Friday, January 30, 2015

Dear Kerby,
It has been quite a while since I last wrote. It has also been almost a year from my last extreme email cleaning. Alright, time to judge me and how I failed.

After a nice and fun summer job I started school again for the fall (August till December). Things happened and here I am again looking for a job. Did I say job? Yes, because things have changed and I am not returning to school. You might call me a failure but, to me, I think I am not. I have learned a lot from everything I have done in school no matter what it might have been. The small things count.

Time Off

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Dear Kerby,
Here are some artists I have been listening to lately. Most of my vibe has been singer-songwriter/folk style with a little bit of blues.
  • Amos Lee
  • Angus & Julia Stone
  • Joe Purdy
  • Langhorne Slim
  • Ray LaMontagne
More often than not I just plug things into Pandora and let it play. A while ago it was all about me listening to jazz. Everything goes in bursts. Listening to jazz I realized that most artists have a list of standards that everyone plays and some covers are better than others.
Do you listen to music in spurts?

Talk to you later,
Bluelaugh

Spurts

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Dear Kerby,
I have been working at getting a real summer job if it be full time or part time. Something seasonal is nice because of my current status. I have been rejected from one after getting the interview. I would have liked that job but it was beyond me why I did not get it. Going back to the many avenues of the crazy Craigslist I applied for numerious jobs.
I applied for one in South West Michigan and I recieved and few emails about getting an Interview. The day of the interview I got the job. It is weird because they emailed me my schedule and I have yet to fill out the legals about getting paid. This is an established place but it sounds a little shady. All I know is that I wash dishes for this brew house. It all seems like wrotten meat to me; it stinks.
I am putting my playing card designs on vacation to help cochair an August show at the art gallery that I have a membership with. The president would like us to roll out this show as soon as possible so we can hit the promoters and have a crazy sale night. I call it crazy because no one expects to sell but they do.
On top of putting together the show I am looking at rolling out one piece of art for the show. I do not have the slighest Idea of what I am putting together for this particular gallery theme. My mind is else where at the current moment because of my private art and my wacky job.
I think I need to relax and listen to more pods or podcasts like Hyper Nonsense.

Talk to you later,
Bluelaugh

A Little Late

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Dear Kerby,
I know I have periods where I do not do graphic design. Now that the summer season is upon us I thought I would have time to do some graphic design. About two weeks ago I decided to take on the challenge of making playing cards. Not only do I want to design the back of the cards but I want to do the face of the cards. A whole deck would have my art on it; no stock art.
I have found a place online that lets me do both sides of the card. They place has a few different options to check out. The thing to worry about is how many decks and at what price I care to pay for printing and then resell.
I told one of my loyal art supporters that I wanted to take my design in a new direction because I started off in a "bad" way.  After working on some sketches today and jotting down some inspirations here is what I have. I do not want to give any more ideas away till they are done. Hope you like what you see.

Talk to you later,
Bluelaugh

A New Direction

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Dear Kerby,

Lately I have been wanting to do some design work and feel a little stumped at what to do until I heard a few songs. I think I know what I am going to do now. I would like to do some poster of song quotes.

One of the quotes that sticks out in my mind is "It swings, It jives, It shakes all over like a jelly fish, I kinda like it" Every time I hear this part of the song it makes me laugh. It might be because I take it out of context. I am not exactly set with my list of song quotes but then again I am not sure I would like to give them all away just yet. 

I do like a classic minimalist design with inspiration from people like these:

When I start doing some of the designs I know you will be one of the firsts to hear about it.


Talk to you later,
Bluelaugh

Name That Song

Friday, May 30, 2014

Dear Kerby,

I still read a lot of blogs even though I do not have Google Reader. Google killed the reader last year and I now use a service for the web and my mobile device known as Feedly. Feedly is very similar to Reader in many ways but it also has a bit of a downfall when looking at saved or favorite articles.

Some of my most read sites are:

Reading Feedly is like reading a very custom magazine because of the features it offers. I do like the settings to make it look and feel like a digital magazine instead of flipping through "article" titles like Google's design.

One of my favourite well designed and printed magazines is Real Simple or VegNews. I am not a big fan of the online version. Some magazines just feel great when held.


Talk to you later,
Bluelaugh

Post It

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Dear Kerby,

Over the past several years I have been in the graphic design business. I do graphic design on my own or through someone recommending me. Most of the time I enjoy doing photography with my various cameras and lenses. In the long term I would like become more proficient in event photography while doing graphic design on the side. I have photographed several events and I enjoyed doing it.  To see my art visit me online at  Drips of Art. A lot of the photography in the recent have been still life and working with toys.

I have been doing mainly photography for a local art gallery. When I started at the gallery I did a series of dog illustrations. I like graphic design but I do not do it as much I am into  photography. I like the feeling of knowing I am doing a nicely designed graphic art piece.

To get inspirations for my illustrations I have been using two sites lately; Dribbble and Shutter Stock. Both sited have endless numbers of inspiration. I like Dribble because you can search by colors for more inspiration. Dribble is every day designers and a lot of them are not at the professional level. The work they share could be "in progress" posted for feedback/comments. This I do believe they have a way to hire designers from the site where Shutter Stock just gives you stock graphics to use in your design

More often than not I go back to simple classic designs. I am not one to make my designs look life like/realistic. Here are a few of my go to design inspirations:

I do enjoy playing with color and it shows because color is a big part of my designs. Color has a big part in design weather you want to say it does or not. One can not use primary colors for everything like my dad thinks.

I have come to dislike working with Pantone colors for projects. Panstone colors are pre-mixed inks. When you give the printer a Pantone number he will always come up with that same color no matter when your project is printed. They have Pantone swatches for the computer but when they are printed out they do not match the actual Pantone ink.

Many times you will see a company have colors for branding; CMYK or Pantone for pint, RGB for screen, and HEX for the internet. Here is well done example from Google or a funny one about Santa. Take a look at how strict Google can be with branding but more importantly take time to look at the color section.

Trust me, graphic design, illustration, and photography can be a challenging career but I love it because it is the right amount of challenging for me.


Talk to you later,
Bluelaugh.

Inspiring Art

© Letters From Bluelaugh 2008 Dapinder