*2024 UPDATE: There website has since been redesigned by a different designer

I’ve had the pleasure of designing not only their website but their magazines as well. I am still currently designing the magazines so keep a lookout on the CompassOhio website for new editions as well as out in the public for printed versions!

Designing a magazine is a great way to keep up to polish with my designing since each article requires a new fresh design. There are also a wide range of article lengths from single page to four pages. Along with the multiple ads that some required designed, there is plenty of designing required and its great!

CompassOhio Website

Have you ever wandered how a digital illustrator creates their work? It’s quite easy actually with a thing called speed painting! Speed paint is the process of video capturing the creation of a digital illustration from start to finish then editing the video to speed up. In this way you get a glimpse at the way an illustrator works without having to watch the entire process in real time. A normal illustration takes hours to complete though a speed paint video can be watched in about 15 minutes or depending on the speed the video is edited to. They are very interesting and fun to watch. As an illustrator myself, they really motivate me to create my own work. I have a few speed paints myself and hope to make more in the future. They show technique as well as creativity of the artist!

It’s always a good thing to keep up with current trends, especially when it’s constantly changing and evolving. When it comes to the field of graphic design, it pays to keep up with the trends! It’s amazing how some older trends resurface and catch on again such as art deco! I’ll have to start incorporating such trends into my future designs!

Design helps us understand our world, and trends place us in time. The overarching design trend for 2019? Just like in every other part of life, we seem to be in opposition with ourselves: this year is all about contradictions. Design trends from conflicting eras and opposing ends of the visual spectrum are all vying for attention.

Whether you’re a designer or are working with one, you need to stay on top of the latest graphic design trends. No matter the medium, understanding how styles are changing and evolving keeps your work fresh and resonate with clients. Take a look at our top picks for this year and start imagining how these trends can help inform your style.

by: Meg Reid

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Release that Witch (放开那个女巫) is a complete Chinese web novel created by Er Mu (二目), published by Qidian. The web novel as well as the comic can be found at webnovel.com. If your one that’s into the otaku culture such as anime, manga and games then you’d more than likely enjoy this series.

The basic premise is thus:

Chen Yan travels through time, only to end up becoming an honorable prince in a world set in the medieval age. Yet this world is not quite as simple as he thought. Witches with magical powers abound, and fearsome wars between the Church and kingdoms rage throughout the land.

Roland, a prince regarded as hopeless by his own father and assigned to the worst fief, spends his time developing a poor and backward town into a strong and modern city, while fighting against his siblings for the throne and absolute control over the kingdom. Join Roland as he befriends and allies with witches and, through fighting and even farming, pushes back invaders from the realm of evil.  (source: https://releasethatwitch.fandom.com/wiki/Release_that_Witch_Wiki )

I have yet to finish reading the novel but what I have been reading and what I have seen with the comic, the story so far is fantastic! The art of the comic perfectly captures the story and as an illustrator I can really appreciate the art style and over feel of the art.

Personally I agree with what is being said here. In today’s day and age, clients want a website that is attractive, efficient and functional. Instead of shelling out money for code, they want to instead pay for the design. With some of today’s page builder programs, you can get state of the art and unique websites without having to fully code the entirety of it. Not only does it give the designer more freedom but it also give the client easy tools to work on it themselves! As a web designer, I have used a page builder for my websites and all the clients at the previous place I worked at were very pleased with their sites! Web designer and web developer are different professions in my opinion. As a designer I rather spend my time making a site look as good as possible instead of pushing through line after line of code as a developer. Though that’s just my opinion but with a little research, I get the feeling that times are changing with web design!

“To use a page builder, or not? Does using a page builder mean you’re not a “real” developer? Does it undermine the industry? Or does it make things easier for you and your clients and offer a great solution to the struggles many clients face when it comes to editing their websites?

If you’ve been poking around my site lately, and you know how to look at the page code, you may have noticed something. You might have noticed that this latest incarnation of my website was actually built with Beaver Builder.”

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This sheds a lot of light since I was confused about why Visual Composer had changed its name:

The Original Visual Composer Rebranded to WPBakery Page Builder – Why?

The original Visual Composer plugin was first released in May 2011 on CodeCanyon. Since then, the page builder market, and WordPress itself, has evolved a lot. However, the original Visual Composer has remained almost the same in terms of UX.

Since it’s a widely-adopted plugin and comes bundled with most Themeforest themes, revamping the plugin from the ground up was sure to create a lot of backlash.

So, rather than revamping the original WordPress plugin from the ground up, the WPBakery team decided to release a brand new product on their own site and name it Visual Composer Website Builder, while maintaining and selling the original product as WPBakery Page Builder.

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I found this article an interesting read and was able to get a decent insight to job networking.

Are you hesitant to network out of fear of being seen as pushy, annoying, or self-serving? Don’t be. Networking isn’t about using other people or aggressively promoting yourself—it’s about building relationships and connecting with others: people you know, people you don’t really know, and new people you’ve never met before. And while it may sound intimidating, it can be rewarding and fun, even if you’re shy.

Networking is nothing more than getting to know people. Whether you realize it or not, you’re already networking every day and everywhere you go. You’re networking when you strike up a conversation with the person next to you in line, introduce yourself to other parents at your child’s school, meet a friend of a friend, catch up with a former co-worker, or stop to chat with your neighbor. Everyone you meet can help you move your job search forward.

Networking is also about helping others. As human beings, we are wired to connect with others. Without these connections, you can become isolated and experience loneliness and even depression. So the real goal of networking should be to re-invigorate your existing relationships and develop new ones.

Tapping the hidden job market through networking may take more planning and nerve than searching online, but it’s much more effective. Being open to connecting and helping others—in good times and bad—can help you find the right job, make valuable connections in your chosen field, and stay focused and motivated during your job search.

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With the launch of my new site, I am ready to move forward the next stage of my professional life and am looking forward to where it will go!

I am quite proud with how the site turned out. Using the knowledge from my previous job, I am quite confident in my website making abilities. For my site I used Visual Composer which was how we created our websites at Lehman Website Design and Marketing. Within this new site, you will be able to see some examples. The design possibilities with this tool are endless! Not only does it make the design process smooth and seamless but allows to you to create state of the art websites that are both attractive and full functional.

In the future I hope to continue to update my website with new works of art as well as more blog posts that should be entertaining! I really want to keep up my hobby of illustrating and keep my illustration section up to date with new projects!