It’s a pattern I noticed with myself initially, and then noticed many creative people, when starting out, tend to focus on the things you see on the surface of someone’s work. And putting most of their energy towards that.

For instance I’ve had talented, aspiring illustrators ask me what software I use to draw digitally, or what types of brushes I use – because they like my style. Which is great, but almost nobody asks about the concepts I started from, or why I decided to go one way or the other. They don’t see that. And I, too, used to believe that the color palette and drawing technique is what defines your style – and it took me a long time to get past that idea and just start doing my own stuff, focusing on what’s underneath all that.

I’ve seen new designers (like myself, back when I started) subscribing to all the design magazines and reading them cover to cover, in search for the perfect tools, obsessing about whether to use Photoshop or Illustrator, reading about trends and colors of the year. And yet never quite getting design problems solved, because that would imply flexibility from a designer, and how can you be flexible when you insist on creating from within a box?

From the same category, I know of young film makers who believe that certain filming techniques or editing tools or high performing cameras will help them achieve a recognizable style – and therefore will make their work successful. But what they don’t see is that a powerful story can overcome the limitations of technology, if told right. And chances are, a short film with a good story but poor technique will be more appreciated than one that respects all the rules, is shot in HD and perfectly edited, but lacks meaning and emotion.

Is it possible that all this continuous research for the perfect technique is just procrastinating, because we are afraid to start experimenting and find out how good we actually are at something?

What do you think? Have you experienced that, too? Leave me a comment and tell me about it!

The post Why do we obsess about technique when starting a creative career? appeared first on Friday Illustrated.

12 years of improvement! I found a sketchbook from 2004 and decided to revisit a few of the drawings with my current skillset. I remember what I wanted to achieve at the time but couldn’t because I was struggling with volumes, gesture, and confidence in my linework. I always recommend this exercise to people who are struggling with art block so they can see how much their work has evolved, even if it’s just over the course of a few months – it really helps put your skills into perspective!

 

It’s pretty cool to notice the difference. I felt the need to share this, because I think it can be a nice motivation for anyone out there who wants to evolve as an artist. It’s proof that constant work and showing up everyday can achieve great results.

And I think overcoming art block is a big part of that, because everyone gets there sooner or later. The more you want to evolve and improve your work, the more likely it is that you’ll develop art block. I’ve been dealing with this myself (and I don’t even consider myself an artist, although I do enjoy doodling and illustrating every other day) and I can think of a number of reasons why you can get art block, but the question is “How do you overcome it?”. 

So I wrote to Loish, asking her to tell me more about how artists can overcome art block.

Loish: “I think it helps when artists realize how much progress they’ve made. Artists are often very hard on themselves and don’t realize how much they have improved over time because they are only looking at the flaws. There are many different types of art block but one of the most common types is the result of artists having insanely high expectations and not being able to meet them… making them anxious, stressed, and terrified of failure.

In that case, one way to overcome art block is to stop being so hard on oneself. Stop comparing their own art to professionals, stop beating themselves up when it doesn’t look perfect etc. Revisiting older work with improved skills really helps to see your artwork in the context of your own growth as an artist (so comparing you to yourself… not to other artists) and also helps focus on the positive – improvement!”

I couldn’t agree more, although it’s never easy. High expectations probably come hand in hand with one’s desire to evolve and learn. But it’s good to remember, when possible, that being hard on yourself and having high expectations can also hold you back.

I have found that sometimes, accepting the idea that your next work might be rubbish is what actually saves the day. Because when you accept that not everything you do has to be great, you take the pressure off. For me, that’s when my most popular illustrations got created. With me being tired of trying to achieve something great and instead just going “Let’s just draw something for fun, no commitment”. That’s when I’m at my most creative, because that’s when my limitations disappear.

If any of you have experienced something similar to art block, I’d be curious to know what you think. And if you have any tips for me, go ahead and leave a comment!

[If you want to get in touch with Loish, she can be found on her: website | blog | deviantART | facebook | twitter]

The post Evolving as an artist and overcoming art block appeared first on Friday Illustrated.

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PS: And if you do submit an illustration, let me know about it, I’d love to see what you come up with

I’m happy to be one of the illustrators on the “wall” myself, as I was eager to keep practising my skills for character (icon) design. I love experimenting with this flat, sharp style (I’m all about vector design lately) and what came out is a very balanced, symmetrical and lively colored illustration. I like it a lot.  Here it is:

The post Leave your mark on the Wall of Wally appeared first on Friday Illustrated.

