I was away on holiday a few weeks ago, and as much as it was cold, wet, rainy, windy (traditional British weather of course) I did manage to take what I considered to be reasonable photographs. This was fine until I got them off the camera and looked at them in full res. [...]]]>

I was away on holiday a few weeks ago, and as much as it was cold, wet, rainy, windy (traditional British weather of course) I did manage to take what I considered to be reasonable photographs. This was fine until I got them off the camera and looked at them in full res. And they looked AWFUL! I then set about tweaking the settings until I had a set of photos I could be pleased with.

This is all well and good, but then I started looking into image editing a bit more. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew alot could be achieved with photoshop in regards to manipulation but I had never really explored enough, after all i have always used photoshop for web design! A few hours and many sites later I was AMAZED with the results people had, with suprisingly little work. Take a look at these:

Please see idigitalemotion.com for information on this image

Please see 3dm3.com for information on this image.

These were just a couple of the examples I found, but two that jumped out at me. Seeing how these effects are created (and these are a couple of the simpler ones) makes me want to delve even deeper into photoshop.

But why wait until you get the images in photoshop? Why not be more creative whilst your out and about (or even at home!) TAKING the photgraphs. Here are a couple of links links to some great examples of this:

wambie.com
curiosidadesnanet.wordpress.com

If you really want to go all out and create some masterpieces, obviously alot more work is involved! After looking through these sites it has inspired me to maybe take my images that step further and create something unique, something I can be proud of. This is new territory for me, I have always used photshop for design purposes from school through to current day. Now it is time to explore the intensness of image editing it offers, and i’ll let you know how I get on!

Jason

P.S – After writing this post, I visited smashing magazine and found this which may be of interest, enjoy!
Smashing Magazine – Tilt Shift Photography

A small group of Internet software developers in New York are hoping to turn the world of online art on its head with a new suite of creative applications called Aviary.

Aviary will consist of an entire flock of bird-themed applications to help you perform any creative task, from manipulating images, creating unique patterns and drawing [...]]]>

A small group of Internet software developers in New York are hoping to turn the world of online art on its head with a new suite of creative applications called Aviary.

Aviary will consist of an entire flock of bird-themed applications to help you perform any creative task, from manipulating images, creating unique patterns and drawing vector graphics, right through to creating 3D models, audio mixing and even video editing.

It’s all one giant web-based RIA (Rich Internet Application) suite based on Adobe’s Flex platform. The guys developing the suite are keeping a blog which offers quite a few screenshots and even a few Flash videos of the applications in action.

My impressions based on these screenshots and videos is that the suite looks like a very slick toy. But toy it most certainly is – very bright and colourful, slightly Fisher Price!

However, as a demonstration of what is possible with RIAs it is nothing short of breathtaking. Sure, there are a few existing image manipulation tools and drawing tools knocking around, but this is an entire suite of webby-ajxay-flashy goodness – video editing… on the WEB?!

Looking deeper into the suite than just the creative toys, there seem to be some clever-sounding social media elements being built in, such as the ability to collaborate and share, and perhaps significantly, an online market place to trade your works of art.

I’m all for it! It’s not going to replace any serious professional tools we might use, but as a way of oiling the creative cogs and perhaps inspiring youngsters to try their hand at creating and sharing their work, it’s a great idea. And as an example of what is possible over the web these day, I’m very exited to see it in action!

I’m not the only one excited. Alan Mejer thinks Aviary promises to be one of the most exciting Web 2.0 apps yet. So what do you think Aviary promises? Will it gracefully soar to new heights and set new standards? Or will it come crashing to ground with bird-flu and gimmick stamped all over it?

BETA invites can be requested from the Aviary site.

At £6 a pop, you’ll be able to guarantee at least two minutes of office-based hilarity with this little gadget. Discovered courtesy of Gizmondo.

Many thanks for the recent comments: Vivien, Lorelle, Justin, David, mlankton, and mr diggles.

