Calendar Wallpaper: January download

Okay, like I promised: the calender wallpaper for January! To be honest, I'm not thrilled about the result but since it's an exercise I really have to stop whining about that and just start with the one for February. Since there's a deadline to catch!

         

The wallpaper is available on my Downloads page (new! new! new!) in a regular and wide-screen version.

Cupcake workshop

Yesterday I followed a workshop 'Cupcake decoration' together with a friend. The workshop was organized by Hippe Taartjes (Dutch for 'hip cakes') and it was lots of fun. These are the ones I did:

Designing postcards with vector software

A quick explanation for those not familiar with graphic design: Vector graphics are graphics that are built up from mathematical expressions. Vector graphics (images and/or text) can be zoomed in and out infinitely without loss of quality, whereas a bitmap image like a digital photograph image would become blurry and pixelated at a certain point. Thus, one of the advantages of vector illustrations is that once you've created it, you can use it on any size you want, be it a post stamp or a poster, and still have crystal clear lines.

Lots of people use Adobe Illustrator to create vector graphics, but the software I'm using is Inkscape. It is a free (yay!) open source program, and is not as heavy for the computer compared to Illustrator. However, I generally never liked to work with this type of software, be it Illustrator or Inkscape or anything else. I generally didn't like working on graphic design at all, to be honest. It has been on my 'have to practise' list for many years and I've always managed to put it off.

Until I entered the board of my music group, and a Christmas card had to be designed. Within two weeks. And with me being the only board member active in the field of design, it was kinda sorta not much of a question who would befall the 'honor' of this task. Great. Ahem.

So, no more excuses. I had to start creating something. I chose to do it in Inkscape so I would finally get some real experience with it. The result:

Considering the fact that it is pretty much my first complete graphic design ever (apart from smaller things like my logo and business card) and that I was not that familiar with the software, I don't think the end result is that bad. And even though I have been cursing now and then during the process, no complete mental breakdowns took place which was nice as well. Okay, I did say "never never never again!" a lot of times to my friend and fellow board member, but I had pretty much already forgotten about that a day after ordering the cards.

A good thing, because after ordering the postcards (a lot of them) via Greetz, I got an email: 9 postcards to print for free! Some sort of bonus you get after ordering apparently. Nice! No one else wanted to do something with it and the cards had to be ordered within a month, so I took the opportunity to give myself an additional challenge: design 3 or 4 postcards just for fun, learning additional Inkscape skills and graphic styles in the process.

So, there was an incentive (seeing your design in print is actually pretty cool), motivation (graphic design was more fun than I had thought) and not completely unimportant, a deadline. I find that deadlines increase my general productivity a lot, because it prevents projects from dragging on and on and ending up abandoned halfway.

Combining that with a short Christmas holiday and some extra days, and there you have it!

My first design (blue card) was according to this tutorial on urban design. It's a graphic style you see quite often and I've always liked the circular designs, so it was nice learning how it is built. I really love how it came out. Also that it looks still quite different from the example in the tutorial, it's nice to see that personal style comes out even when following instructions.

My second design (red card) was pretty much free form, trying to create a shape and fiddling with it until I liked how it came out on the card.

For my third design (green card), I learned to add textures in Inkscape. A texture is what you can see on the background, a combination between a simple colour and a picture (this one is of rust, from this site with free textures). It gives an illustration a sudden burst of liveliness and character. Creating a simple text and a shape of a flower, and the card was done.

The fourth design (yellow card) popped up in my head and I just tried creating the look and feel I had envisioned, which was quite difficult. Although still different from what I had imagined, the cheerfulness came out just how I wanted it!

I love how quickly your skills improve after tasks like this. For me, it has become much easier to envision and come up with graphic elements (and how to create them) compared to a month earlier. To keep growing, I decided to create a desktop wallpapers for every month in 2013, that can be downloaded before the month starts (there: a deadline). Okay, January will be too late, but you'll see it soon!

'People in Interaction' challenge

Drawing people is hard. It requires insight in anatomy and the way people move, general drawing skill and a lot of practise to get things right. Because product design often requires images to communicate how an object is used, being able to draw people is a rather useful skill.

To gain some much-needed practise in this field, I did a 15-day drawing challenge: "people in interaction". Every day, pick an item and draw a person interacting with that item three times, with different interactions or viewing angles. Phew! Talk about challenging!

I cheated big time on the hands and faces, because they are a drawing skill in themselves and will need a separate study to get it right in drawings. Trying to draw those correct as well now would've driven me to insanity, so yea... Mañana, mañana...

After doing this challenge I definitely feel I'm having better grip on drawing people. Of course I still need a lót of practise and study, but it definitely got easier (and faster) along the way. Doing a challenge like this also gives a better understanding of your 'problem areas', in my case I really have problems drawing hips accurately. Also, clothes and drawing poses with arms raised in the air could use some special attention.

Sometimes I used reference pictures to get certain body parts right. A good source for reference pictures (both full body, specific body parts and expressions) is Kxhara at Deviantart. I love her pictures, they are very convenient!

Product pictures

The majority of the product photographing is done.

Done. Finished. Closed. Thank. Gód...

Over time I had become a bit quite very extremely stressed out about the product pictures. I guess that's what you get for being an impossible perfectionist while at the same time being not that stress-resistant ánd of the avoidant type. Procrastination, self-doubt and stress galore. Really, any longer and I would've gotten some serious wrinkles.

Which is why I shot these pictures with a plain white background. Much easier, faster, and less stress. I will create the "scenic" pictures with props when I have the time and feel like it later.

So the action plan for my next designs is to decide on the product description and product photo setting right after ordering the design and shooting the pictures immediately after receiving the products. Which is, by the way, also the advise that I got from one of the more experienced designers/sellers on Shapeways.

Right now I only have to make the scenic pictures, tweak the product descriptions and markups in my webshop and integrating everything in my personal website. Oh, and not to forget doing the whole social media & marketing thing. After all the stressing out, I'm now in a state of not really caring anymore. Luckily, I know from experience that this is the perfect state of mind to finish tasks like this. Prevents me from over-thinking again: enough is enough!

The 6th of december is the deadline for ordering things at Shapeways (where I have my webshop) for those who want to receive their order before Christmas. For me, that means that until that date I'll continue to market my designs. And at the 6th of December, midnight: radio silence. I'M DONE! Well, then my 2012 jewelry collection will be done at least and I'll give myself a few days off. And after that I'll continue with the next phase of my plans: focusing on product design! Hopefully with a slightly less demanding schedule...

But before I forget: here are the photo's of my 2012 jewelry collection!

Pendant 'April'

Pendant 'Santiago'

Pendant "Blanche A"

Pendant "Blanche B"

Pendant "Twain"

Pendant "Maya A"

Pendant "Maya B"

Ring "Maya"

 

Ring "Robin"

 

Ring ¨Dia"

Ring "Sydney"

I'm very happy they're all done now, and what's even better: now I finally get to wear them! Whoohoo!

...Okay, maybe it's better to wait until the scenic pictures are done as well. Hmm.

Oh, and many thanks to J. for all the help!.