smcdesign blog

Lazy Sunday…

smc — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:58:20 +0000

Lazy Sunday…, originally uploaded by flora_1972.

Lazy Sunday…

Modern Gig posters

smc — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:56:00 +0000

I don’t go to gigs these days… I wish I could but I don’t seem to find the time. That said I am now working in an office where they all do and they’ve inspired me to listen to some new tunes and discover a few bands I wouldn’t have normally listened to… M83, LCD Soundsystem, Bonobo, Frightened Rabbit, Two Door Cinema Club to name a few. Oh yeah I’m ‘down with it’ these days!

I came across this today via Abduzeedo. It’s a collection of modern day gig posters, some of which are stunning. A work colleague buys artwork like this at events. The last time I bought a gig poster was probably The Levellers circa 1990-ish! I wonder if any of these are available to buy online or is it not considered ‘cool’ to have a reproduction of an original print.

These are some of my favourites… You can find the whole Top 100 Gig posters at GoMediazine

LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem Gig poster

Flaming Lips

Flaming Lips Infographic gig poster

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend gig poster

Tagged: Art, Design, Go Media Zine, illustration, Modern day gig posters

This is What Happens When You Give Thousands of Stickers to Thousands of Kids

smc — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:05:31 +0000

Amazing explosion of colour at this art installation experiment in Queensland Gallery of Modern Art.

A blank canvas of an everyday living space was built and painted white. Over the course of two weeks, the museum’s smallest visitors were given thousands upon thousands of colored dot stickers and were invited to collaborate in the transformation of the space, turning the house into a vibrantly mottled explosion of colour.

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/01/yayoi-kusama-obiliteration-room/

Blank canvas

Colour explosion

Obliteration

Tagged: Art, Colour, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, This Is Colosaal

Creative Review Advertising picks of the year…

smc — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:44:29 +0000

Creative Review Magazine has picked it’s advertising choices of 2011. I personally love the VW advert best with ‘mini’ Darth Vader. The kid in that costume just captured the inner Jedi in him perfectly (or lack of)! His expression at the end is priceless

Creative Review Advertising Picks of the Year

VW - May the Force Be With you (My personal favourite)

Tagged: Advertising, Creative Review

Digital Bokeh Effect in Photoshop

smc — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:57:33 +0000

Found this tutorial on Abduzeedo… Had a go myself & though mine wasn’t quite as nice, it’s still a good tutorial to play around with. Bear in mind if you are using Photoshop higher that CS3, there are minute differences in the Brush settings as the parameter areas are named differently, however the parameters are all there. Have fun!

Bokeh effect in Photoshop

This was my effort… not quite as polished but at least I tried!

Bokeh_tutorial

Tagged: Bokeh, Photoguides.net, PhotoShop, Tutorials

Beginners Guide to DSLR Photography

smc — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:41:51 +0000

I have a shiny DSLR camera which I won in a competition (true story!) I occasionally take it off the auto function but in all honesty it scares me a little. I really want to learn how to use the beast properly so useful resources like this are excellent…

Beginners Guide to DSLR Photography

Courtesy of www.photoguides.net

Some really good tutorials on here too as well as printed guides too… One day I will find the time to become a DSLR master!

Tagged: Photography, Photoguides.net, photos, Tutorials

A cool site to transfer large files without fuss!

smc — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:52:08 +0000

One of these days I will get round to adding a list of useful sites for resources on here as some of them are invaluable. I love the fact that the web is now so open source and if you search you can pretty much find… I was told about this site today as I needed to transfer a large file via the web. I’ve been using You Send It which require you to log in etc and it often fails mid upload.

This handy site lets you transfer up to 2gb (obviously you still need a fairly decent web connection) but you don’t need to create an account, it’s uber simple and it was definately no fuss. You get an email saying when it’s successfully sent and one when your recipient opens the file. Very cool, plus its a really nicely designed user interface.

https://www.wetransfer.com/

Try it, it’s very good

Tagged: Resources, We Transfer

The Do’s and Don’ts of Infographic Design

smc — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:44:48 +0000

Interesting article courtesy of Smashing Magazine…

Since the dawn of the Internet, the demand for good design has continued to skyrocket. From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and beyond, designers have remained on their toes as they define the trends and expectations of our online universe. The Internet is a great designer’s playground, and online businesses are growing more and more appreciative of what can be gained from a bit of well-executed eye candy. Over the past two years, this fact has become the backbone of a growing trend in online marketing: the infographic.

Click here to read the full article…

The Do's & Don'ts of Infographic Design

Tagged: Design, illustration, Info graphics, information diagrams, Smashing Magazine

Fun with stick men

smc — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 08:32:12 +0000

Its the simple things in life that please me. Clever little site…

Be Creative, Every Day

Brands in reverse…

smc — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:33:59 +0000

I feel a law suit coming on!! Clever though…

Reversing Logos, Slogans of Popular Brands

Tagged: Brand reversal, Brands, Design taxi, Logos