Thanks to Helder A. from Portugal for his nice Zebra vector work.
1 AI : 1,2 MB
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Living a Creatively Curious Life
Presentation Splash Screen Graphic
I just got back from the HOW Design Conference in Austin where I did a session called "Living a Creatively Curious Life." Normally I get really nervous before I speak but this year I was far more relaxed. Mainly because I had been preparing and researching for this session since last summer.
Speaking to designers. (Photo by Ivan Boden)
The best advice I have ever been given about speaking came from my oldest daughter who told me several years ago "Dad, just don't be boring." Her advice has proven to be very true. Information is great, but if it's not wrapped in a compelling visual package it just won't resonate very well with designers who are visually oriented.
Outline, notes, reference, and more notes.
I can't say I have a set process for producing my sessions but I guess one could find a method in my madness if they looked hard enough. It is like producing a movie of sorts, I find myself editing out content because it's too long or just doesn't add anything to the overall message.
I got a lot of great feedback from hundreds of designers who attended the session and approached me afterwards, but the one comment I appreciated the most is a designer who told me I should have left one part out of my session and I agreed with her. I had considered cutting it but second guessed myself the night before and left it in. So that in and of itself showed me I need to improve my editing skills.
Standing room only cutting a rug.
Here is an audience captured video of the same thing.
The most important element for me personally when speaking is to make it fun, let the audience laugh either at me or with me in regards to a point I'm trying to make, or a project or process I'm sharing.
I turned the tables on my audience at the end of the session and pulled out my video camera and challenged them to act on a moment of creative curiosity. I turned up the music and informed them it was time to dance and the above is the end result of how my presentation ended.
Creativity Pack includes:
- Full outline (best I can do sans audio or visual)
- Outline includes links to related content
- Creativity Exercises
- Resource Downloads
- Helpful Links
- Inspiring Links
Download Creativity Pack
PDF Creativity PackFYI: My original intention was to take the audio recording HOW made and create an online version. Well the recording was at best hostage quality and dropped out in far too many places so for now this is all I can offer. If your AIGA, AdFed, or other creative or marketing group would like to hear this presentation just contact me directly and lets arrange a date where I can do it for you in person. This session is not only good for designers, it's an excellent presentation for marketing and creative managers as well. Aren't you a little bit creatively curious now?
"Michael Jackson"
R.I.P Michael Jackson. Some vector sillhouettes of the King of Pop.
Authors unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,3 MB
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"CMYK scale"
A cool vector cmyk scale for you to print out and hang it on your office wall so you can see which colors to choose in your graphic programs. Very useful. Enjoy.
1 AI : 2,3 MB
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"Fleur de lys"
Maybe the most famous pattern. Fleur De Lys is a stylized design of either an iris or a lily that is now used decoratively.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 EPS : 1,5 MB
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"Islamic calligraphy"
Lovely. Some vectorized islamic calligraphy masterpieces. Maybe some of you could translate them in a comment.
1 AI : 1,3 MB
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"Printing marks and color scales"
Very very usefull. Vector printing marks and color scales for your proofs.
Took a long time to find this one.
1 AI : 1,3 MB
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"Polaroid picture frames"
Four poladroid style frame templates. Always usefull I think.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,5 MB
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Don't be a Tooler
"Stylized Portrait Illustration" for MacUser Magazine UK.
I ♥ Design
I'm thankful for what I get to do for a living. I really enjoy it, and I have a lot of fun creating and working with my clients and other design firms. I have nothing to complain about in terms of my day to day job, I love.
That said, I've always been one to speak my mind be it good or bad and I'd like to think I'm fair more times than not. Over the last several months I've been thinking through a lot of issues related to the state of our industry in respect to both design and illustration and the end result is this post.
It's a good mix of hard truth, seasoned with just enough sarcasm to hopefully make it fun to read while staying informative. But I'm sure some with disagree with my assessment and that's what comments are for.
Preamble
I a designer of the United States, in order to form a more perfect creative process, establish drawing, insure design tranquility, provide excellent art, promote conceptual welfare, and secure the blessings of creative liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this blog post for the designers of the United States of America.
