Colorburned - Illustrator brushes, tutorials, textures, vectors, patterns and more!

Win a Free Limited Edition Wordpress Theme From Obox Design

2009-03-30T04:08:46Z

Today I'm announcing yet another awesome giveaway; this time brought to you by our friends at Obox Design and From the Couch who were kind enough to donate a copy of their premium Wordpress theme - Hash One.
]]> Obox Signature Series and is aimed at those who want their personal blog to stand out well above the rest with a subtle, stylish design.

For more information on Hash One view the screencast announcing the theme or check out the high resolution screenshots. The screencast demonstrates this theme's front and backend functionality but here's a quick rundown.

Features include:

Customizable homepage
Customizable Menu Structure
Custom and/or 3rd Party Advert Management
Threaded Comments
Featured Video Capabilities
Social links (Flickr and Twitter)
Social bookmarking and post promotion (digg, tweetmeme etc.)
Insert your Google analytics code
Widgetized Sidebar

To win a free copy of this theme all you have to do is leave a comment below. I will chose one winner at random.

Up for Grabs

1 copy of Hash One

Rules

Leave a comment to enter
Only comment once
Please leave a valid email address so that I can contact you
Entries will be accepted until Monday, April 6, 2009.

Good luck!

Interview with Illustrator and 3D Modeler Marcus Kielly

2009-03-26T15:15:12Z

This week I had the opportunity to interview UK based Illustrator and 3D modeler Marcus Kielly. I've always loved 3D design and animation and was very interested in what Marcus had to say. I was also interested in what Marcus had to say about how his experience as an illustrator has helped him transition from 2D to 3D design. If you are like me and are interested in learning more about this field, take a look at this great interview.
]]> Marcus, thank you for taking the time to participate in this interview. Can you begin by telling us a little about your background? Where are you from? How did you get your start in art and design?

I was born in Plymouth in the South West of England, where my family ran a series of casinos and bars. After school, I did a foundation diploma in art and design, followed by a bachelor's degree in communication media, specializing in illustration. After college I fell into working in bars for a while as I worked on my portfolio, and I eventually landed my first games industry job in Codemasters, famous for Colin McRae and Micro Machines.

You are a very talented illustrator as well as a 3d modeler in the video game industry. Can you tell us a little about how your experience as an illustrator helps you with your 3d characters?

One of the biggest advantages is good understanding of anatomy, derived from life drawing. When you draw an object based from life, you can't abdicate your comprehension of the object's geometry to a piece of software; you don't have the advantage of guide and grids on a piece of paper. This intimate comprehension of volume and space helps you create accurate and believable models in 3d programs.

Since illustration is kind of a halfway house between words and pictures it also enables you to use symbolism to great effect, which helps you to create unique or iconic characters that represent a concept.

Tell us a little about your workflow. How does a typical 3d project start out? How long does it usually take to go from beginning to end? What software do you use?

A 3d project will almost always begin with a period of concept drawing on paper (unless it's a very specific pre-existing object, a particular car or location for example). The artist then gathers material and reference. You would then set up the software modeling environment with the reference, and begin to construct the object - often from an initial starting object like a cube, or from base geometry like curves or faces.

Once the model geometry is complete, you apply what is known as UV mapping co-ordinates to the geometry - or mesh. This is basically a process whereby you map the vertices in a model to points on an image, rather like stretching out an animal skin.

With this stage complete, the artist then creates an extremely high resolution model using a "clay" modeling package like 'ZBrush' or 'Mudbox', and then projects this detail onto the model they have just created. This process is known as "normal mapping". It's a bit tricky to explain - imagine a photo on the wall which allows you to move the light source after it's been shot! When you apply this special texture to the object, it looks very, much more detailed than it actually is, and can react to light changes in the environment in ways that a static image can't. This technique can be seen in nearly all contemporary video games - in the folds of the character's clothes, the rivets on space armour or the wrinkles in a wizards face. Additional images are created that control the shininess or specularity of an object's surface. This image is often black and white - with white representing the highest possible value. Finally, the artist creates a colour texture that conveys surface tonal values. These textures combine to create the surface. The model is then exported to the game engine where the coders can apply their magic.

