Gemini's Graphic Tutorials

GRAPHIC DESIGNING BASICS

Hewo ahmazing peeps of wattpadville! *waves enthusiastically*

Princess-of-Heaven suggested that I elaborate a bit on the basics of graphic designing for beginners but I am not at that level of expertise in my opinion, I still consider myself an amateur and I'm still learning stuff.

So what I will do is share whatever knowledge I have consumed from trial and error in my two years of experience as a graphic designer.

Resources:

I have a whole separate chapter that covers this but I'll summarize it here as well. Good quality resources make for a good quality graphic.

You can get eye pleasing resources from social media sites but I don't recommend doing so, mainly because there's a chance of copyright infringement but also because at most times the quality is low.

Best place to look for resources for graphic designing is DeviantArt. Make use of the search bar and always look in the 'resources and stock images.' You can find almost everything you can possibly want, some of the resources are premium content and need to be purchased but there's a never ending collection of free resources that should be enough. Always credit the actual owner of the resources used, that's just morally correct!

Websites that provide cc0 images are also a good place to look at. Pixabay, pexels and unsplash are my go-to sites. Search with keywords and you'll find something that you might like.

Resolution and Dimensions:

Wattpad has specific size limits for different types of graphics. For example, a book cover is supposed to be 512x800 which is 16:25 in ratio. What I suggest is to keep the ratio same and increase the size to 1024x1600, this way the quality gets a bit better and the cover still fits.

So any dimensions will do as long as the ratio is the same as Wattpad allowed size. But be aware that if you are a mobile designer, higher image sizes tend to make your device laggy and the app or program you are using might crash midway.

Background:

Now on to the actual designing, when making any graphic, you usually start with a base or background image. Always make sure that it's high quality, that little detail can make a huge difference in the end. If you can't find what you are looking for, make it yourself. Manip the background.

Again, try using keywords to look for backgrounds. For example if you are making a fantasy cover, search with something like, 'premade fantasy forest background.'

Textures:

At times you don't actually need a background image but you can make a base by combining textures instead. There are countless texture packs available on DeviantArt for each genre. Search with keywords like, 'teenfic textures' or 'werewolf textures.'

A word of advice though, don't make your base look smushy. Cleaner base make a clean finish. Avoid overcrowding and adding too many textures. If a texture doesn't seem to belong in the bigger picture, it probably shouldn't be there!

Face Claim:

I cannot emphasis enough on this but never go for low quality images. DeviantArt has a wide range of png packs and photopacks of almost all the famous celebrities, you just need to keep looking till you find the best one. There are accounts that specializes in these. You can look at my favorites and watchers on my deviantArt.

If you are going to do face swaps or manip your model, please make it look natural. Practice and learn from tutorials.

Finishing:

I suggest color balancing as you go on with your editing, but if you'd rather do it in the end, adding filters or psds can make a huge difference in bringing everything together.

Overlays and masks are also a great way to enhance the look of your graphic, that's what the pros do. There are packs available on deviantart, just search with something like, 'fantasy overlays' or 'grunge overlays,' for example.

And lastly I have seen mobile designers apply oil painting filters to their graphics to mock topaz clean, it's not the same. At least apply the filter before adding text, it makes your text smudgy and hard to make out words. A little tip would be to make the finished graphic sharper but not too sharp, it will ruin the quality.

And that's all I have to share right now. I might add more to this later.

Questions? Comments? Hit me up!