Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Holographic Buttons & Stickers!!!

Buttons featuring designs from Old Skool Junk
That's right, I now offer HOLOGRAPHIC buttons! Yesterday the holographic paper I ordered came in the mail and I was dying to test it out. This weekend I got an order for buttons from the awesome Old Skool Junk, and what better design to test this holographic paper out on than a freaking unicorn?!

I gave it a shot and it turned out freaking awesome! I'm so excited! I'm currently working on listings for holographic sailor moon buttons and custom buttons in my shop. It should be up later this week! I'll post an announcement when they're up!
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Sunday, April 24, 2016

5 AWESOME Resources for Digital/Graphic Designers that I use EVERYDAY!

What The Font!
    An AWESOME resource for designers. Several times a week I have clients give me a physical copy of a flyer or business card that was designed years ago and they want me to recreate it in the digital age. Trouble is they want an EXACT copy, fonts and all, and they have no idea what the original typeface was. What do you do?
    You take a photo of it and upload it to What The Font! and they help you narrow things down. They aren't always 100% spot on, but it always helps me figure things out and it removes you looking through the hundreds and thousands of fonts on your computer to find the perfect typeface-prince charming. Seriously, this site is a lifesaver and not enough people know about it. Add it to your design arsenal and stop ripping your hair out. 

Pixabay
    FREE. STOCK. IMAGES. Need I say more? 
    Client on a budget? This is the site for you! Admittedly this is the B or C-team when it comes to stock images, but you can't beat FREE! They have a decent selection that's always growing, and they even offer some .EPS files and other vectored imagery.
Identifont
    Similar to What The Font!, but this one doesn't require a scan of the font itself. This is a series of questions designed to help you narrow down possible typefaces.
    It starts out basic, "Is it Serif? Italicized?" etc, but progresses into different characteristics of certain letters, like the center lines of the letter "M" or the subtle differences in a lowercase "i." If What The Font! fails you, Identifont is a great back up.
DaFont.com

    Speaking of fonts... this site is the BEST for free fonts. I've been using this site since I was a teenager! They have...I don't even know how many fonts, and they're all broken up into great categories. Like handwritten, serif, script, old school, etc. This is a great resource when you're first starting out and can't afford to buy expensive font families. (Lucidity is one of my favorites! I've been using it for YEARS!) Some of the fonts are licensed for personal use only, so be sure to check the licensing for each one before you use it for any commercial work, but when I was making designs for my college courses this resource was the BEST! It gave my designs variety without having to eat cup-ramen the rest of the week to afford it.
Gumroad
    Gumroad isn't free like the others, but it's just as valuable. It's kind of like etsy. Artists have their own little shops where they sell their goods, but instead of physical items, it's downloadable artist materials made by artists for other artists. Music, texture packs, brushes, stock images, etc.

    I've bought several brush packs for Photoshop and Illustrator through shops on GumRoad and I used them all the time! The pricing is reasonable, and you can put them on as many devices as you like! I have the same brush packs on my laptop, my desktop PC, and my Mac mini at work, so I get a lot of use out of them. If you're making your own brushes, textures, and resources, you might want to check this out and even open a shop of your own to make a little money on the side.  
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Wednesday, April 20, 2016

WIP Wednesday - Great Gatsby Prom Invite



My day job has been eating up a lot of my time and creativity these days, so I figured I'd try to post more about it here on the blog. I mean, I AM a graphic designer, so the stuff I make during the day is artsy, even if it is more functional and client-driven.

The most labor intensive design I worked on today was this high school prom invitation. This year the theme is "The Great Gatsby" (The movie more-so than the book), so I recreated the title screen from the film for the front of the invite. 

Check out a behind the scenes WIP photo under the CUT and I'll talk a bit more about the process of making the design. 

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Designer Tip Tuesday: Borders & Commercial Printing- Don't Do It!


I've been working in commercial design and print for a few years, so I thought it'd be fun to do something like a #tiptuesday where I can share a bit of graphic design advice and kind of vent about the frustrations of my day job.

A lot of colleges and art programs will reward you for pushing print capabilities to their limits, which is awesome, but when you send that file off to print, it might not come back looking like you had expected.


For my first ever topic, something simple, borders!

Thursday, April 14, 2016

The long awaited return of ORIGINAL CONTENT!


My day job and all my side jobs have been running me ragged. I haven’t gotten to do anything create for myself, outside of @sometimesfoodie, in ages! 


For Camden Comic Con last week I made a few new items, mostly buttons, and I finally hooked up my cintiq! So (hopefully) I can start updating this with more of my own stuff. Here’s a booth-photo in the meantime and some photos of the two new button packs I made and donated to the Comic Con Costume Contest as prizes. 
If you want to grab a pin pack of your own be sure to visit my etsy shop!
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