I've found that there are two types of designers; those that are traditionally trained in the arts and those who are mostly self-taught. How has your traditional training helped you to excel in your field? Now that you're out of school, how do you stay on your toes and keep up-to-date on current design trends and tech?

By far the worst habit I see in hobbyists is a narrow focus on their specific area of interest. A lot of comic artists, for example, only ever draw from comics, or try to emulate comics they like. Many self taught artists can't draw from life; they have developed a systematic way of drawing a character or a scene that limits the range of their expression. This problem extends to their originality and creativity, as they are always trying to emulate their heroes rather than carve their own path.

A good art education teaches you the fundamentals of art, anatomy, composition, colour without attaching to a specific medium. Take Picasso, you may love or hate the guy but his range of expression and ability to adapt to new materials and ideas was phenomenal.
It also exposes you to subjects outside of your normal areas of interest, and provides you with a comprehension of the evolution of art as throughout history. Knowing what has gone before is central to developing your own path in art/design.

In terms of technology, the best source is undoubtedly the internet - especially social networks like Twitter. It provides the same peer effect as college/work - but on a much broader scope. Although I have to stress it's important to take time to actually digest some of this information, rather than simply accumulating a huge catalogue of bookmarks. For that reason I store articles of particular interest offline, and print out the really good ones to hardcopy to read away from the computer.

What would you consider to be your dream project? Are there any new and exciting projects that you are currently working on that you would like to share with my readers?

My dream project? Whoa...where do I start? Well, I tend to like the more artsy projects. I'd love to have worked on something like "Shadow of the Colossus". That game was beautiful, and captured an internal dream landscape; it was like one of those beautiful illustrated books I used to read as a boy - like "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. Alternatively, I'd love to work on a grandiose RPG for Square-Enix, their standards of art production are second to none.

As for current or new projects - I'm afraid that they're all tightly bound within confidentiality agreements...

Aside from your preferred 3d modeling program, what tools or software could you not live without?

Photoshop, without a doubt - it's an immensely flexible tool with applications across so many disciplines. You can use Photoshop to create so many different types of image, from graphic design and photographic manipulation to hand drawn illustration. After that, it would probably be Pixologic's ZBrush. It empowers non technical artists to be able to make beautiful sculptures in 3D without the rigours of technical packages like 3DS Max.

What advice would you give to anyone looking to make it in the video game industry?

My first bit of advice would be to start learning a 3d package (and Photoshop) as soon as possible, it takes a lot of time to master, so start now!

Here's one other bit of advice: My art teacher once told me something, which has stuck with me since art college: "Don't try and draw in a particular style, just draw as well as you can, and your style will evolve from your failings". I think it's a quote, but the source eludes me. In a nutshell, don't just copy your heroes - learn to express yourself. Don't make a portfolio stocked with orcs, space marines and other generic copies - create work that says something about you.. I don't mean be serious or pretentious, but make something that reflects your experience of life. Wallace and Grommet are a great example of that, they're massively popular because everyone can relate to them.

Finally, do you own a mobile device? If so, which one? How do you use it to improve your productivity?

No, I'm afraid not - other than my mobile which I use to store important dates. I'm on the verge of buying a smart phone, but I'm keen to wait for the next generation. The iPhone makes me drool but I'm curious to see where Google is going with Android - and Chrome. I think the big G has something amazing stuffed up their sleeve (a new desktop OS perhaps....) and I'm keen to see how that platform matures. While Chrome has proved a rather limited browser so far, once the extensions start surfacing I think we could start seeing some cool things from them uniting mobile, offline and online functionality.

ONLINE

Website: http://www.marcusk.co.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/sunwukung

Maximize Traffic for Your Contest or Giveaway Using Twitter

2009-03-25T08:11:45Z

Not too long ago I held a giveaway on this website sponsored by F-Stop to give away a free courier bag. I've always loved giving things away on this website and I was very excited to be giving away such a great item. In the past, I've found contests or giveaways to be great ways to increase traffic and exposure for my site as well as the item that is being given away. The problem with contests or giveaways is that it can be hard to spread the word about them. In the world of social networking, it can be tough to ask others to help spread the word because after all, why would anyone want to hurt their own chances of winning a particular item by telling their friends about it?

