Designing a city logo can be a difficult but rewarding process: when doing this one should keep in mind that, unlike company logos, a city logo involves a huge cultural background and will be representing the image of the city on many levels - from the political to the social and economical one. Therefore, a careful consideration of what the image chosen for the logo will symbolize and entail is absolutely necessary.

First of all, this sort of logos originate from the old city heraldics, and they still have a strong resemblance to them: when designing a city logo one should be aware that, much like in the old heraldics, each visual element is expected to be a symbol for something related to the city, and that this logo will become the image of the city and it should be very effective in essentializing its main features or its general cultural representation.

It is absolutely necessary to study the city’s past and present landmarks, its history, its main economical activities, its cultural symbols and to look at the old heraldic emblems of the city as well. That is why, managing to create a modern, functional image of the city can be a very difficult and elaborate process.

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As we’ve already mentioned in the first part of this article series, we’ll be examining the diversity of styles within the retro trend. There are numerous artists who choose this style and yet, as you can see in this collection, none resembles the other — each one manages to have a unique voice! The characteristic they all have in common, however, is the fact that they all prefer the simple lines and the robust and somewhat naïve style of the illustrations, as they used to be in the 50s-70s.

Most of them also choose to make the graphics look as authentically old as possible by using faded tones and adding grazes, grungy textures and crumpled, yellowish paper backgrounds. One cannot avoid having a vague, mixed-up reaction to this kind of graphics, which makes it so great to look at, in fact: there is a sort of nostalgic tinge inexplicably connected to elements that belong to the most contemporary reality! This contradiction is the reason why the visual effect of such an illustration is so vivid and impossible to shake off!

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If you are a graphic designer, a web-designer, an illustrator, a painter or you have any other profession within the creative industry, check out the awesome creative business cards in this collection! You will get fresh, and very original ideas on how to design your own business card in a way that will make it (and you as well, of course) stand out from the crowd! All the examples in this collection burst with creativity - as they should, actually, because, if you work in this field, having an extremely creative business card is really a must!

As you will notice here, there are several ways in which you can obtain a suitable business card for this line of work: first of all you must have a very professional design of the card - that goes without saying - , secondly, it would be a plus to think of an unconventional way of designing your card, a brilliant idea can be very effective and say a lot about your creativity: you can think of an unconventional material for your card, you can come up with an interesting, new shape for it, or a very original way of folding it, for instance, you can even make your business card do something, turn into an object or stand up differently on the desk.

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Mascots are a great way of giving a personality and a natural touch to you site! You can either use them as a logo in themselves, or next with your site logo, but in any case, they are a simple and effective way of suggesting what your site is about and giving it a specific character, connecting it to an image that makes it memorable, in a word, giving it an identity that people can relate to!

Compared to the way in which this kind of mascot could be used in print (where there are certain color and complexity restrictions), when you create a mascot that is meant just for the web you have much more creative freedom: you can use as many colors or effects as you wish if you feel that this would be in line with what your site is about, for instance. Of course, you can still use a very simple drawing style as well. It all depends on what you are trying to express through your mascot, what your target audience is and, of course, on keeping in mind that you have to make your mascot blend in with the rest of the site. There are certain tips that you should look at in this respect (and you can find a good tutorial about that on vector.tutsplus.com, for instance).

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Previously we had a look at the very original ad thought-provoking retro illustrations of Dan Page. This article means to prove that there is more than one way of being a retro-style illustrator, actually, and that there is great freedom of expression within this very popular trend. We’ll be checking out the different works of some illustrators that have adopted this style but have managed at the same time to make it personal and truly unique.

Their work is a proof that it is the point of view of the artist that matters the most in an illustration and that makes it original. While examining these very diverse examples from the retro trend, you will soon realize that the appeal of this style lies especially in the controversies that it can easily bring. The first and most striking controversy is the fact that an illustration style from the past is used to express some contemporary realities. Seeing a laptop or a public figure from our days drawn in a way that makes it seem an authentic image from the past imposes a fresh way of looking and putting things into perspective and inevitably catches the eye.

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In this post we’ll be looking at some awesome site backgrounds that have been created in Adobe Illustrator or in other similar programs, and have an unmistakable, specific ‘vector look’ which is very trendy currently. They usually use shiny looking illustrations as part of the background graphics, or collages of various decorative elements, again with a digital look.

In this case it is very important what image you choose to feature on the background: creativity is more than necessary in the choice you make. It is enough to rightly place one illustration whose drawing style and original subject is astounding and you will convey a special personality and character to the whole site.

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In this article we’ll be looking at another awesome and very popular trend in web-design: that of creating an entire graphic world that one should explore! Entering the site is like visiting a strange planet or an unknown house - you never know what to expect, what will cross your way or what will pop up in front of you! We’ve seen that before in our previous articles but this time we’ll be looking at a different procedure and technique for creating this spectacular alternate reality: it will no be a world that is drawn or illustrated; the baffling element is that this time the unreal world is created from very realistic images, combined in a strange or unexpected way.

The effect is dazzling - you will feel like stepping into an unusual dream where all your familiar realities are recomposed and, generally, juggled with in the most unexpected way! Sometimes the site graphics stays closer to a recognizable reality and other times it just creates an alternate world from scratch but it uses very realistic pictures to do that and the contradiction is shockingly beautiful!

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