1. Welcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?

Hi, my name is Matteus Faria. I’m 17 years old. I live in the city of São Paulo in Brazil, and I’m planning in the next year to attend a Graphic Design college. I don’t remember why I started in this field, I just remember that it was in 2007. I started with little works like signatures and some images for personal use. In the end of 2007, I started to work more with large scale pieces, modeling objects and scenes in Cinema 4D with post production in Photoshop.

2. With all the different routes you could have taken in terms of design, why did you lean towards creating 3D art mixed with Photoshop?

In the era that I started I saw a lot of works with this mix of 3D with some elements created in Photoshop, I liked and applied my own style. I think its cool how objects in the 3rd dimension mix inside of real things, like animals and people, it’s something very interesting.

3. “Natures Revenge” is a perfect example of seamless integration of 3D elements and natural stocks. Tell us how you managed to master this style of design.

The concept of this work was to represent the revolt of nature against humanity, it can be an overused concept but I liked the way I represented it. It was very different than what people usually do when this theme is used.

Initially its necessary to observe how the integration will be done, if it will combine or not. When I did this work I applied a material in the render made in Cinema 4D that seemed like an old branch and that combined with the stock that I would work on later. Many times I tried this integration but it didn’t work. The secret is to keep trying and searching for better alternatives to make it. You will have some works where you will not get it right on the first try.

4. The majority of your work consists of some kind of 3D elements. What programs do you use to create them. And what advice would you give to designers who would like to start creating their own 3D images.

For my works in 3D, I use Cinema 4D and just in one piece I used Poser, it’s a great program, but I didn’t have time to work more with it. What I use most is Cinema 4D. And some advice that I would give for those who are starting out is to search through the basic tutorials about modeling, then create your own technique and your own style. The tutorials are made to learn not to be copied, its a question of practice and creativity.

5. “Heartless” is a very interesting and visually amazing illustration of yours. Please walk us through how you created it, and what the illustration means to you.

My idea about this work was to create a person without feelings, without soul, “heartless,” so I was adding robot parts that are motherboard stocks, smoke, and in Cinema 4D I modeled some black wires to increase the visual of my work, it was very fun. I really wanted to know how to draw, the maximum that I do is little details and the final adjustments.

6. Throughout your experiences in graphic design, and other studies, what is the most important lesson you have learned? Why do you find it so important? And how do you apply it now to your art?

As I intend to pursue a career with what I do, I do not see this as a job, I see this as entertainment, something that relaxes me when I’m doing it, and, this was the most important thing that I’ve learned. While I have fun doing it, that’s what I’ll do, and that’s what matters. Don’t stop at the first hurdle or the first bad comment about your work, go ahead and don’t stop. This is the most important concept. I apply this in my work always trying to improve and create new things. Being happy is what matters.

7. Are there any specific techniques you use when designing that you would suggest to someone who is starting out in the same field as you?

I don’t have a “big” technique, what I do is simple. The secret is to use simple techniques but apply them carefully with details, that makes it become big.

8. Thanks again for providing Psdtuts+ with this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

You’re welcome Emil! Thanks for the opportunity. Have fun with what you do and keep practicing, never give up!

Where to find Matteus on the Web

• DeviantArt page

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1. Welcome to Psdtuts+. Can you please introduce yourself?

Hi there! I’m Jerico Santander, an illustrator from Canary Islands, Spain. Apart from the obvious, I also enjoy going out for a run, fishing and eating my mum’s cheesecake

2. How did you start your design career? What motivated you?

At primary school I felt way more interested in drawing than for playing with a ball, then at high school I had more communication with computers than with girls…Somehow I’ve always been connected to this world. I still can remember the first time I saw Flash and Photoshop (thanks cousin).

As many other illustrators, I also started designing website layouts. Then someday I found the legendary Infinity Digital Vision catalog with some old school shit from masters like Mike Young or Jens Karlsson. I felt the need of getting in that digital art world. Trying to imitate them is how I started to mesh up with Photoshop in a more artistic way.

3. How do you define yourself? As I see you make use of illustrations, 3D objects and lots of other stuff. One cannot say Jerico is only an “illustrator.” You did not limited yourself to one field. Will you continue in this fashion? Also what are your future plans?

Many artists find resources everywhere. I do use photography, digital painting and sometimes, a bit of 3D. I do nothing but welding many images together building up a totally new one, I guess I understand digital art as an extension from collage?

Honestly I don’t know which resources/tools I will work with in the future, probably I’ll paint more and use less photography. I’m bored of long hours trying to find the perfect stock image. I just hope to still have fun working!

4. I think there are a lot of people wondering about this: How does your process of designing evolve? How do you start a design and how do you finish it? For instance, can you share design process of Own World?

It depends on the project. I always need to do a few sketches, then search for the main stock, rendering some 3D (if needed), putting them all together, painting lights and shadows, etc. Anyways I usually get the best ideas when I’m about finished and that can mean the need to remake a big part of the process!

5. Who are your favorite artists? How do you enrich your dream world? Can you share your favorite websites?

Traditional artists: Mars-1 and Josh Keyes. Digital artists: Alex Trochut and Microbot. About my favorite sites and inspiration sources: depthcore.com, behance.net, cgsociety, and deviantart.

6. To date what would you say is your favorite illustration that you have created? What motivated you?

From the ones in my Behance page I don’t have an absolutely top one so I’d mention two and why I like them: “Own World“: I enjoyed crafting this image for the amount of effort, frustration and headaches I had with it. I felt way free when I finally got it done. “Nereid“: I always wanted to do something like this. I had fun experimenting with the human body and light while working. But honestly I would change some parts of this piece now, maybe I will!

7. Which software do you use? Do you use a tablet? Can you share with us your favorite software and also favorite tool in Photoshop? Why?

Yes, I can’t work without a tablet. I’m married to a a Cintiq 21″, I love you baby! ;-* Software I use? Photoshop, and a bit of 3dsmax.
About which PS tool would I bring to a deserted island, I’d say the brush tool as it’s the most versatile and the one I use the most.

8. Thank you for your answers. Finally, what do you want to say to Psdtuts+ readers?

Thanks psdtuts for the interview and to their followers for reading!

9. How can readers reach Jerico Santander on the Web?

Tracing my IP address and with some hacking knowledge, I guess!
Okay, I do not have a personal site yet. I’m a lazy ass, I know. The truth is that for the last two years I’ve pushed art and design to a second plane while focused life into other things. But now I have a bunch of new artwork and I’ll release them really soon together with a new site, I promise!

In the meantime, you can check Jerico Santander on Behance with the same old stuff!

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Aetuts+ – After Effects Tutorials

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  Simulate a Realistic Sniper Scope Perspective – AE Plus

  My tutorial deals with a VFX shot that’s easy to attempt but hard to master: A convincing looking sniper scope view.
  I will outline the assets that I provide in Photoshop and the principles of accomplishing the intended outcome. In After Effects I’ll make use of pre-compositions, motion tracking and some easy expressions. For clarity’s purpose I’ll get into details about optical phenomena when necessary.

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  Form a Unique Transition

  In this tutorial we are going to reveal how to create a cool particle transition between 2 videos using Trapcode Form. We will cover the importance of layer maps while using this plugin as well as how to create a stylish displacement of the particles.

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  Making Your Color Scheme a Whole Lot Kuler!

  Adobe Kuler is a great resource for color themes that is perfectly integrated in all Adobe CS4 software – except for After Effects. But this has changed now.

