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April 2021

  • What Are NFTs, and How Are They Transforming Digital Art?
    Art

    What Are NFTs, and How Are They Transforming Digital Art?

    Discover the fascinating universe of NFTs, how they benefit the art world, the risks they pose, and why people are concerned about their environmental impact NFTs have taken the creative world by storm in recent weeks and prompted many questions. To fully get our head around this new technology, we need to put the current conversation into context. In February this year, the Nyan Cat meme sold for $600,000. On March 1, visual artist and musician Grimes sold some videos for $6 million. And on March 11, a single jpeg file sold for $69 million. Aside from receiving a lot of attention over recent weeks, the creator of this jpeg–digital artist Mike Winkelmann, best known as Beeple–has become a record holder: 'Everydays: The First 5000 Days' is the third most expensive artwork to be sold by a living artist. What do all of these works have in common? Well, they don't exist in the physical world and have conquered the mainstream.

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  • Interview with Illustrator Sergi Solans, Winner of Domestika Scholarships 2017
    Illustration

    Interview with Illustrator Sergi Solans, Winner of Domestika Scholarships 2017

    One of our 2017 winners tells us how he used 50 free courses to expand his creativity Sergi Solans (@no_topo) is an illustrator, screenprint artist, and graphic designer from Barcelona who specializes in editorial work. His work consists of transforming images and complex ideas into illustrations that complement a text. Thanks to his strong portfolio, Sergi was the winner of one of our Domestika Scholarships following the first edition in 2017. He was granted access to 50 courses to develop his skills and train in creative areas of his choosing. We talked to him about how he used his prize and how it helped him evolve his creative process for working on illustration projects. Find out what benefits the opportunity to win a Domestika Scholarship—now in its third edition—can bring to a creative’s work.

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  • 6 Free Editing Tutorials for Professional and Amateur Photographers
    Teacher Photography

    6 Free Editing Tutorials for Professional and Amateur Photographers

    Learn photo retouching and editing with experts and give your images a professional finish Photo retouching allows you to perfect your photographs and give your images a professional finish. Adobe Photoshop helps you with both minor adjustments and major retouching. We have listed six free Adobe Photoshop tutorials to discover or improve your photo editing options and enhance your jobs. Click on the red links to access the relevant blog post and view the embedded video tutorial. Get started and enjoy the ride! Photoshop Tutorial: Step-by-Step Tips for Retouching Skin Graphic designer and Adobe Photoshop expert Nina Bruno (@ninabruno) shares five essential steps to retouch skin quickly in this tutorial. Even without prior knowledge, you will achieve professional results. Her best tip? Don't go over the top with your retouching!

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  • What Is Retail Design?
    Teacher Design

    What Is Retail Design?

    Learn about the design of commercial spaces, the role they play, and the current trends within this discipline

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  • Curious Minds Podcast: Why Are Artists Hired to Illustrate Trials?
    Illustration

    Curious Minds Podcast: Why Are Artists Hired to Illustrate Trials?

    Discover how illustrators capture what happens behind closed doors with Curious Minds, an original podcast by Domestika Curious Minds is an original podcast by Domestika that explores the curiosities and untold histories of the creative world. Each week we’ll bring you a new episode, interviewing experts and creatives as we dive into the unusual origins of the images, patterns, and designs we take for granted. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to never miss an episode.

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  • What Is 360 Brand Identity and How Does It Help Brand Recognition?
    Marketing

    What Is 360 Brand Identity and How Does It Help Brand Recognition?

    Discover how to integrate your company or brand’s visual resources to improve your brand’s image If you own a business, at some point, you will have thought about ways to improve how you communicate. Embracing a brand identity is the best way to make coherent and effective decisions. A brand identity is defined by a set of graphic and visual elements and guidelines that communicate the story behind your brand: its values and how it interacts with the public. These elements will become easily recognizable once you have created a compelling brand identity. In a world full of stimuli, having a strong brand identity is becoming increasingly important. Today, businesses should consider it an utmost priority.

