The Job Of Freelancing

I have many years as an Illustrator and graphic designer. I have worked freelance and day jobs. All have pros and cons. The way we work is changing all the time. Some industries faster than others. A day job has its benefits, literally. As a freelancer we must market and find ways to keep ourself maintaining work. We all must work with great companies that use services to find great designers. Recently I have been promoting my freelance business more. Including my connected group of creatives with PurpleAline.net. I’ve looked at a lot of places that many online sites just promote for the common low price sales pitch. For the client and the designer this a lose lose situation. We get what we pay for. That does not mean shelling out loads of cash to get your project done. It does mean looking for a skilled professional to achieve what you are looking for.

Now I have come across toptal.com, Toptal Freelance Visual Designers Network. They do exactly this. They screen all the designers in their repertoire. They do not allow just anyone to sign up to get a shot at working on a project. The really do look and vet all their employees. I can know that I am working with a certain standard of designers. It is great that I know companies they work with would be of a similar high standard.

toptal.com can help with finding long term work and this also interest me. As a creative I am always open to many kinds of positions and new ways of working excite me. They seem to be looking for the best fit for their client and designer. It is not like playing the marketing lottery with them. I just began the process at toptal.com. I believe that they will be doing great things matching me with my next great position and more.

Legs Sketch

Still working on my ability to use Photoshop painterly. You can see an animated progression of a pair of legs moving through grass that I illustrated. I love watching the timeline of how the illustration unfolds. Select the graphic for a large view. Enjoy. Comments definitely welcome.

Movember Art.

New Movember art. This one I did in Adobe Illustrator. As I have facial hair already, this is my contribution to the Moustache’s of Movember. For this project Mustache illustrations were created to promote awareness of Movember through social media. Movember is a fund-raising project to help men, and raise money for prostate cancer. See info about Movember at ca.movember.com. Please donate. You can see more of My Movember art here.

Baby Hand timeline Illustration

Pushing my illustration to new levels. Experimenting more in Photoshop with my wacom HD 24 touch. I have had this tool for over a year and love it, but now I really am benefiting. I’ve been a Photoshop user for many many years and I’m expanding on my ability to use it painterly. You can see an animated progression of a baby hand that I illustrated. Photoshops new video features helped me export the layers that I copied and saved as I worked. This gives sort of a timeline of how the illustration unfolds. Enjoy. Comments definitely welcome.

BMTV-002 Illustrator CC 2014 Wave Effect

This is a Adobe Illustrator CC 2014 demo of the blend tool. You should be able to apply the info in this demo to older versions of Illustrator. The blend tool does go back to quite older versions. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Head Of Heads Progress

Making some really great progress on my Head of Heads sculpture. Next is eye details. Then I have to consider some kind of framing box.

Dawn Chill-n-Chick Desktop Download

I’ve been playing with ways to incorporate my artwork into photograph. Nothing to crazy here, but a fun way to bring life back into some of my work and a interesting way to showcase some pieces. I like this a lot so thought I would share and made this work into various sizes for your computer desktop image. Feel free to download them and use them on you computer desktops. Let me know what you think and if you like I will do more. This may even have sparked some other ideas for combining illustration with photography.

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Casting a Fire Ant Colony with Molten Aluminum (Cast #043)

Very creative and interesting. I like the final art.

BMTV-001 Illustrator CC Pencil Tool

This is my first try at using Google Hangout to make a video and share my graphic design and illustration tips and tricks. BMTV-E001. This time it is about Adobe Illustrator CC Pencil Tool. I even show a great way to manipulate fully rendered objects on the fly with a single path. 

Over the years I have watched many training videos on how to use the tools that illustrators and graphic designers use everyday. I find it humbling to realize that now I am starting to make these videos and show everyone that is eager to learn. 

I also am still watching and learning all the time. The software, and even tradition techniques, are always changing. I watch many different podcast on how to achieve greatness with these programs. A few years ago I got an apple TV and it has links to apple iTunes podcast as well as the wealth of show on youtube and vimeo. I love them all. 

Also over the years I have taken classes and watched many paid video selections. Some are accredited teaching institutions and others are online training of the same caliber. The point is to always keep learning and growing with your creative knowledge and skills in the software of your choice. There was a saying that went something like. You can learn Photoshop in a day but it takes a lifetime to master. Of course you can swap out Photoshop for your favourite software and it still probably rings true. Remember to learn the basics and then add on as your experience grows.

Privacy Issue?

These days many of us are concern about our privacy. It seems we want to keep the information about ourselves to ourselves. People tend to get defensive, mad, and even upset over the wanting of our personal information. I take the opposite approach. Marketing is companies trying to understand you and trying to get you to engage with them. The hope is, this engagement makes them money on a product or service they are providing. People feel some companies are manipulating or taking advantage of them. I understand this but take a unconventional look at it. I feel as a consumer I should let the marketers engage with me so I get a better unaggressive, experience. This openness on my approach lets the marketing giant understand me better and in turn engage with me better. This provides lots of advantages for me as well.