This is the major impediment to any "comment-to-win" contests or giveaways that one might find on the web. Unless your site has a huge following, the traffic and exposure as a result from the contest is likely to be minimal because people simply won't want to help you promote it. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to solve this problem. The solution came to me while thinking about the terms for the F-Stop contest. Why not allow people to enter the contest by Tweeting about it via Twitter?

]]> I immediately saw the advantages a Twitter-based contest or giveaway would have over a standard "comment-to-win" giveaway. By asking a person to simply Tweet a message containing some basic text and a specific shortened URL with a link back to my contest, my contest could literally become viral. Every person who entered would send the link out to all their followers, those people would in turn visit my website and then send the link out to all their followers, and so on and so on. I could then track the entries using Search.Twitter.com. The only drawback I could see from this sort of contest was the potential irritation that it could cause from people realizing that I was asking them to essentially sign up their competitors.

To off-set this irritation I decided to allow the entrant to enter more than once. This would have a dual benefit. The more they Tweeted, the better their chance to win and the more potential entrants my contest would receive. I wasn't exactly sure how well this contest would work but my gut was saying that it was going to do really well.

After about 2 hours, I knew I was right. I published the contest about 5 a.m., by 7 a.m. the contest already had 200 entrants and by the end of the day my contest had received nearly 1,000 entries and the contest page had received about 3,500 page views. On day 2 the contest page had received over 1,100 page views and the number of entries was still increasing. At this point I knew that this contest method was a winner.

The response I received regarding this contest was very positive although I did receive some negative feedback from some of my readers who felt that it was irresponsible to allow people to enter as many times as they wanted, that spamming their friends with the contest details was annoying, and that the potential ramifications for Twitter were very bad if this method caught on. For the most part, I do agree with some of the detractors of this method. That's why I believe that contests run in this matter should be done using some common sense and with some responsibility. If you decide to run a contest like this on your site, here are a few suggestions:

Limit the number of times people can enter and tell them that if they violate the rules, their entries will not be counted.
Don't hold contests like this very often. If you do this too much, people will catch on and stop participating.
Only give away big ticket items. Do not try to sell your eBook this way. If you do, you're likely to face a lot of negative feedback.
Only run the contest for 1-3 days. After that, interest seems to run out.

Anyhow, I thought that I would share my thoughts regarding this very effective contest method with you guys and see what you think. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

33 More Paint Brush Style Illustrator Brushes

2009-03-23T16:29:43Z

Recently I re-released a set of popular paint brush style Illustrator brushes on this site. After doing so, it didn't take long before requests for more brushes in that style started pouring in. I love feedback from my readers so I was happy to produce more brushes in that style. So today, I am releasing a set of 33 paint brush style Illustrator brushes for you guys to use in your designs for free. I hope you enjoy them! And don't forget, I love feedback so if you have a request please send it along!
]]>
Download these brushes
33 More Paint Brush Style Illustrator Brushes | 210 KB

Colorburned Interviewed on PSDFAN

2009-03-18T17:25:54Z

I hope you guys are having a great week! I've been busy making some exciting new Photoshop brushes this week and have been busily working on my book but I thought I would let you guys know about the interview I did on PSDFAN last week. If you've ever been curious about me, check it out.

Congratulations to the Winner of a Free Courier Bag from F-Stop

2009-03-17T15:16:46Z

Today I am announcing the winner of another contest on this site; this time, sponsored by my friends at F-Stop. Last week we decided to do something a bit different and give away a bag using Twitter. This contest format worked better than I expected and I'm really excited to be announcing the winner on this website today.
]]> @OctaBird (AKA Jason Hammond) Jason, to redeem your prize please give @fstopgear a follow and they should be contacting you shortly. Thanks again to everyone who participated and make sure to keep checking in because I have some exciting giveaways in the works for my site's year anniversary coming soon.

