Tuesday 23 February 2016

How to Get Over a Designer’s Block and Brainstorm Creative Ideas?

Creative block is not something uncommon. It affects even the best of the creative persons like writers, music composers and designers at some point of their life. Even Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his thirties had been affected by writer’s block. Do fret if you are going through a designer’s block. Inspire yourself and endeavour to wake up your creative spirit.



If you have done a graphic design diploma or any other corresponding course, you must have been taught how to explore creativity and come up with innovative designs. Try to recapitulate the instructions provided during the course and see if it helps you to come out of your creative block in any way. You may also try out the tips provided in this blog get over your problem and brainstorm new ideas.

Getting Over a Designer’s Block is Easy Now

An array of tips have been put together below to enable you brainstorm more effectively:

l  Try to Pick Up Ideas from the World Around You:

Often the graphic designers get stuck in the internet realm while they look for ideas. As a designer, you should also look around the real world to find inspiration that you could use in your design. The mind needs various stimulation. You should not hover around the same websites and expect to find innovative concepts. You can go to an art gallery or a sculpture centre or take a walk through the nature and talk to your creative colleagues to see if you can gather inspiration and ideas.

l  Take a Break:

Taking a break is important. During the break, you will be able to lend some rest to your mind and let the stress go out. A stress less mind is able to think clearly and create ideas. Thus, consider counterbalancing stress with a short break from work.

l  Visiting a Design Forum May Help:

You may benefit by interacting with other designers in a design forum. By visiting the forum, you will be able to share your issues and may get someone who has gone through the same creative block phase and overcame it. The first-hand story from such an artist may show you a path to get out of your problem.

l  Mind Map Can Be a Saviour:

Try to create a mind map and jot down your ideas in a paper. This will help you to develop the ‘snowball effect’ where a single idea will give birth to another and so forth, thus giving rise to a constant stream of innovative concepts.

Remember that only your knowledge acquired through graphic design diploma will not help you to come up with new designs. It is creativity and its proper application which will help you produce mind-boggling graphic design concepts.

Wednesday 17 February 2016

How to Create an Effective Infographic?

Infographics are all the rage right now among businesses trying to convey specific messages in an interesting and easy to read format in the digital world. However, how effective your infographic significantly depends on the graphic designer’s ability to understand execute the concept in the right way. Here are some key elements to consider when designing an effective infographic –



  • The Data 
The world infographic itself is testimony to how important your data is to the design. Even if you may not be a decision maker with regards to what information goes into the graphic, you want to make sure that you study the data in detail instead of just skimming through it. This will help you make sure that all the important information is given its due in your layout.

Work closely with the decision makers to get a basic hierarchy of information. Understand what facts need to jump off the page and what information can be left out in case of a space constraint. You may be able to spot something from a fresh perspective that the marketing team may have otherwise missed.

  •  Placement of the Information 
Make sure that all the important information and the newsworthy facts are placed on the top. Understand the narrative, identify the common thread in the facts and findings and use this information to tell a compelling story. Channel all your learnings from your diploma in graphic design Singapore course to use your aesthetic sensibilities towards presenting relevant information in an appealing manner.

  •      Do not Repeat Yourself 
With the focus remaining on telling a compelling story, try to show what you can with graphics without having to rely on the written word. Also avoid repeating what you are showing by spelling it out separately in writing. Use your design skills to clearly get the message across.

  • How Legible is the Infographic? 
With lowering attention spans, most audience members tend to skim through an infographic rather than read it in detail. Make sure that your design allows your audience to digest as much information as possible at a glance. Avoid making the reader work hard to find the story or the message in your infographic. It should be easily spottable, screaming out to the reader.

  • Using the Right Colour Schemes
To be able to make your infographic more appealing looking and also more legible, you want to make sure that you use the right colour schemes. Choose contrasting hues that make the font easy to read without taking the focus off your images, graphs and pictorial elements.

Finally, you want to make sure you understand the clear difference between a quintessential infographic and a press add. Other than making sure the logo is clearly visible. Conventional brand guidelines do not apply to infographic design. The objective of this project is to lay out facts and figures to your audience. Understand the core objective of the infographic before you start working on it and you will be able to create a design that is effective.