Designing my life

Thumbnail design in Illustrator

2010-05-06T03:57:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Thumbnail design for Dan Brown's Youtube Channel, "Pogobat". You can download these images on my Flickr.

Congrats to Emmy Cicierega for Winning the Threadless Bestee Award

2010-03-08T20:31:00.000-08:00

Emmy, a twenty year old designer from Kingston, Massachusetts, has won $20,000 and a free trip to the annual Threadless meetup for her award-winning "It's Toile About You" design. The Bestee award is held ever month by Threadless.com and each year a winn t-shirt design is pick as voted by the community.

Emmy says that when she received her medal in the mail and put it around her neck, it made her "feel like a real champ!"

Congratulations to Emmy Cicierega

Her website: www.emmyc.com

Her winning T-shirt design: Toile About You

Her DiviantArt profile: B1nd1

The History of Auto Tune

2010-01-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

My favourite use of auto tune is in parody videos where they cleverly auto tune the voices of everyday video and turn it into a song. This video gives insight into the history of auto tune in an interesting doco style video featuring Weird Al' Yankovic.

And just so you know, I downloaded the "I am T-pain" Iphone app after I saw this video. I love that app.

Know Your Meme: Auto Tune (featuring "Weird Al" Yankovic) from Rocketboom on Vimeo.

Keepon the Dancing Robot

2009-11-29T22:39:00.000-08:00

This little dancing robot is as cute as cute can be. I had to post this video of it dancing to music. It was developed by scientist (Hideki Kozima and programmed by Marek Michalowski) as a learning aid for children. The design of Keepon is very simple, just two eyes and a button nose It will certainly be a big hit when it goes onto sale in 2010.

For more info visit http://beatbots.net

New Video Group Called Mind Benders in Vimeo

2009-11-25T19:04:00.000-08:00

I created a video group for Vimeo users called Mind Benders Mind Bender. Mind Benders is about creative videos that make you ask "how the hell did they do that?". This group is about the weird, experimental, amazing, extraordinary videos that may or may not have a point other than simply being beautiful in nature. In other words, videos that bend your mind!

Please join this group if you like these videos. I will ad more wonderful videos that will give you a visual treat. You are more than welcome to add your own videos Mind Bender. Anything that is fantastic to watch, creative, ground-braking special affects, spot motion/time-lapse videos, experimental, conceptual, artistic videos, are all welcome to be added here.

To visit and join in this video group goto vimeo.com/groups/mindbender

Turn Yourself Into a Cartoon

2009-11-07T06:45:00.001-08:00

I opened up a new Blip.TV channel called freshalex.blip.tv. This channel will be dedicated to showing time-lapse recordings of my own work in graphic design, tutorials, speed paintings and the channel will progress to also featuring other artists, events and news too. It is very new at the moment. So this first video I uploaded will set the tone for most of the videos during the first few weeks since it is easier to get the content up and online for you.

About this video: Vectorizing yourself into a cartoon can be done using Illustrator, but once you know the basics you can do it using any program that has a "pen tool".

I put this video together to show you how I turned myself into a cartoon. I did this because I noticed that some services/websites out there, like Cartoonme.com offer to turn your pictures into a cartoon for a fee / price. So to show you just how easy (or difficult) it can be I recorded myself turning myself (and partner) into a cartoon. This process took around 15 minutes and shows my creative process from start to finish.

Enjoy

Freshalex 80's style text wallpaper

2009-11-04T22:57:00.001-08:00

Freshalex 80's style text wallpaper, originally uploaded by Freshalex online.

I am a fan of all things retro. I especially like sci fi, space imagery. So an 80's style, retro space graphic is something I gravitate to. So I tried making my brand name "freshalex" in this style and this is what I came up with. I was just playing with the text to make it it look 80 style retro. I started to follow a tutorial from Abduzeedo and I ended up changing it a little.

The tutorial from Abduzeedo shows how to create this text effect using a program called Pixelmator, but you can still follow it if you have photoshop or other software. Here is the original tutorial link for 80's Style Text Effect in Pixelmator

Enjoy. You can download my wallpaper here in 1920 x 1080px.

By the way, this typography style was inspired by this website empireisok.com, which I am sure was inspired by some one else and then someone else.

Logo Design Competition Fail by Alex on 99designs

2009-11-03T05:14:00.001-08:00

Logo for feedslide, originally uploaded by Freshalex online.

I thought it would be nice to share this logo I made for a logo design contest on 99designs.com. It was for a web company called Feedslide. I did not win, which is why I added the word "Fail"in the title of this blog post.

