I Got It! I Got It!! But… Should You Too?

Don’t know what I’m talking about?! Have you been following my posts??

Ok, I’ll cut you some slack…

Yeah, I got Marlon Sander’s Design Dashboard.

Why did I get it?

I figured that, as much as I can outsource graphics, I would very much like to get them done myself, at zero cost (and some of my time). Besides, the course costs $60, or $59.90 to be exact, which will pay for itself when I design my very own header or footer or whatever graphic that I choose to create.

I like the idea that I get to express my creativity as well as feel smart (LOL) when I can accomplish what was before, in agonizing 2-3 hours, but now, in 2-3 clicks (very quick clicks, of course).

My background in graphic design, before the Dashboard

I am not a designer by training, but I like to make things look pretty (as with many other people). I mainly design with Macromedia Fireworks, but I’ve been trying to learn Adobe Photoshop for obvious reasons: You can do eCovers more nicely, it is more versatile and it is more user friendly than other software of similar graphic manipulation.

Fireworks is great to design for the web, but it is lacking in functionality to design certain web2.0 graphics, which I’m gearing towards.

I’ve been surfing around the web for clues on how I can get Photoshop to produce the graphics I want to create, and it’s been quite a battle so far. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, maybe the search engines are not directing me to the right places, I don’t know. It’s taken me a lot of time to design graphics (yes, I do get it done in the end, only that I need to refer to the search engine a lot to get it done). It can get very frustrating, especially when I have other things to take care of.

At this point, if you know where I should be looking, please let me know. Thanks.

How did I improve? - After the Dashboard

Graphics I managed to create only after much time and effort surfing the web and whacking search engines, I can now do them in a few clicks (yes, there’s a shortcut which you will learn in the Dashboard). The Dashboard also provides some downloads to help you with design, and very concise, to-the-point camtasia videos where necessary, which is great.

You will be able to design every graphic you see on the Design Dashboard webpage and recreate that “feel”, which is fantastic. If you can do one graphic of that “feel”, you can do a variety.

The Aftermath

I haven’t covered the entire course yet, I’ve completed only up to row 2, but so far I’ve been pleased. I’ll let you in on more when I have covered more of the dashboard.

The Dashboard definitely isn’t all-encompassing (that is, it covers the necessary basics to create what you see), but it did cover enough of the basics for me to get creative with what I can do with Photoshop. Some of the tools in Photoshop were exemplified using suitable graphics, and that made it so much easier to learn (No, I don’t read software manuals, and I did not try to read up on the tools before I used Photoshop).

This is great if your background is similar to mine (or if you are a total newbie), and you aspire to design your own graphics with a short learning curve using Photoshop.

Go grab the Design Dashboard here!

The Dashboard course made me want to get Marlon’s other dashboard, just for the sake of ease of use. No, I haven’t got it yet. If you have gotten it, lemme know how you feel about it.