blog moved to primary domain

Hi all, just in case you were checking out my blog, I've moved it over to my primary portfolio site: dxdstudio.com

Here's a recent branding article to check out, otherwise browse that site for everything else!

AllOurStock featured on makeuseof

So I found a bunch of traffic (via Google Analytics) was coming from makeuseof.com and after a bit of searching I see someone how written an article about the site! Things have definitely been evolving over time and its great to see the site is catching on! So to those over @ makeuseof.com, thanks!

Visit the article here: http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/allourstock-free-stock-vector/

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AllOurStock

10 Useful textures to give your projects that extra bit of detail

Textures are a great way to add well texture, making a drab design into something great, or that last final touch to an already amazing piece.

Here are some great textures from AllOurStock.com

Mossy Bark (detailed)

http://www.allourstock.com/product/product_id/983

Grunge Spray

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/301

Waves

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/186

Pink & Gray Collage Grunge

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/51

Splat Darkspace

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/287

Watercolor Angles

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/343

Space Dust Abstract

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/95

Halftone Grunge

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/45

Precious Alien Metal

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/117

Dark Grunge Rainbow

http://www.allourstock.com/product/path/36_37/product_id/174

New product at ALLOURSTOCK.com:

Alright y'all, it's that time again. I'm going to create some cool graphics using a new product from the stock site: http://allourstock.com/product/product_id/439 (now I think THIS is my favorite so far, but I think that will probably change soon.)

1. First make a document that is 800x600. For these projects I like to do small stuff.

2. I'm going to drop the collage in as the background. But I don't just want to use it as a background this time, I think I'm going to go the route of type treatment.

3. I typed out some text -- "Typophile" that will be my theme for this project. You can use any font you like, I think I'm going to do some typographical experimentation and break it into two lines: "Typo-" and "phile" and make each line a different font. For the first line, I've chosen a great classic, Avenir. It's a well design sans-serif font with many weights and a very precise design. It's like a more modern helvetica with some actual character. (by the way, if you're interested, you can buy it here) My other font is a slight modification on the classic Bodoni: Bauer Bodoni. You can also check that one out at MyFonts.

4. Since the type is going to be the "figure" in this figure/ground relationship, I want to make it prominent. I'll do that by using the collage as a mask, vs. letting it fill the entire background.

5. Before that process I'll just clean up the font by kerning the letters and adjusting the leading to make it nice and neat and make sure none of the characters are running into each other.

6. After masking the background with the type outline, Voila! Instantly a great looking piece. For simplicity we could leave it as-is and it would still work well. But let's see if we can't touch it up a notch (or "BANG" ala Emeril.)

7. I want to maintain the clarity of this piece but I still want to add some flare to it. Firstly I think I'll add a radial burst for the background, the ramp gradation going from white to yellow.

8. Then I'll turn down the opacity a notch just to make it more subtle and keep the background from garnering all the attention.

9. I think now I'll duplicate the original background collage, and set it to soft light with 70% opacity to get a subtle texture going on.

10. This is purely optional, as we've got a nice looking graphic to use, but I want to keep the theme of typography going and add some little graphics to enhance that feel. I'm going to add some lines along the horizontal of each part of the type (baseline, x-height, descender and ascender.) I'll make these white and put them behind the type. Very subtle, but still a nice finishing touch.

And here's the final product:

Woohoo!

Now head on over to www.allourstock.com to check out more free stuff! (And email your results so we can showcase it!)

New product at ALLOURSTOCK.com:

So to date, this is one of my favorite stock pieces that has been up on the site. As it continues to roll forward I really think even more robust and quality stock will be put up! I'm going to use the original stock to make something cool and show some of the potential uses for these products.

Here's the product itself: http://allourstock.com/product/path/36_38/product_id/337

It's a nice dadaist-like collage that I've created with random elements from old projects. It's great how versatile some design pieces are, in that you can reuse them all the time in various ways without watering it down or seeming copied.

I'll type out my instructions vs. loading up a bunch of in-between screenshots.

Since this is a nice big, high-resolution image, I'm going to shrink it down for a smaller project.

1. First I'll take the original image and resize it to 600x800 -- I want a vertical layout, I think it will be very engaging and dramatic.

2. I'm going to use solely the texture, and not the color of this image, so I want to change the hue to a yellowish color. I'll pick my color, then in photoshop change the layer property to hue. Now I've got a much more dramatic play of shapes with one solid color.

3. Of course I'll just my logo as a foundation, and to give it some edge and allure with the logo's shape. Since I want to bring attention to the logo, I'm going to mask the background slightly, so it has some nuances that are subtle yet powerful. This gives depth to the piece because of the 2 layered effects created by the logo and the background. Now we're getting somewhere.

4. I think I'd like to use text as well, namely the typeface and name of the company. I don't think it looks good horizontally though, as the text is more of an artform when its presented vertically, and it families with the orientation of this piece.

5. I like the way it creates an artistic nature to the typography, but all white text is too much, so I'm going to make "studios" black to break it up. Now its looking really good.

6. For added effect, I'll add a vertical bar of pink and then set it to darken so the layeres show through. This creates some heavy contrast, sets the stage for the symmetrical nature of the piece, and adds some flare to the more subdued nature of the piece.

And voila! It took me a total of 5 minutes to make this, even longer to write the post. But what a result, way cool!

Tutorial: Increasing clarity and crispness of pixelated photos with photoshop

So I picked this technique up after doing some client work involving small thumbnails that inevitably had to be stretched or were just poor quality.

First, might I say, this kitty is amazingly cute. Like, wow, I think I'm going to have an aneurysm this cat is so cute.

Anyway, back to the tut. Say you want to get decent quality from a poor photo after downsizing it. What I've done here is taken a photo, stretched it, saved it as a jpeg (like 400% it's size) on 1 quality, then resaved it again to cause even more data loss. Why? Just to prove a point.

Here's the initial photo:



Decent clarity eh?

Well let's say you started out with something of quality...


(click for full-size)

Well what many people may usually do is, resize the photo, then sharpen it. But if you sharpen it many times before downscaling, you can increase the clarity without making it look grainy and fragmented. Because you're adding pixels by sharpening, then decreasing pixels by way of Photoshop's bicubic downsampling. This order of operations produces very different results which are actually quite pleasing. Take a look at the last photo:



First slide is the original. 2nd slide is the upscaled lossy version, downscaled again, using no sharpening (strictly Photoshop's bicubic downsampling algorithm.) The 3rd one is the upscaled lossy version, but sharpened 2 times (same settings) and then downscaled. Actually looks a bit crisper than the first! You could get the first crisper, but it would undoubtedly look grainy.

20 Minute Logo a Day: Style

This is really not so much a logo as it is a type-treatment, but it was a quick little experiment in adding some curves to a basic font. I was inspired by the insane work of Joshua Smith of Hydro74. His stuff is extraordinary, I definitely recommend having a look. I think I'll be doing more illustration of this sort in the near future, but with more complex designs and more time. Be on the lookout!