Cool Book Covers

champ — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:27:56 +0000

We all do it – even if we say we don’t. I, for one, openly admit it while others refuse to acknowledge it even exists… “Judging books by their covers!”.

Here are a tasty selection of covers I’ve discovered over the past years.

Awesome Photoshop

champ — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:04:36 +0000

Photoshop techniques are one of the design industires most sought after qualifications. I’m not talk about folk who can just alter Brightness and Contrast, add special effects pointlessly, I’m talking about true artists; people who can take an image and alter it with the intent of creating (not the unusual) but the extraordinary.

See examples below…

Great Press Adverts

champ — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:11:03 +0000

I have many years experience in Press Adverts, winning two awards (not bragging, just stating a fact). I find these type of adverts naturally appealing; creating intrigue, desire, laughs and rememberance. It’s the way my mind works.

Here are some fine examples from around the world…

Album and CD Art

champ — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:34:33 +0000

Album and CD art can be truly amazing.

Here are some of my favourites…

Free Things… for designers!

champ — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:29:48 +0000

FREE! We all like FREE. When designers are up against it and they need a certain brush in Photoshop or Illustrator, or even photographs, FREE is great!

Here are some links to FREE design items…

Great Flash Sites

champ — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:22:22 +0000

I’m lucky. As I’ve grown as a designer since the late 80′s I’ve witnessed many changes and advancements in design and marketing. Gone are the days of “paste-up” on art board and we (I refer to all the designers I matured with) had to embrace computer technology. The greatest achievement business wise was obviously the introduction of the internet. It’s an all-purpose business platform that began its early days with pages that contained long lists of code for simple static sites. Now web sites are totally different. Flash driven sites are a particular favourite of mine, as the interaction between site and user encompasses a satisfactory yet essential contact between company and product buyer.

A well designed and coded Flash site (forget the arguments that surround SEO and Flash) will enthral, trap and propagate. “Look at this site!” We’ve all heard those words, sometimes on more days than others; however what a Flash site has accomplished is the infectious spreading of its content, and ergo the product. Onlookers will gather round a PC/MAC a see what all the fuss is about. They will “oooo” and “arrrr”, and before they return to their seats will make a note of the sites address to visit later, when they have time.

Job done!

Here are some of my favourites (these sites require Flash Player). Click on the pictures to visit the sites…

And the below site is just incredible! Make sure you have a FaceBook Account…

Packaging Design

champ — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:54:27 +0000

“Stop me and buy one” was the slogan on ice-cream vans when I was a child. That’s the largest piece of packaging I’ve ever seen (even today!). Multi-coloured in Vanilla and Strawberry hues, whispy lines wrapped around the contours of the vehicle, suggesting the ice-cream it sold was so tasty you would lick your lips and “hmmmmm….”. Despite supermarkets offering cheaper family alternatives, and the introduction of home freezers in the seventies, ice cream vans may have become less frequent but they are still adorned with the same type of tempting graphics. Even on the wettest, darkest and chilliest day, if a van is seen (and let’s face it, there’s a child in us all), we always get tempted to buy one.

All packaging is the same. It has to create that “I want one” desire; it has to cause you to pause, and regardless of being amongst its competitors, its eye catching design will leave temporarily considering whether you can continue your existence without it.

Below are some exemplarily packaging examples to make YOUR mouth water…

Poster Designs

champ — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:57:26 +0000

Posters – not only do they cover all kinds of hideous decor in teenagers and students rooms, but they are primarily designed to promote events, brands and create sales.

Teenagers would argue that the posters in their rooms help to give them an identity, to express themselves in an art form. However, posters remain a highly influential way in communicating a message. As with all design some are bad others are fantastic.

Here is a collection of excellent posters from around the world.

Photoshop Tutuorial #1

champ — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:52:33 +0000

Courtesy of Michael Vincent Manalo.

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to create this magical underwater room. This tutorial covers techniques such as blending images, color correction, adding photo effects.

