Drawlines Forum

73 Blog Designs From Deviantart You’ll Never Forget

davidemalta — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:07:27 +0000

For some time I’ve been gathering great blog designs from deviantart to get inspired and now I will showcase them all in one huge article!! Surprisingly finding great ideas and designs have been much easier in Deviantart than any other web design showcase sites.

I didn’t add any comments this time – compare these designs yourself and try to understand why ones really stand out, well others seem a little bit classical. Notice small things, how designer puts a little bit unique style in its design to make emphasis like folding, comment,date boxes which stand out from layout, icons, background textures and nice shadings.

What I noticed though – for blog designs light colors always look better and are more user-friendly since visitors need to read information – light background and dark text always seem to work great!

1. WordPress Two by sinthux

WPmonk by sinthux

WordPress by sinthux

WordPress Beta by DouglasEltz

Hypowired by sinthux

WordPress Theme by sALuUm

Webbo WordPress Thema by Servetinci

Simple WordPress theme by yehsper

Edge v.1.1 by AlxDesign

WordPress Blog by Pinpoint-Designs

FreshPress by AlxDesign

Plush by AlxDesign

Sveriges Finest by AlxDesign

Design MS v.5 by AlxDesign

Condo Bandit by AlxDesign

Disambler WordPress by deadlinesdesign

Osae by osec

GrungePress by AlxDesign

PlanetF1 by AlxDesign

Springbloggers by SneakyOne1990

WordPress Template 7

by

Tooschee

VintMint WordPress Theme by STRIF3wind

Jocoo by SencerBugrahan

Naruja Portfolio by JuliusX

Creative Bloggers by SneakyOne1990

Coffee Cup by Pilej

Delicate: WordPress Theme by itsmattadams

The General Blog by BboyWicked

IamSuthan by BboyWicked

Video BLOG – Template by askdzigner

Smooth Portfolio Layout by JuliusX

Webee by zee7

GoldPress by SencerBugrahan

Quacero by SencerBugrahan

Blog layout by shuffl3

Honcerate WordPress theme by snaz

Black2 WordPress theme-Blog by ehlikeyif

Blog Magazine Theme by dellustrations

Boutique Theme by dellustrations

Magazine Theme by dellustrations

Royal Mag by AlxDesign

Web-Kreation Redesign – Mockup by jeeremie

Gamma Design by easydisplayname

Beta Design by easydisplayname

Delta Design by easydisplayname

Authentic WP by gdnz

Coloured Solutions V1 Blog by moDesignz

Pixogen by gdnz

Simplicity by AlxDesign

AVG-HHBlog by AntoniaVG

CloudBlack WP by gdnz

DesignersLust Website Design by TheDrake92

Rainbow Blog by PanthereNoire92

Coffee blog by Pilej

Textured Blog Layout by voodoosimon

WordPress – Fairy Theme by detrans

Dalton Hurd by sinthux

Personal Portfolio 2.0 by jonaska

Blog Theme update by coWebdesign

WordPress – IcePress Theme by detrans

TV Shows by waterdesign

eacose by osec

osea by osec

AudioTech by DouglasEltz

Cube Productions by vanmall

Matias Blog by Pilej

KO by trunglq

CreativeTalk by kodcor3y

Big Blue by detruk

Green Palacy Theme by DouglasEltz

Waterfall blog by coloformia

Filed under: Uncategorized

Amazing Conceptual Art by Seung Jin Woo

davidemalta — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:24:12 +0000

Recently we have stumbled upon an awesome artist. His name is Seung Jin Woo (aka Moonworker), and he is from South Korea. Seung creates some incredible Conceptual Art with Photoshop, its very surreal and makes your imagination run wild. To show our appreciation for talented artists, we will be featuring them more frequently.

Check out his website here.

Check out his Deviant art here.

Filed under: Uncategorized

45 Quality Free Vector Files to Download

davidemalta — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:52:45 +0000

As a designer its always handy to have a collection of pre-made vector objects to use in your designs, Most Designers share their Creative design stuffs to others for free. so that others can learn from their works, At sometimes these collection will become marvelous time saver

Here i’ve listed 45+ Quality Vector Resource to Download varies form special illustrations to design elements and more, hope you like the download list, Also be aware about license terms and agreements before you put them in use.

