Inspiration

Expand your personal library of references and get to know the work of creatives from various disciplines.

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  • 15 Food Photography Ideas To Try This Holiday Season
    Photography

    15 Food Photography Ideas To Try This Holiday Season

    Discover the possibilities to photograph your favorite dishes during the holidays and share on social media What would the holidays be without our favorite dishes? Without a doubt, the creation of fond memories often happens when we share food at the table. Food photography is that creative discipline in which everything that food makes us feel is transferred to an attractive visual language. During this holiday season, prepare your camera (or your mobile) to capture the dishes that you will enjoy with friends or family, and share your results on your social media. Below, members of Domestika's community share projects that will whet your appetite to create. If you want to see the details of each project and more images of the series, click on its red title.

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  • 7 Examples of Architectural Visualization to Inspire Your Future Projects
    Architecture & Space

    7 Examples of Architectural Visualization to Inspire Your Future Projects

    Discover some incredible examples that use Unreal Engine 4 Architectural visualization is a discipline that merges architecture, design, and illustration. The purpose is to attractively represent architectural projects. Architect and info-architecture expert Miguel Albo (@miguel_albo) explains that this process resembles creating a simple video game. After defining some basic elements' properties, you will be able to recreate a real space, or create an entirely new virtual one.

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  • Marcelo Tas, Mònica Rodríguez, Cecilia Tham on Working Remotely
    Teacher Marketing

    Marcelo Tas, Mònica Rodríguez, Cecilia Tham on Working Remotely

    Three professionals working in communications, entrepreneurship, and business reflect on their 'extreme' experiences of working from home It was already becoming an ongoing/long-term trend. It’s now become an imperative: the new normal. Remote working was already the standard for many creative professionals, but for others, it has marked a significant change. Studies carried out in countries like Spain, the United States, China, and South Africa have shown that employee productivity can increase by up to 15% just by working from home. "In the past, the words 'working from home' conjured up images of people lying half-naked on a couch or in a bathtub while tapping away at their laptops. These clichés have been replaced by the truth: people who are able to reconcile their work life and home life, without having to make personal sacrifices, are more productive and happier," says Nicholas Bloom, a researcher and professor at Stanford University in the United States. Nicholas led a macro study on remote working involving employees from companies in China. The study highlighted the benefits of working from home. Marcelo Tas (@marcelo_tas), Mònica Rodríguez Limia (@rodriguezmon) and Cecilia Tham, professionals working in communications, entrepreneurship and business, tell us about and reflect on their own “extreme” experiences of working from home. Discover more in the video below:

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  • Meet Amy Pearson and Her Beautifully Illustrated Portraits
    Illustration

    Meet Amy Pearson and Her Beautifully Illustrated Portraits

    Be inspired by the unique style of her illustrations and her stunningly lifelike portraits Amy Pearson (@amypearsondesign) is a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator specialized in creating art that combines analog and digital techniques. At the heart of Amy Pearson’s work are beautiful images of women who display power and strength. She has worked with clients like The Beauty Effect, Nylon, and more. Her work has included magazine spreads, privately commissioned portraits, and other projects showcasing her unique creative style, and she markets her self-directed artwork through her website. In her Domestika course, Amy seamlessly combines graphite, watercolor, and Photoshop to create a stunningly lifelike portrait.

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  • Domestika Diary: Naíma Almeida
    Art

    Domestika Diary: Naíma Almeida

    Visual artist Naíma Almeida sheds light on her creative routine during lockdown and her experience experimenting with augmented reality Our creative processes are unique. They are influenced by different circumstances; they are a result of our cultural references, the feelings we have at the time, the tools we have available, and of course, the environment in which we find ourselves. We can’t escape these elements, not even in lockdown. In this Domestika Diary, visual artist Naíma Almeida shares her routine, creative processes, thoughts, and creations during lockdown. Discover more below:

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  • 3 Websites Every Squarespace Designer Should Know About
    Design

    3 Websites Every Squarespace Designer Should Know About

    If you are looking for inspiration for your next website, these three sites will inspire you to design wonderful pages using Squarespace. Squarespace is a powerful publishing system with beautiful templates. It allows you to create any type of web page with no coding involved. Founded in 2004, it is behind many of the pages we browse daily, like artist portfolios or restaurant pages. Many designers prefer Squarespace to other publishing tools, like WordPress, because of the quality of its templates. They all have good typography, neat transitions, and responsiveness, allowing the users to enjoy the pages on mobile phones or tablets without having to make tedious adjustments.