UPDATE: You guys have gotten in touch with me to tell me the Pattern Library is currently down. Thanks for the notice, it seems that they are currently working on the platform, to make it better It will soon be up and running again!

The Pattern Library is a cool collection of patterns created by designers, for designers. It’s a fun experience going through them all and you can find all kinds of patterns there, from food to cats, furniture or geometric/abstract designs.

For each pattern you download you will get a small, tileable portion of it, very easy to multiply infinitely. You can use the patterns for free, with the condition that you quote and link back the designer.

I was curious to know the guys behind the project and find out more about it, so here is a quick interview with Claudio Guglieri, graphic designer and cofounder of The Pattern Library.

Before The Pattern Library, there was Meet the Ipsums and The Useless Web

Who is behind this project, Pattern Library, who are you guys?

We are two friends passionate about the internet! Tim Holman is a creative developer working for Wieden+Kennedy in NYC and I’m a Graphic Designer working for Fantasy Interactive in San Francisco. We have a long story of side projects on our back. Tim came up with some great ideas like The Useless Web and many other experiments you can check on his website. I love doing side projects as well so we try to collaborate as much as possible. Before The Pattern Library we did Meet the Ipsums, an ongoing archive or Ipsums.

How did you get the idea for starting this project?

The Pattern Library was the result of many brainstorm sessions and tests for couple of months. We debated and discussed many ideas and started the project as a typographic showcase and it evolved towards a showcase of patterns created by designers for designers. It’s our first collaborative project and we are overwhelmed by the participation so far.

How did you get the designers to submit their patterns?

We initially reached out to a core group of designers whose work we admire and follow and with that initial base it quickly expanded to many others.

So far our patterns have been used in sites like CNN, Fastcodesign or eBay

Are the patterns royalty-free, can they be used in any project? What are the conditions?

The conditions are as we detailed on the site. The patterns are free and available to use as long as the Author of the pattern is quoted and linked back.

Did you have many downloads, so far?

So far our patterns have been used in sites like CNN, Fastcodesign or eBay. We’ve seen some other examples like posters or backgrounds in apps.

The theme of the website is awesome – what’s the story there?

Thanks! It was coded from scratch by Tim Holman and designed by myself. We tried to keep it mega straight forward so I’m happy you like it and people are navigating it with no issues so far.

What do you hope to achieve, with this project, in the long term?

Well, there are no plans moving forward other than growing the gallery. Tim and I enjoy side projects and this has been so far a great experience.

Check out The Pattern Library and, it you’re feelin’ creative, go submit some patterns!

PS: Or, if you’re not in the mood for patterns, check out the guys’ latest experiment, a Chrome extension called Palettab that brings you daily inspiration with cool Google fonts and color palettes to match them with! It looks something like this:

The post The Pattern Library – Cool pattern designs free to use appeared first on Friday Illustrated.

It’s such an amateurish attitude from the page management, since they are representing a global brand

A fellow illustrator saw their post and contacted Cristiano Siqueira to let him know that his work had been used without permission. Siqueira says he hadn’t been approached for permission request at any moment and that he would have been happy to negotiate the use of the illustration, had he been asked first. “I think it’s such an amateurish attitude from the page management, since they are representing a global brand”, says the artist who, as soon as seeing Nestea’s Facebook post, left a comment to inform them that they don’t have authorisation to use his illustration. Up until this moment, there has been no reply from Nestle Venezuela, although (surprise, surprise) the status has been erased, in the meantime.

That makes me think, if a global brand gets away with it, why shouldn’t everybody else?

I don’t get it. So, someone happens to create work you appreciate, enjoys doing it and makes it seem effortless, then posts it online for everyone to see. In what universe does that give you the right to decide you have to use it, for personal or commercial purposes, without asking that person first? What gives you the right to believe that you can just take something that isn’t yours and use it, for free, in any context you want, even though that’s someone else’s hard work?  Would you like it if some guy off the street sees the shoes you’re wearing, loves them, so he decides to take them off your feet because he wants to take them for a walk too? You wouldn’t like that? Then stop using people’s work without asking for their permission first. It’s the same thing. And the surprising part is that this isn’t an obscure small business we’re talking about, like the beauty saloon from across the street or a print shop that makes cheap t-shirts and mugs. This is a global brand who hired a social media agency that hasn’t got the simplest, most basic understanding of the way things work. And who shouldn’t get away with something like this, otherwise a significant precedent will be created. You know, the kind of “If Nestle did it, why shouldn’t we?”.