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  The Best Sound You’ll Ever See!

  Satya is back with a new tutorial that will help you look as good as you sound. This technique has many options so sit back and learn how to create an attractive visual generated from your audio spectrum.

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  Terminate Your Footage With Expressions

  Sep 21st in VFX by Ben McEwan If you’re wanting to help to save Sarah Connor then maybe this tutorial will give you an insider’s perspective on what to do. Ben McEwan has created a 3 Day Series crammed full of useful expressions to create the UI found in the Terminator.

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Nettuts+ – Web Development Tutorials

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  11 Classic CSS Techniques Made Simple with CSS

  We’ve all had to achieve some effect that required an extra handful of divs or PNGs. We shouldn’t be limited to these old techniques when there’s a new age coming. This new age includes the use of CSS3. In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you eleven different time-consuming effects that can be achieved quite easily with CSS3.

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  20 HTML Forms Best Practices for Beginners

  Working with XHTML forms can be somewhat daunting; they not only use some niche HTML elements, but also blur the line between static content and user interaction. Let’s review some things to remember when creating your next form.

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• 

  Search Engine Optimization 101

  Your website may be top notch but what’s the use of an online presence if no one can find it? In this quick start guide to search engine optimization we’ll review an assortment of tactics to increase your page ranking.

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  How to Design and Code a Flexible Website

  In this tutorial, we’re going to be designing and coding a simple blog-style web-page. We’ll pay special attention to making our design flexible and accessible by using clean and simple XHTML and CSS. This tutorial is aimed at beginners, and anyone looking to improve the accessibility of their web designs.

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• 

  Getting Clean with PHP

  Data security is important and often undervalued by designers, developers, and clients alike. Since PHP 5.2.0, data sanitization and validation has been made significantly easier with the introduction of data filtering. Today, we’re going to take a closer look at these filters, how to use them, and build a few custom functions.

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Psdtuts+ – Photoshop

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  Render a Cereal Box Cover from Scratch Using Photoshop’s 3D Tools

  Hi everyone! This time I’ve got for you a fun tutorial, we’ll create a cereal box design from scratch, using only Photoshop. We will render several fruit flavored cereal loops using the Photoshop’s CS4 Extended 3D tools, apply textures to the loops, bump the surfaces and mock-up them into a real 2D image. Are you ready?

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  Create a Big Air Event Poster with Photoshop and Illustrator – Psd Plus Tutorial

  We have another Psd Plus tutorial exclusively available to Plus members today. If you want to take your Photoshop and Illustrator integration skills to the next level, then we have an exciting poster design tutorial for you. Learn more at the jump!

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  Create an Intense Movie Poster in Photoshop

  Designers love to be critical about movie posters, and while you may think you have better ideas about how to sell a movie to an audience, how many times have you actually tried doing it? In this tutorial, we’re going to create a poster for a fictional movie called “Fugitive.” The movie is meant to be a suspenseful thriller that features one’s escape under the cover of darkness, despite man’s attempt to capture the lone hero. Thin and cheesy plot? Check. Awesome opportunity to better your PSD skills? You got it!

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  How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop

  In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create an eroded metal text effect. Throughout this tutorial we’ll make use of various drawing techniques, channels, and patterns.

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• 

  Add Fantastic Color to 3D Text – Part I

  This is the first part of a two part series. Part two will be released tomorrow. In this piece you will learn how to bring a simple text to life and place everything in fantastic, colored and glowing 3D space. Some neat techniques covered here will allow you to bring your art to the next level. Don’t miss it! There are two parts to this tutorial: Part I and Part II.

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Vectortuts+ – Vector & Illustrator

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  How to Create a Golden, Vector Compass in Illustrator

  In this tutorial I will take you through the steps and techniques of creating a golden compass. For this tutorial I’ve used just Adobe Illustrator and a heavy dose of ingenuity.

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  How to Create a Yellow Submarine Icon with Gradient Meshes – Vector Plus Tutorial

  We have another great Vector Plus tutorial available exclusively for Plus members today. If you want to learn how to use gradient mesh, pattern brushes and other advanced Illustrator tools to create a shiny submarine, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. Learn more about this tutorial at the jump!

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  Build a Promotional iPhone App Website Wireframe in Fireworks

  Fireworks is a great tool for creating a wireframe and while it doesn’t work perfect with Photoshop, you can export over there and then build off your wireframe. We’ll cover the design process of creating a wireframe for an iPhone application website in Fireworks. For those of you not familiar with this program, it will be a good jumping off point for using it to wireframe your web design projects. This is a multi-part series and will be fun! Here is Part I of and Part II.

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  How to Create a Caramel Ripple Effect

  In this tutorial, we will create a hot chocolate caramel effect using some distort tools and the 3D revolve tool. This is a simple and effective technique to obtain a quality vector ripple effect quickly. Here we go!

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  How to Create an Energy Saving Bulb in Illustrator

  Here we’re showing how to create an energy saving bulb with the help of the Illustrator’s Mesh Tool. At the beginning it could be quiet hard to work with, but if you get used to it, it’s fairly simple.

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Activetuts+ – Flash, Flex & ActionScript Tutorials

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  Create a Unit Converter Application for Flash Lite Enabled Devices

  Flash Lite is an implementation of the Flash runtime for mobile phones, consumer electronic devices, and Internet-connected digital home devices. According to Adobe, the number of Flash Lite shipped devices will reach 1 billion in 2009 and more than 2.5 billion by the end of 2010, so if you are a Flash Developer it is important to know how this technology works and how it differs from Flash Player for the desktop.

  In this tutorial I’ll guide you through the basics of Flash Lite using the 1.1 version; sacrificing features, but ensuring compatibility.

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• 

  Build a Mini Golf Game with ActionScript 3.0

  In this tutorial I´ll show you how to create nice Mini Golf Game with ActionScript 3.0. We´ll work with Event Handlers, Functions and also the Timer Object which is a really cool feature in AS3.

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  AS3 101: Loops

  Welcome back to AS3 101, the fifth edition! At this point, you should be comfortable with the concepts of variables, functions, conditionals (branching), and Arrays. Not only should you be comfortable with the concepts, but you should also be fluent in how ActionScript 3 implements these concepts.

  For this fifth episode, we’ll be adding to that catalog of skills the various looping structures found in AS3. You’ll find some dependencies on the information learned in AS3 101 Part 4, on Arrays, so if you’ve skipped that one or need a refresher, please review that tutorial before continuing with this one.

  For our final project, we’ll combine loops and arrays, to make a simple shoot-em-up game.

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  Improve Your Memory With an Away3D Game

  In this tutorial we’ll build a 3D memory game. Along the way we’ll look at adding variables and mouseEvents to Away3D objects. Let’s get started..

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  Build a Photo Viewer Using Flex and the Flickr API

  In this tutorial you will learn how to use the as3flickrlib library to create a Flash Flickr photo viewer.

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Phototuts+ – Photography & Post-Processing Tutorials

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  Photography Kick-start Guide: Adjusting Your Camera’s Settings for the Photo You Want

  Cameras vary in terms of functions offered. There are differences from one brand to the next and even from one model to another of the same brand. By necessity, this tutorial will have to generalize but let’s try to de-mystify some of the more common settings found on cameras today, what they mean (to the camera) and how to use them.

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  Mastering the Art of Black and White Photography

  In the early days of photography, photographers had no choice but to shoot in black and white, as it was the only available medium. Then, in 1936, the invention of kodachrome gave colour photography to the world. But black and white photography didn’t die off, instead it flourished. Modern black and white photography at it’s best is art, and many photographers regard it as the purest form of photography.

