Just a little something...

I was browsing an online merchandise shop since I'm a big fan of Korean and Japanese merchandises when I discovered something really cool. It's the idea of incorporating simple illustrations to a photograph and making them interact. I would not say that the idea is entirely original, but with only a few simple strokes of the pen tool added to a pretty-looking photograph can transform the whole image. It's nothing fancy most of the time, but for some odd reason, the final images come out looking totally interesting; they have a more personal, playful and intimate feel to them. These designs are a departure from what we normally see in the market here in the US, that's why they make for a very exciting viewing experience. There's no doubt the target populations these designs aim for are children and women; after all, almost every notebook cover appears to be very happy, fresh with a somewhat childish and feminine touch. However, I love how original they can be, esp. the last two sample covers I attached with this entry. Also, I'd like to comment on the photographs. They are very modern and artistic, for example the picture to the very right on the third row. It's just like an ad straight out of a magazine. The color combinations are wonderful, and the arrangement of the graphics is very bold and stylized.

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To those of you who feel a bit adventurous and don't mind visiting a foreign website in an entirely different language, then feel free to give this website a visit. You will be in for a treat, at least if you are a merchandise lover like I am =) : Barunson
Just use the navigation links on the left side to go around the store. Have fun viewing!

Some Web Design Tips

Well, to start off this post, I'd like to share this little comic strip:

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credits: Usability.uk.com

Of course, there are many different websites on the Internet, serving different purposes. A hugely popular news site like CNN would not appreciate a graphics dominated design. On the other hand, an entertainment website like Disneyland would be so boring without all the interactive. So how should we go about creating the right kind of website? There are many things we as designers have to take into considerations. It'll be better to seek advices from the pros and more experienced designers. I posted a link to an article on how to create a better website, hopefully it will be of help: Good Web Design Tips

Interesting commerical

This is not entirely innovative or new, but the execution is very nice and it makes for a very short but interesting watch :).

Discussing design 177 - Zen City Morning

Design # 177:

Zen City Morning
by Ray Henry, United States


(+) The positives:

• Eye-catching layout, good use of colors design. I really like the layout, it's both practical and fun to look at. The content and navigation areas are both spacey, allowing the viewers easier access to the information. The colors give out such an energetic and vibrant mood, very fitting with the theme of the whole layout. I'd say this is a very straightforward but effective web layout that would work extremely well for a personal blog or personal website that needs plenty of space for links and content.
• Browser-friendly, fast loading time. These two are very important, especially loading time. The graphics and content of this design load fast and it is also browser-friendly as the layout will stretch and position itself nicely in larger screen sizes.
• Nice web effect on the background. I'd say the transparent background is what drew me into this design at first. Most large websites shy away from fun effects because of their heavy contents and large amount of traffic bandwidth. But having one or two cool effects/functions on a website can really attract users' attentions. In this case, the transparency on the main content really stands out and makes the design more dynamic and creative.

(-) The negatives:

• The clouds on the background are distracting. The layout could have been better with a plain or gradient dark blue background. It can loose the boring looking clouds. I just think those clouds are not contributing much to the overall design quality and are somewhat unneeded, since they look too geometric next to the more organic graphics of the whole layout. Those clouds don't really belong.

I don't really have any more negative things to say about this layout. Overall, it's a very well done design.

Wonderful Paper Arts...

Paper has got to be one of the most wonderful inventions ever of mankind. With just a piece of paper, one can do so much with it, even with no other tools. I luckily stumbled upon the sites of two great artists who create amazing art out of paper. They're truly truly beautiful and creative, so be sure to pay them a visit!!

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Chris Natrop - http://www.chrisnatrop.com

Examples:

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Peter Callesen - http://www.petercallesen.com

Examples:

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The joy of photo manipulations

If you're in with this career as a graphic designer, the idea of doing a photo manipulation is not foreign. In fact, it's one way to spice up an ordinary photograph and make it into something really unique. You probably might have seen pictures of big guys' heads on women's slender bodies, and tons of other creative great fun photo manipulations. I pulled out a few nice ones I saw in the book "Adobe Photoshop 7.0 - Studio Techniques" by Ben Willmore and posted them below. The graphics are copyrighted to their rightful owners and I just posted them here for viewing purpose only.