And remember, if you weren't lucky enough to win this contest and are in need of a new bag, head over to F-Stop's website and take a look around. They're bags are great!

Submit Your Designs to be Featured in My Next Book

2009-03-16T04:30:37Z

If you visit this blog often or follow me on Twitter, you may have heard me mention the book that I am working on. For the last several months I have been putting together a design resource and style guide for retro graphics. Essentially, this book will include tons of vector resources, textures, Illustrator & Photoshop brushes and much more! At this point I am about 90% finished with the book except I need your help.

I want to include a gallery of retro graphics to serve as inspiration to my book's readers and I would very much like for this section to be made up of graphics created by my readers. While I can't promise that all the submissions will be accepted, I can promise to give every single one serious consideration.

If you are interested in having your designs published in a book, simply email the designs to retrographics@colorburned.com. Please submit your designs in the following format:

There is no limit to the number of designs you may submit.
All submissions are free.
All images must be 300dpi at a minimum size of 200 x 200 mm
Only TIFF, Vector EPS or high resolution JPG files are accepted.
The publisher, Angela Patchell Books, retains the right to print your company name, client name, and other related information within the book, and all marketing materials for promotional purposes.
The publisher is not responsible for additional color-correcting of digital files.
The publisher assumes all submitted artwork are the work and/or property of the designer or firm submitting the work. The publisher and its partners will not be liable for any copyright infringement on the part of the entrant. Because there is no entry fee, we cannot provide free copies of the book to those firms whose work is chosen. However, upon publication, Angela Patchell Books gives 50 percent discount on purchasing unlimited copies of the book to contributors.

Thanks again guys if you are interested please submit your files as soon as possible so that I may review your works.

Interview with Jeff Suter, Senior Art Director for Marvel Comics

2009-03-12T10:12:09Z

This week I had the opportunity to interview Jeff Suter (AKA @suterman), the Senior Art Director for Marvel Comics. I've always been a huge fan of comic books, specifically comics from the Marvel Universe. Who doesn't love Spiderman or Wolverine? I mean really? Anyhow, this is a great read for anyone interested in comic books or art direction. Enjoy!
]]> Jeff, thanks so much for participating in this interview. Can you begin by explaining a bit about your background? Where are you from? How did you get your start in art and design?

Thank You for asking me! I grew up in Northern New Jersey, but spent a good deal of my childhood in New York City as a child actor and performer. I did lots of TV commercials, Broadway and tons of voice over work. I did an Underoos commercial in 1980 and I was fascinated by the animation guys on the set drawing the characters on the monitors for the director for camera positioning. I'm almost sure one of those guys was Joe Kubert. I told my Mother right there that I wanted to be an artist if I didn't make it in acting.

My Father was a Print Pressman and we even had a 2 color AB Dick press in the basement, so I started stripping 2 color film and retouching logos and stuff for my Dad when I was in high school. After HS, I then took night classes at Passaic County College while working as an art director at a print shop during the day and moved on to run a photo-processing studio. I was lucky enough to take over as a production manager at that company when they "Went Digital" and have been designing marketing and print materials on the Mac ever since.

I can't imagine there being a cooler job than working for Marvel Comics. Can you tell us a little about your position as Senior Art Director? How did you get involved with Marvel? What are your responsibilities? What is your typical day like?

Well, my main duties are overseeing design and execution of Marketing and Sales material. That would include ads for comic books that appear in comic books, fan magazines, trade magazines like Publisher's Weekly and mainstream media like the New York Times and USA Today. This also includes sales materials used by retailers, like Marvel Previews, our monthly catalog, promotional posters, postcards, door hangers, online web ad material, book marks, t-shirts for conventions, convention booth design and execution, honestly the list goes on and on. When there is a need for promotion materials, I'm generally involved.

I also produce multi-media material, like Comic Book Trailers (which I produce the video and soundtracks), Podcasts (The Mighty Marvel Podcast, which I host, edit and mix.) Voice over work for commercial and Marvel.com use. I am also responsible for the multi-media displays at Comic Conventions, like New York Comic Con for example.

