Let me alter this

So you want to start your own design firm?

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 04:20:00 +0800

CONGRATULATIONS This is the most exciting time in your design career. For one or more reasons,you know (or think you know) that you want to have your own design firm,with your name on the door—a place where you control the design decisions, where you work with the clients, and where you get the credit, reward, and satisfaction of making it on your own. As designers,we have all invested many years in our education and in our internship, training to become licensed certified practitioners. Many of us have spent ten, fifteen, maybe twenty to twenty-five years working in a firm or numerous design firms.We know how to design, we have the knowledge of the building codes, we know how to put a project together.We love our work.

The bottom line questions to be asked, though, are,“Can I be a businessperson?” “Am I entrepreneurial?” “I am passionate about my design capabilities, but can I be passionate about running a business?” Sadly, most designers are not trained for business. Most college curriculums are silent on the topic, except for maybe one course on “Professional Practice.”The common thought in the profession is that we are trained how to think and use our imaginations in college, but we are to learn from others after the academic experience about the reality of design and maybe, just maybe, some business skills.

For most of us, after graduation and experiencing our internships, the business side of the design practice is shielded from our view by the leadership of the firm. It is a mystery. If we progress, and portray the proper organizational qualities expected by the firm, we are promoted to project management and, maybe for the first time, exposed to time management expectations to generate a profit for the firm. Profit—what is that? There is usually a requirement to fill out time sheets to track our efforts on the various projects that we will work on. There is a person in the accounting business office of the firm who is responsible for collecting, maintaining, and reporting on the status of efforts on a project.

Why do they do that?
One of the most difficult transitions for any designer to understand, accept, and practice is the translation of design efforts into a business language that is measurable and meaningful. As designers, what is our value system? Is it great design? Is it being successful in business?

In my mind, successful designers must create and maintain a “balance” in their professional efforts at their design firm.We all know that we can create great design. But can we all be great at business? Understanding that we need to balance our design ego with a time schedule to produce a product in a measurable time frame is the ultimate challenge in creating a successful, profitable design practice.

3D Sketching Tools

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 14:26:00 +0800

Some of the tools you can use to create 3D sketches include:

All arc tools
All circle tools
All rectangle tools
Lines
Points
Splines

Spline on Surface is only available in 3D.

Additional tools include:

Centerline : Creates construction geometry.

Convert Entities : Creates one or more entities in a 3D sketch by projecting an edge, loop, face, external curve, external sketch contour, set of edges, or set of external curves onto the sketch plane.

Face Curves : Extracts 3D iso-parametric curves from faces or surfaces.

Sketch Fillet : Rounds the intersections of sketched lines.

Sketch Chamfer : Bevels the intersections of sketched lines.

Intersection Curve : Creates a sketched curve at intersections.

Trim Entities : Trims or extends a sketch entity in a 3D sketch.

Extend Entities : Extends a sketch entity in a 3D sketch.

Construction Geometry : Converts sketched curves in a 3D sketch to construction geometry.

You cannot use:

Patterns
Offset

true colors - infographic

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 15:48:00 +0800

what your brand colors say about your business? Integrade your brand colors across the board.

color psychology in logo design - infographic

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 10:25:00 +0800

Our minds are inherently programmed to respond to color. They shape our thoughts and emotion.

The Psychology of Color (infographic)

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Tue, 8 Oct 2013 17:10:00 +0800

Choosing right colors in web-design is an important part when you make something new. As usual, people rely on their own subjective thoughts, without thinking how important color is. Actually, every color has own associations. I think that this is very interesting and useful to understand the psychology of color.

Original source: The Psychology of Color

How To Create an Infographic

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Thu, 3 Oct 2013 17:30:00 +0800

Here we go....

1. Collection: Collection of all the raw materials for the infographics – such as PowerPoint slides, White Papers, face-to-face interviews (multiple sessions), network diagrams etc. The more details you dive in and expand on in this phase, it’ll make it that much easier for you to develop the infograpahics in the later stage.
2. Identifying the objectives: Who are the target audience? What’s their range of technical knowledge? What are their main pain points? What we want to highlight to them? Its great if you can sketch a persona.
3. Classification: Grouping the infrastructures into physical spaces. Grouping can be done by process phases, physical locations, activities or be cause-effect based.
4. Blueprinting: Time to draw individual groups (pencil sketch) with the technical details. It’ll also give you a rough idea about the space you’ll have for textual description or labeling.
5. Space planning: Basically – doing a collage i.e. sticking together different A4 size papers – the photocopies of the individual groups.
6. Planning the interrelations: Between the groups. How the groups will be connected? The best way is to work with a theme.I choose the theme of a laboratory, then defined each group (process phases in this case) according to the theme in different visual metaphors.
7. Go digital: time to draw the infographic on the computer; we used Freehand and Flash. Any Vector graphics editor should do the job.
8. Integrate: the purpose of any infographic is to bring everyone to the same page and tell a complete story. Integration of different elements to tell a coherent story is the most vital step in the creation of an infographic.
9. Optimize detail: Add in the useful details, get rid of the extras, work out the balance between aesthetics and usability.
10. Labeling: Copywriting and inserting the labels; this is a tricky part – you need to be specific and clear whilst avoiding big chunks of text.
11. Coloring and Typography: Effective typography is not only for corporate identity or enrichment of visual appearance, it also helps you to represent the bound emotions of your graphics.
12. Iteration: Varying the colors, reducing the saturation of what is less important and increasing it for the most relevant data, modifying the typography, the size of fonts, eliminating everything that doesn’t contribute to showing and clarifying the data (irrelevant grids, redundant data, and unnecessary labels) without losing relevant information sometimes provides surprisingly improved results.