The winning logo design is shown below and is by a designer called "crack". His design is a similar concept to mine because it mixes together the "F" and "S" in the logo. And I tried to achieve a similar concept but with a bit more complexity. I guess I can admit that as a logo design, Cracks' design is the better one.

In the end what it all comes down to is personal taste and what works for a company. The Contest Holder chose Cracks design over 118 other logo designs because this logo was the best one suited for his company . It is tough competition out there but it is also fun to be involved in these design contests. I will most likely be entering more design competitions in the future. It is fun.

99Designs.com is holding a T-shirt Design Contest

2009-10-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

99Designs.com is holding a T-shirt Design Contest that would interest any young budding designer to enter. First prize is a cash payment of $500 awarded to the winner and the design will be made into official SXSW 2010 t-shirts. SXSW is one of the worlds largest film, music and web conferences.

99designs is packed with designers, all participating in contests to win and get exposure. The website connects passionate designers from around the world with clients who need design projects completed in a short period of time and not costing an arm and a leg. It has held over 30,000 design contests to date with over 2,600,000 unique designs submitted. 99Designs usually hold design competitions on a daily basis with contest prizes ranging from $100 to $1000!

Have a look at 99designs.com

45 Digital Artworks by Rado Javor - Posted by Dzinepress.com

2009-10-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a great post by dzinepress.com. It shows off more that 45 examples of Digital art by Rado Javor, a digital painter from the UK. His style has a history, classical element.

"I was research about greatest art designers, today I like to present the work of Slovakian Rado Javor (now living in Bratislava, United Kingdom), We find out that this digital painter from UK has an appetite for classic, for moments and scenes from the past and what’s unexpected is that he succeeds in commemorate those outstanding sceneries with help of Photoshop, all of listed images are most viewed and appreciate able.

Although some of the images found in this digital art gallery have a dark shaded most people with lightening effects will like them. You’ll see images of conflict, evolving machinery and technology, war, religious, historic, Halloween inspiration, social scenes from different ages and an infusion of quality detail."

Enjoy

Design Core by Relando Ronato

2009-09-22T07:26:00.001-07:00

Design Core, originally uploaded by relando ronato.

I was on Flickr doing the usual rounds of looking through amazing graphic designers, accomplished photographers and talented Illustrators and I found Relando Ronato and his work. His work differed from the rest in my eyes because his whole body of work has black and white as the dominant colour theme. This first poster I saw was the "All good things" poster which caught my attention with those massive heavy type font and the strong contrast of black and white that seems to become worn out towards the bottom. It looks big, gritty, dirty and strong.

Design Core seems to be his brand and judging by his Flickr photostream he has a small but strong portfolio. I hope to see more work coming from this design, and soon!

Kate Doodles and her illustrations

2009-09-22T01:30:00.001-07:00

What I wore today, originally uploaded by Kate Doodles.

This is an illustration by Kate Doodles. I like her style. It is cute and simple.

Today's Inspiration - Manya Kuzemchenko

2009-07-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

This multimedia designer is freelance designer in NYC. She caught my attention a few months back but I am now going to show her off to you guys, since she has such a colourful and creative style. She is a graphic designer with awesome skills y'all and uses adobe cs4 suite, 3d max/cinema4d and codes html/css, actionscript, javascript and php. She would be the female equivalent of me, if I were a skilled, talented, multimedia designer, with mad skills in coding. Well I'm half way there.

So please enjoy today's inspiration that is Manya Kuzemchenko and her website Soasdesign.com

gills by Manya Kuzemchenko

star so brightby Manya Kuzemchenko

mirror, mirrorby Manya Kuzemchenko

tweet wallpaperby Manya Kuzemchenko

bowienetby Manya Kuzemchenko

good ideaby Manya Kuzemchenko

cheech and chong tour websiteby Manya Kuzemchenko

Amazing Tilt Shift Video Collection And Tutorials

2009-06-12T02:29:00.000-07:00

Tilt shift photography and stop motion video involves the use of a tilt shift lens which can tilt and shift its focal point. With shifting the angle of the focal point you can make images have a miniature effect. And if you combine tilt shift photography with stop motion you get tilt shift video or miniature stop motion.

To learn more about the theory behind tilt shift technique the visit www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/tilt-shift-lenses2.htm. But if you couldn't be bothered reading all that then just watch these videos.

So please enjoy this collection of tilt shift stop motion videos and movies. There are a couple of tilt shift tutorials at the end too.