Preview of Final Results

Tutorial Details:

Program: Adobe Photoshop CS2
Version: 9
Difficulty: Medium
Estimated Completion Time: 1 to 1.5 hours

Resources

Apartment Stock 2 by Disney-Stock (Creative Commons License)
Fairy S – 15 by mjranum-stock (Creative Commons License)
Water by Jazzeri (Creative Commons License)
Aquarium Bubbles by Michael Vincent Manalo (Royalty Free License)
Calm Water strwberrystk by strwberrystk (Creative Commons License)

Step 1 – Create the Photoshop document

To start things off, let’s open a new image file, go to the Menu bar and click on File > New, then when the box opens, locate the Preset drop-down menu and click on A4 from the menu, or you may input following settings:

Width: 2480 pixels
Height: 3508 pixels
Resolution: 300 dpi
Color Mode: RGB Color; 8bit
Background Contents: White

A landscape type of canvas is what we need for this image, so we would need to rotate the newly created layer; when the new layer opens, go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 90’ CW.

Step 2 – Create the water room

In this step, we will create a room filled with water. To start, let’s open our fine stock image: Apartment Stock 2. After you’ve opened it, we won’t be doing anything to it, except moving it to our A4 canvas. Activate the Move tool (V) and drag the image to our canvas and then activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) to scale the image to fit our canvas.

To use the Transform tool, drag the small box/s to a direction which would successfully transform the image.

Now, we would need to change our room’s color tone. On the Menu bar, go to Image > Adjustments > Color Balance or you may simply hit the shortcut key which is Ctrl/Cmd + B and then input the following values:

Color Balance: -40, 0, +10
Tone Balance: Midtones
Preserve Luminosity: Checked

Next, we will be changing the ceiling into water! Open the stock image: Water and drag it to our canvas using the Move tool (V). Upon moving, let’s change the name of this layer to “water ceiling” to avoid confusion throughout the creation process. To rename a layer, double-click on the word “layer 1” and the text box would appear and you may now rename the layer.

Notice the ceiling, how do you think we would transform our “water ceiling” so it would fit the real ceiling’s shape? It’s easy; we will utilize the power of the Distort tool! Activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd +T) and right click on our image to bring up the contextual menu, when the menu appears, click on Distort.

So you won’t have a hard time transforming the image, a good thing to do would be to reduce its opacity to 40%. To reduce an image’s opacity, go to the Layer window (to where your layers are located) and change the % value on the Opacity drop-down menu. Change it to 40%. After you’ve done that, the transforming process begins. See image below:

When you’re done transforming, you may increase the Opacity by 30% making it 70%. Now, we will be blending our Water stock image with the ceiling. Activate the Burn tool (O) because we would need this to darken some regions of the water ceiling.

Input the following settings for our Burn tool (O).

Brush size: 500 px
Hardness: 0%
Range: Midtones
Exposure: 25%

Next, we will be erasing the edges of our “water ceiling” to make the blending more seamless. Activate the Eraser tool (E) and use the following settings:

Brush size: 125 px
Hardness: 0%
Opacity: 25%
Flow: 100%

Finally, let’s change its color tone. While the “water ceiling” layer is selected, press Ctrl/Cmd + B to adjust the Color Balance of the selected layer and then input the following values:

Color Balance: -40, 0, -36
Tone Balance: Midtones
Preserve Luminosity: Checked

Next let’s create an effect similar to how our eyes work when it is open underwater. To do this, let’s activate the Rectangle tool (U).

Before creating a rectangle, let’s set its color. Click on the Color Picker square located on the tools menu and input the following on the “#” box.

#: 3bd2ed

With the Rectangle tool activated and the color set, let’s create the rectangle.

Finally, let’s change its color tone. While the “water ceiling” layer is selected, press Ctrl/Cmd + B to adjust the Color Balance of the selected layer and then input the following values:

Color Balance: -40, 0, -36
Tone Balance: Midtones
Preserve Luminosity: Checked

Next let’s create an effect similar to how our eyes work when it is open underwater. To do this, let’s activate the Rectangle tool (U).

Before creating a rectangle, let’s set its color. Click on the Color Picker square located on the tools menu and input the following on the “#” box.

#: 3bd2ed

With the Rectangle tool activated and the color set, let’s create the rectangle.

After that, let’s rename the layer to “haze 1”.

Let’s create another rectangle because we would need to darken the area on the top. Activate the Rectangle tool (U) and use the following color settings:

#: 4a7675

After that right click on the layer to bring up the contextual menu and when the menu pops up, click on Rasterize. We will need to do this to make the layer available for editing or so we could apply filters to this layer. Now that the layer has been Rasterized, go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur from the Menu bar and input the following settings:

Angle: 90’
Distance: 400 px

Our image should now be similar to this:

We’ve filled up the ceiling with water, we’ve changed the color tone of the room and now we’ll need to change our floor. Let’s open Calm Water stwberrystk; activate the Marquee tool (M) and left-click and drag a selection area around the ocean and drag that region to our canvas using the Move tool (V). After it has been moved to our canvas, rename that layer to “water floor”.