I also work on design of logos, trade dress treatments, variant cover design and execution, editorial pages like Bullpen Bulletins or Cup 'O Joe. Really, anything materials that needs to be produced for publishing business development.

My day starts at my desk at 8AM until my eyes start going blurry.

A wise super hero once said "with great power comes great responsibility." Art directors typically have a lot of responsibility; the larger the company, the larger the responsibility. What would you say is the most challenging aspect of being an art director for Marvel Comics? What is most rewarding?

The most challenging thing about my job is juggling the amount of projects that are on my schedule. With that said, it's the vast diversity of projects that make my job so rewarding. I literally can work on 8-10 different projects a day, so I never have that monotonous numbing feeling. I go from mixing a podcast to designing a 12-foot tall banner for a convention, to working on an ad for Wolverine to run in a magazine and then jump on a logo design for Ghost Rider!

In addition to your position as Senior Art Director you also host the Mighty Marvel Podcast. Can you tell us a little about the Mighty Marvel Podcast? Podcasting can sometimes be a little outside the scope of the typical art director role. What was the most challenging aspect of stepping into this role? What's your favorite part of hosting a podcast? Can you offer any tips for anyone wanting to start a podcast of their own?

Yes, I would say that Podcasting is certainly outside the typical Art Director role. I took on the podcasts because of my experience as a commercial actor and musician. I've been a musician for most of my life, so I had many years of recording experience, and that is why I was originally approached to produce the podcasts. There was a bit of a learning curve in the beginning, but I'd say that we have streamlined the program format to be exactly what we need it to be, another vehicle to promote Marvel Comics. We need to deliver content to the fan, especially the new fans, the younger, more online connected community of comic fans. That's the most important thing, connecting to the fans and delivering entertaining, informative programs about Marvel. Plus, I love talking to the creators. I really do. I love getting story and character information out of them. And I think it's great that we give creators a platform to sound off to the fans. It really is a blast.

Tips on podcasting? Well, write an outline of what you want to do a show about. Don't record off the cuff. You need to know going in what you're going to talk about. Sure, you'll go off on other subjects, but you need to start with a plan. And be yourself.

Marvel is one of those companies where it seems like just about everything they do is awesome. That being said, what have been your favorite projects to work on over the years?

I love composing music for the Comic Trailers I produce. That is something that is really satisfying to me artistically. I love the video and multimedia work. Really, there are no projects I work on that I don't enjoy on some level. We all have tasks that are stressful (like during Convention season) but for someone in the creative community, I couldn't ask for a more fulfilling position.

Most of my readers are aspiring artists or designers. It would probably be tough for me to find a reader who isn't a fan of at least one Marvel character or series. For those of my readers who are not obsessed fanboys (or girls) can you recommend some comics with either compelling storylines or inspirational artwork for us to take a look at?

That is a really tough question, because there are so many excellent books being produced. I think it is a really exciting time to be in the comic industry, and the boys and girls at the creative plate are really knocking them out of the park. Really, the level of quality in Marvel books right now is mind-boggling!

A good start would be Ultimate Spider-Man, Wolverine, New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America and Thor. All of these books excel in comic book storytelling.

Earlier I mentioned the responsibility that comes with being an art director. How does an aspiring artist or designer prepare himself or herself for the role of art director? What would you say is most important; a strong educational background, experience in the field, or a good eye for design?

I think anyone who wants to be in the design field needs to study good design. That may seem like an obvious answer, but you have to learn from what has come before. Typography is something that I think a lot of students tend to overlook in importance. If you are going to work in the ad field, typography might be the most important aspect to learn. I know it took me many years to recognize good design. Typography skill separates the men from the boys. And yes, stay in school kids!

What would you say is the future of Marvel comics? Do you see a major transition from traditional mediums such as print to digital? Do you think that more comic book titles might be adapted for Hollywood films?

Who doesn't want to see the Marvel Universe on the big screen? As long as they write good scripts, and employ the best people in the industry, Marvel movies will be awesome for many lifetimes! The Marvel Universe is filled with ageless characters, telling ageless stories. The stories never end! No matter the medium, these characters will always exist to fight evil and save the innocent. You gotta love 'em!