If a car manufacture has research that it's customers like red cars, so they make red vehicles. You as a consumer may like red as the car research suggests, but it turns out in this example you prefer a deep dark red, burgundy.  This is not the bright fire engine red that the manufacture made. If people could be more open with there information it would have saved the car company money and saved you some frustration. You would be happier. You would get the car colour you wanted. Not the car colour you kind of wanted do to your lack of openness on who you are and what your likes and dislikes are. This is a hypothetical that I hope demonstrates my point.


The perfect example of this is with the data Netflix collects on people that use their service. Some feel this is an invasion of privacy and should not be allowed. Their research shows that many viewers like political dramas, and government dramas. Viewers also like and watch movies with Kevin Spacy and Robin Wright in them. So Netflix goes to these actors and make a show based on a political government drama. The public gets a great show called House of Cards. They do not get a show maybe with Kevin Spacy in a political comedy or Robin Wright in a government medical show. The people get the perfect show based on the openness of the data that Netflix was able to collect.

I am not saying open the fluid gates and give up all our information. Banking info and other security style personal info should be, just that, personal. Still consider the next time you get a survey on some crazy thing you think is silly, fill it out. They take only minutes and allow companies the ability to give us more of what we want. This creates a win win situation. Be careful, but opening up some of our internet searching habits may not be as damaging as we may think. Many browsers have tools to hide your surfing and we should use them when entering banking sites for added security. Remember to turn them off again so you do not louse features of your browser and effect your experience. Also keeping open internet use can allow sites to get your info to better their site, including products and services.

Let me know your thoughts on the issue of privacy and if you will be more open in the future. Looking forward to your comments.

Hackapalooza - Ladies Learning Code

Spent Saturday at hackapalooza an event with Ladies Learning Code. This is my third time mentoring at Ladies Learning Code in Toronto. They are an organization that is supporting the development of women in the tech industry. I’m mentoring on the graphic side and learning a lot about coding. I am even stepping in with some code help when needed. Mostly I am the Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop guy. I try and squeeze InDesign into the conversations when I can, usually I am mentoring in a design and graphics capacity. Saturday was a great day of a two day event. Many students had great questions. Thanks for keeping us mentors working hard. Thanks to all the mentors for working together and helping the ladies learn new things. Even the mentors learn some new things at theses events so they are good all around gatherings. I had a great Saturday, and wish I was there Sunday. I am sure it was just as good. To everyone at the event remember you can contact me with any graphic questions, I am happy to help.

Passions and Pathways

Erin Centre Middle School - Passions and Pathways Fair, I volunteered and taught grade 6, 7 & 8's about creativity. Trying to inspire them with how creativity affected my life. It's an event for encouraging, and motivating things in your life. I found it educational and fun. I learned so much as well. I was nervous and excited at the same time. I presented my life of graphic design and creative history. I presented three times to three different groups. They watched my slide show accompanied with my discussion. We followed the  presentation with questions from students and overseeing teachers. It was a great morning and thanks to Erin Centre Middle School for having me. Thanks to my friend and teacher Scott Kelly for recommending me and getting me involved. I would do it again. 

This is a link to the Passions and Pathways presentation on Apple iCloud Keynote software. You can view it here. Unfortunately you can not see the accompanying presenters notes that I used on my iPad when presenting but it should give you a little bit of an idea. I wish I could show you more. Enjoy.

Ladies Learning Code Photoshop

Volunteered for Ladies Learning Code Photoshop in Toronto. This is part of Learning Labs. This section finds that most of the tech industry is dominated by men and they want to get women involved. So they made courses for women to learn with instructors and mentor driven classes. I had lots of fun meeting new people and mentoring ladies with the Photoshop basics. Thanks for the experience. Thanks to all the ladies who came out. Thanks to all the mentors for a great day. The experience for me was great. I like to train people in tech along with creative ideas including graphic design. Most of the time it is with Adobe products, including Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. It is fun and exciting to see the progression from a junior understanding to a more advanced one. Even the ladies at this event, most learning Photoshop for the first time, have great new unseen perspectives on how to do things. It is fun to see their eyes light up as they see the potential of what they can do. I also find it important to let them know that there are many ways to accomplish a task and in many case there is no wrong way. The truth is there are standard practises in the industry that work best. Thinking outside the box and finding how to do things a faster better way is great. This is how I continually analyze most of my projects. When starting out it is best to learn the fundamentals and the standards to produce great creative the way it is intended. Thanks again to everyone involved.