DANGER ARTIST AT WORK

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Wed, 2 Oct 2013 01:56:00 +0800

Always remember that you need to work within health and safety guidelines when using materials. Scalpels and razor blades should always be used with care, and when they are not in use their blades should not be left exposed. Note too if any of the fluids you use are flammable or toxic. Bleach, for example, is a very handy and cheap method of removing waterbased ink, but it is very toxic and must always be handled with care.

Things you need for Oil Painting

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 15:25:00 +0800

1. Oil paint:
Obviously the first thing you’ll need is oil paint, and lots of it. For beginners, I’d suggest Winsor & Newton oil paint. It’s a less expensive brand of oil paint, but the quality is fine. As far as colors go, here’s a list of the must-haves:

Titanium White, Ivory Black, Cadmium Red, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, Pthalo Blue, Cadmium Yellow Light, and Cadmium Yellow. Buy each of these colors in 200 ml tubes except for Pthalo Blue—Pthalo’s pretty powerful so you probably won’t need as much as you do with the others.

Technically those are all the colors you need, but you should also get a few greens and browns until you learn more about mixing colors. Pick up some Permanent Green Light, Viridian, Burnt Umber, and Burnt Sienna to round out your palette.

2. Proper painting brushes: All you really need is a few natural bristle brushes in different sizes. I‘d suggest six: two small, two medium, and two large.

3. Turpentine (AKA paint thinner): Unlike watercolors or acrylics you can’t clean up oil paints with water. Instead, you’ll need to use turpentine or mineral spirits to get the paint out of your brushes (and off your skin).

4. Newspaper: Newspaper is handy to have around when you clean your paint brushes at the end of the day, but it’s also good to use WHILE you’re painting. Because it’s important to clean your brush every time you start painting a new section or switch colors—and that‘ll happen a lot in every painting. There’s no need to use turpentine for a full cleaning, just grab some newspaper (cut 4 inch squares ahead of time if you feel like it) and quickly squeeze all the paint out of the bristles. That’ll keep your colors from contaminating each other throughout the painting process.

5. Linseed stand oil: As you’re mixing colors you’ll find they’re easier to mix when you add a little painter’s medium. I usually pour out a few tablespoons of medium every time I sit down to paint. You won’t need much—just dab your brush into the medium before mixing colors. Medium is made by combining linseed stand oil with turpentine.

6. A charcoal pencil: Before putting any paint down, I’d suggest sketching out whatever it is you’ll be painting. Charcoal works pretty good on the texture of canvas (better than graphite, anyway) and it doesn't have to be perfect, just an outline drawing so you can see your composition ahead of time.

7. A “palette”: When it comes to palettes, you don’t have to be fancy. For a while I used a big piece of glass. To clean it, I just took a flat razor blade and scraped all the old paint off. Palette can be cleaned using wax paper.

8. Comfortable, messy clothes: If your clothes don’t start out messy they’ll get that way soon. Every painter needs a few painting outfits that they can get paint on, but make sure they’re comfortable too.

9. A painter’s easel: Every oil painter needs an easel but you may not need an expensive one right at first. At the very least an easel should be adjustable to your height (whether you like to sit or stand) and securely hold your paintings, whatever size they may be.

10. Canvas (or other painting surface): Canvas is great for painting on but if you’re just starting out, why not use paper? At least to practice on and get a feel for the paint. If you do use paper (or wood, or masonite, or any other surface) you should probably coat it with Gesso first, using a big house brush. When you’re ready to buy canvases, get a pre-primed canvas and you won’t have to worry about any preparation at all.

That’s the list! Good luck and happy painting!

extreme origami

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Tue, 9 Jul 2013 17:23:00 +0800

extreme origami..no wait! no folding means its a paper sculpture.

True Creativity

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Sun, 5 May 2013 02:35:00 +0800

Creativity is making something new and the way to make something new is to be you. We are each unique; that's how we were created. To be creative we need to know and love ourselves as we are. The way to know ourselves is to come to the place of stillness and peace—of oneness. That's where we find our true selves.

We need to be authentic which means being the whole of who we are—the happy and the sad, the good and the bad. We need to share our whole selves even when sometimes we'll be a bit idiotic—that's also how we come to know ourselves.

Creativity comes from our life experience, our own particular insights and know¬ing. It helps if we live our lives fully and honestly—we're creating from that place. We don't need to think too much to be creative; we just need to dive in and do the work. Diving in is our decision to begin. Ideas come in the midst of working. Shall we do it this way or that? Watch for the moment of insight, then act on it without hesitation. That's what it is to fol¬low inspiration. Toss out hesitation, doubt and worry. We need to be bold.