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  • Free Guide: Light and Shadows in Street Photography
    Teacher Photography

    Free Guide: Light and Shadows in Street Photography

    Find out how to use light consciously in this guide created by brazilian urban photographer Gustavo Minas To find the source of light in an environment or scenario to be photographed, just look at the direction of the shadows. They are the ones that show the distance and intensity of the light source. This tip, taken from the book 50 years: Light, Camera, Action, by film photographer Edgar Moura, was a watershed for the career of photographer Gustavo Minas, specialized in street photography. One of his trademarks is the reflexes of everyday life, which allow the materialization of different points of view in the same image.

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  • Take Part in Domestika Scholarships and Turn Your Creative Passion Into Your Future
    Teacher Domestika

    Take Part in Domestika Scholarships and Turn Your Creative Passion Into Your Future

    You have until April 12 to register your portfolio and be in with a chance of winning 50 courses of your choosing On March 9, 2021, Domestika launched its 3rd edition of Domestika Scholarships, intending to share knowledge with the creative community. Domestika Scholarships was conceived to promote learning across different creative disciplines. This year’s participants are in with the chance of winning 10 scholarships, each offering up 50 courses of each winner’s choosing. That’s a total of 500 online courses for anyone who would like to participate that is over 16 years old: it doesn’t matter where you live or what your educational or professional background is. Domestika is committed to learning. To take a course, there are no limits regarding age, geographical location, time zone, or experience. Domestika brings together some of the most prominent professionals in the creative sector and showcases what they do best. All of our courses are for everyone.

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  • Discover the Incredible Art of Cake Design with Julián Ángel
    Design

    Discover the Incredible Art of Cake Design with Julián Ángel

    The designer behind the creative cake blog Historias del Ciervo shares a selection of his breathtaking designs How many times have you passed by a cake shop and had to stop to visually devour cakes that look more like works of art than something to eat? Creative cake design really is an art. It involves designing, sketching, and planning to pull off a showstopper. T hose who work in this profession think about the same things that, for example, a painter would, such as color schemes and creating textures.

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  • 10 Creative Embroidery Online Courses for Beginners
    Craft

    10 Creative Embroidery Online Courses for Beginners

    Discover some fascinating hand embroidery techniques with our excellent specialists and turn your passion into a profession Over the last ten years, embroidery has become very popular and has gained new artistic, social, and political meaning. Nowadays, it means getting in touch with thousand-year-old artisanal techniques and establishing new connections with our objects and garments. Furthermore, embroidery allows us to create truly unique pieces. To accompany you in a fascinating embroidering adventure, we have selected several courses that will teach you basic embroidery principles while showing you the infinite possibilities of this technique using materials like wood, paper, and fabric. Nine experts share the secrets of their creative processes so that you can also become a professional embroiderer and achieve fantastic designs. Character Illustration with Needle and Thread, a course by Flora Te Sometimes, innovation comes from experimenting and mixing materials and techniques. Embroiderer and illustrator Florencia Toyos (@holaflorate), better known as Flora Te, combines traditional disciplines that have nothing to do with each other, such as embroidery and illustration, to create fun and unusual pieces. Her Diburdaditos, embroidered pins of illustrated characters, are an example of her style. In her course, Flora explains her creative processes to help you get inspired and transform your ideas into a sketch first and later into a final piece. She also demonstrates various embroidery stitches that will help bring your characters to life.

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  • Top 10 Creative Projects of March 2021
    Teacher Domestika

    Top 10 Creative Projects of March 2021

    We put together the projects that received the most likes in March within the Domestika community We kick off the new month by introducing you to the 10 favorite community projects for March. Final projects of courses from different disciplines, teachers' works and commissions are mixed in this space open to creativity. All of them different but with something in common: they are the projects that have received the most likes. In March, watercolor has had a lot of prominence, but also crochet and illustration. Nature has been one of the most inspiring themes and has also been the highlighted theme in other disciplines, such as packaging. And as for digital arts, a work done with the SketchUp design program stands out. To check their creative processes, click on the red titles. Don't forget to add your comment at the end of the article and let us know your favorite.

