How/where do you find your inspiration?

Whatever comes to me and piques my interest. I love ASL (American Sign Language) and have made a number of designs based on that. Looking at nature and contemplating the clear design intent involved, use of color and function definitely inspires me as an artist! 

What things do you do when you face a creative block?

I take a walk and think about other things, browse reference books that have lots of pictures or browse photo sites and type in keywords I’ve thought of. I like to consult people I know and get ideas based on keywords by asking, ”What do you think of when you hear or see ‘X’?” – like a word association game. I play that a lot with my family. 

What are mistakes/lessons you’ve encountered as a beginner and have learned from?

I’ve learned it’s a waste of effort to learn too many program design function-related things when you don’t need to. Sometimes I stress about having a wealth of knowledge that doesn’t really match what I do. For those things, I can learn over time or on the fly. That way I feel more committed to the process and retain what I learn better. I also appreciate having learning resources in bits and bytes – long tutorials don’t hold my attention. Don’t learn all the ins and outs of any program unless you need to. I specifically chose CorelDRAW over 10 years ago because it has the power I need and the simplicity and nimbleness I want for doing what I do, which is usually designing logos and solid-colour graphics. 

What are your best tips/tricks when working with CorelDRAW?

I like to keep the basic Pantone palette as my main palette when designing. That way I don’t need to worry about trouble if my design will be used for print. I also like to keep a few basic templates for design ratios to save some time when designing things I know will be presented for social media, which is often 1:1. That way I make better use of space and can adapt to other ratios later.  

A look at some of Ivan’s work with CorelDRAW: