basic commandments
· Your art is the star of the show
The design of your professional materials should not be an extension of your artwork, but an accessory that compliments it. Think of it as a great frame on a two-dimensional piece: it's subtle and adds polish and gravity without taking the attention away from the work. When look at that piece on a wall, you don't want to be focusing on the frame, but the artwork within it. You don't need a flashy, neon, blinking frame on a painting or print. The same attitude should be applied to your business cards, website, and other materials. These are pieces of communication about your work, not artworks themselves; their function is different than the art you make.
· Select fonts with care
This is why Design for Artists has an entire section devoted to fonts! The right font can look professional without distracting from your work; the wrong font can shift your viewer's impression of you as an artist as well as the nature of your work. Fonts set the tone of the text and have a serious impact on the viewer's perception of what they're reading. For more on how to select a typeface, check out font guidance.
· Empty space is not a waste
Don't feel as if every inch of space needs to be crammed with text or images. Empty space cushions and cradles your content. This means margins, spacing between lines of body text, margins around images, and spacing between header text and body text, among many other examples. Let it all breathe!
· Image resolution is essential
You determine the quality of an image in many ways besides what your eyeball can immediately see on the page or the screen. You know not to use a scratched up slide, but you should also keep an eye on the resolution of all your digital images. You measure resolution in DPI (dots per inch) or PPI (pixels per inch); it's just two different ways of saying the same thing. For simplicity, let's say PPI. 72 PPI images work fine for websites, e-mails, and other digital applications because a screen can't show anything beyond 72 PPI. But as soon as you decide to print an image, use 300 PPI as your target resolution. When you're scanning slides or actual artwork, you can tell your scanner to use a specific PPI.
· Scan your images at a big size
Speaking of scanning, you should also make sure you scan at the biggest inch size you think you may need for print. If you're making an 18x24" print of your artwork, you need to scan the slide in in at that size. Quality scanners will be able to enlarge your slide or artwork to a certain point; different scanners vary. If you think you will use the image for a variety of applications, scan it in at the biggest size your computer can handle without getting sluggish. You'll be able to re-size it down later as each need arises. Always avoid re-sizing an image larger once it's on your computer, it will severely decrease your quality!