(Click to view full sizes)

And to follow up with the wonderful examples above, I also did a photo manipulation one or two years ago in preparation for Halloween. I know that Halloween won't be here until the end of next month, but I figure it wouldn't hurt to show it now. Images used in this graphic were taken from GettyImages, and the featured girl is Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi. It was done entirely in Photoshop and the primary tools used to create to burns were the Dodge/Burn, various brushes for the blood and the lasso tools for the scratches and such.

(Click to view full size)

Discussing design 190 - Lonely Flower

Before I jump into dissecting the pros and cons of each of the layout at the CSS Zen Garden website, I've got to comment on how professional and unique looking each one is. To think that all has the exact HTML structures with only the CSS modified is strikingly amazing. Again, it just showed me how powerful one tiny little file, one little idea can be. Anyway, now I'm moving to the main focus of this post:

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Design # 190:

Lonely Flower
by Mitja Ribic, Slovenia




(+) The Positives:

• Clean, professional looking layout. The colors combination is wonderfully effective in bringing out the mood of this piece. The header alone is done really well, it has the ability to hold the viewer's interest for a long time. Nothing is over done, the slogan "CSS Zen Garden" is clearly visible and stands well on its own, while the title of the theme is incorporated seamlessly with the addition of a lone flower confined in a little square on the right hand side of the header. The grayish background brings out the solemnity of solitude.
• User-friendly interface and navigation. For a website, it is important that the content reaches the readers without excessive and complicated guidance from the creator. This layout uses the traditional two columns design; it is undoubtedly less on the creative side, but creativity would not work well for this design. From the beginning, by looking at the designed header, we as the users sense an approach on minimalism by the designer. So it is no wonder that it would make great use of the two-columns layout, the left one is for the main content and the right is for navigation. It is a perfect balance layout with delicate designs and practical content.
• Appropriate loading time and browser-friendly. These two are very important, especially loading time. The graphics and content of this design load fast and the small dimensions of the layout make it a nice layout for users with smaller screen resolutions.

(-) The Negatives:

• Main content is overshadowed by the header. This critique is more on a personal level. As I look at the layout as a whole, my eyes keep drifting back to the header no matter how much I try to look away from it. Like I said earlier, the header design is very strong and nice-looking, but it somehow takes away from the main content below where the font color is of a much softer color on a plain white background.
• Layout looks small on larger screens. Computers nowadays come in a variety of screen sizes. The standard 800 x 600 is long out-of-dated. I know the design is made in consideration of users who have smaller browsers, but still, the layout looks tiny on a large screen. It could have been better if this design is turned into a liquid design where the layout would always take up 90% or so of the screen resolution no matter how big or small the screen size is.
• Need of a footer. Again, this is just cheap nitpicking on my part, but I personally prefer footers on most layouts. The inclusion of a footer just makes a layout seem more finished a completed to me. Of course, this is NOT a must, but in my humble opinion, for this design, it could have been a bit nicer with a footer.
  

Website inspirations

Below is the link to one of the websites that I frequent a lot in my free time. It's just a collective site that holds a lot of interesting and visually appealing sites on the net. Hopefully this would give some inspirations to those who need them:

VisualDesigner.Net

Link to see some cool advertisements

I've always been very fond of looking at some innovative and creative advertisements around the world. Sometimes just a very small idea can become big if one knows how to make the best out of it, just like these examples in this website below:

Creative advertisements around the world

Have fun!

Welcome!!!

As a greeting for this new blog, I just wanted to post an artwork I created several moons ago. It was made entirely in Photoshop. I was learning how to make a glass ball when the idea of a smiley came to me. The gender of this smiley is not very... clear though. It could be a she or a he for all I care. The logo on the upper right hand side was something I came up in high school. It says Art Muka, and well, Muka is just a nickname.