All artists take inspiration from other artists. Creativity is making new connec-tions between established ways of seeing too. We learn from each other. At first, we may imitate in order to understand and acquire skill or to internalize what's possible. But soon we need to strike out on our own or we'll only make second-hand art. We're more than that. We can set off on our journeys, like pilgrims—there isn't any final destination. The journey goes on, unfolding with each new exploration, one thing leads to the next.

To be creative means to be in the flow of vital exploration. Whatever we're doing, we can throw our whole selves into it. Why hold back? We'll feel alive and excited when we do our very best. We can't know what will happen in advance—we're diving into into the unknown. Who knows what's there? Learn to trust that there are gifts everywhere and look for those gifts. When disappointment or failure comes, and it will, find its gifts too. We each have our own art journey and life journey. The important thing is to be ourselves and to be happy to be ourselves.

Drawing as a Learned Skill

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Tue, 9 Apr 2013 00:55:00 +0800

During the last thirty years, I’ve taught millions of people how to draw during my extensive travels around the country and through my television shows, websites, and videos. Many children have grown up watching my drawing lessons on public television and have gone on to pursue careers in illustration, animation, fashion design,design engineering, and architecture. I have a example who have helped design the International Space Station, NASA’s Space Shuttle, and Mars Exploration Rovers and others who have worked on animation megafilm projects such as Shrek, Madagascar, Flushed Away, The Incredibles,Happy Feet, and A Bug’s Life.

But here’s a secret—learning is learning and drawing is drawing, no matter how old you are. My techniques work for adults just as well as they work for kids—I know this, because I’ve taught thousands of adults as well. In this blog, I will introduce sophisticated concepts and complex drawing theories in a simple, easy-to-follow way, but because I’m a kid at heart, I will not cut back on any of the fun that I believe drawing must be.

As a cartoon illustrator by trade, but these lessons will give you the basic skill set that will enable you to draw three-dimensionally in any style (realistic drawings, photograph studies, portraits) or medium (oil paints, watercolors, pastels).

I will focus almost exclusively on what I call the “Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing,” beginning with basic shapes, shading, and positioning, all the way through more advanced perspective, copying from photos, and drawing from life. These basic concepts, discovered and refined during the Italian Renaissance, have enabled artists to create three-dimensional renderings for more than five hundred years. I believe that anyone can learn how to draw; it is a learnable skill like reading or writing.

The Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing create the illusion of depth. They are as follows:

Foreshortening: Distort an object to create the illusion that one part of it is closer to your eye.
Placement: Place an object lower on the surface of a picture to make it appear closer to your eye.
Size: Draw an object larger to make it appear closer to your eye.
Overlapping: Draw an object in front of another object to create the visual illusion that it is closer to your eye.
Shading: Draw darkness on an object opposite the positioned light source to create the illusion of depth.

Logo Creation: Symbol - infographic

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Fri, 5 Apr 2013 09:46:00 +0800

Today’s infographic about logo creation: symbol.

+ click on image to enlarge

The Ways We Draw

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 08:02:00 +0800

There are many kinds of drawing: realistic (as much as anything can be), subjective, schematic, abstract, cartoony, impressionistic, expressive, controlled, free, tortured, obsessive, spare, inventive. We could go on. And on. But we'll divide drawing into three main categories: making marks, drawing what we see, and drawing from imagination. Children begin with making marks, basic scribbling, then go directly to drawing from imagination. As we grow older, we want the skills that come from doing observational drawing so that we can draw whatever we want.

Here, we'll begin with making marks and go directly to drawing what we see. Then we'll come back to where many of us left off as children to drawing from imagination but this time we'll do it with heightened awareness, a sense of our own purpose, and greater skill. Our goal is to find our creative voice, not to stop with careful rendering. There are now cameras to record the world around us, but we can still benefit from drawing it, if we're so inclined. Careful observation gives us a more intimate connection with our world, and knowing how to draw what's around us, in one way or another, can give us greater freedom of expression. Even if we focus on this kind of drawing, we want to discover our unique, imaginative self in it.

We'll soon see that drawing begins to ask questions questions like, who are you and what do you want to say or do? We don't need to answer right away, just know that the questions will arrive, one after the other, at awkward moments, niggling like uninvited guests. We can be well mannered, of course, and hospitable, too. We provide a bed and a little food, but we'll go on with our lives and get to know our guests in time. We can't rush these things. Still, it's good to know that in drawing we don't just learn skills; we come to know ourselves as creative beings.

So, now, let's begin. Get out your paper, your pencils, charcoal, pens. Get out your ink and brush. From a tree outside, pluck a twig to dip into ink and draw with. As you read what follows, try each kind of drawing yourself. By experimenting, you'll start to get that feeling of freedom we need so much in making art and in living a full, rich life.

"All things come from nowhere. How vast, how invisible, no way to explain!" —Chuang Tsu

Drawing with ink

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 03:22:00 +0800

Drawing with ink is the most exciting drawing material in my view. Although pencil and charcoal have certain attributes and characteristics, drawing with ink is so much more demanding and at the same time versatile. The very nature of the ink as a substance and the multiple ways that it can be applied as a medium gives it a wider spectrum of use both in traditional and experimental ways.