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  Freezing Time: 80 Inspiring Examples of High Speed Photography

  In our last roundup, we covered a selection of amazing HDR images. This time we move onto something completly different, with stunning high speed photography. These images freeze time, and allow us to observe scenes that the naked eye would struggle to capture. It’s definitely worth a look for some great inspiration!

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  8 Tips for Taking Sports Photos Like a Pro

  Are you looking to shoot better sports photos, and make an impact? Sports photography presents you with many opportunities to capture dramatic and vivid imagery that will last a lifetime. No other medium presents you with heart-pounding action, vivid color patterns and unique shooting opportunities.
  The steps and guidance featured in this tutorial cover a broad range of areas – from perfecting shutter speed, to making sure you don’t miss the action.

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  How to Photograph Waterfalls

  Waterfalls are some of the most beautiful natural features you will ever get the opportunity to photograph. But though they can look simply stunning, photographing waterfalls is not easy to do well. How do you avoid your photos being too dark? How do you deal with clipping in the water? How do you compose your photos to capture the authentic beauty of the scene?
  In this tutorial, nature photography expert Steve Berardi shares his best tips for photographing waterfalls.

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Cgtuts+ – CG Tutorials

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  Model and Texture a Posh Living Room Scene in Maya

  In this tutorial you will go through the process of modeling and rendering a Living Room in Autodesk Maya. You will also learn to use Mental Ray (along with the new architectural materials), create realistic fur, and implement studio lighting to create nice and soft shadows and highlights.

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  Using Splines to Add Detail to Your High-Poly Model in 3ds Max

  Splines are an often-overlooked aspect of 3ds max when it comes to game art. Most people know that you can use a spline for a wire – but you can also use it for things like grooves, whole objects like handles, and even text! In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at some of these advanced ways that splines can be used to save a lot of time on tasks that would otherwise have to be done by hand.

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• 

  Create a Rocky Video Game Terrain in Blender

  In this series of tutorials you will learn how to create a finished environment for Blender’s Game Engine. The main focus of the series will be texturing and lighting, with the use of some custom 2d filters to enhance the result.

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• 

  Model a Photorealistic Swiss Army Knife in Modo

  Subdivision modeling is an extremely powerful tool that can allow you to add high levels of detail to your models in a relatively short amount of time. In order to use it effectively, however, one must know when, and more importantly, when not to use it. In this three part, beginner to intermediate tutorial series, professional Modo artist, Matt Braeley, will demonstrate how to model a photorealistic Swiss Army knife, using polygonal and subdivision modeling in Luxology’s Modo 302.

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  Build an Advanced Drifting Car Rig in 3ds Max

  In this advanced level tutorial, you will learn all of the steps necessary to build a fully functioning car rig in 3D Studio Max. This rig features working suspension, steering and body roll, as well as some functionality for drifting and powerslides. You will learn how to set up internal functionality through links, constraints, expressions, and parameter wiring. The final result will be a robust rig with easy, and accessible controls.

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Audiotuts+ – Audio and Music

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  Introduction to Polyrhythms

  The usage of simple, common time (4/4 time signature, where there are four beats to a measure, and each quarter note gets one beat) is pervasive in Western popular music, including rock, blues, country, folk, pop, and various forms of electronic music including many sub-genres of house and trance music. The four-on-the-floor mindset can be difficult to escape, but every musician and composer can benefit from a study of rhythm that includes a wider variety of time signatures and rhythms.

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• 

  How to Design Reeses and Hoovers

  Have you ever wondered how your favourite dance music producers create those amazing sounds that make you jump on the dance floor? Well, it usually takes a lot of experience and a huge amount of time spent on experimenting and processing sounds a ridiculously high number of times.

  But it’s quite hard to reach the stage of experimentation if you don’t even know the basics behind some kind of sounds often heard in dance tracks. This tutorial will teach you how to design from scratch a DnB trademark, the reese bass, and how to reproduce the infamous hoover sound, introducing you to the technique of resampling.

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  A Beginner’s Introduction to Home Recording

  Home recording technology seems to get better and cost less every year. It puts power in the hands of ordinary people. You’ve probably found this article because you want to get into home recording.

  Most of our tutorials here at Audiotuts are at the intermediate or advanced level. And that’s OK, because you won’t be a beginner forever. But we do have some more basic tutorials and articles aimed at the beginner. This article will refer to many of them, and hopefully give you an overview of what’s involved in getting into home recording.

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• 

  A Basic Guide to Subtractive Synthesis (Part 1)

  This screencast is the first tutorial in a series on synthesis. This first installment shows a basic guided tour of Subtractor in Reason and covers oscillators, filters and envelopes.

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  Is the Public Capable of Recognizing Quality Music?

  Can the average music listener recognize quality? Can they distinguish a virtuoso from a mediocre musician? Can they recognize a “hit” that will still be esteemed a masterpiece in a hundred years? Does “popular” mean the same as “quality”?

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Sander has partnered up with a friend Thimo Smit to create their own graphic design studio named Edberry Creative. On top of that Sander will discuss the benefits and disadvantages of collaborating with another artist. We’ll learn about how he creates an amazing typographic piece. So lets get into this great interview!

1. Welcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?

Hi there, my name is Sander Rietdijk. I’m 26 years old. I live in the city Utrecht in the Netherlands and I’m one half of the Amsterdam based design studio Edberry Creative

As a kid I loved to draw and create things, but I didn’t hear about Photoshop until I discovered it during my study of Communications; and I instantly loved it. After experimenting for some time, I started publishing some work on the Internet and from there I started getting some exposure and after awhile even some clients. This was when I decided to give working as a freelance designer a try. And until today I’m still keeping myself alive and even own a small studio in Amsterdam.

2. You are an extremely well-rounded designer with artwork in many categories, what would you say is your favorite style to design in?

My favorite style is probably whatever I think looks cool. During my work I’m always searching for new styles and techniques to use within my designs. So I guess that’s probably the main reason you see such diversity within my work. The reason why I do this is to keep challenging myself to stay creative and because I believe you should never stop learning.

3. Illustrations like “BADABOOM” and “Music In My Head” are collaborations that you have done with other artists. What would you say are some pros and cons to collaboration with different artists? Should designers be doing this frequently or on rare occasions?

I believe collaborations are a good way to learn new things and to see how other people create things. It’s also interesting to find out if you can team up with someone else to come out with something new. But I also learned you should pick your collaborations wisely, because not every combination will work. Some styles, techniques or minds just can’t be mixed. I did collaborations that ended up in complete disasters and others that came out really cool.

So today I think about it twice before I say yes to a collab. “BADABOOM” For example was created together with Armen Mnatsakanjan with who I already collaborated in the past. So when we started on this one I was quite sure it would work. So I believe you should get to know somebody a little better before you say yes to making art together.

4. “The Common Paradox” is an astounding mix of typography and photo manipulation. Please walk us through how you made this illustration and what this piece represents.

I started of this piece as collaboration with Saad Moosajee. He rendered me some 3D letters out of abstract shapes and gave those to me. But when I started working with them, the letters didn’t really work for me. So I decided to start again from scratch.

