In celebration of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser turning 5 years old, the Mozilla Creative Collective are hosting a poster design competition. The contest description states “The winning design will be featured on Mozilla websites and merchandise, and the winning artist will be highlighted on the Creative Collective homepage and the Mozilla Blog.” This is an amazing contest to showcase your talent!
The United States of America is dedicated to its blue collar heroes — that’s why we celebrate May Day in September.
Labor Day posters tend to be uninspired. If you’re advertising an upcoming holiday event, whether it’s a rally for immigration reform and universal health care, or just a company or community picnic, you want a design for your Labor Day poster that evokes the aesthetic Zeitgeist of International Labor’s struggle against Global Capital.
Warning: lots of raised fists and the color red ahead:
Green web design is on the rise and every designer needs the right resources to meet the demand. In June, we released a green website inspiration post entitled 15 Grandiose Green Website Designs and today we want to continue on that theme by showing you 66 awesome eco-friendly vectors from GraphicRiver.net, the latest website from the Envato Network (Tuts Plus, FreelanceSwitch and more). GraphicRiver.net is an online marketplace where designers can buy and sell layered Photoshop files, vectors, icons and more! Prices start at just $1 dollar.
When I heard that UPrinting.com is planning to offer round die cut business cards, I decided to scour the internet for some awesome design examples. I’ve always been a fan of round business cards, because they are so different from the rectangular cards that we are used to. Making an impression is often about differentiating yourself from the crowd and your business card is a good place to start.
Looking to learn more about viral marketing and videos? Then you should definitely look into the work of David Murdico’s creative agency Supercool Creative. With clients like IBM, FIFA and HateFiring.com, you may have seen some of their contagiously hilarious videos on youtube. We contacted David for a quick interview about his agency and to discuss the field of viral marketing.
Even if you haven’t heard of Firebrain, there is no doubt that you have seen their work with clients like Motown, Geffen Music, Dreamworks, Vans, Metallica, Toyo Tires and the list goes on! Because Firebrain often works with UPrinting for printing services, we were able to score a great interview with the company’s founder, Giulio Costanzo.
Looking to redesign your portfolio site or a new client site? Well consider a “Waterworld” type theme! I’ve always been a fan of the deep blue sea and this type of imagery can bring up a lot of great and positive emotions in a viewer. So whether your website is directly related to water or not you can still harness the power of mother nature to design a cool water inspired website. Check out the cool water themed websites below for some inspiration if you plan on tackling this theme for your next project and feel free to link to any other cool water heavy website designs you know of.
If you don’t have a portfolio site yet or are looking to create an easy to update, fast loading and slick looking portfolio than you should be using WordPress. Traditionally WordPress is a blogging content management system, but recently it has been used to be the back end for many cool types of sites such as portfolio sites for photographers and designers.
1. Picking the Perfect Background
When photographing your business cards, spending some time picking out a great background can go a long way compared to just shooting them on your scratched up work desk. Look for something that compliments your business cards color, texture and style. Just make sure that the background does not overpower the actual design. A busy background will distract the viewer from the beauty of your work. Try using a neutral color, a contrasting color that makes your design pop or keep the focus sharp on the design and blur out the background a bit.
Not everyone wants to be “Famous”, but being a more well-known designer DOES have its benefits. Not only will your work get more exposure, but you will make more money! Becoming a famous designer does not happen over night, but there are things you can do to quicken the process and if you are lucky you should be able to gain a lot of recognition if the things you do turn out well. So I wanted to do a 3 part series just going over some cool things designers could do if they want to not only become more apart of the design community, but also gain a little recognition and help others at the same time.
Many websites are going green and by this I mean green in their color, imagery and overall style. Many of the sites deal directly with the environment or nature in some way, but others simply enjoy the emotion green color and imagery inspire in a viewer. People often find green colors and imagery relaxing and refreshing and if wielded properly can add a lot to a website design. So I thought I would showcase some cool websites that thrive off of the color green or nature related imagery and themes. Enjoy and feel free to link to any cool “green” sites you know of.
There are more type designers than ever and the amount of fonts to choose from nowadays is mind boggling! So I decided it would be a good idea to put together a small sampling of some of the coolest font designs I have seen recently from the great designers of the Behance community. Stay tuned for more font related inspiration posts and let us know which font below is your favorite!
Getting into the world of graphic arts can be an exciting venture where you not only get to express your creative talent, but also earn a great living doing what you love to do. It is a very flexible career choice with many paths to go down and combinations to master. For example you could start off being a graphic designer working for a company, then learn web design in addition to graphic design and start your own design business from the comfort of your home or you could just earn extra money on the side being a freelance graphic artist if you already have another job you want to keep.
If you have used Photoshop you probably have dabbled in photo manipulation, which really is what Photoshop is meant for. Over the past year there have been more and more photo manipulations coming out every day, especially like the ones below. The basic elements most of these designs have is a single figure in the center as the focal point and then design elements wrapped around the person as if they were one and the same. This is probably the most popular photo manipulation trend right now. What do you guys think of this photo manipulation style?
I am always browsing graphic artwork galleries for exciting new artwork to inspire me, so I thought I would link to some of my favorite new graphic artwork from several design inspiration websites. The designs below vary in style and media greatly, some are photo manipulations, a few are more typography focused, several have 3d elements, but they are all great pieces of graphic art and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Any suggestions for future inspiration posts?
1. Express Your Creativity
Probably the most important benefit of being a graphic artist is the ability to express your creativity, while still earning a great living. Many artists are moving towards graphic design because it’s easier to make a living as a graphic designer than it is in areas such as fine art.
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