review
New guitar site – Guitar Design Reviews is born
Yes, the articles on Design Reviews I have written about guitars and guitar related design have been so very popular that I have decided to create the new, wonderful and very special Guitar Design Reviews website. That’s both .co.uk and .com folks. Since starting Design Reviews my favourite topic has been guitars really and it is good to have a dedicated domain for this area so I don’t bore the more general design/illustration bods who pass by here.
Guitar Design Reviews logo ideas
I’m still working on the look and design of Guitar Design Reviews, and there are some under-developed bits, such as the shop, but I’m quite happy at how far it has got to now with 4 pretty decent articles so far;
- The Harley Earl inspired tail-fin chrome guitar
- Jackson Surfcaster SC4 Guitar Review
- 5 all new original guitar headstock designs
- Fender Stratocaster and Aviator Sunglasses desktop wallpaper
And lots more articles coming up of course. As well as the above I have another 6 headstock designs done, 3 other guitar body designs done and I have material for about another 4 guitar reviews right now. That’s not bad going.
Update – I am up to approximately 25 published articles now. Also I have moved the guitar headstock articles from here to there!
Please head on over and have a look! Mark
Serif Drawplus – updates and new FREE version
Since I last wrote about Serif Drawplus on the blog there have been some major changes by the software company. First of all, Drawplus has been updated from X2, through X3 and now stands at version X4! Also and probably of more impact to the freebie loving computer users the downloadable free version has completely changed. Instead of making available an old version for free, Serif have decided to release a new up-to-date little brother kind of version call DrawPlus Starter Edition. I’ve seen and heard of quite a few other companies doing this recently, it seems to be a new trend for software developers.
This is bad and good news as you have probably guessed. The best things about the new Starter Edition in my opinion are;
- The new interface. It’s a lot less clunky and Windows 95 looking than the previous free version! The docked tabs seem more sensible in their layout. They are very very much like Adobe’s tabbed palettes. Some have more options and flexibility than Adobe’s, others less. The balance is good though.
- DrawPlus’s fills, transparency and brushes. All seem to have better, more accessible and immediate use than in Illustrator. Immediate because there’s so many more useful presets and when you drag the mouse you see the fill or transparency transform in real time. In Illustrator and older versions of Drawplus you could only see the reault after you let go of the mouse, so it was a guessing game with any kind of gradient.
- Effects. They work really nicely, like Adobe’s Styles but I like having material thickness and fathering right there on the palette itself. The Starter Edition has just a few of a massive range of materials and textures that is included in the full X4 version. Enough to test, quite a crafty ploy to make you feel like buying the full version!
- Tablet support. The brushes are highly configurable, and look great. I didn’t use a tablet in my test though, just the mouse.
Brush editing dialogue
The not so good things are of course the things that are unavailable to Starter Edition users. As well as having less fills, brushes etc available, some portions of the program are ghosted out so the options/facilities are unavailable. Notably these are;
- Export/publishing options
- Envelopes
- 3D projections and planes
- Blends
- Colour palette designer
- Flash animation
There are still lots of things available to make the program fully functional in many ways, it might be all you need! If you’ve never tried Drawplus yet love working with vector graphics it’s definately worth trying this new Starter Edition. I am really quite tempted to upgrade it to the full X4 version because other than the interface there are lots of other things in this new version of the program I would like to try out. I only own full version 6, which came out in 2001 according to Wikipedia! Also for work, it has CMYK and Pantone fill palettes now available. Mostly I’d like to try the 3D planes feature which could help create some great isometric designs and logos.
I’ll update you with my findings if I buy the X4 upgrade.
Recent logo designs
It’s been a long time since an update to my blog here, mainly because I got a day job that was partly as a blogger! You know what it’s like, if you do a job at work it’s hard to come home and do the same kind of thing in your spare time. Anyway, I’ve had the recent ‘good’ news of being made part-time, so I have much more time and inclination to work on Design Reviews. Please indulge me and have a look at some recent logo designs I have worked on. Of these only one was successfully adopted by a customer, and even that one I preferred an alternative design I’d made.
Starting with that the logo for WebProjectNW (North West). My favoured proposed logo followed by the actually adopted logo.
WebProjectNW, my favourite
WebProjectNW, customer adopted this logo
WebProjectNW is a pretty good site too, it links up web developers and people who want websites in North West England. It’s a bit like MyBuilder which I recently used to find an electrician to work on my house, with excellent results.
Moving onwards, some un-adopted logos that I made recently and think are quite fab;
Navartis
Lawrence Kent Photography
BITS logo and Wild at Heart logo
LuxyBid
Finally, for my good friend Mike over at FileQuake.com, a new logo for his wonderful download archive/reviews site. It might be getting restyled soon using one of the branding ideas below, watch that space!