Personally, I have found that working with ink can help correct our weaknesses and enhance our strengths. Artists tend to develop traits and these tend to fall into two types. We can be artists who are very much controlled by our intellect or thinking processes, and use our materials accordingly. Alternatively, we can function by allowing the processes to take us to a visual conclusion that is furnished by a more emotional, expressive approach.

Each one of these ways of working has to have a bit of the other in it to bring about some form of aesthetic order. Ink is a medium that allows these innate qualities to flourish.

** Put your ballpoint pen to shame with these tips.

Danger artist at work

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:17:00 +0800

Always remember that you need to work within health and safety guidelines when using materials. Scalpels and razor blades should always be used with care, and when they are not in use their blades should not be left exposed.

Note too if any of the fluids you use are flammable or toxic. Bleach, for example, is a very handy and cheap method of removing waterbased ink, but it is very toxic and must always be handled with care.

system for hard pencils

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 01:55:00 +0800

Hard pencils are mostly appropriate for drawings requiring accuracy. As we have pointed out previously, such drawings are usually done by engineers, industrial designers, graphic designers and architects. The final drawings they produce have to be to scale and precise so that other people, such as craftsmen, can follow the instructions to construct or make the designed object. These drawings come in a number of different types of perspective, or parallel projection systems, ranging from flat orthographic plan or elevation drawings to 3D perspective illustrations.

HARD PENCIL

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 04:51:00 +0800

Hard pencil marks have very little variation in the range of mark making. They only usually vary through a linear progression. Tone is usually made from a build up of crosshatch effects. Hard pencils are denoted by the letter H. As with soft pencils, they come in a range, comprising HB, H, 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H, 6H, 7H, 8H and 9H (the hardest).

These pencils are mainly for use by designers, architects and people who produce precise technical diagrammatic drawings for which a fine, accurate line is essential, such as perspective or other projection drawings. Although the marks made with hard pencil show very little variation it can be used in an expressive manner. As with soft pencil, tone can be built using a cross-hatching system, although the result is much finer and more formal, the cross-hatching emerging out of a series of linear progressions.

THE PENCIL

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:11:00 +0800

A pencil is a rod of graphite encased in a soft wood such as cedar, about six or seven inches long and exposed at one end.Crude forms of graphite pencils were first used as early as the 17th century. Before this, rods of lead or silver (known as silverpoint) were used as implements for making drawings. The modern form of lead or graphite pencil with its wooden encasement first came into use about the beginning of the 19th century.

The pencil fundamentally works by pushing or pulling the lead end across the surface fibres of the paper, which act as graters, breaking up into small flakes. Pressure on the pencil pushes the flakes of lead into the fibres of the paper to leave a mark or trace.

Graphite, a form of carbon, also known as mineral black or plumbago, is the major constituent of the modern pencil. The softness or hardness of a pencil varies depending on the amount of clay mixed with the carbon. The softest varieties of pencil contain little or no clay. Artists and designers will use a range of pencils, varying their choice according to the effect they are trying to achieve.

As the graphite is worn away by use, it can be repeatedly exposed. This is done by the action of sharpening the pencil using a purpose-made sharpener or blade. Sharpening and exposing the graphite should be regarded as an important act, because how it is done changes the type of mark you make with it. There are many ways of sharpening. A particular point produces a particular result. The artist should experiment to discover what is possible and how to make each type of pencil meet his particular needs at any given time.

The pencil can be used for a variety of purposes and, as with any material you use, you must be fully aware of its potentials and its limitations - different pencils and types are designed for particular uses. In the ensuing chapter some of these practices will be revealed with particular relevance to the appropriate pencil or graphite material. The marks shown over the following few pages give some idea of the wide range of mark making possible. When you have looked at them, take each of the pencils in turn and see what marks you can make.

Apart from being very stimulating and a way of opening your mind to new possibilities with your drawing, you will find it increases your ‘feel’ for the pencil itself. As artists, what we feel through the materials we use has an affect on what we produce, and familiarity with those materials is vital to a good outcome.

Amazing 3D street art

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:55:00 +0800

How to Make a Butter Sculpture

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:11:00 +0800

To complete this How-To you will need:

Butter
A cool room
Ice water
Materials for the framework
Sculpting tools
Food coloring

Step 1: Find a cool room

Find a cool room in which to work so your butter doesn't melt as you sculpt.

Tip: Today, Tibetan monks create their works of art in rooms kept at 32° F.

Step 2: Pick a subject

Pick a subject. Let your mind run wild. Butter sculptors have created everything from The Last Supper to Elvis Presley.

Step 3: Soak the butter

Soak the butter in very cold water in order to remove impurities and give the butter an extra- smooth texture. The amount of butter you soak depends on how large you'd like your sculpture to be.

Step 4: Build the frame

Build a frame to hold your base in place. Traditionally, bamboo sticks were fashioned into the framework, but you can use wood and/or metal.

Step 5: Dip hands in ice

Before you start sculpting, dip your hands in ice water. Your hands must be kept practically numb, or your body heat will melt your creation.

Step 6: Knead the butter

Knead the butter into a paste that's free of air bubbles.