The post Nestle takes illustration and uses it on their Facebook page without artist’s permission appeared first on Friday Illustrated.

First of all, how does Desinion work? You post two versions of your logo/illustration/layout or what have you, ask your question (like “Which looks better” or “Which package design would make you buy?”) and get as specific as you want, then wait. It will probably be seconds before you have your first reactions and, not before long, the comments might appear too. About a month ago, I posted two versions of an illustration and got over 1000 “opinions” (A/B picks) and quite a few comments that I found very useful.

So why would you use it? Well, it’s pretty cool that you’re able to see the statistics, like gender and age of the people who gave you their opinion, so you can see if they’re relevant to your target. For instance, if your client uses your design to sell chocolate to teen girls, you’ll find most relevant the box of “0-20 years old” and “girls”.

Works like a cheaper and faster focus group

Now, if you get the pro version, you get to see detailed stats, like the industry your audience works in and their position. You also get to download your stats as pdf reports and show them to the client/boss/decision maker of your project, in order to sustain your decision with solid arguments (works kinda like a focus group, only cheaper and faster).

You will also be able to create private debates, which is pretty cool, because you get to pick your audience and you don’t break any confidentiality clauses on your design contract.

Wanna know more? Go ahead and read the exclusive interview I did with the founder of Desinion, senior designer Chris Payne:

With Desinion, you basically created an efficient tool that helps designers get simple feedback on their work, to A/B test and see which version is better (and to my knowledge, there is no such platform around). How did this idea come to you?

The idea for Desinion came about when I was briefed to work on an illustration project alongside a fellow designer. We both received the same creative brief, but we were having a series of tense disagreements about which style of illustration would be more relevant and appealing to the audience. We constantly went back to the brief, however we still had different interpretations of what that meant: I believed that the target audience in question – mature and technical savvy – would react better to sharp, crisp and technical illustrations; whereas my colleague believed that the audience would react more positively to illustrations which were more playful, flat-styled, with rounded corners. Our two conflicting opinions caused unnecessary tension which emanated to the final client presentation, in which the client had to make a ‘gut feeling’ decision as to which was more suitable.

We then decided to print the two design options onto a piece of paper and carry out a quick straw poll by passing it around the office. This would help us to see which design style our colleagues thought would be better suited to the target audience, and although my design style came out on top, I remember thinking to myself that there must be a better way to evaluate and test design styles. This led me to start to think about creating something to rectify this extremely common problem in the design process.

I wanted to create something which would assist the process of design

I did my research to see what other design feedback sites existed, and found some amazing sites such as Dribbble, and Behance, which are a great source of inspiration for designers. As good as these sites are, I did think that their feedback section was generally too tame, almost too nice.

Most comments provided for the designs on show went along the lines of “Great work”, “Nice job”, “Love this”, and although these comments were fully deserved (as the work on these sites is of a very high standard), I wanted to create something which would be more direct, and that would be more beneficial to the designer. Something which would assist the process of design. Something interesting which would provide the designer and the decision-maker with metrics, comments and statistics on their work. Something which designers could use in their client presentations to either prove a point, back up their original hunch or show an interesting insight on their designs. And so, from that the idea for Desinion was born.

Why Desinion?

Coming up with a name for this thing was actually really difficult. It was easier to think of the idea! I settled on Desinion because it was a mixture of Design + Opinion – which is essentially what the site is about – showing designs and getting opinions.

Desinion = Design + Opinion

Did you put a lot of thought into it, from a business point of view, when you started Desinion? Or was it more of a “passion-product”?

It was easy to think up, as having been a designer for many years I am familiar with the design process and the process of giving and getting feedback on one or two design or illustration concepts. Once the initial idea ‘popped into my head’, I just took what real life experience I had when seeking feedback on my design concepts and put it online.

To be honest it still is a passion project. Yes, there’s a business side to it, but all the money that is made from the people who sign up to DesinionPro goes straight back into the product, to produce exciting and necessary new features, to help maintenance and to build the community. The number one priority is to build a great product that designers and illustrators will find extremely useful and love. While the pro version offers great benefits to the designer and also helps us invest in improvements faster, the key is and will always be building a great product.

The number one priority is to build a great product that designers and illustrators will find extremely useful and love

How much work was involved up to this point? How many people worked on it, for how long?

There has been a lot of work done on Desinion and there’s a lot more to come. We are going to be rolling out some exciting new features in the very near future – features that will take Desinion to a new level, and be extremely useful to both the designer and the decision maker.

