August 29, 2008 – 7:00 am
Back when I wrote the Quark for InDesign Users articles, I was approached by Markzware, a company that makes several Quark and InDesign plugins. I know the folks over at InDesign Secrets love their plugins, but I’ve never used any myself. Markzware kindly agreed to give me a copy of their plugin to try out and I thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts!
August 27, 2008 – 7:00 am
The design principle of economy is the embodiment of the quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
What is Economy?
The Principle of Economy is the idea that you use as much as you need to communicate the message. This does not mean that the design is minimalistic, but rather that it only contains the essential.
August 25, 2008 – 7:00 am
I went to the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach, CA on Friday. It is so inspiring to walk around all the art galleries and showcases.
In the main Festival of Arts area there was a printmaking demonstration going on when I was there. A young artist, Lindsay Buchman, was demonstrating her craft. She set up an inexpensive way for the ticket-holders to try out printmaking for themselves with a thin little Styrofoam square and some pencils. We “etched” our designs in the Styrofoam and then Lindsay inked the squares and placed them on one of her small presses for us to print.
In this article, you’ll also see some of the impressive works that were on display at the Festival.
August 22, 2008 – 7:00 am
There is so much color inspiration out there, but sometimes it’s hard to focus. This post features some color inspiration featuring retro-style designs that I found on Flickr.
August 20, 2008 – 7:00 am
A few months ago I saw some photorealistic vector images and I thought to myself – that’s cool! I don’t know why someone would do such a thing, but it amazed me that it was possible.
Please realize, this is far from a beginner guide and if you have only a little experience in vector drawing applications, sorry, then this article is not for you. I won’t go over every detail—there are steps that simply won’t be mentioned—so it’s not a complete step-by-step guide.
If you don’t have a graphics tablet (like a Wacom), then it’s going to take you twice as long to accomplish drawing these kinds of images. A mouse just isn’t precise nor fast enough.
You need to be fully competent with the Pen tool and have a complete understanding of using anchor points and anchor handles.
Got that? Ok, let’s get going!
August 18, 2008 – 7:00 am
Making a pattern in Illustrator is an excellent tutorial for beginners. Not only does it help you gain some familiarity with the Illustrator tools, patterns can also be applied across all kinds of different projects, including posters, websites and flyers. Today everyone can find a large numbers of patterns on the web, even pattern generators, but making your own pattern has a certain sense of satisfaction and of course, you get some great practice in with Illustrator.
There are a few approaches to making your own pattern.
1. Find some vector images, play around and make something you like.
2. Some fonts come with ornaments that can be useful. dafont.com is one resource if you don’t have professional fonts that include ornaments.
3. Drawing it yourself.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to do it yourself.
August 15, 2008 – 7:00 am
Give your design a personal touch. Think about adding some origami or note-folding to it!
See examples and get plenty of links to money folding, note folding, traditional origami, Toy Paper monsters, even Star Wars origami (and diagrams!), plus amazing paper art by the likes of Jen Stark, Peter Callesen and Richard Sweeney!
Will this inspire you to create something unique for your next design or ad campaign?
