Most of us are intrigued by the amazing graphical character designs of our all-time favourite animated movies like the Shrek, Monster Inc., Ice Age etc. In fact, CG (Computer Graphics) character designs for computer games makes up an integral part of the gaming process. Much as we often take for granted these creatively detailed designs, there is always a tedious behind-the-scene effort needed to make this characters come ‘alive’ by first creating an animated 3D model.

The CG characters you are about to see are created with powerful 3D tools like ZBurhs, 3DMax, Photoshop, etc. In order to appreciate the beauty of our favourite on-screen characters, one should see how the 3D models are first created. In essence, it is analogous to the molding of the characters before we give life to them through animation. We hope this list will give you a greater understanding on the complexity of making 3D CG characters.

More:

You might also be interested in: Masters of Paper Art and Paper Sculptures

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When I first saw the smoke art or the smoke photos, I remembered when I was a little boy. I used to keep looking to the smoke out of a cup of tea or a candle light. Actually, I am sure that many of us spend such moments looking to smoke. When the smoke mounts from hot soap or cup of coffee, it move smoothly and randomly, this random mounts can form amazing and inspiring shapes.

Some of us got the chance to shot such amazing forms that mount with the smoke and some others may not got the chance to have a camera at this moment. However, smoke art or smoke photography is a type of photography where photographers record these special moments as still images and bring it to us to enjoy and inspired.

Some of the smoke photos make an illusion of real shapes or women dancing in the space and other photos are just beautiful combination of  colors in the space.

In the following collection, you will enjoy some of the amazing smoke art and smoke photography artwork from different artists. However, I hope you like it and enjoy the smoke art colors and shapes.

If you like these collection feel free to share it with your friends and tell about it in your favorite social network.

Wallpaper

Rose

Orange Storm

Smokin’ Star

Smoke Test II

Smoke

Space

Smoke Series

Smoke Series

Smoke Series

Smoke

Smoke Signals

Bird of Paradise

Bloom

Brain Storm

Coloured

Smoke

Smoke

Difussion

Smoke Signals : Distortion

Smoke Experiment

Smoke Rose

Fate

From Dream to Waking

Neon Smoke

Pablo Nose

Particulate 2

Shape in Resignation

Smoke 5,with Colour

Smoking Aurora

Smoke

Smoke II

Smoke I

Smoke

Smoke

Smoke III

At the end of this post, I hope you enjoy this amazing collection of smoke art and smoke photography.

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In 2008, an estimated 6,000 people were killed and 500,000 were injured due to cell-phone related car accidents. “Distracted driving is an epidemic and it seems to be getting worse every year,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood. So, when Ford Motors decided to add Twitter to the arsenal of distracted driving devices, questions of safety where a salient concern.

2010’s Consumer Electronics Show assembled industry and government experts to answer questions and raise issues surrounding Ford’s keynote announcement that it would be launching social media-ready cars in 2010. The first and most obvious question participants had was:

Is using social media while driving safe?

“No,” says Peter Appel, the Obama Administration’s point man on transportation research. Appel’s curt, absolutist language is indicative of just how seriously the government is taking distracted driving. Given the Administration’s sobering stance, the next logical question is:

Is it Possible to Stop Distracting Technologies?

---

Commercial products are already in the pipeline, which can disable cell phones while driving. For instance, Taser, the makers of non-lethal electrocution law-enforcement weapons, has developed an almost disturbingly powerful app that lets parents control their teen’s cell phones. Among its many features is the ability to disable calling and texting within the proximity of the car.

While it may not be constitutionally viable for the government to restrict certain behaviors (Appel tells Mashable that the Obama Administration has no interest in regulating what people can and can’t do while driving), Ford Motors has chosen to disable some tasks while the car is in motion. For instance, the central on-board dash disables complex tasks, such as watching music videos, until the car is parked. Ford tells Mashable that the policy to make paternalistic decisions for drivers was done independent of the government, leaving hope that the private sector can, to some degree, self-regulate safety.

Wheel Controls and Voice Activation

---

The unwavering mantra of Ford’s CES keynote address was “hands on the wheel, eyes on the road.” Ford contends that steering wheel controls and voice commands facilitate more efficient task completion than fumbling with a cell phone.

Below is a video from Ford’s keynote comparing the completion time of steering wheel control vs. a handheld MP3 player. The first part of the video shows a music change task with an MP3 player, the second part is done with Sync technology. Notice the lane position metric in the bottom left-hand portion of the screen.

Here’s a comparison chart (courtesy of Ford) showing the measured eyes off the road time difference for other tasks.

Ford contends that Sync can substantially reduce task completion time and thus minimize distracted driving.

Will Drivers Actually Use a Steering Wheel to Tweet?

---

Ford believes that voice and steering wheel-controlled social applications could bring social media to the driver’s seat in a safe and effective way. Below is a video of the voice-activated Twitter Sync app in action I shot while at CES.

It’s too early to tell if car manufactures can design a sleek enough user interface to compete with smart phones. Further, safety measures that prohibit people from actually reading tweets while driving may reduce usefulness of these applications to the point that they are no longer worth using on the road. The type of social media user obsessive enough to listen to tweets while driving may become too frustrated by the slowness of voice-to-text. After all, how many tweets can the average Twitter user scan through in the time it takes to voice one tweet?

The Ford representative in the video was more optimistic about usefulness of Ford’s technology for social applications like Pandora, a popular, customizable Internet radio application. Pandora has relatively few options (genre selection, “thumbs up” preference tagging), all of which can be seamlessly done with existing wheel controls and voice commands without negatively impacting the user experience.

Conclusion

---

Ultimately, distracted driving is inevitable, and both governments and the automobile industry must face it head on. Ford’s new technology, which at least appears to make social media and multimedia safer while driving, is a step in the right direction, but it will take more than technology to beget safe drivers. If it is possible, it will likely require a combination of legislation, social awareness, and technological innovation to create a safe marriage between social media and driving.

More social media resources from Mashable:

---

- 3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology
– 7 Lessons for Better Networking with Social Media
– Zen and the Art of Twitter: 4 Tips for Productive Tweeting
– How Social Media Has Changed Us
– 5 Tips for Building Lasting Online Friendships
– 4 Steps for Effective Online Networking

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, jhorrocks, bakalusha

Tags: autos, driving, ford, safety, social media, tech, texting, twitter

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In today’s news round-up we have collected ten of the best and freshest Illustrator tutorials to do just that, learn something new and maybe help inspire you for your next art project.

Cafe Style Coffee Art in Adobe Illustrator

In this Illustrator tutorial, the author will explain how he created the "Delicious Coffee" illustration which was published in "1000 Restaurant, bar & café graphics" by Rockport Publishing.

Cafe Style Coffee Art in Adobe Illustrator

How to Make Super-Sharp, Vector Swords

In this tutorial you'll be shown to draw a sword in Illustrator, using the Rectangle Tool, gradients, and other Illustrator tools.

How to Make Super-Sharp, Vector Swords

How To Create A Slick IPod Icon Using Illustrator

This is a great little illustrator tutorial form Creative Nerds, which shows you how to create an iPod icon using Illustrator.

How To Create A Slick IPod Icon Using Illustrator

Create An Editable Metal Type Treatment in Illustrator

This tutorial is pretty similar to the Letterpress Font and Sketchy Font tutorials in that it uses the Appearance panel to create a type treatment that is fully editable when it is done.

Create An Editable Metal Type Treatment in Illustrator

Create a student character mascot with Adobe Illustrator

This is an intermediate Illustrator tutorial level where you can learn how to create a vector student character mascot from a sketch in Adobe Illustrator. The techniques can easily be applied to other character design, illustrations or icons.

Create a student character mascot with Adobe Illustrator

Create an Illustration of a Pearl-Filled Clam on an Ocean Bed

In this tutorial, you'll create a shell with pearls in a unique ocean scene, using various effects, such as: mesh, blend, warp, clipping mask, opacity mask, depth of sharpness, editing of swatches, and pathfinder box.

Create an Illustration of a Pearl-Filled Clam on an Ocean Bed

Free Adobe Illustrator Tutorials

In this tut you can learn hot to take advantage of Illustrator’s live effects and create a 3D pie chart to represent your data.

Free Adobe Illustrator Tutorials

Creating a Surrealistic Hand-Drawn Illustration

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a surrealistic illustration using fine liners, marker, an economic all in one printer, Illustrator and Photoshop.

Creating a Surrealistic Hand-Drawn Illustration

How to Create a Cute Vector Bear T-Shirt Design

In this Adobe Illustrator tutorial you will learn how to design a cute bear character and surrounding scenery in just two colours, ready for use as a cool t-shirt design.

How to Create a Cute Vector Bear T-Shirt Design

By Paul Andrew (Speckyboy and speckyboy@twitter).

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By Obaid ur Rehman

Looking for some inspiring and appealing vexel illustrations? Here you go. Today we present probably one of the most distinguished forms of art. Basically, Vexel is the combination of two words; “Vector” and “Pixel”, and can be defined as the pixel-based form of digital art that emulates the vector graphics technique, but is different from normal vector graphics or raster images.

Vexel designs can be composed by using multiple layered shapes and can be done with any image editing software that has a good pen tool like the one used in Photoshop. Here we are presenting a collection of beautiful female vexel illustrations. We hope that you like them and will be inspired by it. If you like the artwork of a particular artist, feel free to explore more by clicking on the images which lead to artists’ websites.

Beautiful Female Vexel Illustrations

Ashley Greene Vexe

Hard Candy: Scarlett Johannson

Silence is Golden

Digital Portraits Vexels

Beautiful

Buffy: She’s like Madonna

Just a pretty girl

Mojo Citrus

Alexis

Zhang Ziyi Vexel

Avril april kwiecien

Staring at the sun

The Summer’s Out Of Reach

My Headphones

Thaaw

Eternal Flame

Zemotion

Ayumi

She’s a Rebel

Ai Otsuka

Ice queen

Listen

Contemplating..

Old Vexel

Demi Lovato

High Voltage

Angie

Jennifer Connelly Vexel

Mika

Tears to Shed

No Angel

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133,000,000 – number of blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002
346,000,000 – number of people globally who read blogs (comScore March 2008)
900,000 – average number of blog posts in a 24 hour period
1,750,000 – number of RSS subscribers to TechCrunch, the most popular Technology blog (January 2009)
77% - percentage of active Internet users who read blogs
55% – percentage of the blogosphere that drinks more than 2 cups of coffee per day (source)
81 - number of languages represented in the blogosphere
59% – percentage of bloggers who have been blogging for at least 2 years source

Let us first answer the question,  what is a blog?

A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.  Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

So many have considered writing or putting up a blog.  Majority have succeeded in maintaining and have grown their readers and subscribers.  If you are one of those considering it, I feel it would be great to consider the following questions:

1.  Do I have time to write at least 1 or 2 posts a week?- Writing posts and updating it at least once or twice a week is important, specially if you already have people following and eagerly awaiting what you write.  Making time is important, don’t start now until you can commit to it.

2.  Am I doing this to share what I know and in turn help others?  Or am I just going to do it to earn money? – Most people think that by just starting your blog now you will end up with tons of money.  If you have that as an intention at the beginning then you are in for a big let down.  If you share great content, information about your field, you help people understand what you are about, then and only then will you be able to have the chance of earning.  The readers of your site can either hire you or they can be advertisers for your site.  Most of the successful bloggers I have met did not have profit as the main focus of their existence.

3.  What format will I use? Can I sustain that format? What content should I share? Plan your blog.  There are so many resources on the web to let you see which type of format you can use.  WordPress, Blogger, etc.  As to the format, it should be something you know you can sustain for a long period of time.  What do I mean here?  Is it drawings, Is it mostly gadget reviews?  Planning will help you make sure you stay on track.

4,  Who will be interested in reading my blog? The topics and the format will come easy once you have also determined who or which audience you want to reach.

To blog or not to blog? I have given my answer a year ago and I am happy I did.  I hope the statistics and the questions can guide you in your decision.

Main Image Source

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This post is part of a weekly series showcasing inspirational vector art. Although the series showcases vector art, some work might just be vector inspired, not created completely with vector art. If you have any art suggestions, feel free to comment! For more vector art inspiration, check out the Vectips Flickr Group.

UEFA EURO 2012 identity

ganesha tee by t-ninja

Me llamo llama by Cenildon

Psycho Cupcake Octopi Monsters by csjwcr

Horror / Fantasy / Sci-Fi Icon Prints by Chop Shop

Family Guy semi-realistic version by Kristy Anne Ligones

Reack

Charlene Chua

Mighty Republic December by Alexa Thoen

Neytiri by mashi

Portada para la revista “Arte y Diseño” nº 123 by Daniel Tur

t-shirt prints.part2 by zutto

Christopher Hitchens by monsteroftheid

Fish Milky Way by saltyshadow

Saudade by CRcerberus

The Prodigy by Adolfo Correa

Charybdis by Dxtr

Sedentarios Hiperativos by JrDragao

Imaginaria Matre by JrDragao

praxis_conozca más mgz by dundo

Caractere Design by Batonboys Loguy

Running through the Forest by javieralcalde

The Course of the Werewolf by Rubens Scarelli

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What a week! I am still kind of reeling from the devastation that occurred down in Haiti, which actually hits very close to home for me. I’ve already started doing some design work to help drum up funds for the relief work. I’ll be posting more on that, and my own personal connection to Haiti later.

