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  • Norman Foster brings another sustainable landmark to Madrid
    Design

    Norman Foster brings another sustainable landmark to Madrid

    See the incredible plans of iconic architect Norman Foster to turn a 115-year-old warehouse into an ultra-sustainable office complex in Madrid The epitome of the international modern architect, Norman Foster is famous worldwide. The British designer has always had a soft spot for the Iberian peninsula however and, in 2017, he even built a foundation that carries his name in the Spanish capital. The center has served as a hub for design, debate, and innovation ever since. The foundation isn’t the only thing keeping him busy in the city: Foster+Partners is already hard at work on the development of the old Barclays Bank building in Plaza de Colón, the famous Cepsa Tower, and even the reforms to the 1912 palace in Chamberi that houses the Norman Foster Foundation itself.

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  • Choosing References to Inspire Your Character Design
    Illustration

    Choosing References to Inspire Your Character Design

    Learn these basic tips for choosing and using visual references when drawing characters with Marcio Takara One of the joys of creating a comic book character is that that person can be whatever you want them to be, strong, weak, beautiful, ugly, tiny, or huge, and you can even create a totally new universe for them to live in. Chances are, however, that you’d like to situate them in a world that at least resembles some part of your own reality. Our imaginations are our most powerful tool, but carefully choosing references from which to create can help us design realistic and convincing heroes and villains for our stories. A good reference can also inspire you to take your drawings to new levels and different spaces. Here is a collection of tips from comic book artist Marcio Takara (@marciotakara) that will help you find visual references and provide the basic foundations for your next illustration.

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  • Freelance Tutorial: How to Grow Your Audience on Instagram
    Teacher Marketing

    Freelance Tutorial: How to Grow Your Audience on Instagram

    James Lewis shares his tips on how to document, showcase, and share your art in order to build a digital audience A large part of any creative career isn’t just producing work, but also sharing it. Because of that, social media has become a powerful way for creatives to reach a global audience, collaborate with the larger artistic community, and even find new clients. Learning how to use platforms like Instagram effectively is a great way for newcomers to gain exposure while building their career, and for established creatives to better connect with their audience. In this video, lettering artist James Lewis (@jamesllewis) explains how he uses Instagram to promote his work and shares tips about how you can better document and showcase your projects in order to build a digital audience.

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  • How to Import Fonts to Procreate?
    Illustration

    How to Import Fonts to Procreate?

    Procreate now allows you to add text to your illustrations, drawings, and designs. Learn how to use your favorite fonts Procreate has become, without a doubt, the favorite app of illustrators, cartoonists, designers and creatives around the world. The iPad software allows you to use the screen as a notebook and has a number of extremely useful features for digital artists, but until a few months ago you could not do something as simple as adding text to images. With the arrival of the function to add text comes a big question: how do you add fonts to Procreate? Here, we explain how, step by step.

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  • Adobe Premiere vs. Final Cut: What Makes Better Films?
    Film & Video

    Adobe Premiere vs. Final Cut: What Makes Better Films?

    The best films cut with Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro Video editors get asked what software they use all the time. The answer will change according to all sorts of variables, such as personal taste, their experience, and what kind of project they’re working on. The truth is, you’ll probably have to learn how to use whatever program your client wants you to work with.

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  • How To Combine Colors in Interior Design
    Design

    How To Combine Colors in Interior Design

    Learn to create harmony and impact with these simple tips for combining colors in interior design from Miriam Alía Miriam Alía’s (@miriamalia) designs have featured in editorials like Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Interiores and more. Here she shares basic rules for combining colors that you can play with and can help you establish what works best for you.

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  • A Simple Way to Make Substrates for Your Succulents
    Craft

    A Simple Way to Make Substrates for Your Succulents

    Learn to make homemade substrates for your succulents using a few simple ingredients In the last few years, succulent plants have become decorations for countless public spaces and private homes, outside and in thanks to their hardy nature, the beauty they bring to their surroundings, and the ease of caring for them. But it's important to bear their idiosyncrasies in mind: for example, strong and healthy plants need to be cultivated in a special kind of substrate. In the following video, Meena and Ceci, two botanical designers who make up the Compañía Botánica (@ciabotanica) show us the essential ingredients for a good succulent substrate. Find out how to make on in the video below.

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  • Free Download: Fantasy Portrait Brushes Pack for Photoshop
    Teacher Illustration

    Free Download: Fantasy Portrait Brushes Pack for Photoshop

    Artist Karmen Loh (Bearbrickjia) shares this collection of brushes for amazing portraits Karmen Loh, better known as Bearbrickjia (@bearbrickjia), is an illustrator from Malaysia whose experience has allowed her to work in the video game industry, participating in productions such as Street Fighter V or Steel Circus, among others. As a freelancer, she has managed to position her fantastic style in her illustration work, and one of the keys to achieving perfection in her work has been the configuration of brushes that help her achieve her style.

