Alec Rios

9 Inspirational Photographers

Alec Rios — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:03:02 +0000

I spent quite a while browsing the web to find portfolios to showcase here, and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. These nine photographers have incredible talent for capturing the beauty in their subjects. Along with inspiration, I’m sure the photographs here will also give you great respect for these artists. You can visit their portfolios by clicking on the appropriate name or photograph. I promise that all these portfolios are worth your time.

1. Nick Brandt

2. Koen Demuynck

3. Cole Rise

4. Frans Lanting

5. Eric Ryan Anderson

6. Jeremy Cowart

7. Alberto Oviedo

8. Denis Olivier

9. Tobias Zeising

All pictures are copyright of their respective owners.

5 Articles on Creativity

Alec Rios — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:11:22 +0000

I always enjoy learning about other people’s methods, tips, and opinions on creativity. It’s such an interesting subject that’s so open to interpretation. What does it mean exactly to be creative? How do I become more creative?

Here I’ve gathered a small list of blog articles about creativity, along with a link to one of mine. Each has different techniques and tips on raising your creativity, so go ahead and have a read.

How to Boost Your Creativity (Jacob Cass)
A well-organized article outlining many techniques to raise the level of your creativity-ometer.
9 Ways of Cultivating Creativity (Tina Su)
Ways to tap into your creativity and an explanation on its relationship with spirituality.
7 Easy Ways to Super-Charge Your Creativity (Ravi Vora)
Ravi offers 7 effective methods to “kick-start to your creative process.”
Two Words That Are Certain to Inspire Your Creativity Every Time (Ravi Vora)
Together they form the most though-provoking question you can ever ask yourself.
How to be Creative (Alec Rios)
An effective 10 step process to milk your brain of creative juices.

Do you know an article I didn’t include? What do you think about these? Scroll down to comment.

Doodles: Part 3

Alec Rios — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:06:38 +0000

Just another random doodle of mine…

Last year I had a project to do for my social studies class. We had to write and illustrate a cartoon describing all the events of the Civil War. We worked in partners, so I opted to work on the drawing portion of the assignment, of course, while my friend took care of the storyline, captions, and all that.

Hidden away in the dark abyss I call my junk drawer was a scratch sheet of paper I used to debate with myself about the type of people I was going to draw: realistic or cartoon-ish. Needless to say, I veered off and sketched out the capital building (irrelevant to project).

50 Killer Graphic Designs

Alec Rios — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:55:03 +0000

Here is the ultimate resource for graphic design inspiration.

I’ll kick it off with 50 incredible graphic design pieces for inspiration. All of them were handpicked from across the web to be showcased here, and I guarantee you’ll be inspired. Then I’ll wrap up today’s post with a list of 10 great resource websites. Don’t even try taking this all in during one sitting. I’d bookmark this if I were you.

Graphic Design Pieces (50)

Graphic Design Resources (10)

Doodles: Part 2

Alec Rios — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:24:41 +0000

Here’s another set of doodles I have lying around. I’m posting two of them today because they were done in the same sitting. They’re twins. I just can’t separate them.

Both of them exhibit some fancy form of my name. The first one is just a curly script with a lot of swirly elements filling in the white space. The second page is a simple blackletter variation with diagonal lines connecting the letters. Gotta love geometry.

I was just playing with typography here. No pencils, rulers, or other foreign objects were used. Just my handy dandy pen and my handy dandy hand. I drew them on lined paper so I kind of had guidelines, though.

More Creative Blog Designs

Alec Rios — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:37:24 +0000

Two weeks ago, I posted a small list of the Most Creative Blog Designs. Clearly, there are much more great designs out there in the blogosphere, so I thought it was time for another post.

In this edition is another list of extremely creative blog designs. Some of these have very intricate patterns, some are bursting with color, and some are just plain artistic. Let me know what you think.

1. Kulturbanause

2. Jordi Romkema

3. David Hellman

4. Jesus Rodriguez Velasco

5. sr28

6. Inspiredology

7. Cuoma

8. Elitist Snob

9. Laura Alter

10. Matt Brett

11. Photoshop Lady

12. SketchBlog

13. Abduzeedo

14. Basmati Tree

15. Big Sweater Design

Blog Updates

Alec Rios — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:22:59 +0000

I’ve made several small changes/additions to my blog in the past few days.

Usability

Featured Posts - Now there’s a small section in my sidebar to display a few display-worthy posts. When I find a new blog, something like this is the first thing I look for to determine how I feel about it. Before there was only a Recent Posts list, so this should help new readers make up their mind about me.
Recent Posts list fixed - A few days ago, I noticed several of my posts weren’t being displayed. After several re-installations and a very high level on my frustration-ometer, I realized it was a simple matter of ticking a checkbox in my admin panel.
Faster-loading images - Some of the images here were saved as jpg’s when they could be gif’s without any loss of quality. So just a few quick conversions and loading time might have decreased slightly.

Cosmetic

More “grunge” elements and Celtic-inspired decoration - I just added a few more tears, smudges, and splotches to the header. I also drew up a quick corner piece for the area between the content and the footer. It was duplicated and flipped to fit all for bottom corners (scroll down a little bit).
More background images - I added a few more background images while trying to keep the page load time down. There’s one for the h1 titles and the comment form. Leave a comment to check it out.

Why do you care about any of this?

With some of this stuff out of the way, you are now reading the blog of a more focused person. Now I’ll get back to posting some real articles.

A Month of Blogging

Alec Rios — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:16:10 +0000

It’s been a whole month since the first post on my blog. With a dramatic increase in visits and subscribers lately, I’m happy to say that AlecRios.com has grown nicely since then - along with my enthusiasm.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know that I’ve kept a pretty consistent posting schedule, and I plan to continue that. There’s already a couple of drafts sitting back here that I have ready to post. Mainly some pictures of my drawings and a showcase for some inspiration.

So thanks to everyone for supporting me this month. And to finish off today’s post, here are the most popular posts on my blog so far:

1. Most Creative Blog Designs - A list of very artistic and inspirational weblogs.

2. The Logo Process - A step-by-step journey through the making of my blog logo.

3. How to be Creative - An effective 10-step process to milk your brain of creative juices.

4. My Abstract Drawing - Just another drawing of mine.

5. Web Design in Simplest Terms - Making a website, explained as simple as humanly possible.

RSS Awareness Day

Alec Rios — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:42:32 +0000

Today is May 1st. That means today is the day for RSS users to get the word out there to non-RSS users. Don’t know what RSS is?

What is RSS?

Really Simple Syndication. This is a format for websites that update regularly (like a blog or news site) to deliver their new information directly to you. This means you can get news and other information from all your favorite sites quickly and efficiently without having to actually visit them. If there’s new content, it’ll be sent to you in an RSS document (called a feed). If there is no new content, it won’t be sent to you. Now that’s simple syndication, really.

If you’re more of a visual learner, watch this video by Common Craft and it’ll clarify what you just read, and also explain how to get feeds (how to subscribe).

Happy RSS Awareness Day.

Inspiring Feats of Typography

Alec Rios — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:54:32 +0000

Typography is the art of presenting text to convey a feeling, just like any other art. With the use of geometric forms and colors, you can use words to express more than what’s under it in the dictionary. A large portion of typography is getting the letters to flow together harmoniously. Every curve and corner adds to the feel of the entire image, making this a very precise art. Possibly an even more important aspect of typography is the coloring involved. A common goal is to make the letters look 3D, using appropriate shading and perspective. Then there are forms of splashes with 2D shapes and figures. Throw that on top of textures, decoration, and other background elements and you have yourself a piece of art.

Some artists just have a way with words. Without speaking, however.