Finally, do you own a mobile device? If so, which one? How do you use it to improve your productivity?

I own a pre-pay cell phone for emergencies. I only use it when I need to get in touch with my wife. In my opinion, a cell could never improve my productivity.

Win a Free Camera Bag From F-Stop!

2009-03-08T18:08:47Z

Yep, it's time for another exciting give away on Colorburned! This time the guys at @fstopgear agreed to let me give away a free camera bag to one of my lucky readers. If you're not familiar with F-Stop, they make some amazing bags for adventure photographers. As you can imagine, a photographer who films or photographs snowboarders or mountain climbers, can't use just any bag; they need high quality, sturdy bags to protect their equipment in the most extreme environments. It was this dedication to quality equipment that led me to order a bag of my own; so as you can imagine, I'm terribly excited to be giving one of these away on my site.
]]> Up for grabs is 1 Bard, F-Stop's smaller courier bag. The Bard is made of environmentally friendly abrasion resistant fabric and is weather-proofed against most conditions. In addition, it has tons of space to hold all your photography gear, including room for a 15 inch laptop! For more information on this really cool bag, visit F-Stop's website or watch this video.

So how do you win? This is the exciting part.
To win, all you have to do is send the following Tweet on Twitter:

Enter to win a free courier bag from @fstopgear http://tinyurl.com/bxzqyq

The best part is that you can enter as many times as you like. Just make sure that you send the Tweet exactly like it is written. Otherwise we won't be able to track your entries.

Up for Grabs
1 Bard Courier Bag from F-Stop

Rules

To enter, Tweet this message!
You can enter as many times as you like!
The more you Tweet the message, the better your odds of winning!
Entries will be accepted until 11:59 PM, EST on Sunday, March 15, 2009.

If you aren't a member of Twitter, don't worry; all you have to do is set up an account. It only takes a moment and it's free!

Also, for you photography buffs, take a look at F-Stop's amazing Photography Newsletters.
You can subscribe here.

Good luck everyone!

Make a Pit Stop at F-Stop

2009-03-05T11:54:25Z

The more involved I become in design, the more gear that I seem to accumulate. It seems like every time I go on a business trip, I bring more and more gear with me. For instance, on a typical trip to New York I'm likely to bring a laptop, a mouse, 2 cameras, large noise reduction headphones, an iPod, various chargers and connector cables, and of course a very large bag of Peanut Butter M&M's. In the very near future, I'm hoping to upgrade to a 17 inch MacBook Pro and possibly even purchase a new Wacom Tablet. This means that very soon, the amount of gear that I bring with me will surpass the amount of items that my current bag can handle. That's why about a month ago; I decided to start looking for a new courier bag to replace my old one. This article is a review of my experience looking for a new laptop bag. ]]> F-Stop. I looked at the bags on their website, Googled them for reviews and even visited their Flickr page. As it turns out, all the info I needed was on their website. They have a host of very informational videos (Maverick, Satori, Bard) on their site that really helped me in deciding which bag was right for me.

After a bit of thought, I chose the Maverick; their largest courier bag. I went ahead and ordered the bag and about a week later it arrived on my doorstep. When I first opened it up, I realized how nice the bag actually was. It had tons of compartments, pockets, and zippers with tons of room for all my gear with room to spare.

So far, I've been very impressed with the bag. So impressed that I decided to write a quick review of the bag and share it with you guys. If you're looking for a nice bag to haul all your equipment around, take a look at F-Stop's line of high quality bags and try them out for yourself!

