Taken to the Graphics Wood Shed

I've been doing very limited graphic designs for a while now and all for my personal benefit.  I'm not a professional graphic designer and never plan to be.  I taught myself a little Photoshop in July and I have been non-stop designing marketing materials for myself ever since.  I am proud of that fact.

Here are just a few of the examples of designs I created.  My art show marketing postcards, my banner and this adorable marketing image to share on my social media accounts.  All turned out just the way I wanted them to. I wanted them to be both colorful and humorous. I think they are just a perfect fit for my show called "I Dare You Not to Smile".

The past 9 months has been amazing since I am pretty much able to create so many things.  Photoshop has taken my artwork to a whole new level  Now let me remind you, that I have had no formal training in either art or graphics so everything you see here is created from basically my gut feelings and my creative eye.  Both have betrayed me!

My Grandson and his Tyco Car filled with artwork

Not only have I created my own monthly studio newsletter and marketing cards, I am always busy designing things for the Art House LV Gallery here in Las Vegas.  I am one of two volunteer directors at the gallery so you can just imagine how many hats I must wear.

One of my favorite marketing themes as of late, is to use images of members of my family and add them into different funny settings that then advertise the gallery.  Here are just a few of social media marketing images I created for the Art House LV Gallery.

A chick sketch of mine added to a shopping cart full of art

My beautiful niece added to another funny marketing message.

I have also published several newsletters in the past 9 months to promote the gallery.  Here you can see the front and back pages of my most current newsletter.  I love the bright colors and how I have the daisy wrapping between the two pages.  I was so pleased at how this turned out....That is until just the other night when I was chatting with one of the younger gallery photographers and to my complete shock and dismay he said to me, "I have hesitated to tell you this, but since we are discussing the newsletter, I just thought you should know that no one in the graphics field uses COMIC SANS as a font anymore. It works for what you are doing but really shouldn't be on the gallery website or marketing materials."

At that moment, I felt as if my whole world had changed.  I mean COMIC SANS has been my standard go to font for everything.  I even have it set up as my default font for my emails.  How could I not know this?  I'm just now learning that it is right up there with the font Papyrus. Yes, I did watch the SNL skit regarding the Papyrus font being used on Avatar.  I think the humor was lost on me at that moment.

I came home from the gallery and in a moment of weakness I posted my misery for all my Facebook Friends to read.  That is when I received my enlightening to the errors of my ways.  These friends held nothing back.

If you think you might like my art, please check out my website gallery and please don't tell me if it is also in COMIC SANS font because I haven't checked there yet. 

FACEBOOK DISCUSSION THE OTHER NIGHT REGARDING COMIC SANS FONT:

ME:  I'm just a bit upset right now. I was just informed that graphically speaking, Comic Sans as a font is just a bad choice. That is like my go to font. Now I have to rethink everything.

LG: It's art, art is at the discernment of the viewer. That being said art may be judged by the viewer but that judgment shouldn't be pressed on others.

VT: This applies to everything else in the except comic sans.

           ST: Did they recommend a different one? lol!

Manage

ME: Not really...um just left in the void of graphic space. It's lonely out there. Lol

Manage

LB: The most likely reason you were told so is that it’s one of the first fonts use, and overused in books & other graphic design platforms. But who care? It works great with what you’ve been doing.

Manage

VT: Literally any other 100k fonts would be better.

ST:  All this time everyone stayed quiet! 😂😂😂😂

VT: The thing with comic sans, in my opinion, is that when we started doing graphics in the late 80's, you had a choice of about 3 fonts. Comic sans was the "coolest" one. So to still be using it gives the illusion of not progressing in the last 30 years.

VT: Jules, do you use dafont? Lots of fun choices. Try "eponymous" or "century gothic"

ME:  VT,  I have downloaded a few fonts from there but it is overwhelming. Rest assured I will be getting out of the 80's now. This all steamed from a conversation I had with XXXXX last night about the website. I've only been doing graphics for the past 9 months or so and I just had no idea. Well I have been EDGUMACATED now!

LG:  Again opinions lol

KA:  Agree LG Some people are still hippies!!! BE YOURSELF. Font snobs!