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Get to know this marketing tool that will help your social media accounts grow Perhaps you have recently heard the term “social listening”–it’s becoming more and more popular in the world of social media. It offers a valuable view of your audience as well as the direction of your brand. Learn how to implement this practice in your digital marketing strategy to obtain positive results for your personal brand or your customers.
Get to know the Course Lists tool with the help of expert teachers from different disciplines If you are looking for your next Domestika course to try, but are still undecided, you’re likely to find our Course Lists tool useful. It allows you to create and edit lists of your favorite courses from your profile page. Below, three teachers share the lists of courses that they have curated according to their personal and professional interests.
Discover these top tips for making your work stand out and showing people what you do As creative professionals, we need to be able to balance intense periods of creation with the time needed to promote what we create. Knowing how to sell your work and show off what you do to secure more clients or gain a loyal following is essential. It’s how you’ll expand your horizons and get jobs, commissions, and opportunities to collaborate. Designer and lettering artist Martina Flor (@martinaflor) shares tips so that you can promote your work and connect with potential clients:
Learn three methods for mixing watercolors to create different colors and effects, with Alex Hillkurtz One of the many reasons for watercolor’s popularity is the freedom and experimentation that it affords. Beyond the technique you use when putting brush to paper, the way you mix your colors offers an opportunity to add your own personality to the page. In this video, storyboard and watercolor artist Alex Hillkurtz (@alexhillkurtzart) shows three easy methods for mixing watercolors to create different colors and effects.
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.
Graphic designer and artist Caro Bello teaches you how to create a gorgeous botanical design using a punch needle Caro Bello (@carobello) is a graphic designer and artist specializing in punch needle whose work has been featured in publications and exhibitions such as OHLALÁ magazine and the 2019 edition of Casa FOA. In her Domestika Live, she will teach us how to punch needle a gorgeous botanical design. Here you can download the free pattern she will be teaching.
Discover how book covers evolved over the centuries with Silja Götz In the beginning, books were leather-bound, made to fit someone's library. Only in the 19th century, images started to appear on covers to give us an idea of a book’s content. Silja Götz (@Silja) is a German illustrator who has worked with press clients like The New Yorker, Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Die Zeit, Outdoor magazine, and more. Her book cover illustrations adorn the books of publishers like Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Gräfe und Unzer, and Doubleday. In her Domestika course, she reveals the secrets of conceptual illustration to create eye-catching book covers and tells us how book covers evolved over the last century.
Learn how to define a color palette and use the "60-30-10" rule to add professional flair to your home decor—whatever the budget
Illustrator and author Estelí Meza presents you with an exercise to create and organize the initial ideas of any story Estelí Meza (@estelimu) is an author and illustrator of children's books, book covers and magazines, working acrossMexico, Spain, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates. She is an expert in creating engaging stories and has worked for publishers such as Scholastic, Anaya, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Kalimat, and Penguin Random House. She has created an exercise which will help you learn successful storytelling steps, regardless of where your story is destined for.
These are the websites the designers use to get the best mockups The icing on the cake for any great design project is to see that smile on the client's face during the presentation thanks to high-quality visuals. Mockups are editable images that allow you to show a design the way it would look if it were applied to the product or in real life. Without a doubt, they are one of the most significant assets for designers when it comes to publicizing their work. Pattern designer Laura Varsky and members of the design studio The Branding People have shared with us the websites they usually trust when looking for resources for their presentations. Mockup world This website houses a wide variety of mockups and editable resources of different styles that can be adapted to the design you are working on. Laura Varsky (@lau_varsky) points out the importance of choosing the ones with smart objects and, above all, looking for those that offer you higher-quality images — especially if you are going to end up printing the mockups once you have applied your design to them. Most of the website's resources can be downloaded on the site, but some will redirect you to the creator's webpage.
Use these three activities to overcome writer’s block and get back in the writing game, with Shaun Levin Writer’s block, the blank page, self-doubt, and fear are challenges every writer must learn to overcome. You may want to wait for inspiration to strike but that, more often than not, will lead to nowhere. In the words of E. B. White, the author of the classic children’s tale Charlotte’s Web, “a writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper”. Shaun Levin (@shaun_levin) is no stranger to these difficulties but has still managed to write numerous novels, a collection of books on creative writing, and has even created a series of writing maps–illustrated creative writing prompts to inspire writers on the go. In this tutorial, Shaun shares three simple activities to help you beat writer’s block!