1.) Illustration

Ornamental Heart

Beautiful fashion pattern

Material retro music

Urban Vector

New Light

Grunge Skull

Colorful background

MSG to go

FREEDOM

Dj electrique

2.) Design Elements

Free Vector Wreaths For Seals

Vector Elements2

Vector Elements3

Vector Elements4

Ecological

Halftone Dots

Elements Mix

Tech Logo

Art Design

3.) objects

Three-dimensional icon

Ecology Vector Set

Wavy Vector Arrows

Vector Polaroid Photo Frames

Vector Tags

Free Vector Money & Coins

Wood Signs

Free Colorful Easter Eggs

Free Vector Shopping Paper Bags

Vector Sports Objects and Stadiums

4.) Abstarct backgrounds

Colored Pattern

Peacock Circles

Blue Abstract

Colorful

Abstract Action

Abstract Artworks

Retro

Enzo

Halftone

Modern Arrows

5.) sihilouttes

Businessmen Silhouettes

Trees

Basketball

Aircraft

Skyline US NewYork City

World Map

Music Instruments

Filed under: Uncategorized

10 Free Android Applications for Web Designers & Developers

davidemalta — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:36:49 +0000

Time is precious and any mobile application is created to save your time. Though working as a web designer or a web developer requires a talent, huge efforts and great skills, there is still a huge sense in creating mobile applications for these people.

For example there are many freelancers among these professionals and you will agree that choosing color palette on your cell while meeting with the client outside the office will be very helpful and comfortable. Of course it is too early to state a fact that these apps will replace normal software but some important little things can be done with the help of this mobile software.

Android just as the iPhone has its own fans and the main target is to recruit those who haven’t decided yet. So, the “application war” is only a part of this battle. It is hard to tell who has more efficient and universal applications but there is really no need to do that. All this rivalry is just a matter of taste and everyone has to decide what his choice will be. And our goal today is to present to you the Android-based software targeted to work for web designers and developers.

1. SilverEdit

With the help of this excellent software you can easily work with HTML, CSS, PHP and TXT documents from your phone. Just open, edit and save your documents on the go with the SilverEdit application.

* * *

2. Magic Color Picker

Magic Color Picker simplifies your color work and we know how important it is for any web designer. The main advantages of this software are multiple formats support – including HEX, RGB, HSV, YUV, and HS. Enhance your color editing skills with the help of this useful application for Android phones.

* * *

3. Flubble

Flubble will be interesting primarily for Flash developers because it’s aim is creating shell classes or outlines while working in your flash applications. The file can be saved and emailed as an ActionScript file or in an XML format.

* * *

4. Freelancer EX12131

Great text excuse generator that will help you to stay lazy and get paid for it! Includes over 200 slick and funny excuses that will disarm your clients. Note: FREE for a limited time!

* * *

5. Photoshop.com mobile

Well everything is simple here – all Photoshop functions are avaliable at your mobile phone. It means that you can rotate, blur, add photo effects etc.

* * *

6. HTML Editor

Handy and lightweight mobile solution that is a cornerstone of any web design activity – with this application you can start your project by creating HTML, PHP, ASP, CSS and JS documents.

* * *

7. Typography Junkies

It’s an awesome social media application for web designers. Stay in touch with latest information about typography and font news on your Android Phone.

* * *

8. AndFTP

AndFTP is a FTP, FTPS and SFTP client. Device (local) and remote (FTP) file browsers. It has folders selection support for upload, download and delete; opens files (HTML, MP3, Text, Video, …) on device; supports English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Korean languages.

* * *

9. ActionScript Reference

This application indexes the Adobe AS3 helpdocs for Flash and Flex developers. If you know what it’s like to work with Flash and Flex you’ll appreciate this application because it saves your time, your efforts and is always handy.

* * *

10. Color Palette

Colors are everywhere and web designers know how important it is to pick a right one. Color Palette will help you to do that right. This is an effective color adjusting tool for your mobile phone that supports RGB, HSB(HSV), HSL(HLS) color models.

* * *

That’s it for now folks! Now consider your Andriod-powered phone really pimped for maximum design performance. After all, helping you is what it’s all about.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Basic Portrait Retouching in Photoshop

davidemalta — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:25:02 +0000

By Luisa Marin

In this tutorial, I’ll show you several quick and easy techniques for retouching portraits using Adobe Photoshop.