The concept behind the piece was to show the word “order” within a chaotic scene, to symbolize the concept order vs. chaos. So when I started, I picked some typography I liked and spelled out the word “order” on the canvas. After that I messed them up a bit using some masking and brushing because I wanted them to look more messed up

After I was done with placing the type, I added different shapes, like lines, triangles and dots, to the piece to make it look chaotic. After that I added the bullet bursting out of the letter “D” to symbolize a loud sound and the numbers “0″, “20,” “43,” “31,” “51,” “74″ that look like random numbers, but they do have a logical pattern. Finally I added the girl that’s looking at the scene as the main character of the piece and to give it a human touch.

5. Typography is something a viewer will notice comes up a lot in your portfolio. So what would you say are some skills that a designer should have to be able to create good typographical illustrations?

I believe the most important thing is to create a good composition; so you make sure people will read your typography. So things like balance, focal point and empty space are quite important. Beside that you also need to know how to find or create the right font to put your typo in. Like for example if your artwork is happy, you’ll need a font that expresses some happiness itself. Therefore you need to look at fonts and think about what sort of shapes go well with the theme. Like for happiness you could go for round and thick.

And last but not least you need to have something to say, or else it is just letters. Although random letters can be cool as well, but then you still need the right letters to make it look cool.

6. Is the approach to a typographical piece different from the approach to say a photo manipulation illustration? If so how is it different for you and why do you think it is different? If no then why not?

Well I guess some will say there is, because of all the theories and rules there are about using and creating typography. But for me personally there isn’t. This is mainly because I create typographical pieces from my background of doing illustrations. So for me a typographical piece is an illustration based on letters. The only other thing about them is that I start of by thinking about a sentence or a word to use instead of an image I want to create.

7. Edberry Creative is a design studio comprised of you and Thimo Smit, could you tell us exactly what you guys are planning to d?. And what do you hope to achieve in the future with this group?

With Edberry we offer our clients a wide range of services, such as illustrations, corporate identities and web design. For us our goal is to be challenged by our clients, by doing projects in which we can put in our love for creativity and colors. We don’t want to walk the path of the least resistance; we just want to go where our creativity brings us. This means we’re open to all sorts of projects and love to work together with other creative people to offer our clients the best solution possible.

As for the future, we hope to build up a creative network of people that are like-minded and combine different skills. Within this network everybody should deliver what he or she does best and together we should create things that will make us all proud. But that’s the dream, for now we just want to do cool things and meet new and interesting people. So if you’re interested you can find us at Edberry.net. We also have a blog , with no one visiting at all. So be nice and have a look at it.

8. Thanks again for providing Psdtuts+ with this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

Your welcome Emil! Thank you as well for interviewing me and to all the readers I like to say have fun in what you’re doing and try to push yourself to be original. If you do so you will stand out from the crowd, which will bring you a lot further then when your just one of them trying to be like every other artist.

Where to find Sander on the Web

• Sander’s DeviantArt
• Sander’s Portfolio

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My thoughts and insights on the world of freelancing abroad don’t come from just reading a few travel books and watching the Travel Channel. No, the suggestions and comments I will make come from years on the road as a man of various trades.

While traveling, I have worked as a magazine photographer in Aruba, a travel writer in Nicaragua, and a web designer in Costa Rica. These are just a few of the jobs and locations I have held. So, no matter what type of freelancing you do, you are sure to gain some helpful information on freelancing from your dream destination.

Any of you who have closely followed Outlaw Design Blog may remember when my wife and I moved to Costa Rica over a year ago. While we are currently living in the States for the time being, we lived in Costa Rica for over a year. In that amount of time I learned things about freelancing abroad that no book or blog could have ever prepared me for. There are just some things about freelancing from exotic destinations that you can never really prepare yourself for. Hopefully, by reading this post all the way through, you will limit the problems that can come up from freelancing abroad.

Author’s Note:

Please keep in mind that abroad is a very broad term (no pun intended!). It encompasses the entire world. Obviously some of the things I say in this post will only be relevant for certain parts of the world. For the sake of this article, I am mostly referring to Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

While some people may dream of working in places like Europe or China, I won’t really touch on them in this post. For many, moving to another first-world country is nothing more than visas and red tape. Moving to a third-world country, on the other hand, has its own set of problems and drawbacks.

Establish Your Business First

I am not going to say that it isn’t possible to start up a design company in another country, but if you are new to freelancing, you may want to establish your business in an area with a more stable economy. Once you have learned some of the basic ropes of freelancing and have a number of repeat clients, then it’s a little safer to make the jump to a foreign location.

Reason being: if you are moving to a third-world country, you can pretty much assume that no one is willing to pay what your work is worth. Thus, the chance of finding local clients is slim to none. The ones you do find probably won’t see the benefit in paying $2,000 for a custom website.

In the event that things go wrong and you go broke, it can be a lot harder for your friends and family to help you out. Depending on where you live, getting money sent to you is sometimes easier said than done.

If I haven’t scared you off with the above information, then you might have the right mindset to freelance abroad.

Suggested Reading:

• A Comprehensive Guide to Starting Your Freelance Career
• How To Start Your Freelance Writing Business: Honing Your Craft
• How A Blog Can Kick Start Your Freelance Business
• What Fight Club Teaches Us About Freelancing
• What Not To Do When Starting Out as a Freelancer

Deciding Where to Freelance From

Many of you will already have a dream destination that you would love to work from. This is a great place to start, but you might want to be prepared for the fact that it might not be the most reliable place to work from. It really depends on what sort of work you do and what sort of internet connection you need.

For example, writers really have the most choices when it comes to location. This is because they don’t always need a high-speed internet connection. Even in some of the most under-developed cities, you are likely to be able to find a dial-up internet connection. Photographers, bloggers, designers, and other people who need a faster internet connection will be slightly more limited in the destinations they can choose from.

Your best bet in choosing a place to freelance from is to pick somewhere you have visited before and have enjoyed. By doing this, you aren’t as overwhelmed with the move and have a better idea of what to expect. By choosing a place that you have been to before, you have a better idea of what the internet situation is really like, what areas are safe to live in, the cost of living, and other useful information. This sort of first-hand information is invaluable, as it is very hard to find accurate information of this sort in any book or website.

Deciding where to freelance from is really a personal choice and not something I can really make recommendations about. What I can do is tell you a few things you may want to think about when considering where to freelance from.

How much money can you realistically make on a regular basis?

It is always best to low-ball this amount in case you have a really slow month and don’t have much money saved up.

What are the most important creature comforts to you?

Are you partial to hot showers or air conditioning? Not everywhere has these luxuries, so you might want to double-check that house ad before you pay a deposit on it.

Do you want to rent a house or live in a hostel?

Hostels can be cheaper to live in, but you have to put up with group kitchens, lots of people, and less-than-private accommodations.

How important is a high-speed internet connection to you?

As stated before, not everywhere has easy access to high-speed internet, so you might want to research what the internet situation is in a particular area before you decide.

Will you be moving with your family? Do your kids need to be near a school?

Traveling with a family is a lot different than traveling alone. Some under-developed countries don’t always have schools nearby.

How long will you be moving for? Six months? A year? Permanently?

Depending on how long you plan on staying in any one location, you may be able to get discounts on rent when you agree to 6-month or 12-month lease.

What is Passive Income?

If you are unfamiliar with the term “passive income” you probably don’t know how to make any! The idea of passive income is simple: it’s finding a means of making money without having to do anything. Of course, that’s a very simple explanation – the reality is a little more complex. Let me give you a more specific example of what passive income is; a designer makes a premium Wordpress theme and then sells it on ThemeForest.

This is an example of passive income because the designer only had to create the theme once, but will make money from that single theme forever with little to no more work required.

