Blog.SpoonGraphics

Art & Design Inspiration Fix for May 24th 2013

Chris Spooner — Fri, 24 May 2013 06:00:40 +0000

The Art & Design Inspiration Fix pulls together a collection of my favourite graphical images that I’ve come across over the past week to give you a fix of creative inspiration. This week we have designs from Aaron von Freter, Rogier de Boevé, Yu Ping Chuang, Pavel Fuksa and Issam Erraya.

Create a Trendy Vintage Style Barber Logo in Illustrator

Chris Spooner — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:00:04 +0000

Sometimes it’s fun to create a logo design for a fictional client. Just pick a design style and play around with a concept of your choice without the hassle of the client approval process. This also gives you the chance to experiment with styles and trends you’ve seen around but never had the opportunity to try yourself. In this tutorial we’re going to create a logo design for a classic barber shop using the popular vintage theme. Follow the step by step guide to see how each individual element is crafted in Adobe Illustrator.

Here’s the logo we’ll be constructing for “Virgil’s Classic Barber Shop”. It makes use of the popular vintage style cross layout with small icon style graphics representing the nature of the business. We’ll construct all the individual elements and compose the logo’s layout, then add some roughening effects to give the design an aged, printed appearance.

We’ll begin by creating the small icon graphics. Copy a picture of some old barber scissors from Google Images and begin tracing the outline. Use the Ellipse tool to outline the hole of the handle.

Select the two ellipses and hit the Subtract option from the Pathfinder palette to punch out the inner shape from the outer, leaving a solid ring. Switch the black stroke for a black fill.

Continue tracing the rest of the scissor blade with the Pen tool. Overlap the circular handle slightly to form a solid outline with no gaps.

Remove the reference photograph then go to Object > Transform > Reflect. Hit the Copy button to create a duplicate then rotate it to form a complete scissors icon.

Draw a selection around the four individual objects then hit the Merge option from the Pathfinder palette to blend them all into one single shapes.

Repeat the tracing process but this time with a razor. Use the Pen tool to click and drag an outline around a reference photograph.

We can create a stylised moustache icon by hand. Click and drag four points with the Pen tool to form a smooth flowing curved teardrop shape.

Close the path with a harsh straight line, then accurately align a perfect circle to provide a smooth curved edge.

Select the two elements then flip a duplicate across the Vertical axis.

Move the duplicate over to the right, leaving a slight overlap, then Merge the two halves together with the Pathfinder tool.

Elsewhere on the artboard use the rectangle tool to draw a long thin line. Rotate it by 45° while holding Shift then Copy (CMD+C) and Paste in Front (CMD+F) a duplicate and rotate it the opposite way to form a cross.

Scale and position the small graphics within the cross element then add a typical Established date to fill the empty spaces.

I chose the classic Clarendon font for the main headline of the logo. Type out the name of the business and alter the tracking to add a little spacing between the letters.

Make any minor spacing adjustments to each letter by moving the type cursor into place then nudging with the Alt key and cursor keys. I closed up the gap between the apostrophe to align it to the leg of the letter L.

Combine the type with the layout of elements and align the two along the Y axis using the Align palette.

Choose a contrasting font such as the sans-serif Avenir for the logo’s tagline. Dramatically increase the tracking to around 350 and scale the text down to fit under the main heading.

Hold Alt and Shift to drag a circle out from the centre of the cross using the Ellipse tool. Delete the lowermost point with the Direct Selection tool then click somewhere along the semi-circle path with the Text On a Path Tool.

Use the same tagline font to type a short list of services, then drag the handles of the Text On a Path tool to the edges of the path using the Direct Selection Tool. Change the text alignment to Center to align it perfectly central around the curve.

Increase the gap between each word with a couple of extra spaces then scale and rotate small moustache icons to break up the three words.

Once the logo layout is complete, draw a selection around all the elements and go to Object > Expand. Select just the Object option to make all the edits permanent.

To really give the logo that old style distressed appearance we can rough up the sharp edges to give the impression of a stamped or printed mark. Drastically scale the logo up to fill the screen.

Go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen. By scaling up the logo we can apply the effect in more detail, which will then provide just a subtle distressed effect when the logo is scaled back down.

Alter the settings to around 0.2mm Size, Absolute, 15/in Detail, Smooth. Preview the distortion but make sure the smaller letters aren’t warped out of shape.

The subtle roughen effect adds irregular edges to all the elements to match the fuzzy appearance of bleeding ink common in traditional printing methods.

To mock the logo up and really give it that aged vintage appearance copy it over to Photoshop and dab it over with a subtle grunge brush.

