Not so long ago now, and you could be quite specific about the role of a graphic designer. A graphic designer would primarily be involved in the design and layout of print media, including - posters, newspapers and magazines. Max Huber was one of the pre-eminent twentieth century Swiss graphic designers, he designed art covers for music magazines, records and the set stage for concerts. It was very much a hands on job requiring creativity, artistry and technical know how. I've included some examples of his work below -

I've been very fortunate to work with some really interesting and talented people here in York. One such person is Leanne Pollard, founder of Hattie Lloyd Home she is an exceptionally talented designer who has some amazing wallpaper patterns.

Leanne was looking for someone to work on her design concepts in photoshop, using her photographs and artwork to create repeat pattern artwork. Some of our work together can be seen below...

I'd never worked on anything like this before but this is so often the way with graphic design. So many projects require a blend of long held skills in the likes of photoshop and illustrator with new ones such as creating repeat patterns in photoshop using the offset filter. It was quite easy once I'd got my head around it - a bit of maths is needed but nothing too confusing.

I highly recommend you take a look at more of the amazing designs available at Hattie Lloyd.

Presentations can be a real headache to get right, in my experience one of the main things to do is keep things simple and keep content to a minimum on each slide. I think it's much better to have 3 or 4 slides rather than trying to cram a whole lot of information onto one. Putting down everything you want to say on one slide is fine during the planning stage though because it shows me what you want to say. 

​Here are some before and after slides that I worked on for a company called Project Pro.

The client was aware that the existing presentation needed to be upgraded. She was new to the company and had been tasked with updating all of the company's marketing material. 

I worked with her to create a new simplified template that proved very successful in the ongoing marketing presentations. The deck was mostly used on iPads but could also be sent to some clients by email and discussed over the phone or Skype.

Another client of mine, Thrive in the Hive, use powerpoint presentations to great effect in their day to day business. They offer GROUND-BREAKING PRESENTATION TRAINING and can teach anyone to be a stand-out communicator. Ground breaking training means they have to practise what they preach. 

Here are some of the slides from a deck I worked on with them. Again simplicity wins the day.

Hopefully you agree that these slides look better those you might see in your average presentation. The people at Thrive in the Hive certainly think so, business owner Eve Tomlinson had this to say after receiving the new deck:

I've often been asked to help companies explain finances for board meetings and the like. The following slides for University of York, show how quite complicated data can be presented in ways which make it easy to on the eye and interesting.