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  • Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Lettering
    Typography, Calligraphy and Lettering

    Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Lettering

    These pro tips from Chisko Romo will give new life to your lettering (and get you more likes on Instagram) Chisko Romo (@chisko_romo) is a graphic designer with more than seven years experience as a lettering artist. Throughout his professional career, he has collaborated with brands such as Adidas, Ted Baker, Moleskine, Apple Music and American Eagle, among many other great brands. He enjoys experimenting with shapes and volumes in lettering, interpreting letters as graphic forms that convey feelings, and creating compositions in different styles that he shares on his Instagram. That's why Chisko has given us three simple tips and tricks that will help you edit your photos or add effects in Illustrator, to turn your compositions into pieces worth showing the world with pride. Here are Chisko’s tips for lettering that will pop: 1. Remove unsightly edges Chisko makes physical letters using engraving and laser cutting techniques, so the final pieces often have burn marks, especially on the edges. To show a perfect piece, without marks or stains, the designer uses the Smudge tool on Photoshop that simulates the effect achieved by passing a finger through fresh paint.

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  • Discovering Leonardo Da Vinci's Digital Notebooks
    Illustration

    Discovering Leonardo Da Vinci's Digital Notebooks

    It took us 500 years, but we can now access the notes, thoughts, and drawings of one of the greatest geniuses in history (for free!) Renaissance artist, musician, inventor, anatomist, architect, paleontologist, botanist, scientist, writer, sculptor, philosopher, engineer, and painter, Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) is considered one of the greatest geniuses of all time and one of the most talented artists in history. Not only for his incredible works such as La Gioconda (1503), The Last Supper (1498), or The Annunciation (1472), but also for the notebooks and books full of diagrams, drawings, personal notes, and observations he made that are now proof of his genius. Leonardo seems to have started annotating his ideas and world views in the mid-1480s. He was a pioneer of the use of paper as a sketching tool and filled pages and pages with ideas, comments, thoughts, and inventions, blending the mind of a designer with that of a scientist. And now, some of these priceless notebooks are freely available on the Internet.

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  • Branding Tutorial: How to Design a Logo
    Design

    Branding Tutorial: How to Design a Logo

    Basic tips for approaching a logo design from The Negra A logo can be the icing on the cake in a graphic project. Or its starting point. Either way, it must be distinguishable, unique and memorable. And that's where the fixed rules end, because even one of the most intuitive imperatives–legibility–does not always apply, it depends on what the brand is looking for. This is what the three partners of the Argentine studio The Negra (@thenegra), designers Diego, Lio and Pancho, teach us. In this tutorial, we learn basic premises to create a good logo, taking into account the message we want to convey, the brand to which it is applied, and the graphic options we have.

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  • How to Create an Animated Web Series
    3D & Animation

    How to Create an Animated Web Series

    Sociedad Fantasma shows us the process behind the creation of R.T., an alien that tries to sympathize with humanity Sociedad Fantasma (@sociedadfantasma) is a storytelling studio founded by Carlos Rupit, Gabriel Pichardo, and Lizeth Rodríguez, devoted to telling great stories through illustration and animation. This path has led them to work with brands like Netflix, Gatorade, Google, and Nike, but also to develop their projects, such as their web series UFUCK_U, where a curious alien tries to fit into daily human life. This project demonstrates this Mexican studio's experience in crafting stories, characters, illustration, color management, and animation–the foundations of their work. These are the main steps Sociedad Fantasma takes to make an episode of its series.

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  • Basic Engraving Tools
    Craft

    Basic Engraving Tools

    Pablo Salvaje lists the tools you need to start engraving Artist Pablo Salvaje (@pablosalvaje) mixed his passion for ink, paper, and illustration with his family's old printing press business, focusing on engraving, design, illustration, and screen printing techniques. With nature as his muse, he aims to leave a mark, literally and figuratively, with each of his pieces. To encourage you to try some of his methods, Pablo Salvaje shares a list of 22 basic tools that you need to start engraving. They are all easy to find and work with, so you can get down to business with the ideas you already have in your head.

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  • How to Ignite an Idea for a Foldable Picture Book
    Design

    How to Ignite an Idea for a Foldable Picture Book

    How to kickstart a foldable book project and what you will need to bring it to life Roger Ycaza (@rogerycaza) is an award-winning illustrator, author, and musician from Ecuador, specializing in children’s books. One of his favorite formats is the foldable book, given that it allows illustration to take center stage and requires the author to explore unique ways to connect their visual language with the story being told through text. Here, Roger takes us through his process for coming up with an initial idea that ignites a new book, as well as showing us some different foldable formats and the materials he recommends using to bring them to life.

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  • Adobe XD Tutorial: Basic Design Functions
    Teacher Design

    Adobe XD Tutorial: Basic Design Functions

    Learn with Ethan Parry how to draw shapes, edit colors, and add text using UX design software Adobe XD. User experience has become an increasingly important part of design—bringing together designers, developers, and other stakeholders to create websites and digital products that users can easily and intuitively navigate. Implementing a successful UX design can result in more sales, improved branding, and better conversion, making it a necessary design principle regardless of the industry or audience being targeted. That’s why Adobe XD is such an important tool. A leading vector-based UX design software for web and mobile apps, it can be used to design and prototype wireframes and layouts that can then be implemented and tested. Ethan Parry (@ethanparry) is a service designer and UX research consultant who regularly uses Adobe XD in his own work. In this tutorial, he explains the software’s basic design functions, which are the building blocks you’ll need before you can begin building your own app.