Currently, it is just my myself and an exceptionally talented developer Alejandro Pedretti that works on Desinion. I also have a few trusted designer friends that I bounce idea off. Alejandro and I work really well together. I take care of Desinion’s direction and vision for the future, as well as designing everything (both roles and responsibilities are extremely exciting), and Alejandro carefully and thoughtfully develops the site, and well as advises me one technical limitations and keeps my feet on ther ground (i sometimes get overly ambitious and excited).

How many users do you have now?

We’ve just broken the 10,000 mark. But we get loads of new users each day.

The feedback of the users helps shape the future of Desinion

What was the general feedback from the users, so far?

We’ve had loads of feedback from many designers and design enthusiasts all over the world. We have also been monitoring twitter, facebook and other sites that have featured Desinion, and the responses and reactions that people have had to the product, and so far we are happy to say that it is proving to be a useful tool for designers. We take immense pride in the positive comments we see on social media, and that we receive via email. Similarly we evaluate and look to learn from the negative or doubting comments that we have seen.

We will always listen to feedback from Desinion users. Their needs and suggestions will help shape the future of Desinion. One casing point is that we saw a few comments saying that they liked Desinion, however they would like to give and get more context on the design concepts that they both upload and they offer opinions on, we learn from these comments from Desinion users and now, we are rolling out an exciting new feature that will allow for designers to offer more context on their designs, and people who offer their opinion on designer’s concepts to get more context on what they are opinionating on.

We have some super exciting new features and functionalities that both designers and decision makers will love

What are your expectations with this project, in the long run?

There’s a lot that we want to do. As I previous said, Desinion is just under 3 months old, and although we have seen early success, we are still very much in our infancy. We are watching and learning from our users all the time, and we have some super exciting new features and functionality that both designers and decision makers will love. These are in development as we speak, and I can’t wait for our exciting users and future users to access these new features.

We will continue to be innovative and build this product with the user always in mind. Currently Desinion offers designers the chance to test one design against another (very much like and A/B testing tool) and get a breakdown of statistics on what different demographics thought about each design – which is a great starting point, and extremely useful for designs and decision makers, however we want to grow the service beyond what it currently is, so there will be more ways to getting useful and constructive opinions, comments, feedback and statistics on your illustrations or design. We are in development with most of the new features and can’t wait to see and hear what the users of Desinion think to the future improvements.

Keep up with Desinion: website | facebook | twitter

PSSSST!

If you liked this interview on Desinion, come back this FRIDAY for a full-feature interview with Chris Payne! He will be telling stories about his career as art director and senior designer, as well as interesting things about his design and illustration projects.

The post Everything you wanted to know about Desinion appeared first on Friday Illustrated.

It’s an awesome feeling, because I’ve been following their section for years now and I’m a big fan of what’s going on there. What happens is basically designers send their desktop wallpaper designs in various resolutions, with a theme according to that particular month. Some of them get picked up and displayed every month, along with the designers’ name and link to their website. Anyone can then download the wallpapers for free, with or without calendar.

You can find mine right here, it’s called “December Owls” and you can download it in any resolution that fits your desktop (let me know what you think!).

P.S.: Here’s a quick preview!

See the preview below! Enjoy!

The post My December wallpaper has been featured in Smashing Magazine! appeared first on Friday Illustrated.

Four weeks ago, Romanian illustrator & graphic designer Paula Rusu initiated a very cool Facebook cover-campaign, one that went viral in a very short period of time. She did an illustration of presidential candidate Monica Macovei, alongside of a custom-designed portrait of everyone interested in supporting the candidate, and turned them into free individual Facebook covers. So far, more than 1000 covers were made.

I was overwhelmed with the extremely positive feedback

How did this start?

“I was already a volunteer in the Macovei campaign and I had already designed the main Macovei character plus twenty other icons for the website. Then, this one night while I was trying to fall asleep, this cover idea came up. I figured it would be the perfect answer for the everlasting “what’s in it for me?” question. If you would be willing to display a Monica Macovei support message on your cover, I would make a cute illustration of you supporting her. So basically before actually starting the project, I designed a cover for myself and posted it to one of the Facebook groups destined for the campaign and shared the idea and everybody loved it. So I went on with it and posted the message and was overwhelmed with the extremely positive feedback”, Paula says.

In just two weeks, she had personally hand designed about 120 characters, with 20-30 minutes spent on each. “The first thing I would do is check out the Facebook profile of whoever I had to design next. I’d note how their hair was, if they wore glasses or not, or if they had something specific and simple enough to put on their t-shirt”.

