Dragos Olar

Being born of an actress, my creativity has been encouraged, nurtured and rewarded from the start. In 2010 I finished a vocational college with a certificate in Plastic-Art Techniques (drawing, painting, printing, sculpting and design). That was in Romania, I then came to the UK in pursuit of an illustration degree.

Since 2012, I have been organising art exhibitions for Hampshire based artists until 2015. At that point my graphic designer cap came on full time. From printing floor mats and show room displays dozens of meters wide, to creating vector illustrations that have to adapt to multiple screen displays, I have seen quite a bit of the design industry.

From sketch to finish, it's always exciting to see a humble squiggle, become a common place cultural graphic.


My lessons depend on who you are, and what you want to achieve.

Are you looking to learn these skills for a new career? Or maybe, you learned some bits and bobs along the way, but some basic facts still elude you? It took me more time than I care to admit to understand the difference between DPI and PPI.

Maybe you just need to learn how to speed up your workflow? A more efficient way of interacting with Adobe Programs, or a cleaner way of storing your files?

With an absolute beginner however, I recommend the following structure:
2+ 1 hour sessions a week learning the following:
Fundamentals of Graphic Design (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity)
Basic Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop use
Basic Format Setup for Print vs Web
Advanced Keyboard Use (shortcuts, power keys etc)
Basic File Storage (Naming, location, etc. boring but useful)

Of course from there, we can progress and advance any parts desired. From experience, it shouldn't take longer than 5-10 hours for most people to get through this course, obviously if we skimp practicing the boring bottom two subjects, the top three more exciting topics will naturally take longer to learn for the first time.