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  • Movies Reimagined as Vintage Books
    Design

    Movies Reimagined as Vintage Books

    Designer Matt Stevens works on a personal project about love of cinema and reading Matt Stevens is an American designer and illustrator who is primarily engaged in brand identity and editorial publishing. Matt prefers to move away from very formal processes and work with intuitive approaches. One of his personal projects is titled Good Movies as Old Books. In this series, with the simple criteria of choosing movies that he is passionate about, Matt redesigns movie posters as if they were vintage books.

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  • 10 Music Playlists to Spark Your Creativity
    Music & Audio

    10 Music Playlists to Spark Your Creativity

    These playlists, curated by Domestika teachers, will inspire you Music and creativity are inseparable for many; some artists even say hitting that Play button is the first thing they do when they get to their studio or sit at the computer to work. With that in mind, we asked some of the creative professionals who teach courses at Domestika to share the music that inspires them most at work. Painting with music by Alex Hillkurtz If you had to choose a song that makes the paint flow and brushes dance, what would it be? For Alex Hillkurtz (@alexhillkurtzart), who teaches Architectural Sketching with Watercolor and Ink at Domestika, it is impossible to choose just one, so he has compiled the most inspiring titles in this playlist.

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  • 3 Drawing Challenges That Will Unlock Your Creativity
    Illustration

    3 Drawing Challenges That Will Unlock Your Creativity

    Adolfo Serra shares exercises that will encourage you to imagine, play, and experiment, and unlock your creativity Chance, mistakes, games, limits, and freedom: all can serve to help you unleash your imagination, create a language, and find your voice. In this video, illustrator Adolfo Serra (@adolfoserra) shares three drawing challenges that will push you to experiment with manual techniques and unlock your creativity. Gather up all the art materials you have at home; it’s time to put your creativity to the test.

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  • Free Download: Color Tips for Drawing with Pencils
    Illustration

    Free Download: Color Tips for Drawing with Pencils

    Learn tricks to improve your coloring process with Marco Mazzoni Marco Mazzoni (@marcomazzoniart) is and artist and illustrator. Experimenting with the boundaries of fine art using pencils has been a passion of Marco’s since he was a student. He tells a compelling story through his pencil portraits, drawing inspiration from Sardinian mysticism and the plants that he began sketching as a boy.

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  • 5 Instagram Stories Hacks You Probably Don't Know
    Marketing

    5 Instagram Stories Hacks You Probably Don't Know

    Use these tricks to make your Instagram stories more attractive The only thing you need to share your creativity on Instagram stories is your phone. These five tricks will help you get the most out of the social network and engage your followers.

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  • Photography Tutorial: How to Create Droplets With Glycerin
    Teacher Photography

    Photography Tutorial: How to Create Droplets With Glycerin

    Learn how to create droplets with glycerin and place them in your sets when shooting macro photography with Sergi Gomez When we use macro photography to take pictures, it is useful to have an element in the foreground that allows us to create a blur effect. If we are working in the studio, sometimes it is necessary to artificially manufacture that first element to achieve more complex compositions and explore different visual options with our camera. Sergi Gómez García (@sergi2g), photographer and retoucher, teaches us in this tutorial how to create round drops with glycerin to place them in our studio photo sessions to achieve different and interesting effects in our compositions All you will need is water, glycerin and a syringe with a very fine needle. You can watch the video here:

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  • What Is Night Photography?
    Photography

    What Is Night Photography?

    Photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg teaches the basic principles of long exposure photography Alejandro Chaskielberg (@alechaski) is a photography director with advanced studies in classical music and animation. This multidisciplinary artist specializes in night photography, a technique that allows him to show an altered version of reality —or, as he defines it, "time frozen between day and night." His work blends fiction with reality, creating fantastic scenes with real characters. For him, light (or rather, the absence of it) is a powerful creative tool. Today, he'll give you some essential tips that will help you create images like his.

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  • How to Capture a City's Personality
    Illustration

    How to Capture a City's Personality

    Architect and artist Carlos Stanga teaches how to find the soul of a city for your illustrations Architectural illustration can provide a unique connection to urban space. It's a way to capture a moment or a building in time and to express creatively how a place makes you feel. Artist and architect Carlo Stanga (@carlo_stanga) has done precisely that with the streets of Milan, London, or New York, to name a few, and has some tips you can follow to capture the soul of cityscapes in your illustrations.

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  • How to Create Memorable Characters
    3D & Animation

    How to Create Memorable Characters

    Five tips for designing unique protagonists for your stories Sociedad Fantasma (@sociedadfantasma) is an animation and illustration studio, comprising Carlos Rupit, Gabriel Pichardo and Lizeth Rodríguez. They create wonderful stories through illustration and animation and have worked with clients such as Netflix, Gatorade, Google, and Nike. Their characters are one of the main pillars in each of their stories; they bring great substance to the plots and make the worlds they create all the more magical. While they’ve designed so many different characters, they all share characteristics that make them stand out. Here, Sociedad Fantasma shares their secret to creating memorable characters.

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  • Enjoy Over a Thousand Works by Georgia O’Keeffe
    Art

    Enjoy Over a Thousand Works by Georgia O’Keeffe

    Get to know the work of the modernist painter online Considered one of the most influential representatives of American modernism, Georgia O'Keeffe is also one of the most recognized painters in art history. One of her paintings sold for more than $ 44 million, the highest record for a female artist. Although critics claim that O'Keeffe's work is primarily about sexual themes, she claimed that she was only interested in the shape and beauty of nature. Throughout her life she fought against prejudice against her gender.

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  • 6 Tips For Designing Packaging For The Perfect Unboxing Experience
    Design

    6 Tips For Designing Packaging For The Perfect Unboxing Experience

    Discover everything you should keep in mind when designing packaging for your product and the unboxing experience One of the greatest visual and tactile experiences when buying something, especially when it’s an online purchase, is the moment of unboxing. That’s why packaging has become an important pillar of the branding of many businesses: you’ve got to know where to source the materials and how to balance functionality and aesthetics to create exciting packaging that suitable protects what’s inside. Tatabi Studio (@tatabi) takes care of every detail of the packaging and unboxing experience and has developed this six-point guide that will help you plan your own product’s perfect design.

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  • What is Concept Art?
    Film & Video

    What is Concept Art?

    We spoke with concept artist and artistic director Jean Fraisse to learn more about concept art Experienced illustrator, graphic designer and concept artist, recognized for creating worlds in various audiovisual projects and video games such as Elixir, Jean Fraisse (@jbfraisse) is an art director at HuevoCartoon and teaches several courses at Domestika on stage design, character design for animation and video games, and art direction for concept art. He focuses on learning the theoretical method to define a visual style and tell a story, find memorable characters, and create incredible worlds. That's why we decided to talk to him and clear up any doubts about concept art: what it is, what is the first known example of it in the industry, and the differences that exist with respect to illustration.

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  • 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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