That is how passive income works: by creating a product or service once, and then being able to profit from it time and time again with little to no work on your part. All the Envato Marketplaces are perfect examples of how creatives can start building up passive income.

• ThemeForest – Website Templates, Wordpress Themes, HTML Themes, Code Snippits.
• GraphicRiver – Stock art, Vectors, Icons, Photoshop styles, Design Templates
• FlashDen – Animations, Image viewers, Menus, Site Templates, Loaders, Games
• AudioJungle – Music Loops, Sound Effect, Songs, Music, Source Files
• VideoHive – Stock Footage, Video Graphics, Project Files, After Effects

Another reason passive income is such a good idea for freelancing abroad is because it makes for a nice emergency fund. Even if your passive income streams only make $100 a month, that can turn into quite a nice emergency fund that you can probably have pretty quick access to if something should go wrong.

Suggested Reading:

• How to Create Jobs Abroad to Finance Your Travels
• Making Money When Things Get Slow
• Passive Income Opportunities for Freelancers
• What To Do Before You Take Your Business On The Road
• How To Resell Hosting: A Guide For Web Designers

Dealing With Clients Overseas

If you are already running the majority of your business over the internet, you will be in great shape when you move abroad. One of the hardest adjustments to make is getting used to having many different clients in many different time zones. Although this can be easily remedied with a few clocks on your computer, it still takes some getting used to.

There are so many apps and tools on the web these days that you can pretty much find any tool you need to conduct business online. Below I will list a few essential tools that many freelancers could find useful in running their businesses abroad.

Fax.com – Some clients would rather fax you back information than email it to you. There are a number of similar services like this that allow you to send and receive faxes via email.

Basecamp – This project-management software is great for designers and developers, but might also come in handy for writers or photographers. It could serve as your own personal organisation and backup area online.

RightSignature – Need signatures on forms and contracts but don’t have time to wait for snail-mail? RightSignature makes it easy to get legally signed contracts taken care of via the internet.

Skype – A telephone service like Skype or Google voice is an essential tool to have. It will give you a telephone number where clients can reach you, no matter where you live.

Earth Class Mail – If you still have a need for snail-mail, services like EarthMail will check your mail for you, open the mail you tell them to, and then scan the enclosed information to your secure account. This is good if you still have bills or important documents that you need access to while away.

Offering good communication between you and your client is critical to success for any freelancer. This is especially true when freelancing abroad. If you want to keep your clients happy while on the road, make sure you stay in touch with them. When living in a new and exotic location, it’s easy to put off client calls and email to head out to the beach for the day. I am certainly guilty of doing just that, but I always made it a point to email, chat or call clients at least once a day. Even if I did no other work that day, I made sure to stay in touch with my clients daily.

You need to get used to the idea that you may not have a phone or internet service in the house you are renting or living in. In some parts of the world, very few houses actually have a phone. Even less will have high-speed internet service. Start getting used to the fact that you will be spending a lot of time working from internet cafes. I mention this because it might make it that much harder to stay in touch with clients, depending on where the internet cafe is in relation to your living quarters.

Final Thoughts

Obviously there is a lot more to moving, living, and working abroad than this post covers. For that reason I am working on creating a membership site called Freelancing Abroad. The idea of the site is to help educate freelancers with basic knowledge with which they need to be able to run a profitable freelancing business from anywhere in the world. If this is of interest to you, I encourage you to sign up for updates at my site Freelancing Abroad.

Freelancing from your dream location might be the most amazing thing you can do with your life. Think about it: what could be better than doing something you love from the most beautiful place you can think of? I am here to tell you, it is not as hard as you might think. The hardest part is taking the first step and getting the ball rolling. Once that ball is in action, you won’t let it stop.

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1. Welcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?

Hi, my name is Christopher Haines and I am a graphic artist from Perth, Australia. I got started pretty much like everyone I think, I loved drawing pictures as a kid, and just never stopped. I studied photography in my first year of high school and discovered Photoshop. This opened up a whole new area for me and was my introduction to the world of design. After finding the art site Deviantart my skills grew.

Requiem

2. Did you study graphic design in school or are you a self-taught artist? And in your opinion what are the pro’s and con’s of each.

I studied graphic design for a few years in high school, and after I left I studied for two years in a diploma course. I also taught myself a lot of the programs I used and constantly made images in my spare time, so I would consider myself self taught as well.

If you are dedicated and willing to work hard, there is no reason why you cant be a self-taught professional designer. The advantage of going to design school is the years of experience your teachers bring to the table, and they can really help you get a solid design base, learning the theory as well as practical knowledge.

NOIR

3. From your portfolio we see that your style ranges from typography, to 3D art, to even matte painting. What would you say is your favorite style to work in and why?

My favorite style is to mix of 3D, photos and painting together. I find this the fastest way to get lots of rich detail in my images. I do however want to explore more simple designs in the future.

Idio

4. A lot of your art seems to be based around these human like 3D characters, tell us how you make them and why you like using them so much in your art?

I like using humans in my images because I am fascinated by how we think and live. By taking something familiar that we interact with every day, and building abstract elements around these structures, I hope to bring another world to the viewer that is both human and alien.

Yorke

5. “Zen” the illustration you created for the latest Desktopography wallpaper pack is a brilliantly made piece with amazing colors and beautiful scenery. Please walk us through how you made this piece and how you came up with the idea?

This image was created for Desktopography using dozens of photos all brought into one cohesive scene. This meant color correcting and changing lighting of all the photos to make them fit together. I also spent a lot of time hand painting details over these photos. The base of the face structure is 3D with these photo elements integrating together.

Zen

6. Who would you say are your “design hero’s,” meaning artists that you look up to; and also tell us why you feel this way about them, what makes them special?

In terms of illustration, my “hero’s” would be Craig Mullins and Stephan Martiniere. I love the worlds they create and the detail they put into their images. I also feel Craig Mullins treated Photoshop as simply a tool to create images with the richness of the old masters.

HER

7. What was one of the biggest challenges you had to overcome in terms of designing? How did you end up overcoming it?

The biggest challenge I had to overcome as a designer was finding the balance between design and life in general. Sometimes your drive to become a better designer can be so focused, you neglect other areas of your life like hanging out with friends and family. It is easy to get burned out so you have to learn when to push yourself and when to relax.

Casino

8. Thanks again for providing Psdtuts+ with this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

No problem, I guess my final words are to love design as much as you love life, and you will be successful.

Requiem

Where to find Chris on the Web

• Chris’s Behance
• Chris’s Portfolio

Untitled Illustration

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]]> http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-digital-illustrator-chris-haines/feed/ 24 http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-digital-artist-kerem-beyit/ http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-digital-artist-kerem-beyit/#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 16:31:01 +0000 Hakan Nural http://psd.tutsplus.com/?p=5134 ]]> Kerem Beyit is from Turkey and working as a freelancer there. It is common to see his works everywhere around the world. He has magical creative powers and is really successful at Illustration, concept design and working in Photoshop. Learn more about his process, work, and inspiration!

1. Can you please introduce yourself? How did your career begin?

I worked as a graphic designer for a while, but it didn’t take long before I realized it wasn’t the thing for me. After jumping from one ridiculous job to another, I came across several quite impressing digital pictures on the internet, and being a child who loved to draw, I decided to give it a try. I made my first tries in 2004, and I’ve been working as a professional illustrator since 2005.

2. There is a fantastic world in your drawings. How do you explain your ability to draw such extraordinary figures? And how do you enrich your dream world?

