Mandar Apte

UI/UX Designer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Category: Graphic Design

Graphic design is the process of visual communication, and problem-solving through the use of type, space, image and colour.

  • Web/Mobile App Monetisation & Revenue Generation Strategies

    All business survives on net profit.

    In accounting terms, here is how you calculate Net Profit. i.e. (Total Business Revenue) – (Total Business Expenditure) = Net Profit

    In the business world, there are two types of industries Service and Product.

    So if you are in the service industry, you survive on a paycheck by paycheck or hourly charges to the client. You have to work every hour of every day to make ends meet.

    But if you are a product company, you create a product based on your market and user research. You find consumer problems/requirements/gaps in the market and then try to solve them by creating your product in that category. So building a product is based on solving problems that your users are having.

    In my case, I was a designer by profession. I graduated with a BFA (Bachelor of Applied Arts) in Advertising. After my first two jobs, I tried freelancing in the web, UX, print, branding and animation film industries. I was the lone proprietor of my business. I was doing everything talking to clients, executing a project, delivering it and then waiting for the final payment to be released. It was too much for me at that time.

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  • Best Design Advice that I have ever received.

    The best advice I ever received about designing logos and symbols is to use humanistic elements/curves/lines and avoid mechanical drawings. The computer can handle mechanical drawings.

    This advice was given to me by Shirbhavikar sir and Pawar sir when I was doing my BFA in Applied Arts at Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art.

    It seems I don’t totally follow this advice in my drawings/designs and illustrations. Even after four years of graduation, when I met Mahendra Patel sir at his SID office, he told me the same.

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  • Colour Behaviour Study of Japan / True Black on Real Life Physical Paper & on Computer Displays or Screens

    I am now documenting some thoughts about black colour behaviour on Physical Paper & computer displays or screens.

    I was from a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) – Applied Art background, so we had subjects like Illustration, Calligraphy, Typography, Print Media Design, Logo & Symbol Design, Branding & Identity Design.

    We used to design our assignments using Japan Black ink which is very dark in contrast & which creates high contrast reach feeling of black colour tone on white paper.

    So when we print our designs in Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, we fill the design with (CMYK) Cyan: 100%, Magenta: 100%, Yellow: 100%, K(Black): 100%, then using only K: 100%. These CMYK values use to create high-contrast Japan Black ink fill on White Paper.

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  • How Odd Numbers are out & Even Numbers are in for Web Designer & Icon Designer or even for any designer

    While I was designing Icons for my client, I realised that it is true in website design as it is in Icon Design: you can work in odd numbers,

    When you have even numbers like 14px Square or 16px Square, you can easily fit a round box inside it, but in a 15px Square Icon, it’s tough to manage…

    Here is The example…

    Odd Numbers of Pixels:

    Odd Pixels with 15px by 15px

    15pxicon

    Even Numbers of Pixels:

    10px by 10px, with 1px of rounded corners, it fails to generate an illusion of circular when viewed at actual size or maximum size

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  • Design Schools or Design Institutes in India

    India’s Education System (mainly Mumbai University from where I belong) is based on 10 + 2 + 4 years of graduation program.

    For applying to graduation program in Art you need to have following qualification, You must have 10 + 2 passed certified program that means you must pass Secondary School Certification (SSC) & then 2 years of Higher Secondary Certification (HSC) then only you can apply to Art Institutes like Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art & Sir J. J. School of Art for graduation in Art.

    In last few years common entrance test like MH-AAC-CAT (Maharashtra Applied Arts & Crafts Common Aptitude Test) are introduced in Maharashtra state. By passing this test it allows you to choose between art colleges for graduation in Maharashtra.

    Graduation in Design
    You have to start to learn design only through Art Colleges as there are no design colleges available for graduation in design.
    But there are few courses available to graduate in Design from NID & IDC.
    NID has ‘Graduate Diploma Program in Design (GDPD)’

    Following are the famous art collages mainly in Maharashtra, India.

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  • Why we don’t do Pilot Projects or so called Free Mockup Designs? & Why Pilot Projects & Free Mockup design doesn’t work?

    Few collection of thoughts from my experience of design freelancing & pursuing design processes & doing design oriented business for living for last more than 4 years.

    When somebody asks for Mockup before starting any paid & finalised project,

    Following situations can be seen & felt by designer

    • Client is unsure about prospect of project
    • Client has unpractical approach towards project
    • Client lack proper investment & money
    • Client is hesitant about future of project
    • It’s just real waste of time if you are not going to paid for it
    • There is confusion in conversation of respective parties client & designer
    • Time is blocked by unpaid Mockup design process
    • Designer can’t take more interesting & paid work because he is occupied by just making Mockups
    • Mockup has no value for showcasing in real world because people want what is more sellable content & design & finished product

    Now you can understand why we don’t do Mockups for any clients or any prospective client.

