Basic Texture 8

Today’s texture is brick. Sorry I don’t have a lot to say about the textures. Short of going into a step by step Photoshop tutorial, there is not much to say about them. Hope you like.

Tomorrow I will start posting the “book covers” series of designs. These will not be designs for actual book cover’s, necessarily. The designs will be inspired by some vintage mid century book cover designs that I discovered a while ago. You can look at them here. The basic idea for the coming designs will be basic shape and illustrations combined with typography.

I have also created a Facebook page to promote this website. If you are interested you can click here and visit and click the like button to add it to your pages.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial Day weekend. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you all again tomorrow!
Sean

Basic Texture 7

Today’s texture is marble. I think I was inspired by my visit in to Washington D.C. yesterday. We didn’t go all the way down to  the mall and monuments areas but we saw some marble none-the-less. This is a fairly simple effect created in Photoshop. Hope you enjoy.

See you all tomorrow with the final basic texture design. And then I will start creating book cover designs based on simple words and phrases. This book cover project will incorporate the basic concepts I’ve been working on up to this point to create comprehensive designs. Feel free to contribute your words or phrases in the comment area below.

Later, Sean.

Basic Texture 6

Today’s texture is fur. I used Shelby, our calico cat as inspiration. I love the color combo but I’m sure there is a better technique to create a more realistic fur texture. perhaps I will experiment and  come up with something better in the future.

Have a great day and I’ll be back tomorrow with another texture.
Sean

Basic Texture 5

Today’s texture is wood. Again, I don’t have anything exciting to say about it. I do like it an I hope you do to.

Have great evening and I’ll see you all back here tomorrow.
Sean

Basic Texture 4

Today’s texture is brushed aluminium. Again, I am at a lose for words on this one. I like it. I used the British spelling of the word because I like to pronounce it that way – alumin-e-um. Fun. I also think it turned out fairly realistic and it is also easy to recycle. Hope you like.

See you all tomorrow.
Sean

Basic Texture 3

Today’s texture is leather. What else can I say. I don’t have any interesting commentary to share today, other than I have the theme from  “Rawhide” stuck in my head now. Wonder how long that will last. Until tomorrow, “movin’, movin’ movin’ – keep them doggies movin’…”

Later.
Sean

Basic Texture 2

Today’s texture is one of my favorite. Glossy, shiny, whatever other adjectives you would like to use. This effect is easily accomplished with software and generally creates a lovely result, and sometimes a wow factor, in any design. I was inspired by a hi-gloss, black paint job on a classic car. I chose a retro display typeface to represent the word “glossy” to enhance that classic car feeling, applying the same “glossy” techniques to create a chrome logo or name plate.

I am imagining myself cruising through the evening desert in a 57 Thunderbird or Corvette right now. Route 66, here I come! Don’t worry, I’ll be back tomorrow. Vrrrooom Vrrrrooom!

Later,
Sean

Basic Texture 1

Today’s post is lazy on my part. It is perhaps the easiest effect to create using Photoshop. By applying a grain filter to a neural gray and adjusting the hue suddenly you get sand. Other variations of this technique will give other grainy effects which come in handy in a myriad of  ways depending on your design need. Today I am thinking about the beach.

Enjoy.
Sean

Basic Shape Forms 20

It’s the last official basic shape forms post. Again, I chose to use circles radiating outward. One originates in the upper left corner and the other in the lower right corner of the document. As I started working on the color scheme I chose to keep the variety of colors minimal, as apposed to yesterday’s wavy gravy.

Being close to our nation’s capital, it is hard to ignore the politics with all it’s battles and scandals. As I began to include color in this design I imagined the two political parties influencing the canvas of our nation. In the upper left corner we have the Democrat party. Since the Democrat party is the one in power it is given the upper corner. It is also no accident that it is also given the left, upper corner. The Republicans, currently the party out of power, get the lower corner and, of course, it is the corner on the right side of the document. The radiating circle represent the on going influences of these political powers over time. Hopefully we see them balancing out over time to make our country a better, stronger nation. I will stop there and save you my opinion as I’m sure you all have enough of your own.

God bless the United States of America and I will see you all tomorrow.
Sean

Basic Shape Forms 19

Today is the second to last post for basic shape forms. Not sure why I got off of my illustration kick, but there will be more of those in future posts I’m sure. Today’s design demonstrates visually what I shared with you previous when I wrote my thoughts on each of the basic shape forms.

Here I see the circle and the triangle as the dominant shapes. The circle visually represents motion as the many rings radiate outward. They also exhibit a certain pattern as they radiate. Each band spreads further from it’s predecessor and the color pattern changes more or less consistently with the natural color spectrum. The circles represent a beautiful routine, on going, throughout the composition. The triangles indicate a non-uniform change, unorganized and chaotic. Like shards of broken glass they fracture the entire composition. The shifting that takes place in the color banding because of their presence helps to define this effect even more clearly. What you may or may not see are the squares. There are 4 of them, 5 if you count the actual boundary of the document. They represent the underlying structure of the composition, dividing it subtly into 4 stable quadrants. Whether it be the 4 quadrants or the actual boundary of the document, the square shape appears to contain the chaos, preventing it from escaping.

That’s it for today. See you all tomorrow.
Sean