There are entire books written on retouching portraits—many books in fact. This tutorial does not aim to substitute all that information. Rather than spending a lot of time on many individual steps in retouching photos, this tutorial aims to provide a quick overview of several techniques.

We’ll be working with this photograph:

We won’t focus on theory so much as applying different tools from here on out.

Arrange your workspace

For the most efficient workflow, it may be worth your while to get in the habit of arranging your workspace. Photoshop has many palettes, but we are only going to use the toolbar palette, Layers and the history palette.

You can save your workspace as a preset for quick editing in future jobs.

History log

Go to Edit->Preferences-> Performance and set the history states to 50.This will give you more flexibility as you can go back and see your progress and/or improve any of the techniques you have used.

If you find Photoshop running much slower, revert to your default setting.

Molding Features with Liquify

The Liquify tools are incredibly useful in molding features without destroying too much information. Watch how I apply it do several areas of the model below:

First I open the Liquify panel ( Filter->Liquify ), choose the Forward Warp Tool and use it to push the jaw a bit inward. I repeat this process with the neck. For areas of the models face I want to enlarge, I can use the bloat tool and if I want to reduce the size of something, I can use the pucker tool.

These are the settings I’ve used for the Forward Warp Tool. The brush size can vary of course depending on the region you want to modify.For the jaw region I’ve used a brush size of 238 and for the lips somewhere around 130.However,don’t take these values for granted.

Each photo, and each part of a photo will need careful consideration in tool settings. Since this is a larger photo, we use larger brush sizes.

Cleaning Up Skin with the Clone Stamp

There are many ways to clean skin in Photoshop. Here is a super easy way using the Clone Stamp Tool.

Zoom in to a level where you are comfortable and you can see the details. Now look for a region of skin with a similar color range to the one you want to fix. Usually I choose an area which is close to the part I want to fix ( fig2 ) . Choose the Clone Stamp tool and select the source region (hold alt to select it ) and set the opacity to somewhere around 30%. The key is to use low opacity values but many , many strokes rather than few strokes and a high opacity value. By using this technique , you will preserve the details and not wash out the skin.

I have used the Clone Stamp tool to get rid of the wrinkles , especially those near the corner of the lips and the ones around the bottom part of the eyes. Be careful not to overuse the Clone Stamp tool or else you will lose the skin texture and create flat planes on your face. Fake looking skin is a common error in the practice of retouching photos.

Tip: create snapshots to keep track of your progress and also zoom out often to have an overview of what you have done so far.

Get rid of Wrinkles with the Healing brush

Use the Healing Spot Brush to correct small skin issues like independent blisters or wrinkles. Set the type brush to proximity match for more accurate results.

We’re not going to dive into any theory or arguments over best practices here, but be sure to keep in mind that wrinkles are natural in skin. Don’t get rid of too much.

Quick Tips for Eyes & lips

The Dodge and Burn tools are useful in emphasizing the eyes and lips in a portrait. I Select the Dodge tool, set the exposure to 12% and “dodge” the areas indicated in Fig4. This will lighten the colors. To create contrast ( thus we’ll create emphasis on the eyes) we need to use the Burn tool with an exposure of 12%. “Burn” the pupil, the outer part of the iris, the eyelashes and the area under the eyebrows.

Also, I use the Dodge tool to accentuate the highlights from the lips (Fig5.)

Hair Styling

Taking care of rebellious hairs can be achieved with the Clone Stamp Tool once more.

I use the Clone Stamp Tool in this portrait to get rid of forehead hair and some of the hair near the model’s ear.

Adding a Touch of Contrast with Levels

Sometimes, you may wish to add just a bit more contrast to your portrait shot. This can be done very quickly with Levels.

Go to Image->Adjustments-> Levels ( CTRL + L ) and set the values as seen in the pic above. This darkens the shadows and boosts the highlights.

For more details on basic lighting and color adjustments, you may wish to read Tutorial9’s posts on Curves in Photoshop and the Basics of Color Correction, both by Owen James.

Before & After

You can take a closer look yourself from the source files if you wish. Good luck!

Filed under: Adobe, Graphic Design, Inspiration, Tutorials

Create an Abstract Cloud Jumper in Photoshop

davidemalta — Thu, 27 May 2010 23:50:40 +0000

In this tutorial, we’ll manipulate a photo with abstract elements to make it more interesting and active.