Tip: Add food coloring to the paste, or parts of the paste, if you like.

Step 7: Butter the base

Load the butter onto the base, and begin shaping it with your hands.

Step 8: Fine-tune your design

Fine-tune your design with tallow tools. Use modeling tools for smoothing and contouring large surfaces, and sculpting tools for intricate detail.

Tip: Many household items, like shoe horns and manicure instruments, can be turned into sculpting tools, so use your imagination.

Step 9: Keep it cool

Once you've completed your masterpiece, store it somewhere it won't melt before the big reveal.

source: howcast.com

amazing talented skills

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:56:00 +0800

Great and amazing talent in drawing, that a man can draw natural view with his finger only! Wonderfull... why this guy till in street? sometimes world is just crazy... give him the money he needs...make him a respectable man.. Extreme Fingerpainting.

Use Colour In Logo Design To Effectively Communicate The Right Message

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Fri, 9 Dec 2011 20:01:00 +0800

When studying colour theory we are given an understanding of the colour wheel and the harmonious relationships that can be forged between these brothers of reflecting light… It is here that we are given a cheat sheet on how to use colour effectively to communicate the right message.
Below we use this knowledge to go behind the scenes of colour theory in logo design while looking at various case studies of logo designs that use these principles. Enjoy.

This wheel, that shows the relationships of colours, is a handy little tool to understand. Without going into any great detail of how the colours of the wheel are established (which is pretty interesting to know), we’ll just tip or toes into the water.

The panels that have an outline above, with their linking lines, show the relationships colours have. For example, complementary colours are the colours directly opposite each other. In our illustration above (the first wheel highlights the relationship), red and green are directly opposite, so they’re complementary. Just as the blue on the left and the yellow on the right are complementary, the orange and light blue, and so on.

These aren’t the be-all and end-all of colour combinations obviously, but they’re good places to start when choosing what colours you might want to use for a project. As you’ll see in the following examples, sometimes you might use three out of four tetrad colours, or go for an analogous harmony but stretch it out one more and skip one.

The wheel is our simple guide into the world of colours – something to use when you find yourself in a place of bother, or something you may choose to ignore. With that in mind, sometimes one may decide to ignore the wheel, but work with colour meanings and psychology instead. It should be noted that it isn’t exactly a science. Ask a hundred people what red means and you’ll likely get dozens upon dozens of different answers – none wrong. But again, it’s a great starting point and gives you insight into how your audience may instinctively perceive something you’ve put together.

Colour Meanings & Theory

Colour can make or break a design so it is vital that you know what colours mean and what they can communicate. Below are some ‘meanings’ of colour. [Source]

Red evokes aggressiveness, passion, strength and vitality
Pink evokes femininity, innocence, softness and health.
Orange evokes fun, cheeriness and warm exuberance.
Yellow evokes positivity, sunshine and cowardice.
Green evokes tranquility, health and freshness.
Blue evokes authority, dignity, security and faithfulness.
Purple evokes sophistication, spirituality, costliness, royalty and mystery.
Brown evokes utility, earthiness, woodsy-ness and subtle richness.
White evokes purity, truthfulness, being contemporary and refined.
Gray evokes somberness, authority, practicality and a corporate mentality.
Black evokes seriousness, distinctiveness, boldness and being classic.

Choosing colors for your business logo

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Mon, 5 Dec 2011 19:58:00 +0800

Know your/your client’s target market. Identifying and understanding your target market is the first step in choosing the right colors for your business’ logo. Studying your target market includes determining the market’s age, gender, profession, culture, and socioeconomic status.

Know what colors represent. Every color has its own representation and meaning according to the target market. Understanding each color’s meaning can help you organize your first step in choosing the colors for your preferred logo design.

Basic Color Representation

Red – sex, passion, love, food, radical, bold, war, anger
Pink – female, weakness, romance, blush, affection
Blue – subtle, cool, peace, calm, sadness, melancholy
Black- death, grief, angst, elegance, class, strength
White – purity, cleanliness, absurd, vague, righteousness
Burgundy and Brown – refinement, aristocracy, nobility
Yellow – happiness, youth, summer, childhood
Green – earth, life, environment, money, organic, jealousy, naughtiness

Know the basics. Choosing colors isn’t just about picking what’s attractive for you. Learn the color wheel, identify the difference between primary and secondary colors, and know what contrast and opaqueness are.

Basic techniques

Although there are commonly used and popular color representations, we should not confine ourselves with what these norms suggest. As a web designer, you should pick a color that describes and represents your business’ personality best.

Choosing color is a form of art. It’s a process of expression, an art form without a limitation, an art form that breaks boundaries of cultures, beliefs and rules. If you’re brave and clever enough to combine green and pink with orange and crimson, then do it. The logos of Google and Yahoo were designed like that for a reason. You can use unusual color combinations if you want, but remember to do a decent case study on using the combinations. Playing with colors for your business’ logo is a serious part of any branding strategy that can make or break your business’ success.

Color space conversion

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:40:00 +0800

Color space conversion is what happens when a color management module (CMM) translates color from one device's space to another. Conversion may require approximations in order to preserve the image's most important color qualities. Knowing how these approximations work can help you control how the photo may change — hopefully maintaining the intended look or mood.

