Vector illustration can produce beautifully clean, precise artwork, but the results can also be a bit soulless. Here Mark Oliver creates those clean, precise shapes and then ‘grubbies’ them up for a more organic retro look.
Intro
Vector illustration can produce beautifully clean, precise artwork, but the results can also be a bit soulless. Here Mark Oliver creates those clean, precise shapes and then ‘grubbies’ them up for a more organic retro look. He also gives you a recipe for transforming shapes to fit a predefined isometric projection without having to do any calculations.
You can modify this tutorial to work on an illustration of your own as long as it conforms with the projection used. Import a 150dpi greyscale scan of your drawing and then follow the steps outlined below.
OVERVIEW The program is designed to teach and instill the ability to tell a story through pictures. The best way to learn is from people who have mastered their craft. Peter Sanders is an internationally acclaimed photographer renowned for his documentation of the Islamic World. We want to create such an environment in different places in the world where everyone, from the beginner to the expert, may benefit from Peter Sanders’s vast knowledge and experience of photography and storytelling. The programs consist of four master classes, which form the core of the program, covering various topics. Sidi Peter shares his experiences and stories and then demonstrates. This is followed by opportunities for each participant to shoot pictures at various locations in the area. SPEAKERS
Peter Sanders is an internationally award winning photographer who began his career in the 1960s as one of London’s leading photographers of rock musicians, photographing Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Who and many more.
In 1971 Peter travelled on a spiritual quest to India, afterwards to Morocco, then to the Holy Cities of Makkah and Madinah. From his ongoing travels, he has built up a huge photographic archive of over a quarter of a million photographs of the Islamic World, its people, architecture and cultures. His work is shown internationally in exhibitions, presentations and books. Recently, Peter created the ‘art of seeing’ photographic workshops to encourage young people into the creative arts.
His empathy with both spiritual masters and ordinary people has opened many doors and allowed him to photograph many ofwhom have never been photographed before.
Peter continues to travel worldwide on a number of commissions for a variety of international clients.
The best free fonts, from vintage-inspired typefaces to slap-you-in-the-face slab serifs, for Windows and Mac, for a range of projects.
We've scoured the web to present you with a fine and varied selection of free fonts. Including scripts, serifs, and a range of ligatures, these fonts will give you greater flexibility in your designs, and add to your arsenal of design tools.
This list represents the 100 best free fonts we've found in a variety of styles.
Some of the typeface collections listed below can be used on your web projects, but please be sure to check the terms. Now join us as we present you with 100 of the best free fonts, which you can download and use today. Let us know how you get on!
BellaBoo is an all caps font that's perfect for any kind of design project
This bold, all-caps font from Marcelo Reis Melo contains Latin and Swedish characters. Guaranteed to add a quirky, handmade flavour to your designs, it's free to download – both for commercial and personal use – and comes in both TTF and OTF formats.
Add a touch of class with Pier, a geometric font with a modern feel
Pier is a clean sans-serif font that's perfect for any-sized design, big or small. Created by Montreal-based senior art directorMathieu Desjardins, it comes in four weights, has a selection of glyphs and is free for personal use.
"The idea was to create a slightly off geometric font that would look good big or very small," he says. "It was made to fit your everyday designs and text needs."
Tomaz Leskovec's clean, uppercase show font Manifesto was inspired by the geometric aesthetic of the Italian rationalist movement in the mid 1920s. Angular and eye-catching, it'll add impact to headlines, posters and more.
Need a minimal serif stencil? Look no further than Delicate...
For a minimal option, French studio FAAK&PAAT's Delicate is an elegant serif stencil with a contemporary geometric twist. The classy design is available in three versions; rounded, bold and strict, and is free for both personal and commercial use.
"Timber is very versatile," says designer Mehmet Reha Tugcu on Behance
Istanbul-based designer Mehmet Reha Tugcu's trendy inline font Timber has a retro-futuristic vibe. Free for both personal and commercial use, it's perfect for logos, posters, headlines and any design situation where you have a bold typographic message to convey.
12 tips for creating geometric vector graphics and art
Leading illustrators share their tips for perfecting artworks and patterns based on geometric shapes.
