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December 2020

  • Work Out Your Instagram Color Palette
    Teacher Marketing

    Work Out Your Instagram Color Palette

    This tool will show you which colors you use the most on your Instagram profile Color can be a window to your personality and an essential tool to create visual harmony. Use it correctly, and you'll be able to convey emotions and messages in a much clearer fashion. It doesn't matter if your Instagram account is personal, professional, or you are representing a brand: if you take color seriously, you need to explore Color Kuler, a service that analyzes the most prominent colors in the images you post on your feed, giving you a good idea of what palette represents you, and greater control over what your profile looks like. Try this tool, discover the colors your followers associate with you, and compare it with others.

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  • Free Download: Miniature Christmas Embroidery Patterns
    Teacher Craft

    Free Download: Miniature Christmas Embroidery Patterns

    Decorate your tree with unique embroidery and make this Christmas an even craftier holiday In the hands of Silvia Peligro (@silviapeligro), the artisanal work of embroidery gets distilled into tiny, beautiful pieces. This type of small-scale craft is perfect for creating unique decorative pieces for your Christmas tree. Today, the Mexican embroiderer shares six patterns that you can use to make beautiful handmade ornaments to decorate your house with this Christmas. You can download Silvia Peligro's miniature Christmas embroidery patterns at the end of this article.

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  • Crochet Tutorial: How to Read a Pattern
    Teacher Craft

    Crochet Tutorial: How to Read a Pattern

    Learn how to read the symbols on a crochet chart and understand a pattern, with Steel and Stitch Crochet charts, patterns, and their symbols can be intimidating to anyone starting out. However, they are a lot simpler than they might appear. In this tutorial, Emma Friedlander-Collins, also known as Steel and Stitch (@steelandstitch), explains how to decode a crochet chart, explaining what each abbreviation and symbol means and and how to use this helpful tool in your next design.

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  • The Letters of the Alphabet as Kamasutra Positions
    Writing

    The Letters of the Alphabet as Kamasutra Positions

    Artist Malika Favre transformed the 26 letters of the alphabet into a book of erotic writing and illustrations French artist Malika Favre has just published Kama Sutra A-Z, an audacious and original book. The 26 letters of the alphabet have been turned into artistic illustrations alluding to sexual freedom and expression. Individually laid out page by page, Malika’s illustrations are accompanied by handwritten erotic texts, focusing on poetry. Celebrated poets such as Sandra Cisneros, Yusef Komunyakaa, Stephanie Burt, Vanessa Kisuule, and Kyle Dargan have been included in the book–all of whom have inspired Malika over the years. Designed by Counter-Print, the book is the culmination of a project exhibited at London’s Somerset House in 2013, the year in which Favre was selected to take part in Pick Me Up. We interviewed the author to learn about her creative process and where she conceived the idea to combine the Kamasutra positions with the letters of the alphabet. She explains what the relationship between erotic writing and illustration is.

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  • Top 15 courses for those who love crafts
    Craft

    Top 15 courses for those who love crafts

    Discover how to start working with carpentry, embroidery, ceramics, concrete and crochet with the best specialists Talking about crafts is opening the doors to a fascinating universe that brings together numerous manual techniques. From creating ceramics to dyeing fabrics with natural pigments, the possibilities are endless. If you love crafts or know someone who wants to venture into the area, there are several worlds that live side by side and can be explored together. To help you decide where to start or which gift may be most suitable for a friend or family member, we have selected several techniques, and the best specialists, in 15 unmissable courses.

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  • 5 Free Classes in Food Photography
    Teacher Photography

    5 Free Classes in Food Photography

    Available for a limited time only, these classes will show you how to take great photographs of your favorite recipes A quick scroll on Instagram proves that food photography has made a big impact on social media. You’ll also see how difficult it is to stand out amongst the sea of images that have been hashtagged with popular categories like #foodporn. When going up against this strong competition, it’s a good idea to learn from the best: from coming up with a concept to setting up lighting. These five free classes are an invitation into the exciting world of food styling and the range of skills you can master. Free Class: Set and Lighting A photography set is where the magic begins, and creating it, of course, has its secrets. In this class from the course Food Photography Basic Techniques, commercial photographer Ernesto López explains how to create a workspace that helps you concentrate on your creative process. He will also teach you how to control light so that your photographs look great from the get-go. In summary, you will learn how to assemble a set and will discover the basic knowledge you need to take a spectacular photograph.

