It’s Simply Layout Design

“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.”

Paul Rand

Website updates are moving along well and the Company Portfolio in particular has seen significant updates. Our graphic designer (that’s me!) has been focused on presenting examples of the types of designs we can create for you at Tali Gibson Designs LLC.

Oh, and don’t forget: To stay up-to-date with our company updates and portfolio additions, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.


Layout and Design Features

As the majority of our client work has thus far been proprietary, there has been little chance to share it. With that being the case, recent additions to the company portfolio have been mockups: Various new designs created in a similar manner to previous work. The work featured here has been created to showcase skills in various design programs without revealing any sensitive information. The process of re-creating work can be time-consuming, but the results have been worth it.

Especially in this case.

You’ll see.

The recent portfolio additions all follow a basic theme: layouts created in InDesign. We have a brochure, prospectus, an annual report, and a fashion lookbook. With all of these together, the layouts will emphasize a specific area of skill in the use of Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop.

Take a look for the use of masking a photograph (Photoshop) to create a text wrap (InDesign), as well as other styles and effects like the use of layer styles, blend modes, and so on.

Adobe InDesign CC is one of the best applications to be created by Adobe, and a program we use on a daily basis. All layouts featured here are designed in Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Photoshop is used to edit and mask the photographs. All photographs here are sourced from Pexels and Unsplash and edited as needed.

Brochure

We need a reason to create a brochure, with proper branding, and what better way than to create a fictional company to fill that role? Let’s say we have a garden center, called Green Acres Home & Garden Center, that just released a flyer advertisement as part of their marketing campaign. The goal for the flyer is to garner interest in the new menu options available at their cafe. Now, the company would like additional marketing materials prepared for their customers, to keep them updated and engaged. This brochure is set to be released on a quarterly basis.

The best fit for their needs is to release a brochure featuring photos from the garden center, relevant articles, event highlights, and further advertising for the garden center’s cafe. This brochure could be available as PDF download on their website and printed in a limited run to give out to customers in-store.

The layout includes a front and back cover with three spreads in between. The Spring issue features articles about growing and cooking with herbs, the best way to encourage butterflies to your own garden, and the natural locally-grown foods available in the garden center’s cafe. It’s short and to the point, and full of visuals.

Next, we have covers for the Spring and Summer issues of Green Acres Home & Garden Center‘s 2020 Edition of their brochure series. Each issue would be updated for the next season.

Which cover is your favourite? I like the Summer issue the most—It must be the butterflies!

Annual Report

Now that Green Acres Home & Garden Center has deliverables for their customers and a thriving restaurant (I hear the food is amazing!), the company has come to realize that design should be a priority for their annual reports, too.

An annual report is a publication that includes information a company’s activities over the preceding year. It is intended to give shareholders and interested parties insight and details in the company’s activities and financial performance.

The reports are incredibly useful, often necessary, and it is always worthwhile to hire a designer to put one of these together.

There’s a catch!

It’s small, though.

Annual reports, like other long-form documents, require additional consideration compared to brochures or lookbooks. This is mainly due to the length of such reports, as the page count for this type of document can reach into the hundreds.

Obviously, then, these projects are more expensive as the larger document size requires more planning to effectively incorporate the content, images, and time for both design and editing.

Prospectus

This next project moves away from the fictional companies and toward the real. This project was created for Bring Your Own Laptop, as a mockup for their Microsoft Word 2016 Essentials Training Course. The prospectus below is an optional final assignment for one of Daniel Scott’s Udemy courses.

Taking the courses on Udemy is beneficial not only to refresh skills and stay up-to-date with the upgrades to the Adobe products, but also to add to the personal and company portfolios. Win-win! This assignment was perfect: The instructions were clear, with photographs provided, and a fixed limit on the number of pages.

A prospectus is a document, often intended for print, that advertises or promotes a commercial enterprise or forthcoming event in order to attract clients, members, buyers, or investors. Such a document can be any number of pages as necessary, though it is not recommended that it run long as the intention is to be short and precise.

A magazine-style of three columns was chosen for the reports to fit in the four-page limit and to allow freedom of image placement within the layout.

Lookbook

Finally, we have previews of a trio of lookbooks.