Tilt Shift Videos And Stop Motion.

DisneyParks

A Model Day At Disney Parks - Exclusive Tilt-Shift Video Featuring Magic Kingdom by DisneyParks on Youtube

Disney has jumped on the tilt shift video bandwagon and made a great video on Youtube that I actually like! And you will too.

Here's a quote from them

"See the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida from a whole new perspective. The exclusive video first featured on The Disney Parks Blog was created from a series of photos snapped inside the Magic Kingdom Park. Its a sunrise-to-sunset story told without words. But the message is clear — celebrate"

Keith Loutit

Mardi Gras from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Mockmoon2000

Miniature City (720p HD) by Mockmoon2000

miniature city 2 -featuring vividblaze "tight rope (floor mix)" by Mockmoon2000

miniature trains 2 by Mockmoon2000

Dankicksass

Monster Truck Rally by dankicksass

Oyr27

Test: Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH1 - Pt.6 / Tilt Shift by Oyr27

Tkysstd

Tilt Lens Test with LUMIX GH1 by tkysstd

Phillip Lopez

A day, a Red One, a Tilt Shift lens and Of Montreal from Phillip Lopez on Vimeo.

theRenowned

Toy Town Island - tilt shift test 2 by theRenowned

TravelNevada

Hoover Dam in tilt-shift effect by TravelNevada

How To Create Tilt Shift Photography With Donald Norris

In this video tutorial, you will learn how to create tilt shift photography with a camera and tilt shift lens. This is how most of the stop motion videos were made in this collection.

Donald Norris Teaches: Tilt-Shift Photography by Norrisphoto

Creating A Miniature Tilt Shift Photograph Using Photoshop

If you want to know how to create a tilt shift photography without the use of a tilt shift lens, this tutorial by Photogavin will show you how to do it in Photoshop.

(HD)Fake miniature model, tilt & shift lens effect - Photoshop Week 36 by PhotoGavin

If there are more videos you want to share post a link in the comments!

Impossible photography by Li Wei

2009-05-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

Have you ever used Photoshop to make yourself look like you are flying? These day you can easily manipulate photos to make yourself look like you are walking on water, or flying through the air. Li Wei, a Hubei born Chinese artist, does make these types of photo manipulations, the only difference is that Li does not use Photoshop as the primary editing tool. Instead Li poses the models in real life in mid air or on top water using wires and logistical aids.

"Somebody should hand Li a copy of Photoshop to save time and extra effort put into making these seeming impossible photographs". Is that what you think? Well sure! Why don't we! What you are forgetting is that if Li used Photoshop instead to make these images, then Li would not gain the same respect as Li would now. It is because of this extra effort Li has made an impact as a photographer. Take a look at these photos and check out Li's website, I promise there are a lot more where these pics came from.

Interview with Simon Jones - Illustrator of the dark and wonderful

2009-05-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

Simon Jones is a freelance Illustrator based in London. I came across his work on Epilogue website (fantasy and sci-fi art website), where I somehow landed on Simon's "The Video Word made Flesh" digital work. I was gob smacked to say the least. Did I hear you say dark and weird? I hope you meant that in the best possible way.

Here is the interview with him I obtained after a few exchanges of emails.

Tell us about how you became to be interested in digital media?

I first became drawn to digital media probably in the early 90s, I wasn't really happy with the results I was getting from traditional media, I felt that my work was becoming limited by the techniques I was using and I wasn't feeling inspired at all. I then came across some of Dave McKean's cover's for the Sandman comics and as a direct result of these got myself a copy of Photoshop. From there on out, I was hooked. Digital media brought back the thrill of being surprised by my own work, something as simple as the overlaying of a texture in Photoshop opened up endless possibilities and got me excited about work again.

What software do you use to make you images?

I used to work predominantly in Photoshop, using a combination of my on personal photos, as well as stock images, to create my artwork, but I began to feel the process of taking(photographs), or scouring the internet, for the right photo was becoming a bit tedious. Also I began to feel a little insecure about my work by just relying on photos. I then began to using 3D elements and used Cinema 4D for a long while, before I came across Zbrush. Since then, I haven't looked back. So now it's a combination of Zbrush and Photoshop, although I do use Painter also now and again.

How has the global economic crisis affected you and others around you?

Well, there's certainly been less commissions than in previous years, also I feel clients are being a little bit safe in their briefs, no-one's looking to take any risks at the moment.

Is H R Giger one of your influences? Your work does have characteristic similar to Giger's work. Who else is your influence?