Create collections
"Build a file of geometric shapes from drawings you have created by
hand. This gives you a collection of ideas to play with when you are
working. Lately I have been scanning in a lot of geometric shapes drawn
with rulers and other tools, and combining them into a single PSD work
file to dive into when I am working. This process feels more natural and
integrated with my other illustration work. "An illustration I recently produced for Wrap Magazine was made with a
combination of these shapes alongside curvy line work. The poster for
Disko Vraiment is made completely with shapes from the work file without
drawing anything beforehand." Rick Hedof (NL)
Making beautiful black-and-white images is easier than ever before, thanks
to powerful adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop, as well as specialized
conversion software like Google's Nik Silver Efex Pro, Perfect B&W from
onOne Software, Tonality Pro from Macphun and B&W Effects from Topaz Labs.
You can play around with the sliders in these programs and in plug-ins, and you
may wind up with good results. However, with a deeper understanding of
black-and-white imaging, you can create a more powerful, more dramatic and more
artistic image. I'll cover the basics in this column, showing just some of the
endless possibilities that await you in black-and-white processing.
ORIGINAL
Here's the file (cropped from my RAW file) from which I created the iceberg
image.
Before we get going, however, here are some important factors to think
about as you're shooting when your goal is to create a great black-and-white
image.
SEE VALUES
You need to see in values rather than seeing colors. You also need to
envision how shadows and highlights will "play" in your
black-and-white images. As you shoot, envision how the scene will look without
color, which can be enamoring, as well as distracting (in a good way). With
practice, you'll start to see in black-and-white.
SEE THE LIGHT
Dramatic lighting leads
to a dramatic black-and-white image. In other words, strong shadows are very
important in black-and-white photography. In fact, the expression "Shadows
are the soul of the photograph" is especially important when it comes to
black-and-white photography.
Lightroom—which
I used to create this image of an iceberg in a glacier lagoon in Iceland—offers
awesome black-and-white capabilities, even when you don't use a plug-in. This
screenshot of the Lightroom Develop module shows my enhancements to my original
color file. First, I selected the B&W Contrast High preset. To add more
impact to the image, I boosted the Contrast and Blacks, and then reduced the
Highlights.
SEEK OUT TEXTURES
Textures are also very
important in black-and-white photography. Textures are emphasized by shadows,
usually created by side lighting.
FIND SHAPES, FORMS AND PATTERNS
When you combine shapes,
forms, patterns and textures with dramatic lighting, you're on your way to
creating a dramatic black-and-white image.
Technically,
here's something else to consider when it comes to black-and-white photography:
Color files can have up to 16 million different colors, whereas a grayscale
image has only 256 shades of gray. This is why considering and adjusting
contrast—the difference between shadows and highlights—becomes more critical in
black-and-white photography.
LEARN ABOUT COLOR FILTERS
Understanding the effect
of color filters is very, very important in creating the black-and-white effect
you desire. Basically, here are the effects of digital color filters on an
image:
Red:Darkens a
blue sky for a more dramatic image.
Orange:Darkens
the sky slightly more than a red filter. Like a red filter, it can also reduce
atmospheric haze.
Yellow:Darkens
the sky less than a red filter, which can be beneficial, depending on the
desired effect.
Blue:Honestly,
I've never found a use for a blue filter in black-and-white photography. In
landscape photography, it often lightens the sky too much.
Green:Lightens
foliage and slightly darkens the sky.
Infrared:Simulates,
somewhat, the effect of black-and-white infrared photography.
Experiment
with the effects of applying filters in your processing software. You may be
surprised to see how an image changes as you switch between filters.
CONSIDER CONTRAST
My iceberg image has
strong contrast—one of the elements, as I mentioned, that contributes to strong
black-and-white photographs. Strong contrast is often desired, which is one
reason to shoot in the early morning or late afternoon (as I did here) when
strong shadows add contrast to a scene.
Enjoy
your exploration of black-and-white photography. In doing so, think about
black-and-white photographer Ansel Adams' philosophy: A picture is never really
done. Go back again and again, and try different changes—even subtle ones.
Also keep
in mind what another great black-and-white photographer, Ruth Bernhard, said,
"There is no such thing as taking too much time, because your soul is in
that picture."
Rick Sammon is a longtime friend of this magazine. See more
of his work atricksammon.com.
I use various types of pomades ranging from water-based, to petrolatum-based (which many are familiar with seeing an orange tin on the shelves), to old school (now) discontinued grease that was used to slick up the hairstyles which emulate today. And while I've used and loved several brands, Layrite has been one that has done my hair no wrong since the start! Now, when you go to the supermarket, barber shop, or beauty supply store, you'll find yourself staring at a whole bunch of different hair products. Various types of: gels, creams, pastes, waxes, pomade, sprays, tonics! Then you've got the various finishes: matte, dry, natural, wet. Also, different textures! But, since we're focusing on pomade, let's just sort you out with that...
