructions: Find artwork you could replicate with your current skillset that aligns with your aesthetic preferences from step two.?

From step two, I selected the graphic artwork shown below designed by the Brazilian design firm Passeio for their client Tango. I loved the bold colors, fonts, and slightly quirky graphic element.

Source: Passeio, Tango, Digital, 2020, Passeio, https://estudiopasseio.com.br/Tango

From this spread I decided to replicate the orange element. I liked the face and shape of the component comparted to the other two as well as the bright orange in contrast with the black.

The next step outlined in the video is to STARE at the art. Memorize it as best you can in 3-5 minutes and then put it away. You then entirely recreate the design from memory without looking at it again. I split the time recommendation down the middle by looking at it for four minutes. Below is the side-by-side comparison of my design and the original.

The original design is on the left with my design on the right. My initial surprise when comparing the designs was how close I was able to get the colors to the original design. The orange is extremely close to the one in the original design, just slightly more saturated. The green is a slightly more yellow shade, but their saturation levels are very similar. I also was extremely surprised how close I got the proportions of the design. The arch of the text around the top is at almost exactly the same height. The head takes up almost the exact same space on each design, and tango is at the exact same location with my underline falling just above its position on the original. The spacing of the elements was not something I paid particular attention to, but I am pleasantly surprised at how close my sense of proportion was to the original. When looking at the design, I did translate the original Portuguese text into English, but I was interested to see how much smaller I made the titles compared to the actual size they were. I think I was really focused on remembering the translated words that I didn’t focus on where it stopped relative to the title. I can tell that the graphic and the title were of primary importance to me over the supporting information. My face is a much more angular rendition than the original but maintains all the key elements. The line for the nose is missing on my design which makes it slightly more 2D which aligns with some of my inspiration from step two. My favorite letter in the title was the lower-case g and was the one I replicated most accurately. The rest of the letters have slight variations like the extra notch in the o and the varying spur on the a. I did find it interesting that both the terminal of the t and the spur of the a were something that I made the same, because I notice I like typefaces where those match. The only element of my design that I knew was off was the “Be a weirdo” font selection. While I did try to mimic the custom font used for tango, I tried to use a developed one from adobe typekit for the tagline. I knew the tilt of the letters was off and the original was slightly less stiff, but the one I picked was the closest I could find.

Closing Thoughts

From this exercise, I can see that I have a good understanding of color and proportion. I tend to prioritize titles and graphic elements substantially over supporting elements, and I like designs to have a more angular feel with slightly rounded edges. Overall, this exercise was really challenging and enjoyable to see what things my brain prioritizes when I design. I feel like I have a good list of graphic elements that I am drawn to, and actual tangible evidence of my specific graphic design decisions. With this knowledge I believe that I’ll feel much less lost when working on graphics for a project in the future.

I encourage you if you are feeling lost in your graphic design endeavors or just curious about your little graphic design quirks to try this exercise. You might surprise yourself at what you find!?

Thank You!