For today’s post I thought I share one of my side projects that I’m working on. I had to design a cover for my family reunion. The theme is blended families and the color are gold and purple. Hope you Enjoy
This weekend I watched a movie called Sita Sings the Blues, directed by Nina Paley. The story is about Sita who is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband, Rama. I love this movie because it was narrated as both an ancient tragedy and modern comedy. The movie was a beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian story of Ramayana. I was inspired by the main character Sita and decided to create an illustration based on her.
On two separate occasions this weekend I came across my favorite artist Esperanza Spalding. While looking at retro poster books in Borders I came across the May issue of InStyle magazine where Esperanza was being featured. Then on Sunday, I listened to a live stream of her performing at The Roots Picnic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After listening to the performance and having been looking at retro posters, I was inspired to create a design that incorporated both. I isolated Esperanza using one of the images from the InStyle shoot. Looking at some of the retro posters I noticed that they were using simple geometric shapes. The image I chose of Esperanza was a perfect fit for the retro style because of those same shapes appearing on her clothing. The program that I used was Photoshop; I used the pen tool to make the triangle shape and lines. I then used the circle tool to create the background pattern. I hope you enjoy this poster as much as i did creating it. To check out her performance click here.
Here is the Retro inspired poster then the original photo…
Here are some examples of Retro Poster that inspired the look
Original works of Charlie Harper
Charley Harper was best known for his geometric images of wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations, especially birds and ladybugs. He has developed an immediately recognizable style.
While at my local Borders, I came across Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life. Inspired, I challenged myself to recreate one of his famous illustrations, the bird. What do you think?
One of my main inspirations when it comes to design on the web are infographics. Many designers have taken advantage of this and have found a way to get a lot of information across in a very entertaining way. Now, companies have caught on and are doing the same thing.
Battlefield 3
To practice my hand at this, I decided to try a new style. I have tried to blend an infographic with an ad for an upcoming video game. As you might notice, the info part is lacking, and that is because there really isn’t that much info on this game yet since it’s still about half a year away from release. Even still, I have managed to squeeze in the information available in a very simplistic way to a point where you might not even notice that I’m giving you information. For instance, look at the graphic and ask yourself what console is the game for? Also, when is the game coming out? Even more obvious, what kind of game do you think it is?
I’m awaiting more information so I can finish this infographic. As to what information I will update it with is up in the air. My aim is to do something different then what has been done. I hope DICE, the creators of the game get a chance to see this when it’s done.
Enjoy! As always, any comments are highly appreciated.
Hi everyone. The Creative Director and I recently had major tomato soup cravings. We often go to the Bistro 33 Restaurant at lunch to have a cup of their tasty soup. I found a photo online and have tried to recreate it using illustrator. The tools that I used were the pen, gradient, shape and 3D revolve effects tool. It took 4 tools to create the bowl of soup, pattern and background. It was quick, easy and efficient. I’m a minimalist and I try to use the least amount of tools when it comes to designing. How many tools do you often use when designing?
**Please note, the photo was taken from 101cookbooks.org.
Every designer, or creative individual for that matter knows the feeling. You’ve been staring at the computer screen for the last two hours having made no progress on your current project. Meet the virtual brick wall. I’m here to share some websites that inspire and help me get through my creative slumps. Enjoy!!
DesignWorkLife
More Design Please
FFFFOUND
Behance Network
Pinterest
…Yet I feel so speechless when I look at certain pictures. It is crazy to think a photo can make one feel so many emotions. I decided I wanted to add the happiness I feel when I look at the picture to the picture itself and in what better way to express happiness than by fireworks! Adding fireworks to any picture is amazingly easy.
First, pick the background picture and the image of fireworks. Try to pick ones that will compliment each other.
Next, open your background image in Photoshop and place the picture of your fireworks in it. Make sure your firework layer is above the background layer. Set the layer mode for your fireworks to either “lighten” or “screen”. I happen to use lighten. You’ll probably notice a couple of places where you need to delete parts of the fireworks. To do this, create a layer mask on the fireworks layer. Make sure the thumbnail of the layer mask (the white rectangle) is selected on the fireworks layer, select the brush tool, make sure the black color is selected and paint over the spots you need to delete.
This step is optional if your background image includes water. We are going to create a reflection of the fireworks in the water. Duplicate the firework layer, and go to edit → transform → flip vertical. The will flip the image upside down. Move the firework to where it should appear in the water. Now let’s make it look like it’s on the water by putting a filter on it. Go to filter → distort → ripple. Play with the settings until you think it looks best. Lastly, change the mode of the reflection layer to “screen”. And your image should look something like this:
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning how to add a little flare to your favorite images!
I have always thought is would be neat to turn an existing picture into something that looks like a drawing. After searching online, I found this photoshop tutorial, that showed me exactly how to accomplish this.
Instead of using the suggested portrait photo, I decided to use one of my favorite pictures I took while in Greece.
So, here’s the original picture I started with:
The next step was to apply a photocopy filter. This basically turned it black and white and made the lines more pronounced.
Then after applying more sketching effects, the picture became more like a drawing with a shading kind of presence in most areas which looked like this:
Next came the fun part, adding the color back in. This was done by applying an overlay to the topmost layer.
Now it really looks like a drawing or colorful sketch of the original picture. After doing a little bit more darkening and changing some saturation levels, the sky now has more shaded lines, and the small ripples in the water are more vivid.
Here’s the completed final version.
Is that a Picasso? Why yes, yes it is! Well, it’s my re-creation of Picasso’s Two Girls Reading. I’m not your typical art connoisseur, but there are some artists that I just love. In addition to loving Picasso, I have a large painting of Van Gogh’s Terrasse du Café le Soir, Place du forum, Arles hanging in my room.
I was drawn to re-create Two Girls Reading because of Picasso’s vivid color use and the abstract and un-realistic style that opposed the paintings of the renaissance, which used realism of the “cannon of proportions.”
I used Illustrator to do this. It was fun to design and gave me a more in-depth appreciation of the hard work that had gone into the original piece. All the fine details became very evident when I closely examined Picasso’s work and noticed the natural gradients created from the oil as the brush strokes were applied.
Here is the original for your reference.
I hope you enjoy this re-creation. And as always, I would love to hear what you think.