Now let’s activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) because we would need the help of our Distort tool to fit our Calm Water stwberrystk stock image into the floor. With the Distort tool activated, move the squares to fit the floor. Once again, so you won’t have a hard time transforming the stock image, reduce its Opacity to 50%. See image below:

Next, change its Blending mode to Soft Light and its Opacity to 50%. We’ll also need to change its color tone to blend with the rest of the images; with the “water floor” layer selected, hit Ctrl + B to adjust the Color Balance and input the settings below:

Color Balance: 0, 0, +45
Tone Balance: Midtones
Preserve Luminosity: Checked

Let’s check and see how the image looks right now:

Before we proceed to the next step, let’s group the layers that we’ve created. To create a group, select all the layers that we’ve just made and press Ctrl/Cmd + G. Notice that by doing this all the layers will be hidden, you may unhide it by clicking on the “Play” button located to the left of the “Folder” icon of the new group. You may now rename the group, I recommend renaming it the “Water room” but you can use any name you wish. You may also press the Create New Group button located on the bottom of the Layer window, which is in between the Create New Fill layer/Adjustment layer button and the Create New Layer button.

STEP 3 – Insert the Lady in the Water

What we’re going to do on this step is that we would be inserting a lady who is swimming in the water room. Now let’s open the Fairy S – 15 stock image. Let’s activate the Magnetic Lasso tool (L); we will be using this tool to cut the fairy from the rest of the image and move it to our canvas.

After drawing a selection area around the lady, you can now move it to our canvas. Drag it to our canvas using the Move tool (V) and then rename the layer to “lady in the water”.

Now that the “lady in the water” is in place, let’s change her color tone to make her blend in. With the “lady in the water” layer selected, press Ctrl/Cmd + B to activate the Color Balance adjustment tool and input all the values below on their respective fields:

1. Color Balance: -90, 0, +26
1. Tone Balance: Midtones
1. Preserve Luminosity: Checked
2. Color Balance: -60, 0, 0
2. Tone Balance: Shadows
2. Preserve Luminosity: Checked
3. Color Balance: -10, 0, +15
3. Tone Balance: Highlights
3. Preserve Luminosity: Checked

Now after you’ve done that, let’s change the Brightness/Contrast of the lady’s layer. To change adjust the Brightness/Contrast, go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast located on the Menu bar. Input the following settings when the B/C box opens:

Brightness: +12
Contrast: -10

Due to the increased brightness, we can hardly see the lady’s face, so a good thing to do is to Burn her face! Yes, we will use the Burn tool (O) to darken the light on her face. Activate the Burn tool (O) and use the following settings:

Brush size: 500 px
Hardness: 0%
Range: Midtones
Exposure: 15%

Note: To be accurate in Burning, change the zoom level to 50% or more in the Navigator window.

Finally, reduce her Opacity to 70%. The image should be now similar to this:

Step 4 – Create the bubbles

In this step we would be adding the water bubbles to add a realistic water texture and atmosphere to our image. Let’s open the Aquarium Bubbles stock and drag it to our canvas using the Move tool (V) and then rename the layer to “water texture 1”.. Upon moving it to our canvas we would need to transform it appropriately for composition purposes. Activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and resize the image. See image below:

Now we would need to remove some bubbles that would potentially ruin our composition. To do that, activate the Healing Brush tool (J). Once again, remember to left-click and hold to bring up the menu in case the Healing Brush isn’t the default button on the toolbar. Using the Healing Brush tool (J) is similar to the Clone Stamp tool (S) but in this case, it doesn’t exactly clone a part of the image, but instead it chooses a source point and then it heals the region and therefore replaces and mixes the pixels which you Alt/Opt clicked on earlier. So activate the Healing Brush and follow the image below:

After that, we would need to erase a distracting part of our “water texture 1” layer. Activate your Eraser tool (E) and use the settings below:

Brush size: 500 px
Hardness: 0%
Opacity: 100%
Flow: 100%

Now that that’s done, let’s change the layer’s Blending mode to Soft Light, and its Opacity to 60%. If you’d notice, that texture alone isn’t enough so we would need more than one texture to get the right feel for this image. Click on our “water texture 1” layer and press Ctrl/Cmd + J to duplicate it. Once duplicated, rename the layer to “water texture 2” and change its Blending mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 20%. The result should be similar to the image below:

Step 5 – Retouch the whole image

Now on this step, we would be doing all the necessary adjustments to improve the look and feel of the whole image.