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  • Top 15 Digital Marketing Trends for 2021
    Marketing

    Top 15 Digital Marketing Trends for 2021

    Discover the digital marketing trends that will make their mark in 2021 Business interactions are increasingly taking place in the virtual world. Therefore, planning and developing digital marketing strategies that are relevant to the current market is essential. It is a sure-fire way to help you reach new customers and strengthen your relationship with those already loyal to your brand. To help you with this task, check out the incoming trends for 2021 across this field. This list not only takes into account predictions from international publications such as Business Insider and Forbes, it also draws on information shared in several Domestika courses dedicated to the best digital marketing techniques. Make sure to stay up to date. In a market as vast and competitive as the Internet, every little detail that makes you stand out is vital and may be the factor that determines whether a business is successful or not.

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  • Domestika Creatives: Birgit Palma
    Design

    Domestika Creatives: Birgit Palma

    We talked to lettering artist and illustrator Birgit Palma about how she captures the essence of an idea in her typography Birgit Palma has created lettering and graphic designs for clients such as Adobe, Samsung, and Coca Cola. But her path into design was rather unconventional, and it began with the video game Counter-Strike. She welcomed us into her home and studio in Barcelona to share how she creates the lettering designs that have made her one of the city’s brightest and most sought after young designers.

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  • Design Better Websites Using These Wireframes
    Design

    Design Better Websites Using These Wireframes

    A good wireframe is the first step to a successful website and these are the different types Wireframes are schematic drawings of a web page that help us plan the distribution of content or communicate to a client how the users will interact with their page. Javier Usobiaga (@htmlboy) is the founder of Swwweet, a web design studio in Barcelona that has worked with numerous companies and institutions. Over the years, Javier has created countless wireframes for his own projects, and he classifies them according to their design and function: Bird's-eye view This is a global view of the website's navigation tree. It explains how users would move through the different pages and approximate the UX elements they'll encounter.

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  • 5 Photographers Who Defined the Self-portrait
    Photography

    5 Photographers Who Defined the Self-portrait

    Discover painting’s influence on the photographic self-portrait and how it can build a visual narrative Across all artistic disciplines, self-reflection can be expressed in different ways. The creator inevitably leaves a piece of himself in each of their creations. Since the days of Ancient Greece, it has been believed that creativity goes hand in hand with self-exploration. When it comes to the self-portrait, there is a whole other level of communication between the artist and spectator. The artist shows themselves exactly as they are, or, how they want others to perceive them.

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  • Free Download: Sketching Brush for Photoshop
    Teacher Illustration

    Free Download: Sketching Brush for Photoshop

    This brush for Adobe Photoshop is intended to replace the pencil in your digital sketches Just as we do when we draw on paper using a pencil, the first step in the drawing process is sketching. For many, the first idea is captured directly in an analog way, but it is always necessary to have a first approach to obtain an excellent final result. Illustrator Germán González (@germangonzalez) carries out his entire drawing process in Photoshop, and he soon realized that in order to work in the way he felt most comfortable, with the tools offered by the software, he had to create his own brushes. This brush that he shares with you today is the one he always uses to sketch and capture his first illustrated ideas on canvas.

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  • Top 10 Photography Books of 2020
    Photography

    Top 10 Photography Books of 2020

    If you're looking for a book to give to a professional photographer or photography enthusiast, check out these 10 titles that we recommend History repeats itself: the year draws to an end and we celebrate and exchange gifts with our loved ones. If you have a photographer or photography enthusiast on your gift list, it’s hard to go wrong with a great photography book. In this blog post, we share our top ten recommendations to help you find the ideal title. Don't forget to write a personal inscription! Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love, by Hugh Nini This book is a visual narrative of rare sensitivity showcasing Hugh Nini & Neal Treadwell’s previously unpublished collection of over 2700 unique photographs taken between the 1850s and 1950s, depicting romantic love between men. The images are almost all anonymous and from all over the world. They were sourced from flea markets, family archives, and online auctions. The exceptional quality of the collection and the emotions it conjures up are reasons alone to include it on our top ten list.

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  • 4 Great Tools to Manage Your Social Media Activity
    Marketing

    4 Great Tools to Manage Your Social Media Activity

    Manage and optimize your brand’s social media activity with top suggestions from an expert Hana Klokner (@hanajayklokner) is a social media marketing specialist who works with major companies like Amazon, the United Nations, GLH Hotels, and smaller personal brands. In her Domestika course, Hana helps build a community management strategy and establish effective relationships with followers and customers using popular social media platforms. To ensure you build a thriving community around your brand and are on top of your social media strategy, Hana recommends using some practical tools and apps to make this job more manageable.