BACKGROUND: GAMUT MISMATCH & RENDERING INTENT
The translation stage attempts to create a best match between devices — even when seemingly incompatible. If the original device has a larger color gamut than the final device, some of the those colors will be outside the final device's color space. These "out-of-gamut colors" occur with nearly every conversion and are called a gamut mismatch.

Each time a gamut mismatch occurs, the CMM uses the rendering intent to decide what qualities of the image it should prioritize. Common rendering intents include: absolute and relative colorimetric, perceptual, and saturation. Each of these types maintains one property of color at the expense of others (described below).

PERCEPTUAL & RELATIVE COLORIMETRIC INTENT
Perceptual and relative colorimetric rendering are probably the most useful conversion types for digital photography. Each places a different priority on how they render colors within the gamut mismatch region. Relative colorimetric maintains a near exact relationship between in gamut colors, even if this clips out of gamut colors. In contrast, perceptual rendering tries to also preserve some relationship between out of gamut colors, even if this results in inaccuracies for in gamut colors. The following example demonstrates an extreme case for an image within a 1-D black-magenta color space:

Note how perceptual maintains smooth color gradations throughout by compressing the entire tonal range, whereas relative colorimetric clips out of gamut colors (at center of magenta globules and in the darkness between them). For 2D and 3D color spaces, relative colorimetric maps these to the closest reproducible hue in the destination space.

Even though perceptual rendering compresses the entire gamut, note how it remaps the central tones more precisely than those at the edges of the gamut. The exact conversion depends on what CMM is used for the conversion; Adobe ACE, Microsoft ICM and Apple ColorSynch are some of the most common.

Another distinction is that perceptual does not destroy any color information — it just redistributes it. Relative colorimetric, on the other hand, does destroy color information. This means that conversion using relative colorimetric intent is irreversible, while perceptual can be reversed. This is not to say that converting from space A to B and then back to A again using perceptual will reproduce the original; this would require careful use of tone curves to reverse the color compression caused by the conversion.

ABSOLUTE COLORIMETRIC INTENT
Absolute is similar to relative colorimetric in that it preserves in gamut colors and clips those out of gamut, but they differ in how each handles the white point. The white point is the location of the purest and lightest white in a color space. If one were to draw a line between the white and black points, this would pass through the most neutral colors.

The location of this line often changes between color spaces, as shown by the "+" on the top right. Relative colorimetric skews the colors within gamut so that the white point of one space aligns with that of the other, while absolute colorimetric preserves colors exactly (without regard to changing white point). To illustrate this, the example below shows two theoretical spaces that have identical gamuts, but different white points:

SATURATION INTENT
Saturation rendering intent tries to preserve saturated colors, and is most useful when trying to retain color purity in computer graphics when converting into a larger color space. If the original RGB device contained pure (fully saturated) colors, then saturation intent ensures that those colors will remain saturated in the new color space — even if this causes the colors to become relatively more extreme.

Saturation intent is not desirable for photos because it does not attempt to maintain color realism. Maintaining color saturation may come at the expense of changes in hue and lightness, which is usually an unacceptable trade-off for photo reproduction. On the other hand, this is often acceptable for computer graphics such as pie charts.

Another use for saturation intent is to avoid visible dithering when printing computer graphics on inkjet printers. Some dithering may be unavoidable as inkjet printers never have an ink to match every color, however saturation intent can minimize those cases where dithering is sparse because the color is very close to being pure.

PAY ATTENTION TO IMAGE CONTENT
One must take the range of image colors present into account; just because an image is defined by a large color space does not mean that it actually utilizes all of those extreme colors. If the destination color space fully encompasses the image's colors (despite being smaller than the original space), then relative colorimetric will yield a more accurate result.

The above image barely utilizes the gamut of your computer display device, which is actually typical of many photographic images. If one were to convert the above image into a destination space which had less saturated reds and greens, this would not place any image colors outside the destination space. For such cases, relative colorimetric would yield more accurate results. This is because perceptual intent compresses the entire color gamut — regardless of whether these colors are actually utilized.

SHADOW & HIGHLIGHT DETAIL IN 3D COLOR SPACES
Real-world photographs utilize three-dimensional color spaces, even though up until now we have been primarily analyzing spaces in one and two dimensions. The most important consequence of rendering intent on 3D color spaces is how it affects shadow and highlight detail.

If the destination space can no longer reproduce subtle dark tones and highlights, this detail may be clipped when using relative/absolute colorimetric intent. Perceptual intent compresses these dark and light tones to fit within the new space, however it does this at the cost of reducing overall contrast (relative to what would have been produced with colorimetric intent).

The conversion difference between perceptual and relative colorimetric is similar to what was demonstrated earlier with the magenta image. The main difference is that now the compression or clipping occurs in the vertical dimension — for shadows and highlight colors. Most prints cannot produce the range of light to dark that we may see on our computer display, so this aspect is of particular importance when making a print of a digital photograph.

Using the "black point compensation" setting can help avoid shadow clipping — even with absolute and relative colorimetric intents. This is available in the conversion properties of nearly all software which supports color management (such as Adobe Photoshop).