I’ve also been extremely busy with client projects – specifically, I’ve been working on a couple of websites, both of which are approaching completion. I’ll also be posting about those once they’re all done and have gone live.

All told, that’s why it’s been a bit quiet here on the Echo Enduring Blog this week. I do have a long line of content lined up though. It’s just a matter of getting in written, polished and posted. Hopefully you will see more of that over the coming weeks!

Now on to this week’s Echoes!

Logo – Living Grace Lutheran Church

It’s always great to see a well designed church logo that moves beyond the simple cliches that so many of them seem to use – a dove, a simple cross, a globe. This week’s logo is just such an example!

Living Grace Lutheran Church

Okay, so the logo is not entirely devoid of the cross image, but I’ll cut the designer some slack. The cross is the quintessential symbol of Christianity, so it only makes sense to have it reflected in a church logo. What I like about this one, though, is that the designer didn’t just fall back into the same old version of the cross. Actually, the cross shape is almost secondary. The first thing most people will see when they look at this is the tree.

There is actually a scriptural basis for the tree metaphor. In the book of Acts, the apostle Peter refers to the cross as a tree, and throughout the Gospels, Jesus presents several parables in which he talks about trees. I won’t get into the specifics here, but the image of the tree works very well for a Church.

It also does a nice job of dividing the background of the logo into four quadrants, which are coloured differently, to suggest the four different seasons. This suggests that the church itself is a church for all seasons, or, if reading the metaphor a bit more deeply, for all ages.

Art – Chaos

Even though I got a lot of my inner geekiness out in my “If Photoshop Was Batman, Then Illustrator Would Be…” post, there’s always room for a little bit more with me. So, when I came across this incredible painting of the Joker, I just knew I would have to feature it here in Echoes.

Chaos

I feel that the composition of this piece perfectly reflects the damaged psyche of the Joker character. The image itself is broken and distorted, just like the Joker himself. At least, we assume that the Joker is broken and distorted. It is entirely possible, however, that he is actually quite sane – and just completely evil. But that’s an entirely different can of worms.

There is something very interesting about the eyes in this one, though. They look almost calm and serene, states of being that are certainly not traditionally associated with the psyco-sociopathic clown. The make-up is also made to look more like paint, which appears to be melting off of the Joker’s face, further suggesting that the maniacal persona is exactly that, just a persona that the Joker puts on.

An interesting idea, and an awesome painting.

Tutorial – Design a Surreal Desert Scene in Photoshop

It’s been a while since I’ve featured a complex photo manipulation tutorial here on Echoes, so that’s what we will be looking at this week. The tutorial is from Tutorial 9, and provides in-depth, step by step instructions on exactly how to create a surrealistic scene using an interesting variety of different pieces of photographs.

Design a Surreal Desert Scene in Photoshop

Like most photo manipulation tutorials of this type, this one involves a lot of cutting elements out of their backgrounds, layering them over top of one another and using a variety of blending modes and other techniques to bring them all together into one cohesive looking final image. I don’t find that there’s anything really all that mysterious in this one. It makes some interesting use of levels for some colour adjustments, and does a good job of creating realistic shadows. Basically, though, it’s just a solid exercise in blending different photographic elements.

I also particularly like the techniques from the final few steps, which use some gradient maps and blending modes in order to really brighten up the image and give it that dreamy, surrealistic look. Those techniques are enough, in and of themselves, to make this a valuable tutorial.

I just have one question. Why does so much surrealistic art want to include clocks? Think Salvador Dali…

Website – Denise Chandler Website

Here’s a cool little site that came across in one of the CSS galleries that I frequent. This one has a pretty cool design, with a few interesting features.

Denise Chandler Website

For the most part, this is a minimalist site. The design elements themselves are relatively simple, and there is not a lot of excess decoration going on, and virtually no texture. Of course, the big, bold header of a question contrasts beautifully against this minimalism, giving the site immediate weight and impact from the moment it opens in the viewer’s browser window.

It’s also the first phrase of what seems to be somewhat self-effacing copy throughout the site. It’s all carefully chosen, of course, and crafted to make it seem like Denise doesn’t take herself too seriously (and she probably doesn’t). I’ve noticed that this is kind of a trend these days on designer sites. I wonder if the humour is beneficial?

The coolest part of this site has to be the bees though. The two very simply rendered little insects buzz merrily around the top of the page. This is a great example of how to give a bit of life to a static design without using flash. The bees exist simply as animated GIFs. Yes, that’s right – animated GIFs. They do still exist, and can have a purpose in the modern web beyond just advertisement banners! Very cool!

Well that’s it for this week’s Echoes. Which ones were your favorites? As always, if you know of any designs, tutorials or art that merits being included in a future post, feel free to let me know about it!

And please do keep the people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.

Exclusive Content

To thank you for subscribing to my feed, I am including exclusive, feed-only content for you at the bottom of each post!

Current Freebie Code – 0rx655ws

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Pixel art, where images are created and edited at the pixel level, seems to be the trademark for old-school computer games rather than the sophisticated visual graphics of contemporary games. Thanks to advanced technology, the simplicity of pixelated images that was prominent during the early days of computer technology may be irrelevant to most of us today where sharper graphics can be created. Still, others may be jaded by all the complex graphics we take for granted today and instead adore the retro feel that pixel art brings.

For starters, pixel art are typically categorized into isometric and non-isometric type. Isometric pixel art is created in a near-isometric dimetric projection (i.e. about 30 degrees angle from horizontal), as seen in some old games where they provide a 3D view of scenes. Non-isometric pixel art refers to those that are not isometric, for example, views from top, side, front, bottom or perspective views. Don’t worry, we’ve separated these two categories to provide you with a better understanding of the two kinds of pixel art.

Here’s the collection of wonderful pixel art from all over the web. Enjoy!

Isometric Pixel Art:

Boxed Town 2
via Howling

The Ultimate Maze
via Xluluhimex

Don’t Forget To Fix Your Polaroids
via Pixellent

Medieval Castle
via Docdoom

City Work
via Pandaemas

Fast Pixel Food
via Jujuqui

BASH City
via Ajiebash

Coke Studios Moscow
via Polyfonken

Coke Studios Goa

Coke Studios

Bugpixel
via Bugpixel

Protomen 1

Reader’s Digest Art

Steampunk Factory

Beachside Marina

Reo Resort

Época SP – O Melhor de São Paulo 2010
via Marcus Penna

Pixel Candy City
via MisaCharisma

Poster
via Simon Page

Christmas Pixel Art

TechnoTron Inc.
via Zoanoid

Trocaire Village
via Kaiusdesign

Blogger’s City
via Noyz Isobar

Pixeltown
via Stridenoble

Butron Castle Pixel Art
via Chocolerian

Gaumont District
via Hellagood88

Coca-Cola
via eBoy

Hollywood

Construction Site

Fortune 500

Honda

Amnesty

Yahoo Poster

Stop Cover

MSH Poster

Edge Pixel Poster
via Edge-Online

Salford Uni Poster
via Army of Trolls

In The Middle Of Nowhere
via Fool

Orange
via Orange Label

Large City
via Love Pixel

Army T-026

Aircraft Carrier

Yard The Water-Mill
via Zi

Non-Isometric Pixel Art:

Anita Blake Pixel Dolls
via Nekomancer-Tei

Pixel Wars
via Deviantdash

Crocktown
via Fool

Colossal Katamari
via Snake

Depp Trilogy
via Jaeden

Protomen 2
via Bug Pixel

Everyone
via Simon Page

About Author – Michael Poh is a freelance blogger from Singapore. He is currently an undergraduate in National University of Singapore majoring in Psychology. He is an enthusiastic video gamer and has a keen interest in CG artworks.

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I am a huge fan & user of graffiti style, as well as the more legal version street art. Im living in a safe city (lots of cameras) but it’s still a place for people who express theirselve by painting the walls of out town. These are images taken by me and a friend around Hamburg, Altona. The place we live. Respect for all the people who’s work is showcased in here.

The reason why I write this article is, beside showing you great stuff, to improve myself. I have been doing street art for quite some time and I want to share some experience’s with you. The anonymity throught internet makes it possible to share information with others without exposing your identity.

Have you done any art like this? Tell me in the comments. I’d love to discuss this with more. If you guys are really interested in Street Art I am going to do a tutorial about this.

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Wikipedia defines the fractal art as calculations of fractal objects that are processed and the calculation results are presented as still images, animation or other media. The idea behind fractal art is that calculations and equations can produce great artwork and creative inspirations as well as the tools in the artist’s hand. Although, fractal art may not include specific artistic topic, it provides deep inspiration source to fuel your ideas with the great and may be randomly generated combination of  colors and shapes. When you focus for a while in fractal art work, you may see shapes that never been and color balance ideas based on your personal experience and what you can imagine when you look at a fractal art work. In this article, I will share with you different fractal artwork inspirations. Meanwhile, I would like to share with you fractal artwork for one of the inspired fractal artists Jock Cooper. Fractal Recursions of Jock Cooper Jock Cooper is one of the talented fractal art and fractal animation artists, during his experience with fractal design animation, he did not just produced many fractal artworks, but also he changed our view to this type of art. He is the writer for Fractal Recursions, a collection of his fractal artwork. Below, we will start our journey in the fractal art work with an amazing collection of Jock fractal artwork.

Please note that Jock Cooper artwork that are shown below are under the copy right:

Jock Cooper / CC BY-NC 3.0

Fractal Exploration 02

Flower Shower Cap

Fantasy Lover

Dragon In The Evening Desert

Cubik Olympic

Caribbean Evening

Blue November

Love is in the Air

My Rainbow Garden

The Awakening III-Rebirth

Strawberry Fields

RR2- Wonderland Forever

Mycology

Lunar Cycle

Equation Carlson 1, Angle Double Function

Apophysis-scribble Space Webs

11 Copy

Manic

Boquet of Fractal

Apoprip

Good Morning

Related topics you may like to read

• Six Artists, Six Revolutions in the Digital Surreal Art History
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• Conceptual Surreal Art
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• 20 Gorgeous Black Wallpapers
• Design from the Street – Graffiti Art
• 23 Magical Photographs – No Effects!!

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Think Green Meeting

KINO

The Great Bearded Reef

Fajne Chlopaki: Portfolio

Mogulista

SocialSnack

BULLET PR

Zee

Legwork Studio

Art by Annis Naeem

Portfolio of Tyrale Bloomfield

We Shoot Bottles

Silverbackapp

Tim Van Damme

basil gloo

Charlie Gentle

Chiragj Solanki

Contrast

Brian Murchison

Visualbox

www.MelissaHie.com

Tyler Finck, Sursly

volll

SectionSeven Inc

Dan Tobolic

Work at Play

Black Estate Vineyard

Search Inside Video

Samir Tuladhar

f claire baxter

Nile Inside

rzmota.com

The Portfolio of Bryan Katzel

Carbon Aspect

smartcube.ie

GIANT Creative

Hello. My name is Myke Ambs

Fabiano Meneghetti

sebdesign.eu

NETWiSE Strategies

About the Author

Gisele Muller is someone that recently discovered a new career online. A person that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. An eternal geek wannabe, tech fan and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil. Twitter: @gismullr

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A collection of 70 high quality PSD files including a range of templates, icons, mobiles, packaging cases, and a ton of other useful design resources. An essential resource for any Photoshop user or designer worth bookmarking for future reference.

Photoshop is predominantly know across the whole entire design community for its capability of being able to create simply marvellous designs. Photoshop has a wide range of features and functions which can be very difficult for a novice learning Photoshop being able to grasp.

This collection of high quality PSD files will help most beginners or even experts gaining an understanding on how to use Photoshop to create certain techniques, this can be achieved by downloading one of the PSD files and just simply playing around with the different layers within the PSD file to gain an underrating how specific layers and techniques where created.

I hope you enjoy the PSD files made available to download and feel to leave a comment to share which is your favourite PSD File from the post.

