Category: Inspiration

Web design inspiration and ideas, collections of the best web designs from around the web and various other design inspirations

Designer Tees! Wear your art on your sleeve

Who doesn’t like a little Tees action? Personally, original t-shirt designs catch my eye more than most graphic art that I see. Mainly because I can wear it. Functional art, oh baby! Another reason I take such staunch note of Tees, is due to the nature of print design. It’s an underrated source of artistic expression, probably due to it’s small scale presentation, whereas the grandiose display that most graphic art seems to get cast it in a more ‘respectable’ light. And for that, I call shenanigans!

It’s so much more than just a t-shirt, or a flyer, or whatever else the belittling label of choice that’s applied wants to call it. It’s art. And it’s a design field that restricts it’s artists in many ways. Size being one, that again, may get the piece a less than respectable branding, is another way that the print designers have been limited. They must capture their idea and encapsulate all their meaning in a much more compact piece. In a lot of graphic design, the large scale of the creation itself allows for all the intricacies that are weaved throughout the work to shine and convey their part. However, print designs must be able to work fully on a smaller scale that would cause most graphic designs to lose too much of their subtly for their piece to still be effective. So that’s a limitation that print designers deal with regularly and brilliantly.

Another problem they face, is the restricted use of colors. Large scale graphic designers love their gradients as they breathe such life and depth into an image, furthering the transmission of it’s message. But print designers have to step it up to tell everything in a much more succinct manner. The shading and depth must be crafted with a three color palette, on average, and that’s an accomplishment in my book. So why all the dismissal of designs made for tees and other print outlets? It doesn’t seem right that work that takes more skill and preparation than most, gets more ridicule than participation. Perhaps it’s a bit of jealousy rearing it’s ugly head from those who can’t, so they just critique!

Some examples of great t-shirt designs! Respect!

Irate Monkey

Artist: Dave who is really into whales and their bones a full time graphic designer and illustrator

Prom Night

Artist: Jeff Finley a graphic designer and part owner of Go Media

Smile

Artist: Filter017 was created by Enzo, Wen, and Nick since 2004. you can see there Flickr and blog

Ape Vs Monkey

Artist: Illustrator Nik Holmes has been in the picture making business since 2004 and in that time has racked up clients including Virgin, Microsoft, Orange and Mastercard. visit his blog and portfolio

Royal Blood

Chris Rushing graphic designer see his flickr for more cool designs.

Refraction Retraction

Artist: FullBleed, Since 2004 fullbleed has been a one man t-shirt army, printing over 70 tees.

Poetry Of Demise

Artist: Herman Lee, a 22 year old guy who just relocated back to Hong Kong from Toronto, Canada.

Oddica Octopus

Artist: Ray Frenden an illustrator from Greater Chicago “I Draw things” you can see his flickr

Inspiring Grunge Style Big Typography Posters

There is something special about these hand picked posters. A certain style that is unique and makes them stand out. Those are big typography posters, with a grunge edge and a retro touch. Typically with big fonts, straight lines, round curves, dark colors and grunge textures.

Scott Hansen:

   

   

Jonathan Haggard:

   

   

   

mrgraphicsguy:

   

Kasper Soeholt:

   

   

Joseph Wharton:

   

Rafael Bessa:

More:

   

   

Get More Typography Inspiration:

Hopefully now you have plenty of posters for inspirations… So, here is a link to collection of grunge tutorials and resources. Create you own and share the results!
I wish to see more from this style…

Illustration Artists Showcase and Inspiration – Part 1

I have a great interest in illustration and I am always looking for inspiration and new ideas and techniques that I could try and integrate in to my designs, looking at some of these illustrations you can see what makes them, whether it be blurring shapes, adding a light source or using photos in your illustrations it all has an effect on the final piece.

This collection is mixture of more traditional illustration to photography and illustration, when I look at illustrations like this I always think about how there made, such as paint splatters did the designer take a can of spray scan it in and manipulate it, stuff like that can add a whole new dimension to the illustration.

Take a look at this web site to see some beautiful designs Cool Showcase.

I have added some of the more well known illustrators in to the list to show there work with other not so well know illustrators…its all good and there all very talented.

