Mandar Apte

UI/UX Designer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Category: Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing (leading), letter-spacing (tracking), and adjusting the space within letters pairs (kerning).

  • Web/Mobile App Monetisation & Revenue Generation Strategies

    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.

    (more…)

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Why typing Devanagari Alphabets (Marathi, Sanskrit, Hindi) on a personal computer is so difficult? And why typing Devanagari in Latin is so easy and preferred by many?

    Introduction & Background

    I have been planning to write this blog post for many years. I have been facing this issue since I had my first Microsoft Windows Operating System-based computer in 2002. After that, it was partially solved on a Mac in 2008. I faced the issue of Marathi on the web when I had my website mandarapte.com in 2010 and then my community Marathi website chitpavankatta.com in 2012.

    The idea of writing this blog post or writing documentation about why we face the problem of typing Marathi / Sanskrit / Hindi with Devanagari Script on a computer got more critical when some category of journalists or people who started false propaganda to tell the Marathi population at large that Devanagari Script for the Marathi language is no more relevant anymore instead we should abandon Devanagari Script Alphabets and start using Latin Script to write the Marathi Language. These people gave an example of the young generation who are writing, chatting, or texting on their mobile phones using Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. They use Latin script to write Marathi rather than Devanagari script.

    At that time, I attended a few lectures on Devanagari Calligraphy and Typography, where I met an important person like Mr Mukund Gokhale from Pune, who had done extensive work in building Marathi Typewriter with his two or three seniors in his field. He also worked with famous calligraphers and typographers to bring Devanagari onto the computer, i.e. designing popular Devanagari fonts for Computers. At that time, I was working at IITB as a web designer. After that, I met Mukund Gokhale at his Pune home to discuss why Marathi Typing is so tricky and why it is targeted by anti-nationals with no linguistic background to speak about abandoning the Devanagari script. We discussed it at length. He even showed me software he developed with his developer tech support to design Marathi-based digital artworks and designs. It was his initiative to create an alternative solution to Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator that doesn’t support Devanagari Script in 2014/17. And now it’s the year 2021. Because of these long conversations on the phone or when we met each other personally, I even developed the Devanagari Learning app for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

    When this propaganda started by abusing the Marathi language and falsely showcasing its irrelevance in today’s world, I talked with popular Hindu Orators who were tirelessly working to stop it. People like me were middlemen between famous Hindu orators and calligrapher/typographer Mukund Gokhale to share knowledge and know-how and connect the dots.

    So, I am going to write here my observations that I learned while talking with Mukund Gokhale. Some observations are in my capacity as I am myself a designer and developer who wants to talk and design/develop in Marathi.

    (more…)

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    , , , , , , ,

  • Best Design Advice that I have ever received.

    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.

    (more…)

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    , , , , ,

  • 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

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    , , , , ,

  • Typography & Steve Jobs

    You can get Inspiration from anything, even leaf coming out of broken wood.

    Here is a speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford’s 2005 Commencement.

    Every time I listen same speech again & again I realize it’s nothing but Verbal Typography by Steve Jobs Himself, You get to see & hear verbal full stop, comma, exclamatory mark in his speech. Words chosen for speech is like a brilliant job of copyrighting to inspire & motivate people about their work or Karma, which is brilliant.

    ‘Even Type laughs & whispers in his speech.’

    Steve Jobs’ Speech is just a play in it self, He give speech as somebody with many many years of stage experience will perform in his favorite theater.

    (more…)

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    ,

  • 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’

    (more…)

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    , , , , , , , , ,

  • Design Tools Comparison

    Today I decided to compare different design tools or computer applications available in market to just to differentiate them with each other

    Before even talking about Computer Design Applications you can guess what big companies are involved in to developing them, examples are Adobe, Autodesk, Apple, Microsoft

    Sometimes as Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Animator is really hard to understand what tools to choose before even starting a design process but you have to keep in mind that tool are just tools not an design solution that will dictate your design process but it will just help you to do your job done.

    Comparison of Design Tools can be made on following basis:

    1. Price
    2. Ease of Use
    3. Popularity
    4. Type (Raster or Vector or Voxel)
    5. Apps’ Availability over particular Computer Operating Systems
    6. Compatibility with other file format & tools
    7. Features

    Price
    Price of paid apps like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator are around $ 1,000. Paid apps may cost too much to your pocket if you are starting a fresh as a freelancer. But there are other opensource apps may just cost nothing to you pocket & save lot of investment in digital assets like apps

    (more…)

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    , , , , , ,

  • Creating & Choosing Your First Design Portfolio Format & updating it over the years

    Being in field of ‘Design’ where person identified by his work… So documenting your own work in some kind of portfolio or just collection of well designed Artworks will work for Artist & his career.

    In today’s world of digital art having portfolio in tradition form like printed artworks on fine paper sticked inside leather jacket & having own domain name & website dedicated to showcase portfolio online will build credibility to artist’s professional career

    First I will describe what details that portfolio should describe on his portfolio

    1. First Page with Introduction to Artist & his Background
    2. Title of Artwork
    3. Brief Given
    4. Method of Approaching to Work & some details
    5. Nice High Quality Screen Shots of work
    6. Nice Layout & Arrangement of Artworks
    7. Year of Design
    8. Copyright Notice
    9. Artist’s Contact Details
    10. Credits
    11. A Thank You Note

    Here we look in to two ways of building portfolio, Digitally & in Traditional printed form.

    Digital Portfolio
    A Digital Portfolio may contains of two platforms PDF (Portable Document Format) PDF is Open Standard of Document Exchange, (I will not recommend PPT – Power Point Presentation as it needs Microsoft Powerpoint installer on display machine) & HTML (Website)

    Portfolio in PDF File
    You can design portfolio in Raster Format through Photoshop & then export it to PDF or Design Portfolio in CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign & then export it in to multipage PDF. Having consistent user experience will definitely work to identify you with your artwork.

    (more…)

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    , , , , ,

  • Want to attend a design interview? What will you carry in to showcase your design portfolio, and what will cost less to your pocket? MacBook? MacBook Air? or Just An iPad

    For almost the last year or two, I have been surrounded by this question….

    You want to attend an interview with a big company for a post related to the design industry…

    Then what will you carry with your MacBook? or MacBook Air? or iPad…

    Carrying your whole work portfolio on a CD or Flash Drive is risky as a recruiter may copy your work to their computer without asking you to do so. So there is the possibility of theft of your intellectual property… So, the right way to carry out your work would be on your Mac.

    What would be your next portable machine if you owned a desktop, like an iMac or Mac Pro? A MacBook or MacBook Air or iPad.

    It will be the right way to compare these Apple Products would be through their Price, Display Resolution Size, User Interaction and experience.

    Practically thinking all are Portables or Tablet & they all have Multi-Touch Gesture Support.

    All are costly: MacBook is $1,000, MacBook Air is $1,500, and iPad is $829.

    MacBook & MacBook have Mechanical keyboards, but the iPad has a Modern Multi-Touch UI that is groundbreaking in the Industry that even competitors are not catching up with,

    iPad 2 is with the duel processing in Tablet Form,

    MacBook Air & iPad have no optical media support, but all have WiFi inbuilt… But Adobe Flash Player is not supported on iPad.

    iPad Display Resolution is 1024px by 768px, MacBook’s Display Resolution is 1280px by 800px, MacBook Air’s Display Resolution is 1440px by 900px.

    (more…)

    –

    by

    Mandar Apte
    , , , , ,

Search

Pages

Social Media