Giger was a huge influence on me growing up, I studied his work endlessly, at the time there was no-one else doing anything like he did, he is a true visionary. Other than that, I'm mostly influenced by films such as David Cronenberg's "Videodrome" and Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo" films. Anything to with the transformation of the human body, or the fusion of man and machine. I'm also a great admirer of Kent Williams.

If macs were to cease to exist tomorrow, would you continue to work, or for that matter live?

As much as I love my Mac and couldn't live with out it, I have considered going over to the dark side and getting a PC, just for 3D work, but so far I've resisted the temptation.

What can we expect from the world of Simon Jones in the next year/month/week?

At the moment I've just finished writing some comics for the Koniotou brothers, I'm sure some of your blog readers will be familiar with their work, they've done a lot for stuff for the Games Workshop etc. I'm also working on a series of pictures in the vein of what I did with "The New Flesh". So exciting times.

Is there anything else you wanted to add?

I'd just like to thank you for taking the time for this interview and showing an interest in my work, it means a lot.

So there you have it folks. Who says dark and weird is a bad thing. Being bad is so good. You can follow Simon Jones's latest posting and deviations on DeviantArt and check out his website too.

DevianArt: the-scarlet-gospels.deviantart.com
Website: www.simonlewisjones.co.uk
Epilogue gallery: www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/list.pl?gallery=21879

Mark Jenkins Street Installations inspires me

2009-05-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

Mark Jenkins, what can I say. I Stumbled upon his website and was very surprised. I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and I think you agree with me when I say "WFT that's so cool". He makes little baby sculptures made from tape that look amazing. They are translucent and he places them in some interesting places.

Stolen art on DeviantArt

2009-05-14T05:42:00.000-07:00

It may be old news to Redbubble and DeviantArt communities but I was surprised and intrigued how a DeviantArt member, Mikale AKA tropicalpassion, stole/downloaded pictures from artists on Redbubble and posted them up on his DeviantArt profile to get more faves and page views. Of course there was a huge backlash and he was publicly crucified and permanently banned. I wonder what was to gain, what did he think to achieve from his actions. He definitely made enemies and lost all the artworks.

Here are some passionate and colourful comments left on his profile before the banning.

"You are the most disgusting piece of rotting humanity!"

"Oi F***wit - don't steal other people's images and post them as your own.. you knob"

"Most of your images are stolen from Redbubble Artists"

"Epic fail for you"

and my personal favorite..
"BEWARE BEWARE ART THEIF ART THEIF"

Well I'm not impressed at what he did, but I can certainly see a reason for him doing what he did (other than having no talent of his own to feel then need to steal), he did it for fame. His daily page views peaked at 7808 views the day he got banned.

His short career ended with a bang and I am sure he will strike again with a different alias. So stay aware and critical about some of the art you see on the internet. Here is a post I found about Stole art and how to find it. And I know what you're thinking, "what if this freshalex's artworks are rip offs too", to that, I can safely say you will never catch me..........
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..
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I am joking of course!! I make my own artworks don't worry. My art is my own work. You can buy prints on my Redbubble shop

Cheers

Designer Paul Neave inspires me

2009-05-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

Designer Paul Neave's website is a bag of fun. There are games, flash earth which is like google earth but different (you'll see why), fractals, cool television effect, bouncing balls! It is fun.

He is an interactive designer who makes games and applications. I posted a few of his games below. They are old school but addictive. Very addictive.

Snake

Snake made by Neave Games

Space Invaders

Space Invaders made by Neave Games

Asteroids

Asteroids made by Neave Games

Simon

Simon made by Neave Games

I am inspired by Paul Neave and his cool, interactive website. Tell me what you think.

Swine flu arrives in Australia! Oh no help us all!

2009-05-08T21:56:00.001-07:00

"AUSTRALIA'S first confirmed swine flu case is a woman in her 20s who arrived in Brisbane on a flight from Los Angeles in the early hours of Thursday." This was posted on the Courier Mail just today.

It states that the woman arrived in a Quantas flight with 300 passengers and that she had tested "weak positive" to the human swine flu influenza. She was flight QF16 on May 7 and was sitting several rows away from another passenger who is being tested for the human swine flu.

The Australian woman has now recovered and is no threat to the community, but it does make you feel uneasy that human swine flu can and has arrive in Australia. I have not taken this matter seriously until now. I have also started a fun group on Flickr that sort of poked fun at the whole swine flu issue. It's called Fight Swine Flu. I will still poke fun though.

read more | digg story

2009-04-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

I signed up with Design Hide today. They seem to be a pretty cool community for web designers, graphic designers, video producers, photographers, add consultants, and just general artist needing exposure.

