Your search for “Graphic Designers in San Antonio” should start here, with me, Thomas McAuley, your graphic design and advertising/marketing partner.
With years of experience translating complex ideas in to easy-to-understand, eye-catching, and appropriate products, both as the lead designer and behind the wheel as art director, communicating with C-Level contacts and multi-functional team members alike, I am a valuable addition to your marketing strategy implementation.
I do it all.
Corporate Branding & Corporate Identity, Website Design & SEO, UX/UI Design & Prototyping, Print & Digital Graphic Design, Social Media Design. PLUS, as an art director, I am positioned to be just the right art director to help your organization get project goals defined and produced, on time and on budget.
Graphic design for the healthcare industry
With our enormous medical center in our northwest and with multiple military installations in and around our periphery, San Antonio is one of the most important healthcare hubs in the nation.
That fact dovetails well with my own graphic design experience. If you haven’t already noticed, you’ll see that my graphic design portfolios are overwhelmingly filled with examples from the healthcare industry or peripheral to it. Since 2012, I have been working as a plugin graphic design company for marketing company, Punching Nun Group, adding full graphical support to their long list of marketing-related services they provide to multiple healthcare companies across the country. During this long partnership, I have become something of a corporate identity design expert, doggedly defending brand at every step of the design process. You could do worse than rely on me for healthcare-centric design.
If you don’t see it? Ask.
I invite you to look through my many work portfolios below. If you don’t see the type of work you’re looking for, don’t doubt: it’s very likely I do that too and have not gotten to creating a unique portfolio page for it.
Simply put, white space is an empty area surrounding a design element. And don’t be mislead by “white” and “empty” because the design element isn’t always surrounded by a field of pristine white, but possibly a texture like grass or sky or some other regular background. But the effect is that in relation to the featured design element, the area around it is empty. “White space” is simply a convenient term.
Why Is White Space a “Beautiful Thing”?
Now you know WHAT it is, WHY is it? And what makes it a “beautiful thing”? To understand why designers have relied on white space since the beginning of Design, one must understand its effect on a viewer.
Because we’re basically animals, when any of us with normal, healthy vision looks at a designed piece, they generally see elements in a predictable order:
Faces
Color
Symbols
Edges
Text
You can imaging how difficult things could get for a designer if this order were set in stone. Fortunately, we have work-arounds and among the most powerful of them is white space.
There’s one thing I left off the list above because it’s not really a thing, but the phenomenon of comparison. You see, more than any specific type of element, humans pick on differences more strongly than about anything else. Our eye shoots right to the piece of spinach between the boss’s teeth. We can’t NOT see the one out-of-step solider. We notice the child among adults at the business meeting. And it seems there is no turning off command of our focus.
And that’s where the magic of white space finally comes into play. If you need the text to be seen before or more prominently than, say, the model who is speaking, leverage white space in two directions:
Framing. By placing the element of focus—the text, in this case—in a semi-central location in the design and by giving it a lot of room on all sides, we see it as special or important.
Diminishing. Conversely, by removing white space from around a design elements that might otherwise steal attention, we communicate to a viewer that the element is less consequential.
Of course there are better and worse ways to utilize the concept of white space but at its root, it really is that simple.
A blunt but successful example of using white space is how we always see “Got Milk” campaign or the Nike swoosh presented, by themselves and with ample space around them. But an experienced designer will consider white space in every aspect of design. The spacing between headlines and paragraphs, the tightness of lines in the title of a book, or how much space there is between elements of a business card are all examples of how white space is a conscious decision a seasoned professional makes at every point of design.
It is often the single most notable difference between design work that a viewer will subconsciously categorize as “pro” versus “amateur”.
You’ve clicked on a portfolio that I haven’t gotten to. Not to worry. Chances are, I do that, too.
With decades of design experience across a huge array of industries and projects, there’s little I haven’t touched. Chances are that I can do whatever you need and/or coordinate with others to get it done.
So maybe it was good luck you arrived here because if you give me something I haven’t already done, it’ll be your work featured in the newest portfolio!