Materials Needed:

Stock Photo of your choice. I have used iStock: Female &
Funky Swirls.
Cloud Brushes: JavierZhX
Photoshop Action: Manicho.
Sinedots 2

The Final Image

You can see the original full sized piece here. This tutorial is based off my original work shown in the full size image.

Step 1: Plan Ahead

First thing to look at is the angle of your photo and consider what direction your photo is already moving in. If you take a look at my final outcome, I chose a diagonal angle (already an active direction) since that is what fitted best with the subject.

I have also chosen to use the two main colours that were already on the stock photo—Greyscale (black/white/grey) & Blue. You may also want to add tones/ contrast at the very end but we will get to that soon enough.

Step 2: The Swirls

I have opened up the .EPS file for the swirls to a nice large size and cut out 3. Using our imagination, we can place them and rotate them to follow the direction we decided earlier on. Once you have them in a nice place turn all of the swirls greyscale (Shift+Ctrl+U). Make sure they are all on seperate layers.

The reason as to why I’ve told you to keep the swirls on different layers is because we will be editing them a bit, and you wouldnt be able to do that if they are all merged flat layers.

Swirl 1: This is the swirl on her left arm. Set the layer opacity to 50%. I really dont like having so much grey on the model—the base stock is what you have to either go around or try to “flow” through. I will be removing some of the swirl parts to make her body still show yet still have some swirl bits around her arm as if it’s joined to her or as if she’s jumping through it.

As you can see I have removed parts from her arm and stomach.

When you remove parts of the swirl you can use either or both of these tools: Eraser Tool with a Soft Brush and/ or the Polygonal Laso Tool. The Pen tool can be used to draw selections or masks too if you feel comfortable with it. I used the Eraser Tool for the stomach area and the hand, while I used the Polygonal Laso Tool for the arm.

Swirl 2: This is the swirl on her right arm. Set the layer opacity to 50%. This is pretty much the same as “swirl 1″: make it flow with her body in the angle shes jumping.

As you can see I have removed parts from her arm and hand.

Swirl 3: This is the swirl on her legs going up to the stomach. Set the layer opacity to 50%. Tthis is a bit more difficult then the other two as you may have to remove some more to make it look good and not “out of place”.

Step 3: Adding Some Colour

Caution: Always Save a .PSD file of all the Layers !

Save your work regulary and keep all layers. Saving more than one copy with Save As… can’t hurt if you want to try different variations of your document.

To add some colour onto the swirls/ graphic just take a soft round brush and make a line curving inside parts of the swirls, this will make it look as if the colours were on it already.

This is just a base—the swirls and colour will look more refined later on.

Once you have drawn a few lines (if they are not close it’s ok to put them on the same layer but if they are close together put them on seperate layers. This makes editing easier.) use the Smudge Tool. Point the corners out making them fade around corners.

After you have smudged all the brush strokes, set those layers to Hard Light blending mode.

It will now look like the image to the right. It should have a nice ‘glow’ to it.

You can repeat this process for any other colors you may want to add, just be careful you don’t combine so many colors that nothing fits together.

Step 4: The Diagonal Lines

To create the lines in our image, we’re going to use the Polygonal Laso Tool. You can also try a pixel stretching technique, and rotating the stretched pixels if you’re comfortable with that.

All you have to do is click (outside the art) hold down Shift on your keyboard and click again over the other side of the art (while holding shift you will see it the tool works in nice angles) make a straight line down a few pixels click again then work your way back up to where you first clicked. It’s a diagonal line! Fill it in (with the paint bucket) once you’ve closed it off.

Create a few more stripes in various sizes and color.

All my diagonal lines are on top of all the other layers. I have also used different colours to fill in the lines, various versions of the blue colour that I selected – darker blue, lighter blue etc.

Now to make them blend more, merge the stripes. Duplicate (CRTL+J) the stripes and hide them (click on the eye next to one of the stripe layers). Set the new stripes layer to: Colour Burn. Now this will look a bit heavy on the eyes so get your Eraser Tool and set it to a really big size( “]” key) and remove 50% of the stripes in the middle like the image below:

Now Un-hide the other stripes layer, duplicate it and repeat the above step but with a layer setting of Overlay and erase a different area, but keep the stripes away from the stomach, face etc etc you can touch parts of the body with the stripes just dont cover the model in them.

