Design Inspiration

An Example of Excellent Branding: Enexis

Enexis is a branding brainchild of the branding and design powerhouse EdenSpiekermann. EdenSpiekermann was founded b the famous and ingenious Erik Spiekermann, co-author of Stop Stealing Sheep & Learn How Type Works. This book is considered a must-have for anyone...

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Should Pentagram Sue? Would it do any good?

I recently came across a case involving Pentagram, where one of their designs were blatantly ripped off by a famous clothing company Sean John, owned by the famous rap artist known as P Diddy. Sometimes you can argue that a work is inspired by someone else's work, and...

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Multiple Masks on One Layer in Photoshop

This is a great method to get great masks in Photoshop. You can actually have 2 masks on an image at the same time. You can use a vector mask and use a custom shape to mask out an image, creating a clean mask for sharp edges. The pixel mask is great for creating...

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Is There A Gap Between Your Ears? Lesson Not Learned

After being constantly attacked last week for ruining their logo, Gap decided to revert back to the old logo that everyone knows and loves. They admitted that is was a wrong step for the company, and that the customer comes first, which is great. They should come...

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Create a Dark and Gritty Effect in Photoshop

Create a Dark and Gritty Effect in Photoshop

First, take your image and duplicate the background layer, so you can go back to your original if you need to. Hide the background layer and work from your copy. Go into the channels panel and hold down the command key (CTRL on the PC) and click on the RGB channel to...

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The Future of Design and Advertising

I was asked a question yesterday that really got me thinking: What do you think the future will hold for design and advertising? What will be the next big platform to design for? I thought about this for a long time, and my guess is as good as yours. People are always...

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Winner Announced: Free Design Book Giveaway

First off, I want to thank everyone that participated for their invaluable comments for this post. There are many aspects to branding and corporate identity, and I think each comment touched on a different aspect. Branding is a vital part of marketing and building a...

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Design Book Giveaway: Comment for a chance to Win!

Contest Rules: It's simple- All you have to do is go to the Creative Beacon website and post a comment at the bottom of the giveaway announcement page to win. Post a comment about what you think is the most important aspect of branding or identity. Post your comments...

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Places to go for Creative Inspiration #9

X-RITE With this site, you take a color test to see if you are as good with color as you think you are. This site goes off the notion that a large number of people have color deficiencies. RECAVE This is a cool blog about all types of interesting artworks, including...

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Playing with Opacity and FX In Illustrator

Playing with Opacity and FX In Illustrator

Opacity has a lot of uses for different types of effects. We like to see certain things bleed through in some areas, while in others we want a shape or text to be a certain color. Recently, I was playing around with opacity in the appearance panel in Illustrator, and...

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Calling All Readers

I wanted to open the floor to fellow designers to request tutorials and how-to's. I post my own articles each day, but if any designers have any burning questions or would like to know how to do something in particular, how to approach a design, how to create a...

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Clients are Not Our Enemies

I love to read articles about design and art and how to be a better designer. I am knowledgeable, but I always think that there is something new or new insight that I can gain. With that being said, I began to notice a trend on multiple blogs and different sources...

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Tips to Make Your Designs Better

When reviewing your designs to make sure that you have created the best design and solution possible for your client, it is good to ask yourself a few questions. Does it flow well? Does your design have a good rhythm? The overall flow and movement of your design can...

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This Week’s Places to Go for Creative Inspiration

There are so many places to go to find inspiration. This week I have found some beautiful and fun illustration work, some photography and some great graphic design work that is truly inspiring. HYDRO SEVENTY FOUR CALLIGRAFFITI TEXTURE LOVERS AMI VITALE AUTOFOCUS 1000...

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Typography: Part One

There are many different ways to classify typefaces. They come in many different weights, widths, and contrasts, and have different x-heights, ascenders and descenders. They may also be set to different angles, such as an italic version, or a script typeface. This is...

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Is Education the Key to Design Success?

After going through school, and learning all of the basic information, design theory, receiving critiques, working an internship, finding jobs, etc., I have to wonder if going to school makes a difference. I know many design firms will only hire someone if they have a...

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