Cases And Packaging Templates

1. DVD Case+Art

2. DVD Label – PSD Template

3. JEWEL CASE PSD FILE

4. WWE 2007 DVD Cover Template

5. Butterfly Kisses

6. Butterfly Kisses

7. DVD Case Inlay – PSD Template

8. FREE Product Box PSD

Mobile PSD Phones

9. NOKIA 5800 XpressMusic DS PSD

10.Nokia 3500c

11.Htc Dream

12.iPhone in PSD format, Photoshop recreation

13.RIM Blackberry PSD

14.Smartphone

15.iPhone 3G PSD

Games consoles

16.Psp

17.PlayStation3

18.XBOX 360

19.Sony Psp

20.Nintendo DS Lite psd template

Car PSD Files

21.GT car free number one

22.Honda Civic Type-R mod

23.Lamborghini Murcielago

24.GT car free number five

25.Audi R8 GTR .PSD LRO

TVS And Monitors

26.HDTV Resource

27.PLASMA TV

Apple Products

28.iMac

29.Full Layered MacBook Air & MacBook Pro

30.Ipod shuffle

31.iPod nano 5G

32.PSD: Mighty Mouse

33.Airport Express -PSD Included

34.apple

35.Apple remote

36.iPod Classic

Buttons and Icons

37.iKons 4 CS4 – Original psd

38.Free PSD Avatar Icon Set

39.E-maniacs rss free icons

40.Radium Icon PSDs

41.Buttons PSD

42.second free PSD icon pack

43.Photoshop 3D Cube

44.PSD Web Stickers

45.PSD Resource Pack One

46.PSDFox

47.Star Sticker

48.Star Sticker

49.On-Stage: Free Vector PSD Icon Set

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51.lock PSD

52.Radium Neue PSDs

53.openPhone

54.Talk icon

55.Windows 7 Box .PSD

56.How to Create a Slick and Clean Buttons in Photoshop

Other Useful PSD Design Resources

57.PSD – Amanecer

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59.retro rocket PSD

60.Magazine PSD source file

61.Free Button Pack

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70.Office .PSD Resources

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Creative Spotlight: Un.titled

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Web design trends change with the wind – what is popular this year will undoubtedly not be popular next year. There is only one web design style that you can rely on and be deemed timeless – and that is the Vintage style. And alongside that, and similar in style, there is the permanently cool and always creative – retro(ism).

Vintage and retro should not be categorized as a style – they are much more than that. They are a movement in themselves and a bold and creative statement that is unparalleled with any other other web design style.

This article is a homage to these styles…

Team Fannypack

this by them

ONETWENTYSIX

The New York Moon

Team Fortress 2 – The Sniper vs. Spy Update

SLABOVIA

Todd Miller

MISTER-AERO

The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely

B I R D I E // B I R D I E

level2d

The Wayward Irregular

Taywell

The Antique Piano Shop

The Movie Title Stills collection

Linnea's Lights

KULTIKA

Ready Photo Site

16toads Design

TheStatement

Bullet PR

Mr Vector

WEB-O-MATIC

Torpedo Juice

Cheesetique

Tomatic

The Closet Entrepreneur

The Art of Catalin Bridinel

Analog

All Star Lanes

Michela Chiucini

The Dollar Dreadful Family Library

Circus Family

LP-SF

Death Cab For Cutie

Hot Meteor

MacTarnahan's Brewing Company

Jeffrey Sarmiento

singularityconcepts.com

Edgepoint Church

Webdesigner.ro

mediaBOOM

RejectedRobot

Pain is Good

Big State Games

Stolen Design

Lana Landis

Prahba

DeVotchKa

Thunderfuel

National Cottonseed Products Association

Five Cent Stand

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Before the era of globalized entertainment made movie posters look the same in every country, Polish artists were creating their own versions for the internal market. What resulted was a whole school of artists trained in the art of the poster. This article presents a short historical look at how this movement was born and how it developed, form its art-related beginnings at the end of the 19th Century to the golden era of the film posters throughout the 20th Century.

The Beginnings

Toward the end of the 19th Century Poland was still absent from the maps. Its territory was split and controlled by Russia, Austria and Prussia. While Warsaw, then under Russian rule, was the biggest economic, trade and industrial center of the non-existent country, Krakow, under the less oppressive Austria, soon established itself as a cradle for artistic, cultural, scientific, political and religious life, becoming the ideal capital of the nation.

Krakow was populated by writers, poets and artists who had travelled Europe and had come in contact with the modernist cultural trends of the time. The poster had just been born in France at the hand of Jules Chéret following the invention of color lithography. Influenced by the achievements of the French masters of this new art form, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec above all, these Polish artists chose the poster as the new medium of expression. They were well respected, connected with the Academy Of Fine Arts and members of the Society of Polish Artists “Sztuka” (Art). The poster thus became acceptable as a form of art.

The first Polish posters appeared in the 1890’s at the hand of outstanding painters like Jozef Mehoffer, Stanislaw Wyspianski, Karol Frycz, Kazimierz Sichulski and Wojciech Weiss. Influenced by the Jugendstil and the Secessionist movements, understandably they painted posters that were art-related, announcing exhibitions, theater and ballet performances. Their work was vastly popular, which led to the first International Exposition of the Poster being held in Krakow in 1898.

Jugendstil, Secession, Japanism and modernist styles like Cubism were mixed with traditional elements of symbolism and national folklore. What set the Polish posters apart from their European counterparts was the emphasis placed on the highly artistic quality of the project, an attitude that will continue to characterize the Polish poster throughout the 20th century.

Jozef Mehoffer – Furniture Lottery for Matejko’s House (1899)

Edward Trojanowski – Print Exhibition (1904)

Jozef Czajkowski – 1st Exhibition of the Polish Company of Applied Art (1902)

Karol Frycz – Rolling papers advertisement (1908)

Wojciech Jastrzebowski – Swoszowice Health resort near Krakow (1907). A fine example of Japanism.

Jozef Mehoffer – Contemporary Art Exhibition (1910)

Kazimierz Sichulski – Contemporary Polish Exhibition of Architecture, Sculpture and Painting (1910)

Jan Bulas – Symphonic Concert (1910). A poster inspired by Expressionism.

Henryk Kunzek – Forward (1910)

Jozef Czajkowski – Interior architecture exhibition (1912)

Jan Rembowski – First Spring Salon (1914)

Jan Wdowiszewski from 1891 to 1904 was the director of the Technical Industrial Museum in Krakow. He was the organizer of the International Poster Exhibition in 1898, for which he wrote two essays, the first of their kind, entirely devoted to the art of the poster. He immediately recognized the power of the poster to act like a mirror for society’s physical and mental way of life. This was especially true of the exhibition posters, which promptly reflected every trend and influence coming from the West. The strong drive to promote the national style, as a means to a true political independence, was also faithfully recorded in the street art.

Stefan Norblin and the Touristic Poster

The period between the two World Wars sees Poland finally reappearing on the maps. The twenty years of independence are marked by a stunning growth in all industries. Tourism, especially, is at its height. Stefan Norblin is appointed to create a series of posters with the intent of promoting Poland as a tourist resort.

First and foremost a painter rooted in the school of realistic representation, Norblin approaches the poster the way he approaches the canvas. He makes use of obvious imagery to secure immediate reading from the viewer. Although characterized by recognizable forms and silhouettes, his works remain stunning for the stark choice of “neon” colors. They are not of an Expressionist nature but they create an irreal atmosphere around familiar objects. This and the minimalist style confer his posters a timeless quality.

Sale for the poor (1916)

Polska (Poland), 1925

Gdynia, 1925

Lwow (Lviv), 1928

Wilno (Vilnius), 1928

Poland – Divine Service at Lowicz (1925)

“Peasants!!! Support the national contemporary exhibition!!!” (1929)

Toy (1933)

Tadeusz Gronowski: Father of the Polish Poster

After the First World War Poland finally gained independence (1918). With it came a rapid process of industrialization and development of trade. The market was suddently saturated with different products hence the need for powerful advertising. The poster became its medium of choice. The advertising poster of the 1920’s and 1930’s differs from its highly elaborated artistic predecessors in that it utilises a simpler, more direct visual language to communicate with the viewer.

This was a requirement of the market made possible by Cubism, a style that forever freed art from beauty and ugliness, from the necessity to imitate nature. Architects, especially students from Warsaw University, were the most receptive creators of posters during this period. They were not weighed down by the academic ballast as were the painters of the previous generation. They were naturally inclined to apply the rules of geometry to commercial uses. It is among these students that we find the figure of Tadeusz Gronowski.

A gifted student, Gronowski was the first to specialize in poster art. Influenced by European art movements (he was well connected in Paris in the Twenties) he singlehandedly created the art of the Polish poster. Catering to the new necessities with which graphic art was confronted, advertising, he took advantage of the full spectrum of techniques available to the artist at the time to create the most striking advertisements of the period. His work shows a transition to the newest tool, the airbrush, resulting in softer lines and backgrounds. His advertising posters remain a milestone in the development of what came to be known as the School of the Polish poster.

In contrast to Stefan Norblin, Gronowski, himself an accomplished painter, approaches the poster as a medium unto itself. Instead of merely adapting his painterly style to the poster format, he sees in it the opportunity to create something new, indeed a new form of artistic expression. He is one of the first artists to consciously integrate the typography with the illustration and instead of choosing the obvious he offers the viewer a different look into the subject, often displaying a penchant for the light and the humorous which endeared him to the viewers.

The next image portrays one of his earliest works. Even though the text is not incorporated in the image, the composition is clear. The cat and the artist’s faint smile add his trademark touch of humor to the painting.

Artistic Lithography (1920)

A true master of the advertising poster, Gronowski blends the mundane with the artistic in a seamless composition.

Tire (1923)

Tire (1923)

S.A. Staporkow (1924). The radiator as architecture on a modern industrial background.

Ceres Lard “To die for…” (1926)

Gronowski founded his own studio in Warsaw and aptly named it Plakat, i.e. Poster.

Poster for his own studio “Plakat” (1925)

The next poster is particularly important in Gronowski’s production. An advertisement for a washing product named Radion, its slogan reads “It washes by itself.” The artwork is minimalistic and to the point: a black cat enters a bucket full of Radion and jumps out all white. A clear message amplified by the stark chromatic contrast and the essential lines.

Radion “It washes by itself” (1926)

The next pieces exemplify the evolution towards integrated designs. The typography is part of the composition.

Literary News (1925)

Oaza Restaurant Dancing (1926)

KAGR – Circle of Advertising Graphic Artists (1936)

Marine Baths in Gdynia (1938). Gronowski’s rendition of the touristic poster.

1st Polish Peace Congress (1950)

The Warsaw Architects

Gronowski’s work was continued into the Thirties by a group of architects educated in Warsaw under professors Zygmunt Kaminski and Edmund Bartlomiejczyk. At the University they learned to master the techniques of applied graphics. Architecture was seen as the Gesamtkunstwerk, the total artwork, the summation of all arts applied to a specific, practical function. Their hands-on approach lent itself beautifully in their transition from architects to graphic artists.

Responsible for this transition were economic reasons but also the will to work for contemporary society, which poster art was capable of immortalizing faithfully. Incidentally, these are the same reasons that today drive budding architects to graphic design: creating applied art with fast job turnarounds and satisfying economic turnover.

These architects turned graphic artists took Tadeusz Gronowski’s approach forward, combining it with a sense of composition and proportion naturally derived from their architectural background. Not only did they incorporate three-dimensionality in their works, they also adapted their style to the subject of the given poster, for example using a precise linework for posters depicting mechnical parts, humorous figures for posters depicting ballets and festive occasions and striking, dynamic compositions to illustrate sports events. Their work marks the transition of the Polish poster from narrative medium of the 19th century to modern advertising device of the 20th century.

Jan Mucharski – Dorm Week (1927)

Jerzy Hryniewiecki, Andrzej Stypinski – Eastern Trade Fair (1930)

Maciej Nowicki, Stanislawa Sandecka – Everyone Fight Against Tuberculosis (1934)

Maciej Nowicki, Stanislawa Sandecka – 2nd Meeting of Polish Youth from Abroad (1935)

Stefan Osiecki – The Lopek Dancing(1935)

The Propaganda Posters

After World War II Poland found itself under Communist rule. The new government needed to spread the new aesthetics and make the new institutions acceptable to the public. With that goal in mind the Propaganda Poster Studio was established in the city of Lublin.

Wlodzimerz Zakrzewski was a talented landscape painter and active member of the Communist Party who had studied painting in Moscow in 1940 and had designed posters for the Soviet Propaganda. He was therefore the perfect candidate to run the Studio. The military introduced patterns of representation borrowed from the Soviet poster tradition, propaganda graphics connected with the TASS, the Telegraphic Agency of the Soviet Union. Zakrzewski was given a list of catchphrases assigned to the propaganda. His task was to devise graphical rules to create a working method for propaganda posters.

Zakrzewski aimed to introduce a new visual language by basing his colorful images on verified patterns borrowed from the stylizations learned in Russia. He also acted as mentor to a number of what were, in fact, unprofessional poster artists. This experience marks the first time poster art was institutionalized in Poland, giving birth to the proper phenomenon that followed, the “Polish Poster School.”

The Propaganda Poster Workshop in Lublin. Wlodzimierz Zakrzewski sitting left. (1944)

Mieczyslaw Tomkiewicz – Poster designs for the workshop (1945)

Wlodzimierz Zakrzewski – “What the soldier wins by fighting the peasant will plow” (1944)

Wlodzimierz Zakrzewski – “Where Hitler sets foot the earth dies…” (1945)

Wlodzimierz Zakrzewski – The giant and the disgusting reactionary dwarf (1946)

Wlodzimierz Zakrzewski – Party (1955)

The 50’s and the 60’s: The Golden Age

The Fifties and the early Sixties mark the Golden Age of the Polish poster. Like everything else, the film industry was controlled by the state. There were two main institutions responsible for commissioning poster designs: Film Polski (Polish Film) and Centrala Wynajmu Filmow – CWF (Movie Rentals Central). They commissioned not graphic designers but artists and as such each one of them brought an individual voice to the designs.