I basically grew up reading comic books, and the fact that I love fantasy literature plays a big part of course. My imagination is fed and fueled by comic books, novels and movies.

3. Many of your drawings have a dragon figure. Where does this interest come from? What drives you to draw them?

I love drawing any kind of creature actually, because I feel more liberated drawing something that does not have a specimen in nature. The rules you have to abide by are very few, and since there’s no physical counterpart that can be used to do comparisons you can design these creatures the way you want, this kind of liberty is a very important factor for me.

However, the latest dragon inflation in my portfolio is the result of the job offers I get. In about a year, there will be much more dragon artwork in my portfolio, and none of those are personal illustrations. What I mean is, I wouldn’t want to be labeled as an artist who specializes on dragons; specializing on one thing is one of the biggest dangers an illustrator can be faced with.

4. Can you talk a little bit about your design process? What are some of the most important aspects of the various stages of your process? What advice do you have for beginners?

First comes the intellectual process where I think about and construct the figure, the composition and even the light condition beforehand. The rest is about translating that on the canvas, and how good you are at that is a sound indicator of your artistic skills.

What I pay attention to the most depends on what I’m working on; with illustrations and story telling pieces, the purpose is very important; the areas you should dwell on are completely different for an illustration, a book cover, and a character design. As for new artists, I would advice them to stay strong. The only thing this job requires is will, no one can stand in the way of someone who really wants to do this professionally. You have to combine that will with discipline and no matter how long it takes, whether it be 2 years or 5, you have to work real hard. Once you’re in that process, I promise you will get results.

I’d say practicing in a disciplined and enthusiastic fashion would do wonders. They should study the paintings of successful artists real well. Other than that, there’s not much suggestion to give. A person who wants to be an illustrator has to go ahead and draw rather than looking for advice. He has to draw 7 days a week, hate what he has done the week before, and aim for a much better outcome for the week to come, believe me, anyone who has that kind of discipline will not need any kind of suggestion.

5. How did you first come across Photoshop? What is your favorite tool in it? What other programs do you use?

I met Photoshop while studying graphic design, and improved my command of the program quite a bit while working as a graphic designer, so I didn’t really have to deal with learning a new program when I started doing digital illustrations, I only had to learn how to use Photoshop for illustrating purposes.

I have lots of favorite tools, first of which is the custom brush, and of course color correction… As for software I use Vue (for environment design) and Sketch-Up every once in a blue moon (for illustrations that need architecture and perspective).

6. Who are your favorite artists? What impressed you about them? What are your favorite websites?

I grew up drooling over the cover art by Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallego, Joe Jusko. Their impact on me is unquestionable. However, as the years went by, and I really got into this thing my list grew with people like Jim Murray, Raymond Swanland, Todd Lockwood, Scott M. Fischer, and Adam Rex. I follow websites like CGTalk, cghub.com, and CG Gallery.

7. You make wonderful illustrations, but do you want to work in other fields? What are your future plans?

I can’t really say I think of any other career other than illustration, I mean when you look at it realistically it would be a very wrong move for me, but I would like to try my luck in the design industry in general. Within the borders of illustration I think about different fields of course, I’ve really missed working on themes like sci-fi and macabre, but with the workload I’ve got right now it seems impossible for me to sit down and work on a personal picture, but maybe I’ll get a break in the near future J.

8. Thank you for your answers. Finally, what do you want to say to Psdtuts+ readers?

Thank you. Greetings everyone.

Where to find Kerem Beyit on the Web

• kerembeyit.com
• kerembeyit.deviantart.com
• kerembeyit.gfxartist.com

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]]> http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-digital-artist-kerem-beyit/feed/ 49 http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/tomasz-opasinski-interview/ http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/tomasz-opasinski-interview/#comments Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:38:24 +0000 Sean Hodge http://psd.tutsplus.com/?p=4923 ]]> Tomasz Opasinski is from Poland, works in the United States, and has a long history with numerous creative agencies. He’s currently employed as Senior Art Director at BLT & Associates, Inc. He’s mastered Photoshop, digital illustration, design, and continues to experiment whenever time allows.

Tomasz has created hundreds and hundreds of posters for the movie industry. He shares his story with us, starting from humble beginnings and charting the rise to success. He shares his creative insights on design, inspiration, creativity, and more. This is an interesting and thoughtful interview from a talented artist, so lets jump into it!

1. Tomasz, could you tell us a bit about your background? How did you get involved in the design field and creative industry? What training do you have and how has it helped you in your work?

Hi Sean, thanks for having me here… Short story long… For years my dream was to become a Navigation Officer and maybe a ship Captain one day. I had completed Inland Navigation School in Poland and I was about to start my Master’s Degree in Navigation when I was disqualified because of my poor vision – eye glasses. So, my dream burst like a soap bubble in one second… I had to decide what to do next since navigation wasn’t an option at all (even with LASIK surgery) and… my choice came naturally: computers and publishing.

Even in elementary school, I painted, hand drew and worked on school flyers and it seemed to me like this could be something. And it was. Right after my Inland Navigation School, I enrolled in the School of Advertising – also in Poland. In the meantime, I worked in traditional advertising agencies… first as a desktop publishing operator, then designer… then I did some 3D work and finally I got my shot at advertising in one of the biggest agencies in Poland – Euro RSCG Dialog.

At that moment, I felt like I was on a top of the world… I witnessed some of the biggest campaigns being born and made alive, I got into "Young Creatives Competition," I had been "everywhere" at that moment, but… it wasn’t enough for me. I got addicted to adrenaline, to this lifestyle… and to stress – believe it or not.

In 2000, I decided to leave my home country – and try something new in Australia. Tehe… please don’t ask me why Australia – I don’t know… At the same time my roommate (Wojtek) decided to go to Ireland and it became a "who goes somewhere first" competition. I had failed miserably when Wojtek got his Irish working visa in 2 days, where with an Australian Embassy it looked like a year long process. So… I gave up. I gave up on Australia, but not on my "second destination" – USA.

After my 3-week long trip to the US, I had decided to give it a try… and it worked. It wasn’t the easiest process on the planet, but I got my Visa… and I got my first design job in Milwaukee, WI. It wasn’t an easy time for me… I came into a different country, a different culture and a different language. Funny thing about the language – I knew close to nothing then… I couldn’t complete a sentence in English. This was a very stressful time. As they say: "sink or swim" here – sinking wasn’t an option.

In 2002 a Beverly Hills agency – Seiniger Advertising Group (the oldest entertainment advertising agency in the country) – had contacted me with a possible job offer. In the meantime, I won "Guru Award" at 2002 Photoshopworld in San Diego – this award gave me a bit more confidence in "doing and thinking." After a week long series of intense testing, I got hired as an Art Director at Seiniger. Wooohoo!

Ever since then, it’s been "a one, big blur"… I moved from agency to agency, I was given more and more responsibility, I learned many things, I learned English, I learned to manage time and projects better than before… Now, after 7 years, I see my current job from a totally new perspective – now, I strategize more and plan more carefully rather then solely focusing on Photoshop work… I focus on a message, I solve problems. Hmmm… what helped me? Persistence.

2. Could you tell us about your portfolio? There are quite a few technologies one could utilize for their portfolio website, as well as formats for presentation? What are the benefits of the direction you’ve chosen to present your work? What was the thought process and planning behind this project?