Other Blog illustration collections

So you want to see more illustrations well check out some of the other collections that people have made

Interesting reading material and Tutorials

What to know more or brush up on some skills to help create amazing illustrations check out some of the resources below

Computer arts magazine illustration tutorials

Computer arts magazine is one of the best sources for keeping up to date with skills check out some of there useful tutorials>

  • Anatomy illustrated – The essential concepts of medical illustration. The fundamentals of digital pen and ink techniques in Illustrator
  • Draw a fantasy figure – Melissa Somerville uses drawing and inking techniques in Photoshop to create an enchanting anime-style fairy
  • Colour your fantasy figures – Refine your Photoshop tool skills to colour your characters and situate them in magical fantasy environments
  • Combining photography with hand-rendering – Create richer images by blending drawing, painting and fashion photography. Alexis West describes some invaluable techniques
  • Create Striking Portraits
  • Expressive lighting effects – Lighting effects are an effective way to add a detailed illustrative touch to a photo. Justin Maller demonstrates how to go about combining several lighting techniques
  • Vivid colour effects – Photoshop wizard Jort Braam combines abstract images with black and white photography, using gradients, blurs and Blending Modes to create a stunning composited image that’s bursting with colour and movement
  • The secrets of illustration – This month, 3D World’s panel of experts provides tips to help you produce 3D illustrations quicker and more flexibly: from the use of stock assets to vital Photoshop tricks

Off Topic – Design Competitions and Prizes

There are a few interesting things happening with in the design blogging community so why not show your support by checking some of them out.

  1. Styletime Blog action day contest win some great design prizes by donating at least 1$ that will be given to the charity for poverty.
  2. Myinkblog is holding a great Big Typography poster competition with some great prizes so get your design head on for that one ill see you there.

Get web design ideas & inspiration from other designs – Brown

The aim of this post is to gain design inspiration and ideas from what others have already done, some times its best not to reinvent the wheel and see what others are doing to make there designs work.

Sometimes you can take an idea such as how the navigation looks or how the page has been separated in to different sections and build on this to produce your own variation or new concept.

I’ve managed to compile various websites that look particularly interesting and have certain design elements to get designers thinking about what they could include in there next design.

Points to consider:

  1. How the pages are split up, how the content is separated from other content e.g. a dashed line, change of colour
  2. How the navigation is structured and presented in the design.
  3. Colours that have been used in the designs

I’ve created Photoshop colour swatches of all the designs so if you feel that you want to play around with a certain colour you can download them here

I would be interested to know how other people analyse designs to get inspiration and what they look for Inperticular in a design, please leave a comment.

Most of these screens are based on a brown and earthy theme, most of the designs are not live sites and are just concepts, i thought it would be best to categorise any additional posts in this way to see how colours are used and what colours complement the designs.

Im not saying these designs are perfect and every ones a critic, but they have some cool design features that could be useful to any one wanting to get some good ideas.

All That Jazz


Info: View larger image | Designed by: cc-designs

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Dividing content with dashed lines, adding light sources to new sections to emphasise where new content starts
  2. Floral background adds interest as well as fading the background out in to solid colour.
  3. Making objects look like they are stacked on top of each other like paper with a slight dropdown.

Andrew Brown


Info: View larger image | Designed by: nextexile

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Realistic looking dirt with other features such as moss, others i can think of sand with shells.
  2. Leather textures with thread as well as dirt edges where grime collects.
  3. Metal, giving metal a shine makes it look more realistic and enchanting to look at.

Arnette


Info: View larger image | Designed by: cutwater55

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Water marks on paper, and textures on textures, hear a blotched tea bag effect.
  2. Grime on the under and on the edges of images makes them look more 3D and gives depth.
  3. Hand drawn elements add a whole new perspective to a design that is mixed with photographs.

Buzzul


Info: View larger image | Designed by: hyar

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Notice board effect with cork background and torn paper edges.
  2. Cutting out images and placing at random like news paper clippings can add more interest to certain designs, cloud also be used for a fashion site.

Cerro Azul

Info: View larger image | Designed by: timedeiros

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Clear dirt textures and add extra detail to suit the theme in this case tyre marks for the quad bike.
  2. Old metal plaque nailed to wood frame, slightly at an angle, gives the impression its all been held together.
  3. Tattered paper with the logo dropping down from the top of the screen.

Design Studio

Info: View larger image | Designed by: ahmedzahran

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Showing bare brick can help attract more interest.
  2. cello tape making the design look placed on the wall.
  3. Add more colour to the design wit certain logical stains.

Euro Com

Info: View larger image | Designed by: ecp-pro

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Crosshatched and a deep shade around a container can give the appearance of a texture and depth.
  2. Grainy backgrounds give really good interest instead of plain black.