53 Incredible High Resolution Photoshop Paint Brushes

2009-03-04T11:44:33Z

I love Photoshop brushes, they are very effective tools to help add texture, rough up, or distress your designs. I've been looking for a nice set of high resolution Photoshop brushes to help achieve this effect for quite some time; and while there are a ton of really nice Photoshop brush sets out there on other sites, I just wasn't able to find a set that was exactly what I was looking for. That's why I went ahead and created a set of 53 High Resolution Photoshop Paint Brushes on my own. These brushes are not only good for roughing up or distressing your designs, but these Photoshop brushes are also great if you just need to reproduce a paint brush effect. So if you are like me and are looking for that perfect set of Photoshop brushes, download this set of brushes and give them a try. I think that you will like them.
]]> Download these brushes
53 High Resolution Photoshop Paint Brushes | 27.4 MB

Designious Japanese Art Vector Pack Released

2009-03-03T10:35:00Z

Alex from Designious emailed me over the weekend and asked me to let you guys know about the new Japanese Art Vector Pack that they just released. In addition, you can also download some free samples of their packs as well.

The Best and Worst Sites to Help Build a Loyal Following for Your Blog

2009-03-02T08:29:13Z

What would you rather have on your website? An enormous amount of traffic or a loyal following of readers? This is a question that a lot of websites deal with on a daily basis. In reality, most of us would probably prefer both; and for some, this is probably the case. The problem is that a lot of us end up wasting a lot of time and energy submitting our websites to social media sites that have little affect on either. Last week, I decided to dig a bit deeper into my site's statistics to figure out which of my site's top referrers actually provided the most loyal following. The results were both interesting and surprising. ]]>

DESIGNM.AG: 3:44 | 4th in visits
SPOON GRAPHICS: 3:24 | 16th in visits
VECTIPS: 3:08 | 13th in visits
NOUPE: 2:47 | 11th in visits
BITTBOX: 2:55 | 3rd in visits
VECTORTUTS: 2:43 | 9th in visits
TWITTER: 2:03 | 7th in visits
DESIGNFLOAT: 1:10 | 5th in visits
DIGG: 0:59 | 12th in visits
STUMBLE UPON: 0:23 | 8th in visits

* List is in minutes and seconds.

Now take a look at this list. Look at Digg, Stumble Upon, and Design Float. The 3 of them provide quite a few visits to my site monthly, but visitors from those sites don't tend to stick around for very long.

On the other hand, blogs such as DesignM.ag, Spoon Graphics, and VECTIPS provide more traffic (in some cases) but their readers end up spending a lot more time on my site. This means that I may be able to increase traffic and loyalty at the same time by visiting and submitting links to other blogs instead of social media sites.

Feel free to comment. I'd love to hear what you guys think about this. It is an interesting topic and I would love to get a discussion going on how we can improve loyal readership on our sites.

Best of the Web - February 2009

2009-03-01T00:43:58Z

February was another fantastic month in the design community. Tons of excellent articles, tutorials and resources were published on a growing number of design websites. February in particular was one of the busiest months I've had in a long time. In addition to keeping this site up-to-date, I have also been working heavily on my book, as well as guest posting on some other sites as well. This post is a review of some of my favorite articles from the month of February.

]]> GUEST ARTICLES I'VE WRITTEN

VECTORTUTS: Best of the Web - February 2009
Every month I write the Best of the Web article for VECTORTUTS. Check it out, there was a lot of great vector content this month.

Art Bistro: Survive an All Nighter
An article rationalizing the nocturnal life-style.

Art Bistro: Choosing Design as a Degree Can Give You an Edge
Choosing a design degree can be the difference between finding a job and not. This article explains why.

FAVORITE TUTORIALS

Tutorial for Colorful Lighting Effect In Illustrator
This is a really nice tutorial explaining how to create a smokey light effect in Illustrator.

Picking Colors for Your Design
I'm a sucker for Fireworks tutorials. Here's a great screencast from my friends at From the Couch.

DESIGN NEWS

Logo Designer Blog
A new blog by Jacob Cass from Just Creative Design.

WhatTheFont for iPhone
Did you know that you can now identify fonts using your iPhone with My Font's new What the font tool?

5 Reasons to Subscribe to Design Blogs
My Ink Blog gives the rationale for subscribing to RSS feeds.

Meet the New Tuts
Envato's TUTS family of websites gets a re-branding.

