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July 2020

  • Combat Writer’s Block with This Technique to Beat the Blank Page
    Illustration

    Combat Writer’s Block with This Technique to Beat the Blank Page

    Learn to write stories in a fun and simple way with Natalia Méndez’s creative dice Overcoming the fear of the blank page has never been easy: thinkers, artists, and writers have been faced with creative block throughout history. Fear of failure, a lack of ideas, or the feeling that nobody will be interested in what you have to say, are among the many sentiments that leave us feeling lost and unable to continue our work. Editor and teacher of children's literature Natalia Méndez (@natumendez) explains how to combat creative block by creating dice with ideas and concepts inscribed on their faces to inspire new stories. We explain it step by step below.

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  • Learn how to create a page of a pop-up book with Silvia Hijano Coullaut
    PLUS Teacher Craft

    Learn how to create a page of a pop-up book with Silvia Hijano Coullaut

    Silvia Hijano Coullaut teaches you how to create and configure the main pop-up elements of a pop-up book Pop-up books refer to those that, when opened, have elements that jump in front of our eyes creating incredible effects. Silvia Hijano Coullaut (@silvia_libracos), the founder of the Libracos studio, is a true expert in paper engineering. In this video, she shares with Domestika, in the form of a small creative tidbit, part of her process for creating a pop-up book. Silvia Hijano shows you the combined technique of a basic "V" mechanism with tabs, combining a folded paper—a kind of simple origami—that will fill the whole scene horizontally once the page of the book is opened. Learn how to create pop-up elements of a pop-up book:

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  • Editorial Illustration Tutorial: How to Adapt to Different Layouts
    Teacher Design

    Editorial Illustration Tutorial: How to Adapt to Different Layouts

    Learn how to approach a magazine layout and how to adapt your illustration concept from Emma Hanquist From the pages of magazines to the headers of online articles, editorial illustration is everywhere, using striking imagery to create engaging interpretations of body text. Beyond the creative challenge of creating images that compliment written pieces, editorial illustrators also deal with a unique set of constraints depending on each project, as formatting and page layout can vary greatly even within the same print publication. Knowing how to look at a mockup is crucial to creating impactful editorial and cover illustrations, and requires more than just scaling a drawing down to size. In this tutorial, editorial illustrator Emma Hanquist (@emmahan) explains how to adapt your illustration concepts to different types of page layouts and cover mockups, and warns against common mistakes.

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  • 10 Papercraft Artists You Should Be Following
    Craft

    10 Papercraft Artists You Should Be Following

    The Domestika community lists their favorite papercraft artists Paper isn’t just a material on which we can draw or write, we can work with it in lots of different ways to create unique illustrations, collages, and sculptures. This versatile and affordable material can take many different forms of artistic expression. We asked the Domestika community to list the papercraft artists who they find most inspiring. These were the results: Diana Beltrán (@dianabeltranherrera) Colombian industrial designer Diana Beltrán explores experimental techniques with card and paper. She’s inspired by animals and nature, both in her independent projects as well as her collaborations with big brands. She teaches the Domestika course, Advanced Papercraft Techniques: Designing with Paper.

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  • Motion Graphics: What Is It and What’s It For?
    3D & Animation

    Motion Graphics: What Is It and What’s It For?

    Learn what differentiates motion graphics from animation, and why it is such an effective branch of design Today, motion graphics is a branch of design that is becoming increasingly popular. It’s now known that people pay more attention to videos than still images, even if those videos are just simple GIFs that move very little. If you’re a graphic designer, sooner or later you will come across a client who will ask you to create a piece that requires motion graphics. Learning to do so is sure to help you stand out among the competition. Find out more about this branch of design below. What is motion graphics? Motion graphics is essentially a type of animation. However, it has a different purpose. The term “animation” can refer to all sorts of techniques used to make images move, such as those seen in animated films and series. In this sense, animation is a basic component of narration and storytelling. Instead, motion graphics is a particular type of design, which applies movement to certain elements in a composition in order to capture the viewer’s attention. In this video, you can see some examples of motion graphics created by Guillermo Zapiola (@guillermo_zapiola):

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  • Brand Personality: How To Be Authentic
    Teacher Design

    Brand Personality: How To Be Authentic

    Brands, there are a lot of them. Brands with personality, not so many. How do you create a brand that stands out? There’s a phrase that I love and with which I couldn’t agree more: “Beauty attracts attention, personality makes you unforgettable.” I don’t know who said it first. We heard it from a client and it’s been stuck in our heads ever since. It’s said that our role as designers is, among other things, to create visual identities that are different and attractive; that turn heads and cause people to pick the products they represent off of shelves crammed with shapes, colors, and endless options; visual identities that people want to follow on Instagram; that they fall in love with. But we should never limit ourselves to only creating aesthetic solutions. Content defines form. The concept comes first. If you learn to define a brand’s personality, then you will understand its sense of style instead of trying to dress it up in something it doesn’t feel comfortable wearing.