If you want more intensity in colour if you haven’t got a lot then duplicate the original stripe lines and go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and set it to about 20 and layer setting to
Overlay move them to a part where there isnt many lines.

Keep an original stripe layer at all times while doing this. Once you’ve done all the stripes you can now add the stripe “lines” this is done by using the original stripe layer—select all the stripe layers (CTRL + Click the layer witht he original stripes). Go to Select -> Modify -> Contract, a small box will pop up, by the size of your image it will depend if you want nice small 1px lines put in 1. I will be using this setting (1 for 1 pixel lines). Once you click “OK” it will contract it for you, press delete on your keyboard.

Your original stripes are now 1 pixel lines. Do the same as what you did with the bigger stripes but you can set them to anything you like, I will be setting the layers to: Linear Dodge and Overlay. Don’t forget to keep an original handy but hidden. If you want your 1 pixel lines to stand out more you can try this, get any layer of lines duplicate them and go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and set it to about 2.0 to 3.0.

You can also duplicate the bigger lines to add to random areas, for example her right arm is facing slightly away from the angle I chose so I will add a little bit of the big stripes next/ near to it. Also her knee is facing downwards so I added a little bit there too.

Step 5: The Blue Gradient Lines

This Requires the Pen Tool. I am only using this to increase the intesity of the blue colours in the swirls.

When I use this tool I use the settings shown in the image below.

Make a new layer then select the Pen Tool and click on the end of a blue smudged area (on the swirl part) then click on the other end of it. You should have a line, click in the middle of it and click and hold CTRL (also hold the left mouse button down like when you click) and drag it to a rounded shape, click near the first point you created and do the same so it sort of looks like the image above.

Right click the path (the rounded shape you just created) and click Fill Path. Make sure you have the blue colour selected as your Foreground color. You should now have a blue shape with the pen tool paths still around it—just click delete twice to get rid of the paths. Once you have the shape by itself get the Eraser Tool and rub out the inner part of the shape then set the shapes’ layer to Hard Light like the image to the right. Duplicate it and move it down slightly. Do the same for the others.

Step 6: The Clouds

Use which ever cloud textures/brushes you want. I have picked 4 just to surround the model.

One more thing.

Keep the clouds at the angle you have chosen otherwise it might not fit in. Also remember whenever your doing a graphic with brushes, stocks, actions etc check with the artist for terms of use etc.

Step 7: Tones & Sinedots

I used a program called Sinedots II plugin for Photoshop to get the white lines across the model. You just download it, open it up in the filters menu and click random til you get a nice one that will fit in with the image. Duplicate it and blur it to 3.0.

Really, it’s that simple.

If you’re clever with Illustrator, you can probably create them using that software as well.

For the Tones, I like using “Photoshop Actions” or “Photo Filters”. Some are great, some aren’t so great. Here are some examples:

With this outcome merged everything and placed the merged image into a new canvas, duplicated the image twice and the one closest to the original I set it to Multiply (layer blending), then added the tone from Manicho (found in at the top of this tutorial) its “#42 Contrast Desat 3″ onto the second one, set that to Overlay, opacity 50%, duplicated that and erased the top and bottom grey corners to add depth to the model/ graphics.

Experiment with tones and the intensity of your image. Test out different color combinations to see what you can do with your own version of this!

Filed under: Uncategorized

83 Examples of Creative Logo Design

davidemalta — Thu, 27 May 2010 01:13:40 +0000

Having a well designed logo can separate you from your competitors and help you build your brand. This post showcases unique and memorable logos.

