It is amazing to see how much technology has changed form the 1980 until now. Now with CSS sprites, pixelated art and retro 80′s design coming back in style, I thought we would take a look at some retro games from the past. In this article we are going to look at some retro video game from the 80′s and 90′s of some games I played when I was younger.

Be sure to comment on some retro games you used to/still play.

Frogger (1981)

Pole Position (1982)

Dig Dug (1982)

Joust (1982)

Paperboy(1984)

Duck Hunt (1984)

Super Mario Brothers (1985)

Double Dragon (1987)

Mike Tysons Punch Out!! (1987)

Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off-Road (1989)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989)

Commander Keen (1990)

Joe & Mac Caveman Ninjas (1991)

Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

Road Rash (1991)

NBA Jam (1993)

Sim City 2000 (1993)

Kings Quest VI (1993)

Daytona USA (1993)

Grand Theft Auto (1997)

Age of Empires (1997)

So you have just graduated from school and want to get your name out in the design community? Even if you have been a designer and just want to get your name out there, here are some website and tips on what to do to become more well known.

Tips

#1: Practice with Tutorials

This isn’t so much a way to promote yourself. But people won’t notice your work if it isn’t very good, overdone or old. You can always become a better designer by continuing to practice your craft and trying new things. When I finished college, I knew what everything did in Photoshop for the most part, but I didn’t know much about how to create photo manipulations or creating 3D text, or being really creative with it. This is how I got into creating tutorials, I wanted to learn how to create new things. The important thing about being a designer is continuing to hone your skills and trying new things.

Some websites to look at tutorials are PSD Tuts+, Design Instruct, Tutorial9, among others, and of course we have tutorials here at Denis Designs.

#2: Keep Designing

Just because you design one awesome design, doesn’t mean people are going to start flocking to you. You need to continue designing and create your own style(s). The more designs you make the more people will see, but don’t replace quantity for quality. Make the work you put online count so people remember your work.

#3: Write a tutorial

If you feel comfortable about your design and writing skills and skills in different programs, try writing some tutorials. This will get your work out there, and it will help you reach out to the design community and make you a better designer. Most websites will also add a link to your website, portfolios or anything else you want.

If you have a website you can put tutorials on there (or if you have a blog), or you can send a preview of the work to pretty much any tutorial website to see if they will accept it.

Promote yourself with online portfolios

Promoting yourself on many websites is a great way to spread your work out so more people see it. Even if you have created your own website (which is recommended) you want to get as many people to see your work, starting with these websites.

Deviant Art

Deviant Art is an online gallery of artwork created by Scott Jarkoff, Matthew Stephens, and Angelo Sotira launched August of 2000. Anyone can sign up for a free account and put their work up online. You can promote all kinds of artwork by sharing it with other artists or sell prints and other products with your design on it.

Behance Network

Behance is another online gallery/portfolio site that lets you customize different pages of your portfolio, displaying images in groups, or by themselves. Since you need to apply to be accepted to Behance, your work will be presented in a professional manner along with other professionals.

Flickr

Flickr is a place designed to share your photos, but you can also put up your designs. Signing up is free, and because of the popularity and high volume that Flickr gets, your work has a real good chance of being looked at. You can also join groups of like-minded individuals to get your work seen even more. Like Deviant Art, you can take your images and create different products with them.

There are many other websites like Carbonmade, but these are the main ones that you will get the most traffic from.

Promote your portfolio and designs on social sites

Having a portfolio and having a place to show off your work is great, but you need to get people to see what you have done. Social sites are one way to promote your work.

Twitter

Twitter isn’t just a site to tell the world what you had for breakfast, or your latest random thought. Although this is how it started out, twitter has become a way to get news, hear about the latest and greatest thing. You can share links from you twitter account about your work or your portfolio, connect with other designers, and see other peoples work and design related news.

Facebook

Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, this website originally was created so that college students could connect to each other, but has become a social media hub for anyone who want to join (for free). You can connect to other designers by city, workplace, school, and region to show off your work and share your work with others.

Linkedin

Linkedin was founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 by Reid Hoffman. This site is more of a business-oriented social networking site where people can post their résumé, with their past and previous work, as well as their websites/portfolios. People can connect to others in their field, clients, potential clients, employers and employees. Employers can list jobs and search for potential employees, and users can search for jobs, people and businesses. Since it is free to sign up, it can’t hurt to get your name out for potential clients/employers.