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  • Domestika Diary: Tropico Photo
    Teacher Photography

    Domestika Diary: Tropico Photo

    The photography and art direction duo talk about their process and share how they’re staying creative under quarantine The past few months have changed how a lot of creatives work, even those who were already used to working from home. But for Forrest Aguar and Michelle Norris, the creative duo behind Tropico Photo, that adjustment hasn’t made their work any less vibrant. Combining bold colors and shapes, their striking images play with an ambiguous sense of time and place. These stylized shots, and the colorful dreamworld they create, have made the duo popular with clients like Atlanta Magazine, Allbirds, Postmates, and Google for Startups. In this Domestika diary, they show off their living space and explain how they use it in their work, talk about their new routines and sources of inspiration under quarantine, and share their creative process.

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  • How to Choose a Camera
    Photography

    How to Choose a Camera

    Photography experts share their tips for buying a camera and getting started in professional photography Photography is one of the most revolutionary inventions in human history. Its advance has been such that practically anyone now has a camera and knows how to operate it. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce first envisioned this device in 1826. He used a box made of wood and waited 8 hours of exposure to obtain the first photographic image. But what should we take into account when buying a professional camera? What are the essential characteristics to check and keep in mind? Various photography experts offer their advice to the Domestika community to help choose a professional camera for multiple areas.

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  • Adding Watercolor to Your Sketchbook Drawings
    Illustration

    Adding Watercolor to Your Sketchbook Drawings

    Mattias Adolfsson shows you how a hint of color will take your sketches to the next level and add depth Mattias Adolfsson (@mattiasadolfsson) is an illustrator living in a small town in Sweden, called Sigtuna, just outside of Stockholm. As a young adult, Mattias studied engineering and architecture before switching to graphic design, all the while continuing to draw in his spare time and develop his own unique style. During his degree, he became interested in 3D modeling, using it to build his own universes and tell fantastical stories. For his thesis project, he used 3D design and animation to create a visual piece about three cosmonauts traveling to Mars–a story he had developed over many years in his sketchbook. After graduating from university with a master’s in graphic design, Mattias worked for a decade in the computer games industry. In 2007, he left Electronic Arts to become a freelance illustrator. Since then, he has been commissioned by the likes of WIRED, Google, The New Yorker, Nickelodeon, Hollywood Reporter, Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, Disney, Amnesty International, and many more.

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  • How to Use Guides and Grids in Adobe XD
    Teacher Design

    How to Use Guides and Grids in Adobe XD

    Ethan Parry explains how to use guides and grids to create successful prototypes when designing UX interfaces using Adobe XD As UX grows to play an even larger role in the way designers, developers, and businesses serve the needs of their users, the ability to easily iterate and test new solutions has become invaluable. As a leading design software for UX interfaces, Adobe XD makes it easy and fast to prototype and test different UX designs. Beyond mastering its basic functions, understanding how to use the software’s guides and grids is crucial to creating prototypes that are effective, aesthetically pleasing, and consistent across the entire user experience. Ethan Parry (@ethanparry), a service designer and UX research consultant, regularly uses Adobe XD in his own work. Here he explains the different functions of guides and grids, and how to use them to get the most out of your work.

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  • Domestika Creatives: Edel Rodriguez
    Illustration

    Domestika Creatives: Edel Rodriguez

    We talked to the artist and illustrator responsible for some of Time Magazine's most emblematic covers, Edel Rodriguez At the age of 26, Edel Rodriguez became Time Magazine's youngest ever art director for both their Canadian and Latin American editions. This extraordinary achievement is just one part of the fascinating life of one of the most interesting artists in America, a multidisciplinary creative who has created emblematic covers, illustrated children's books, and worked on posters for theater and cinema. A brilliant career in which his Cuban origins have played an essential role and which, in recent years, has gained acclaim due to his brilliant work as a cover artist on the policies of the Trump administration. Rodríguez is the author of some of Time's most popular (and, above all, most political) covers but his career is much more than this. We took the opportunity to interview him in New York, at the School of Visual Arts, to go over the milestones of his life and learn about his working philosophy. Watch our conversation below:

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  • Weaving Tutorial: How to Mount a Circular Loom
    Teacher Craft

    Weaving Tutorial: How to Mount a Circular Loom

    Learn these basic tips from Ancestral to keep in mind before starting to weave on a circular loom Weaving with a round base opens up a world of possibilities of unique tapestries and textile pieces, but to begin with it is important to create a solid base: the warp, a set of longitudinal threads placed in tension on a loom, will be the foundation of your work. In this tutorial, Erika Pineda, textile artist and founder of Ancestral (@ancestral_co), a brand dedicated to the production of hand-woven decorative pieces, shows us how to assemble a warp in two different ways: with and without a central binding. You can watch the video here.