Design Needs Drawing
MacUser Magazine UK approached me about writing a tutorial for their publication that utilized the same creative methods I used to create my Billy Mays artwork. I was excited to do this because I'm a diehard MAC user myself and this type of project is just fun to work on so I said "Sure."
Before I got started the editor asked "Is there a way to replace the drawing part of the tutorial with some form of computer method instead?" He suggested the possibility of auto-tracing part of the photo. And there's the rub.
A seemingly nonchalant decision to purposely divorce drawing from the design process.
"Sure, no problem I'll remove drawing from my process. And what the hell, while I'm at it I'll remove breathing from my living process too! Because after all that makes about as much sense."
The dumbing down of creativity is a serious pet peeve for me. Those who want to bake it down so it's not too demanding of the individual and caters to the lowest common creative denominator are just facilitating pablum sucking design noobs who think the computer is the wellspring of their creativity.
"You can lead a designer to a computer, but you can't make them draw."
The Dynamic Duo!
Ebony and Ivory, Analog and Digital
The fundamental problem with so many tutorials (creative processes) online today is they are merely geared for what I would call a "Tooler." Someone who doesn't necessarily want to improve their drawing skills, but thinks if they learn the latest software version, or some new pull-down menu effect, or run a filter in a certain way, or mimic some other type of convoluted Fibernachesque computer process they'll be able to skirt having to actually draw something.
Maybe it's just fear of failure? I'm sure that is part of it to some degree but any creative process that avoids risk is at best a flawed one. Approaching a creative solution from the mindset of "Playing it Safe" is just nothing more than choosing mere expediency. Too many designers look for the easy way out when it comes to a creative process and that is problematic to their creative growth. Instead of bolstering a core skill like drawing they pursue a path of least creative resistance and the end result is a Tooler.
I told the editor "Sorry but my process is both analog and digital. One is not independent of the other. I think that is a good thing to show." Nothing I do is fully digital, nor is it fully analog, I'm constantly going back and forth through out the creative process.
The editor eventually agreed to let me keep it the way I wanted (I wouldn't have done it otherwise) and I proceeded. Compared to my tutorials at IllustrationClass.com this one was going to be an abridged version that had to fit on a two page spread in the magazine.
Creativity via tools equals "iSuck."
The Dispensation of Toolers
Early in my career (pre-computer) people would ask me what I did for a living and I'd say "I'm a graphic designer." and the usual response was something like "You get paid to draw? I can't draw a stick figure...." and they'd proceed to admire, recognize and clearly associate my core skill and craft with what I did for a living.
But now (post-computer) when I tell people what I do the normal response tends to be something like this "That's cool. I have a computer too. I printed some ink jet business cards for..." and they proceed to associate what they do on a hack PC in their spare time using Microsoft Paint, prefab templates, Comic Sans font, and clip-art with what I do as a professional for a living. Gone is the appreciation or even recognition of a skill or craft I possess to do my job. For the most part they don't view themselves as lacking any core ability because the computer in their mind has replaced the skill and craft they once associated with my ability.
Our industry is now inundated with Toolers, who reinforce this poor public perception for what we do. They don't take skill and craft seriously and in essence one could argue they are glorified amateurs who just know more about the software than the general public. Mom and Pop see what they produce and say to themselves "Hey, I can do that too." And thus the Tooler dispensation was born.
Compound this new dispensation with the fact so many designers whore themselves via sites like www.Crowdspring.com, and art schools are flooding the landscape with software savvy, marketing clueless, concept weak, drawing inept students at the tune of about 16,000 every six months (Stats from 2001) and you see the not so pretty big picture that is the future of the design industry.
As for me and my creative convictions I refuse to celebrate mediocrity. But I digress.
How to Recognize a Zombie Designer
When ever I look at design there are "5" specific attributes I look for when I critique it.
1. Is there a core concept?
Great designers should be great thinkers.
2. Is the style appropriate?
It's commercial art, not fine art.
3. Is the art well executed and precise?
Quality craftsmanship is a must.
4. Is it unique?
Don't be a drop in the sea of marginal prefab design.
5. Is it inspiring?
Does it contain a clever visual twist or metaphor?
