Stunningly Fresh Shirt Design process for Branded Baron Apparel

Here is a quick process of the "Stunningly Fresh" design for Branded Baron that is available in a unisex longsleeve and men's t-shirt. I started with a sketch and once I liked what I had I scanned it. From there I brought it into Adobe Illustrator and started tracing it and using the pathfinder to merge or subtract images. I added would copy and place the image on top of one another and arrange it to my liking. The color is not an important factor until the design is complete. Once, the whole phrase is complete I started deciding whether or not the whole word should be filled in with color or have the background(shirt) peeking through. I decided it would be a cool look if there was a gradient. So, I had to bring the image into photoshop and play with the gradient tool and change it into a bitmap, before I brought it back into illustrator to finalize it. After that, I brought the phrase back into illustrator and live traced it, so it becomes a vector image. I arranged it and played with the colors. I thought Gray on a Navy blue shirt would be a nice color combo. Branded Baron ended up using that for the t-shirts and Gray and Black for the long sleeves. That's a quick little insight of the process of "Stunningly Fresh."
-Joe
http://www.brandedbaron.com/product/stunningly-fresh-longsleeve

http://www.brandedbaron.com/product/stunningly-fresh

Amazing Bruce Lee Typography Illustration From Only His Quotes

I'm a Bruce Lee and he was a major influence of how I got into martial arts, so I enjoy seeing really cool images of him. I remember having created Bruce Lee stencil design that I had in my dorm room. I don't think I still have the file, but if I do I'll post it in this blog entry. Here's a very amazing illustration made up entirely of Bruce Lee quotes. It uses the background to fill in the shadows. I like the grungy background and the choice of colors. It's catches your eye especially having the text of his body in white. To check more from this artist, Devin Schoeffler go to http://www.ds9creations.com/site.php
-Joe

Idea Killers-Illustrative Comparisons

I thought this was a very funny image. I'm sure some of you out there relate to this. I know I've encountered at least one of them.
Enjoy.

Click on image to enlarge

Graphic Design Blender's 51 New Year resolutions for graphic & web designers

This is always good to do for the new year. It's best that you start your list right away, but if you want to wait until January 1st, then that wouldn't hurt either. Graphic Design Blender's 51 New Year Resolutions, do some of them apply to you? We all should try to improve our skills and ourselves as designers. There's a couple on items well maybe more than a couple that I would try asap.

Here's some:

1-Graphic Designers, Code your first web site
2-Web designers, Design your first set of business cards, a logo, or a poster
3-Design and Code your first wordpress theme
4-Learn the basics of Photoshop and Illustrator
5-Learn the principles of usability in any design setting.
6-Get a twitter account if you don’t have one. (If you have one, you can follow me too. I know–shameless plug.)
7-Try out some sort of new online social media.
8-If you freelance, raise your rates.
9-Find new and better ways to connect with clients (Google Voice, Google Wave, etc.)
10-Study Typography more in depth and apply it in your designs
11-Try a color scheme you have never even imagined
12-If you are a freelancer, try an office job. If you are in the office, try freelancing.
13-Get all the info you need from your client by asking the right questions
14-Start a blog or write for other blogs
15-Get involved in the online community
16-Learn the basics of XHTML and CSS (web designers: learn something new–perhaps CSS3 or HTML5)
17-Take up a new hobby that doesn’t involve design in any way
18-Exercise the left side of your brain more (give the right side of your brain a rest)
19-Learn the basics of copywriting
20-Update your portfolio to meet industry standards
21-If you don’t have an online portfolio, get one. If you don’t have a print portfolio, get one.
22-Update your resume
23-Do some volunteer design work
24-Use at least one project to defy all the rules you have ever learned


READ THE REST HERE
http://graphicdesignblender.com/new-years-resolution-graphic-and-web-designers

47 Tutorial For Creating Professional Poster & Ads Links

Here's a link to 47 tutorial links. Some of the tutorials that were posted are useful to creating nice effects for your designs. They can be inspiring.

http://www.presidiacreative.com/47-tutorials-for-creating-professional-posters-and-ads/

Jay WIse "Foolish Things" Music Video

Hello everyone,
Here is a music video from hip hop artist Jay Wise. He's a talented artist and the video is definitely creative. I was asked to submit some designs for the background, which I did do. There are two different diamonds I illustrated and some airbrshed speakers that were used. I submitted some splatter, but it's difficult to recognize. I also make an appearance as one of the "experts". Overall it's a creative and fun video and not your typical hip hop music video, which I feel is lacking in most videos of all genres. Enjoy.

Cassette Tape Skeletons

So, I came across this little gem at Designboom and saw they posted a blog I'd like to share. An artist by the name of Brian Dettmer made amazing skeletons from cassette tapes. I know some of are you are wondering what a cassette tape is, but they contained music that you would listen to on a cassette player or a walkman. lol Well they're ancient in this modern age of technology, so it's good to see they are used in some form. Here's some a small bit of text from designboom. "atlanta based artist brian dettmer creates intricate sculptural skeletons using altered cassette tapes.
dettmer began creating the pieces in 2005 as he was thinking about the demise of analog media in
the increasingly digital world."

http://www.briandettmer.com

Designboom Blog

VIDEO: Screenprinting Process

This is a very good useful video about screenprinting. It takes you through the whole process of how it works. Some companies have automatic machines, which pretty much takes the printer manually putting the ink on the shirt or what have you out.




Here is another video from Branded Baron http://www.brandedbaron.com This is a quick video of the manual printing for the design "Astrohop"(Available Here)