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  • Free Theoretical Guide for Manga Characters Creation
    Illustration

    Free Theoretical Guide for Manga Characters Creation

    Get your Japanese comic book project going and learn how to design your characters Andrea Jen (@andrea_jen) is an Argentinian illustrator and author specialized in manga creation. Since 2010 she has made almost a dozen publications in this genre, and has won important recognizing such as the Silent Manga Audition Masterclass Certificate (2017). For her, the most important thing in a manga project is the creation of the characters that will star in the core idea or concept that you have in mind. "What do you want to tell?". It's the first question that according to this artist you should ask yourself, so that you can get down to work and define the universe of characters that will tell the story for you by answering questions such as "What are their ideals?", "What moves them?" or "What experiences have marked you?".

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  • How to Make a Rotoscope Animation in Photoshop
    Illustration

    How to Make a Rotoscope Animation in Photoshop

    Learn how to create an animation with the rotoscope technique using Adobe Photoshop in just six steps Rotoscoping is a technique that involves redrawing a shape—tracing each scene with any drawing technique—frame by frame, based on a sequence of real action images, like a video clip. This generates a silhouette with realistic movement that can be used as a reference to animate a character. The technique was used in films such as A Scanner Darkly or Waking Life by Richard Linklater. One of the experts in this technique is Gonzalo Cordero (@gonzalo_cordero), illustrator, animator, and motionographer who will teach us how to create a rotoscope animation in Adobe Photoshop, which is the perfect way to familiarize yourself with this kind of animation.

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  • Illustration Tutorial: How to Export Your Artwork Step by Step
    Teacher Design

    Illustration Tutorial: How to Export Your Artwork Step by Step

    Learn the basic steps to export a finished illustration project with Silvio Díaz Labrador in three different ways Exporting a piece of artwork correctly is a vital step in any graphic design or digital illustration project. There is no point in spending hours preparing and polishing a piece in Adobe Illustrator, if afterwards its print or the resulting file loses quality and detracts from your work. That is why graphic designer and art director Silvio Díaz Labrador gives us these key tips to create our projects' final artworks in three different ways according to our needs. Learn how to do it without sacrificing the quality of your work with the following tutorial:

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  • What Is Self-Portraiture and How to Master It
    Photography

    What Is Self-Portraiture and How to Master It

    Learn more about self-portraits, some tips for doing them and what this artistic genre involves In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries chose "selfie" as the word of the year after estimating that its use had grown by 17,000%. Behind the increased use of this word was, obviously, the smartphone. With their embedded cameras, they have made self-portraits one of the most popular photographic genres. At the most artistic end of this photographic discipline is Cristina Otero (@cristinaotero), whose self-portraits push the edge that separates photography from painting, and could be easily elevated to the category of art. Her work focuses on her life, and everything around her, from anecdotes, turned into metaphors, to verses by her favorite authors. This is how she discovered her best muse in herself.

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  • Challenge: Create a Low Cost Still Life Set
    Design

    Challenge: Create a Low Cost Still Life Set

    Daniela and Mara, AKA the Flaminguettes, are a duo of creative directors who have worked with clients such as Sony, Adidas, and Nike Finding a good design proposal requires a lot of work, making it original and fun is even harder. But, Daniela and Mara, the creative director duo known as Flaminguettes (@flaminguettes), have the energy to take on any creative challenge, designing sets for brands like Air France, Cirque du Soleil, Nike, Adidas, and Sony. This is why we took advantage of the last Domestika Cup in Colombia to propose a Domestika Challenge: would you be able to conceive a low-cost still life, using only materials and objects within everyone's reach? See how they did in the video below:

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  • What is 3D Printing?
    3D & Animation

    What is 3D Printing?

    Designer and maker Agustín ‘Flowalistik’ Arroyo explains how FDM 3D printing works and the different types of 3D printing that exist

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  • Ukiyo-e: the Beauty Behind the Classic Japanese Woodblock Prints (For Free)
    Art

    Ukiyo-e: the Beauty Behind the Classic Japanese Woodblock Prints (For Free)

    Find hundreds of thousands of prints on the most extensive online ukiyo-e database Woodblock printing is one of the most famous Japanese art forms, an elaborate technique that was first used by temple monks to reproduce Buddhist texts efficiently. We associate it nowadays with ukiyo-e art, illustrations from the 17th to 19th centuries that capture scenes from everyday life: kabuki theater, geishas and courtesans, sumo wrestlers, folk tales, and landscapes.

