Exploring the Art and Mystery of Creating and Making
Jasper Hauser of Sofa takes us through some of the design thoughts that went into creating the Kaleidoscope icon.
We ended up having an icon pretty early on in the development cycle, and so had plenty of time to take a good look and reflect on it. Something I really like, mostly because when you are in the creation process you are so deep into the subject matter it becomes progressively more difficult to discern good from bad.
If you’re a creative a large part of your job involves making decisions. That’s harder than you think. Making decisions involves a clear mind. You can’t do this well if you feel tired or sluggish. Or hungover. So if I’m in a busy period I quite often stop drinking alcohol and eat loads of fruit. Simple, but it makes me feel healthier and it helps me work better.
From Being Busy by Ben Terrett
About Your Process is a small PDF book, published online by Charlotte Cheetham of the prolific manystuff.org blog. A total of 31 graphic designers answer short questions on their process, tools, clients and vision. A well hidden piece of great inspiration.
When you work, do you think in terms of forms or in terms of a creation process? Do you have a clear vision of your final image or does it come only from an upstream creation process? How do you work? About the “tools”? About your clients?
Carl Crossgrove, a type designer living in the San Francisco, shares his process of creating a typeface with the readers of I love Typography. The post shows sketches, inspiration and process that dates back from the year 1990.
I typically sketch letter shapes over and over, throughout the process of development, so that while the outlines are evolving in digital format, I’m testing shapes on paper at the same time
To celebrate the release of The Pantone Plus Series, design studio Base worked with director Greg Mitnick and producer Ami Kealoha to give a rare look into the behind-the-scenes of the design world’s color standard.
I recommend you watch this video in full screen.
Nathan Manire is a talented illustrator from New York — who creates what is best described as pixel paintings of celebrities — recently updated his site with new work including portraits of some of his favorite artists like Snoop Dogg, David Bowie and Hunter S. Thompson. I asked him to send me some pictures of his process and he kindly replied with these great shots above.
While Nathan paints he creates swatch palettes with all the colors that he uses for a painting. He scans the palettes and uploads them to his flickr account. It’s interesting how these lovely swatch palettes become works of art and can easily be seperated from the illustrations as a byproduct of the process.
Thank you Nathan for the insight.
The Making of a T-shirt is a short documentary by BDC on how screen printed T-shirts are made at howies printshop. I recommend that you read the history of the company on their website. Very inspiring.
Lets use this company of ours to make people think.
The software company Culturedcode recently released an iPhone version of their award winning GTD application Things. On this simple making-of site they share some early interface sketches of the application that they made for a presentation on iPhone user interface design. It’s so nice to see how ideas and problems are sketched out and how the sketches then translate into a polished product. I also love the subtle quality of the sketches.
It’s very rare that you are able to see sketches, prototypes and the process media for a product on a typical design portfolio. Normally, all you get is a highly stylized photo of the end product and little to no information on how it was made. I stumbled upon Josh Finkle’s portfolio today and immediately fell in love with how he presents his work. Sure, we have the mandatory end product shots but we also get to take a tour of how he actually goes about making most of his objects. I especially like the extinct toy project and the attached process photos. There’s something about witnessing the creative process and experiments that makes the end product so much more valuable. Very refreshing and inspirational.
Steve Jobs:
Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?