From the desk of Artistic Amanda…

“Access encourages use. Make a practice of keeping art supplies within easy reach. Play by yourself, play with friends. Be silly, be serious.” -Jim Krause

flickr credit: lindsay rogerson

Healthy relationships include time for recreation. Every so often, make time to play with your computer, scanner, digital camera and other fun peripherals. Some of our best learning and creative breakthroughs occur when we play with our tools. In my opinion, as designers, we need to occasionally step away from our desks and get back in touch with the simplicity of childhood craft-time. We need to sit cross-legged on the floor and create random acts of art. We need to craft things with our hands and not overthink the details or technique. Create works of art that have nothing to do with financial gain. LIGHTEN UP – success and failure are irrelevant during playtime.

I wanted to get away from computer generated art today and take a look at some of the best creative use project tutorials I’ve found. Enjoy!

• Upcycled Photo Cube by Design Mom
• Coffee Sack Bulletin Board by Jackie Hernandez
• Milk Carton CD Case by Upcycle Art
• Soda Bottle Lamps by Upcycle Art
• Junk Mail Christmas Ornaments by Junk Mail Gems
• Gift Bags by Junk Mail Gems
• 5 Reuses for License Plates by Daily DiY

A few of my past blogs have contained excerpts from Caffeine for the Creative Mind by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield. I’m a huge fan of this book as it delivers on its promise of waking up your brain and training you to think outside the box – something we, as designers, should include as part of our daily creative maintenance.

Now the caffeinated duo has done it again with their book Caffeine for the Creative Team: 200 Exercises to Energize Your Next Brainstorm. And thanks to HOW Design, they have made it easy to jolt the creativity of your next brainstorming session with these downloadable cards… enjoy!

Happy Easter from ArtisticAmanda.com! Consider this your virtual easter basket filled with lots of Photoshop goodies!

There are some days when I can’t keep up with my own ideas. I get excited about one, begin to focus on a project and seem to have 1000 or more in the process. Of course, then there are the OTHER days. The dreaded days when the creative well appears to have dried up and nothing I create strikes me as impressive or innovative. That’s when I wish inspiration could be tapped into like On-Demand television. You could see all your options at once… and even be able to DVR some creativity for your 2:30pm meeting when you know your caffeine buzz will reach it’s breaking point. While we don’t have Inspiration On-Demand, what we do have is the internet where we can access portfolios, creative journals, magazines, color swatches, patterns… anything we want! A powerful source of creative energy can be accessed by examining the work of others.

There are pitfalls, however. Reviewing the styles and solutions that other artists have discovered before you’ve had a chance to sketch out a page or two of your own ideas can short-circuit your creative process and narrow the search to directions that have already been explored. On the other hand, ignoring the work of others completely can lead to ideas that are out-of-step or below the bar that has been set by other artists.

Here are 10 of my favorite inspiration-generators:

COLOURlovers: A color and design community for creative inspiration and sharing the love of color. (Patterns, too!)

LogoPond: A community gallery of logo designs. All the logo inspiration you’ll ever need.

DeviantART: An online art community showcasing everything from graphic design and sketches to sculptures, photography and paintings.

The Best Designs: The best Flash and CSS Web Design.

Faveup: Part of Eden Creative Communities out of Sydney, Australia, Faveup is a gallery of inspirational design that allows you to vote for your favorites.

Smashing Magazine: = L O V E. Tutorials, freebies, articles… “We smash you with information that will make your life easier. Really.” True story.

Flickr: Photos, photos, photos. Mostly, I like to explore interesting photos over the last 7 days and wait for something to strike me.

HOW Magazine: A wealth of information including articles, books, competitions, and forums where you can discuss design topics and get peer critiques.

Caffeine for the Creative Mind: For any creative type who wants to quickly limber up their imagination on a daily basis.

Design Essentials Index: Includes the Design Basics Index, the Type Idea Index and the Color Index 2 to give idea-hungry designers a wealth of practical design info at their fingertips.

Where do you get your inspiration for new ideas? When do you tap into it and how? Is it time to try a new approach?

I have lived in Nashville for nine years and am puzzled as to why no one has told me about the First Saturday Gallery Crawl till now. The downtown gallery crawl occurs the first Saturday of each month from 6-9pm. It’s completely free and open to the public… and really right up the alley of anyone who is in any way interested in the arts. A complimentary shuttle is even provided by the Downtown Partnership. If it’s possible, this recurring event made me love this city a little more.

As an artist myself, I always love looking at other artists’ work. The creativity in this world simply amazes me. The following were some of my favorites of the night:

The Rymer Gallery on 5th Avenue is exactly what you think of when someone mentions a downtown gallery: a large open space, brightly lit, with two back hallways and a loft for additional hanging space. A gorgeous venue and probably my favorite of the night.

You know you like a work of art when you wake up the next morning still thinking about it and that’s how I felt about Jordan Eagles‘ collection. Small framed works lined the stairs leading up to the Rymer Gallery loft and when reaching the top, Jordan’s “UR-26″ is staring you in the face. Similar to the “UR-15″ piece pictured here, “UR-26″ embeds a circular sunburst in a dark background, with little tongues flickering into the internal space of the piece and casting shadows onto the wall behind. The media… are you ready? Blood and copper preserved on plexiglas, covered with UV Resin.