FileQuake variations
Chewed pen photographs
Dear readers, we recently moved office, I’m talking about my day job here. I had to get my desk ready for transportation, so I got the parcel tape and started taping up all the drawers. I’ve been at this job for two months but, while taping up, I found a very thin upper drawer, a little stationery drawer. As you can see below I had uncovered the melancholic stressed-out remains of my predecessor.
chewed pens
What does this picture make you think about? Is it a little wabi sabi?
chewed pens, alternative angle
Please leave a note in the comments! If anyone wants I can upload the 3MPx original images.
Wabi Sabi part 2 – the beauty spot
A week ago I looked at Wabi-sabi, the beauty in imperfection. That was all about objects, things created by manufacturers, craftsmen and artists. This time I’m looking at people, more specifically; some of the most beautiful faces of the 20th century!
It really is a case of letting the pictures do the talking. But before I insert all the pictures into the post I’d better explain to the less observant and well practiced in ‘spot the difference’ that each pair of photos has one difference. Some obviously asymmetric element, an ‘imperfection’ perhaps, of course it’s a beauty spot. You can actually get one for yourself here in the UK, with prices starting at £75!!!
In chronological order let’s look at the beauty spot lineup.
Marlene Dietrich in 'Destry Rides Again'
Anne Francis as 'Honey West'
Lynsey De Paul
Now you might be confused looking at these beautiful women whether the beauty spot makes any difference at all, so I’ve thrown in a wild card. This might help you decide whether beauty is enhanced by the mark or not.
Beastly is in the eye of the beholder
Now I really want to encourage readers to make imperfections within their design work, whatever that may be. But never go the easy way of making imperfect things straight off the bat, first you have to achieve something you believe to be perfect and THEN give it some Wabi Sabi Sauce! It’s a sacrifice isn’t it?
Finally, in corporate work where you might need to use a © or a ® you might be able to use it as a beauty spot, but probably not… The next blog post won’t be about wabi-sabi principles, but I am going to re-visit this subject and it’s application in day to day logo and illustration work soon.
Wabi-Sabi, the beauty of imperfection
Isn’t being perfect a bit weird? Well it is for us humans, but for the things we covet and buy a lot of the stuff can possibly be ‘perfectly formed’. Shiny new iPod, shiny new BMW etc etc. That is until you get up to the very high end of things, oddly, where ‘hand made’, ‘craft’ and ‘characterful’ become major selling points. Now words like rustic, antique and crafted replace flawless, pristine and precision made.
Wabi-Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic which embraces objects of art with imperfections, roughness and asymmetry. It’s a kind of art I liked without even knowing there was a name for it, until now… More than once the Design Reviews blog has discussed eroded, aged, worn, halftoned and other ‘lo-fi’ effects in illustrator and vector graphics in general.
distressed, worn and reliced vs brand spanking new
Guitar enthusiasts have been buying into hand-made and artificially aged or ‘reliced’ guitars for quite a while now, look at the picture above. A relic will have quite a premium on the price tag! Just think of how many years you would have to own and play a guitar to make it look that used. Quote: “Fender’s Relic line accounts for more than 12% of its $5 million annual sales.” Another very popular market for aged and worn appearance is clothing; think of faded stonewashed jeans and distressed leather jackets. Of course don’t forget antiques either.
As I noted earlier the Wabi-Sabi idea can be put into your illustration and logo work quite easily now with the modern versions of illustrator which are less about pure lines and shapes than before. There’s a lot of vector tools that can cross over into areas that were once Photoshop only avenues.
I have a couple of other articles planned about Wabi-Sabi style graphics, beauty and design coming up which I think will be very interesting. And I hope to put up some polls for feedback too. Come back next week!
Three by Three (3×3) Illustration Annual No.5
I have in front of me the latest 3×3 Annual No. 5, published January 2009, it’s not even on their own website yet! The cover, as you can see is a splendid illustration of Björk.
3x3 Illustration Annual Number 5
Inside the book starts with an interview of Henning Wagenbreth, Artists/Educator of the year, who appears to be sitting in his back garden on a deck chair wearing a beach towel. I haven’t read it because I got the book for the pictures! The book has section of illustration in the following categories; advertising, animation, books, editorial, institutional, self promotion, sequential, 3D and unpublished. Finally there is a section of student submissions.
It’s all great stuff, nicely printed on decent paper and inspirational, sometimes. There is such a massive range of techniques and styles on show in the book and it’s all quite new so it’s a good indicator of up and coming or current fashionable illustration types. Next time I find myself with a blank document and a blank mind I’ll be dipping into this book for some kind of inspiration. I bought this at ‘Borders’ but you can probably get it lots of places; UK people can get it at Central Books. If you know where to get it on-line feel free to post a link!