The School of the Polish Poster is therefore not unified but rather diverse in terms of style. It wasn’t until the Mid-Fifities, though, that the school flourished. The fierce Stalinist rule had been lifted, once again leaving room for artistic expression. The classic works were created in the next ten years. Three important remarks must be made. First, at the time the poster was basically the only allowed form of individual artistic expression.

Second, the state wasn’t concerned much with how the posters looked. Third, the fact that the industry was state-controlled turned out to be a blessing in disguise: working outside the commercial constraints of a capitalist economy, the artists could fully express their potential. They had no other choice but to become professional poster designers and that’s why they devoted themselves so thoroughly to this art.

The Polish film poster is artist-driven, not studio-driven. It is more akin to fine art than commercial art. It is painterly rather than graphic. What sets the Polish poster apart from what we’re used to see in the West is a general disregard for the demands of the big studios. The artists requested and received complete artistic freedom and created powerful imagery inspired by the movies without actually showing them: no star headshots, no movie stills, no necessary direct connection to the title.

They are in this regard similar to the work of Saul Bass, a rare example of a Hollywood artist who enjoyed total freedom from the studios. Next to a typical Hollywood film poster with the giant headshots of the latest movie star and the title set in, you guessed it, Trajan Pro, the Polish film poster still looks fresh and inspiring today.

Without further analyzing a history that is best told in pictures let’s take a look at some of the many classic works created by the likes of Wiktor Gorka, Eryk Lipinski, Marek Mosinski, Jan Lenica, Jerzy Flisak and others.

Witkor Gorka

1966 – “Kaidan”, Japan 1964. Directed by Masaki Kobayashi.

1967 – “Cat Ballou”, US 1965. Directed by Elliot Silverstein.

1968 – “The Professionals”, US 1966. Directed by Richard Brooks.

1969 – “Deadlier Than the Male”, UK 1966. Directed by Ralph Thomas.

Jerzy Flisak

1958 – “Three Men in the Snow”, Austria 1955. Directed by Kurt Hoffmann.

1958 – “Pane, amore e..”, Italy 1955. Directed by Dino Risi.

1959 – “Rancho Texas”, Poland 1959. Directed by Wadim Berestowski. The first Polish western!

1959 – “Roman Holiday”, US 1953. Directed by William Wyler.

1962 – “The Hitman”, Italy 1960. Directed by Damiano Damiani.

1965 – “Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation”, US 1962. Directed by Henry Koster.

1967 – “Zwariowana Noc”, Poland 1967. Directed by Zbigniew Kuzminski.

1968 – “The Firemen’s Ball”, Czechoslovakia 1967. Directed by Milos Forman.

Jan Lenica

1957 – “Kanal”, Poland 1956. Directed by Andrzej Wajda.

1957 – “Il Bidone”, Italy 1955. Directed by Federico Fellini.

1958 – “The Deadly Invention”, Czechoslovakia 1958. Directed by Karel Zeman.

1962 – “Knife in the Water”, Poland. Directed by Roman Polanski.

1962 – “L’Avventura”, Italy – France 1960. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.

1965 – “The Visit”, Germany 1964. Directed by Bernhard Wicki.

Eryk Lipinski

1948 – “Uliczna Graniczna”, Poland. Directed by Aleksander Ford.

1955 – “One Sunday Morning”, Poland 1953. Directed by Andrzej Munk.

1958 – “Le Notti di Cabiria”, Italy 1957. Directed by Federico Fellini.

1961 – “Me and the Colonel”, US 1958. Directed by Peter Glenville.

1966 – “Le Soldatesse”, Italy/Yugoslavia/West Germany 1965. Directed by Valerio Zurlini.

Marek Mosinski

1968 – “Les Tontons flingueurs”, France 1963. Directed by Georges Lautner.

1968 – “King Kong Escapes”, Japan 1967. Directed by Inoshiro Honda.

1972 – “Infanzia, vocazione e primo esperienze di Giacomo Casanova, veneziano”, Italy 1969. Directed by Luigi Comencini

Other artists

Hubert Hilscher, 1957 – “The Man with the Golden Key”, France 1956. Directed by Leo Joannon.

Leszek Holdanowicz, 1966 – “Bariera”, Poland. Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski.

Waldemar Swierzy, 1957 – “Sunset Boulevard”, US 1950. Directed by Billy Wilder.

Wojciech Wenzel, 1959 – “Shane”, US 1953. Directed by George Stevens.

Maciej Hibner, 1962 – “Pickpocket”, France 1959. Directed by Robert Bresson.

Maciej Hibner, 1963 – “Two Way Stretch”, US 1960. Directed by Robert Day.

Bronislaw Zelek, 1965 – “The Birds”, US 1963. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Franciszek Starowieyski, 1967 – “A Woman Is a Woman”, France 1961. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard.

Bohdan Butenko, 1968 – “One Million Years B.C.”, UK 1966. Directed by Don Chaffey.

The 70’s and the 80’s: Decadence and Death

The School had its peak in the Mid-Sixties and during the following decade declined, much like art and advertising in the rest of the world. A few examples of posters from the Seventies follow.

Witkor Gorka

1973 – “2001 : A Space Odyssey”, US 1968. Directed by Stanley Kubrick.

1973 – “Cabaret”, US 1972. Directed by Bob Fosse.

1976 – “We Were So in Love”, Italy 1974. Directed by Ettore Scola.

1977 – “Marathon Man”, US 1976. Directed by John Schlesinger.

Jerzy Flisak

1971 – “Playtime”, France 1967. Directed by Jacques Tati.

1972 – “Sacco e Vanzetti”, Italy 1971. Directed by Giuliano Montaldo.

1973 – “El Dorado”, US 1967. Directed by Howard Hawks.

1973 – “Morgiana”, Czechoslovakia 1972. Directed by Juraj Herz.

1978 – “Brutti, sporchi e cattivi”, Italy 1976. Directed by Ettore Scola.

Eryk Lipinski

1970 – “Nie ma powrotu Johnny”, North Vietnam/Poland. Directed by Kaveh Pur Rahnama.

1970 – “Az Ido Ablakai”, Hungary 1969. Directed by Tamas Fejer.

1972 – “Sea in the fire”, Soviet Union 1971. Directed by Leon Saakow.

1975 – “The Day of the Jackal”, UK 1973. Directed by Fred Zinnemann.

The Eighties were marked by society’s strong opposition to the increasingly oppressive Communist rule, exemplified by the Solidarnosc movement. Poster art quietly dwindled through the decade. After 1989, when film distribution was privatized, it died.

Nowadays alternative film posters are created by numerous artists as exercise and showcase of their abilities. Such posters are typically printed in small runs and viewed and sold exclusively in art galleries.

Conclusion

Posters are very important in the Polish culture. During the Communist regime they were probably the only colorful things one would see in the streets.

A small but dedicated market for Polish posters has emerged over the years. Driven by more than just nostalgia, its aim is the preservation of what is both testament of a cultural heritage largely unknown outside its borders and an immense source of inspiration for today’s young artists. These collectibles are not available in huge numbers but, due to their being relatively unknown, don’t command high prices yet.

Further Resources

Here’s a list of online sources to browse and even buy Polish posters. The stores are not listed for advertising purposes but rather because they provide picture galleries with details for each item.

• Wilanow Poster Museum
  The first Poster Museum in the world, opened in 1968 as a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw.
• Krakow Poster Gallery
  A small gallery located in downtown Krakow. Despite its size it has an impressive collection of originals and reprints.
• The Art of Poster
  Poster gallery located in Warsaw.
• Poster Gallery at Antykwariat Rara Avis
  Poster gallery from a recent auction. It features some well known and rare pieces.
• Classic Polish Film Posters
  Probably the biggest online collection of film posters. The gallery is well organized and includes very detailed information about each artwork. Invaluable resource. Most of the images and film data in the article come from this site.
• Polish Poster Shop
  A very thorough catalog with many artists.
• Cine-Images Gallery – Movie Posters
  A decent collection of posters, mostly from the ’70s.
• Film posters typeset in Trajan
  For comparison purposes. A collection of movie posters in the Hollywood studio tradition: big star headshots, predictable composition and typography. This type of poster has replaced the artistic output of the past decades.
• Rene Wanner’s Poster Page
  This gallery contains various collections og graphic design artists, among them are also Polish artists and designers.

A few bibliographical references.

• Piotr Rudzinski, curator “Pierwsze polwiecze polskiego plakatu 1900-1950″ (2009) A collection of essays by various authors about the development of the Polish poster. The emphasis is on the first half of the 20th Century. The essays are veru well researched and read like master’s degree papers. Includes many of the posters presented in this article.
• Anna Agnieszka Szablowska “Tadeusz Gronowski – sztuka plakatu i reklamy” (2005) A monography of the master. Includes 189 eproduction of his works.
• Krzysztof and Agnieszka Dydo “PL21, The Polish Poster of the 21st Century” (2008) A book about the contemporary poster scene. Created by the owners of the Krakow Poster Gallery.

About the author

Andrea Austoni is an Italian freelance designer currently living in Krakow, Poland. He specializes in icon design and illustration. He runs Cute Little Factory, his personal portfolio and blog.

© Andrea Austoni for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 44 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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I had a very emotional and personal reaction the first time I saw this painting. Those images have been very neatly tucked away in the corners of my mind until yesterday when @KarenMcDade sent a tweet that brought it all back to the present moment.

The insanely talented artist, Lena Gieseke, has created a 3D exploration of Picasso’s Guernica (see the video below). She was inspired to create a 3D version of a piece of artwork after putting together jigsaw puzzles. When you assemble a puzzle, your eye notices details you might otherwise miss. You are forced to look at a picture a different way, you get a new perspective.

This video, which is very rare interpretation of Picasso’s Guernica, is similar in that it provides a completely new way of looking at the artwork itself, and in doing so, creates a new flood of unique feelings surrounding that brutal event that took place in 1937. I know for me, I see details in this interpretation that I have never noticed in the painting itself. I have a new appreciation for the original Guernica.

Lena asks, “Is my model a true reconstruction of the Picasso’s painting, or is it merely a rough re-visualization? Is it still Picasso’s art or has it, through my addition of third dimension, become something completely different? It is not my place to answer those questions nor to determine the relationship between my three-dimensional reproduction and the original painting. Perhaps this is a question best left in the hands of critics.”

I don’t know the answers to these questions either; all I know is that this takes my breath away. You can learn more about Lena and her experiences by visiting http://www.lena-gieseke.com.

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Comic books are close to many of us designers’ hearts, since these are likely our first encounters to the amazing world of art. These days, they continue to become even more sophisticated and expressive from when we first experienced them as kids.

So to keep your inspiration going, I’ve collected a series of breathtaking comic book cover designs, both past and present. I hope they remind us all of that rush of exhilaration when we bought our first, freshly printed comic book, and motivate us to inspire the same feelings in others through our own works of design. Enjoy!

Inspiring Comic Book Cover Designs

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While posting content through these services is incredibly easy, the hard part is choosing which one to use. They both have their pros and cons. I actually asked around Twitter for people’s opinion on which they liked best: Tumblr or Posterous?

Tumblr or Posterous?

Here are some of the responses:

1. track02: Both are great – Tumblr for Pics/Art – Posterous as a Blog. But – i am Pro-Tumblr.
2. dirka: Hands down Posterous.
3. zulsdesign: Tumblr
4. InspiringPixel: Posterous can be used to post on Tumblr, but not vice versa. Speaks for itself. Both have diffeent uses.
5. Phillysoul11: I haven’t done much with Posterous but I really like Tumblr.

Out of the people that responded, over 70% mentioned that they liked Tumblr better. Personally, I haven’t really used Tumblr but I have used Posterous before. One of the main reasons why people like Tumblr so much is because of the ease of theme customization. I actually asked David Perel from Obox (Premium Themes) about which service had a templating format that was easier to customize and here is his answer:

"Tumblr is quicker, Posterous is a bit of a mission."

So when I got his response, I decided to do some surfing and research to find the most creative and beautiful Tumblr designs. Here are thirty impressive tumblog designs that you can draw inspiration from. So if you are thinking that you can’t be very creative with Tumblr, just check out the following designs.

Doug Neiner

Doug’s tumblog is beautifully done. The details are really what sets it apart. I like how he has that sidebar on the left side with his image, company information, along with the social media icons. What I really love about his design is if you look through the different posts, each type of post is cleverly designed a different way. If you don’t know what I mean, you definitely need to go and view his tumblog.

Art in My Coffee

This tumblog was designed by the popular Meagan Fisher. This has a format that is a little different from most tumblogs. It’s actually a gallery of foam art in coffee. I love the subtle texture on the background. Also, the color scheme blends well and is very pleasing to the eye. This is definitely another site that you need to visit.