A Lookbook is a photograph collection or compilation, created to promote a model, photographer, style or clothing line. This is different from a catalog that a company or department store may release, as lookbooks generally do not include prices, PLU codes, or order forms. (They can, of course, as all clients will have different requirements and expectations for their projects. But that was not done for these examples.)

The project samples shown here are for fashion lookbooks. A clothing company would release one of these to advertise the look and feel of their brand. This is especially relevant for new seasonal releases, to bring awareness to clients and generate interest for upcoming trends.

Book One: EPSiLON

Epsilon’s Summer 2020 Collection is fun, exciting, and full of colour. The models appear as strong, happy, independent adult women: the company’s client base. On the inside pages, text is non-existent aside from page numbers to allow the imagery to speak for itself.

This type of lookbook would likely have final pages containing information regarding preorders, social links, store phone numbers and locations.

Let the layout speak for itself and then follow up with contact information so that customers can engage. A coupon code for the website would not be misplaced here.

Book Two: The Life Collection

The Life Collection is a company that caters to young men living in the city, and appeals to those who enjoy a steady on-the-go lifestyle. Clients need clothing that is both fashionable and functional, yet can be worn casually when they’re finished with the day in the office.

You will see photographs of the city, articles of clothing in-store, and gentlemen wearing suits paired with denim. A careful blend of business casual, with clothing lines made to appeal to both executives and those just beginning their careers.

Book Three: Twinline Productions

Twinline Productions is a high-end clothing company releasing a new clothing line called the Lifestyle Collection. (Not to be confused with The Life Collection, of course. Let’s pretend I was more creative here.) Text is included in this lookbook, though only to reveal the date of release.

The company excels in providing the latest trends for all of the high-end brands their clients have come to expect. The design is simple and straightforward, taking nothing away from the photographs.


You know that idea you have been mulling around that could use a designer’s touch? Let us know about it. We can’t wait to talk to you about how to bring it to life.

Company Overview

At Tali Gibson Designs, we offer a variety of services, such as those listed on our Services page. We strive for excellence in all of our projects, and look forward to assisting you bring your ideas to life.

We’re a family-run mechanical engineering and graphic design company, founded by Bryan Tibbetts and Janessa Broadbridge in July 2019. Based out of a small town in the Sierra-Nevada Foothills, we serve clients across the continent.

Mechanical Engineering and Design

Bryan is our lead Mechanical Engineer. He earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Sacramento in 2010, as well as a Certificate in Scientific Computing and Simulation. He has since worked in the areas of Consumer Product Design, Design for Plastic Injection Molding, Data Science, and Research and Development.

Working for a startup company, he has first-hand experience in guiding products through the phases of concept, development, prototyping, manufacturing, and production. As it is within the startup culture, Bryan has learned to problem solve, be flexible, and adapt to changes quickly to meet new challenges.

We are not limited to large projects. We also take on smaller jobs for clients in need of 3D Models of a particular font, emblems to be 3D Printed and used for signage, or 3D Models of product ideas for use in proof-of-concept materials. No job is considered too small!

3D CAD Modeling and Design

Do you need a 3D model of a concept that you can manipulate in a virtual space? Perhaps you require a photo-realistic rendering for a publication. Or are you looking to have your design 3D printed and need the correct file(s) to send to the printer?

Whatever your reason is for needing a 3D model, we are here to help you. We can create models of anything and deliver them to you in any format your project requires.

2D Manufacturing Drawing Packages

If you have parts or assemblies that you want to have manufactured, but are lacking the instructional documents to give to a manufacturer, then we can bridge that gap for you. And that includes projects with parts that are to be CNC machined, laser cut, injection molded, or handmade.

We have extensive experience with creating the drawings, with accurate dimensions and tolerances, that a manufacturer requires in order to correctly assemble your project.

Mathematical Modeling of Physical Systems

Have you collected a pile of data from instrumentation or observation and are unsure how to process it, or can’t quite make sense of it? We have a great deal of experience with data analysis, visualization, pattern recognition, and determining the mathematical model that best describes the data.

Let us help you understand your data in ways you may not have thought possible!


Let Tali Gibson Designs assist you with bringing your ideas into the world, utilizing our mechanical engineering and design expertise. Send us an email with your project details or ideas for a free quote. We look forward to working with you!

