Inspiring Art

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:

• Vilmos Varga
• Jonathan Schubert
• Mike McDonald

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.