Mark Jardine

Mark Jardine’s tumblog features a really clean and high-tech design. I absolutely adore that carbon fiber texture! Also, the icons that he uses for each post are very nice and I like the fact that the site is left-aligned.

Gary’s Real Life

This is a very simple tumblog that lets the illustrations stand out. The illustrated header adds a really nice touch to this tumblog.

MetaLab

MetaLabs designs definitely stand out due to the pixel perfect lines that is all over the design. The site uses lots of 1px highlights and shadows that is sure to make any design pop. The crew over at MetaLab has also designed Fluid, which is one of the most popular free Tumblr themes.

Gondaba

Gondaba has a very simple layout and design but what makes this tumblog stand out is the fact that for each post, they use a different color. The tumblog also incorporates a color switcher where you can switch the colors of the site to a variety of different colors.

Danny Garcia

This tumblog is very minimal and it looks very sophisticated. Danny Garcia manages to pull of the white text over black quite well. You also need to check out his regular Blog (Expression Engine) as well.

Vertetbleu

Vintage is the word that I would use to describe this tumblog. I really love the watercolor-stained paper that is used in the design.

Name That Film

This tumblog is a tumblog featuring one main image and a clue about that particular image. What you have to do is name the movie based on the clue. I think the design gets the job done because it doesn’t distract you from the image. The popcorn adds a nice touch to it as well and gives you that "movie" feel to it.

Eat Sleep Draw

This tumblog incorporates a very unique header as well as a nice and light colored lined paper in the background. The footer looks very nice as well and the use of the pencil as the background for pagination is a great idea.

Karen Abad

This tumblog is very unique. The background illustration of the mountains is great, but what set this apart is the static footer at the bottom. If you look, the bottom area with the grass and the cat stays put when you scroll down.

Jeff Finley

Jeff Finley’s tumblog is very minimal but it is definitely attractive. The contrast between the dark background and the light foreground really adds a lot to the design. I also like the use of the slab-serif on the logo.

Extra Firm Hold

This blog is another blog that is simple but just adds a nice and catchy header. For some reason, I feel like eating Chips Ahoy every time I see this design.

Domo Nom Nom

This is an excellent idea for a tumblog. The design is very fun and everytime you switch the page, the items that Domo Nom Nom is shoving in his mouth changes. Check it out to see what I mean.

Moose Garden

A tumblog design full of textured goodness. The brown / yellow / gray combination works really well together. The dotted yellow lines are also a nice touch to this impressive eye-candy.

HrrrThrrr

This design features a nice hand-drawn header and sidebar. The design is very simple but effective in my opinion.

It’s the Interweb

This design is a collection of music and videos from the internet. Another simple design but the design fits perfectly because of what it’s used for.

Paul Giacherio

This is a very beautiful and dark tumblog. It also features a nice flexible grid as well. Definitely one that you must view.

Photoholic

Not much design on this tumblog but what I really like about it is the white logo sticking to the content area. I also like the brown background texture.

TMBLG

This is another dark website but just like the MetaLabs design, it really uses the 1px lines very well. I also like the accentuated use of green on the post type.

Matthew Buchanan

This tumblog is very clean, and it really makes for some easy reading due to it’s minimalistic approach. The solid post-type icons are well done. The speech bubble on the header is also a nice touch to this design.

Allison Weiss

Great use of the hand-drawn style in the logo as well as with the menu items. This site’s design really fits this music artist well.

HERE

The big, black, bold letters instantly capture your attention when looking at this design. To me, this design evokes the feeling of reading an old and vintage book.

Mat.cc

This is another very nicely designed site that has the minimalistic feel to it. The use of pink is a nice touch as it really goes well with the light blue background.

9-bits

This left-aligned tumblog has some great and beautiful details to it. If you click through, you will notice that the headlines have a nice yellow text-shadow effect all done with CSS3.

52 Weeks of UX

I was actually already finished with the post when I saw this tumblog. The typography is excellent as well as the simple illustrations that are used in this site. But that’s not all, the best thing about this site is its excellent content. It’s definitely one that you need to visit and add to your favorites.

Tracing

A very minimalistic tumblog created by Kevin Holesh. The design is simple and really let’s the content be the primary focus. Also, if you like this Tumblr theme, Kevin has already made it available for your own tumblog. You can view the theme details here.

Heather Rivers

This is the only tumblog that I’ve seen thus far that breaks the convention of center or left alignment and opts for a right-aligned layout. While I’m not a big fan of right-side layouts, this one seems to work for some reason.

Roll Call

This tumblog has a basic design. What’s cool about it is you can press your left or right arrows to navigate the site. It’s actually a unique way to view and discover different Tumblr users.

Anyways.us

Lastly, this tumblog is probably the most minimal that I’ve seen so far. The design is simple, and it makes for some easy reading. This is a theme that I would install on my tumblog (if I had one) and if it was available for download.

Correction: I made a mistake. This is actually a theme but either way, it’s still a beautiful site.

Beautiful Tumblr Themes

Here are a couple of good posts from AppStorm about Tumblr themes that you can use for your own tumblog. Enjoy!

• The Top Twelve Tumblr Themes
• The Best Premium Tumblr Themes

So which one of these Tumblr customizations did you like and why? Are there any other impressive Tumblr site designs that I left out? Please share them with us. Leave your answers in the comments below. You must also follow Design Informer on Twitter.

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Loewe have just added to their Art SL HDTV collection with a new 32-inch display that features a set of impressive integrated home entertainment solutions. Coming in with a breathtaking design and a convenient variety of functions, the stylish Loewe Art 32 SL brings a Full HD resolution of 1,920 x 1080 pixels, 100Hz technology and 24p motion picture display that promises an amazing entertaining experience and optimum picture quality.

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Read the rest of Loewe Art 32 SL HDTV Range Announced [32" Full HD 1080p Loewe Art SL Range With Integrated Tuner]

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The style is recognized for its unique and rather groundbreaking attention to typography. Needless to say, Switzerland’s design culture has taken the world by storm.

Of course, the style has grown beyond the graphic design industry and made its way into web design.

When we web designers search for inspiration, though, we tend to stick to this one culture.

Though a great source of inspiration, let’s look at some graphic design styles from other parts of the world. Perhaps we could incorporate at least subtle elements from those other cultures into our current style.

Drawing Inspiration and Lessons from Other Cultures

Finding fresh inspiration can be difficult, but with a bit of persistence and know-how, you should find it. The great thing is that any culture or environment that is foreign to you will probably elicit some strong emotion or fascination in you. In observing a different environment, things stick out at us, and we find beauty in certain things in a way that a person who lives there might not.

Because as people carry on day to day, they start to ignore our surroundings. Exploring a different environment helps us notice the little things again. Inspiration should come quite naturally in this situation.

Inspiration is one thing, though; knowing how to give it expression in a design is another. But just like any form of art, an environment and its elements have their own shapes, textures, colors, sizes, etc. Look at natural elements, the details and the bigger picture.

Covering every culture’s style would be impossible, so let’s look broadly at the continents and maybe zero in on certain sub-cultures of interest.

Europe

Because we have just referred to the Swiss style, let’s begin with Switzerland’s continent, Europe. Europe has always had innovative design, some countries more than others. And advances in technology have brought huge advances in design.

Much of what we see in European graphic design after 1950 is, again, Swiss-style: emphasis on typography, clean lines, legibility and new color palettes. Overall, we find much more simplicity, too.

Below is a vintage Swiss album cover (but still post-1950).

Many designers follow this style closely to achieve a vintage look, while others take lessons from its structural balance. An article over on Smashing Magazine, “Lessons from Swiss Style Graphic Design,” discusses just how this modern style reflects in web design, with many great examples of both.

Robust Germany

We did say we would look beyond Switzerland, didn’t we? So, let’s move over to Germany, whose graphic design style many of the design principles of its neighbor.

Again, we find the heavy focus on typography. By contrast, though, whereas Switzerland tends toward clean sans-serif fonts, Germany showcases its own traditional fonts:

The above is the top half of a German poster advertising the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach. German print and fonts have been around for centuries, and now in digital media they are being used to highlight the country’s history and celebrate its typographic style.

Romantic Italy

Italy has similar design principles to those of Germany but a much more artsy, informal feel.

The above poster is from Milano (1969), promoting an advertising agency. One notices much more “freedom” in Italian graphic design. Both abstraction and softer shapes seem to have a stronger presence.

The Rest of Europe

Overall, European graphic design is becoming more uniform. And yet each country has its own history of art, culture and, thus, design style.

We focused on Germany and Italy to show how geographically close countries can have such distinct styles.

If you’re looking for new inspiration, Europe has much to offer. Look at Europe’s historical art, or focus on a particular period of a particular country.

Asia

As on all the other continents, every country, cultural group and religion has its own art forms and history. The graphic design style often reflects this history, and someone who is not a part of one of these cultures could benefit a lot from incorporating some of the design principles into their own work.

Below is a website inspired by an Asian culture, China to be specific. Notice how the simple large background creates most of the effect. The natural textures in the rest of the design complements this theme.

The above design is effective because it reinforces the purpose of the website. Let’s turn to a couple of more cultures for inspiration. The lessons we learn can be applied to similar cultures as well.

Japan

More than others, Asia’s main cultures seem to incorporate a more historical sensibility into their modern graphic design. Japan in particular is renowned for mixing historical culture and modernism quite well, whether for graphic design, Web design, architecture or other structural designs.

A great example of this is how cities in Japan seamlessly integrate innovative and traditional architecture and use traditional architecture to inspire shapes, textures and structures into modern design.

The two images above show how Japan can be both innovative and traditional, and they’re also a lesson in art. We can draw inspiration from the design elements in both, and we can learn to mix different eras and styles of art for effect.

This is also evident on the Japanese art scene. Japanese art seems to swing between two extremes: traditional and modern. Sometimes, though, those extremes are harmonized. Below are a few pieces that show just this.

And in the graphic design, we see a familiar pattern:

India

India’s push into modernism has been relatively recent. But again, its graphic and Web design often reflects the country’s traditional art forms and can be a beautiful source of inspiration.

India is particularly known for its intricate patterns. Below are just a few examples:

Australia

Much of Australia is a vast outback: a landscape that is unique to the continent. It also offers great beauty in its coral reefs and underwater life. A strong theme of nature appears in Australia’s art and design.

The Outback Steakhouse restaurant (in the US) promotes “authentic” Australian food, and its website reinforces this image: simple use of a culturally appropriate texture in the background, and natural colors.

The above website subtly integrates a natural theme, but one can get just as much inspiration from the culture, both modern and traditional. Despite being such a small continent, Australia offers a lot of great design.

Africa

Such a large continent; such a wide array of art. Perhaps, some of us think of African art as being the opposite of modernism, more of a step back into traditional art and a celebration of nature.

Traditional Africa

African art has an incredibly long, and rather distinguished, history. Taking inspiration from it for graphic and web design is fairly easy.

Because African art uses natural elements so heavily, texture would have to play a strong part in any design based on it. Again, as always, look at shapes and patterns, too.

Below is a great example of a web design. It mixes both cultural and natural elements perfectly to create a clean, beautiful and effective design.

Although this organization is based in Africa itself, there is no reason groups in other parts of the world could not use similar elements in their websites. The design style could be appropriate for many types of websites and designs.

Wildlife

The African landscape has unique wildlife that can be found nowhere else on earth, except in captivity. Traditional African art features the people’s unique perspective of the wildlife.

Both the wildlife itself and the cultural art based on it are worthy of attention.

Egypt

We’ve included Egypt here specifically for its ancient art. From pyramids and other majestic sculptures to the rock art, ancient Egypt has much to offer the modern web designer.

Again, design can be found in a culture’s art and monuments, as well as from the textures, shapes and colors of the natural environment.

South America

Like Africa, South America has a large native population, and the design style reflects this. But South America has its own distinct perspective on nature and offers as much as inspiration as the art in Africa.

The above sculpture is a traditional one from the area. One could perhaps draw some parallels between this style and Africa’s, but differences are obvious: rich colors and materials and unique shapes.

It reflects the South American environment itself: dense jungles, wet swamps and tropical wildlife. Much of Africa is dry desert, which is why the art has its brown hues and rocky textures.

Notice the difference in shape, too, probably more a cultural than environmental factor. In general, native African art is “harder” and more rigid, while native art from South America has more curves.

South America is, of course, famous for its tropical jungles, and this will also figure in design styles influenced by the region. Other features might include rivers and swamps: South America is also home to the great Amazon river.

Taking this beautiful environment as his inspiration, the designer below chose a jungle theme for his web design.

North America

Much of North American design is rooted in modernism, but still quite a bit of non-modernist tradition and culture exerts influence on graphic designers in this area.

As in Europe and most modernized Asian countries such as Japan, the Swiss style is popular here. But dig deeper and you’ll find design styles specific to this continent’s culture.

The south-eastern United States, for example, is known for its wild cowboy days. Most of us have heard of Outlaw Design Blog, and its design mixes texture, objects and landscape to perfectly capture this culture and its appeal.