How these attributes break down for me.
Great Design
Contains all five attributes but is very rare.
Good Design
Must contain 1, 2 and 3. Most often 4 too.
Marginal Design
Only contains two attributes, fails the rest.
Bad Design
Most manage to avoid all five attributes.
I realize not all clients need high-concept solutions so that much isn't ironclad in my critique, it needs to be balanced appropriately for each client and I go over all of that here.
A Tooler however dwells in the realm of "Marginally Bad" and only enters "Good" by accident or by deriving or copying another persons work. Because of this modus operandi and the current trend with prefab design methods, our industry has legions of zombie designers that choose to feed off the corpse of incurious creativity.
Know your Tooler: Computer, check. Turtleneck, check. Thick framed glasses, check. Flawed creative process, check.
The Creative Industrial Complex
Toolers are more than willing to do work for sweat shop pay grade sites like Crowdspring.com, iStockPhoto.com or logoworks.com? Their actions facilitate a growing problem being pimped by multi-national corporations like Getty and HP, who wish to turn the design industry into a mere fast-food commodity revenue stream, or as I like to call it "The Creative Industrial Complex." Makes me wonder if HP's new logo was done by their own logoworks.com for a mere $299, or if a big agency did it for a lot more? Either way it's still a piece of crap.
Mark my words, it's just a matter of time before you see a "LogoMaker" or "InstaLogo" kiosk in Office Depot stores that allows Joe Consumer to design their own logo or business cards etc. Think about it, they have the computer end covered being HP and the design side would be facilitated by the Toolers. So this business model is possible because of designers willing to create the low grade content this type of system depends and thrives on.
And to further complicate the matter and confuse the general publics perception of what we do you have so-called industry leaders like Paula Scher creating prefab design templates for the owners of Logoworks.com.
Which brings up the obvious question "Would Paula design a logo for $299?"
Toolers are to these sites, what a moth is to a bug zapper. But to see talented designers cater to this problematic formula albeit sincere, are sincerely wrong.
Fast Food Design.
McDesigners
Big agencies like Pentagram, Landor, Wieden Kennedy, Leo Burnett and others for the most part don't care about these issues, they think it's below them. They're too busy working for million dollar multi-national clients like HP. But the vast majority of the design being done in our industry isn't by big agencies for multi-national corporations, it's being done by boutique firms and designers like you and me creating for small business owners.
So Toolers whoring their design through sites like Crowdspring.com, iStockPhoto.com and Logoworks.com effects everyone including the big agencies whether they want to admit it or not.
Most of the major design publications have avoided any in depth and honest debate on this topic. Sure there have been a few sidebar articles but never once has any publication done a full-blown expose on this topic. And no surprise, just look at thier advertising and you'll see why. It caters to Toolers. At least the AIGA has attempted to address it in a general sense but they never bother to get too specific and name names, that is what blogging is for I guess?
The fast food design generation is here. So, would you like fries with that design? How about super-sizing your logo perhaps?
Toolers are creative comrades.
Creative Communism
As I thought about what the editor had asked me to do, I started to think to myself "This isn't like you're drawing from thin air? You're just drawing from reference, so why try to short cut it by auto-tracing? It'll just look like crap and you'll never get it to be as well thought out or precise as you do from drawing it. Besides what they liked wasn't created by avoiding drawing."
It's like someone enjoying a wonderful meal at a nice restaurant, appreciating the eloquent cuisine of a gifted chef and asking for the recipe. The chef writes it down and they look at it and ask him to replace ingredients because it'll be too hard for them to cook. Of course this is an absurd request and if granted it certainly won't taste like what they enjoyed to begin with. It's not just the change in ingredients, it's also the lack of skill and craft involved in cooking those ingredients. (All analogies fail at some point, but you get my drift)
Creativity is all about exploring. If you don't fail, that means you're not trying hard enough. Some however seem to think a process shouldn't involve any risk? When sharing a process like my tutorial there is a mindset that thinks it should enable everyone to do it via some method that doesn't require any learned skill, just the knowledge of what to click next. I'd call that creative communism, red art if you will.
"If you view my tutorial and you determine that you can't do the drawing part too well, than the tutorial has taught you something. You need to improve on your drawing skills. That is what growing as a designer is all about."
Download "Stylized Portrait Illustration" PDF below.
Anyone Can Improve Their Drawing
I think drawing is very important as a designer. Whether or not you ever want to be a full-blown illustrator or not isn't the point. Improving your drawing skills will make you a better designer period the end. You'll be able to take the intangible idea in your head and flesh it out on paper, it's that simple.
In the following video Milton Glaser discusses the importance of drawing.
MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.
When I spoke at the HOW Design Conference in Boston (I've updated my presentation since HOW) I made the following statement concerning the creative process:
"Our industry may be digitally driven but ideas are still best developed in analog form."
That'll never change no matter how advanced our technology gets. So step away from your computer, grab a pencil (It's that yellow thing not tethered to a keyboard), start drawing, stop whining, take some creative risks and see where it leads you.
In other words "Don't be a Tooler!"
Download Tutorial PDF
"Stylized Portrait Illustration" PDF Tutorial
IllustrationClass.com Tutorial PostPS: If you'd like me to present my step by step creative process presentation called "Illustrative Design" at your design event, AIGA group, AdFed group, Design School or program just contact me and we'll talk. (See top right side bar)
Swooning
Michael Kimmelman's June 10th review of the 2009 Venice Biennial seemed to calling for Swoon's Swimming Cities of Serinissima, who were en route. In particular, Kimmelman's summary of the work at the heart of the show -- by the Gutai group ("Japanese avant-gardists from the 1950s/1960s"), Lygia Pape (a Brazilian artist "who came to prominence around the same time"), and Gordon Matta-Clark ("the short-lived American iconoclast of the 1970s") -- could have been written about Swoon and her merry band of travelers:
Devising quasi-utopian projects of hippie-ish experimentalism by often fugitive means, they aimed to engage more than an art audience and to spread joy. They saw themselves as liberationists, optimists, fabulists and troublemakers without exactly being ideologues, who shared an almost alchemical knack for transforming scrappy materials and tests of sensual awareness into fine modernist forms.
Kimmelman notes that these artists bring "cool pleasure" to the main exhibition, and knocks the overall show, noting "the Biennale is meant to be a survey of new art, and while conscientious young artists now dutifully seem to raise all the right questions about urbanism, polyglot society and political activism, their answers look domesticated and already familiar. They look like other art-school-trained art, you might say."
Swoon's crew, by contrast, built a flotilla of boats from discarded trash, running on engines converted for biodiesel, to sail from Slovenia (where much of the wood in Venice originally grew) to Venice, with performances along the route (a play, puppets, music).
This fits more with the "quasi-utopian, hippie-ish experimentalism ... aimed to engage more than an audience and to spread joy" than with "art-school-trained art" (check Tod Seelie's blog of the trip if you don't believe me).
more on the project on their blog, flickr, & facebook pages, in NY Magazine, & all over the web.
"Baseball cap template"
A nice detailed Baseball vector Cap for your own designs.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,9 MB
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"Flag globe"
Finally found! A nice Globe made of flags. Enjoy!
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,8 MB
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"Mixed sillhouettes"
Never ending story. Another collection of some vector sillhouettes.
Maybe it will be more interesting, if you make a sillhouette-wish!
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,2 MB
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"Mac LCD template"
High detailed vector lcd screen template. Enjoy.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,2 MB
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"Mr. Miyagi"
Nice. Vectorized Mr. Miyagi from the movie Karate Tiger. The good old times.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,2 MB
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Twitter Beard
Illustrative Mask "Twitter Beard."
For the past three years I've been teaching "Digital Illustration" in a local college VC program. For this terms final project I assigned the students an "Illustrative Mask" for them to create over a four week period were we focused on each phase of the creative process: Thumbnails, Sketches, Comps, and Final Art all being art directed by myself and peer reviewed.
I thought this would be fun so I decided to participate myself. The idea I chose to develop was based on my love of Twitter.com which I've been using going on three years now. (You can follow me at: @vonster)
Striking a pose with "Twitter Beard" mask.