Balconies with Swimming Pools

This is a interesting link, for crazy architecture involving pools on balconies. Very cool, but I would take some time to get use to it for fear of its safety. What is your favourite over the top design project that you have come across? Are you involved in something radical? Let us know in the comments.

Is Grunge Still A Graphic Design Style?

The quick answer is of course, yes. We can apply all kinds of styles depending on the need, target market, and/or message we want to convey. Looking deeper we may find as new mainstream styles come and go, grunge may follow the same trend. It was arguably at its peak, with huge popularity in the 1990’s. Still hanging on today I feel it is more of a designers taste and depends on many factors. I even feel that it may be coming back a little bit in a odd dressed up grunge. Here is an example. Think a fancy suit company that may never have used this style in there marketing. They now have an ad with a grunge typeface including a man in his late 20’s wearing work boots and a fancy suit. The focus is to grab our attention, showing the slick high end suit and have it really stand out. I’m trying to get a term for this trend, possibly clean grunge. LOL.

Autograph

I found this floating around the internet and it just garbed my attention. I decided to make my own version of it. Hope you like.

Google Revers Image Search

It is interesting to see all the options in Google image search these days. One of the options is the revers image search that I find handy. Real world example is when a client sends you a image they grabbed from there own files that is a lower quality file. I drop this image into Google reverse image search and see all the various sizes and formats on the web. My client may or may not even know these formats or use cases exist. The client has provided me with the image so I am sure we have the rights to use it. I grab a hirer resolution image to use in print and email the client to confirm we have full user rights. I have a image to use while I wait for the clients feedback. I can continue to design with the image without slowing my progression. If needed I can swap a new proper formatted image when provided by the client. As my proofs get passed around they will look better at this stage. Often Google will provide an image that is of fine quality. It is a way to find what is on the web that we my not even have known was there. Old projects and information hangs around the internet for a long time. Now with Google reverse image search we can use this fact to our advantage.

Wacom Tablet With Full Windows 8 + Stylus

I like the idea of this, especially if it uses Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to their full potential. Not a tablet version but the full Adobe apps. I'm a Mac platform guy but this makes me consider switching for my tablet if it is well implemented. Now I have heard rumours that Apple will be releasing a larger tablet, possibly a 13-15". I wonder if the product would run more feature rich versions of Adobe's current offerings on mobile. Possibly my dream could come true and it would run the full versions of many Adobe apps keeping most or all their rich features.

Perhaps I am over thinking this. If I want full Adobe products on mobile then maybe I should just get a MacBook or even MacBook Air. They are portable. With all the new tech getting our focus sometimes we forget that the current tech is still advancing. Laptop tech has come so far that often it is a persons main computer system, with no desktop computer necessary at all. I do like some of the new drawing features for use in conjunction with a touch interface. Touch is the main feature of tablets and makes me still longing for a tablet solution. Currently I have an iPad 4, that I do enjoy using all kinds of graphic apps on. See my other post on my love of Adobe Ideas on iPad.

I'm always hoping for more, I guess. What are you thoughts? What mobile setup are you using and longing for? Leave a comment and let us know any of your thoughts and ideas on mobile art, graphic production.

Prosthetic Hand That Can Feel

This is so interesting. This article is an amazing read. It is about a robotic hand that attaches to an arm, including the nerve endings, so the user can feel the sensational feedback from the attached hand. This will prevent the user applying to much pressure and crushing items, or to little pressure and dropping them. This really is amazing.

Let's add to these ideas and get into the discussion of robot parts becoming people. Eventually we may be just a brain in a complete robot body, a world where people rarely die. Good timing on this as the big block buster movie re-make of RoboCop was released just a few weeks ago. The linked article does not go this far. It speaks in the here and now or not so far off future. It does let our minds speculate on a world where we keep replacing our damaged organic parts for robotic ones. Is this a place you would want to live in? If you had a loved one that was in an

Make the logo bigger!

LOL. This is funny. "Make the Logo Bigger"check it out. As designers we must educate potential employers on art direction. The need to hire a designer is for their creative design skills to do the job you do not have the ability or time for. A designer will bring attention to the issues at hand. Whatever the issues may be, the client should be aware of this. Let the designer get you, the client, the attention you want. Designers are problem solvers and not only artists. A designer will bring attention to the issues at hand; they look for the details that others might overlook. This will let you focus on what you do best freeing up time for what they do best. Designers still need direction to get you the results you need. A skilled graphic artist will ask the right questions. They will detail and outline what the client is looking for to produce a rewarding outcome. Thus a designer is a specialist in communication.

After all, a final design in essence is a signpost for a company or institution. The logo represents a reason for the marketing and a reference for the end target. The designer addresses the issues and conveys them in a graphical format.

If you do not have faith in your designer then perhaps it is time for a change. This is, as intended more for designers, and funny. I laughed, enjoy.

Comments welcome.