Also worthy of attention is the art of the Native Americans, who once dominated the land. The website below does not exactly reflect Native American art, but it borrows the colors and textures to good effect. It also presents a typical North American landscape, setting the tone.

Being from the Midwest myself, I just had to include a farm and country design to the mix. The smart web design below features a Midwestern landscape that can be found throughout parts of the US and Canada.

Keep in mind, this continent stretches from the equator all the way up to the frozen arctic. The particular cultures reflect these various regions, and any of your design elements should, too.

The continent has more design styles than could be covered here, such as the northern Canadian arctic, Mexico, and Central America.

Wrapping Up

This post is almost anthropological, but that can be good for us designers looking for fresh inspiration and lessons. Webdesigner Depot is known for exploring alternative sources of art for our benefit. Exploring different cultures is a great way to do this.

There still remains, though, the general feeling that the Swiss style is the most modern, with everything else being less “formal.” You could stick broadly to the Swiss style, maintaining a simple and modern look, but incorporate subtle textures, colors or decorative elements from other cultures.

However far you decide to go, incorporating elements from different cultures in your design will likely be a change for the better. And when you have the whole world at your fingertips, the possibilities are endless.

Written exclusively for WDD by Kayla Knight.

Do you draw inspiration from other cultures? How has this impacted your design?

If you find an exclusive RSS freebie on this feed or on the live WDD website, please use the following code to download it: p4JM4h

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If you want to share more fantastic examples of Graffiti art so please comment about them below. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.

Graffiti art Amsterdam 5 by Shiratski

Grafiti, Granada, España 47

Is that with fries by PaulGreen

P3180328-graffitis by pelz

I am your father by sensesmaybenumbed

Cassarate 2007 by Never Crew

Graffiti by Scatti di memoria

Grafiti, Jaen, España 1 by bit ramone

Disaster by jakedobkin

Elmac & Retna on Western by Lord Jim

Retna Saber Revok SeventhLetter AWR by anarchosyn

Graffiti Outside The Treforest Tin Works by Stuart Herbert

some more Graffiti? by endraum

Graffiti C by Newfie Bullet

by generodz

Sex – Grafiti, Granada, España 49 by Bit ramone

Tate Modern: Street Art by Bill McIntyre

Avispa by Tretze

Nadie|boca|treze|pixelpancho|dulk|shana by Tretze

by blacklodge

Snake and ladder (staircase) in Montreal by Cedric Sam

En mi casa by danuno

Old Street Grafitti by stryker66

Grafitti Wall by theshadman

Banksy street art by scottroberts

Pavement art, Freo Street Arts Festival by azza-bazoo

Fafi @ Paris by yoyolabellut

Collective Graffiti, Chiado, Lisbon by Graffiti Land

Grafiti – granada 21 by bit ramone (off)

Polígono 12 by bit ramone

by Skio by oeildetat

PENO by JOHN19701970

Mac and Retna by Chele In LA

Town hick by a_sandra

Seventh Letter Crew by Fire Monkey Fish

DSC02586 by g-1000

Nesk freistil by chiquan

Halo Mural by chrispwalsh

AMERSFOORT: STREETART AMERSFOORT: STREETART

Grafiti – granada 22 by bit ramone (off)

My character & Böki by mrzero

Character by mrzero

Snort by What What

Dolk – Banana Therapy by imagesniper

character by mrzero

Swarm by Today is a good day

V For … by m4r00n3d

Graffiti 3 by Jam Adams

Xnos by bit Ramone

Kofie & Axis LosAngeles Graffiti Art by anarchosyn

IMG_0114 by g-1000

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This post is part of a weekly series showcasing inspirational vector art. Although the series showcases vector art, some work might just be vector inspired, not created completely with vector art. If you have any art suggestions, feel free to comment! For more vector art inspiration, check out the Vectips Flickr Group.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! by Dacosta!

purple mountain by MisterISK

Temptation by Alexey Bakhtiozin

Tom Middleton Flyer by SEKOND

Ice Cream Van by SEKOND

Merry Xmas!!! by Lorena Alvarez

adhika rahmani

Vancouver 2010 Campaign

Boobs by Jen Lu

Universe, I love You by hassmework

The Great Recycler by aphaits

The Dark Night of the Soul by Dmitrii Brigidov

Vincent by Dxtr

When life gives you limons! by Dxtr

Steven Bonner

bboy stance by PhillyPhats

The God of Creative Juices by cronobreaker

Le Bandit du Patinette by JrDragao

Mia Maestro by sqt

Rafael Barletta

Sergio Laskin

Cerebrum Apocalyptica by DUZA

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I love coming across a plugin or script I haven’t used before that really solves a problem for me. I figure if I get frustrated with something in Illustrator, there is probably someone else out there that has the same problem. A recent frustration of mine was selecting Effects in Illustrator. Luckily I stumbled across the Select Effects Plugin from Worker 72a.

The Problem

I use Adobe Illustrator Effects and other plugin effects with Illustrator extensively. I probably use a set of effects from the Phantasm CS plugin the most. I use the color editing capabilities of Phantasm CS on almost every illustration I create. When I have an Illustrator document with many paths and objects, I sometimes forget what object I have applied an effect to. This can become frustrating when sending a file to print or delivering the file to someone who doesn’t have the plugins and effects you used to create the piece. Then it is a laborious task to find each individual object with an effect to expand. That is where the Select Effects Plugin comes in handy.

Select Effects Plugin Details

• Creator: Worker 72a
• Price: Single User License(s) $25.00 / Site License $250.00
• Platform: Mac only (sorry Windows!)
• Illustrator Compatibility: CS, CS2, CS3, CS4

Basically the plugin adds several selection options to the Select Menu. Once installed you can see it adds the function to select objects that may cause problems when printing or flattening, including:

• Effects
• Blend Modes other than “Normal”
• Opacity settings less than 100%
• Raster images with alpha (transparency) channel
• Art with Opacity Mask
• All of the above at once

In the example below I created a set of icons for stock art and applied some Hue and Saturation adjustments with the Phantasm CS plugin to some of the objects. After I was done, I would have had to go through all the objects to find where the effect was applied, then expand them. With the Select Effects Plugin, I just simply go Select > Object > Select Transparency & Effects > Effects then expand the color adjustments. Awesome!

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These are 30 high quality textures, collected from wide variety of different categories. Each image is linked to the source where you can find more different textures of that category.

Related topics you may like to read

• Breathtaking Free Photoshop Textures
• 120+ Free Large Textures
• Free Amazing Texture Art
• 52+ Fabulous Ornate Patterns and Textures
• 60+ Unique and Free Paper Textures
• 20 Stunning Free Fabric Textures
• Create Soil Brush Effect in Photoshop
• Eye Catching Photoshop Textures and Backgrounds

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In this four-minute video quick tip, I’ll demonstrate how.

Download Zen-Coding

Other Viewing Options

• MP4 Version
• iTunes/Downloadable Version

Update

Within the comments below, I made a suggestion that it would be neat if we could also paste in the generic “lorem” text, like so:

div#header>p>lorem

This would generate something like so:

<div id="header">
	<p>
		Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
	</p>
</div>

Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to do it. But luckily, the author of Zen-Coding, Sergey, was able to help me. I recorded a sixty second screencast showing you how to allow for this. You can watch it here.

Additional Resources

• Demo Video with Current Features
• The Art of Zen Coding
• A New Way to Write HTML Code

• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for the best web development tutorials on the web.

Write a Plus Tutorial

Did you know that you can earn up to $600 for writing a PLUS tutorial and/or screencast for us? We’re looking for in depth and well-written tutorials on HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript. If you’re of the ability, please contact Jeffrey at nettuts@tutsplus.com.

Please note that actual compensation will be dependent upon the quality of the final tutorial and screencast.

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In today’s news round-up we have collected resources that showcase original, fresh and unique methods of designing a web site. Everyone will take some inspiration from these sites.

50 Superb 3D Flash websites You Must See!!!

This showcase consists of 50 3D Flash websites, that really stand out from crowd. Don’t think of this as just another list – you’ll find endless inspiration from these websites.

50 Superb 3D Flash websites You Must See!!!

WordPress as a CMS: 30 amazing examples

This post is a showcase of 30 examples of WordPress as a CMS, inspiring stuff.

WordPress as a CMS: 30 amazing examples

11 Most Popular Blog Design Styles (With Examples)

They’ve rounded up eleven common design patterns seen throughout blog designs on the web. But, just because they’re commonly seen doesn’t mean they aren’t unique and filled with plenty of individuality and creativity.

11 Most Popular Blog Design Styles (With Examples)

40+ Examples of Horizontal Scrolling Websites

Usually, most sites share the same set-up… In terms of scrolling down, that is.. Most often, they are browsed through vertically. This article focuses on the other variety, hrizontall scrolling. Amazingly, the result is more creative and unique. As a reader, you may find it more entertaining than the usual browsing.

40+ Examples of Horizontal Scrolling Websites

The Beautiful Art of Japanese Web Design

Here is a collection of some beautiful examples of japanese websites for your daily inspiration.

The Beautiful Art of Japanese Web Design

By Paul Andrew (Speckyboy and speckyboy@twitter).

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Gallery 1988 in California recently held an art show consisting completely of works inspired by the show LOST. If you’re a LOST fan, like I am, then you’ll love this. But even if you’re not a fan you can still appreciate the talent of the artists. Below are a few samples of the amazing artwork. Click on the link to see more.

lostundergroundartshow.blogspot.com

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Portfolio de Levan Kakbadze.

Previously on Fubiz

• Jeffrey Vanhoutte
• Sculptural Photography
• Tim Navis

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It’s always nice to go to a bookstore, grab a book of logo designs, sit down, inhale that new-book smell and absorb the goodness. But knowing where all of these designs, fonts and creative elements have come from is also good. In this article, we look at modern art movements and a series of diverse logos inspired by those movements. You may be surprised by how easily these colors, shapes and strokes can be adapted to logo design. Have a look, see how logo design works and maybe even draw inspiration for your own creativity.

Bauhaus

J. Schmidt, Bauhaus

In 1919, the Bauhaus school was founded in Weimar Germany. More of a lifestyle than a school, Bauhaus was based on the static rules of Art Deco. One basic idea of the Bauhaus was to remove everything superfluous and break a design down to its essential elements. This static minimalism changed everything and can still be found in design today, such as in the logos of Faboo Taboo and Axion.

Kandinsky, On White II.
Paul Klee, Castle and Sun.

From an artistic standpoint, Bauhaus shares elements with Russia’s constructiveness movement in its simplicity and boldness. According to the aesthetic, designs should be simple, daring, bold and uncomplicated. These designs stick out in your mind because of their lack of ornamentation and beautiful, brutal simplicity. Red and black are favored colors; some goofing around in Illustrator should yield the right washed-out shades. For inspiration, look at Wes Anderson’s films, especially The Royal Tenenbaums, which make extensive use of Bauhaus’ Futura font and have a modernist aesthetic.

Art Deco

A.M. Cassandre, Pivolo

Art Deco began parallel to Bauhaus in the 1920s but originated in Paris. Both schools share an elegance of form, sparsity of material and strength of color. Art Deco is distinguished for its stylized representation of shapes. Art Deco artists seemed to use the geometric rules of architecture. One of those artists was A. M. Cassandre, who became popular for his logo design for Yves Saint Laurent. His poster design Pivolo is highly representative of Art Deco. The aesthetic has been adopted by Miau and Machine for their corporate identities.

Tamara de Lempicka, The Musician.
Michael Kungl, Americana Deco Coffee.

Principal elements here are a celebration of geometry and a near-fetishization of the machine. Pay particular attention to big sweeping curves, which have a luxurious quality to them. Art Deco reached its nadir in the 1920s and shares that era’s opulence and wastefulness. Designs share the Bauhaus school’s fascination with form but celebrates form as a means to a “new” aesthetic, rather than trying to reconcile it with function. Art Deco’s most lasting influences can be found in grandiose architecture and industrial design, so look to New York City’s Rockefeller Center, Chicago’s Mather Tower and the paintings of Tamara de Lempicka.

Blaxploitation

Superfly poster

Blaxploitation was an American movie genre that had its heydey in the 1970s, with movies like Coffy, Foxy Brown and Shaft. Accompanied by funky music by such artists as Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield, the movies brought a new lifestyle to the black community, one that encouraged black empowerment and love, backed by soulful, funky beats. This culture can be found not just in movies but in music and fashion and even diverse logo designs, such as this one by Form.

The Sugar Hill and Cotton Comes to Harlem posters.

The blaxploitation aesthetic seen here was typical of 1970s poster design. It featured large sweeping letters that favored aesthetic and form over readability: a stark contrast to European designs of the same era, which favored minimalism and functionality. In your own designs, use bright lively colors for the base, and add a washed-out effect to deafen the colors and give it that vintage look.

Dadaism

Theo van Doesburg, Kleine Dada Soirée

Dadaism, also known as Dada, was founded in 1916 by diverse artists in Switzerland and Germany. The idea was to explicitly reject “conventional” art and genres. To put it bluntly: destroy and rebuild! This provocative aesthetic was a revolt against art by the artists themselves. This irony still exerts a big influence on design and art. These two logos evoke Dadaism in all respects by destroying something and rebuilding it completely new.