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  • Free Download: Stages to Complete a Painting with Ink and Watercolor
    Illustration

    Free Download: Stages to Complete a Painting with Ink and Watercolor

    Illustrator Alex Hillkurtz shares a visual guide of the stages used in watercolor and ink painting Alex Hillkurtz (@alexhillkurtzart) was born in England and grew up in California where he is a renowned storyboard artist for feature films, television, and commercials. His film credits include Argo, Almost Famous, It’s Complicated, and many others. He uses the language of cinema to compose his images, moving beyond what one sees and depicting what he wants others to see. He believes that in our overly crowded lives, sketching and painting invites us to move at a more deliberate pace, giving us a true sense of place, where unexpected stories are revealed.

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  • How to decorate with plants
    Craft

    How to decorate with plants

    Plants have amazing health benefits and can transform spaces Plants can bring a lot of benefits to any area. They purify the air and give us that wonderful feeling of being in a fresh environment. Studies have shown that our concentration increases when we are around them. They also improve our workplace, dampening background noise, and helping us be more efficient. In short, they improve our daily life. But plants are also a design element that can be considered when designing the interior of a space. They can completely transform a room, giving it a more natural and earthy look. If you want to use plants for your interior decoration, Xènia Bas (@xenia_bas) is a ceramicist and artist who knows everything there is to know about the subject. Here are her tips and tricks: Evaluate the space

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  • Mood Boards for Brand Identity Design
    Design

    Mood Boards for Brand Identity Design

    Design studio The Negra teaches you how to conceptualize a visual universe Mood boards are among the best starting points that any creative can use before embarking on a new project. In identity and brand design, they l help you share your vision with your client and make sure that they agree on the general path the design will take. For creative studio The Negra (@thenegra), the mood board is a way of understanding the graphic universe in which a brand develops. Learn their method of searching for visual references, building boards, and visualizing a concept.

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  • Get Inspired by 7 3D Artists and CG Illustrators
    3D & Animation

    Get Inspired by 7 3D Artists and CG Illustrators

    Discover the work of these creatives and their spectacular compositions Computer-generated images can bring life to shapes, movements, colors, and creatures that only exist in their creator's imagination. Meet 7 talented illustrators and animators from different countries who give life to fantastic characters and beautiful 3D worlds: Frank J. Guzzone Frank is a multidisciplinary artist and art director based in New York who specializes in CG animations. He has worked with numerous international brands, and in his projects, he plays with impossible physics in vibrant colored universes.

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  • What Is Cloning in Photoshop?
    Photography

    What Is Cloning in Photoshop?

    The Photoshop clone stamp allows naturally retouching an image as if you were working with a brush When we talk about cloning in Photoshop, we are talking about an image retouching tool that allows you to copy an area of ​​the image exactly, and paint it in a new place with the brush. This tool is often used to remove unwanted objects within an image, soften shadows or textures, edit photographs, or create a natural transition between tones and textures. The clone stamp: a powerful retouching tool The clone stamp is one of the favorite tools of those who work in photo editing using Photoshop since it allows them to retouch and edit the image from samples taken of the original photograph, thus achieving a perfect result. Since it works as a digital brush—its size, hardness, and shape can be modified—it is very easy to adapt it to each project. This allows editing the smallest details without the viewer noticing that the image has been manipulated.

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  • Domestika Diary: COVL
    Teacher Design

    Domestika Diary: COVL

    The multidisciplinary self-taught artist talks about her process and why creative exploration is so important to her. Just like there are no limits to a person’s creativity, there are seemingly no limits on the number of mediums available to experiment with. In fact, dabbling in new techniques and trying new tools can be a way of expanding your own skill set and discovering different forms of creative output. For multidisciplinary artist COVL, whose clients include Nike, Netflix, Instagram, and Cadillac, experimenting with mediums outside her comfort zone is the key to improving her craft. In this Domestika Diary, she talks about her process, her experience working from home, and how the diversity in her work helps her see and find creative opportunities everywhere she looks.

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  • 5 Essential Courses to Start Your Sketchbook Habit
    Illustration

    5 Essential Courses to Start Your Sketchbook Habit

    Take your sketching and creativity to another level with these experts The sketchbook is the perfect tool to develop as a creative. Regardless of your experience, it is a medium to develop in almost any creative discipline. Establishing the habit of always having your sketchbook with you will help you create surprising and innovative projects. Start to fill one up right now with ideas, sketches, watercolors, and anything else that might occur to you with the help of these five experts.

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