Promotional websites

Digg

To sum it up, Digg is a place for people to share all kinds of information from anywhere on the Internet. Digg was launched in December of 2004, as an experiment in November of 2004 by Kevin Rose, Owen Byrne, Rob Gorodetzky, and Jay Adelson. Users can submit links and stories and comment and vote on others links and stories. If you submit an article/image/video and it gets enough “digs” (votes) it can get put on the front page for everyone to see.

Design Float

Design Float is like Digg for designers. It is a place for people to share information on design from all over the Internet in the form of links and articles. You can vote up different articles and the most popular ones will go to the front page. A similar website is Design Bump that is for designers and you can also vote up web pages.

Delicious

Delicious is a site where users can bookmark sites that are interesting to them and share them with other people and view sites that others have bookmarked. The most bookmarked sites can be viewed on the Delicious home page.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a website where you can “like” a website to give it more popularity. There is a Firefox add-on for where you can add a bar to your browser to like pages, share with people you are connected to, or stumble onto something new. If you put
something up that a lot of people like, it has to opportunity to get onto a lot of people screens through stumble.

These are a few basic ways to get your work seen by the design community, and to get your name out there. There are all kinds of websites and place to go to do this, but I have found these are some of the important places to go to get started.

Check out my latest tutorial from Design Instruct: A Guide to Creating 3D Text in Adobe Illustrator

It isn’t always necessary to use a 3D program to create 3D text — they’re expensive and overkill if you just occasionally use 3D elements. Adobe Illustrator is more than adequate in allowing us to create some 3D objects with some basic shading for our text. In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to make some 3D text using Adobe Illustrator, and also discuss techniques of shading the text to give it a clean, consistent, and stylized look.

WARNING: There is artistically tasteful nudity for the purpose of this tutorial.

Creating designs and graphics always produces attractive results. There may be digital painters who have never gone back to basics, who haven’t picked up a paintbrush or touched a canvas. The feel, texture and craftsmanship of creating an actual painting has been lost in this day and age, so for this post we have an award winning artist who describes in detail how it’s all done.

Step 1: Preparation

This painting took about two months to create. Most of the time involved waiting for the glazed layers on the woman’s body to settle, as well as letting the background and foreground objects dry.

I’m inspired by Surrealist painters like Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. Without heavily relying on their influence, I chose to paint a famous local scene near the sea here in Zhuhai, China and combine it with a classical nude figure. There are meanings behind the painting, but I’ll leave it for the viewer to work it out for themselves. Also, each picture was painted with a different hand…but that’s just showing off on my part!

Your setup will differ, but this was used to create the painting:

Step 2: Art Setup

• Pre-Primed Standard Cotton Canvas (This example used two 50x50cm canvases).
• Oil paints, Rembrandt or Van Gogh are recommended.
• Linseed Oil for thinning paints.
• Selection of brushes and palette knife.
• Soft pencil for sketching, ruler optional.
• Adjustable easel.

Followers of Italian Renaissance painters such as Michelangelo and Da Vinci know that Mathematics was heavily influenced their artwork. I used instruments such as protractors and rulers to get the correct angles and dimensions.

Further Reading

• How to make a Canvas
• Artist painting brushes
• Using oil paint
• Rene Magritte site
• Dali Gallery online

Step 3: Painting from Concept to Final

Firstly, make sure the canvas is “primed” which involves painting a layer of matt white paint on raw canvas and sandpapering off the paint bubbles. Note: Most bought canvases are already pre-primed and ready to go.

I think the most important stage of creating a painting is having the correct sketch as it will save time in the long run.

Step 4

Next, combine a layer of oil paint and thinner together and colour each section of the painting. Under painting of greens and blues give a painting more depth and is the start of a glazing technique.

Step 5

Focusing on the body I painted in muscles, veins and shadows. The next layer was painted on the sea, a muddy brown on top of the blue colour.

Step 6

The background was painted over with a wash of greys and white colours, the rocks at the back are more blended and have a sense of distance. At this stage the body colours are continually worked on, using a combination of whites, yellows and pinks.

Step 7

From this stage the background is already complete, my focus is on the body tones. The body colours are much too orange, however I’m using the effect of chiaroscuro by blending light into dark. Note the greens and blues can be seen in the under painting.

Step 8

The blocks in the foreground are complete using a mix of browns and paint smeared in with fingers. The body is nearly complete also, with more light added.

Step 9

The final finish is by adding the see-through red colour which gives shape to the missing figures, paint is applied thinly with a little linseed oil to allow the objects underneath to become visible.