    Thanks & Regards
    Mandar Apte

  • Sex Don’t Sell Product or It’s Just Communicates a wrong message, Here is why…!!! A Story of Airline called Kingfisher, ‘King of Good Times’.

    There is or there was one airline in India called ‘Kingfisher’, Who tried to market it’s airline through bikinis’ & girls on bitches. This will give you hint what I mean.

    Kingfisher started it’s work in Year 2005 & Today in Year 2010-11 It called itself bankrupt of INR 7,000 Crore of Debt.

    All marketing strategies were based on girls with less cloths or just so called bikinis, Which practically did not worked for them as it seems. They are unable to pay their employees’ salaries for last three month…

    Then what’s the use of showing beautiful girls with less cloths on bitches & showcasing them & selling them as New Years Kingfisher Calendar girls when Product doesn’t seem to be survive in market for even more than 5 years.

    It shows misconduct of investing money in word called ‘SEX’ than product it has to sell.

    It proves the point that, ‘Sex Don’t Sell Your Product!!! & It’s Communicate Wrong Message with that…!!!’

    Thanks & Regards
    Mandar Apte

  • What is Adobe Photoshop & How to use it?

    Introduction

    adobephotoshopcs5-620x402

    Adobe Photoshop is a Modern Image Editing & Manipulation Program.

    This programs dominate the Market by large margin that any other software is finding it difficult to be competent to stay in market & compete against it.

    With Photoshop CS5, It now supports 3D. It has plugin supports. So Versatility of Photoshop has evolved around by big radius. Now photoshop is utilized by Photographers, Digital Painters, 3D Artists, Web Designers, Video Editors.

    Photoshop Story
    Photoshop Story is interesting that all it started with concept of GUI – Graphical User Interface with Macintosh & it was revolutionary. As Wikipedia States – In 1987, Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended Thomas turn it into a fully-fledged image editing program. Thomas took a six month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program, which had been renamed ImagePro. Later that year, Thomas renamed his program Photoshop and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner; a “total of about 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped” this way.
    During this time, John traveled to Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of the program to engineers at Apple and Russell Brown, art director at Adobe. Both showings were successful, and Adobe decided to purchase the license to distribute in September 1988. While John worked on plug-ins in California, Thomas remained in Ann Arbor writing program code. Photoshop 1.0 was released in 1990 for Macintosh exclusively.

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  • Design Inspirations: Getting Inspired…!!! to do design & finally learning from it…!!!

    Today with broadband connection on my iMac & connected to the World Wide Web fearlessly with my own website & design blog… Switching from one website to another, reading blogs, going through Twitts, reading Facebook updates… Sometimes I feel It’s really easy to get inspirations through web if you do it right…

    Not like olden days when you only have to visit art gallery exhibition to see art & get inspired with…

    Here are few links that I find as inspiration to learn & do design…

    Apple Developer
    A website dedicated to Apple Mac, iOS & safari developers. Registration is free & site is loaded with deleopment learning videos & ebook learning resources… So happy Learning…!!!

    Adobe Developer Connection
    Adobe’s website do feature developer resources to develop for their adobe products or just learn to design using thei products like Photoshop, Illustrator etc.
    Adobe Developer connect is do present on iTunes Podcast Directory… You can find it here.

    Adobe TV
    Adobe TV is like adobe’s version of YouTube but all gathered to learn & get inspired about designing & learningthrough their products.

    Animation Mentor Blog
    You may know ‘Animation Mentor’ as an Online Animation Training school for learning Character Animation. But they do featured their own blog which is worth reading & bookmarking. Here is link for ‘Animation Mentor Webinar’. Here is link for ‘Animation Mentor Podcasts’

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  • How to learn to Design & Develop for iOS Devices like iPhone & iPad

    Here are two free ways to learn to design & develop for iOS devices like iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch.

    Apple Developer Videos

    I know you definitely know Apple’s Website but there is one website dedicated to developers only called developer.apple.com

    As you may know Apple has ‘World Wide Developer Conference’ i.e. WWDC every year dedicated only to Developers on Apple Platform. Lucky thing is that Apple releases it’s WWDC keynote & learning session videos on web through their own developer site which is mentioned above.

    To access those videos you have to have ‘Apple ID’.

    That means you have to register on ‘Apple Developer Website’.

    Videos are available on web to view or You can download it to your iTunes application.

    developervideos

    Here is iPhone Development videos on iTunes

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