After a brief respite from blogging, today I return to my blogging action stations (my cheap desk from Office World) to report on how you could get a chunk of David Airey’s amazing $4,000 anniversary blog giveaway.

Despite the fact David is an Irishman living in Scotland and typically would pay for things in pounds [...]]]>

After a brief respite from blogging, today I return to my blogging action stations (my cheap desk from Office World) to report on how you could get a chunk of David Airey’s amazing $4,000 anniversary blog giveaway.

Despite the fact David is an Irishman living in Scotland and typically would pay for things in pounds and pence, I’ll forgive him for calculating his giveaway in dollars because, well, David’s just a bloody nice bloke.

It’s a testament to how popular David is to see the level of support from fellow bloggers who are bending over backwards to help with this giveaway. Even some very prominent a-listers such as Darren Rowse of ProBlogger and Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress are digging into their own pockets to help with the giveaway.

Some of the prizes that have really caught my eye include:

• Logo designs from the likes of David himself and Tara Roskell of Graphic Design Blog
• Custom WordPress theme design by Nate Whitehill
• Premium WordPress package by Brian Gardener
• One years hosting and setup on a Media Temple dedicated server, kindly donated by John Boardley of ilovetypography.com
• Free Behringer USB podcasting kit supplied by Fraser’s Affiliate Marketing Blog
• Blog review by Aaron Russell of miLienzo.com. The best till last

This is a mere fraction of what’s on offer so head over to David’s blog and see what other fantastic prizes are on offer. To win you simply need to subscribe to David’s feed or write an article about the competition, or both to increase your chances.

May I take this opportunity to congratulate David for a very successful year’s blogging. David’s blog was one of the first I stumbled across when I started reading design blogs back in February this year, and since then he’s never failed to deliver excellent articles and spur great discussion. My hat goes off to you Mr Airey.

Many thanks to all the people who left comments here over the last couple of weeks. I apologise I wasn’t around to respond to all comments individually, but a warm thanks all the same to: Vivien, David, Tara, Fahmishah, Paul, Johno, Justin and dt.

Are you looking for inspiration for your latest design project? Well, look no further: Stuart Brown from Modern Life talks about the basics of design, and how they form the foundation of inspiration. I particularly liked Stuarts take on simplicity:

“Effective design is never gimmicky. If you wish to design something [...]]]>

Back to the basics of design

Are you looking for inspiration for your latest design project? Well, look no further: Stuart Brown from Modern Life talks about the basics of design, and how they form the foundation of inspiration. I particularly liked Stuarts take on simplicity:

“Effective design is never gimmicky. If you wish to design something that’s easier to maintain, more legible, and more future-proof then simplicity is the key.”

The evolution of the magazine cover

Vivien from Inspiration Bit writes an excellent article looking at the history and evolution of magazine covers over the years. This article offers a fascinating glimpse at design trends over the years, in particular how the headline has played an increasingly dominate role over the decades.

“I was so amazed by the contrast, not only in images but also in the absence of all those catchy headlines on the old magazine cover… When did we start promote magazines, books, websites, blogs differently? What’s with our obsession with writing the eye-catching titles, when did that become so important?”

Designing by accident

Over on Johnson Banks’ Thought for the Week, Michael Johnson demonstrates some examples of projects where the inspiration seems to have happened by accident, and muses how this unintentional ‘mucking about’ can be explained in the design process.

“…realising how many happy accidents there have been makes me think that the mistakes, albeit unintentional, must just be part of the way we work.”

Many thanks for the recent comment Asgeir.

You can head over to the Designer Slash Model website for more behind the scenes videos and downloads.

Have [...]]]> Here’s a video I found over at Design Sojourn (one of my latest favourite blogs, check them out). If you’re an aspiring designer then sit down, click play and think outside the pyramid…

You can head over to the Designer Slash Model website for more behind the scenes videos and downloads.

Have a great weekend everybody!