The final logo might only be for a fictional client but it gave us the chance to play around with the popular vintage theme. Who knows, adding this popular style of design to your portfolio might lead to similar work from live clients.

Download the source file

10 Photoshop Ink Brushes for Premium Members

Chris Spooner — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:00:42 +0000

The folks at Fan Extra have supplied some amazing goodies for Access All Areas members in the past, and today another super useful resource is being donated. Members can download this detailed set of ink brushes for Photoshop. They’re high resolution and perfect for creating edgy designs or roughing up your artwork.

Fan Extra members can gain access to 2000+ design resources, including vectors, brush sets, icon packs and textures, as well as weekly advanced Photoshop tutorials. New content is continuously added, making it a fantastic place for designer’s to find useful goodies and learn new tricks. Fancy giving their membership a try? Use the coupon code chrisspooner to receive 10% off any membership plan, including recurring payments.

This premium pack of Photoshop brushes contains 10 high resolution ink brush strokes. Use them to create textured backgrounds or with the help of Photoshop layer masks to rough up and distress your designs.

Access All Areas members can download this pack as part of their membership. Don’t forget to use the coupon code chrisspooner at Fan Extra to get your hands on more handy design goodies!

Download the source file

How To Create Vintage Video Effects in Adobe Premiere

Chris Spooner — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:00:32 +0000

While I’m no pro videographer I do enjoy creating videos of my adventures on an amateur level. Recently I’ve been editing loads of footage from our road trip honeymoon in the USA, so I thought I’d share some of the techniques I’ve developed in Adobe Premiere to create cool vintage or retro style video effects. In this tutorial I’ll show you how I created an old style discoloured effect with film burns.

When I first got started editing video on my Mac I used Final Cut Express, but I found the application pretty difficult to learn (plus it never seemed to support my footage!). I soon migrated over to Adobe Premiere and found it much easier to use, with many of the effects and tools having similar menu locations and names to those we’re all familiar with in Photoshop. While this tutorial is based on Adobe Premiere the same effects can be created in Final Cut Pro (or even Express), you’ll just need to dig through the menus to find the correct settings. For instance, Photoshop style blending modes appear under the Opacity menu in Premiere, but they’re known as Composite Modes in Final Cut.

So let’s get started with some vintage effects. To begin you’ll need to compose your clips to create your basic video sequence. In today’s example I’m using my GoPro footage from a horse riding session across the desert at Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley. My video takes on a Western theme so old vintage effects will set the scene and give it more authenticity.

Video effects can be added to each clip individually, but it then becomes a painstaking task to make minor adjustments when each tweak has to be made numerous times. Create a duplicate of your sequence by dragging it over the “New Sequence” icon then add the word effects to its name. We can add the various adjustments to this single block of footage while still allowing for edits to the original composition.

Open the Color Correction folder under Video Effects and drag RGB Curves, Color Balance (HLS) and Brightness & Contrast effects onto the new sequence.

Under the Effects Controls open out the RGB Curves options and begin editing the curves profiles. These particular adjustments will increase the reds in the shadows and give the whole footage a warm orange tone.

Next, tone down the vibrancy of the colour adjustments with the Saturation option of the Color Balance (HLS) effect. -30% takes away the orange tones to create more of a vintage sepia appearance.

Footage can begin to look a little muted with saturation adjustments, so bump up the brightness and contrast to around +15% and +25%.

Just like textures really help create authentic effects in Photoshop, video resources can be placed over your composition to distress and age your footage. This simple grunge loop is part of a cool Film Damage pack.

By default the footage features black distortions against white, so add an Invert effect from under the Channel Video Effects, then change the Blend Mode to Screen under the Opacity settings to render the black background transparent. Don’t forget to click the little timer icon next to the word “Opacity” to disable keyframes.

Reduce the opacity of the clip to around 20%, then copy/paste a series of film damage clips across the whole composition.

Another video resource I always rely on is this pack of 50 Epic Film Burns. These are really useful for either creating additional textures and colour distortions or to create trendy light leaks and mimic the old film mishaps of analog cinema.

The first film burn in the pack is a mix of red and blue colours with dirty textures. Setting this file to Overlay and reducing the opacity to 20% adds some cool discolouration to the original footage, which is animated as the video plays.

The combination of the sepia style colour correction and the various film damage resources really captures the low fidelity of analog footage. Here’s an example of these effects at work on my own video sharing our horse riding experiences at Furnace Creek Ranch.

My Top Links of the Week for May 10th 2013

Chris Spooner — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:00:47 +0000

I regularly post links to interesting design tutorials and articles over on my Twitter and Facebook accounts, but in case you missed them here’s a roundup of my top pickings from my recent browsing of the web. This week we have some great content from GoMediaZine, DesignM.ag, Codrops, Vectortuts+ and Psdtuts+.

