The Business Graphic Design Course

Learn to expand your business graphic design skills by creating printable materials (business cards, letterheads, envelopes, CD labels, roll-ups) and social media graphics optimized for desktop, mobile, and TV.

Learn how to set up horizontal business card documents, including bleed, safe zones, proper color modes for print and web, and custom guides for precise layouts.

Design a cohesive horizontal business card for front and back, mastering bleed, safe zones, guides, logo placement, color choices, typography, and print-ready layout.

Learn how to design vertical business cards for print, applying bleed, safe zones, grids, and front-and-back layout to ensure print-ready results.

Set up letterhead documents in Illustrator by configuring common sizes, bleeds, and a safe zone, then select coated versus uncoated color for print-ready results.

Design a professional letterhead by placing logo, address, subject, and contact details with precise alignment, safe zones, and a watermark for print-ready branding.

Learn to design a professional invoice letter by creating a custom letterhead, formatting items and totals, applying discounts, and aligning typography for a polished business graphic design project.

Learn how to set up a standard #10 envelope design in Illustrator, applying proper bleed, color mode, and alignment guides while creating letterheads, invoices, and USPS compliant envelope layouts.

Design a standard #10 size business envelope by laying out the front with logo, address, tagline, signature, and barcode, ensuring USPS compliance and proper alignment for both sides.

Master envelope design for the biggest 15 by 12 inch size, plan front and back layouts, and follow upsize rules to avoid exceeding the maximum unless a specific reason appears.

Design cd covers and labels with Adobe Illustrator, set up proper media and safe areas, and prepare print-ready files for CD cases, labels, and business cards.

Create a cd label design using a 116 mm template and circular clipping masks. Apply drop shadows and center the artwork for a clean, professional label.

Design Facebook cover graphics and portable profile pictures for social media, ensuring desktop and mobile visibility with safe zones, using Photoshop and smart objects.

Design Twitter profile pictures and headers by reusing assets from the previous lesson, follow recommended sizes like 400x400 for profile pictures and 1500x500 for headers, and ensure responsiveness.

Create a YouTube channel art that displays well across desktop, TVs, and mobile by using safe areas, a TV-ready background, and centered logo and profile image.

Understand symbol-based logos, typographic logos, and mixed logos, with examples like the Apple and McDonald's logos, and note that some logos use gradients and higher complexity.

Design a logo by applying the five principles: simple, aesthetic, memorable, usable or scalable, and timeless, ensuring it looks good and works at any size.

Master the logo design process by translating client briefs and design restrictions into explorations, sketches, and upgrades, then finalize a vector logo in Illustrator.

Ask clients targeted questions to design logos that fit their brand, including business name, website, color scheme, symbols, and delivery needs.

Design a fresh coffee logo by pairing a coffee mug with a coffee spill, using Illustrator to shape the symbol and typography for the text.

Apply gradients, mesh gradients, swatches, shadows, and color schemes to a vector logo, using the pen tool for a scalable design guided by the Sammut principle.

Design a type lockup logo for a stationery brand, blending character-based typography with geometric shapes to create a simple, unique, scalable, and timeless mark per the SAMU B principle.

Master best practices for logo design by converting text to outlines, editing and grouping shapes, and saving logos with a transparent background for use on business cards and websites.

Define icons as simple, recognizable, scalable visual representations; follow a five-step process—from planning and sketching to vector design in Illustrator and deployment across platforms.

Explore platform guidelines for app icons across iOS, macOS, Windows, and Windows Phone, detailing device-specific sizes, formats, and the recommended dark background for icons.

Choose an icon style based on purpose—free, paid, or for organizations—and establish simple, recognizable guidelines. Compare flat design and skeuomorphism, and note trends from skeuomorphic to flat in modern icons.

Set up your scope to determine how many icons you need and where they will be used. For web, design a full icon set; for video players, include essential icons.

Choose colors for icons by following brand guidelines and the intended meaning, such as love for heart rate. Explore color schemes from recommended sites and Adobe to inspire icon design.

Explore sketchpad, a free open-source tool, to sketch icon ideas with pens, shapes, colors and gradients, and export to Facebook or Google Drive as you prepare icons in Illustrator.

Set up your workspace and organize windows to view and compare sketches. Download the included icon sketchbook, create and convert sketches into vector art as you practice in this chapter.

Create a home icon using a grid system with rectangle, ellipse, and triangle to ensure proper size and alignment, center it, fill black, and preview at small scale.

Learn to create and refine icons with shapes, fills, strokes, and layering in a hands-on workflow. This part 2 guides building heart and cogwheel icons with precise alignment.

Design and assemble icons such as pest control spacecraft, mobile, lock, Christmas tree, and shopping cart using basic shapes, rectangles and ellipses, filled in black for a mobile interface.

Learn to color and refine icons using color swatches, shipbuilder, pathfinder, and eyedropper tools, merging shapes and removing strokes for polished vector icons.

Explore how to fill icons with color, convert text to vector shapes, and create flat icons by combining shapes into single forms, adjusting strokes and backgrounds.

Apply the Cheryl effect to icons, blend shadows with gradients, and use object blend, pathfinder, and transparency multiply to create polished visuals, while organizing layers for client handover.

Create a symbol library in illustrator by converting icons into reusable symbols, naming conventions, and saving to a library for use across projects.

Create web icons in 64x64, 32x32, and 16x16 pixels for crisp display across devices, and use save for web with slices to optimize and export.

Create scalable vector icons using svg, apply naming conventions, and export as svg to ensure they scale to any size across devices.

Generate Android and iOS icons using Mac and Windows tools with a single-click workflow, featuring Icon Slate for Mac and a Windows icon reader, plus Illustrator export for multiple sizes.

Generate icons for Windows and Mac across multiple sizes, save them in appropriate formats, and compare clarity at different resolutions to ensure sharp, market-ready visuals.

Generate favicons for websites in multiple sizes, including 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48, and 64x64, and save them for Safari, Internet Explorer, and general web use.

Sketch your icons and convert sketches into vector formats for various platforms like Mac, iOS, and Windows. Create your own amazing icons to conclude this chapter.

Create reusable symbols to save time by updating all instances at once. Group similar symbols into a symbol library for easy access and reuse as icons or repeated artwork.

Explore the symbols panel, access the symbol library, and learn to place symbols at the center, rename them, and manage symbols for consistent graphics.

Learn to create, save, and load symbols, organize them in a symbol library with categories, and use symbols across your projects.

Explore symbol options in Illustrator: create, rename, and save symbols; choose graphics for Illustrator use over movie clips for external apps; master nine-slice scaling and pixel grid alignment.

Learn to edit and redefine symbol appearance in a single layer, break symbol links, and apply color changes to all or individual instances.

Explore a real life mobile app mockup by building a login/signup flow, integrating symbols, background graphics, and share buttons to illustrate cohesive user interface design.

Discover the power of symbols to quickly swap colors, adjust backgrounds, and apply a new color scheme across multiple pages, syncing changes instantly and saving hours in mobile app design.