You can’t design without some kind of artistic vision or ability. Many designers would make great artists. But is design art? This is one of those fascinating perpetual questions and is discussed in great detail over at Design Sojurn. Is good design is art?

“Design has intent and often has a functional purpose and [...]]]>

Is design art?

You can’t design without some kind of artistic vision or ability. Many designers would make great artists. But is design art? This is one of those fascinating perpetual questions and is discussed in great detail over at Design Sojurn. Is good design is art?

“Design has intent and often has a functional purpose and that is to solve a problem… It’s not to say that art has neither purpose nor meaning. No, it’s just that good art is defined under a different set of parameters.”

Can we have this link above the fold please? And this one?

Seeing websites with far too many links crammed above the fold on the homepage is one of my pet peeves. And quite a common one too. Milissa Tarquini of Boxes and Arrows writes an excellent article examining and deconstructing the myth of the fold.

“Don’t throw your best practices out the window, but stop cramming stuff above a certain pixel point. You’re not helping anyone. Open up your designs and give your users some visual breathing room. If your content is compelling enough your users will read it to the end.”

Protecting your creative work

All creative individuals, including bloggers, need to be aware of intellectual property rules and copyright laws. Yet, unless you have a doctorate in law you can be forgiven for finding the myriad rules and myths somewhat confusing. Charity from Design Adaptations summarises much of the terminology and lists many tools to help you protect your creative work.

“Protecting intellectual property is undoubtedly a concern for every designer, coder, musician, artist and writer… Understanding your rights, first of all, is essential to protecting them.”

Many thanks for the recent comments Charity and cormski.

Logo design is something all breeds of creative come into contact with over time. Personally, even though my interests stretch far across the multimedia horizon, there’s nothing I love to work on more than a logo design.

Creative Guy James Dempsey, has clearly had a lot of experience with designing logos [...]]]>

Designing a logo you can love

Logo design is something all breeds of creative come into contact with over time. Personally, even though my interests stretch far across the multimedia horizon, there’s nothing I love to work on more than a logo design.

Creative Guy James Dempsey, has clearly had a lot of experience with designing logos and the inevitable balancing act of “separating personal taste from good communication and branding”. Something I’m sure all designers can empathise with.

James lists nine rules for creating a logo you can live with and still get paid. It’s solid advice from James with one or two of his own unique ideas thrown in, such as presenting conceptual logos to the client in black and white only.

Creating a print style sheet

Creating a print style sheet for a WordPress theme is not particularly difficult, but very few themes include one. Try printing an article from your own site: does it print well or does the navigation take up half the page and the last few words of each line bleed of the edge?

If the latter, head over to Theme Playground and have a read of Ryan’s excellent step by step instructions for creating a print style sheet for WordPress.

The print stylesheet tells the page how to render during a print job, the same way the screen stylesheet tells the page how to render for viewing on a screen… By using a print stylesheet for our WordPress themes we can make the printout more attractive as well as more useful to the person printing a page of your site.

Tips for a creative resume

There is a wealth of written advice on how to create the best resume or curriculum vitae. Most of the time however, this advice is centred around selling yourself to the corporate employer.

Karl Neath from Warpspire offers some sound tips for creating a resume geared towards the creative industry.

I end up reading a lot of resumes, and I happen to have a pretty different view on what a resume should be. Remember, the creative industry (that’s us) isn’t bound by the chains of industry: dare to be original.

So what do you think at my first stab at speed-linking?

I was spurred on to experiment after reading David’s article on how speed-linking can help. I personally have mixed feelings: speed-linking is good for the blogger but not always great for the reader. That’s why I haven’t bombarded you with links – I’ve offered just a few select articles which I really think are worth checking out.

I intend to make a regular feature of this, so I’d love to hear what you think of these links?

Many thanks for the recent comments: 1ndigo, Paul, Justin and Alex.