How to Design and Print Custom Silk Screen Die-Cut Stickers

I’ve always enjoyed GoMediaZine’s illustration tutorials and walkthroughs. This latest post from Jeff Finley shows his process for designing a set of die cut stickers from the initial sketch right through to the various stages of print production.

35 Creative Single Page Portfolio Designs

Single page websites always include great navigation and layout ideas. This roundup from DesignM.ag showcases 35 fresh examples for a quick fix of web design inspiration.

Fullscreen Layout with Page Transitions

This recent post from Codrops presents a really cool responsive fullscreen website layout with fancy page transitions. The full source is available for free, so it could be a good base for your own portfolio design.

How to Design and Vector a Set of Character Poses

This brilliant post from Beto Garza on Vectortuts+ shows you how to design a really cool stylized character in Adobe Illustrator, then goes on to build various poses to create complete character animations.

Create a Heroic Firefighter Painting in Photoshop

While I’ve never mastered the techniques myself I’ve always loved admiring digital painting pieces. If you’re looking to learn how to create amazing artwork, this great tutorial from Psdtuts+ should really help out.

Showcase of Amazing Geometric & Polygonal Artwork

Chris Spooner — Mon, 06 May 2013 06:00:30 +0000

Most of the artwork I produce myself for tutorials here on Blog.SpoonGraphics are based on basic geometric shapes. I’ve had plenty of fun in the past creating posters and designs using various geometric patterns. Today we’re going to take a look at some amazing artwork from elsewhere on the web, all of which are either constructed using polygonal meshes or simplified with basic geometric shapes.

Art & Design Inspiration Fix for May 3rd 2013

Chris Spooner — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:00:22 +0000

The Art & Design Inspiration Fix pulls together a collection of my favourite graphical images that I’ve come across over the past week to give you a fix of creative inspiration. This week we have designs from Allison Cruzado, James Olstein, Yoni Alter, Kevin Harald Campean, Martin Filipovič and Jamison Reisbeck.

How To Create an 8-Bit Pixel Character in Illustrator

Chris Spooner — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:00:41 +0000

If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know I love creating artwork in Illustrator using simple or basic shapes. This tutorial takes that idea to the extreme by using nothing by the rectangle tool to create a simple 8-bit style pixel character. Pixels are usually associated with Photoshop, but the great thing about Illustrator is your artwork is 100% vector, so unlike Photoshop you can scale your design to any size while retaining those blocky 8-bit characteristics.

The character we’ll be creating is a 50′s style greaser with slick pompadour, leather jacket and blue jeans. All the features of the character have to be extremely simplified to fit within the pixel grid, so it takes a little imagination to reconstruct your character with basic blocks.

In Photoshop if you zoom in far enough you’ll see the individual square pixels, but in Illustrator we’ll need to set up a grid to work from. Under the View menu option select the Show Grid option and make sure Snap to Grid is turned on.

Select the rectangle tool then draw a square within the major grid lines. The rectangle will automatically snap to the grid points, which will make it easy to achieve that perfect pixel alignment as we build up the character. Give this initial square a flesh coloured fill to represent the face of your character.

Switch the fill colour to black then begin constructing the hair using basic rectangle shapes.

Being restricted to basic block shapes makes it difficult to represent curved shapes, but things soon start to become recognisable as the blocks are built up.

Despite being a 2D design, simple perspective effects can be achieved with the use of scale. The left lens of the sunglasses is two grid blocks wide, whereas the right lens is three blocks wide.

Draw a large black rectangle to represent the body of the character. Overlap the rectangle with the head, but send the object to the bottom of the stack with the shortcut CMD+Shift+[.

Extend the head into the body by drawing another flesh coloured rectangle to represent the character’s neck. Build up the jacket by filling grid blocks with black to form a collar.

Draw two long rectangles to represent the character’s arms. Black shapes against black will blend together, so offset the shapes so they’re still recognisable.

Fill areas in the centre of the body with white to represent a white t-shirt under the jacket. Even though two shapes are aligned perfectly in Illustrator a visual glitch will show tiny hairline gaps. These lines don’t appear in the final exported artwork but you can avoid them by overlapping any same colour shapes.

Draw thin rectangles just one gridline in width and fill them with a dark grey to add some basic details to the jacket.

Construct the legs with moderately sized rectangles with a blue denim colour fill to represent a pair of jeans. Leave a considerable gap between the legs for the that goofy stylised appearance.

Use the same flesh colour to fill a few blocks to represent the character’s hands. Just one large block with a small thumb is enough to construct a recognisable hand shape.