The conceptual photographer Verónica Cerna shares her creative routine and describes how her profession has adapted to lockdown Pictures, by definition, require the presence of two people: the photographer and their subject. So restrictions like those imposed in the wake of Coronavirus, which oblige us to maintain distances between one another and avoid moving from one place to another, can complicate or even stop the work of a photographer. Verónica Cerna, photographer and cofounder of the audiovisual studio BAF, whose work has been recognized in the International Photography Awards and The Photo Phore, explains to us in this installment of Domestika Diaries how her creative process as a photographer has changed during the current situation. You can see the video below:
Take a look through the Domestika community's handmade Halloween masks Fashion designer Inés Aguilar is the creative director of the La Casita de Wendy brand (@casitadewendy), which sells its products in prestigious international stores. To celebrate this Halloween, she challenged the Domestika community to step in and customize their masks with a seasonal theme. Here is a small selection of the projects that were shared in this thread on the Domestika forum:
Marcelo Tas, star Brazilian television presenter, gives us tips for how to speak well on camera and make interesting videos using your mobile phone Marcelo Tas is a communication expert. A television presenter with experience working on various Brazilian networks, a scriptwriter, a journalist, and an influencer with more than 12 million followers on social networks, he is a master when it comes to onscreen communication, whether it be TV or a mobile phone. Thus, there's no one more qualified than him to teach us how to take a good "selfie video" for social media.
5 illustrations of the scariest situations creatives face In this Halloween season, some enjoy horror movies, books or stories that may have to do with supernatural beings or monsters from other worlds. But in the world of creativity, there are everyday situations that are much more terrifying than a classic pop culture horror piece: facing the blank page, not having a backup of your precious information... Spooky! Now five illustrators share their take on some of these fears from the Domestika creative community that will make you tremble:
This application underpins most of the magazines, books, newspapers, and printed ads you see every day. InDesign is one of Adobe's most versatile and advanced design programs, although it is not as well known as some of the other Adobe applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, or Premiere. It's a desktop publishing and typesetting app, aimed at designers and creatives who work with products that generally end up in printed form. It is often used to create magazines, books, or newspapers, but also promotional materials such as posters, flyers, and all kinds of signage and advertising.
Learn to structure an advertising brief step by step with Mumu El Branding Love The briefing is a key tool in building a relationship between a creative company and its clients, whatever their sector: it details what one side is looking for and what the other can offer, the objectives set by the person who hires your services and the creative solutions you can use to achieve them. If you want to fully understand everything that this essential document should include, Daniel Yepes Giraldo, founder of the Colombian branding agency MUMU, El Branding Love (@mumuelbrandinglove) guides you step by step through the items that he incorporates in the their briefs. Discover his advice in the following video:
Accelerate your workflow when it comes to editing video with these essential Final Cut Pro X shortcuts You might already be familiar with Final Cut Pro X, however, you’d like to work more efficiently when using this program, or you’re still learning the ropes and are looking to speed up the process. No matter which situation you find yourself in, learning the most essential Final Cut Pro X shortcuts is very useful. They will help you carry out tasks quicker and get the most from one of the most popular video editing software today. These are the Final Cut Pro X shortcuts that every video editor should know: Basic editing tools Select tool: A The Select tool is the most basic tool. It allows you to select items on the magnetic timeline. Trim tool: T This allows you to modify the cuts between different clips in the timeline and make detailed adjustments. Position tool: P One downside to working with the magnetic timeline is that it won’t let you leave gaps between clips. Instead, it automatically joins them up. The Position tool enables you to move the clips without this magnetism and position them exactly where you want them, leaving whatever spaces you want. Range Selection tool: R This allows you to make a selection that includes part of a clip, an entire clip, or various clips to apply an effect or modify the section. Blade tool: B Make a cut in a clip wherever you want, dividing it in two.
The lettering artist James Lewis shares some of his reference books with you.
Step into the Voxel art universe with Zach Soares and create a fantasy character made entirely of 3D cubes Zach Soares (@voxels) is a French Canadian self-taught Voxel artist now living in the UK. He has worked on freelance projects for clients such as Hipster Whale for almost a decade and is the creative director of his studio, Bunnyhug. Before concentrating on 3D animation and the game industry, Zach, who studied urban design, created 3D designs for cities. Zach started exploring game design on the side, which inspired him to look into game development through Voxel art. In his Domestika course, he teaches how to model, rig, and animate a character from scratch, using Voxel Art design.