I started my website back in 2001. Over the years, the site transformed from a "friend-oriented" to "project-oriented" scheme. I’ve been using my website statistics to optimize it’s shape, size and content. The current shape and form represent visitors’ expectations and I think it goes a bit beyond.

There are many challenges when it comes to an online presentation… many questions have to be answered. Not only from my side, but mostly from a user end. I had to ask myself many, many, many times: what do I want to show here, how am I going to show it, what am I going to do about different formats, what I’m going to do with the amount of work being shown, how small is too small and how big is too big, where to position myself, what type of viewer do I want to attract? These and many other questions that have to be answered at once… it gets tricky, trust me.

In my opinion, the present tomasz-opasinski.com site is optimized for those who want to take their time and view art work, not for "cruise-by" visitors… It’s a gallery and there are no "sort by," "comment" or "google." It’s a gallery, where you experiment piece by piece, you like it or not…and move onto to the next one. There are no ranking, sorting engines, music – its all about images; images in various sizes and proportions… I have horizontal pieces in the experimental art department, I have traditional posters, I have billboards, some packaging, horizontal photography and all these make a library of more than 2000 images.

This design filters out any "noise" present on many websites… buttons, sliders, moving parts, colors, animated elements… this website gives me what I essentially want to see: large images. Viewing all these images requires one thing only: time. The content is much more important than the technology behind it… my website has my photography, experimental artwork, commercial posters and several more interesting ideas. For example, the before and after section (a.k.a Evolution) – takes you to "behind the scenes" with some of the projects.

I’ve always been a fan of "behind the scenes" for motion pictures and here is my favorite one. There is also a section: shapes, where I present simple proportions and schematics behind contemporary posters. I think they make for a great starting point. I tried blogging on my website, but somehow never got into a habit of posting info on a daily or weekly basis, but I’m still trying to figure out the best way to answer all the questions people send me everyday… I suppose I need more time…

3. What was your first experience with Photoshop? How does Photoshop fit into your workflow? What are some of the must know skills with working in Photoshop for the type of work you do? What are the programs and tools that you use on a regular basis? And what does your studio setup look like?

Hmmm… I guess my first semi-Photoshop experience was with Aldus Photostyler back in a day… then Photoshop came along. My very first montage was a balloon flying over a lake… I remember using the lasso tool , tehe… it was fun. Prior to Photoshop there were Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200 with Deluxe Paint. Ehhh, memories.

Currently, the industry is fully (and unfortunately) Photoshop dominated… rarely you can find some dude using Painter and/or a 3D program. I say unfortunately, because Photoshop appears to me as a really stiff, huge creature unable to make smart and quick moves. It looks to me like Adobe work is based on a model: "Hey, programmers, come up with something and let the marketing guys sell it."

They’re missing one, "small," but so important element: "Hey, lets listen to what the users want and lets give it to them…" – it would sell itself. To be good at what I do, I have to listen very carefully to what my clients want and work accordingly – I wish this would apply to other places.

So here we are with Photoshop CS4 and must-know skills… what would it be? Hmmm… First and foremost it would be: masking… Why? you may ask? Because all we do is a collage… we blend images, we dissect every single image into 5… 10… or even more elements, which are used later on in our projects. Not only that… masking is used when we color-correct images, when we create a scene seen on a poster (a dude behind a tree or something) and, for instance, we use masking to "hide" half of our final poster on the promotional websites.

Besides masking, I would say that "coloring and color correction" are important to know… these are very useful skills when it comes to building "a comp" from 40 different images – some of them shot yesterday in our studio, some of them taken five years ago on a rainy day and some of them at noon on the beach… at the end, all these elements have to work together and look like one seamless snapshot.

Type is also important, but I suppose it’s not a typical Photoshop problem. Though not necessarily Photoshop related, I would love to mention one significant skill. I call it "a dissecting skill"… it is an ability to see more in every single image than an average person, it’s all about attention to details. Example: image of a car parked on a residential street… What you see? It’s not just a car that you can mask out from this image, but plenty more elements which may be very useful one day… reflection in car windows, wheels, leafs from a tree behind the car, house windows, stairs, license plate, street surface, clouds, lousy cat sitting on the window sill, grass with yellow flowers… and so on.

When you exercise your imagination, this is where your job gets waaaay more interesting. Your limits disappear. Seriously. Imagine that one day you may have more than a million images in your library. Imagine that every single agency has its own library with millions of images… imagine that you have to memorize most of them in order to pull some of them to use in one of your projects. Exciting, right?

I hardly go beyond Photoshop at work… In the past years, I used Maxon Cinema 4D for my 3D elements and compositions, but I have switched to more sophisticated software, Autodesk Mudbox and Pixologic Zbrush. I try to reach beyond posters and 2D work.

I have two "studios"… one at work and one at home. I work on a Mac Pro, two Dell monitors and use Wacom Intuos tablets… nothing extraordinary (except 20GB of RAM maybe). I’ve tried Wacom Cintiq 21UX for about 2 months, but I couldn’t deal with the pain in my arm after 8 hours of illustrating. It’s great for digital sculpting though, I have to admit. What else. I have a lamp with a natural soft, white light to see true colors and headache tablets of course. An extremely important part of my studios is backing up my work – other than Time Machine, I have additional 2TB for my monthly backup needs. Add a nice chair, webcam, huge speakers and you have my studio… with some posters on the wall.

4. Could you tell us how you have evolved as an artist over the years, what key lessons have you learned that stuck with you?

I don’t feel complete as an artist to be honest with you. Maybe privately (other than work) yes, I am making my experimental art, but work-wise I’m in a marketing business. I strategize, I solve problems by using images (posters) and it just happens that (thankfully) people like my solutions to their "problems" – posters, mostly posters.

How does art fit into all of this? It lies in the execution (Photoshop)? of my ideas. Is it part of the strategy I choose for a particular campaign? Is it "feel" or "treatment" I choose? Is it the way I present my artwork? I’d rather make a great image rather then saying 1000 words.

There is only one lesson to learn (except masking) go beyond expectations. As corny as it may sound, it works. Those who took risks will understand me now, those who didn’t – may have something to look up to. I think that the US produced more than 700 (!) movies last year and imagine that every single one needed a poster… now, imagine that many great posters have been done in the past, imagine that you should "reinvent" every single new poster, imagine that for every campaign, we, as designers, have to create hundreds of "possible posters," then go beyond that. Once you do… yeah, it feels good.

5. How long have you been creating posters? How did you get started in this area of design? How did this grow into such a large part of what you do?

It’s been 7 years now, but it feels like 19 or so, trust me. It’s a really fast-paced environment, full of stress, deadlines and very creative misunderstandings. Have you ever heard, "You snooze – You loose?" This industry is based on this saying then… time, time, time – this is what I have really mastered at my job. How to be faster, wiser… more efficient.

In the past 7 years, I was involved in about 300 campaigns, which gives an average of 3.5 campaigns per month. Let me emphasize that "a campaign" does not equal to only one final poster. We’re talking about tens and hundreds of posters per campaign. How did this grow on me? I just love what I do… I really do. Some aspects more, some less – it’s life I guess, you can’t love everything equally.

Commercial design grew on me over the years. First, small projects for friends and family: invitations, cards, wedding albums… then, school brochures, school newspapers (with ads), "school dance" posters followed by flyers and more grown-up, traditional advertising. These days I do the same thing, but entertainment oriented. "There is no business like showbusiness," as they say…

After all this hard work: thinking, shooting, sketching, illustrating, positioning, executing… you won’t see your name (or the company for that matter) in the movie’s credits. Just so you know, the pizza delivery guy’s name will be there, right after "mr. smith’s" taxi driver… Funny? Nah, I don’t think so.

