The Graphic Mac

Where to find email Drafts on your iPhone

04/28/201504/24/2015

When you don’t have time to finish typing an email on your iPhone, you can hit the Cancel button and save the email as a Draft to finish it later. What’s not obvious is where to actually find the email Draft once the window closes.

Your email Drafts are hidden under the Compose icon at the bottom right of the iPhone screen. Simply tap and hold the Compose icon to bring up a list of your email drafts, then tap on the one you want to continue typing.

Adobe Illustrator

Create color themes for use in all your Adobe…

04/27/201509/01/2018

The Adobe Creative Cloud apps have a (fairly) new panel called Adobe Color Themes, which allows you to browse, create, save and use color themes in all your Adobe apps. Formerly known as Kuler, Color Themes allows you to browse a wide selection of pre-made color themes, or create your own using the Panel’s color mixer. Once you’re happy with your color theme, you can save it to your Creative Cloud account so the theme is available in InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop.

General

Free eBook: How to deal with clients who don’t…

04/24/201504/19/2015

I came across this freebie the other day and thought I would share it, since it’s something virtually every freelance designer will encounter at some point in their career. Dealing with clients who don’t want to pay sucks, so any insight into avoiding them to begin with is welcome advice.

The free 74-page eBook (requires an email address) is available for download here.

Apple | Mac

Free Automator scripts for Apple’s new Photos app

04/23/201504/19/2015

This Automator Action collection for Apple’s new Photos app in Mac OS X Yosemite makes your photography workflow a much more efficient and smoother process. In particular, I love the Import image into a specific Album action file. This allows me to quickly add desktop wallpapers and other images I’ve acquired online to a specific Photos album without actually going through the process manually.

There are a ton of other fantastic Automator Actions available at MacOSXAutomation. Be sure to check them all out to see if there’s something else you can use.

Adobe Illustrator

How to deal with disappearing white text & objects…

04/22/201509/01/2018

Your design is done and you’re printing your file. Then you see it. Some white object or text simply refuses to print. You’ve tried printing directly from Adobe Illustrator, you’ve placed the object into InDesign and printing from there, and you’ve even tried saving it as a PDF. But no luck, that object still won’t print. I’ve seen this happen a ton of times. In almost every case, it’s an object created in Adobe Illustrator—usually a logo.

General

10 Tips for working with PDF files

04/20/201504/19/2015

If you’re a designer, you most likely have a copy of Acrobat Pro (or the new Acrobat DC). But it’s quite likely that your clients do not. If you want to be a hero to your client in need of help with their PDF files, you can share some of the tips found in this excellent article from Hongkiat for working with PDF files when you don’t have a copy of Acrobat Pro.

The tips include converting documents, extracting text to other file formats, opening PDF files with passwords (which I’ve covered here), merging PDF files, and more.

General

Guy quits job at Apple—rants about it. Whatever.

04/16/201504/15/2015

There’s two sides to every story. Ben Farrell has posted a lengthy screed about what it’s like to work at Apple, and why he quit. IF his story is 100% true and not over-dramatized out of bitterness, it’s a sad story. However, I’m not sure this was the best way to leave a job, even if it is accurate. At least Mr. Farrell was classy about it, not calling-out anyone by name or title.

General

I’m all Apple Watch(ed) out…

04/14/201504/10/2015

All the hullabaloo over the Apple Watch has absolutely worn me out the last few days. Of all the products Apple has ever released, the Apple Watch is the one product I believe is worth waiting for the next version. Too many unanswered questions!

Adobe InDesign

Master bullet and numbered lists in Adobe InDesign

04/13/201509/01/2018

Maybe it’s just a sign of our shortening attention spans, but these days we seem to want more and more of our information in quickly-digestible bullet points. And then there’s our insatiable need to quantify. We absolutely love lists: the Top Ten this, the 100 Greatest that, 50 ways to leave your lover, and so on.

Resources

Free font: Maxwell

04/07/201509/01/2018

I don’t come across many free fonts that include three weights. Maxwell does just that.

General

60 expert logo design tips

04/06/201503/29/2015

The title of their article could have also been: “60 things modern clients aren’t willing to pay for, or even think about.”

But hey, you still should. Take a look at all the great advice in this article… just remember that you’re not likely to be paid to put it to practical use anymore.