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  • What is Collage, And How Has It Evolved?
    Design

    What is Collage, And How Has It Evolved?

    Learn about the origins and current use of collage, an artistic technique that can awaken our creativity Collage is a technique that has evolved as the number of its collage artists has multiplied. It allows the use of virtually any material and, over time, it has become a versatile art form, with many exponents and styles. Origins of collage Although similar artistic techniques have existed since the Middle Ages, many critics, art historians, and museum institutions consider that collage itself was born in the 20th century. Others, such as the Art Institute of Chicago, recognize earlier photo-collage works as part of this technique. In the example below, from the mid-19th century, Georgina Louisa Berkeley created a watercolor photo-collage with albumen print photographs. She and other Victorian artists who explored the technique depict themselves and other women in an independent context, far removed from the domestic life to which they were confined.

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  • What is Slow Stitch?
    Craft

    What is Slow Stitch?

    A movement that celebrates artisanal production values and a slower process of embroidery If traditional techniques that have been passed down through generations have shown us anything, it’s that it’s not always necessary to produce a lot and quickly, nor the perfect piece, to produce well. There is a movement within the world of embroidery that consists precisely of enjoying the journey, delighting in each stitch, and experimenting with the possibilities that arise when we dedicate time to planning each step–or we just let it flow. It’s known as slow stitch, and the Mexican textile artist Gabriela Martínez (@ofeliayantelmo) is one of its biggest ambassadors. We spoke with her to find out slow stitch is, what the movement consists of, and how to join it.

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  • Ayo Vega: Meet the Multifaceted and Multidisciplinary Artist
    Illustration

    Ayo Vega: Meet the Multifaceted and Multidisciplinary Artist

    Be inspired by this Spanish artist’s versatility and learn how he has turned his creativity into a winning strategy Ayo Vega (@ayo_vega) is a multidisciplinary artist specializing in creating and overseeing digital content. His output includes illustration, photography, graphic design, and visual effects for different digital platforms, engaging lots of different audiences with his viral creations. Check out this overview of his work, which shines a light on Ayo’s personal passions and unique online social media presence. He delivers a unique strategy for markets that are hungry for original and quality content.

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  • The Best Procreate Shortcuts
    Illustration

    The Best Procreate Shortcuts

    Speed up your workflow using a keyboard connected to your iPad when drawing in Procreate Procreate is one of the most popular apps for illustrators and designers using iPads. This award-winning creative application allows you to create beautiful sketches and stunning illustrations using Apple Pencil or just your finger. Whether you’ve just discovered the app or are already a skilled user, you'll find these keyboard shortcuts extremely useful. Download a free PDF with the Procreate Shortcuts at the end of this post.

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  • Why Start Your Own Creative Projects?
    3D & Animation

    Why Start Your Own Creative Projects?

    Learn, experience, and satisfy your creative side are just some of the benefits of taking on your own personal projects Josep Bernaus (@josep_bernaus) is a 2D animator. He’s worked on animation series and advertising campaigns for clients like the BBC, CNN, and TVE. However, he has never abandoned his personal projects, which hold an important place in his life and, he believes, should be important to any creative, artist, illustrator, photographer. Josep shares three reasons why personal projects are so important and what attitude and expectations we should have for them.

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  • Store Window Dressing: The Materials
    Craft

    Store Window Dressing: The Materials

    Kiosko Creativo takes us through the materials you’ll need to bring a concept for a store window to life Window dressing is a fusion of lots of different disciplines: art direction, crafts, architecture, sculpture, installation, and, of course, design. It involves experimenting with colors, materials, perspectives, and depth to create optical effects that attract the attention of passers-by.

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  • What Is Needle Painting?
    Craft

    What Is Needle Painting?

    Discover how to achieve realism using a needle and thread Needle painting or thread painting is an embroidery technique that uses traditional painting and drawing techniques to shade and add volume and structure to an image. The needle becomes your paintbrush and the thread, your paint. In recent years, needle painting has become a very popular technique thanks to the extraordinary effects you can create with every stitch.

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  • Illustration Tutorial: How to Illustrate a Character with Ink
    Teacher Illustration

    Illustration Tutorial: How to Illustrate a Character with Ink

    Learn with Alejandra Acosta how to take a character from a story and illustrate them with ink There are almost as many ways to illustrate as there are illustrators, but some illustration techniques have survived the passage of centuries thanks to their effectiveness, character, and results. Combining several of these techniques, such as ink printing, will allow us to obtain more original and unique illustrations. In the following video tutorial, the illustrator Alejandra Acosta (@alejandraacosta) teaches us how to create illustrated characters through the process of ink printing. A very organic and simple technique that can give us surprising results. Discover it below:

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