First, let’s adjust the Hue/Saturation of our image, to smoothen the impact of our image to our viewer’s eye. Click on the Create new Fill layer/Adjustment layer button which is located beside the Create New Group button on the Layer window. When the menu opens, click on Hue/Saturation. A box will open and when it does, use the following settings:

Edit: Master
Hue/Saturation
Hue: 0
Saturation: -20
Lightness: 0

Next, let’s create a Solid Color adjustment layer from the Create new Fill layer/Adjustment layer button. When it opens, input the following:

#: 000223

Then change its Blending mode to Exclusion and set its Opacity to 40%.

After that, let’s create a Levels adjustment layer. Input the following settings when it opens:

Channel: Red
Input levels: 15, 1.00, 255
Output levels: 0, 255
Channel: Blue
Input levels: 15, 1.00, 255
Output levels: 0, 255

Now let’s create another color adjustment through the use of a Photo Filter adjustment layer. Use the following settings:

Filter: Sepia
Density: 25%
Preserve Luminosity: Checked

Next, we’ll make use of a Curves adjustment layer. Input the following values on their respective fields:

Input: 132
Output: 121

Next, let’s utilize another Solid Color adjustment layer. Input the following value on the “#” box:

#: a3e2ff

Then change its Blending mode to Color Burn and its Opacity to 60%.

Finally, let’s add a Gradient Map filter still through the Create new Fill layer/Adjustment layer button. Let’s utilize the default gradients; pick the Black and white gradient.

Now that we’re almost done, go to File > Save as… and save the image as a PSD file so you may access the whole image with its layers, in the future if you deem to make some changes.

Step 6 – Give the image a dreamy atmosphere

In this step, we would be making the image look soft and dreamy, therefore, making it look magical.

To be able to do that, we would need to flatten the layers. To flatten, right click on any layer and pick Flatten Image from the contextual menu.

Now we’re ready to do this step. While the image is selected, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and input the following value:

Radius: 16.0 px

The image is blurry, now is this the dreamy atmosphere that we want to achieve? No. To make it dreamy, change its Blending mode to Lighten and its Opacity to 60%.

Final Results

What makes “good design” good design

champ — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:09:54 +0000

We all get influenced in our lives. We admire others, not only in their work but in their personal outlook. The way someone can make you feel is unique, and the way we express the emotion they evoke can be portrayed in different forms; from music to poetry, paintings to photographs. These are all created to give a desired result. To emote, provoke and evoke.

Take Graphic design. This is no different. It’s important to understand what emotions people feel when they look at a photograph or an advertisement. Aesthetically design, like art, is subjective and what’s one person’s medicine is another person’s poison.

However, it’s the provocative nature of all art which gives graphic design a platform to make its content informative. And that’s what good graphic design is all about. It has to not just answer a brief but surpass it. It has to deliver the desired result, and more.

I once worked for one of the largest electronic PR and Advertising agencies in Europe. I was briefed with designing an advertisement for a “cables catalogue” for a large client. The advert was to appear in typical journals and magazines. Virtually every advert in these publications had the same look. Bland, boring and passable when readers flicked through the pages of adverts to get to the informative editorial so they could read about the latest semi-conductors and capacitors. See, the subject matter has bored you already.

Now imagine you are flicking through one of these publications and you see this…

You’ve now stopped flicking. You read the advert in which this photograph (which I took) appeared. For legal reasons I cannot show the full advert, but the strap line read: “All the cables you could want in one place. Regardless of what you need them for…”

This is what graphic design is all about. Everyone remembers and will act upon a provocative, emotive and informative piece of design, and that’s where influences fit in too. They shape the way you think, design and structure your required results. The technical know-how is important and a requisite, but understand the conceptual methods in how others who have gone before you create.

Another important thing to remember is this… “Stop designing for yourself”. A subject I will cover in the future.

Here are some examples of my favourite designers and those who have influenced me in the way I think and interpet.

Neville Brody

David Carson

Tibor Kalman

Alan Fletcher

Fancy discovering something else? (why should I do all the hard work for you ;-P). Look up more examples of the below: Soviet Constructivist Posters 1920-1940 – the sheer brilliance of angles and use of singluar colour on some are timeless.

Written by Steve Champion