Practices

Documents

• Creative briefs

  The document a project is measured against: every decision in the work is checked against it, and if an idea does not serve the brief it does not ship. What one is, how it is used, three ways the trade writes it, and the templates to take away.

• The pitch deck

  The demonstration deck, written out as a form. Ten minutes, recorded, camera on. An opening that is yours, Brown's five sections, and the ask.

Exercises

• Brushes from your marks

  Turn the marks on your mark sheet into three brushes, test them on a sheet, and try one on your poster. A brush made from your own hand matches the line you inked, and the ones that ship with Photoshop never will.

• Color systems

  Re-palette your own Project 1 set down to exactly three global swatches without losing the read. Then prove it by editing one swatch and watching all three artboards follow.

• Coloring your scan

  This exercise is today's step on your poster. The drawing is black ink on paper; scan it into a clean black and white image and start the color on the computer, under the line.

• Recording yourself

  A recorded pitch, a portfolio walkthrough, a client call. The person watching decides in thirty seconds whether to stay, and leaves over bad sound before bad slides. Everything here is free and takes ten minutes to set up.

• Shape building

  Build three pictures in Illustrator using only twelve given shapes. Move them, turn them, copy them, cut them. Never resize them, never draw.

• Thirty circles

  Thirty empty circles, three minutes. Turn each one into a different thing.