As Halloween approaches, we round up some of the funniest —and most frightening— moments from our favorite shows
Maria Filipe Castro, better known as Droolwool, teaches you how to create a rotten apple with a worm for Halloween This rotten apple with worm is an art toy that is part of the Apple & Worm series by Droolwool (@droolwool). This year, she's taken inspiration from Halloween to create a new, scarier version. To recreate this piece, you will need wadding, carded wool in four different colors, and felt needles of different sizes, with one thick and the other one thinner. The colors you use are up to you, so feel free to customize your piece and pick ones that you like. Follow these simple steps to create your own needle felted rotten apply with a worm:
When you think of the first animated drawings, do you think of a steamship with a mouse at the wheel, or of seven dwarves singing as they march towards the mine? You’re not the only one who thinks this, nor are you the only one who is mistaken. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves weren’t the first animated film in history, nor was Mickey Mouse the first animated superstar. Although it may be hard to imagine the world of animation before Walt Disney and his company, this discipline actually started long before the birth of his famous mouse. In fact, long before the arrival of cinema itself. Find out more in this video:
Learn a technique to animate letters using a motion capture from Mixamo bookstore with Holke Animating typography is a very useful resource for your experimental animation works. The possibilities are infinite and you can create very fun, interesting results In this tutorial, motion designer Holke 79 (@holke79) teaches us a quick and simple way to animate words or phrases in Cinema 4D, using the gallery of resources found at mixamo.com. You can find it here:
Photography magic! We explain how to create movement in a static image step-by-step What is a cinemagraph? It's a fascinating combination of photos and videos. It usually consists of a small movement repeated in a loop within a picture, while the rest of the image remains entirely still. It results in a groundbreaking yet realistic effect. Nowadays, standing out in the digital world is necessary, and multimedia content is more than ever a visual experience. A fantastic moving image can help you achieve that distinguishing visual end product. Cinemagraphs, with their instantaneous visual elements, attract the viewer's attention. They are small, sophisticated works of art, subtle yet sufficiently attractive, that can capture our attention among the multitude of images we consume daily. Creating a cinemagraph is not difficult, and we’ll explain how, step by step. This is a short tutorial, and if you want to explore this technique, Mexican photographer Fernando Montiel Klint (@fernandomontielklint) teaches it in the Domestika course Creation of Cinemagraphs:
Designing an excellent interface is an achievable goal, you just have to train your eye to observe detail Aside from their technique and expert knowledge, a great UI designer stands out for their attention to detail. A bad kerning, a misaligned object, or an inadequate icon has no chance of slipping by them. Training your eye to appreciate the details and differences between a perfect design and a flawed one takes years of experience and observation. Fortunately, there are many fun ways to improve, such as playing Can’t Unsee–a web game for improving your UI skills. A reinvented classic The user is presented with two images, seemingly identical, and has to identify the differences and select the better design based on its appearance. The game’s name, “Can’t Unsee,” couldn’t be more fitting. Once you’ve discovered the error, your eyes will be drawn to it.
Designer Roberto Puig talks about the importance of using storyboards and animatics in animation projects Storyboarding is an integral process in the development of animation. It includes all the planned details of the piece, and it is a clear and detailed document of the ultimate result. Despite its importance, many professionals and animation studios jump this step of the process. Roberto Puig (@rpuig)—graphic designer and director of Don Porfirio studio—highlights how this step is fundamental and gives us some tips on how to execute it best. Why is storyboarding important? The main reason all animation projects must include a storyboard is to help us achieve exceptional outcomes. It also ensures that everyone involved in the production has a vision of the product from the start, including the client. It is also useful for organizing all the individuals' jobs and tasks within the animation project pipeline. These tasks can be assigned from the beginning, even before the project is in development. Furthermore, during the storyboard stage, our client can suggest any changes that can be easily applied. This would be more complex at a later stage.
Patricio Ortega shows us how to execute a home carpentry project using basic tools and materials Patricio Ortega is the founder of artisanal furniture workshop Maderística (@maderistica), where art and design come together to create unique pieces. He teaches the Domestika course Professional Woodworking for Beginners.
Writer Shaun Levin shares a list of seven books written by established authors to inspire your next writing project
Camipepe shares advice for digitizing your sketches in Illustrator After you’ve developed the concept for a project–whether it be graphic design, lettering, or illustration project–it’s best to get your ideas down on paper in the form of a sketch. Once you’ve done this, the next step is to convert it into a digital illustration. In this blog post, design and illustration duo Camipepe (@camipepe) shares their top tips for simplifying this process and improving your workflow in Adobe Illustrator:
