Collection of vectorized heads of the most important people in history.
1 AI : 1,2 MB
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"Vintage ribbons"
I always need this. Beautiful vintage ribbons. Enjoy.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,5 MB
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Slum Sans
Photo of some slum typography.
It's been nearly six months since I spent time in the Mathare Valley Slums located on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. My emotions are still raw when I think about that experience and it usually makes my eyes water.
At this time the post production of the documentary is in full swing and in good creative hands as well.
A common site in the slums is hand drawn typography used on signs. They are everywhere you look. For an upcoming collaborative project with Rule 29 I wanted to mimic this aesthetic so we could use it for titling in our project.
Slum Sans on light background.
As you've seen in previous posts the slums continue to be source of inspiration for me.
Slum Sans on dark background.
I drew out the whole set by hand pretty small so it wouldn't be crisp. Then I created a rough highlight you could add to the type to give it some pop. I even used a slum texture to degrade the letterforms as well.
Slum Sans complete set.
The whole set is just a simple vector file with the letterforms on one layer and the highlights on another. So you just compile what you need to create the word.
Slum Sans detailing.
I optimized the texturing as much as I could without loosing that nice authentic feel. The source file in the download below is a CS2 Adobe Illustrator file.
Update: A big thank you goes out to Brian Carroll who took my raw vector files and not only created a working font but also created the missing letter "I" that some how I over looked in the process? Brian is a multi-talented creative who is part of Studio Litchfield so check out their site.
Download Links
- Slum Sans - Vector Art (1.9MB)
- Slum Sans Font (217KB)
If you find this resource useful please consider donating to the work of Life in Abundance who works in African slums helping people improve their lives. Donate here. Thanks.
Ricoh Copies?
Keyboard Characters Set.
Four years ago I created a unique self-promotional product I called Keyboard Characters. It was a fun set to create and worked really well as a self promotion for my business.
I still give them out at speaking engagements even though Apple has changed the modus operandi on keyboards so you can't insert stuff like your use to be able too. And I still have about five boxes of them sitting in my closet at home. ;-P
"Pet Monster" Keyboard Character.
Since I have them posted on my web site I periodically get email from art directors or creative directors who request a set. When I get a request like this I always send them one and include a few tear sheets as well. So in that respect it's still serving as a promotional item for me.
Around September, 2008 I received a phone call from an ad agency in New York. The person asked if I could send them two sets of the Keyboard Characters. I did and included some tear sheets. Nothing ever came from it and soon I forgot all about that brief interaction.
Ricoh Ad showing artwork in question.
Around February, 2009 I received an email from another designer asking me:
"Did you do some illustration for Ricoh?"
I told them I hadn't and they responded "Well I saw this ad in a magazine and it looks just like your character."
When I saw this ad I got that sinking feeling in my stomach, you know the one that happens when you look in your rear view mirror and a police car is right on your bumper.
It turns out that the agency (I'm purposely not naming names) I had sent two sets of Keyboard Characters too was the same agency that handled the Ricoh campaign for the C900 in September, 2008.
They didn't simply copy (pardon my pun) my art and use it, that would be easy enough to deal with. What they did is borrow the concept and equity (segmented multi-colored monster) of my art and exploited it for their own work. And they didn't even do a good job at that.
Ricoh "Scary!" campaign for C900.
Since I posted this I've been contacted by a lawyer explaining my opinions and I'm now pursuing that course of action. Thank you for helping me understand how I can address this through official circles, I appreciate it.
I think anyone with an ounce of common sense can discern the source however, so I'll leave it in the court of public opinion.
Hostage quality photo of Ricoh brochure.
This summer I got another email from someone containing this image of a Ricoh brochure showcasing this character art again. Every time I think about this it pisses me off. I know someone, some where had to reference my design in order to create their own B movie version of it.
I debated whether to even post about this or not. But over the last year I've had numerous other people email me who have seen the original ad and thought I had done the monster art. Its like having a scab that just begins to heal and than gets snagged on something and ripped off again exposing the original wound.
So I decided to post about it, and see what others thought.
Chumlee
Chumlee on Black.
My family and I enjoy watching a show on the History Channel called Pawn Stars. It's a reality show centered around Gold and Silver Pawnshop located in Las Vegas.
Our favorite personality on the show is a guy by the name of Chumlee. (Austin Russell) He's a lovable buffoon with just enough of a cool hipster vibe mixed in to surprise you at times and make you laugh the rest of the time. The old man is a close second.
Chumlee on White.
I've been inspired to do other pop culture centered artwork like Billy Mays and Twitter. BTW, you can follow Chumlee on Twitter here.
I think it's pretty cool when an average joe like Chumlee gets to enjoy the lime light for a while. Unlike the elite Hollywood centric stars that tend to irritate me more than they entertain me. So think of this creative exploration as my personal attempt to extend da Chum's 15 minutes of fame.
Go get 'em Chumlee! You can help expand the chum-centric universe by voting for this design on Threadless.
PDF Art Downloads
Chumlee on Black Chumlee on WhiteThis artwork is Copyright © Glitschka Studios. You can use these PDF files for personal viewing and to print out and hang in your work area. No other usage is granted.
Slum Textures
"Slum Textures" 35 Royalty-Free Textures.
Back in April and May I spent 10 days in the Mathare Valley Slums located on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. It truly was a life changing experience.
The slums consist of a vast network of small corridors that weave their way through haphazard constructed shacks. While there I took a lot of pictures capturing the daily life of those who call the slums their home.
Many of my pictures documented textures I came across while walking through the slums and this set represents the sensory experience I visually encountered during my time there.
Source photo and resulting texture.
The best things about textures is they never go out of style unlike other resources such as fonts, stock art or even photography. A texture that looks crappy now will still look crappy 50 years from now. And that's craptacular!
All "35" Textures in set.
I've put together this set of "Slum Textures" so you can use them in your own projects. If you don't like the way I created the PSD file or the bitmap tiff file no worries, you'll be able to create your own versions using the original source photo included for each. So the possibilities are endless for your creative needs.
Source File Specifications.
Each Texture Includes the following formats for each of the "35" textures.
- Original Source Photo (Hi-Res, RGB jpeg)
- Layered Grayscale PSD (Hi-Res, 10x13 @ 315 ppi)
- Bitmap Tiff (Hi-Res, 10x13 @ 315 ppi)
Also included in the download is a bonus PSD source file for you to deconstruct and see how to put the textures to use.
(All PSD Files are CS4 but will still open in CS3 or CS2 without any problems.)
Download Links
The whole set is broken into four manageable downloads.
- Slum Textures 1 (192MB)
- Slum Textures 2 (173MB)
- Slum Textures 3 (169MB)
- Slum Textures 4 (168MB)
If you find these textures useful please consider donating to the work of Life in Abundance who works in African slums helping people improve their lives. Donate here. Thanks.
Surreal Email
Over the years I've had all kinds of illustrative requests. Tonight I was up late working on a deadline due tomorrow morning, and the following email showed up in my inbox:
Strange but true illustration request.
At first I thought it was spam, followed closely by my suspicion that a friend was joking around with me, and ending with the thought of "How can anyone think this is a good idea or an appropriate solution?"
Needless to say I wasn't interested in doing these illustrations (Despite the very tempting $150 budget) and turned it down with a reply email that read:
Call me a creative prude I guess.
Strange but true illustration request.
At first I thought it was spam, followed closely by my suspicion that a friend was joking around with me, and ending with the thought of "How can anyone think this is a good idea or an appropriate solution?"
Needless to say I wasn't interested in doing these illustrations (Despite the very tempting $150 budget) and turned it down with a reply email that read:
Sarah,
This project wouldn't stimulate my interest.
Thanks.
Von
Call me a creative prude I guess.
Graphic Heists
The original "Tribal Face" illustration.
Recently I've had a handful of infringements take place regarding my tribal artwork shown above. These types of situations tend to happen in clusters for some reason?
My tribal art hacked and sold on Shutterstock.com.
This is now the second time shutterstock.com has been caught selling my artwork on their site without permission. Last year the same thing happened with my hawk illustration and it turned out to be some design weasel in Serbia.
At least this time shutterstock.com removed the art pretty fast. But it makes you wonder what their vetting process is.
If you're curious what if any recourse there is, there isn't. This is due to the inadequate and weak DMCA. Corporations like shutterstock.com can hide behind it and as long as they remove the content when notified, they don't have to reimburse the copyright owner. (Thank you very little President Clinton)
Tribal art tattooed on some dudes arm.
Most of this arts infringements come via tattoo applications. The majority of these type of usages never get my permission, but thankfully some do.
Tribal art tattooed on some persons calf muscle.
I'm often asked "How do you locate these?" Well, most of the time I don't. For example with this specific tattoo my fellow design friend in Portland spotted this tattoo on a guy in the same store he was shopping at and asked if he could take a picture of it with his iPhone. He then emailed it to me.
Talk about walking portfolios.
Tribal art ripped and bedazzled by Diamante Transfer.
I've seen this art stolen in almost every way imaginable in the last five years but this was the first time any of my art has been bedazzled. When it's a company infringing I have to send out an official DMCA Infringement Letter. This usually does the trick without any further followup.
If some of these companies would just approach me I'd be willing to work out a fair licensing agreement with them. And the price I charge for tattoo usage is very reasonable.
In 2009 I had to deal with a total of "72" individual infringements. It got old quick. Thankfully 2010 hasn't been quite as bad, but it's still higher than I'd like at "33" infringements to date.
The Designers of Summer
"Hard Ball" Back print on white shirts.
Being a hired gun (creative pinch hitter if you will) means I do a lot of exploratory work that will never be used and tends to serve the purpose of helping an agency focus in on final solution. I'm not complaining, that's just the reality of the game.
Recently I was hired by Red Jacket Clothing to create a tribal tattoo themed baseball design. I love baseball, I think it has a lot of great metaphors that one can play off for all kinds of various concepts.
My client gave me full control of this project so of course I picked my favorite team, the Boston Red Sox to use in my design.
"Hard Ball" Back print on colored shirts.
I decided since this had a tribal tattoo look I'd play off of that theme with the term "Hard Ball." I also created a modular design that could be adapted for any of the MLB teams. This way the design would have a broader potential for the marketability and be relatively easy to customize by merely shifting ink and shirt colors either dark or light.
The hardest part of this design though was creating the baseball. The first one I did looked horrible. It didn't read as a baseball, it read more like a Klingon jig-saw puzzle instead. So I had to re-draw it a few times before I struck the right balance.
Logo front print on colored shirts.
The main design is a back print and this is the front center chest print. The team logo would be dropped into the middle of the tribal ring for each team.
It took roughly two months for the design to make it through MLB licensing circles and ultimately got benched. No reason was really given? But I've dealt with MLB licenses before and they are somewhat finicky IMO.
I'd be curious what others think regarding this designs marketability, so I created a simple poll you can vote in here.
Personally I like the design, it was fun to create so I'm just bummed it got put on waivers before it even had it's first at bat.
Maybe I should buy a steroid plugin for Adobe Illustrator? Hmmmm.
Vector Build Methods
Deconstructing my vector build methods.
If you follow my tutorials on IllustrationClass.com, than you're generally familiar with my creative process when it comes to building vector shapes.
I've been creating a lot of content for my new book lately, and decided last night to test a screen capture application I purchased recently.
I recorded the entire creation of an ornament design, documenting the vector build methods I use every day.
Final graphic ornament.
Above is an old school animated gif version of my process, and below is a condensed video of me building the ornament art shown in this post. The video is sped up so as not to exceed the 10 minute threshold YouTube mandates. It's about 5 minutes long, but in reality took me about 24 minutes to build. (Not including the initial drawing)
If you enjoy this you'll dig a project I'm working on that will be released in early 2011 that dives deep into the whole subject of vector build methods. But more about that later.
Drawsigner
"Drawsigner" Logo Mark.
I've been calling myself an Illustrative Designer for about six years now. It fits the type of work I do on a daily basis the best. A good mix of design oriented projects needing to be leveraged with an illustrative flair.
But over the last year I've condensed the term "Illustrative Designer" down to an even more simpler term of "Drawsigner." Once again it defines what I do on a daily basis. (Yes, I've secured the domain name)
I first revealed this new definition when I spoke at the AdFed group in Acadiana. My topic was named "Drawsigner" and I created the above logo of myself for it.
Tight refined sketches of ornament designs.
Earlier this year I posted about the new book I'm creating for HOW Books, now officially titled "Flourish.Banner.Frame."
I've spent the last year creating over 400 pieces of artwork for this volume of ornaments, borders, frames etc. My creative process for the creation of this content is all about being a drawsigner.
Frame motif design.
I draw out all my ornament designs, scan them in and build them out in vector form. I've spent a lot of late nights finessing bezier curves and wrestling with anchor point handles in order to create artwork that is precise and beautiful.
Ornament design.