Final Piece

I hope you liked this tutorial and feel free to leave a comment below. BTW These paintings are for sale and if you want the figure model’s number it will cost extra!

About the Artist

Born in the UK and now living in China, Giles Dawe is a full time painter who has displayed work in the UK, Europe and Asia. Upon graduating, he worked as a web designer and illustrator for news media corporations and Central Government.

His work has been featured in websites, magazines, galleries and is available for commissions.

His next exhibition called “Beautiful Melancholy” will be from 26 June to 12 July 2010 at:
Gallery by the Harbour, Level 2, Ocean Center, Harbour City, Canton Road, T.S.T. Kowloon, Hong Kong

This week’s roundup features some really awesome print and illustration articles and tutorials.

If you have something that you have created, be it a design piece or article that you would like me to take a look at, let me know (email me at info@denisdesigns.com) and it could make into one of the roundups.

Enjoy!

Here is a list of some really nice Illustrator based tutorials to help with your illustration as well as Illustrator techniques.
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If you are designing a booklet of any kind, this is the list you should look at, it has some great examples.
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Here is a great collections of portraits where the artist uses a lot of white space to make a really interesting composition.
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Here is a great collections of portraits where the artist uses a lot of white space to make a really interesting composition.
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This massive collection of game concept art features some really awesome work from some really talented artists.
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For all those people looking for a retro look, here is some great inspiration. This collection features some great real vintage beach post cards.
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This collection of poster feature all have black as a common element between them. These poster designs show the beauty that black can bring to a design.
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In this tutorial we are going to create a retro/grunge looking metal text using some basic Photoshop techniques as well as a texture. We are going to then finish off the image using another texture and a few other techniques to bring the whole image together.

You will Need:

Grungy Film Texture

Background Texture (First Image)

Step 1

Create a new 1200x1200px document in Photoshop and bring in your text/logo, and make sure it is set in black (The shorter amount of letters you use, the easier it will be).

Step 2

Create a new folder (Layer>New>Layer Set) and call it “Metal” This is where we are going to put all our pieces that will become metal.

Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), click and drag a dark gray box (#333333) so it covers some of the text/logo.

Step 3

Continue making different size and shaped boxes, one on each layer (Create a new layer with Ctrl+Shift+N, or going to Layer>New>Layer), so they cover the entire logo.

Now we are going to add some layer styles to each of the boxes. Go to Layer>Layer Style and click on Drop Shadow.

Next we are going to add an inner shadow.

Now add a Bevel and Emboss.

And finally add a Gradient Overlay.

Add these styles to each box we just created.

These layer styles will add an edge to the box as well as some shading to the inside to make each box stand out on its own. You should have come up with something that looks like a really boxy version of your logo, like I have below.

Step 4

Now to get our logo shape back, Ctrl and click on the original logo, which will make a marquee selection around it. Click on the “Metal” folder and go to Layer>Add Layer Mask>Revel Selection. This will add a mask to the folder and get rid of the extra metal parts that we had.

Step 5

Click on the “Metal” folder, and go to Layer>Merge Layer Set. This will turn all those layers in our folder into one layer.

Go to Layer>Layer Style and click on Bevel and Emboss. This will give an edge to the entire text like we had for the individual boxes.

Step 6

Make a new folder called “Rivets”. Create a new folder (Ctrl+Shift+N), using the Circular Marquee tool make a circle 6x6px and fill it with #999999.

Go into Layer>Layer Style>Drop Shadow.

Add a Bevel and Emboss

Also add a Gradient Overlay. This will give our rivet more of a shape to it.

Step 7

Duplicate the Rivet we just made with Ctrl+J and put as many as you would like throughout the logo, on the corners of the boxes.

Step 8

We are now going to add a texture to give the metal a little bit of inconsistency, for a little more realistic look. Go get the grungy film texture from Zen Textures.

Shrink the texture down until you get a section that you like. Now Ctrl and Click on the original black logo layer, to select it. Click on the texture layer and go to Layer>Add Layer Mask>Revel Selection. This will make the texture only show up on the logo. Change the blend mode to Soft
Light and change the opacity to 50%.

Step 9

Now we are going to go get our background texture (the first one) from Lost and Taken.

Open up the texture in Photoshop and go to Image>Rotate Canvas>90 degrees CCW. This will put the dark part of the texture at the bottom. Now Go to Image>Image Size, change the resolution to 72 pixels/inch and the height under Pixel Dimensions to 1200px.

Bring the texture into our document and put it just above the background layer.

