David Ogilvy, the father of advertising, was famous for spending an inordinate amount of time on headlines.

Back then, social media didn’t exist. If it did, Ogilvy would probably give equal time to creating the perfect complementary image.

The Buffer.com blog has some great tips for creating social media graphics. The article is meant for non-designers, but if you’re new to social media marketing, it’s worth the read.

Keep it simple

I’ve been a graphic designer for 30 years, using the Macintosh the entire time to produce work for some great clients. I’ve worked for ad agencies large and small, a design firm, printing companies, and I’ve freelanced full and part time. Over the years I’ve learned a few short rules as it pertains to building my design toolbox and getting things done—and it has held true everywhere I’ve worked. Those rules are: keep it simple no matter the cost, don’t get caught up in software trends and gimmicks, buy a little more than you think you need, because you will grow into it. The following is more specific advice for building your design toolbox.

Stick with the standards
Graphic design is an expensive field to get into. Buying a Mac ain’t cheap, but software can dwarf the hardware cost if you let it get out of control. The key is knowing where and when to invest your money. Notice I didn’t say spend your money. You can spend money on cheap software and hardware, but you’ll find that the cheap route ends up costing more in the long run.

When you start a design career, you’re probably looking to get in as cheaply as possible, but that’s not a wise way to look at it. Invest in the best hardware and software you can possibly get your hands on and it will serve you well for much longer than cheap alternatives.

If you’re starting from scratch, you’re probably looking at between $2,500 to $3,500 for a great Mac setup. Then you have to invest in some fairly expensive software—though in recent years it’s been getting easier to manage due to Adobe and Microsoft going to subscription models and other software dropping substantially in price. The point is, don’t complain about the cost of doing business. It’s just that. If you’re even a halfway decent designer, you’ll make up the cost of the software subscriptions in under 20 hours of billable hours (if you don’t, then you’re not charging enough). The cost of the computer is written-off over the course of years, it’s not like you have to buy a new one every month or year. Money well-spent now will pay off for a long time.

No matter how much you spend, stick with the standards. Adobe’s creative apps running on a Mac are the standard for the design field. It’s what is expected. You can get away with running any type of PC and a variety of apps, but you may find yourself on the outside looking in.

Next: Hardware and Software Utilities

A set of Photoshop actions for exporting graphics that are iOS or Retina-display -ready.

There are two actions in the package: one for slicing selected layer/group only, the second for slicing selected layer/group + it’s scaled by 200%.

You can grab the free Retinize It Photoshop Action here.

Patently Apple reports on recent Apple patent filings that indicate Apple is working on a graphics application with a new fancy-pants GUI. Now I don’t doubt that Apple is (or was) working on a graphics package. But I HIGHLY doubt that this graphics app was meant to compete with Photoshop – unless you feel like iWork actually competes with MS Office. That being said, a fourth app added to iWork would be nice, no?

Very interesting patent filing, nonetheless.