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Forum Newbie
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/30/2007 2:34:37 PM
Posts: 2,
Visits: 3
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| This is a question for you graphic artists/designers out there. I've concentrated much of my career (~ 8 years) around software developement in the Microsoft space (Visual Studio, Visual Studio.NET, Visual Studio 2005)... I would like to get more into the graphic design space and have become very interested in the Microsoft Expressions products coming out. I would be a newbe to design and so I'm looking for advice, recommended readings, tutorial videos etc... on getting started. Right now as far a toolsets go I have Macromedia Fireworks 4 and the beta version of Expressions Design. I'm fairly familar with Fireworks and can get around it pretty well however there are many foundational graphic design concepts that I don't understand and find my self lost in the Expression Design tool so far. What advice would you give someone like me to get started? Also when will more the Expression Design tutorials be available? Thanks!
-Brian
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Supreme Being
Group: Administrators
Last Login: 10/24/2008 2:27:36 PM
Posts: 437,
Visits: 632
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Hi Brian, welcome to the forum and welcome to the world of design.  As luck would have it, I've actually recorded about a 3-4 hour series on basically what you're looking for. Its a series about web design, but it does specifically cover basic design concepts that you could use in any design setting. It should be on the site in the next couple of weeks, as I'll be relaunching the site with a lot of new content.
In the interim though, I would suggest two things;
1 - Rockport Publishing has these "workbook" series of books that I think look really nice. I've paged through them before. I've not seen one for web design, but they do have them for things like color and typography.
Link
2 - There are a nearly limitless number of blogs/websites that basically just link to well designed sites. Take a look at those, and check out their links. Study those web pages, don't just copy them. When I was starting out, a lot of time I found that trying to rebuild them, even just in Photoshop, helped me understand how spacing helped a design, how colors effected a site, etc. Here's a decent site to start with;
Web Creme
If you have any other questions, please let me know, or if you want to share some of your designs, feel free to put some in the Your Projects forum. Thanks for joining and good luck.
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My wife has given birth to our twins, so I'm still going to be spotty around here. It never seems to correct itself does it? I'm sorry, I'm trying.
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Forum Newbie
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/30/2007 2:34:37 PM
Posts: 2,
Visits: 3
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Thanks for the advice. 
-Brian
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