SoundDog Logo

Go Music Logo

Eco Cafe Logo

Full Time Logo

CRD Bicycle Group Logo

Saporo Sushi Logo

Seven Logo

Typeface Logo

Play Logo

Z Films Logo

Infinity Crime Logo

Burnett Electrical Logo

Cats Logo

Wine Searcher Logo

Shift Logo

Sleep Records Logo

Wine Kingdom Logo

Fish Logo

Love Clip Logo

Illusion Logo

Yoga Australia Logo

White Pony Logo

Verify Logo

Antarctica Logo

Killed Productions Logo

Spartan Logo

Twins Logo

Steps Logo

Zip Logo

Look Logo

Swing Studios Logo

Pause Logo

Foot Logo

B Logo

Goodduck Logo

Catch 5 Logo

Sushi Logo

Wine House Logo

Mister Cutts Logo

Horror Films Logo

Ant Logo

Wiesinger Music Logo

CFO Cycling Team Logo

Iron Duck Logo

Lochness

Cofee

Water Drop

Aids Taskforce 25 years

Antisocial Network

Enough

Newcastle Food & Wine Festivel

Villa Grano

Egg N Spoon

Chariot

Push the Bottle

Sex Lovers

Silk Skin

Pause

Waze

Oil

Illusion Studio

H20 Creative Studio

Gulp

G Bar

Fit

Dj Eleven

City Cliq

American Architects Center

Animal Rescue Sofia

31.) Bridges Pub & Eatery

Evolution X

Big Shift

Love Clip

Harbin Pharmacy

Knoll

On Wine

Version 2

Tonys Organic Food

Food Writers

Pencil

MO Sleep

Quickmeals

Drop

Filed under: Graphic Design, Inspiration, Logo Design

London 2012 Olympics logo disaster

davidemalta — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:21:55 +0000

Today saw the launch of London’s 2012 Olympic logo. The jagged emblem, based on the date 2012, comes in a series of shades of pink, blue, green and orange and will evolve in the run-up to the Games. It shows the numbers 2012 in a design aiming to appeal to today’s Internet generation. Sebastian Coe, chairman of London’s 2012 organising committee, said:

“It is an invitation to take part and be involved.”

The brand identity was designed by Wolff Olins. Given how they were chosen as the designers over a year ago, I find the results disappointing.

They’ve only got one set of eyes between them and bear a striking resemblance to a computer game figure crossed with a character from the film Monsters, Inc.You might not know what they are supposed to be, but get used to them – because they are going to be all over Britain for the next two years. Wenlock and Mandeville (a bit more catchy than Much and Stoke) are the mascots for the London 2012 Olympics. Following controversy surrounding the £400,000 logo, branded a ‘childish effort’ that invited ‘widespread ridicule’, organisers of the games will be hoping that Wenlock and Mandeville get a more favourable reception.

New mascots: The Olympic mascot Wenlock, left, and the Paralympic mascot Mandeville are unveiled in East London today

They were created from ‘two drops of steel from the Olympic Stadium’Although they would not comment on the cost of creating the mascots, organisers said it had been kept to just ‘a few thousand pounds’ because large parts of the work were done in house or with the help of sponsors. The duo, launched with much fanfare on the BBC’s The One Show, do, however, require a certain amount of explanation before they begin to make sense. Firstly the names, which might ring a few geographical bells.

VIDEO: 2012 mascots unveiled…

Wenlock is named after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock where, in the mid-19th century, the Wenlock Games became one of the inspirations for the modern Olympic movement. Mandeville’s name is derived from Stoke Mandeville, in Buckinghamshire, home to Stoke Mandeville Hospital. In the 1940s Dr Ludwig Guttman came to the hospital to set up a new spinal unit to help former soldiers suffering from spinal cord injuries.

Inspiration: Wenlock copies Usain Bolt’s famous pose in a four-minute animation which explains the story of the duo

Testing his skills: Wenlock tries gymnastics, inspired by Beth Tweddle

Looking for ways to inspire those in his care he encouraged them to take up sport and the Stoke Mandeville Games was formed, widely recognised as a forerunner of the modern Paralympic movement. Then there is there appearance. A whole story has been created to explain that – they are said to have been fashioned from the last drops of steel left over from the final support girder of the Olympic stadium when it was made in Bolton. They were fashioned into figures and magically came to life and set about making a journey to the Olympics in London. But do they represent Britain? Well according to London Mayor Boris Johnson they do, he said they were a ‘solid coalition’, adding: ‘It’s hard to imagine a mascot more in tune with the times…’ For those wondering about the rest of the symbolism encapsulated in two small metal figures, who in actual one-eyed steel form could probably feature on Dr Who, here’s an explanation. The orange light bearing the M and W above the single eye is inspired by the light on top of a London black cab.

Built to impress: Wenlock and Mandeville’s design features include cameras for eyes and the Olympic colours

Futuristic: Wenlock and Mandeville give each other a high five

The bands around Wenlock’s arms are friendship bands in the colours of the Olympic rings, and Mandeville wears a timing device to track its personal best. Even the head shape apparently has a meaning, the three peaks on Wenlock’s head represent the three medals up for grabs in each Olympic event.