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  • 12 Online Courses for Creating Children’s Books
    Writing

    12 Online Courses for Creating Children’s Books

    Learn to create a range of illustrated books and albums with a little help from these experts in children’s and young adult literature International Children's Book Day is celebrated every year on April 2, which is also the same day that Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen was born. You are sure to have come across his works, such as The Ugly Duckling, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, and The Little Mermaid, which have also been made into films. This annual celebration aims to fuel children and young adults’ interest in books. Discovering original and inspiring stories on the page helps children and young adults to unleash their imaginations in the real world. These 12 online courses will help you to become an expert in children’s and YA literature and invent a unique language that combines words with illustrations. From picture books to theater books, the possibilities are endless. Creation of a Children's Picturebook, a course by Claudia Rueda When it comes to embarking on the creation of an illustrated children's book, it’s always better to seek out the advice of experts. Claudia Rueda is here to guide you, having published over thirty works and been nominated for important international awards such as the Hans Christian Andersen Award and Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Learn how Claudia plans and elaborates a picture book from scratch, starting with the first idea to creating the layout and finalizing the project before delivering it to a publisher.

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  • What is Contemporary Art?
    Art

    What is Contemporary Art?

    Discover what characterizes contemporary art, and how it differs from modern art Given that there is no approach or style that makes a work of contemporary art easily identifiable, contemporary art is perhaps best defined by how difficult it is to define. Often conflated or confused with "modern art", the term “contemporary art” is sometimes misused. In this post, we explain the difference between modern and contemporary art and look back on the evolution of the latter up until the present day.

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  • The Louvre Shares a New Digital Database Compiling More Than 480,000 Artworks
    Art

    The Louvre Shares a New Digital Database Compiling More Than 480,000 Artworks

    “Collections” is the French museum's new initiative to digitize its 200-year history If you head to the Louvre's website right now, you will encounter the following message, "The Musée du Louvre remains closed until further notice." But while the French museum has closed its doors in the real world, it has thrown them wide open online. Since March 26th, this year, people all over the world have been granted access to a digital database compiling over 480,000 artworks, known as the “Collections” initiative. A revolutionary move that helps to make art history more accessible to all. While it was already possible to visit the museum virtually, the newly configured louvre.fr site now gives you first-hand access to all of the documentation compiled by the Louvre's curators for each piece. This means having access to 480,000 entries, including the images and objective details.

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  • How to Create an Expression Sheet for a Character You’ve Designed
    Illustration

    How to Create an Expression Sheet for a Character You’ve Designed

    An expression sheet is a way to get to know your character and show how they express themselves Designing a new character is not an easy task: you have an idea, you look for reference images, you sketch several versions... When you finally get to a satisfactory point, you have to work out how to convey emotion through their facial expressions and body language. To do so, Caio Martins (@caiorfmartins) recommends creating an expression sheet. This sheet will allow you to understand how your character behaves and looks from different angles in different moods. To create your expression sheet, sketch your character in several different poses. This will help you discover other aspects of your character's personality. Imagine what they look like from behind, sitting, or showing their profile when irritated, surprised, or happy!

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  • Superflat: How Murakami’s Popular Art Movement Emerged
    Art

    Superflat: How Murakami’s Popular Art Movement Emerged

    Pop art is experiencing a revival in Japan thanks to Takashi Murakami Takashi Murakami is a celebrated contemporary Japanese artist. In the early 90s, he rejected modern Japanese art, claiming it was boring and elitist. Instead, he took an interest in post-war Japanese pop culture, in particular the subculture known as Otaku, which also refers to people with a passion for anime, manga, and cosplay. Over a decade, Murakami researched this culture, learning about its relationship with mid-20th century Pop Art and traditional Japanese art, and coined a term that referred to the flat (2D) form associated with Asian graphics, fine arts, and pop culture, as well as Japan’s cultural aesthetic: Superflat. This postmodern art movement was created by a generation of artists born after World War II. It draws on external influences that are reinterpreted to connect with Japanese identity.

