As freelance graphic designers we spend much of our time in front of a computer. Often, we will stay up into the wee hours of the night trying to make that last minute tweak. So, all too often, as soon as the work is done we shut down the computer and escape to something of a non-digital nature. Sometimes in our flurry of business, we forget how to just sit and browse the internet for enjoyment. Here are 10 blogs/sites that I believe every graphic designer should follow, in no particular order:

Smashing Magazine

With over 139,000 subscribers, Smashing Magazine is one of the top design blogs on the internet. With content like theirs, its obvious why.

BittBox

BittBox provides articles, tutorials, and my personal favorite - FREE TEXTURE TUESDAY!

Logo Design Love

Specializing in Logo Design, the blog is authored by respected designer David Airey.

HongKiat

Hongkiat provides a diverse collection of articles and resources for designers, bloggers, and self-proclaimed tech geeks.

Just Creative Design

I recently found out the author of this blog, Jacob Cass, is only 22 years old…which makes his blog even more impressive. Tons of very useful resources and links are available here.

37signals

A blog about design, business, social networking, usability and more.

Inspired Magazine

Offering “Daily Graphic Design Inspiration”

David Airey

If you look on more than 3 reputable Graphic Design blogs, someone is going to mention this guy. Definitely check out his portfolio, where he walks through his design process on each project from concept to finished design.

Freeloaders

I would guess that this one is one that most of you haven’t heard of. I especially love his video tutorials…and yes he does drop some F bombs while teaching!

Fuel Your Creativity

A great blog to read through or browse whenever creativity seems just out of reach. Lots of inspiration here!

This list is by no means exhaustive, but I just pulled the top 10 out of Google Reader that I read the most often. If there are any that you think deserve a mention…please pass it on!

In this post, I’m going to take a recent design that I’ve added to my portfolio and show the evoloution from conception to a completed design. Let’s get to work:

The client, velocIT, is an IT company. With a name like velocIT, the first thoughts that came to mind were movement and speed. I began with some simple sketches and found myself being drawn to the use of arrows. So I opened up Illustrator and went to work:

1 - First, I drew a quick arrow. I launched Photoshop and used one of the pre-made shapes…then copied & pasted it into Illustrator.

2 - Second I used the pen tool and drew a triangle shape over the top of the arrow to create a “V - like” shape. Once the “V” was made, I rotated the arrow accordingly.

3 - On further inspection, I felt like the “V” arrow had too much weight, so I simply made the white triangle larger.

4 - At this point, I choose a font and started to integrate the “V” with the rest of the company name.

5 - To give more of a separation of the “IT” from the rest of the name, I made the letters bold. This also gives a more balanced feel to the design, countering the weight of the arrow on the other side.

6 - After integrating the arrow and the bold ‘IT’, the other text looked rather plain. So after a lot of experimentation, I ended up using a different font.

7 - Once the text was in place, I began to experiment with a few variations on the arrow.

8 - After sleeping on it, and getting some feedback from others…this is the final arrow that I decided on.

9 - This is the final arrow incorporated into the logo text.

As I said in my post on about my design process, I only add color once my design is finished. If you’re design has to have color to stand, then its probably not a very strong concept. Initially, the buyer said that he likes orange and blue. In the final design, I decided on a light orange and teal blue. When adding the color, I was careful to add a small amount of teal to the arrow to give an added sense of balance. I’ve also added a reflection as a bit of “eye-candy” and to bring attention to the “V” icon. If you look closely you will also notice that I’ve added a very small amount of negative space between the tail of the arrow and the “V”. Here is the final result:

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and I will probably do something similar in the near future. I’ll be sure not to throw my sketches away so that you can see those as well. Happy creating!