Simple blends
I’ve been work’n on a fashion show flyer that sent me on a hunt for design inspiration. I always liked the concept that less is more, with that said, I didn’t want to alter the images too much. Blending options, that are sometimes overlooked, doesn’t do much alteration to the image but can take you along way. Simple blends with lower layers does just enough for me. If you really know what you’re doing mixing it with layer masks can take you over the top. Here’s some layouts I found with SIMPLE blending options. Blending options are found on the right in the layers pallet just above your layers.
I’m a big fan of the “A Toast to Pace” design. I’ve had it on my desktop for a while, I’d always go back to just look at it. Jus’ stare at it – it feels so off but still weighs out evenly on all ends
Korg
I was in the Lower today with some of my cohorts, good times. I was mess’n around with the tripod at Jay’s crib for a little when I took this photo. On top of that, I want to learn to play the piano; I’m going to mess around with the synthesizer next. Making beats, who knows? I haven’t used one, but why not try it. Enjoi!
It’s Surreal: The Radiant Child, Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat became notorious for his graffiti art in the late 1970s on the Lower East Side scene. I’ve been on Basquiat since the beginning of my blogg’n days. No secret as to why I labeled one of our tags, “SAMO,” Basquiat’s moniker. In his short career, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a phenomenon. Literally making his mark with graffiti on public walls under the nom de plume “Samo” (short for same old thing). It definitely made its mark on me. Debuting at this years Sundance Film Festival, “The Radiant Child” is a film on the legendary art icon Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Director Tamra Davis pays homage to her friend in this definitive documentary but also delves into Basquiat as an iconoclast. His dense, bebop-influenced neoexpressionist work emerged while minimalist, conceptual art was the fad; as a successful black artist, he was constantly confronted by racism and misconceptions. Much can be gleaned from insider interviews and archival footage, but it is Basquiat’s own words and work that powerfully convey the mystique and allure of both the artist and the man.
Past Articles:
Keep It Surreal >> SAMO
Keep It Surreal >> Lee Jaffe x Basquiat
Keep It Surreal >> Basquiat x Peter Relic
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Not try’na toot my own horn, but this photo is so dope. Depth perception is heavy in this one. I tried something new called tilt shift photography. It’s when you focus the lens on a single part of the photo and shift around the surrounding/neighboring area to create an optical illusion of miniaturized scenery. Real tilt shift lenses are quite expensive, but a similar effect can be achieved by using Photoshop after you take the photo.
Original after the jump.
Durex Sex Ad
The new Durex campaign made entirely of typefaces by German illustrator/designer Andrej Krahne. Nuff said!
Spott’d @Culture Shoq
Contradictory Agenda
Brooklyn based designers David Heasty and Stefanie Weigler (of Triboro Design) have created a New York City subway map printed in all florescent red. Simple huh? The redesigned map strips away the color-coded system while maintaining its functionality. Single color information design. Impressive!
The map embraces a dual (and seemingly contradictory) agenda, “offering practical and aesthetic improvements to the existing subway map while simultaneously subverting these improvements through the absurd adherence to a single color,” Heasty adds. “In this way the map reflects the often contradictory experience of New York City, the rigid systems and grids constantly interrupted by the unpredictable realities of a metropolis, the intermingling forces of order and chaos, and the city’s visual communications frequent inability to make sense of it all.”
- Print Magazine
Spott’d @Print Mag
“Refuge,” Imminent Diasaster x Armsrock
Brooklyn based Imminent Disaster has been preparing for a show with Armsrock called “Refuge” at ThinkSpace Gallery in Los Angeles on March 12.
Imminent Disaster In The Studio: Prepping for “Refuge” at Thinkspace Show
Spott’d @ Brooklyn Street Art
Time Out London x Bansky
Today the much anticipated cover art by Banksy for Time Out London has been revealed. The magazine includes a 6 page interview with the artist and is now on sale here. It comes with a large poster of the cover art as well.
Source via: High Snobiety
Still Work’n in Japan
Photos by Thomas A. Crossland
For those unfamiliar with woodblocks, let me briefly explain. First off, it’s a real painstaking process in my opinion. It requires unconditional attention and precision. Woodblock printing is a long and tedious which starts from concept, to paper, to woodblock. It’s the technique for printing text, images, or patterns on wood. It’s a process somewhat similar to “inking a handheld rubber stamp which is then pressed against a blank sheet of paper,” only in this case it involves a complete set of illustrations carved on cherry woodblocks, a separate one required for EACH color used. The inking and actual printing process produces wonderful gradations.
The content of woodblock prints are usually of Fujiwara/Mt. Fuji [wara, Japanese for Mount], the mystifying geisha women of the pleasure quarters, life in Kyoto and/or Edo and chonin, and samurai.
News: Matt W. Moore, Crystals x Lasers Exhibition
We’re kinda late on word of this event, but better late than never. Thanks to the web as a new media, we’re granted unlimited to access to information. Matt Moore’s work with patterns and color pallets pulls your eye from point to point on the composition. View photos from the opening reception.
MWM (Matt W. Moore) has traveled to Paris for one month to prepare, from scratch, for his first Paris Solo-Exhibition. He arrived with no art, no supplies, and no firm plan for this new series of canvas paintings. The ideas for the artworks have actualized while processing time spent absorbing French Culture, exploring the City Of Lights, the vibrant colors, the exaggerated geometry, and the diverse architecture and fashion of Paris.
