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HomePosts Tagged "design" (Page 31)

design Tag

Hand Drawn, Illustration, Illustrator, Patterns, Tutorials

Seamless patterns in Illustrator have been on my tutorial list for a while, so I’m very excited for this week! There’s something about the anticipation right before you test your pattern that I love. The total surprise when you see this pretty little square you made repeated a dozen times – suddenly the little square looks the same, but entirely new. And then go ahead and imagine it on your favorite throw pillow, mug, notebook, mousepad, comforter, wallpaper..it’s a great moment for a designer, even if they’re just daydreams 😉 My goal is to bring you one step closer to those daydreams this week with a method you can use to create seamless, repeatable patterns no matter which version of Illustrator you have. We’ll take a square with elements from the 100+ Vector Leaves and Flourishes pack and go step by step to achieve a fully usable pattern at the end – color palette included. Let’s go!

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Color

Every evening after work, after our hour commute home, after we’re greeted by this little body of wiggles, we eat a quick snack, then head out on a mile walk in our subdivision. It’s my favorite part of every day, and the past two days it’s gotten even better. The humidity of the deep South is slowly departing and when there’s a slight breeze, the sun is setting and the temperature is perfect, I take it all in and am convinced it’s bliss. I’ve always looked at autumn as kind of depressing – leaves dying and impending winter storms – definitely derived from 20 years of severe winters in upstate New York. Even I am surprised how much my attitude towards fall has changed. Now it’s about apple cider, cinnamon brooms, cozy blankets, crisp breezes and that distinct, beautiful smell in the air. Thinking about how soon it’ll be here and the little glimpses I’ve felt on our walks this week, it was time to put together some autumn color schemes for season-specific artwork.

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Color, Hand Drawn, Hand Lettering, Illustration, Tutorials, Typography

If you’ve been following my Instagram, you know how obsessed I’ve been lately with lettering using a waterbrush! It combines two strong passions of mine – watercolor and typography and I can’t get enough! Since I’ve been experimenting like a crazy woman, I wanted to share some tips I’ve learned over the past few weeks. I’m no expert by any means, but I’ve gotten into a rhythm and I’ve been really happy with how I’ve improved by remembering a few simple things. If this is something you’d like to try, my hope is that this video will save you time, money and supplies. Speaking of supplies, everything mentioned in the video that I’m currently using is listed below the vid 😉 For more on brush lettering with watercolor, check out my master course!

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Illustration, Illustrator, Tutorials

After the Lovebird and Watercolor Popsicles tutorials, I had a few requests to create more illustration-based tuts (if this is something you’d like to see more of, please let me know!). Last week, Tamara made a request for a donut tutorial which I thought would be fun, plus it incorporates quite a few useful techniques I find myself using all the time. So! Even if you don’t have an appetite for some digital donuts, I promise you’ll walk away with something you’ll use many times in the future. In this tutorial, we’ll create 2 different versions of typical donuts in Illustrator utilizing the blob brush, scatter brush, paint streak textures and clipping masks. Let’s get started!

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Freebies, Hand Drawn, Hand Lettering, Typography

As the summer begins to wind down, things are already feeling busier! I’m finding myself constantly searching for a sheet of paper to scribble notes on, to-do reminders, or phone numbers to call. If this is you too, you might want a prettier sheet of paper to make your list a bit more achievable..I know I do! For that reason, this week’s freebie is a set of 3 watercolor notecard printables – print two notecards per any 8.5″x11″ or A4 cardstock or regular paper. The final printed size for each notecard is 5.5″x8.5″, full preview + download link below!

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Hand Drawn, Illustrator, Tutorials

Happy Tuesday! This week’s tutorial is brought to you by Whitney + Monica who both emailed asking how to vectorize hand drawn doodles so they would have reuseable, and infinitely rescalable vectors. You’ve probably seen vector artwork around a lot lately – I just released a pack of vectors a few weeks ago and gave 5 of them away for free. In this tutorial, using that vector pack as an example, I share how I took those hand drawn elements from a doodle on a sheet of copy paper to a crisp vector that can be used over and over again on any application. Do you remember the how to vectorize hand lettering tutorial? If you’ve practiced that at all, you’ll be in great shape with converting doodles 🙂 In this video, we’ll go over 3 different methods of cleaning up your doodles, so whether you’re a beginner or advanced Illustrator user, there’s an option that will work for you. Let’s get started!

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Color, Resources

Did you know the 21st was the first day of Summer? 4 days ago, the world’s position said ‘I grant you Summer’ and we here in the US said, ‘why, thank you. I accept.’

Maybe that was just me.

I moved to Savannah, Georgia in 2006 to finish my undergrad at SCAD but also to escape the 6 month winters (that’s not a joke) Upstate NY so generously gifted me the previous 20 years. I grew a special love for summer waiting for it to come, while I shoveled snow every October through March. So, summer and I go way back, and even though summers are a bajillion times more intense in the South (now Atlanta) than I ever experienced in the North, it’s something I look forward to every single year.

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Color, Resources

Did you know the 21st was the first day of Summer? 4 days ago, the world’s position said ‘I grant you Summer’ and we here in the US said, ‘why, thank you. I accept.’

Maybe that was just me.

I moved to Savannah, Georgia in 2006 to finish my undergrad at SCAD but also to escape the 6 month winters (that’s not a joke) Upstate NY so generously gifted me the previous 20 years. I grew a special love for summer waiting for it to come, while I shoveled snow every October through March. So, summer and I go way back, and even though summers are a bajillion times more intense in the South (now Atlanta) than I ever experienced in the North, it’s something I look forward to every single year.

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Color, Freebies, Illustrator, Resources, Tutorials

Happy June! Here in Atlanta, it definitely feels like summer has arrived, and by summer, I mean ridiculous amounts of sticky humidity. Outside of popsicles, which we’ve already created, I was brainstorming another symbol of summer that represents refreshment (instead of stickiness), and for whatever reason (I’m landlocked by a minimum of 4 hours and I’ve never surfed before), a surfboard came to mind. Not only do surfboards represent warmth, summer and refreshment, but they’re also a designer’s dream to work on (fun culture aspect + big canvas). So this week, we’re going to create some super easy, vector paint streaked surfboards in Illustrator using my newest design assets: paint streak textures, 2 of which I’m giving away for free! 

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Business

Hope your weeks are going well and if they aren’t, tomorrow’s Friday! I have a little survey favor to ask if you can spare (literally) 10 seconds today (please don’t cringe!). Every week, I try to think of things I wish I would have known when I was first getting started or while I was fully established in my career. I want to make this site as helpful as possible for anyone feeling unsure, intimidated or just wanting to learn a little more about being in the field or designing new work. I’m playing around with the idea of creating a full course on a design topic so things can go a little deeper than a 15 minute vid. Obviously this would be a big time commitment, so I’d like to make sure I spend that time on a topic that will be the most useful to readers of this blog. So! My little survey is only one question (hence your 10 seconds) which you can answer by clicking the box of your choice below. Thanks so much in advance! Have a great rest of your week with the extra karma I’m sending your way 😉

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