My Card. My Work.

Earlier today I was on FFFFound and stumbled across an illustration DeadArtsPublishing by Aaron Horkey. Who’s Aaron Horkey? Aaron Horkey is well known in the gig-poster world, however for those of us who don’t constantly check OMG Posters , or has seen his killer skate board graphics or even his sneaker design he is by far inspirational to all. Horkey is known for his highly detailed illustrations and hand lettering. The attention to detail is incredible. Where can you find his work? His silk screens are highly sought after, which seems to only be available on ebay.

So check out some of his illustrations and let me know if he inspires you.

Have you heard of Flash Catalyst yet? aka Thermo. I wanted to put a list together of some demos to give you an idea of how cool this is.  I’ve been using FC for a little while now and love it. Yes I have some minor issues that I raised during the beta pre-release. The main one is for us Fireworks users we have an extra step to do. We need to export as FXG format. Other than that it’s a pretty smooth transition into FC.

I would take a look at some of the demos below and download the public beta that’s out. GET IT RIGHT HERE!

Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ is a new professional interaction design tool for rapidly creating user interfaces without coding.

• Transform artwork created in Adobe Photoshop® and Adobe Illustrator® into functional user interfaces.

• Create interactive prototypes with the ability to leverage them in the final product

• Publish a finished project as a SWF file ready for distribution

• Work more efficiently with developers who use Adobe Flash Builder™ 4 to create rich Internet applications (RIAs). Designers use Flash Catalyst to create the functional user experience then provide the project file to developers who use Flash Builder to add functionality and integrate with servers and services

Some links to get to know FC a little more.

Adobe Flash Catalyst Thermo Team

Mark Anders’ FITC Session on Flash Catalyst

InsideRIA – Flash Catalyst Beta 1 Demo

Lynda.com-FC Beta Review

Flash Catalyst Beta 1 demo in 4 minutes

I hope you find this interesting enough to download it and give it a try.

-Tom

Jun 12th in Inspiration by Emil

Interview with Psdtuts+ and Vectortuts+ Editor Sean Hodge – Psdtuts+.

I’m originally from Oregon. I went to college and spent quite a few years in Connecticut. During that time I traveled a bit as well, mostly Northern Europe, and I’ve made it over the border to Canada. I have a degree in History, though I took a slew of graphic design classes, and some at the graduate level. I lived in Venezuela for a couple years recently, which is where my wife is from. I visited some Caribbean islands off Venezuela’s coast as well, Aruba for example. I only recently moved to Florida in January of this year. I’m still filling my apartment with new furniture from Ikea.

Great interview brought to you by PsdTuts

I thought this was a pretty interesting.

-Tom

Throw Yo Dishes in the air and clean em like you just don’t care. Kitchen Ka-Ka-Karma.

Thanks AdFreak

Teo Skaffa’s art is mainly based around cat bitches with pointy tits. Always stick thin and ugly these cat women often smoke like bandits and show too much skin. People love Skaffa’s work because it appeals to the deviant art demographic of 16 year old girls who want to be ugly cat bitches. Skaffa thinks 90% of the world’s human population is barely sentient.

Skaffa should be big in japan, but isn’t. –Teo Skaffa. “pulled from his Behance About Us”

Check his work!!!

TeoSkaffa

MySpace

FlickR

Behance

..:: Designers’ Talk on LinkedIn ::..

Fred Showker, Editor and Publisher of DTG, recently posted the following question in the Designers’ Talk Discussions section of LinkedIn:

My question: WHAT is DESIGN?

So many readers often write to ask about becoming a design professional. Many ask “What is Design” or “What is Graphic Design?”

Among the established definitions you’ll find that just about anyone you ask — you’ll get a different answer. So, in the May issue of DTG we’ll be asking …

WHAT IS DESIGN?

My studies at The Dynamic Media Institute at MassArt bring up many questions about design, media, communication and creativity. The question What is design? seemed to perfectly resonate with recent thoughts and discourse with the fantastic community engaged in these discussions at DMI.