It a relatively small community and the website is in beta stage, but it is growing with at least 10 new people who joined this past month! (including me).

View my profile on DesignHide.com

Creative inspiration for today - Daniel Conway

2009-04-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

I joined deviantART today and I found this artist called Arcipello aka Daniel Conway. He is a young digital artist from Sweden.

I am inspired by this guy, check out his profile here

Colour perception Ink poster design

2009-03-24T08:21:00.001-07:00

The project brief was to design a poster to show the how a colour can look like it changes when a different background is applied. Our perception of that colour changes.

By the way if you don't already know the ink bottle is a silhouette and part of the magenta bar.

Cool looking Snail art

2009-03-20T09:52:00.001-07:00

The project brief was to portray the positive aspects of the colour purple. In this case I wanted to show how the colour purple origianlly was made from snails.

read more | digg story

Purple Murder Mystery on Flickr

2009-02-19T04:30:00.001-08:00

Digital art painted in Photoshop of a sexy murder scene.

A crime scene of a murdered girl. The only clue is this fountain pen used as the murder weapon. Mysterious circumstances. I created this poster in 2008 for a colour and media project.

My intentions were to show how the colour can be closely associated with grief, mystery and mourning.

The girl in the poster was hand drawn in Photoshop and I used a whole lot of different brushes and brush effects to make the blood and splatter.

Poster design entry for a design competition.

2009-01-05T00:53:00.000-08:00

Below is a video of one of my poster design entries. In 2008, Uprinting.com and Youthedesigner.com hosted a design competition. I entered with this poster and came 6th place out of 100 or so. The video is below.

Poster Design Competition - Time Lapse of Uprinting Poster Design I Made in Photoshop

Pinball Number Count Stop Motion Music Video Tribute by Alex

2008-12-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

Stop motion music video clip

This is the same video as my earlier post, but it's on Metacafe which pays me money for every 1000 views my video gets. So share this with your friends please!

This music video is my final project for Enmore Design Centre. My song choice is Pinball number count by the pointer sisters. I chose this song because it's a fun, funky tune that reminded me of when I used to watch sesame street in the late 80's! Geez! Am I that old???? It features my cousins and class mates. The objective was to have stop motion in the video. I chose to incorporate face imagery in the chorus to connect the numbers and human face together. I chose images and video that portrayed movement to fit the fast jazzy instrumental solo. Overall this was a fun video shoot to do. I hope to do more in the future, and I recommend it to anyone.

Pinball Number Count Stop Motion Music Video Tribute by Alex

Stop motion video clip

2008-12-07T07:36:00.001-08:00

This is the music video(i am trying to flog)
This one is posted on Revver

I made for the classic old school song Pinball Number Count song by the Pointer Sisters. It is a mix of stop motion and film, and was edited by me. My cousins and classmates are in this one, and a family dog. try to guess where it is..

Video channel with Miro

2008-12-07T07:13:00.000-08:00

I've came across this website to post my videos on. Miro is a video channel submitting website where I am trying out how much traffic will go to my Revver video account.

I will try to upload more fun videos and clips to my Revver account so that it doesn't become boring.

For your information: In order to submit channels to Miro, I had to get a Video Bomb account which allows me to connect it to my Revver Videos. i think It is getting a little bit complicated just to get video exposure. I must find a solution!

Hey freshalex has contacts!

2008-12-04T07:06:00.000-08:00

Hi, I think I should put my other web pages and profiles too

Personal website
www.freshalex.com

Redbubble online shop to buy prints
www.redbubble.com/people/freshalex

Online Videos
www.metacafe.com/channels/freshalexvideo

Connect with me! I am on Redbubble, Facebook, Youtube, Myspace, Digg, Stumble, Squidoo, Flickr, and more!

Welcome

2008-12-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

Well well, My first blog on Blogger. I must say, I do feel like this could be the start of a wonderful and exciting relationship. I have been delaying this for some time now because I didn't know what I was getting myself into, I was scared of the unknown, but after a little research, I dove in and here I am.

I have big ideas for this blog and my future website. Well I already have a personal website here, but it is not worth the server its hosted on. Nah I'm Kidding I like my server. They are cool. Anyways, my big plan, that's what I was talking about. I have them, they are big. They will be useful and fun and they require this blog and other sites to link together and help me make more blog and content for you all.

So come back soon, when I have some more to show you.