Step 10

We are going to add a Pillow Emboss around the logo to make it look like it is sunk into the background. So first we need to duplicate the logo with Ctrl+J and move it below the other one. Double click on the Bevel and Emboss on the layer, this will open up the options.

Step 11

Using a paint splatter brush (Something like this brush from brusheezy) we are going to put some paint splatters like the one to the right of the logo.

Change the blend mode to Overlay and duplicate the layer with Ctrl+J.

Step 12

Now we are going to add some text below the logo in white. Add a drop shadow to it by going to Layer>Layer Style>Drop Shadow.

Step 13

To finish off the design, we are going to add a few small finishing touches. First, using the Square Marquee tool (M), change the feather to 50px, then click and drag a box around the entire document. Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N), go to Select>Inverse and fill with black. Change the blend mode to Overlay. This will give the image a subtle dark edge.

Step 14

Now we are going to make the middle of the document lighter. Click on the Gradient tool (G), and using a white to 0% opaque (gray and white checkered) gradient click from the middle out to the edge of the document. Drop the opacity down to 20%.

Step 15

Finally go to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient Map. Pick a yellow to purple gradient and check reverse. Drop the opacity to 20%.

Final

This week’s roundups are web design themed, with some inspirational articles, a list of google doodles, as well as a web design tutorial.

If you have something that you have created, be it a design piece or article that you would like me to take a look at, let me know (email me at info@denisdesigns.com) and it could make into one of the roundups.

Enjoy!

Illustrations in web design can give your website a more friendly as well as intresting look. Here is some great examples in use.
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The great thing about designing restaurant websites is that the theme can change dramatically from one to another depending on what they server or how fancy it is. Here are some examples the that round up all kinds from the elegant to the gritty ones.

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Here is an absolutely massive list of the Google doodles from 1998 to 2010. Its interesting to see how they have changes from using clip art looking images to some pretty complex images.

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Here is a list of 100 amazing WordPress themes. They are a great source of inspiration, as well as a great way to start out with a new blog, or find out how they work.
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Here is a list of 100 amazing WordPress themes. They are a great source of inspiration, as well as a great way to start out with a new blog, or find out how they work.
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To finish off our web themed weekly roundup we have a nice clean web layout tutorial.
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Be sure to check out my latest tutorial over at Design Instruct, where we will learn to create a space themed poster with text in Photoshop. (Link)

In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial, we are going to design a poster with space as its central theme. We’re also going to have a high emphasis on creating beautiful typography to match our theme. I will show you how to develop consistent lighting, re-coloring the scene to help set the mood, and many more Photoshop techniques. The tutorial’s final product is a poster/ad for a mythical TV show called “Space”. (Full image after the jump)

Web designing is a fusion of art and technology. There are 2 important factors that contribute to making awe-inspiring websites — the designer’s creativity and the web-designing tools. Creativity is driven by passion and inspiration. There are no hard and fast rules to govern this. However, the tools used for web designing can be chosen wisely, to make the entire process a breeze. The first step is to choose the right kind of computer or laptop. Here is a list of laptops that can be considered for web designing.

For Ultimate Clarity

The Acer Aspire 8930 Laptop is a Full HD screen device. Full HD or full high definition refers to the 1920 x 1080 pixels screen resolution. This indicates the high degree of clarity offered by the 18.4″ display of this laptop. Working on minute details will be comfortable and less straining to the eye. Apart from high clarity, this laptop can display vivid colours too. An Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53GHz processor, a 4GB RAM and an NVidia graphics processor, work in unison to deliver a laudable performance. Another noteworthy feature of this device is its HDMI port, which allows connecting to a bigger high definition television (LCD or plasma). So viewing is taken to a whole new level with this. Moreover, there are plenty of ports like USB and eSATA for connecting to peripherals like printers and scanners.

For Style and Performance

The Sony Vaio VPCEB1E0E/WI Notebook is a stylish laptop, which is powerful too. It has a 15.5″ screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. Although not full HD, this resolution is considered as high definition. However, it does offer good clarity levels and an extensive gamut of display colours. Sony Vaio laptops are known for their exquisite aesthetics, and this notebook is no exception. The new Intel Core i3-330M dual core 2.13GHz processor and the Intel HD graphics processor do complete justice to performance. Plus, the 3GB RAM that comes built in this notebook can be upgraded to 8GB for boosting performance. This device too is equipped with plenty of connectors for linking with peripherals.