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  • 5 Tips for Working With Embroidery
    Craft

    5 Tips for Working With Embroidery

    Get expert advice on how to improve your techniques and turn pro People have embroidered for centuries, using this technique to decorate and customize garments and make them more special. Over time, this practice has evolved. Once embroidered pieces were something only the rich and powerful could afford. Now, they are commonly owned by people from all different walks of life. Embroidery is a versatile form of expression with few restrictions, popular across numerous cultures, from east to west, and which has become a very accessible art form. Paula Linard (@paula.linard) has over five years of experience as a professional embroiderer. For her, this medium offers infinite possibilities, from decorating paintings, personalizing clothing–both old and new–to making more elaborate pieces. "There’s a great demand for pieces made for babies or to give as gifts. We just need to develop our drawing skills a little more in order to put our stamp on a piece. We need to focus on the artistic side of this craft, which is a form of expression. It's good to try and create your own drawing, evolve your own line–it doesn't have to be perfect. I like to observe and appreciate the imperfections in my stitches and drawings. It doesn't always look so attractive at first but the final result always makes me happy, because I have created it with my own hands, from start to finish. That is invaluable", she says.

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  • 5 Great Comic Adaptations for Television
    Writing

    5 Great Comic Adaptations for Television

    A compilation of fantastic graphic novels that were successfully adapted for the small screen Gone are the days in which graphic novels were considered lesser work. Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the first-ever comic to receive the Pulitzer Prize, Joe Sacco’s comics journalism, and Alan Moore, possibly the greatest artist in this genre’s history, are brilliant proof that a great story can be told in all sorts of formats. Over the last few years, to confirm comic books’ growing standing, we have seen many characters leave the pages and come to life in cinema, TV, and other platforms. The most significant success in the history of cinema, Endgame, earning 2798 million dollars at the box office, is based on the superhero comic book, The Avengers.

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  • Find the Perfect Gift for Creative Minds at Domestika
    Teacher Domestika

    Find the Perfect Gift for Creative Minds at Domestika

    Find out how to gift a Domestika course in a few easy steps Creative people love to learn: for their professional development, to discover new techniques, and to learn new skills. A restless mind will always enjoy the opportunity to learn something new. Find out different ways to buy a Domestika course as a gift, following a few easy steps: Plan your gifts by making lists If you enjoy planning and want to save a list of the courses you would like to purchase for yourself or others, use the option Course list. Simply access the Lists section of your profile page, and click on Add new list. You can make these lists public or private, and make as many as you wish. You can also add courses directly from the Courses page (without needing to go to your profile page) by clicking on the +List icon that appears when you hover the cursor over the course name. You can see some examples of lists shared with you by Domestika teachers on this link.

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  • Free Download: Scale guide for building models
    Architecture & Space

    Free Download: Scale guide for building models

    This guide by Julieta La Valle will help you understand the main scales used in the construction of models for architectural projects When entering the world of model making, one of the first elements that we have to take into account is the concept of scale: the size, relative to the real world, that we will give to each of the furniture and other elements that we want to build. For this reason, sculptor, filmmaker and art director Julieta La Valle (@julietalavalle) shares a scale guide with Domestika. In it you will find very useful information: first, a graphic explanation of the usual scale measurement formula (for example, 1: 1, 1:10, 1:20 ...), which is nothing other than the size that would correspond to the object in the real world and its size transported to the model (for example, 1:10 means 1 meter in the real world and 10 centimeters in the model).

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  • How to Curate Your Instagram Grid Layout
    Marketing

    How to Curate Your Instagram Grid Layout

    Find out how you can make the most of Instagram to show off your creative portfolio Customizing your Instagram feed is a great idea if you want to use your account as a portfolio. A well-curated feed can transmit what you do in seconds. If your work is visual, knowing how to order your posts–so that they stand out more as a whole–is key when it comes to attracting new followers and showing off your work. Or maybe you are just interested in experimenting with your personal page. The well-organized and harmonious effects you achieve when you plan your posts in advance are known as Instagram Grid Layouts, Puzzles, or Mosaics. To incorporate them into your feed, all you need to do is follow different publishing methods and try out some of the tools that photographer Pati Gagarin (@patigagarin) recommends in her course, Instagram as a Photography Portfolio.

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  • What Is Embroidery and What Are the Main Types of Embroidery?
    Craft

    What Is Embroidery and What Are the Main Types of Embroidery?

    Learn about the infinite possibilities of this technique If we wanted to define it in the simplest way, we could say that embroidery is a technique that consists of using a needle and thread to decorate fabric. However, there is so much more to be said about this technique, which is enjoying something of a renaissance right now. What was once written off as an insignificant craft activity, embroidery is now recognized as its own art form. Learn more about this exciting activity, which you can start practicing right away.