Tunisian door arches
I recently took a vacation in Tunisia, over Christmas actually. There were many beautiful sights to see, most of them belonging to mother nature. What caught me eye though, wandering around the town of Hammamet, in contrast to the bright white walls in the illuminating sun were the brightly coloured arched doors. By far, blue doors were the favourite of the people it seems.
Twelve Tunisian doors
What an inspirational image on which to base some pop art or arches based illustration using your favourite graphics package. I’m working on some imagery based upon the above, but I’m not sure if it’s best to concentrate on just one door, they’re all so interesting!
Lightscribe – line printing and grayscale test
My previous article about Lightscribe has proved very popular, so here is an update with more information about the real practical use of Lightscribe labeling technology. In this test I’ve looked at the printing of fine detail (lines) at various angles (star shapes) and printed a grayscale test using swatches of gray from 10% to 100% in 10% increments. What more do you need? Let’s get a picture onto the stage and have a look at what results we have…
'Melody' brand gold Lightscribe disc
There you can see the result of the test. As it says, these are 96dpi images that should be on your screen at approximately life size for most people, except perhaps netbook users. If you are very interested in the quality and want a close up look of the print source file (300dpi TIF) and a scan of the disc done at 300dpi, then click the obvious links in this sentence!
What does it all mean? Looking at the picture above gives you a thousand words of meaning! But I must tell you how I created the source image and Lightscribed it so you know that it is a valid and useful test. I created the lines and shades test in Adobe Illustrator, obviously as vector/postscript data. The lines weights are measured in ‘points’ rather than something more commonplace like millimetres, just out of tradition, just as many programs use ‘points’ for type size nearly everyone is familiar with. The file set up as a 12cm square and I exported a greyscale TIF at 300dpi. This TIF was placed in the Lightscribe labelling program with no scaling/stretching applied, set to just crop off any bits that went over the edges. The disc image was burned using ‘Best’ mode.
The greyscale (or grayscale) test is very useful for getting images ready for print to Lightscribe. It maps the colours you see on screen, and would expect on paper if you printed to a decent postscript printer using the source greyscale or CMYK file in Illustrator, to what you get on the disc. I’d say the dynamic range from 0% to 100% in your graphics program is compressed to approximately 25% to 75%. The 0.5pt lines are printed very well but the 0.25pt lines show a bit of break up so I would use a minimum line width of 0.4pt on future Lightscribe disc projects. Also I’m quite pleased that although the tonal range is quite compressed the shades are quite distinct between every 10%, especially at the lighter end of the scale.
What do you think? Be my guest and post a comment.
Cheers, Mark
Serif DrawPlus – vector illustrate for free
Do you use Adobe Illustrator for all your vector artwork? I must say that I do, but I don’t always start by using Adobe Illustrator, nor Adobe anything at all.
Have you ever heard of or tried Serif Drawplus? Don’t worry, you can get a couple of earlier than current versions for FREE. But why would you look at it if you Adobe Illustrator on your machine? There are a number of reasons but the biggest reason for me is in roughing out an idea, putting your first ideas onto the screen. DrawPlus can do this very very quickly because of the number of basic shapes in it’s fly-out menu, and then also because these basic ‘primitives’ are intuitively customisable using the ‘node’ editing method. These aren’t like regular vector nodes at all (though you can edit in that way too). Just check out the screen cam video below to see how shapes are created and modified. Many of these shapes would take many many stages to make in Illustrator using the transform and pathfinder tools…
Now you can get these versions of Drawplus for FREE v4. and v6. v4 is free on the website and v6 is very frequently included on Magazine cover CDs here in the UK.
Other advantages of Serif DrawPlus; font selection/preview, colour schemes, gradient types & presets, interactive fill, transparency & perspective tools.
Then why choose Illustrator at all? For me, compared to these free versions of DrawPlus, Illustrator has;
- Dependable/predictable output files. I’ve worked in the printing industry for years and no-glitch postscript output is a must, Illustrator has always proved to be most compliant/reliable.
- Pantone colours. And correctly producing one or two colour and spot colour artwork.
- Accuracy. (and the smart guides)
- I like the pen tool better (long-term experience).
- Other tools not available in DrawPlus; scatter brushes, symbol sprayer, plugin filters
Looking at things another way; For me Illustrator is the best but that doesn’t mean other tools are not useful. A new art program can provide a little bit of inspiration in itself. In music it’s the same: So I have a selection of guitars! Specifically I have two electrics and two acoustics. All of them are great in their own way. (Les Paul, Strat, Acoustic & Spanish style). Picking up one or another gets your fingers working in a different way and, with the electric, using the amplifier in a different way.
If I can get my hands on a newer or the newest version I will be updating this blog with a review. The newest version at the time of writing is Serif DrawPlus X2. DrawPlus X2 from Serif, the vector-drawing and graphics software that puts the power of a professional design studio on your PC
Have you tried DrawPlus, what do you think? Leave a comment or two.