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  • The Art Institute of Chicago Is Sharing Thousands of Free Images
    Art

    The Art Institute of Chicago Is Sharing Thousands of Free Images

    The Art Institute of Chicago’s digital library contains over 40,000 files that you can download for free The Art Institute of Chicago has a collection of over 300,000 works of art and a history spanning back to the 19th century (having been founded by George Armour in 1879). It is one of the most important and relevant art institutions across both the United States and the world–up there with New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The collection includes works by local and international artists from early and modern times. Standout pieces include those by artists from Italian, Flemish, Dutch, and Spanish schools. While many museums and galleries had already digitized part, if not all, of their permanent collections, The Art Institute of Chicago only made this leap more recently. Its digital library allows users to explore and download high-quality images of artworks from their collection.

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  • 20 Design and Creativity Books to Add to Your Bookshelf
    Design

    20 Design and Creativity Books to Add to Your Bookshelf

    Domestika teachers recommend their favorite books to get your creative juices flowing Every great creative needs a great collection of books to inspire fresh ideas. With this in mind, several of our teachers have selected their favorite books that will help artists and students find the inspiration they need to launch their next project. Check out the selection below and add your own recommendations in the comments! The Book of Shrigley, by David Shrigley Designer Marco Colín (@marco_colin) says that lots of people experience crises because they’re convinced they don’t know how to draw. This book by Shrigley is the perfect antidote. The simplicity of his work shows that a lack of technical skill should never be a barrier between you and creating something remarkable.

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  • 10 Basic Typography Design Principles for Creating Memorable Logotypes
    Teacher Typography, Calligraphy and Lettering

    10 Basic Typography Design Principles for Creating Memorable Logotypes

    Learn to use letter shapes to communicate beyond what your words spell out Typography is a crucial element in logotype design. Using shape, not only can we communicate verbally, but we can also channel the brand’s personality visually. Elias Mule (@elias_mule) is a graphic designer specializing in branding and typography. In this blog, he walks us through 10 basic typography design principles for creating memorable logotypes. They can be applied to any style of typography, whether that be with or without serif, italicized, monospaced, or display (which is often applied to logotypes). 1. Skeleton This is the internal line that defines the basic structure of your letter. It exists for the same reason that a human skeleton does, anatomically speaking. According to Elias, it’s a great starting point for working out how to connect your letters and define aspects such as height and width.

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  • 7 Polaroids and Inspiring Quotes by Andrei Tarkovsky
    Photography

    7 Polaroids and Inspiring Quotes by Andrei Tarkovsky

    Discover this collection of Polaroids taken by the Russian filmmaker–each one is accompanied by a quote that invites you to step into his world… Memory, dreams, and spirituality play a central role in the meditative work of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. Born in Zavrazhye in 1932, he is considered by many to be one of the greats of film history. He won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury twice at Cannes with Solaris (1972) and The Sacrifice (1986); the Golden Lion in Venice for Ivan's Childhood (1962); and was posthumously awarded the Soviet Union's prestigious Lenin Prize. Many of his sequences are iconic, such as the burning house in The Mirror (1975) or the protagonist’s long walk in Nostalghia (1983) as he tries to keep a candle alight. Tarkovsky was also concerned about the aesthetic and moral implications of the art itself, a topic he explored in his most-celebrated book, Sculpting in Time.

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  • A Brief History of Pop-Up Books
    Teacher Craft

    A Brief History of Pop-Up Books

    Pop-up books started 800 years ago as a "philosophical machine", evolved into scientific manuals, and still survive today as a kids' favorite. The oldest pop-up books do not have dazzling illustrations of castles, forests, kings, queens, dragons, and fairies. They were made in the Middle Ages to facilitate the understanding of natural and religious phenomena. One of them is a Volvelle (a type of book containing rotating circles attached to the pages), handmade in 1250 by the English Benedictine monk Matthew Paris, which explains the relation between the moon's seasons and phases and religious holidays.

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  • Jon Berkeley: Illustrations That Tell a Story
    Teacher Illustration

    Jon Berkeley: Illustrations That Tell a Story

    Editorial illustrations complement a text and tell a story without using words Irish illustrator Jon Berkeley (@jon_24) found his call in editorial illustration. While he usually enjoys drawing for younger audiences, he has also found that working for newspapers and magazines is ideal for educating, informing, and entertaining readers, an activity he finds challenging and gratifying in equal parts. Berkeley was born in Dublin, the city that saw him grow and develop into a professional illustrator. He took his first steps in this field when the internet had yet to become the hive of creative opportunities it is nowadays and carved himself a career by knocking on every possible door. This is how he got to collaborate with Time, Newsweek, and The Economist.