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  • Beginner and Advanced Watercolor Painting FAQs
    Illustration

    Beginner and Advanced Watercolor Painting FAQs

    Ana Victoria Calderón answers what you’ve always wanted to ask about watercolors Ana Victoria Calderón (@anavictoriana) is a painter and illustrator who uses watercolors as her primary medium. She creates art for Hallmark, Papyrus, Demdaco, Galison, and editorial work for Glamour, Vanity Fair, InStyle, and Elle. One of her three Domestika courses, Modern Watercolor Techniques, has just reached 100K students! To celebrate this achievement, Ana Victoria has been answering some frequently asked questions about watercolor materials and techniques and giving professional tips in a live chat for the Domestika Live series. Read some of her answers below:

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  • 7 Sites for Storing Your Photos in the Cloud
    Photography

    7 Sites for Storing Your Photos in the Cloud

    Discover the storage services you can use to organize and back up your images A few weeks ago, Google announced that it will no longer offer free unlimited photo storage after June 2021. Following then, if you require more than the 15GB of storage space available for free, you will need a sign up to a paid plan (as is the case if you have Google Drive). If that’s not enough or you’re looking for alternative options, we’ve compiled a list of sites that offer image storage services: Amazon Prime Photos If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can take advantage of their unlimited photo storage service and free space for up to 5GB for videos. Other services are also offered, such as the option to share albums with other users or get images printed and delivered to your home. Price For more information on prices, check how much an Amazon Prime subscription costs where you live.

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  • Tat*: A Graphic Designer’s Addiction to Ephemera and ‘Bad’ Design
    Writing

    Tat*: A Graphic Designer’s Addiction to Ephemera and ‘Bad’ Design

    A book of tat and ephemera collected by one of the UK’s most accomplished graphic designers, Andy Altmann Most scrapbooks are tucked away in a drawer or on a shelf somewhere, never to be seen again. But, when a scrapbook is compiled by one of Britain’s foremost designers and ephemera aficionados, it’s worth taking another look. Andy Altmann is the co-founder of Why Not Associates, the design studio behind brands like the Pompidou Center, BBC, Channel 4, and the Tate Modern. He is also an ephemera addict who has decided to put said addiction to good use by publishing a book called tat*. *tat (noun) – anything that looks cheap, is of low quality, or in bad condition; junk, rubbish, debris, detritus, crap

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  • 5 Free Classes: Tips for Packing Your Craft or Handmade Pieces
    Teacher Craft

    5 Free Classes: Tips for Packing Your Craft or Handmade Pieces

    Craft and DIY professionals show you how to keep your creations safe during transfers If you love creating with your hands, you will know how fragile some of your most beloved pieces can be. This is especially true when you work, for example, with ceramics. However, the transfer of our creations is inevitable: either by the same creative process or because we want to put the objects in circulation, there is a moment when we will have to expose them. These 5 free classes allow you to discover how to protect and transport your pieces without unnecessary risks and taking care of every last detail. Learn from the experience of the experts. To watch each class, just click on its red title. Enjoy!

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  • Copywriting Dos and Don’ts with Carla González
    Writing

    Copywriting Dos and Don’ts with Carla González

    Top marketing copywriter Carla González shares her vital Dos and Don’ts. Being a good copywriter is about much more than knowing how to write. Copywriting involves creating texts for advertising. As such, it persuades and informs, which is a more complex task. To ensure your words convey precisely what you need to say in the clearest, most direct and entertaining manner, you need to master a series of techniques and learn to apply them on a daily basis. Carla González (@carlagoon) has worked as a marketing editor for brands including IKEA, BMW, Vueling, Banco Sabadell and Casio. She shares her experience and defines her top three key copywriting Dos and top three key copywriting Don’ts. Find out what they are in this video:

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  • Illustrator Tutorial: 17 Essential Keyboard Shortcuts for Illustrated Lettering
    Teacher Typography, Calligraphy and Lettering

    Illustrator Tutorial: 17 Essential Keyboard Shortcuts for Illustrated Lettering

    Learn essential Adobe Illustrator shortcuts that will improve your workflow when designing illustrated lettering When working with software like Adobe Illustrator, there are often commands and tools that you use frequently, making shortcuts a great way to save time and maintain your creative focus. For Birgit Palma (@birgitpalma), an illustrator and multidisciplinary designer who specializes in creating illustrated letterforms, Adobe Illustrator shortcuts are a crucial part of her workflow. In this tutorial she explains 17 important shortcuts and how they will help you when designing illustrated letterforms.

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