Graphic design is a hugely competitive industry.
So it's important to know our skill set and to always upgrade
our skill set.
It's not good enough just to travel through graphic design
and just trying to be better.
We have to fully upgrade ourselves.
Well, there are two skills that I see that a lot of designers
do not utilize because of our computers.
And these two skills are going to take your designs to the
next level this year.
So the first skill I'm going to show you is mind mapping.
This is inherently valuable to any graphic designer.
So let's say we're working for a company.
This company is Horizons.
They develop new ways to get discounts and coupons by
combining machine learning with beautiful design.
So we know the company name, Horizons, and they're basically
like a competitor to Honey.
I've got this app called Mindnode.
But you can do this on paper.
And I would encourage you to actually do this on paper.
It makes it easier sometimes.
We're going to type in Horizons.
Now, the goal of mind mapping is to generate ideas based upon
the visuals that we see or generate different connections to horizons.
For instance, curvature of the Earth, horizon line.
A fun one, flat Earth.
Even though we don't have a flat Earth, don't worry.
So when thinking of horizons, I'm thinking obviously looking
over a sea scape.
So I'm thinking of sea.
I'm also thinking of clouds.
Now on the other side, I'm going to start writing over
here some stuff about the company, some discounts,
beautiful design, intelligent.
Now what I'm going to be doing is creating connections between
these words, these things that I've created from horizons over
to the ones about the company.
This is something that we do for every brand identity project.
And it's a really good way of getting a feel for the visuals.
It gets you really thinking about not just the obvious
things, but the connections to those.
And that's what gives the illusion of really nuanced design.
Perspective is something that I'm getting through this.
Aurora is a good one.
If you look in space, you can see the aurora borealis,
the lights in the sky.
That's sort of like a horizon line, too.
Horizontal line, line to a point.
So I'm just showing you my process of mind mapping.
And there's many different ways of doing this.
I always get a sunset, sunrise, and that takes me to space.
So what about horizons on other planets?
The other good thing about doing this is not only is it
helping you ideate, it's also helping your client understand
what's in your head.
It's showing your thought process, your visual thought
process in writing, in something that they may understand.
I get the word expanse, far away.
If we look back into our company description here,
they're saying that the main product is the device that you
use wherever you are and implement our cloud technology.
So there's something there as well.
So we've got cloud technology happening.
Horizon with the cloud.
And we're just writing this.
It doesn't have to be right.
You may think of stupid ideas like I am here, but this will help
all in all to come up with great forms.
Obviously, we hear a lot about broad horizons. Now when you're
working on your own mind maps for whether it's your client
project or your portfolio project, spend time on it.
Don't just like leave like I'm doing.
In fact, I'm going to show you some other my maps I've done
for clients previously.
Some of you may or may not know I worked with a guy called
James Jani.
He's an amazing YouTuber linked below.
He creates these amazing documentaries on YouTube.
If you love documentaries, go check him out.
And we branded him. Now during his logo design process and the
whole brand identity process.
We did this here, which is the mind map.
It starts off with me, just think of James, of what he does
and what the whole point of his channel is.
And we came up with these.
So the first one is mystery.
So the mystery behind like money, cults, scams, social
media, kind of finding the truth.
Even in his latest video, he's talking about finding the truth
of the crypto scene.
He's talking behind the scenes.
The untold truth.
We question everything.
Now I've got this point here of design imagery.
Now this is where I go into the mind mapping stage and show Jain,
James how it works, of how I'm coming up with these ideas.
We came up with the idea of a cult eye.
Obviously he talks a lot about things that are unseen or
that you have to do a lot of research, like a rabbit hole,
rough neon colours, creepy, kind of like a key, a key to the truth,
to the door opening, exposing curtains opening.
This here gave us a lot of inspiration for the project
that we worked on.
So because of the mind map that we created, of the cult eye and
all these different other things, these connections that
we made with it, we're able to come up with something like this,
which is very appropriate for him.
Obviously, this is the logo type, the main logo.
This is more of the visuals behind the brand.
Now, the next skill that you guys need to take part in and
do it as often as possible is one that is essentially called
Form Storming.
I'm going to link it down below, but a lot of students in design
are taught this.
Essentially, you're going to give yourself an imagery prompt.
So for us that is Horizons.
We're going to find different ways of showing a horizon in this,
but we're going to do it through the Internet, so it's a
bit easier for you.
Obviously, you could draw it yourself.
So, for instance, for me, that could literally mean a simple
line like so, there's one idea and it looks bad, I know, but
the idea is there.
We're trying to exercise our brain to come up with new ideas and concepts.
Something that I want to put in to here is form storming with
the black hole event horizon.
The event horizon is where you cannot leave the black hole
when you get to it, not even light can leave.
It's still a horizon.
So there you go.
I've got this off the Earth curvature, which I really like.
Again, that's showing a different perspective of horizon.
Obviously, we don't look at the flat earth.
And here's two horizons, one of the moon and one of the Earth,
that you can see two different perspectives.
Now, you would keep going along this path until you fill up a few rows.
And I'm using Milanote here to do this.
Milanote is a great tool.
It's free to use and it allows you to mood boards,
collaborate on a whiteboard space.
So what I've realized from doing this very quick mind
mapping and form storming exercise is that horizon lines are actually curved.
Sounds very basic, but we can get to a much more nuanced
place from this.
Like, for instance, the WiFi signal is a horizon line.
The Spotify logo has got horizon lines in there.
Is there anything else with those sorts of shapes?
So those are the two skills that you need to learn.
But an easy way of getting better access to more resources
this year is to go to Envato Elements, who are sponsoring this video
and rightfully so, if you don't know
Envato Elements is a subscription based plan to over
50 million high quality design assets for less than $20 a month
when you get the annual subscription. They've got
everything from presentation templates to fonts to stock imagery.
In fact, here's a mockup I got from Envato Elements.
So this is for a cosmetic brand.
I'm going to go replace this logo with something.
Let's replace it with my old client logo, the Apian.
Just put it in here like so.
Save that, come back in.
Boom.
We've got the logo already mocked up in less than a second.
It applied it to all.
Now, Envato Elements allows you to do this and many other
things by giving you resources and the license to use them for
your client projects as well whilst you're still subscribed.
But if you don't believe me, try it for free for seven days
using the link down below.
Honestly, 50 million design assets that you could download
for less than $20 a month.
I mean, it's pretty good.
So those are the two skills that I think every designer
needs to do better at.
More form storming, more brainstorming and mind mapping,
finding different connections so you don't just come up with
the most obvious idea.
These two skills alone will make you look like a design god.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you the next video.
Goodbye.