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  • Turning a Concept Into a Strong Project Statement
    Photography

    Turning a Concept Into a Strong Project Statement

    Conceptual portrait photographer Verónica Cerna shares tips for turning a concept into a strong project statement Verónica Cerna (@veronica_cerna) is a photographer and videographer who’s had her work published in magazines such as Musée Magazine, Shots Magazine, Better Photography, and Revista Pecado. Verónica started out creating self-portraits and has always been drawn to experimental portraiture. During her teens, she discovered that photography was a way for her to understand herself and take control of her body. She counts Edward Hopper, Ouka Leele, and Gregory Crewdson among the artists she’s been most influenced by. In her Domestika course, she invites you to learn about her process for creating a series of conceptual portraits. In this blog, she shares tips on how to create a concept and convert it into a powerful statement.

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  • 5 Ways to Find New Ideas
    Teacher Design

    5 Ways to Find New Ideas

    Alejandro Flores explains the methods he uses in his design studio to turn his team's ideas into workable concepts Creativity is not an exact science, and that means there is no single way to achieve it. Each person, each designer, will find their favorite method to make ideas flow. They may even want to try several of them, and choose one or the other depending on the type of project you have in hand, the team they work with, the deadlines, or the means at their disposal. Alejandro Flores, founder and creative director of the Mexican design studio Human (@human_), has 5 methods for conceptualizing ideas that his team uses to create groundbreaking designs. Mind mapping This is one of the most well-known methods. Starting from a central idea, you start making ramifications using related concepts that will help new ideas flourish. It is especially useful to discover new avenues that seemed unrelated to the original idea at first.

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  • 7 Questions To Answer Before Every Illustration
    Illustration

    7 Questions To Answer Before Every Illustration

    The 7 questions award-winning illustrator and author Jon Berkeley asks before starting any illustration Jon Berkeley has illustrated over 150 magazine covers during his career for publications including The Economist, Newsweek, and Nature, and has worked on numerous commercial projects for the likes of Vodafone, Smirnoff, and Ted Baker. In this article, Jon, who teaches the course Acrylic Techniques for Creative Illustration, shares the 7 questions that three decades of illustrating have taught him are crucial to answer before embarking on a project. 1. Where’s it going to be? The location of your image is one of its most definitive elements. There are ideas that only work vertically or horizontally and considerations change according to a picture’s position. 2. What’s the page layout? For example, if you are creating a piece for the front cover of a magazine, the design is probably going to have to strictly adhere to an established layout. Elements that will affect your concept and its effectiveness include titles, prices, barcodes and dates.

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  • 7 Architectural Works from Around the World that Represent the 21st Century
    Design

    7 Architectural Works from Around the World that Represent the 21st Century

    Domestika teachers choose the projects that, in their opinion, best define the avant-garde and the spirit of the last two decades Like any other manifestation of human ingenuity, architecture is an art in constant transformation, intrinsically related to the historical moment in which it develops. To commemorate World Architecture Day and the Architect's Day–a day invented by the International Union of Architects (UIA) that always falls on the first Monday of October–we present seven projects that symbolize the avant-garde and the spirit of our time in the vision of different teachers of Domestika courses linked to the discipline. This is not a ranking or a definitive list, but rather a set expert opinions, based on the distinctive and innovative features they believe are reflected in these creations. 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan

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  • Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Virtual Tour
    Art

    Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Virtual Tour

    You can now explore the Brant Foundation’s 2019 Basquiat exhibition online Connect to the internet and be transported to New York City. The Brant Foundation has created an immersive virtual tour of the inaugural exhibition of their East Village space. The exhibition, titled Jean-Michel Basquiat, comprises four floors filled with 70 works–created from 1980 to 1987–by the radical underground graffiti artist who went on to become a global sensation. Born in 1960 to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, Jean-Michel Basquiat grew up in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, Basquiat frequented the city’s museums and galleries and was encouraged by his mother to create his own works. When Basquiat was hit by a car aged eight, his mother brought a copy of Gray's Anatomy to the hospital. From that moment on, her son developed a fascination with anatomy, inspiring the bodily imagery–in particular skulls, sinew, and guts–that would feature heavily in his work.