The decision about when to use each of these depends on image content and the intended purpose. Images with intense colors (such as bright sunsets or well-lit floral arrangements) will preserve more of their color gradation in extreme colors using perceptual intent. On the other hand, this may come at the expense of compressing or dulling more moderate colors. Images with more subtle tones (such as some portraits) often stand to benefit more from the increased accuracy of relative colorimetric (assuming no colors are placed within the gamut mismatch region). Perceptual intent is overall the safest bet for general and batch use, unless you know specifics about each image.

What is Drawing and Sketching?

noreply@blogger.com (rillys) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 03:47:00 +0800

Drawing is not just making lines with a pencil to represent a figurative scene. Drawing can be done with tone, line, texture, colour, pen, stick and ink, pencil, charcoal, brush, pen, pastel, crayon, in fact almost any medium.

There is often a very fine divide between drawing and painting, as a drawing may be tinted or coloured. Drawings are usually associated with the above mediums, but you may well ask yourself the difference when using a brush as to whether you are painting a line or drawing it? Painting, for our purposes we will assume that a colour work covering nearly all the surface and done with a brush and paint, pastels, or laid by tools such as rag, knife will constitute painting. A Drawing we will consider as done in linear colour, or a little tinting on a drawing, linear work, tonal work other than in paint, or textural work other than in paint. Sketching should not be considered an excuse for a bad drawing, merely a fast and perhaps looser drawing which is slightly governed by constraints in time and has to give maximum information in its limited content. An artist such as Munch with his style of using linear strokes of paint almost seems to border on drawing with paint!

Neither does drawing mean a photographically correct representation of a scene. Drawing can lean towards the abstract, even decorative.

I will explore drawing under the following headings =)

Materials and Tools, The Illusion of Perspective, Shapes and drawing skills, Techniques and examples in Line, Tone, Texture.

A drawing of an artist done approx. 440 B.C. – Almost Art Nouveau in appearance! A drawing by Degas 1865, then a tonal print of a painting by Munch “The Scream”, almost seems like a drawing?

Materials and Tools: What can we draw with?

Aboriginal sand paintings are done by carefully sprinkling coloured sand. A stick will make a mark in the sand on the beach, the tatooist on the human body! The answer is that almost anything that can make a mark can be drawn with.

Not only can all of these different mediums be used on their own for different effects, many can be used together.

We will concentrate, here, on the most commonly used and readily available drawing materials, but you should not be afraid to experiment further yourself whenever you wish.

Paper.

For most ordinary drawing purposes with pencils, ordinary white drawing cartridge paper is most commonly used. The term sketch pad refers, usually, to a book or pad of cartridge paper that can be easily taken anywhere for drawing. Some are of slightly higher quality and thicker paper is used. This is useful if a little paint is to be used, but beyond that and into watercolours you may need to get a proper watercolour pad! Sugar paper is another cheap and lower quality coloured paper that can be useful when a tonal or coloured background is needed. Hand made papers are expensive but can be purchased in wonderful textures and surfaces, some including seeds and petals in their makeup. Brown paper can also be a good ground to draw on and will allow some lights as well as darks to be used.

Pencils.

Pencils are not made of lead, the black colouring is Graphite. This comes in different hardness, the softer graphite giving a darker mark. They are coded with H and B grades. Think of these as standing for H for Hard and B for Black! 4B is very Black and soft 2B is not so soft, H.B. is in the middle and 4 H would be like using a needle to draw with and give a faint line.

I would suggest having only an H.B, a 2B and a 4B in your box for drawing and shading. Softer darker pencils can be used by choosing charcoal pencils. These have a much richer blacker mark but lose the silvery depth of the graphite. A pure stick of graphite with no wood encasing is available, it is the same size as a pencil and can be sharpened in the same way. This is simply called a “graphite stick”

Charcoal.

Charcoal sticks are made from thin twigs of Willow, heated with a lack of oxygen. It is useful to rake around in an expired outdoor wood fire for a possible lump of charcoal to draw with. It is also possible to wrap a piece of willow up in tinfoil and bake it in the oven, but an extractor fan is wise as the resulting smoke can be evil! Different woods will give different effects of charcoal.

Stick and Ink.

A piece of dowel or simply a piece of twig from a tree, which is sharpened, then dipped into a bottle of Indian Ink, will draw a lovely line. This is far nicer than the line drawn with a felt tip and is very useful for fast flowing drawings of moving animals.

Pen and Ink.

A traditional way of drawing than if used with waterproof ink can be tinted with watercolour or coloured inks at any time. New, fine line pens are now available in waterproof inks and are more easily transported and used – but their permanence is still suspect and after duration in sunlight they can tend to go brown and vanish.

Aquarel or Water soluble Pencils.

These are coloured pencils that can be blended with water as they are used or later. They are usually softer than ordinary coloured pencils.

Coloured Pencils.

As they sound, simply coloured pencils. They are usually fairly hard.

Pastel Pencils.

If softer coloured pencils are required, especially for working on sugar or coloured pastel paper then these will be useful.

Brush Drawing.

The brush is a wonderful drawing instrument. The Japanese have been taught to write and draw with a brush before a pencil! It gives a versatility of line that cannot be obtained any other way. Used with inks or paints both flowing and textural marks are possible.