Finish off the character with a couple of boots and two lighter blue rectangles to represent the turn-ups.

Head back under the View options and turn off the Grid to see the completed character. Being vector artwork it can now be scaled to any size while retaining its 8-bit pixel form.

If you’re feeling adventurous why not create a whole village of 8-bit pixel characters? The process is super simple and it just goes to show what kind of cool stuff you can create with the most basic of tools.

Download the source file

Blog.SpoonGraphics Turns 6 Years Old – Staying Fresh

Chris Spooner — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:00:26 +0000

It’s that time of year again! Every April I create a blog post to celebrate the growth of my little blog and share recent statistics and behind the scenes updates to share my experiences running this site with all my loyal readers and subscribers. Looking back at 2012′s post there’s been some big changes to keep things up to date…

Feeling nostalgic? Take a look at some of the previous anniversary posts:

The first big change you may have noticed over the last year is the complete overhaul of my site’s appearance. I talked about the redesign in more detail back in the complete overview post. I had the urge to rebuild the site for a number of years and after trying out loads of different concepts I found a happy place continuing the beige/brown theme but freshening it up with a new logo and layout.

Coinciding with the new design was the addition of the large banner ad at the top of the page. Considering I now run this site (along with my other ventures) as my full time job the extra income this banner alone generates is extremely useful and thanks to this slot being filled from just a few days after it was created my revenue has seen a healthy increase. When I look at some other design blogs I notice there’s plenty more revenue that could be had from various large sidebar banners and popup windows but I’ve always wanted to stay under the threshold of ad intrusiveness. Hopefully my small series of sidebar banners, this header banner and the content banner that only appears on old posts keeps me under this threshold.

Average visits per day: 27,000 (up 4% from 2012)
Top Content: 50 Illustrator Tutorials Every Designer Should See (2009) & 10 Photoshop Actions to Create Instagram Style Effects (2011)
RSS Subscribers: 58,675 (up 1.5k from 2012)
Highest Traffic Peak: NEW RECORD! Thursday March 7th 2013 – 36,635 visitors (How To Make a Cool Cinemagraph Image in Photoshop)

It was difficult collecting data and comparing it to previous years now Google Analytics has been revamped and all the useful features removed, but it looks like traffic is still on the steady increase. It actually amazed me that I’d broken my all time traffic record, previously a photo effect tutorial from 2010 had top spot.

RSS subscriber stats seem to have increased again after the dip last year, but considering the impending doom of Google Reader it will be interesting to see how this compares next year, that’s if Google don’t also ditch Feedburner! 45,000 of my almost 60,000 blog subscribers use Google Reader, so if you’re one of them, now might be a good time to switch over to Feedly!

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Hosted on: 2GB VPS
Server location: Chicago (Rackspace)

Thanks to my server admin buddy @davidsilburn my server setup has been given a complete overhaul too. Slicehost was acquired by Rackspace over the last year, which resulted in a big increase in my monthly bills. I took this opportunity to hire David to spring clean my server setup, optimise and bring everything up to date. It was definitely needed, the OS version my system was running on was prehistoric!

We’re now trying out a downgrade to a single 2GB server, seeing as since some recent optimisation the sites were only using 20% of the server resources.

It’s not exactly blogging related but Laura and I recently got married. We’re currently on our honeymoon doing a self-drive road trip from Las Vegas to Yosemite to San Francisco to LA. If you want to see our photos and videos from the trip keep an eye on my personal blog www.chrisspooner.com.

30 of the Best Character Design Tutorials for PS & AI

Chris Spooner — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:00:36 +0000

Not only is creating characters lots of fun, it’s also a great way to get to grips with a particular design application. Regardless of whether you’re working in Photoshop or Illustrator, the techniques you learn can be applied to all kinds of projects. This post rounds up some of the best free character design tutorials on the web, every single one has been hand picked for its level of detail and quality of the final result.

Blog.SpoonGraphics

Art & Design Inspiration Fix for May 24th 2013

Create a Trendy Vintage Style Barber Logo in Illustrator

10 Photoshop Ink Brushes for Premium Members

Ink Photoshop Brushes

How To Create Vintage Video Effects in Adobe Premiere

Adobe Premiere vs Final Cut Pro

How to Create Vintage Video Effects

The final vintage video effect

My Top Links of the Week for May 10th 2013

Showcase of Amazing Geometric & Polygonal Artwork

Art & Design Inspiration Fix for May 3rd 2013

How To Create an 8-Bit Pixel Character in Illustrator

Blog.SpoonGraphics Turns 6 Years Old – Staying Fresh

A new look

Average stats of late

Technical stats

One more thing…

30 of the Best Character Design Tutorials for PS & AI