Factory Four


Info: View larger image | Designed by: z1ppy

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Subtle patterned background.
  2. dashed lines, cut here as if it was paper or cardboard with grunge edges.
  3. torn corners and edges to add extra interest to images.

Fear Tox


Info: View larger image | Designed by: feartox

Interesting Design Features:

  1. small details can play a big part, and make a design alot more interestign to explore.
  2. Creating a unique yet easy to use navigation system to fit the design.
  3. Add depth, colour and flow with vector elements.

Junk Design

Info: View larger image | Designed by: amandhingra

Interesting Design Features:

  1. Photographs that compliment the style of the design making it more life like.
  2. Doodles and little pieces of work that is not necessarily the main focus. Get your scanner and your pencil and make your own.
  3. Again an interesting navigation yet simple for the user to follow, tear up some paper or use some ones brush.

The Colour Swatches

All Colour swatches were made with Adobe Kuler and you can download all the colour swatches in this post here [7kb]

Don’t know how to load the swatches in to Photoshop or illustrator learn on veerles blog

How do you analyse designs

I would be interested to know how other people analyse designs to get inspiration and what they look for Inperticular in a design, please leave a comment.

website design

Grand Designs – Graphic designers showcase – Rock Sound – pt2

This is the 2nd part of my latest post about the graphic designers in the music industry, if there is one thing that i have learned from reading these articles it is that you have to have a real passion for art and the history of art and culture to generate some of greatest ideas and designs.

Again i cant take any credit for these interviews and i strongly suggest you take a look at Rock Sound Magazine who interviewed these designers, and interview a new designer each month in the magazine.

Feel free to download the PDF files of the interviews that ive scanned in and im sure you will find it interesting and Knowledgeable as an insight in to what motivates these designers.

Download all PDF Interviews:

Grand Designs – Set 2 [Size 6.8mb]

Brian Ewing

Worked for bands such as Warped Tour, Taste of Chaos, Brand New, The Bouncing Souls, Converge, Elliot Smith, Fall Out Boy, Lifetime, Motion City Soundtrack, My Chemical Romance, Neurosis, Yeah Yeah Yeah and more.

Design wizard Brian Ewing takes a break from caffeine binge to tell Rock Sound about povery, porn and thinking like a 15 year ol boy.

Article Information

  • Web: brianewing.com
  • Interviewer: Rachel Kellehar
  • Rock Sound Issue: 106
  • Download PDF Interview: issue-106 [Right Click – Save As]

Interview Questions

  1. How did you get into design and illustration?
  2. Do you think a formal art education is necessary to become a designer?
  3. Are you self-employed?
  4. You seem obsessed with images of death, and fictional characters such as zombies and angels. What attracts you to those images?
  5. How did you get involved with the warped tour as their principle designer?
  6. How much artistic freedom are you granted?
  7. Have you ever gone on tour with the warped bands?
  8. Is there much interaction between you and the bands you design for?
  9. What programmes and tools do you work with?
  10. Whats the weirdest dseign brief youve ever been given?

Adam Wentworth

Worked for bands such as The Red Chord, Bloodhorse, Forced, In Theory, Lamb of God, Quips, Coheed and Cambria, Underoath, My Chemical Romance and more

Rock Sound meets freelance designer and bloodhorse guitarist Adam Wentworth to discuss how music and design are inherently intertwined.

Adam Wentworth

Article Information

Interview Questions

  1. What first Drew you towards art and design as a career?
  2. Do you think the internet has had an effect on the role of the record sleeve?
  3. Do you do all the artwork for your current band bloodhorse?
  4. When youre designing for other bands does the level of interaction between the band and yourself vary? for example, with the 12-inch picture disc you did for lamb of God?
  5. Is it quite different designing merchandise for bands?
  6. Iconography of a record sleeve?
  7. Do you have to stick to a bands prescribed style when designing merchandise?
  8. Describe your working process; are there any designers or artists you would say have influenced you?
  9. Whats your favourite piece of design?
  10. What advice do you have for aspiring illustrators and designers?

Jacob Bannon

Worked for bands such as Converge, Trap Them, Blacklisted, The Hope Conspiracy, As I Lay Dying, Modern Life Is War, Cave In, Curesed and more.

When hes not working on music Jocob Bannon is locked away working on his art. Rock Sound thought it was time to find out how the highly respected man of all crafts fits everything in.