Drawing Board, Clips/Low Tack Tape/Drawing Pins.

A board large enough to hold your paper and with a smooth surface. A piece of hardboard is cheap, will do, and is light, but a board of one inch ply is better still and will not warp, especially if paper is stretched wet onto it. Hardboard will not like drawing pins and is a bit thin for clips.

Rubbers.

A rubber can be used for blending and smudging as well as rubbing out. I would advise a putty rubber as being most useful. It can be cut in half and one half kneaded into a clean point for fine rubbing out and highlights, the other for getting messy and blending.

Pastels.

Conte’ or Inscribe pastels are the obvious choice for drawing, other than pastel pencils, as they are fairly hard.

Pencil Sharpener or Craft Knife.

Clearly you will need to sharpen your pencils.

Camera Obscura.

This simply refers to a piece of card about five inches long by four inches high with a window cut out of it to see through and choose your composition through. It aids you to gauge scale and the relative position of objects one to another. You can mark the facing inside window into halfway and quarters and eighths. Some artists even make the window into a grid by gluing dark cotton across at these measurements. The use of this and checking scale with a pencil will be dealt with later in these notes.

Plumb Line.

Very few artists use this, but a lot of sculptors do. Most artists simply gauge a rough vertical with a brush handle or pencil, but a piece of string with a small fishing weight at the end can be very useful if you are not sure of a vertical angle, figure or building.

The Illusion of Perspective

Each mark that we make upon the paper that is supposed to represent a real scene or object, and therefore fool the eye and brain, is a lie. It is not creating a real scene, merely the illusion if a scene. What I am going to do here is to show you how to “lie” more effectively! Perspective is an invention by artists to give the illusion of distance and receding objects.

The paper’s surface is a one dimensional plain, it is flat. We are going to give it the effect of being two dimensional, of going back, by the use of line, tone and texture. Painters can also use colour and potters and sculptors can take the surface forwards and back to produce low relief and full sculptures that are three dimensional, seen all round.

I will divide this into two halves of basic and advanced perspective.

The basic will give you all you need to know to start drawing most landscapes and still life, whilst the advanced you can attempt with a bit more experience and if you need more of a challenge?

See how many deliberate “perspective” faults you can see in this picture?

The Horizon Line.

This is the foundation stone to most perspective laws and scale. The Horizon is not where the sky meets the land, as there could be mountains! The horizon is where the sky meets the land if the land was absolutely level all of the way until the gentle curvature of the earth means you can see no further and the sky meets it. E.g.

In Fig. 1 the grey area represents the earth’s curved surface, at the very point that the girls eye level sees over the top of the curve it is the horizon. When we view it from her point, as in Fig 2. it becomes a level horizontal line. Anything at the same level as this horizon and on the same ground level, is the same height as she is, or we are. Therefore the figure on the left is only half our height! The two lines that appear to make a road away from us in Fig 2. are parallel lines which will meet at the horizon, this is called the Vanishing Point. Here they would disappear over the horizon due to the roundness of the earth. Having just one vanishing point, like his, is called single point perspective. The next illustration will demonstrate this in more detail.

In the illustration above you can tell the door is slightly higher than the person’s head as it is above the horizon. All of the lines that recede go back to the one vanishing point. The others remain horizontal, the two trees are the same size, even though one is smaller in the distance. You know this by it’s height above the horizon being the same as the one closer to us to scale and eye level. They are approximately twice as tall as the figure?

In this drawing you see two point perspective, there are two vanishing points. All of the receding lines go back to the two vanishing points on the horizon. Again you can tell the scale of people on the level ground, as their eye level is the same as yours. The smaller figure (3) would have to be a child or someone in a hollow? I have shown a figure (2) on top of another’s head to show that the house is twice the height of you. The figure in the distance (1) is a bit taller than us as the head is slightly above the horizon, or they are on a slight rise.

In (1&4) above, you can see how a cube and a tube would be extended back to a vanishing point. In (2) how a vertical tube would be cut into sections at different levels. This would give you the ellipses for a table top (3), tree, still life object such as a cup or bottle, tower or any tubular form. The tube (5) does the same but explains that this is still, actually, happening in perspective like the cube going back. The ends of ellipses are always rounded and never become a point! Where it is cut off at the horizon line it would be absolutely level.

Now let us look at how to make things seem lower or higher than us. For instance a valley and some hills?

As things recede into the distance so they become smaller and appear to become closer together. Three is a very simple way to make equally spaced objects do this correctly. This could be used on fence posts, railway sleepers, trees, or anything that is equally repetitive. (A) & (B) are a single point perspective going to a vanishing point. Th first and second lines are drawn as fence posts. A diagonal is then drawn from the top of (1) at (A) to the bottom of (2) at (B). After (2) the diagonal is drawn again at exactly the same angle to reach the base line (B) and that is where the next fence post will be placed. The single vertical line on the right has had a diagonal dropped from it ready for the second post. This would then be repeated, the posts will automatically become closer as the perspective lines converge.

Tip. Verticals in normal perspective remain Vertical. A common mistake is to let fence posts fall over at an angle!