There are some seriously talented artists and designers living in Texas, and most of them are here in Austin. While this makes it pretty nerve-wracking for a young designer like myself to even dream of succeeding in this town, it means I get to gain inspiration from some of the best designers active today. While checking out local design studios, I was suddenly transfixed when I came across the work of Austin-based Backstage Design Studio. Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t shared much of my personal work here on this blog, so I thought I’d start off by tracking the development of my own personal brand. My professional image has finally reached a point where I’m happy with it, but it certainly didn’t start out that way. Don’t consider this post a walkthrough of my design process so much as a field guide for other designers and students who aren’t sure what direction to take themselves in. Read the rest of this entry »
You can find pictures of pretty much anything online, but you can’t always use those images without running into legal trouble. This is particularly important for me, since I blog about design and images are an essential part of my content. So, to avoid copyright issues, I often have to take photos of the products I discuss myself. Problem is, I’ve never been much of a photographer. Read the rest of this entry »
H.P. Lovecraft has been one of my favorite authors since I first read At the Mountains of Madness, so when I ran across the Albino Dragon booth at RTX last weekend and saw their newly released playing card set, I instantly bought myself a pack. I’ve always loved playing card designs, because they merge illustration and graphic design in such a fascinating way. These cards in particular are pretty awesome, especially if you’re a Lovecraftian. Read the rest of this entry »
I spent most of this past weekend at RTX, an annual convention here in Austin that’s put on by a group called Rooster Teeth. If you’re plugged in to the video game community then you’ve probably heard of them, but if not I’ll give you a quick description: Rooster Teeth is a company dedicated to all things gaming and internet related, and they’ve built up a huge following and community over recent years. Read the rest of this entry »
I have a secret passion that’s not shared by many of my graphic design brethren: heavy metal. I mean HEAVY metal. So when I first came across Lord of the Logos, a book published in 2010 that contains hundreds of death and black metal logos, I thought “awesome, I definitely want that”, especially since I’d heard several of the bands. But then I noticed something else – All of these logos had been designed by one man. Read the rest of this entry »
Thought I’d share this with you guys. As anybody who knows me can tell you, I have something of a weakness for good package design, and several times a week my wife has to tear me away from products that I’ll never eat, drink, or use, because I’m so enamored with the packaging (I still take pictures). I find that my favorites are always the ones with a hand-drawn touch, like this lovely work by Shaun Hill. Read the rest of this entry »