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March 2021

  • Silenced Bodies: The Photographer Capturing Female Beauty
    Photography

    Silenced Bodies: The Photographer Capturing Female Beauty

    Photographer Alba Duque explores the concept of beauty in her book of female portraits Alba Duque (@albaduque_ ) is a photographer and art director from Barcelona specializing in commercial photography and portraits. She is an expert in taking beautiful photos that highlight products, personalities, and lifestyles. Given that she has come to know the professional world of poses and post-production tricks so well, Alba decided to develop a book of portraits that explores beauty beyond the idealized bodies that feature so heavily in her commissioned work. Why? Because we are what we see, and in her book, there is so much female beauty to see.

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  • We Talk to Serafim Mendes, Graphic Designer and Winner of Domestika Scholarships 2017
    Design

    We Talk to Serafim Mendes, Graphic Designer and Winner of Domestika Scholarships 2017

    One of the 2017 winners, Serafim Mendes how he’s evolved as a designer thanks to Domestika's 50-course scholarship Serafim Mendes (@serafimmendes) is a young Portuguese designer who is passionate about 3D design and likes to experiment with different textures and materials to create pieces full of color and present different perspectives. Aside from already having participated in the 36 Days of Type challenge, in 2017, he was crowned a winner of Domestika Scholarships. We caught up with Serafim to discuss his career, his progress over the last four years, the influence the scholarship has had on his work, and any advice he would give to those who are starting out and want to participate in the third edition of Domestika Scholarships.

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  • After Effects Tips to Speed Up Your Workflow
    PLUS Teacher 3D & Animation

    After Effects Tips to Speed Up Your Workflow

    Do you want to speed up your workflow in After Effects? Check out these tips from expert Borja Holke You probably already know that Adobe After Effects, one of the best post production and motion graphics software on the market, adds final touches to videos, images, and graphic design pieces. In addition, you can use this software to add movement to your lettering, typography, and illustration projects and help your portfolio stand out from the crowd.

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  • Curious Minds Podcast: What do a DC Villain and Marilyn Monroe Have in Common?
    Design

    Curious Minds Podcast: What do a DC Villain and Marilyn Monroe Have in Common?

    Discover why we use patterns and what they have to say with Curious Minds, an original podcast by Domestika Curious Minds is an original podcast by Domestika that explores the curiosities and untold histories of the creative world. Each week we’ll bring you a new episode, interviewing experts and creatives as we dive into the unusual origins of the images, patterns, and designs we take for granted. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to never miss an episode.

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  • Get Inspired by These 7 Incredible Female Typographers
    Typography, Calligraphy and Lettering

    Get Inspired by These 7 Incredible Female Typographers

    Discover these stereotype-defying women and their creations It's a well-known problem. History often forgets, ignores, or downright omits women's contributions to the field of typography. From their role in developing the first printing presses to the design of modern-day typesets, great women have always stood out in the design world, creating beautiful fonts we commonly use now. Here are 7 of those women who have shaped this fascinating discipline throughout history. Zuzana Licko Czech Republic / United States Notable fonts: Mrs. Eaves, Philosophy, Lo-Res. Zuzana cofounded Emigre Graphics in the 80s, famous for publishing a magazine with the same name dedicated to typography. One of the firsts to adopt the Macintosh, her company is dedicated to traditional and experimental fonts. Five of her fonts now belong to the MoMA design collection, and you can use them in your projects if you have an Adobe license. Find them here.

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  • How Can Artists Tokenize Their Work and Enter the New Crypto Art Market?
    Art

    How Can Artists Tokenize Their Work and Enter the New Crypto Art Market?

    Digital artists share their experiences selling NFT artworks on the new digital art market Over the last month, you have probably heard a lot about the possibility of tokenizing your art. Doing this means turning your work into an NFT (non-fungible token), which allows you to verify the originality of the piece and therefore access a huge emerging market. The emergence of new digital art galleries–or marketplaces–that permit you to buy and sell original digital artworks has greatly aroused the interest of digital artists around the world. But what are NFTs, how are they created, and above all, how do you access these galleries? Three artists from the Domestika community who have ventured into the world of crypto art answer all of our questions and share their own experiences.

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