When ever someone asks me "What is Twitter?" or "Why do you use Twitter?" I usually respond by saying "Think of Twitter as a diary for your random thoughts that other people can read." Essentially the only thing I'm doing differently now than I was pre-Twitter is documenting my thoughts.
The random thoughts and ideas have always been their, but I never captured them. Twitter allows me to do that now and also gives me the opportunity to see what others are thinking and that makes for a good waste of time.
Some of my students mask illustrations.
I think my students did a great job. Very creative and fun mask illustrations. They'll all be getting A's BTW.
My daughter Savannah inherited my zany gene. Arrrgh!
The fun thing about a mask like this is that each user can create a different emotion really easily. Add some props like a hat or glasses and all manner of zany merriment and take place. It's low-tech fun at it's best.
More mask hi-jinx.
Here are several people who put together their own design gathering and had some fun with the mask.
Construct your own "Twitter Beard" mask.
If you download and construct a mask for yourself please share a link to a picture in the comments below.
Download "Twitter Beard" PDF
"Twitter Beard" Mask PDF (1.5MB)For more information and larger preview of "Twitter Beard" visit my primary site here.
User Gallery
Doodling with Nefarious Intent
21 year old Infamous doodle.
I recently did an interview with LBOI Design Blog in which I told a story about how I almost got fired because I drew a caricature of my art director at the time. Here is what I had shared:
Early in my career I worked in an art department for a large sportswear company in Seattle.
The so-called art director was horrible and she frustrated me so much that I decided to draw a caricature of her and put it on her desk. She got so mad she went from cubicle to cubicle asking each artist if they had done it. Right before she got to me she was paged away. My buddy Dave still has that drawing and likes to pull it out when ever we go to his house just to watch me squirm.
For me doodling is very cathartic and I often find myself releasing frustrations through my sketches.
So yeah I guess you could say I’ve abused my creative powers for the sake of nefarious intent at various times in my career.
Well I got an email from another designer friend today who read my interview and asked if I had a copy of that caricature I could show him. I didn't but I was pretty sure my buddy Dave still had his copy so I emailed him and sure enough he even had it at work so he scanned in the caricature and the below photo and sent it to me.
You gotta love designer friends who hold onto a doodle you did 21 years ago just so they can pull it out now and get a good laugh. Thanks Dave!
The Back Story
I realize now that the title my art director held back then was just that a title and it certainly didn't reflect a skill set or ability. Our entire art department would get frustrated all the time over her inane methods. I was just young and stupid and acted upon one such occasion by doodling out my frustration in a not so diplomatic manner.
I remember in high school a class bully in Drivers Ed was harassing everyone so I just walked up to the chalk board and drew a goofy caricature of him and the whole class started laughing at the kid. He got embarrassed and sat down. After class he started pushing me around saying "Funny picture Glitschka! What are you gonna do now?" wanting to pick a fight with me, but a teacher broke it up. (Good thing because I was about to kick his....writers' embellishment LOL)
That's me in an art department meeting circa 1988.
Our whole art department at that company was a lot of fun to work with. So many unique characters, funny stories we still talk about to this day. The company however "Sun Sportswear" is no longer around but I still keep in contact with about nine of the artists I use to work with there.
I'd like to think I handle things a little better now but I'll admit sometimes things bug me and I still manage to find new ways of venting that frustration creatively speaking. I do what I call "Logo Mocks" from time to time and post them on Brand New. Here is an example of one I did when the new yellowbook logo was revealed.
Live and learn.
Adobe Poster Signing
"Loyal Order of Wormwood" poster.
Adobe will be giving out FREE posters of my "Loyal Order of Wormwood" illustration (24x37 inches) at the HOW Design Conference.
"Loyal Order of Wormwood" gallery framed print.
Be sure to hit the Adobe booth on Wednesday night when they will be drawing a name and the winner will receive a one of a kind gallery framed print of "Loyal Order of Wormwood."
FREE John Handcocks.
I'll be autographing posters at the Adobe booth on:
- Thursday, June 25th from 8-9 am
- Friday, June 26th from 8-9 am
So stop by and say hi and get a FREE poster from Adobe.
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