Go Media Vector Set 14
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Interview with Alex Dumitru from Designious

2009-02-26T10:00:36Z

This week, I had the opportunity to interview Alex Dumitru from Designious. If you are not already familiar with Designious, they are a design studio that specializes in premium stock vector designs. The quality of their work is really top notch so it was really exciting to get to learn more about their business. Alex works mostly with the business side of the company so it was very interesting to gain some insight into how the other side of the design industry works. As always, I hope you enjoy this interview and when you're done, I hope that you will visit Designious' website, connect with them on Twitter, and of course purchase their products.

]]> Alex, thank you so much for participating in this interview. As someone who creates designs resources, I've come to really admire the work that Designious does so it's a real pleasure to get to interview you on this site. Can you start off by explaining a bit about your background? Where are you from? What is your professional background? How did you get involved with Designious?

Thank you for this opportunity Grant; it is a pleasure to be interviewed on your site. I am one of three owners of Designious.com, born and raised in Bucharest, Romania.

My professional background is in sales and IT, not so much in design. I opened my first business in 2005; since then, I have been involved in several startup businesses. The first business was a call center. It was a great experience and taught me a lot of things that helped me to run other businesses later on.

Can you tell us a little about Designious? How did it come about? How has your business evolved over time?

Designious was born November 2007 when my two partners and I decided to start a new company as a new source of income because the financial crisis.

At the time, we employed 4 people with experience in design and we started to learn about the design business. In the beginning it was hard. The first 3-4 months saw little in terms of income but as time passed, we started to grow as we gained new contracts.

The website was launched a few months later, when we already had a rather large library of vector elements and we thought to sell them as other companies were doing it. Some sales came in so we started creating new vectors especially for the website.

Now we are a team of 12 people working full time and we have a few others we collaborate with.

I have had some experience designing and selling design resources online and I will be the first to say how challenging it can be to stock and market a shop; especially given such fierce competition from commercial websites as well as sites like mine who give things away for free. What would you say is the most challenging aspect of running a studio like Designious? Do you have any advice for anyone considering setting up a shop of their own?

This is an extremely challenging business and the competition is growing every month. This year only I counted like 4-5 new websites that sell stock vectors and maybe more that give vectors for free. I think the hardest part is to convince the potential client that what you sell is better than what the competition has (free or paid). Another thing is to create something professional, that people need and will spend money on.

The design community could not function without the advertisers that support it. Designious consistently supports the design community through advertising. What impact has placing ads on design blogs had on your business? Do you find placing ads on design blogs to be an effective way of driving traffic and business on your site?

Advertising has helped us a lot in terms of generating awareness about our products in addition to increasing the number of visitors to our website. At the moment we advertise on more than 20 websites and blogs. Having banners on design blogs is definitely a good way to generate traffic if you can afford it.

Aside from advertising, what would you say is the best way to get the word out about your products? Do you guys use social media such as Digg or Twitter?

Blogging about it, giving away free samples, and search engine traffic helps a lot. We don't really use a lot of social media but this is something we plan to work on.

Your vector resources are really top notch. Can you tell us a little about the team of designers that produce them?

We have 8 talented designers working for us at the moment that create the stock vectors for our website and work on the projects we get. Each of them bring different talents to the table but most of them are university graduates with relevant experience in both traditional and digital media. For example, one of them is a well known tattoo artist, another one has an impressive background in traditional media, another one is a well known street artist, we have another person who specializes in corporate designs etc. Everybody brings something to the table.

Beside the stock vectors they also do a lot of custom work even though we don't have an online portfolio yet, we create all sort of stuff for other people.

Producing high quality vectors can be a tough job. What sort of qualities do you look for in your designers? Do your designers have a traditional art background or are they mostly self-taught?

First of all they need to have some sort of experience in design. Designious is starting to be a name in the industry and the standards are higher each day, but most of all we look for talent. If they have it, everything else can be taught.

Do you own a mobile device? If so, which one? How do you use it to improve your productivity?

I own a Nokia E65; I use it like a phone, nothing more.

ALEX'S WEBSITES

www.designious.com
www.designioustimes.com

CONNECT WITH ALEX

Twitter