These paintings were created entirely with spray paint, one of Matt’s favorite mediums. But the designs are very clean, and appear almost digital in their precise details and craft. An honest, analog attempt to achieve the same depth and abstract geometry of his digital “Vectorfunk” style. The goal with each work is to have the viewers eye fall into the piece and get lost in the optical illusions, trying to figure out what is up, down, left, and right.
MWM : Crystals & Lasers.
Since.Upian Gallery. Paris, France
February 5 – March 12, 2010
View images from the opening reception
*Series of 18 New Canvas Paintings and a Mega-Mural in Paris District 10.
News: Pop-up Design Museum ['n] Boston
Founders Sam Aquillano, Bose Corp. product designer, and Derek Cascio, Philips Color Kinetics designer, were discussing ways to boost the profile of the Massachusetts design community, sketched on the back of a pizza box. These two guys decided to look a organizing a museum in a different way. Because traditional museum hadn’t been an appealing market, Sam and Derek looked into bringing the museum to the public. Design Museum Boston will be separate installations scattered through multiple retail locations. Design Museum is about bringing education in design [animation, print, fashion, architectural, industrial] to the public and that there are designers and there is a design scene in Boston. The New England area and its designers are putting that traditional and colonial essence into the design scene that’s heavily influenced by a ever-changing modern world.
I proposed an idea for the Design Club here at my school to make a trip to Design Museum Boston’s launch party, considering how many designer’s will be there. It’d be a great way to network and build a name in a region different from what you already know.
Design Museum Boston is a non-profit organization with the goal of creating, establishing, and operating virtual and physical design exhibit spaces online, in Boston, and all over New England. These spaces will exhibit design work and host events and programs related to design education.
Design Museum Boston Launch Party
March 16, 2010 7:30 pm
West End Johnnies
138 Portland St.
Boston, MA
Check out Design Museum Boston to R.S.V.P
BIZY DREAM’N
What’s happen’n y’all? I’ve neglected my audience, we’ve neglected our audience. School’s been killing me so much that I’ve kinda let our direction veer a little off-track. As a result, I decided to put everything on hold for a little while to start back in March. We still have a few loose end to knot up, but we’ll be going through it while still keeping up to date with the happen’n.
Also, I’ve been restructuring Bizy Dreaming, now Bizy Dream’n. A lot lately has been about change and about research. Before, I think Bizy Dreaming was too stiff. Where’s my personality in that? The simple change is due to how I text. I truncate my -ing’s, not by much, with -’n. Here it goes. I hope y’all feel this one.
Graphic Design: Bizy Dreaming logo (revived)
I’ve been working on my resume to try to get everything back in order. Your resume is a reflection of you and I was looking really lazy and not capable of taking on any jobs. The original Bizy Dreaming logo didn’t last for long with me, I guess it wasn’t that good of a logo. As I was working on my resume I really wanted to add a piece of me in there and Bizy Dreaming is something I conceived, I toiled and try to endure, so I changed the logo from something stiff to something with more character. Y’all like?
Check out the old logo after the jump.
Hass Grotesk
Helvetica’s creators, Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, would have never imagined that their sans serif masterpiece could become one of the world’s design classics. “Neue Hass Grotesk”, its original name
Feel’n like a Mac stand’n around a bunch of PC’s
Apple refused to use removable batteries in all three generations of iPhones and its latest laptops. Speculations say the iPhone 4G will go into production as early as April, with availability expected sometime in June or July.
What I admire and respect about Apple is that the concept and production process is still consciously designed. Apple focuses on ergonomics – they really make the products to fit into our lifestyles. Everything is detail-oriented – the interface, model design, materials used. It’s always exciting when Apple launches new products. The products videos are like little documentaries – the cinematography is on point.
If you watched Objectified, you’d see what I mean when I say Apple focuses on ergonomics
All Bizness!
Some sick stationary/business card design! These three designs in particular are not only aesthetically soothing, but all are printed on a textured paper. I love print, I like textured print assets; for those still fond of print and/or the print era I know you can relate. There is something about tangibility that gives it more value. The design behind business cards are at odds with each other – Colorburned is casually composed, Carlos Benet has eccentric vibrancy, Kyle Van Horn is strong and vivid.
Type Treatment in Ad Design
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers: England
Amnesty International: Ted Bundy
(more…)
Video: “Love Away” Kinetic Typography
By: Chris Brice
Music by: Curvine
Kinetic typography is technically defined as an animation technique mixing motion and text. It is presented in a manner intended to convey or evoke a particular idea or emotion.
Sealed With a Simpson
Have you seen these Simpsons stamps? Just got wind of them via Design Observer. Seriously though, “Really, are these not among the best American stamps ever?“
The brilliant new stamps honoring America’s first family of animation — the Simpsons. Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, each in a classic head shot against a little rectangular patch of electric color, projecting maximum psychic and visual power. There was no action, sound, plot or space to help them out, only color, line, scale and lots of personality.
Gett’n Messy
Still work’n guys… I don’t want to ruin the surprise, y’all better like it or at least kill me with your honesty! “He’s better only cause he had better positioning.” I’ma change my position and eat the competition (and no I did not intend to rhyme). It was NICEEE though, right?
Program used, Adobe Illustrator
Chad Harris
Broccoli
Keep It Surreal we can talk about what we want, when we want, how we want. Bloggers keeping it real. Our purpose is to touch on topics from art, design and musiq to life and habitat. We try to give a shining light on all creatives, especially folks with aspirations of growing viral, as well as, already established folk in pop-culture. We’ll use this blog to explore a thing or two. Hopefully you’ll contribute.
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