Graphic Design

Janessa is our Graphic Designer, skilled in a wide area of design work. She taught herself how to use Adobe Photoshop prior to beginning George Brown College’s Graphic Design program in 2005. There, she was introduced to other programs in the Adobe Creative Suite… and how to use them the right way.

She has continued to learn and improve her skills by taking classes in Figure Drawing, Performing Arts, and Creative Writing at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada. As of 2019, she takes online courses using Udemy to hone her skills in Adobe products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to remain up-to-date in the current capabilities of these programs.

Her abilities were further refined while working for Investor Economics, a company which provides research, data, and business intelligence to the global asset management community. There, she was a part of the Production Team and directly involved in the coordination and production of numerous reports with monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual deadlines. This opportunity provided daily challenges, with the expectation of excellence in all areas. Thus, Janessa has learned how to thrive under pressure and strives to continuously improve her skills, efficiency, and quality of work.

Advertising and Marketing

Need to advertise your product, service, business or event? We can help you with that! Whether it’s creating posters or flyers for print, web banners, or campaigns for your Instagram or Facebook pages, we have you covered.

We offer a variety of options to fit your advertising needs and the ability to create work using the latest visual trends. Do check out our portfolio for visual and photo editing examples that can be a focal point of your design, such as text/image interaction, and visual decay or visual explosion.

Infographics

Infographics are visual representations of data or knowledge and are designed to present information quickly and clearly. They can be large images for a PDF, small snippets to be posted individually on Facebook or LinkedIn, and used for either web or print. The format is incredibly versatile, and is a great way to efficiently get large amounts of information across to an audience.

We can assist you with visualizing your ideas in a way that is interesting, concise, and easy-to-understand for your audience.

Photo Editing and Retouching

Photo editing has a variety of uses and intention behind the design, from creating interesting visuals for advertising, and catching interest of the viewer. Editing photographs can involve changing the image to bring out the vivid colours in nature, correcting red-eye caused by a flash, to creating visual effects such as text/image interaction, and visual decay or visual explosion.

Are you a photographer that has a number of your own clients, and don’t have the time to properly edit photos? It is easy for anyone to get overwhelmed when another big project or emergency comes up, so we’re here to help.

Whether it’s landscape photography or portrait retouching, we will work with you to capture your style and deliver the edited photos back to you in a timely manner to suit your schedule.

Report Production

Report production takes on a variety of forms. The final product can be a PDF, booklet, full report, or combination thereof, such as financial reports released by companies on an annual basis.

The production process for such reports can be quite daunting, as many factors in both design and production of the final product need to be considered. Our team has intimate knowledge of production process, from concept to execution. We will be able to assist you and your team, designing and producing reports to suit your project and brand.


Let Tali Gibson Designs bring your ideas into the spotlight with stunning graphic design. Send us an email with your project details or ideas for a free quote. We look forward to working with you!

Tali Gibson Designs: Company Portfolio

Did you know that we have a Portfolio available here at Tali Gibson Designs? We do! It has been here on the website since we opened, albeit lacking in content. Since opening, the team has been busy updating it with samples of the type of work we do here.

As the nature of the portfolio additions are small and not actual “posts”, rather than spam everyone with updates the aim will be to make posts similar to this one. The goal here is to wrap up a few month’s worth of portfolio additions when necessary.

Read More

We’re Open!

Hello, and welcome to Tali Gibson Designs LLC. We’re now, officially, open for business! Feel free to take a look around and let us know if you have any questions for us. We look forward to hearing from you.

About the Company

Tali Gibson Designs is a family-run mechanical and graphic design company based in the Sierra-Nevada Foothills. It was created by Janessa Broadbridge and Bryan Tibbetts, a graphic designer and mechanical engineer. Our goal is to combine our team’s collective skills to bring excellence to all of our projects.

About the Founders

Janessa Broadbridge, Graphic Designer
www.talizmyn.com

Janessa is a graphic designer and photographer, and the one working behind-the-scenes on the website maintenance.

She studied in Ontario, Canada at George Brown College and Sheridan College, furthering her skills and knowledge in graphic design, art, and other creative endeavors.


Bryan Tibbetts, Mechanical Engineer
www.linkedin.com/in/bryantibbetts

Bryan is a Mechanical Engineer, specializing in plastic product and part design. He also has special interests in data science, mathematical modeling, and thermodynamics.

He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Sacramento, where he also studied Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics in Graduate School.