| “Not many designers seem to agree, but I feel that text should be nailed down before design is started. The whole purpose of design is to guide people through documents, and to guide them to what's important.” | Logo Winner Puts “QuaLitty” into All Her Workan interview with Judy Litt of QuaLitty Design, by Jacci Howard Bear Judy Litt is now the Graphic Design Guide at About.com From the time she was old enough to hold a pencil, destiny guided Judy Litt to be an artist. Childhood doodles paved the way to award-winning logo design. In 1995 Judy's logo designs were twice selected to represent two graphics- and design-oriented organizations. Judy entered several designs in a national contest to find an appropriate logo for the Independent Networking Klub (INK). INK is a networking organization for desktop publishing and word processing enthusiasts. Judges overwhelmingly chose Judy's “pencil, hands, paintbrush” design as the most complete representation of the organization. In December 1995, the Hill Country Corel User's Group, an Austin, Texas user's group, chose one of Judy's designs for its new logo. Her competition in that design contest included many talented graphic designers from the Austin area. |
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| The receding copies of the HCCUG logo use a technique called “atmospheric perspective” that Jacci did for the first issue of the HCCUG Newsletter after selection of our new logo. | |
Feeling that a good knowledge of the printing process would help in her future goal of designing for print, Judy obtained a degree in Printing Management from Rochester Institute of Technology. After a seven year stint in prepress work, mainly four-color stripping, she launched QuaLitty Design. Now into her third year as a freelance designer, Judy has recently branched out from print into web page publishing. But she tells us her first love is still logo and advertising design for print.
Whether for contests or clients, Judy approaches her design work with two major philosophies in mind:
- design follows words
- KISS (simplicity)
As Judy tells us, "Not many designers seem to agree, but I feel that text should be nailed down before design is started. The whole purpose of design is to guide people through documents, and to guide them to what's important."
Logo Design MethodWhile she may have been born with a "silver pencil" in her hand, Judy has honed her design skills through practice and persistence. Since logo design seems to have been a real "winner" for her this year, we asked Judy to share her logo design methodology.
Seeing is Believing"I start by looking for ideas in my design books and business card collection. I make very rough sketches (they really only have meaning to me). I look through my clipart to see what might fit my sketches.
"Next I look through my typefaces, decide which are appropriate, and create a group for that business or organization. Then I type the business name in upper and lower case, all lower case, all caps, and various combinations. I duplicate all those variations several times, apply the fonts I've chosen, and then print it all out. Usually there are 3 or 4 combinations I like.
"I have set up a template in CorelDRAW for business cards, 10 up. If a logo design works at the business card size, chances are it will work at other sizes, too. I usually start out in black and white. It's important to print out your designs before falling in love with something on the screen. What works on the screen doesn't always work on paper."
To see some of Judy's QuaLitty Design-work, you can visit her web site from here or write to her at jlitt@qualitty.com. Many fine pages around the World Wide Web boast some QuaLitty Designed web pages as well.
QuaLitty Design Home Page
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Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997 JBdesigns and The INK Spot. Contact Jacci Howard Bear at desktoppub.guide@about.com for permission to reprint (electronically or in print).