For Portability and Performance

Large laptops, like the Acer Aspire 8930 are not very portable. The smaller netbooks can suit designers who travel a lot. However, one thing that needs to be noted is – netbooks are not as powerful as large laptops. Hence choosing the right one is very important. Nothing can beat the Acer Ferrari One range of netbooks when it comes to portability and power-packed performance. The 11.6″ Acer Ferrari One 200 netbook, offers a high definition resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels and a wide range of supported colours. An AMD Turion dual-core processor, a 4GB RAM and a powerful AMD graphics processor can set this mini laptop on fire. There are sufficient ports for connecting to peripherals too. The most interesting aspect of this device is its in-built ATI Eyefinity technology. This technology allows connecting 2 additional screens with this netbook, for displaying a single seamless view. All 3 screens are treated as a single entity. While this feature is of great use to gamers, it can also help web designers.

For Portability and Affordability

While those high-performance, high-end laptops can be a little expensive, there are those which offer slightly lower performance but high affordability. The Asus EEE PC 1005PR Netbook is an example. It is a 10.1″ screen netbook, which has an HD resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. It can display a large gamut of colours too. The Intel Atom N450 processor, which is exclusively designed for portability, is integrated within.
A 1GB RAM which can be expanded to 2GB is also present. The Intel GMA graphics is employed. The ports and connectors are sufficient enough for hooking-up with other devices. The biggest highlight here is the price tag. A very budget friendly netbook, the Asus EEE PC 1005PR can also meet day-to-day performance needs.

For that Extra View

The Lenovo W700DS Laptop is unique in that it has dual screens. The first is the main or primary display. The second, which is slightly smaller looks like an extension of the main display. Designers can use this laptop to get the big picture on the main screen, while zooming or focussing on a particular part, on the second screen. The primary screen has a 17-inch diagonal measure, and a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. The secondary
one measures 10.6″ diagonally with a lower resolution of 1280 x 760 pixels. A powerful Intel Quad Core 2.53GHz processor handles all tasks along with a 4GB RAM. The RAM can be expanded to 8GB for enhanced performance too. An NVidia GPU is employed for graphics processing. Ample connectors are present for interfacing with other devices as well.

For the MacBook Fans

Apple have always been trend-setters. The Apple MacBooks are high on calibre, performance and style. The MacBook Pro collection offers different types of laptops that meet different requirements. Those designers who work at their desks can opt for the 17” MacBook Pro. It offers a native resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels and supports millions of colours too. Internally it is driven by the powerful and speedy Intel Core i5 2.53GHz processor along with a maximum of 8GB RAM. The NVidia GeForce GT 330M graphics processor empowers this device to meet all kinds of visual challenges. There are ample number of connectors on-board too. Among these connectors, there is a special one called the mini-Display port which can be used with suitable adapters for offering VGA, HDMI, DVI and dual link DVI outputs. Coming to the battery life, this MacBook Pro promises almost 9 hours.

Designers looking for a more portable solution, can go for the 13.3” MacBook Pro, which presents a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels. Internal components include an Intel Core i3 2.4GHz processor, a maximum of 8GB of RAM and the NVidia GeForce 320M graphics processor. Sufficient connectors are present aboard as well. This device boasts a 10-hour life, which is quite ideal for travel.

For Power, Performance and High Customization

Dell laptops are known for their high degree of customisation. There are choices available for the processor, the operating system, the graphics processor, the RAM, the hard drive and even the screen resolution. Designers can choose components that best suit their requirements. The Dell Precision M4500 15.6-inch laptop is one of the most powerful laptops of its size. The screen resolution choices offered are 1366×768 pixels, 1600×900 pixels and 1920×1080 pixels. Either a quad-core or a dual-core Intel processor can be chosen. For the graphics, there are plenty of NVidia GPU options as well. The RAM can be expanded all the way up to 8GB too. The laptop is even equipped with a rich set of interfaces, and can make a good desktop replacement.

Checkout laptops for web designing from top brands in the market, compare prices, read reviews and buying guide at Laptop Reviews site.

We have featured some really nice t-shirt illustrations, concept art, logo designs and photography to fill that inspiration itch.

If you have something that you have created, be it a design piece or article that you would like me to take a look at, let me know (email me at info@denisdesigns.com) and it could make into one of the roundups.

Enjoy!

Here is a collection of t-shirt designs from Glennz. He some really creative, witty takes on pop culture that are always fun to look at.
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These are some amazing shots of wild animals taken by some very talented photographers.
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This group of logos create their mark from the literal interpretation of the business name. The outcomes of these logos are pretty interesting and creative.
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I’m always impressed by good concept art, and this list doesn’t disappoint.
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