Here is my response:

WHAT is DESIGN? What an excellent question. And what an important question to ask ourselves on a daily basis.

Here is my quick interpretation of design …

First of all, I think of the word design as more of a verb than a noun. An active process. A process that can contain elements of expression, research, planning, thinking, doing, conversing … but design is best when there is a lot of active exploration, research and process behind the end result.

As a second notion to consider … here is a layman’s linguistic deconstruction of the word as interpreted by someone personally and professionally involved with design for a decade or more. So here is my breakdown by syllable …

The ‘de’ part of DESIGN … ‘de’ reminds me of the word ‘di’ in Italian, both in phonetic | aural similarity and in direct translation of meaning … ‘de’ = ‘of’ in English.

The ’sign’ part of DESIGN … ’sign’ is the root of the word ’significance’.

Literally translated DESIGN means ‘of significance’. More importantly, the interpretation I come away with is something more like the infinitive ‘to bring significance’. I think of it as a process where the designer brings meaning … actually brings something significant to the world. Or at the very least to a certain targeted audience.

So … in the end, we not only need to ask from day to day the all-important question ‘WHAT is DESIGN?’, but we also need to continually update and define ‘WHAT is the role of a DESIGNER?’ … the answers to both of these questions are shifting and changing more and more often in these times, due in part to the speedy development of new technologies and also immensely influenced by a confluence of so many eclectic fields coming together to define and design new significance, new meaning, new thought, and new methods of communication.

View the original LinkedIn Answers question and responses here: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=92232&discussionID=2742196&commentID=3023128&goback=.hom.anh_92232#commentID_3023128

On April 30 they launched the first Playground competition “How to imagine time in the future”. Request an invitation to join us, upload your “realisation” of time and you could win either $20,000 towards tuition fees or project funding if you’re a student, or an inspirational trip to the likes of Freeze London or Art Basel Miami if you’re a seasoned creative pro.

You can enter work in the field of any of the following creative disciplines:

• Music
• Film
• Print design
• 2D animation
• 3D animation
• Motion design
• Illustration
• Fashion

For more information, take a look at the competition terms & conditions

Top Winner FP7 Doha Submitted Raft of Ghost Ads to Dubai Lynx Awards

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The organizers of the Dubai Lynx Awards have stripped the most-awarded agency at last month’s Middle East awards festival of its Agency of the Year title and seven prizes for work that turned out to be scam ads for Samsung, Nissan and a product called Higeen Mouthwash. The agency, FP7 Doha, is part of the Middle East Communication Networks, owned 51% by Interpublic Group of Cos., and works closely with McCann Erickson in the Middle East.

The Dubai festival is done by the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival organization. After the festival ended last month, local bloggers in the Middle East claimed the ads entered by FP7 were fakes and the festival did a more comprehensive investigation.

Scam ads are an ongoing problem at awards shows around the world, and it’s not that unusual for a winner or two to be thrown out during or even after a festival, but the sheer scale of FP7’s ill-gotten gains makes this one of the most rampant cases of festival fakery.

Read More at AdAge

Last year I worked on a type treatment for a logo for a new woman’s beauty line called Kumaara. It just went live. I figured I would share.

Iconic Labs, which is a new health and beauty company dedicated to the development of premium beauty products, just recently announced its official launch into the world of beauty and health.  Iconic Labs is unique in that its primary focus is on skincare and hair care formulations that combine the most sought after, and time proven natural and organic beauty ingredients from around the world with the latest in scientific innovation.

Kumaara which is their latest skin care line for anti-aging combines the most powerful anti-oxidant fruits, a patented growth factor, and advanced wrinkle-fighting ingredients to create one of today’s most unique new contributions to the skincare market. They’ve combined Indian Gooseberry which is recognized as having the highest Vitamin C content of any naturally occurring substance with organic Acai and Goji Berries as well as Floral Seed Extract to create a superior anti-aging elixir.

Example of the logo used on product. (product design was not done by me)

If you’re in Boston this Thursday and would like get a jump start on the weekend you should check out this Bloc Party.

Get your tickets now at www.futureclassic.net