As my blogging life has blossomed, I have come across more and more so-called ‘memes’. When I first heard the term I confess I didn’t really know what it meant. So I looked it up in the dictionary:

meme -noun A cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission [...]]]>

As my blogging life has blossomed, I have come across more and more so-called ‘memes’. When I first heard the term I confess I didn’t really know what it meant. So I looked it up in the dictionary:

meme -noun
A cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.

Which didn’t really clear things up. So when I was asked to provide five productivity tips, and then for eight random facts about me, I just did it. And it was fun.

The latest meme I’ve been tagged with is Marc Rapp’s idea on laws and rules. Marc wants tagees (I know that’s not a word, but I think the mainstream use of ‘meme’ requires it to be added to the dictionary) to supply “something with creative value… some small tidbit of information other creatives might have picked up through their professional experience”.

Now, I’ve been scratching my head with how to answer this one, because I honestly don’t know how to. I suppose I could dig around in Google and quote some model or other and pretend I know what I’m talking about. Or I could write a few paragraphs about ‘sod’s law‘ – something I do know a great deal about. But the more I think about it, the more I come to the following conclusion: there are no laws to design, and nor should there be any.

Design is not a science, so there can not and should not be any definitive rights and wrongs. People can make recommendations and best practice tips that they’ve picked up through years of experience, and these are worth learning if you’re young and inexperienced like me. But as soon as these start becoming laws and rules, limitations and constrictions are put in place, and worse still, people’s expectations are funnelled to a narrow perspective.

I suppose a fine example of my point would be the London 2012 logo. Without getting in to the debate of whether it’s any good or not, we can agree that the logo has broken every rule that was ever written about logo design. Most people are of the opinion that the logo sucks because it breaks all the rules. I personally defended the logo because it broke the rules – that’s what designers should do!

We can write a list of laws and rules, but I think this damages design. Why not mix it up and use four or five typefaces on one document? And what the hell is wrong with Comic Sans? Why is that colour combination incompatible? And why shouldn’t I use frames on a website?

I’m sure we could all quite easily answer these questions with some conviction as to why it is right to follow the established rules. It is more challenging to think about ways we could break the rules. But that is the challenge of the designer.

Now think about it, and discuss.

Are there any laws of design?

And should we follow them?

Many thanks to Marc for including me. I realise I’ve completely turned this ‘cultural item’ on its head, but I haven’t missed the point. It’s a great meme, and one I’d like to forward on. But please try and answer Marc’s original post, rather than my slightly mutilated take on it.

Tagging:

• Paul Enderson
• Asgeir Hoem
• Andrew Faulkner

As always, muchos gracias for the recent comments: Paul, Sera, Scot and David.

Young artists in Berlin are pushing the boundaries of graffiti art by getting rid of the spray paint and replacing it with torches, glow sticks and digital cameras.

Flickr user, lichtfaktor calls himself a Lightwriter and creates stunning photography by setting his camera to over-expose and ‘painting’ various lights into the shot. The result is a [...]]]>

Young artists in Berlin are pushing the boundaries of graffiti art by getting rid of the spray paint and replacing it with torches, glow sticks and digital cameras.

Flickr user, lichtfaktor calls himself a Lightwriter and creates stunning photography by setting his camera to over-expose and ‘painting’ various lights into the shot. The result is a modern and unique visual style which is reminiscent of urban graffiti but is clean and damages no-one else’s property.

Graffiti is one area of creativity that stirs emotions. When David Airey posted about the Kelburn Castle graffiti project opinions were very split. Certainly where I live lots of kids scribble their ugly and unimaginative tags over people’s garage doors and walls, which is nothing more than mindless vandalism. That said, I’ve also seen some wonderful murals around, and having a Banksy mural on the side of your house may even increase it’s value.

The innovative techniques lichtfaktor is applying to this urban art-form are exciting, imaginative and the results are impressive. It’s something I’d love to see a lot more of. Make sure you check out the rest of lichtfaktor’s work on Flickr.

Credit to Eye’s on Creativity for highlighting this one. Thanks for the recent comments: Randa, David, Vivienne, Paul, Justin and Tara.