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Energizing my knowledge of design |
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Wednesday, 23 July 2008 |
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Seems like every so many years I step back and look at my career. I love being in Advertising and Design. Working in an advertising agency is rewarding. But lets face it, we don't always get to those clients seeking uber-creative, cutting edge designs. Hats off to those designers that have the clients looking to step outside of the box. Those are the kind of clients that make great design happen. Plus, most clients could careless about design theory. Something I miss, the college enviromnent, an academic approach to the study of design and design principles. Being around people that share your passion. So to energize myself. I've decided to get back to basics. Find the things that made me fall in love with design. The day-to-day grind  of work can suck the love of design right out of a creative person. First plan is to build my reference library. Find sources written by people with a passion for the creative arts. Second, study the history of design.
Building my refence library of design.
So many of the books I've bought over the years have been manuals on how to learn the latest and greatest software. That's a necessary evil of todays design industry, we have to be technitions. I'm looking for books that focus on the “design process”, or books that take design to the next level. The first book that I have added to my book shelf is, Crumble. Crackle. Burn. by Von Glitschka. Von explores the use of texture in design. Von shares his passion for “texture hunting” and shows examples of how these textures can be used in creative illustrations. comes with a DVD that includes a ton of hi-res texture files and photoshop brushes.
Many thanks to the author and How books for a great publication. I
share Von's passion for textures. Like wise, I have also been
collecting textures for over 20 years. Hopefully, Von's book will
inspire other designers to seek interesting textures to use in design.
If they aren't up for the thrill of the hunt, then they can always
search the DVD, and be equally rewarded with some great textures. Von
Glitschka also shares his wealth of knowledge online, his blog and illustration tutorials are worth bookmarking
 Inspired, I've decided to play around with some of my own texture. I
don't often get the opportunity to do “Creative Illustrations” so I
assigned myself the task of making a mock poster for my office. I took
an old concept I had in a note book and just set out to have fun with
it. Check out the “Brain Fried Zone” some new art to hang in my office. As a designer, at any level in your career, it is always benificial to keep an notepad/sketch book of ideas. You can use this as a jump-start on client projects, or just use the ideas to experiment, expand your bandwidth.
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Inspired, I've decided to play around with some of my own texture. I
don't often get the opportunity to do “Creative Illustrations” so I
assigned myself the task of making a mock poster for my office. I took
an old concept I had in a note book and just set out to have fun with
it. Check out the “Brain Fried Zone” some new art to hang in my office. As a designer, at any level in your career, it is always benificial to keep an notepad/sketch book of ideas. You can use this as a jump-start on client projects, or just use the ideas to experiment, expand your bandwidth.