PREVIOUS MASCOTS

WALDI – Munich 1972. The colourful dachshund was the first Olympic mascot.

SCHNEEMANN – Innsbruck 1976. The toy version of the Winter Games’ snowman is now a sought-after collectors item.

MISHA - Moscow 1980. Mikhail Potapych Toptygin, or Misha the bear, was created by children’s illustrator Victor Chizikov.

COBI – Barcelona 1992. The surreal dog took a while for Spaniards to get used to.

IZZY – Atlanta 1996. The name for Izzy came from the phrase ‘Whatizit?’ because no one seemed to know exactly what Izzy really was

OLLIE, SYD & MILLIE – Sydney 2000. A kookaburra, platypus and echidna who represented earth, air and water.

FUWA - Beijing 2008. There were five mascots, collectively called Fuwa, for the Beijing Games. They were Beibei the fish, Jingjing the panda, Huanhuan the Olympic flame, Yingying the Tibetan antelope and Nini the swallow

As for the single eye, it’s a camera to ‘capture the people they meet, the places they go and the sports they try on their journey to 2012′. Appropriately the one-eyed figures were created by London-based creative agency Iris, whose clients include Wonderbra, adidas and Argos. Crucially the duo, not dissimilar in appearance to Sonic The Hedgehog, are both poised for action - a race, perhaps to win fans? Although older observers might hanker for a cuddly figure like the popular mascot Misha the bear, of Moscow 1908, or the more obvious patriotism of Sydney 2000 when Australia chose native animals as its mascots, Stoke and Mandeville have been designed to appeal to children. They will very soon be popping up on badges, gracing t-shirts, and touring the country hoping to become the endearing face of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The duo have been given their own story, written by children’s author Michael Mopurgo - who wrote War Horse, which has been turned into a four-minute animated film. They have been given their own website, and even individual Twitter and Facebook sites and children will be able to make their own versions. They are really going to come to life in the digital space,’ Grant Hunter of Iris Advertising said. Which is lucky as the organisers hope to make £70million in revenue from merchandising. Among planned events is a schools competition to enable children to decide where Wenlock and Mandeville will visit first on separate journeys around the country.

Appealing: Wenlock and Mandeville strike a Usain Bolt pose with pupils at St Paul’s Whitechapel School

Fun fitness: The mascots encourage the children to jump around and show that exercise can be as good as playtime

London 2012 chairman Lord Coe said the mascots had been created for children and he hoped they would inspire young people to take up sport. ‘By linking young people to the values of sport, Wenlock and Mandeville will help inspire kids to strive to be the best they can be,’ he said. He said that although the designs were bold, that it was a ‘tangible project’ with a back story that children would love. ‘We’ve always been open about this: we wanted to do things differently in London.’

Filed under: Logo Design, Marketing & Advertizing

Abobe InDesign CS5 Session

davidemalta — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:14:28 +0000

So I went to an event to see whats up on Indesign CS5 what can it do and how easy can it be. I thought it was cool how the event went, we talked, the spokesmen showed us a lot of animation and media features. I have to tell’ya its like somebody took PowerPoint and Indesign and a new born called CS5 just came out.

With all its new features the Flash program is probable going to be for the program experts for now on. But so many rookies will be able to learn how actionscript works without code and when these people want to really go to the next level they’ll get Flash.

The new InDesign CS5 comes with the ability to create easy motion graphics in a click of a button. You no longer have to type code on the screen to make effects. Instead of a timeline on the top of your workspace you know have a time panel. Instead of coding a video you have a media panel. Instead of making new layers to make motion guides you know have the pen tool, yes the pen now carries more power in the tool panel. New tools to use, awesome, and they finally merged the position tool with the selection tool in, somewhat. You have to see it for yourself.

Filed under: Adobe, Graphic Design, School

30+ Impressive Email Newsletter Designs for Your Inspiration

davidemalta — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:36:12 +0000

Many newsletters are published by clubs, churches, societies, associations, and businesses, especially companies, to provide information of interest to their members, customers or employees. Sending newsletters to customers and prospects is a common marketing strategy, which can have benefits and drawbacks.

A beautifully designed newsletter can make the user more interested in your product or your service, here are 33 impressive news letter designs, for you inspiration, which will be help-full to you on your next newsletter design process.