Jacob Bannon

Article Information

  • Web: jacobbannon.com
  • Interviewer: Joe Watson
  • Rock Sound Issue: 111
  • Download PDF Interview: issue-111 [Right Click – Save As]

Interview Questions

  1. jacobbannon.com recently went online, was it a positive experience sifting through all of your old work and seeing how youve progressed as an artist or was it a web designers nightmare due to the volume of material?
  2. On the same subject, is there an early piece of work that you wish you could do again?
  3. With every converge release your accompanying artwork is almost as anticipated as the music; youve used work by derek hess and florian bertmer in the past, but not recently. Could you see anyone else taking on the duties in the future and whom would you feel safe handing it down to?
  4. You appear to have a great love and understanding of art history, which is important. Do you think that the current wave of designers are neglecting the past masters in favour of a copy of photoshop and set of splatter brushes?
  5. Do you ever regret sacrificing all of your time with design work, converge and deathwish inc, which is essentially for the benefit of other people, or is a regimented nine-to-five life style out of the queston for you?
  6. Its safe to say that youre a big inspiration for alot of artists. Do you feel flattered or angered when you see a piece of work that is obviously copying your your work or style?
  7. The cover of ‘Jane Doe’ has to be one of the most talked about hardcore covers of this decade and it has spawned hundreds of tatoos on fans. How does it make you feel to see something that youve created on someones body?
  8. You primarilly design for the heavy music community. Is it because that was the music that inspired you when you were first starting out, or is it because no other music genre inspires you to create the kind of visuals you are renowned for?

Dave House

Worked for bands such as Les Savy Fav, Enon, Paul Frank and more.

Rock Sound meets Les Savy Favs enigmatic frontman Tim Harrington to discuss art, illustration and the perils of being a ‘design whore’.

Dave House

Article Information

Interview Questions

  1. Did you design all the record sleeves for Les Savy Fav?
  2. Youve also designed for Enon as well. Did you do all of their sleeves?
  3. What are your favourite record sleeve designs?
  4. The ‘Inches’ Sleeve has a pretty interesting history, right?
  5. Your style is pretty diverse. Whats your favourite style or medium to work with?
  6. Regarding deadly squire, what is it about organic patterns that fascinate you?
  7. What advice do you have for young designers?

Stephen O’Malley

Worked for bands such as Earth, Sunn, Zyklon, Probot, Glorior Belli, Emperor, Ascend, Khanate, Boris, Southern Lord, Misanthropy Records and more

Steadfastly opposed to quick-fix design and photoshop botch jobs, legendary artist, Stephen O’Malley tells Rock Sound just how important a of expertise can be.

Stephen O'Malley

Article Information

  • Web: ideologic.org
  • Interviewer: Darren Taylor
  • Rock Sound Issue: 109
  • Download PDF Interview: issue-109 [Right Click – Save As]

Interview Questions

  1. What inspires you in your design work?
  2. How much interaction is there between yourself and the band youre creating artwork for?
  3. Have you ever done a piece of art for a band and theyve not liked it?
  4. I think alot of bands blow all their money on recording and forget about the artwork, which, in my opinion, is just as important for a record. Would you agree?
  5. Wahts the key to good typography then?
  6. So what advice would you give to aspiring young designers?
  7. What are you working on at the moment?

Storm Thorgerson

Worked for bands such as Biffy Clyro, Muse, The Cranberries, Audio Slave, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Mars Volta and more

Rock Sound meets the Godfather of record sleeve design, to discuss his seemingly inate ability to produce timelessly iconic imagery.

Storm Thorgerson

Article Information

Interview Questions

  1. How did you get into designing record sleeves?
  2. What do you think is the most important element to focus on when desiging for a band?
  3. What is your preferred media?
  4. How do you feel the internet has impacted upon the role of the record sleeve in modern day society?
  5. Will downloading spell the end the need for covers?
  6. Do you have a favourite sleeve among your own designs?
  7. What is the most surreal thing that youve ever done or created for a photoshoot?
  8. Your images are much admired for their pervasive sense of emotional and narrative depth. Is this your main goal?
  9. Do you have any advice for designers who wish to get in to design for the music industry?
  10. Do you do it for the love of it?

Download all PDF Interviews:

Grand Designs – Set 2 [Size 6.8mb]

I hope these posts have provided you with some good reading material that you may have not seen before due to not knowing about or reading Rock Sound magazine.