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain.

What is Dada? Dada is adad? Dada? Adadadaa? What is Dada? Dada is nonsense, an unstable, poorly defined morass of liberalism and irrationality. Dada is deconstruction run wild, and Dadaists do not worry about what is or is not Dada. Dadaists originally theorized that such a world that could descend into the mindless violence of World War I ought to have an art that reflected this state of irrationality. Is art not an imitation of life? What is life but death? Dada questioned all established convention and the very origins of design. Why is an eye an eye? What makes an eye? At what point do we stop recognizing an eye as an eye? Why is a “G” a “G” and a “6″ a “6″? This deconstruction and arduous critical examination is what yields a truly Dada result. But what is a result? Who is to say what your result is? I have to go lie down now.

Hard-Edge Painting

Frank Stella, Agbatana III

Hard-Edge painting was a contemporary art genre popular in the 1960s, best represented by the American artist Frank Stella. As the name implies, the genre is about planned, simple forms and stripes that contribute to an overall colorful picture. This polychromism and color intensity, as done by Frank Stella, can be found in diverse logo designs today, such as Optik: Split Stitch Division.

Richard Anuszkiewicz, Temple of the Radiant Yellow.
Theo van Doesburg, Counter-Composition V.

Harsh angles in art, as a semiotic shorthand for conflict, has existed for centuries, but only during the 20th century did it assume its status as an artistic tool in the new abstract painting schools. Stella, among others, adopted Hard-Edge as a reactionary style against east-coast America’s abstract expressionism in the 1960s. Where abstractionists preached free expression of emotion and impulse as an art, the hard-edgers practiced a highly impersonal, extremely purposeful style of painting. The alienation of the viewer forces a critical appraisal of the work, similar to Brecht’s “Verfremdungseffekt,” or distancing effect. To force such an effect, the designer must put design above purpose. Design for the sake of art is a nearly foreign concept because it violates the rule that corporate design must raise awareness of the brand. Design that puts art first alienates the consumer, who then approaches the work with a critical eye, as they would for a Hard-Edge painting.

Light Painting

Picasso, Vase of Flowers

Pablo Picasso and photographer Gjon Mili might be the first Light painters in history. Picasso’s self-portrait in 1949 opened new doors in the world of modern art. To create this special effect in this Light painting, Picasso chose a dark room and diverse light sources, along with the help of the longer exposure time of photo cameras. By moving the light, Picasso created mind-blowing images, which could serve as great inspiration for logos. Use lines side by side to build objects, letters and even words.

Cenci Goepel and Jens Warnecke, Untitled.
Vicki da Silva, Obama Hope at the End of the Tunnel.

Light painting is like graffiti and theater mashed up. The spirit is of street art, with the freedom to make anything a canvas. The ephemeral nature of the execution comes from performance art: while the process can be documented, it can never really be accurately recreated. The aesthetic elements are easy enough to emulate in Illustrator, but the real appeal comes from channeling the spirit of Light painting. While it would take some effort, animating a static logo would make it a real attention-getter.

African Art

Masson Magalie, Massais

Early African artists created beautiful sculptures, mostly out of wood. That canvas did them little service, because the climate and elements made the sculptures susceptible to termites and other vermin. This makes any African art older than 150 years very rare. The art was influenced by native African myths, celebrations and rituals. The world of ancestors and gods is kept alive in this artwork. That’s why artists mainly used masks and figures, which protected people against diseases and evil spirits. The artistic approach is deeply spiritual, and its forms can be applied to logos and corporate designs.

Fronty Aurelia, Au Marche.
Obote Jerome, African Tunda.

To channel the aesthetic of African tribal art, use heavy abstraction to create simple, effective shapes that catch the eye. Abstraction and bright colors are key. Conversely, you could scale back the abstraction and use natural, familiar shapes that evoke African art. Something as familiar as a woman’s profile can take on additional layers of meaning when they are given colors and patterns common to African culture.

Art Nouveau

Alphonse Mucha, Job

Art Nouveau is an artistic movement from the late-19th and early-20th century. The school originated in Europe, particularly Germany, where it was interpreted differently, depending on the area. Broad similarities remained, though: decoratively curved lines and floral ornamentation. Both are timeless elements that can be found in many designs today.

Aubrey Beardsley, The Peacock Skirt.
Alphonse Mucha, Bieres De La Meuse.

Art Nouveau at its peak was not merely a style but a way of life, encompassing architecture, clothing, painting, sculpture, even furniture. For your own logo, you can bring in the incredibly intricate details and textures and the thick full-bodied line work. The movement borrowed heavily from Japanese woodcut design in its ornamentation and execution, so the work of Hokusai and Utamaro will give you some thematic elements. Art Nouveau originated partially as a rejection of Gothic revivalism’s cluttered pattern work, so remember not to go overboard with your ornate floral decorations and patterns.

Cubism

Pablo Picasso, Figure au Corsage Rayé

Along with Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso might be one of the most popular modern artists in this genre, which he turned into a milestone in visual art at the beginning of the 20th century. Like Dada, Cubism was a particular critique of traditional art forms. Abstract perspectives were added, inspired by distant epochs and primitive cultures. Cubism was a new attempt to create harmony and unity in two dimensions. The “Cubist Coffee House” is obviously an heir to this movement.

Georges Braque, Woman With Guitar.
Juan Gris, Still Life with Fruit Dish and Mandolin.

Cubists were originally interested in the power that simple designs could exert in art, in contrast to Europe’s traditional ornamental art. Perhaps the most radical element to remain conscious of is the absence of “perspective.” One challenge will be to find your inspiration; Cubist Coffee mashes up a face with a coffee cup: an effective decision. One of the most controversial elements of early Cubism was some of the grotesque faces that evoked African masks. These exaggerated features were a hallmark of Cubism. Moreover, the interplay between elements—a core aspect of Synthetic Cubism—will further strengthen your logo’s association with this style. Your aim is a sort of detachedness in technique, resulting in grotesque, exaggerated forms.

Pop Art by Roy Lichtenstein

Hopeless and That’s the Way.

Aside from Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein was the most popular representative of the genre known as Pop Art, which originated in the 1980s. His style, reminiscent of classic newspaper comics, was truly groundbreaking. In the early 1960s, Lichtenstein began to experiment with this form, which unexpectedly exploded into a full-blown movement. The “lowbrow” style makes for a distinctive image and is a good way for a company to get attention.

Whaam and Drowning Girl.

Lichtenstein’s Pop Art was different from Warhol’s in that it celebrated the commercial designer and focused on art that we’re already familiar with and ignore. These are works we automatically recognize and take for granted. And just what are we as a society taking for granted? This critical examination of everyday art and design in the vein of Duchamp solicits more than a nod of recognition. The simple, fast and effective communication practiced by commercial designers and artists is strongly codified, and these logos channel these conscious and unconscious levels. A familiar “Click” logo is made more powerful and memorable by comic art’s ubiquity among consumers.

Pop Art by Andy Warhol

Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn.

No one has missed Andy Warhol’s polychromatic Marilyn Monroe portraits. For years, Warhol created variations on the theme that influenced not only art but the fashion world in innumerable ways. We can’t be surprised that this style is still an inspiration for simple, effective corporate designs.

Campbell’s Soup I and Zebra.

Warhol famously refused to analyze his own works in public. He suggested that any meaning of his work should be obvious from the outset. The Marilyn Diptych was originally thought to be a commentary on the life and death of the actress, though the more colorful “life” half is remembered better. Don’t just create simple color squares; choose instead subtle variations. Something as minor as a rounded corner or adjustment in shape can speak volumes to your audience, though it’s ultimately up to them to figure out what it means.

Tibetan Art

Chenrezig, Tibetan Thangka

Tibetan art is a great source of inspiration. The centuries-old culture of Tibet has its own icon, such as the Mudra hand gesture, which represents happiness and shows respect to the gods. The lotus flowers represent purity and fertility and represents also the “Chakra,” which consists of the seven elements in Tibetan myth. A semiotic approach to logo design implementing Tibetan designs and motifs will show your company’s deeper appreciation of spiritual matters.

Gordon Wiltsie, Buddhist Painting Inside the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet.
An Important Tibetan Thang.ka Depicting Bkra.Shis.Dpal.

Tibetan spiritualism is renowned worldwide, and you’d be remiss not to tap into this goldmine of deities, myths and symbols. Traditional Tibetan art is rife with angry gods and harsh brutal symbols, so reconcile it with modern Buddhist understanding by reducing the elements to their most recognizable aspects. For example, lotus flowers (representing purity) and the various Mudra hand gestures are extremely well-known elements of Buddhism and Tibet in particular. Use these elements as you would use Western symbols, to communicate your design.

Summary

• When creating your designs, look anywhere and everywhere for inspiration.
• The further you look from your industry, the more original your designs will be.
• Don’t be afraid of where you draw inspiration from. Paul Rand said it best: “Don’t try to be original. Try to be good.”
• Modern art can provide a lifetime’s worth of inspiration for design.
• For a more original design, draw on abstract elements from various images; such as the color from one image, line work from another and composition from yet another.

Other Resources

Literally hundreds of renowned movements fall under the umbrella of modern art. Learning about these movements is not just fun but brings new life and perspectives to your work.

• Wikipedia: Modern Art
  For an extensive list of modern art movements, start on Wikipedia.
• Pop Art Survey
  A Smashing Magazine survey of famous pop artists, and a great place to get started with reference material.
• Bauhaus Survey
  A Smashing Magazine survey of the Bauhaus movement, and a great place to get started with reference material
• Vital Tips for Effective Logo Design
  If you’re just getting started with logo design, this post is a great starting point to turn your favorite modern art piece into a quality logo.
• Taschen Books
  Unfortunately, not a whole lot of quality modern art is easily accessible online. Your best bet is to buy some cheap art books from your local bookstore. Taschen is a good publisher to start with if you’re having trouble at the bookstore.
• Google Images
  If you’re broke or don’t want to buy books, type in a movement you like into Google Images
• Modern Art Infographic
  Check out this awesome visual timeline of the origins of modern art.
• Modern Art Timeline
  An interactive timeline of modern art, with in-depth information on many movements and artists.

By the way…

Smashing Magazine is offering a student trainee position in Smashing Magazine’s Office in Freiburg, Germany. We are looking for a motivated trainee student who wants to learn about online publishing and editorial work. You can gather a first hand experience from one of the most successful blogs by working side by side with the Smashing Magazine’s editorial team. Details.

And for our German readers: Smashing Magazine sucht Unterstützung für die Redaktion — Stelle: (Online)-Redakteur m/w. Details.

About the Author

Moritz Schürmann is a contributing editor of Freshbump.com, Formatmag.com and Collect3d.com.

(al)

© Daniel Eckler for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 32 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: art, bauhaus

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By Obaid ur Rehman

This post contains 35 awesome examples of Digital Art and Manipulation. You may find numbers of posts and tutorials about photo manipulation, but we are confident that the list that we are going to provide you with will make you look twice at it.

We really appreciate the work of these brilliant designers who have created these art wonders by their hard work, imagination and creativity it will refresh your mind when you start browsing through it in detail. Please share your comments with us!

Beautiful Photo Manipulation Artworks

Requiem

Summer Experiments

Ultimo-segredo

Sex Slaves

Disintegration

Desejo

VIBE

Altered state of consciousness

I see decay all around me

We All Fall

Digital

Flame and Ice

End of summer

Forever without you

Souvenir

Don’t Smoke

Freedom

Image-Diary

Feel My Greatest Temptation III

Migration

TIME

O Harpista e O Maestro

Touch the Sky of Dreams

Twenty

SlashThree

Candy Clouds

Crescendo

Green

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cg-digital-art-tuts100.jpg (5 KB)

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#40 : Phoenix – Lisztomania

#39 : Hp Workstations Performance

#38 : 20 T-shirts Roundup

#37 : Window Phone

#36 : Jesus 2000

#35 : Live Curious by National Geographic

#34 : Hermès : Window Installation

#33 : Microsoft Sustainability

#32 : Pantural Cars Showreel

#31 : Caitlin Worthington

#30 : Plane Stupid : Polar Bear

#29 : Book Staircase

#28 : Polar Obsession

#27 : Eugenio Recuenco

#26 : Daniel Rozin

#25 : Google Chrome Features

#24 : Built to Wear Installation

#23 : Lakai Commercial

#22 : Business Card Design

#21 : National Geographic 2009

#20 : Copenhagen Zoo

#19 : Avatar Trailer

#18 : Crayon Portraits

#17 : Dreamers Project

#16 : The Mill Showreel 2010

#15 : Adidas – Star Wars Collection 2010

#14 : Dmitry Maximov

#13 : Unkle – Heaven

#12 : Google Japan

#11 : Shinichi Maruyama

#10 : Google Office

#9 : Empire Photoshoot

#8 : Where the Wild Things Are

#7 : Stargate Studios Reel

#6 : Alice in Wonderland Trailer

#5 : Looking into the Past

#4 : ABCs of Branding Posters

#3 : Octopus Pool Art

#2 : Invisible Man

#1 : Lego House

Previously on Fubiz

• Fubiz Broadcast #50
• Real Time Wall
• Medusateam Showreel

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Even the most unique blog designs usually follow, at least in part, some sort of predefined or established style. And there are plenty of design styles to choose from if you’re looking for inspiration. Whatever your personal style, there are design patterns out there that can be adapted to suit your own aesthetic ideal and the needs of your site. And often working within a predefined pattern can enhance your creativity by helping you focus.

