In this post we’ll be looking at some excellent examples of retro-style illustration: those belonging to Dan Page.  He is an illustrator who has managed to combine the simple, descriptive graphics of the retro style with illustration concepts that span from surrealism to extremely intelligent puns. The result is striking and hard to shake off: the visual effect of his illustrations is all the more powerful because of this unusual combinations of the retro style, that conveys conformism to a fixed set of social rules and a certain rigid mentality and the often very controversial, unconventional and mind-blowing subjects adopted.

The concept behind each illustration is in fact essential to Dan Page. As he admits himself: “At the core of what I do is the ‘idea’ behind each image, communication with pictures or creating a thought provoking image is what makes me move forward.”

Dan Page is a very successful illustrator precisely because of this brilliant way of creating his drawings. His client lists include: Time, Forbes, Business Week, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Popular Science, New Scientist and many others.

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The subject of this post is the portfolio of a young and very talented illustrator: Patrick Morgan. This time we will not be looking at an illustrator who completely bans the computer from his work process, but quite the contrary: Patrick Morgan’s illustrations are exquisite examples of digital illustration that manages to keep the complexity of the hand-sketch and combine it with the special effects of the digital tablet. He describes himself his creative process, in a few words: “Illustrators stand on the shoulders of giants pushing fashion, photography, design. I work using all this knowledge and then applying it to my book of wonders (my sketch pad). Once collecting the images needed either from found material or location drawing I am ready for my Mac. I scan my drawings in, maybe bitmapping for a raw edge of just playing with the levels to get real hard black” I hope this description helps you if you feel that you’d like to use the same technique in your own work.

As for Patrick Morgan’s career brief, he graduated Kingston University (London) in 1998 (a Degree in Graphics and Illustration with Commendations for Print Making) and he has been working as a freelance illustrator since, quickly becoming very famous in the field. He has been collaborating with clients from all over the world, including Transport of London, Cingular, Starbucks, Bacardi, Smirnoff, Coca-Cola and Waitrose.

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This article will throw spotlight on the work of a German artistic illustrator, who is already extremely famous in the field and one of the reasons for that might be the fact that he has managed to always reinvent himself and has adopted an extremely original style and working process. First of all, we will mention from the very beginning, if you were wondering how the illustrations displayed in this collection were done: none of them is digital! Olaf Hajek prefers to work as a painter for all his illustrations (some of which are quite close to the fine art aesthetics, actually) and his medium is acrylic on cardboard, paper or wood.

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This post deals with a type of business cards that is being used more and more and is starting to challenge the traditional design - the QR Code business cards. First of all, we have tho answer the question “What is a QR Code?”. Well, a QR Code is a 2 dimensional bar-code that is easily scanned using any modern mobile phone. This code will then be converted (called “dequrified”) into a piece of (interactive) text and/or link and usually, in case of a link, the user will be redirected to that link instantly. This is the long definition. The short one is: Quick Response Code.

The advantages of having a QR Code on your business cards, or any other promotional material for that matter, is: you will make the print interactive (this is one way to make print interact, another one is augmented reality), you will have the ability to track any incoming visitor from your creation and at the same time you will stand out from the crowd as your business card will have a surprising new element.

It is forecasted that smart-phone sales will surpass PC sales in the year 2011-2012 so you should think of helping your clients find you faster with their mobile devices.

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The sketchy look templates are currently a trendy style for illustrators and, why not, for web-designers as well. This is why we have decided to dedicate it an entire article and showcase some of the most original, intriguing and inspiring sites or blogs in this style that we could find. The advantage for adopting this kind of graphics is that you will get a very vibrant, natural look which will convey a sense of sincerity and originality to your site or blog.

It is free, it is natural, it is living art!!! What more freedom do you want other than to draw whatever your imagination dictates you? You can get to extremely interesting combinations of images in this way, that you couldn’t have possibly thought of otherwise. Just the act of placing one drawing next to another can bring very original results to begin with and when you’ll start making these sketches, drawings or cartoons interact, the results will be surpassing your expectations. You have the examples in this collection as a proof of the infinite possibilities you have in this type of graphics.

Probably the best advantage of the sketchy design is that your site or blog will have a truly unique look. No other site on the web will look like it because you have applied your own, personal, drawing style to it. This could be a very true expression of your style, and if you manage to give your hand-drawn graphics a definite, unmistakable personality you will surely have a successful site design.

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One Page Portfolio sites is increasingly popular nowadays. Today I would like to share 33 One Page WordPress & HTML themes from ThemeForest. You can purchase (aff) and download instantly. As you can see from the themes selected here, you can find some very creative ones, with perfectly balanced graphics, animated and with various styles - from corporate or elegant, to unconventional. Most of all, the prices are unbelievably affordable! So have a look at the ones presented here or at the ones on the site - you’ll definitely find a theme that meets your taste.

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Have you ever wandered what is the font used in the DzineBlog logo? Have you ever had a client requiring you to do some graphic design for some banners, brochures or for a specific web-page with a specific font, and asking if you could take it from a .pdf file? And have you ever got some text for a site, blog or newsletter written with CAPITALS, with incorrect spacing and badly formatted?

For all these problems or for other everyday font-related tasks there are online type tools and using these tools, you can save hours of searching, typing, testing and coding, and the most important thing: the tools are all free!

I know some of you already know some of the tools above or at least have similar tools installed on your computers. But imagine you are not home and you are working on a computer where you don’t have any of these installed or that you are somewhere and you just feel creative.

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