Eagles experiments with his material to find the range of colors he can get by methods such as aging the blood or mixing it with other materials. He has started mixing in crushed copper, which can produce a metallic sheen like “UR17,” another fireburst-type image with a combination of metallic and bloody red in the central element.

Using clear resin, Eagles’ paintings have a slick artificial surface that contrasts with the organic qualities of the blood. The resin also makes the paintings safe—when you hear about paintings with blood, the initial reaction may be that it will be gross, or even a biohazard. The resin encases the blood and puts it at a safe remove. The entire collection was breathtaking.

On the same street, the Tinney Contemporary Gallery was holding the Stop Look Listen exhibition which featured new works from Lyle Carbajal (painter), Sharon Lee Hart (photographer) and Jason Lascu (sculptor). It was Lascu’s work that first caught my eye. Rather, it was hard to miss as the first piece to the left of the entrance was a wax man standing at the base of a ladder that reached all the way to the ceiling.

Lascu is a local Nashvillian artist focusing his work on combining figurative images and found objects that honestly express and illustrate poignant experiences and encounters which have shaped his life. As I went around the room and saw more and more wax men – some with bunny ears, some with dunce hats, some with masks – I noticed their faces and the emotion in their eyes. Impressive attention to detail, in my opinion.

The final favorites were side by side showcases in the Arcade at the Andrew John Gallery. The work of Andy Anh Ha was full of brightly colored lotus flowers. His artist statement reads,

“Text is used to elaborate the meaning of the lotus flower understood as ‘creative power and purity amid adverse surroundings.’ The lotus is an important aspect in regards to the relation it has with my culture and way of life. It represents my upbringing as a 1st generation welfare recipient and how my life has transformed. Through obtaining knowledge and culture, success has blossomed for my family and I.”

The work I enjoyed most was a large piece with a newsprint background covered with a whitewash. A large red lotus was painted on top, much like this one here. The entire thing was coated with resin to give it a crisp sheen. Such classic beauty.

Next door, John Hung Ha’s vibrant-colored fish was the perfect way to wrap up the night. Always fascinated with marine biology, the artist says he enjoys capturing the unique characteristics of the Koi fish and the goldfish.

“They have different characteristics and produce a positive energy that symbolizes prosperity and good health. …I think the most appealing thing about my work is the variation of media I use. My process involves oils, acrylics, enamels, fabrics, papers, laser-cut stencils, interference paint, and varnish.”

I have to agree with him. Just like fish scales shimmer in the water, John Hung Ha’s work – laced with sparkly beads and glittery residue -  shimmered across the showroom. If I’d had the means, I would’ve taken all the fish home with me.

“Typography, the art of manipulating type to enhance communication, goes hand-in-hand with graphic design. It sets the mood. Establishes the pace. Evokes the feeling. Ensures readability. It’s part of that indescribable “something” that makes a document work.” -Designer’s Typography, 2009.

I first began dabbling in web design back in the early 90s, during the prime of Geocities and Angelfire. “Hey, look mom! I made it so the pictures will change when you wave your mouse over them!” Yeah, I really thought I was hot stuff.

Being a self-taught designer, I learned a lot over the years partly by natural curiosity (thanks for the internet, Al Gore!), but mostly by trial-and-error. Since my foundation was in web design, making the transition to print was a little rocky. (I attempted to design my very first print ad in Macromedia Fireworks. /headdesk) If I didn’t understand resolution, you can bet I didn’t know a thing about tracking, kerning or typography back then. Thankfully, I’m a quick learner.

To bring you up to speed, typography is more than just a pretty font. It’s the study of type and typefaces – the evolution of printed letters. Since man did not begin to write with type, but rather the chisel, brush, and pen, it’s the study of handwriting that provides us with the basis of creating type designs. In fact, several of the fonts we see on our computers have evolved from the work of typefounders of the 15th and early 16th centuries. (Claude Garamond, William Caslon… sound familiar?)

“Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. ” -Emil Ruder (1914-1970), co-founder of the International Center for the Typographic Arts in New York, 1962

Below are a few of my favorite displays of creative typography… what are some of your favorites?

By Craig Ward of Words Are Pictures

By MIAD Communication Design

screenshot of the acsys interactive website.

Duk Nguyen

More great found type photos by Greg Meadows: Take a walk through The Boneyard.

The Journal of Urban Typography:  dedicated to the documentation and study of signs, word fragments, and typography created with utilitarian intent in urban environments.

RESOURCES:

• 50 Useful Design Tools for Beautiful Web Typography courtesy of Smashing Magazine.
• PicFor.me Typography Gallery – for inspiration!
  

FREE FONT SITES:

• dafont.com
• fawnt.com
  
• 1001freefonts.com
• abstractfonts.com

*I Love Typography scrabble graphic designed by Hamish.