Bad players in business are like foxes, smiling and promising while hiding plans to eat your tasty chicken body. In this analogy, I’m the faithful farm dog who dedicates itself to protecting you from those foxes.I believe most graphic designers are proficient and ethical. On a professional level, a few bad players can taint the graphic design industry’s broader perception. However, on the individual client level—I believe that’s the level that matters most—a bad design experience is almost always an emotional and monetary offense. Even if I can’t make the bad experiences disappear, I’ve dedicated a large part of my career to ensuring better design experiences, one project, and one client at a time.Too Much Bad DesignI’m continually amazed at how much bad design there is out there. As a graphic designer, I’m cursed to see it all. It shows up as color choices that assault the eyes or leave the sight-impaired scratching their heads. Often, it’s type: poor letter-spacing, awkward alignments, and mystifying font choices. The killer for me, though, is how many terrible logos and poorly-designed websites I run across. I can’t count the number of clichéd logos, logos that do something cute its letters, or logos that had to have been designed by a loved-one or an amateur.
But I can handle a world riddled with bad design. Bad design can be pointed out and corrected. What burns me, what brings out my fight, is learning about clients’ bad design experiences.
Too Many Bad Design Experiences
Bad design experiences come from a variety of causes. In increasing order of darkness, they are
Innocence/Ignorance: With the ubiquity of design programs that advertise themselves as DIY, there’s the appearance of an over-abundance of overconfident designers, or designers who believe they’re capable of more than they are.
Fudging: A designer can add to their portfolio pieces that they didn’t work on by themselves, giving the impression that you’ll be getting that quality of work. Alternatively, a designer can choose to show only the tip of the iceberg, meaning you see the 10% of the very best and not the 90% rubbish. Whether this is done innocently or in full knowledge, it’s misrepresentation.
Premeditated Deception: Though hit-and-run episodes portrayed by unscrupulous designers are rare in the scheme of things, they do happen. I’ve had clients who paid deposits only to be ghosted. Others worked with designers who under-delivering work and threatened to sue. Another client had her websites erased after a disagreement. And there is an endless line of similar stories beyond those.
To right the wrongs, my mission has always been two-fold:
To always ensure good design experiences. Doing so gives clients a benchmark of what to insist upon going forward. It also improves the chances they will return to me for more design; and,
To replace bad design experiences with positive ones. I have a chance to right clients’ perceptions about our industry. And, again, it increases the chances of repeat business.
Never Too Safe
Because I know not everyone can go with my design services, you’ll need to know a few things to keep yourself safe. I could write pages on this topic, but most of the tips I would provide fall into three basic categories. And, between you and me, only the last one matters.
Look past the glitz of flashy websites, stunning presentations, and motion graphics for substance.
Listen past the confident sales pitches, the thumping music, and the too-good-to-be-true offers for truth.
Demand that all design expectations, costs, fees, dates, and agreement details are in writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s text, email, or contract. I prefer email so I can keep everything in one project-titled thread. When both parties do what they’ve agreed to do, how and when they’ve agreed to do it, and for the price they’ve agreed to in advance, there’s no room for a bad design experience.
Never Too Many Testimonials
Thankfully, I have created many good design experiences. Here are some of the testimonials from my many happy clients.
Testimonials
I gave Thomas very loose parameters for my company brand, business cards, and corporate website, then let him go. He produced something better than what I’d imagined.
Brian AllenPrimary, Odyssey Design Studios, LLC
Thomas exceeded expectations with our logo design and website. He kept me informed each step, making sure I was satisfied. He made it easy and stress-free.
Chasity NelsonPrime Bodywork Massage
Thomas and his team are the epitome of professionalism. They completed my website clean-up with awesome execution. And they never pressured me to build a whole new site. So happy I found them.
Chloe ReedPrimary, Glam Nailz
Founders of new companies need partners, not suppliers. My experience with Thomas was such a partnership, throwing himself into the project as if it were his own.
Will KeyserFounder, Venture Founders, LLC
Thomas did a wonderful job designing my corporate logo. I’ll definitely recommend him to my friends and associates.
Yamel GonzalesPrimary, SetPoint Refrigerations LLC
My experience with Thomas was smooth. I provided basic info about us and our services and he produced a full multi-company website and corporate logos for all of our entities. We’re impressed and proud.
Keith SampleThe Greenbox / Alamo City Services
Previous
Next
LET’S WORK!
Posters are big, colorful, attention-grabbing and relatively inexpensive to product. However, the particulars of their design and production present unique challenges best left to a professional.
Regarding design, amateurs or less-experienced designers are frequently tempted to fill a poster corner-to-corner with text and images until the viewer’s eye is has no clear starting point or natural flow.
Regarding production, due to their size, posters often require special printing vendors, paper stock, mounting, and framing.
Since posters are such a good value-for-effect proposition, let me handle the design, production, and delivery of your posters to ensure optimal quality and effect.
Recent Comments