Look, I still Design occasionally for fun!

I keep getting weird inspiration. I LOVE the design of the cd packaging for Panic at the Disco’s Pretty. Odd. The old style with hand drawn lettering and illustration is very in right now, but it looks really cool, I think. About a year ago, I had the same thought and made a font by tracing some cool characters from some fonts with interesting glyphs.

However, Handoodles v1.0 suffered a few fatal flaws:

It was traced with too thick of a Sharpie
The glyphs were created too small
The font was not interesting enough

For v2.0 I fixed this. I worked LARGE, with 3 or four letters per page. I scanned them in at 600 dpi. Also, each letter was hand drawn, freehand. No tracing. Certainly, I borrowed elements from existing fonts and letterforms. I really just made it for my own enjoyment, but I thought it was so cool I wanted to show it off. So it is offered here, along with a few other fonts I designed last year.

Who needs skills? We have software

I’ve found more and more that there are tutorial sites that seem to be beneficial, but really, what’s the difference between that and a Paint-By-number book. Sure, you’re still the one painting the image (“creating” the piece of art) but you are not only simply colouring where they said to, you’re displaying NO creativity whatsoever. Even in a colouring book you have the option to colour it what you choose. Tutorials can be a great way to learn how to achieve an effect or use a tool, but replicating a pre-made piece of art should not be the end desire. Learning and growing should.

Just Creative Design – Who needs skills? We have software

Some Wallpaper Designs

So, I’ll say it; I’m a sucker for freebies. There are some incredible, high quality wallpapers and vector illustrations and fonts out there. I’ve downloaded quite a few and even used them in both my artwork and as inspiration.

The latter is what I’m getting at today. Though they are amazing and of incredible quality, I feel guilty using someone else’s work on my desktop or in my projects. After all, I’m and artist too, aren’t I? And as such, I should use my creativity to create something that brings me joy.

So I did.

And now, I share with you. I’ve scaled the original 1920×1200 Widescreen images to the 4 most common desktop monitor resolutions. You, of course, are more than welcome to scale them as you see fit. Just follow that whole Creative Commons thing and don’t sell them. Or, if you do, let me know so I, too, can reap the benefits of the money. We all like money 🙂

There are six so far. I’ll probably add more as I create more.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28721381@N08/sets/72157612918679960/

Oh, the HATS!

As a graphic designer, it is said you have to wear many hats. You must be able, first and foremost, to design. This is obvious. But, really, what comes first is communication. You must be able to communicate with the client to find out what they want. You must be able to communicate with the end consumer through your design so it says what it needs to say. Aside from a knowledge of design and communication, you must know software and troubleshooting should anything go wrong. Being a photographer helps in many cases as well as does being a copywriter and a proofreader if you have someone else writing copy. Also knowing web-design and code is growing more and more essential. And your work will be varied, so you should not focus simply on logo design, typography or flash animation but be good at each and able to adapt to any changing client needs. Then, if you’re a freelancer, you need to be able to handle invoices, pre-press, billing, time-management…

In short, I just wanted to write this post for an excuse to post pictures of my hats. I was cleaning my closet out and realized that very few of them see the light of day anymore. When am I wearing a morning suit so I have occasion to break out the top hat? Easter, maybe. So, once a year. My fedoras? I rarely wear suits out since I work everyday and don’t want to foot the dry cleaning bill for spilling a mocha down the front of my tuxedo (true story). So, in all their glory, here they are.

(Sorry for the shameless lead and the immature show-and-tell nature of this post.)