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  • 5 Loop Animation Styles That Will Inspire You
    3D & Animation

    5 Loop Animation Styles That Will Inspire You

    Animator Pablo Cuello shares the work of 5 incredible creatives When you think about animation, you might imagine feature films from the big film studios. However, you don't need to create such complex or lengthy animations to inspire a deep emotional response in your viewers. Pablo Cuello (@pablocuello) is an Argentine graphic designer and animator who works with After Effects to create short and straightforward pieces that overflow with appeal:

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  • Domestika Projects: Greetings From Ha Tachana
    Teacher Illustration

    Domestika Projects: Greetings From Ha Tachana

    The Ink Bad Company's founder tells us about one of his most exotic illustrated projects: postcards from Tel Aviv My name is Juan Carlos, and I manage a one-person studio devoted to illustration: Ink Bad Company. I was born in a small town in Jaén (Andalucía, Spain), where I learned to harvest olives the traditional way, by shaking the trees. I made my mother happy choosing to study in Granada instead and ended up moving to Valencia, where I'll happily draw anything in exchange for financial compensation. My field of expertise is adult, commercial, and media illustration. And even though I have worked for important clients and agencies in pretty awesome projects, I want to believe that I really draw for myself at the end of the day. I love to dig into my brain, extract things that I have seen out there, mix them as well as possible, and try to make the result drinkable and tasty. Basically, this is how I work.

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  • Over 9000 Free Botanical Illustrations Made by Women
    Web & App Design

    Over 9000 Free Botanical Illustrations Made by Women

    Enjoy this free collection that celebrates the work of female scientists throughout history Women have contributed enormously to biodiversity research and the study of nature. They have collected specimens, researched new species, published books and catalogs, and drawn detailed scientific and botanical illustrations. Women's contributions to science become more significant when considering the obstacles they have had to face throughout history. To honor their work, the Biodiversity Heritage Library compiled this album of female scientists' illustrations from the last three hundred years.

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  • Be Inspired to Compose Artistic Photos
    Photography

    Be Inspired to Compose Artistic Photos

    Carlos Herrejón's references will help you create beautiful photomontages Artistic photo composition, or artistic photomontage, means generating surprising narratives within an image using powerful creative and visual metaphors. The process begins with careful planning and usually involves a great deal of editing. This is Carlos Herrejón's (@carlos_herrejon) specialty. He creates striking photo compositions that work as conceptual fine art:

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  • Domestika Diary: Mike Sandoval
    Illustration

    Domestika Diary: Mike Sandoval

    Art director and illustrator Mike Sandoval opens the doors of his studio and explains his creative routine during the confinement A creative workspace is always important, no more so than during a situation like confinement. Art director and illustrator Mike Sandoval (@mike_sandoval_) has made sure to create an environment that helps him in his work and allows him to continue to express his creativity in his professional and personal projects. This visual artist opens the doors of his home and studio in Mexico and explains how he works day to day as a freelance illustrator in the current situation and how he has created a space and a routine that encourages his productivity. Discover it below:

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  • 5 Contemporary Chinese Artists You Should Know
    Art

    5 Contemporary Chinese Artists You Should Know

    Get to know the work of five artists that are reviving thousand-year-old traditions China is the birthplace of ink–one of the oldest known drawing tools. While artists worldwide have adopted painting with soot, it was first used by one of the oldest empires. Given the historic importance and diverse nature of Chinese art, we have selected five contemporary artists who continue to develop its thousand-year-old traditions and give them a modern twist.

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  • A Brief History of Botanical Printing
    Craft

    A Brief History of Botanical Printing

    Discover the history of this naturalistic printing technique with Anabel Torres For any textile design enthusiast or anyone who loves DIY artisan techniques, botanical printing offers a world of possibilities. With it, you can decorate items of clothing, paper, fashion accessories, wall hangings, jewelry, decorative items for your home, and much more. Fashion designer and textile artist Anabel Torres (@anabeltorres) talks us through the origins of this artisanal technique, which can be used to dye any type of fabric with natural pigments.

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  • Draw Yourself: Mauro Martins
    Illustration

    Draw Yourself: Mauro Martins

    How did illustrator Mauro Martins start drawing? Did you know he lives in Brasilia? In this Draw Yourself, Martins recalls moments from his childhood, explains the concept of Brasilia, and defines the essential ingredients of a perfect city.

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