In the meantime, since the idea was starting to pick up (and take up a lot of time, as well), Paula teamed up with a programmer and they launched a Facebook app that would turn this into a system, allowing people to do their own custom covers and profile pics. She designed individual elements, such as various types of t-shirt, hair, accessories, glasses etc, that they uploaded as png files, and everyone could create their own character, download the image and use it on their profile.

I’m very glad I had the opportunity to illustrate for a presidential campaign as I believe it’s not something you get to stumble upon too often

I was curious about her expectations regarding this project, that she’s put so much time and effort in, and not in political terms, but in terms of her career, as an artist.

“I really didn’t think about the effects of this initiative when I started it. I just thought it was a cool project and that it would be very fun to work on. Like I previously said, I was extremely overwhelmed with all the positive feedback I got from people, as I didn’t expect it to get as big as it got. I’m very glad I had the opportunity to illustrate for a presidential campaign as I believe it’s not something you get to stumble upon too often. This alone would be enough to make me happy at this point. Whatever comes next, what can I say, bring it on”, she says.

Bring it on, then, and let’s see what she comes up with next, because I’m sure it’s gonna be something pretty cool!

The post Viral illustrated Facebook-covers for presidential campaign appeared first on Friday Illustrated.

I started doing Daily Doodles earlier this year, about seven months ago (thank God that my Instagram account keeps track). At the time I posted my first one, I don’t really remember researching the idea and seeing how so many other people implemented it. I just wanted to draw. And I knew this would help me improve my style naturally, in time, without having to work too hard for it. I’ve now reached Daily Doodle no. 106, which means I’ve been posting, on average, a doodle every other day, and I’m happy with the way I’ve evolved so far.

Here’s my first Daily Doodle ever, 7 months ago (left), and here’s my most recent one (right), posted yesterday. See how insanely different they are?

My first daily doodles started as something to do to keep from falling asleep, while my laptop sloooowly rendered my huge work files

There’s a funny thing about how it actually started. At the time, I had this big project for print (huge illustrated walls ) and I was working from my old laptop, a MacBook Air. And it took literally 5 to 10 minutes sometimes to render even the smallest modifications on the files I was working on. It was super frustrating, especially since I was working nights and this constant defocusing made my eyes close. Obviously, while waiting for my laptop to finish, I couldn’t use it at all, so I had to find something to keep from falling asleep at my desk.

So I would take a post-it and draw something silly with my ball pen. It wasn’t supposed to be posted anywhere, I was just fooling around. But then I got this idea of starting to post each and every doodle, to keep track of my everyday thoughts and try and become better.

No pressure, just fun

I liked the idea of turning into a daily exercise, just for fun, no commitment. It was never a challenge and I have my (many) skipping days (I certainly haven’t been posting every day). There’s no-pressure and that’s probably what kept me going and seeing it as something fun and silly I’m doing, instead of turning it into a must-do (that never works for me, btw).

I find that daily doodles are a good way to teach yourself to illustrate concepts

And if at first, all my daily doodles were the result of a quick 5-minutes break from work, now they sometimes take up to 30 minutes. Some are silly, rough sketches, others are really cool illustrations (rumor has it!). It depends on the day and on my mood. Sometimes I draw something while standing at my desk and having lunch or coffee, others I go to bed early and take all my pencils with me. Sometimes I draw cool, funny or creepy things I encounter, during my day, other times I just try to illustrate concepts (that’s also a very good exercise, I find, trying to do a visual on a given concept).

At the end of the day, Daily Doodle is how I relax

What’s particularly fun about doing the Daily Doodle is you get to shut down for a little while, during that time. It’s like meditation. You get your box of toys… erm, tools (which evolved from a lousy ball pen, to an entire arsenal of pencils, erasers, graphic pens, water-colour crayons, brush) and you’re somewhere else. For a few whole minutes, everything goes away and you’re experimenting with your techniques, tools, subjects and so on, letting your imagination fly. It’s pretty cool.

So don’t be shy, follow my Daily Doodle on Instagram! And feel free to let me know what you think of my doodles, in comments.

PS: Obviously, there’s a ridiculous amount of talented artists posting doodles everyday, out there! One of them is Sally Mao, whose daily doodles make me wanna lock myself inside my office for a few weeks and do nothing but practise on my drawing! She’s very good aaand… she will be my guest on this Friday’s awesome interview!

So stay around, don’t miss it

The post Why Daily Doodle is one of the best things I’ve started this year appeared first on Friday Illustrated.