Below we’ve rounded up eleven common design patterns seen throughout blog designs on the web. But just because they’re commonly seen doesn’t mean they aren’t unique and filled with plenty of individuality and creativity. Figuring out how to make your own unique mark on a widely-recognized style can prove to be a creative challenge for nearly any designer. Read on for inspiration and ideas for your next design projects.

1. Hand Drawn: A Relaxed Yet Artistic Style

Hand drawn blogs are all over the place. Some of these designs are very doodle-esque, while others are more like fine art. They can lend a more relaxed feeling to a blog’s design, as well as a healthy dose of creativity. One of the best parts of this style is that it’s so customizable. The illustrations used can really reflect the style of the owners or writers.

More on hand drawn design:

• 40 Free High Quality Hand-drawn Fonts
• 50 Beautiful Hand-Drawn Web Design

Low Impact Girl

Mark Forrester

SketchBlog

U.S.E. 19 Clothing

Blog Me Tender

Douglas Menezes

Hugs for Monsters

A Crayon’s Life

Biggest Apple

Demain J’arrete

Cog’nition

Kris Colvin

2. Grunge: Not Just Dirty

Grunge style has been around on the web for a few years now, and it’s still going strong. A couple of big trends in grunge design include minimalist grunge, where the theme is very minimal with the exception of the grunge elements, and more refined grunge that isn’t as messy as early incarnations. Again, this is a style that has tons of room for creativity and individual expression.

More: 100 Greatest Abstract and Grunge Fonts (Free)

CSS Religion

Brooklyn Slate Company

Triplux

Ritchie Linao

The Blizzards

Impresario One

Kevin Lucius

Gone Fishing

Manuel Romero

BienBienBien

3. Minimalist: Where Less is Definitely More

Minimalist designs can be some of the hardest to pull off well, despite their simplicity. When less is more, every single element becomes vitally important. Some of the hallmarks of miminalist design are lots of white space (or negative space), simple typography and few images.

More: 100+ Clean, Simple and Minimalist Website Designs

Moon Themes

Lounge4

Dolce Touch

Surfstation

Huwshimi

Guillermo Esteves

Design Intellection

ShareSomeCandy

Devlounge

Verbalized

4. Grid and Magazine-Style: Bringing Order to Chaos

Grid and magazine-type themes have also been around for a few years now. They’re excellent when you have a very information-heavy site (like many blogs) and add a sense of order and structure to a design. But they also leave plenty of room for creativity, as is illustrated in some of the designs below.

Champagne Warehouse

Edition – We The People

Juice

The Golden Pineapple Blog

CreativeDepart

Cynosura

Kineda

Reform & Revolution

Jason Santa Maria

Sushi & Robots

DFCKR

Post

5. Collage: Unique, Personalized Mashups

Collage styles are as varied as the blogs they style. Basically, these are designs that take a number of elements (often photographs or realistic illustrations) and combine them to form a background that might resemble a bulletin board or messy desk. It’s a unique style that allows for a lot of individual expression through what’s included in the collage.

Web Designer Wall

Baia dos Golfinhos

Blup!

Tarek Shalaby

Hatch

By Land, Sea or Air

The Klog – Koodoz Design

WorkAwesome

Fran Fernandez

Mesonprojekt

Designlab

Narfstuff

6. Gallery: For the More Visually-Inclined

Gallery blogs aren’t limited to just displaying images. Many blogs that focus mostly on text are using gallery layouts for their home pages, as a way to fit more information in a smaller space and leave things looking uniform and organized. Of course, there are plenty of sites out there using gallery layouts for what they were originally intended: photos, illustrations, and design work.

Foliotastic

Phototastic

Shocas.com

CHRISMDAY

Fernando Leite

Hugh Peachey Photography

IINSIGHT

Nocturn

Hell Biscuit

Wide Angled

7. Beautiful Typography: More Than Just Pretty Lettering

Excellent typography can really set a blog apart from its competitors. Not only is it more aesthetically pleasing, good typography also makes your blog easier to read.

Ocon Design

Rustin Jessen

EightHourDay

Elysium Burns

Iokon Media

Questionable Characters

The Personal Disquiet of Mark Boulton

The Art of Non-Conformity

Posh CSS

Der Gentleman

8. Awesome Textures and Patterns: Bringing Life to Otherwise Simple Designs

Unique combinations of textures and patterns can lead to a very creative and exceptionally beautiful theme. There are thousands of textures available out there, many free for personal or commercial use, so this style is largely accessible to all sorts of designers.

Barton Place Austin

Comfort Brothers

Mark Jardine

Think Design

Guns and Donuts

Brown Blog Films

TehCpeng.net

Henry Jones

Missy

David Hellmann

SimpleBits

9. Bold Artwork: More Formal Artistic Appeal

Bold illustrations and graphics can make a big impact on blog visitors. Bright colors, original illustrations, and vector artwork are hallmarks of these blogs.

Pirata London

Kallianos Diving Centre

Sushimonstr

The World of Silas Toball – Duirwaigh Studios

Tendencias do Design

WebScienceMan

Langgatan 3A

Blog What? Design

Badass Ideas

Brian Jeremy

10. Transparency: Adding Polish Without Weighing Things Down

Transparency can add an extra bit of polish to any blog design. When combined with a unique background, transparency creates a whole new level of elegance many blog designs lack. Some blogs use transparency throughout their designs, while others use it only in select locations to add a little extra flair.

Go Media Inc

Push The Brand

Darren Hoyt Dot Com

Mateus Neves

Level Opacity

LeBloe

Dezine Zync

Agenturblog

11. 3-D Designs: Simplified Trompe l’Oeil

The designs featured here use 3-D elements: folded paper, letterpress effects, and similar design elements. This is a newer trend in blog design (especially the letterpress effect) that has only started emerging in the past couple of years. It’s a beautiful style, and can be combined with a lot of other unique design elements (it’s often seen in collage and grunge designs, for example).

Matthew Achariam

Bitter-Coffee Studio

DAunion

Design Commission

Mike Matas Blog

Sanimani.com

Markup & Style Society

Cocoia Blog

31Three

Marcel Muller

Adii Rockstar

Is there any other interesting blog design trend you’ve spotted recently?

More related articles

• Retro and Vintage Web Design
• Beautiful and Colorful Blog Designs
• Minimalist Website Designs
• Hand-Drawn Web Design
• 100 Nice and Beautiful Blog Designs
• Beautiful and Enticing Blog Designs

About Author – Cameron Chapman is a professional Web and graphic designer with over 7 years of experience. She writes for a number of blogs, including her own, Cameron Chapman On Writing. She’s also the author of Internet Famous: A Practical Guide to Becoming an Online Celebrity.

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Learn Illustrator CS3 in 30 Days

This in-depth 30 day course from Vector Diary is one of the most useful courses out there. What’s more, it’s free!

Illustrator Beginner’s Series

IllustrationInfo’s Illustrator beginner’s series covers the most common tools with insights into their uses.

Adobe Illustrator Guides and Tutorials

The collection of tutorials and guides from klethegr8 include various hints and tips for all kinds of tools.

Beginner Adobe Illustrator Tutorials

Posts filed under the Illustrator tag on ShapeShed include some great introductions to most of the important tools and techniques, including blends, rounded edges and the pathfinder.

Illustrator CS4 Blob Brush

The newly added Blob Brush to Illustrator CS4 opens up doors to new opportunities. Layers Magazine explain more with this useful video tutorial.

Illustrator CS4 Gradients

Another new feature in CS4 was a bunch of new gradient editing capabilities. Here’s an overview of some of the new ways to create and tweak gradient fills in Illustrator.

Working with Illustrator Art Brushes

Brushes are an important tool in Illustrator, and come in various styles. This tutorial from Bittbox covers the Art brush, with great examples of how it can be used.

Illustrator Opacity Mask Basics

Opacity masks are one Illustrator feature that can really come in useful, particularly for those with versions prior to CS4 who don’t have access to the new gradient opacity options.

The Power and Ease of Patterns in Illustrator

The basic pattern in Adobe Illustrator isn’t anything to get excited about, but when combined with other Illustrator tools, it can result in some amazing effects.

Wacom Settings in Illustrator

Unsurprisingly, Adobe Illustrator really shines when used for creating illustrations, and no illustrator is complete without a Wacom tablet. Here’s some handy tips for fine tuning your settings.

Quickly Change Fills and Strokes

Illustrator’s fills and strokes often cause confusion to designers moving from Photoshop. This selection of tips and shortcuts from Vectips gives a clear understanding of how to quickly set them up.

Illustrator’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide

The Pen tool is the most important tool to master in Adobe Illustrator, and can unfortunately take quite a lot of practicing to master. Arm yourself with this great insight and knowledge of how it works.

A Comprehensive Guide to the Pathfinder Panel

The Pathfinder is also a crucial weapon to master in Illustrator. It’s used in almost every Illustrator project you’ll work on, so it’s quite useful to learn how it works.

Tips for Working with the Gradient Mesh Tool In Illustrator

Gradient Mesh is actually one tool I still need to wrap my head around, but once mastered it can seriously take your Illustrations to the next level with the ability to create photo-realistic artwork.

Illustrator’s Blend Tool: A Comprehensive Guide

The blend tool is one of Illustrator’s most powerful features. This in-depth post focuses entirely on its use, with a large selection of examples and diagrams.

Illustrator’s Type Tool: A Comprehensive Introduction

The Type Tool might not sound like it needs much introduction, but Illustrator also provides some extraordinary type related options. Here’s a handy overview.

A Comprehensive Guide: Illustrator’s Paintbrush Tool and Brush Panel

While the Art brush was covered in a previous tutorial, here’s a general overview of all four types of brushes in Illustrator, with detailed explanation of how to use each one.

The Basics of Clipping Paths and Opacity Masks

Just like masks in Photoshop, Illustrator uses masks to hide and show various parts of the artwork. Here’s an overview of Clipping and Opacity masks, and how they can be used in a real-world project.

Adobe Illustrator Shortcuts

These shortcuts aren’t just the keyboard alternatives to popular menu commands, they also open up new options that otherwise aren’t available.

Beginner Illustrator Tutorial – Create a Vector RSS Icon

If hands-on learning is more your thing, why not try this RSS icon tutorial? It covers many of the basic commands, plus touches on some advanced tools such as the Pathfinder and creating offset paths.

• Top Places to Find Quality Illustrator Tutorials Online
• How to Create a Crafts Inspired Vector Kids Illustration
• Create a Rolling Stones Inspired Tongue Illustration
• How to Design a Skate Deck with a Cool Skull Pattern
• Create a Cute Furry Vector Monster in Illustrator

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The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot

30 Examples of Beautiful Portfolio Designs: http://bit.ly/8SJsVd

10 Best iPhone Apps for Dog Lovers: http://bit.ly/8M7h5O

Very Easy Heroes Eclipse in Photoshop: http://bit.ly/bkuWq

Designing News Websites – http://bit.ly/6Bk93H /via @smashingmag

Transparent truck? http://bit.ly/8w5XSu

10 Ways Freelancing Has Changed in the Last Decade http://bit.ly/7ciq82 (via @FreelanceFolder)

The Science of White Space in Design: http://bit.ly/5AtUVr

Humorous Photography: http://bit.ly/51NblK

Understanding the Value of Constructive Discussion in the Design Community: http://bit.ly/4EtNQf

10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling: http://bit.ly/4AYMbb

Pictures of the decade: http://bit.ly/8jCord

VIDEO: McDonald’s Ad Produces Steam! http://ow.ly/QY7H (via @inspiredmag)

7 Must-See Web Design Videos and Presentations: http://bit.ly/7eRHjs

The Beautiful Art of Japanese Web Design: http://bit.ly/5jrl9v

A “Bystander’s Perspective” on the Design Community: http://bit.ly/6JvEMY

I’m Feeling Lucky: Google’s New Year Surprise – http://bit.ly/617afR (via @mashable)

Color Trends: Best Magazine Covers of 2009: http://bit.ly/6g9Ddq

A Colorful Clock With CSS & jQuery: http://bit.ly/6BBAUQ

This is brilliant. Well done @andyrutledge. Creativity is not Design (Test 2) http://j.mp/63hrZP (via @buildinternet)

3D Night Wallpapers: http://bit.ly/5M2fLO

Great Examples Of Coming Soon Pages And How To Create Yours: http://bit.ly/4G7jCK

Want more? No problem! Keep track of all our tweets by following us @DesignerDepot

If you find an exclusive RSS freebie on this feed or on the live WDD website, please use the following code to download it: r5IY2e

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