Like my other two books, this new one will include artist features showcasing some of our industries best talent utilizing a piece of art from the book in their own unique way. It's been a blast seeing how incredibly creative the approaches have been from the featured artists.
Graphic ring design.
Those who follow me on Twitter are well aware of my rants regarding Adobe Illustrator at times.
I really can't complain though. On a project like this I'm essentially getting paid to create what ever I want. Of course I've been art directing myself along the way and I'm creating more content than what I need so I can isolate the very best for the book.
So enjoy the summer, and as the days roll along I'll continue to get frilly with it.
"Weather icons"
Set of some nice vector weather icons. Enjoy.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 4,8 MB
Download
"Kaizer Chiefs logo"
The beautiful logo of the Kaizer Chiefs football team from Johannesburg South Africa.
1 AI : 1,3 MB
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"Map of Gaza"
A simple map of the Gaza strip in Israel.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 300 KB
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Volume 1 PDF Tutorials
"Alien Skull" PDF Tutorial cover.
I'm happy to announce that I've finally produced my first collection of self-contained tutorials called "Volume 1 PDF Tutorials."
This first collection was derived from our top “25″ downloaded tutorials. Each tutorial comes in an easy to access multi-page PDF file format. Each PDF tutorial includes creative process images and exhaustive text embedded with links to referenced software, books, and resources. You’ll be able to view and read them on-screen or print them out for hands on reference purposes.
"Alien Skull" PDF Tutorial interior pages.
For more information visit my "IllustrationClass.com" web site.
Vonster Tattoos
The original "Tribal Face" illustration.
Over the last six years I've had a lot of interesting things happen surrounding my tribal artwork. Some of it has been flattering copyright infringement which over time has created a rogues' gallery of those using my artwork without permission.
Most of the time it's just individuals who want to use my tribal art for a tattoo, so last year I did a simple post asking people to please ask permission first and it's paid off.
My "Tribal Face" on Mark Charles, UK.
Over the last year on average a couple people every month have requested permission to get my art tattooed. My terms of usage are simple:
- I grant usage rights for a tattoo application for a flat rate of $40
- I provide a hi-res PDF of artwork so they can scale it to size
- PDF includes thermography version for transferring tattoo
Over twenty individuals have officially and legally purchased the rights to get my tribal art tattooed over this last year. So I was chuffed when a purchaser of my tribal face art out of the UK, emailed me a picture of his new calf tattoo.
Vonster Tattoos Flash Sheet.
I have a total of "8" tribal designs available for purchase.
- Tribal Face
- Tribal Bat
- Tribal Lion
- Tribal Bear
- Tribal Phoenix
- Tribal Heart
- Tribal Sun
- Tribal Ring
I can also create a custom tribal design for you. So if you'd like to become a walking portfolio and get one of my stock tribal designs tattooed just send me an email and I'll give you all the information you'll need.
If you'd like a custom designed tribal tattoo I can also give you a quote for that as well. Thank you for all those who've asked permission first.
Lost Ideas
Tonight I was skimming through some old archived files and stumbled upon a lot of what I call "Lost Ideas." Most are design options presented to clients but never used, and some are ideas I played around with during the creative process but never presented.
I've been working digitally since 1991 so my archives are filled with graphic elements like this. I probably have thousands of things I can't even remember and I'm not sure if I could open some of them anymore? (FreeHand version 2.0) If I was smart I'd go back through everything and catalog all the art. I'll get to that Someday. (Yeah right.)
Perusing through these lost ideas from both the recent and long past was cathartic and nostalgic. So being a fair graphic warden I decided to let a handful of my designed captives out of their solitary confinement so they could see the light of day once again.
Collection of Lost Ideas.
All of them sit lonely amongst the 0's and 1's, in long forgotten files collecting dust on my HD.
I've been working digitally since 1991 so my archives are filled with graphic elements like this. I probably have thousands of things I can't even remember and I'm not sure if I could open some of them anymore? (FreeHand version 2.0) If I was smart I'd go back through everything and catalog all the art. I'll get to that Someday. (Yeah right.)
Perusing through these lost ideas from both the recent and long past was cathartic and nostalgic. So being a fair graphic warden I decided to let a handful of my designed captives out of their solitary confinement so they could see the light of day once again.
Collection of Lost Ideas.
"Leaf silhouettes"
A botanic vector garden. A nice set of plants and leafs.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,5 MB
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"Europe and world maps and globes"
Some nice vecotr globes and map of the european union.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,5 MB
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