6. What top resources would you recommend for someone to learn poster design skills? Where do you go for your inspiration?

It’s hard to say exactly where to go, since there is no place for all the answers. You basically learn as you go (!). Some learn fast, some learn slow and some are not meant to do this kind of job – simply, this applies to all professions.

There are plenty of books and DVDs about drawing and Photoshop, so don’t worry about that. What else? Hmmm… there are countless web sources for Photoshop tutorials, check out Scott’s great one.

It gets tougher when you narrow it down to posters… I would recommend books about traditional advertising… techniques, styles and tricks. There are quite a few books on classic posters – Russian, British, Polish, Chinese, etc. There is literature about contemporary posters as well, but somehow they all end on 1990 – what’s up with that?

Well, a problem with all those "poster books" is that they don’t show/tell you anything about the creative process or marketing solutions… Most of them are (or should be) in the NON-educational section, since they present only a final stage of poster (no, not gallery). Where am I going with this? I would love to publish a book about movie posters… current movie posters with educational background to each sample presented… but, unfortunately, you will have to wait for it for a while.

Other than books, there is not much to learn from when it comes to posters… you can always try to learn from the professionals, who design posters for a living, right? Ask these guys for mentoring? Workshops? Be creative… I do have some links to poster designers on my website, or just simply google them.

Inspiration comes from everywhere… from your grandma making odd comments, kids flying kites, nature… everywhere… but the most important thing would be to preserve these memories and apply them when needed. Otherwise, you search for inspiration all day long without much being done in the meantime…

This is just one of the skills that may be helpful one day… another one is known as ADHD. Without ADHD you would be stuck with one idea for 6 hours or longer… I call it a natural prerequisite… I know, it’s funny, but so true.

7. Could you tell us about the creation of one of your favorite poster projects? What was the name of the project? What makes it stand out in your mind as something you enjoyed working on? Can you walk us through how you created this piece and how it fit the intended message and audience?

It would be "Paris, Je T’Aime" followed by "Sukiyaki Western Django", exequo… both posters/campaigns are in separate categories… "Paris" is heavily "concept based" where "Sukiyaki" is "image/feel based." Both projects gave me a chance to go beyond what I was expected to do as an Art Director. Both gave me creative freedom, both gave me a chance to send a message between studio/producer and audience… it’s a great feeling when you can do so much with just one image. Both posters are unique in regards to style – it’s a valuable exercise for a designer to stretch between these imaginary borders. Both just feel good, feel… right.

8. You have built up a great client base having done work for large corporations. In your opinion what are some effective ways to market yourself as a designer to attract clients?

It’s a tricky question. I work for agencies and technically the clients are not my clients. I go to the meetings, briefings and screenings, but I represent an agency. The law does not allow me to work for multiple agencies at the same time. It would be creating competition for myself… You know what I mean?

Many people (mostly students) have asked me the same question: "how to market yourself?" And… hmm… every time I respond: "go beyond expectations." Among others, it means that you have to prepare your portfolio… and by portfolio, I mean some good stuff. Remember that good stuff mostly doesn’t happen at school… it happens when you have an idea and vision and want to experiment with it. It happens when you spend some time with it… when you put some work into it… and in the end – it really shows.

Remember, seek opinion from everybody other than your family and friends. They tend to tell us what we want to hear… and in this game it’s not about what you want to hear, it’s about what people in your profession think about your work… the bottom line is that a client has to like your designs, he pays your bills. This brings me to my next point: website… from there you can get some really honest feedback… and it’s easy to forward to other people. Convenient. You won’t get sticky fingerprints on web based portfolio…

So, portfolio is one thing. Case studies also help to understand how you do stuff, how do you solve problems, how long it takes between the problem and solution? Little tip: people love to see short ways for solving problems. There is one more thing: attitude… but that’s another article!

9. What are you currently working on that’s captured your imagination? What are your plans for the future?

Unfortunately, I am unable to share my thoughts on my present project with anyone outside the agency, but trust me – there is plenty of cool stuff currently in works. As far as my plans go… hmmm… tough question in tough times, but I’m a 34-year-old guy, it’s time to grow up and do something more serious… I know, sounds pretty enigmatic…

10. Thanks again for providing Psdtuts+ with this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for creatives working hard to grow in this industry?

Go beyond expectations. You guys at Psdtuts+ definitely do…

Tomasz Opasinski on the Web

• Tomasz Opasinski Portfolio

Credits

Posters courtesy of: the ant farm, trailer park print, crew creative advertising. All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners (2002-2008).

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]]> http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/tomasz-opasinski-interview/feed/ 42 http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-dan-wiersema-of-guifx/ http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-dan-wiersema-of-guifx/#comments Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:40:34 +0000 Sean Hodge http://psd.tutsplus.com/?p=4911 ]]> In this interview, Dan Wiersema shares with us the structure of an effective interface design team, the working process of such a team, and how to bring together an effective project. We’ll learn about the touchscreen design company Guifx, of which Dan is the Creative Director.

Dan is filled with creative energy, a strong design eye, a well-rounded background in various art and design fields, and a strong attention to detail – all of which he feels are important components in a successful designer. If interface design is a subject that captivates you, then jump into this interview to learn more!

1. Dan, could you tell us a bit about your background? How did you get involved in the design field? What training do you have? What drove you towards icon design, making interfaces, and ultimately narrowing in on touchscreens?

My name is Dan Wiersema, I’m a 28 year old digital artist and the Creative Director at Guifx.

My first venture into design was in high school with graffiti art. Learning valuable lessons like the use of color, balance and typography from graffiti, I attended college at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale where I graduated with degrees in Graphic Design and Interactive Media Design. Late to the party, I didn’t actually learn to use a computer until I was in college around the age of 20. Once I started using one, I was hooked.

The transition between the mediums happened naturally for me. I started out as a traditional print designer designing logos, posters, brochures, etc. Knowing the future is on the internet I moved into web design and then began to focus on user interface design after joining Guifx. Believe it or not, I consider designing icons and touchscreens as relatively new to me.

2. Could you tell us about the recent redesign of the Guifx site? What were the criteria you set up for the redesign? How did the process unfold? Do you feel you hit your goals with the redesign? Do you find designing for your own site any more difficult than client work?

This time around our goal was more of a “refresh” than a complete redesign. With so much client work, we had been using a pretty old format and just building and building on it. We knew it was time to clean house, so we gave the website a full update. A lot of the changes involved our store’s presentation and content. We also refreshed all of the graphics throughout the site while maintaining the overall feel of the previous version.

Designing for ourselves can be much more difficult than client work. That’s one of the reasons we opted for an update over a full redesign. The update took about half the time a complete redesign would have, and we loved what we had. It just needed some love.

3. When did Guifx form? What’s your role on the team and did your group come together? What are some of the company’s significant accomplishments, clients and projects, and how do you see the company growing?

Guifx was formed in 2000, creating touchscreen interfaces long before touch hit the mainstream market. These days, as Creative Director I’m in charge of the overall presentation of everything we do, how the world perceives our work and thus how they perceive Guifx as a whole. Our group has pretty much been formed from friends and artists I have met through the years either in college or through various design circles on the internet.

Guifx has customers in over 39 countries ranging from smaller and mid-size companies to large corporations such as Yahoo!, Wells Fargo, HBO and Walt Disney. What we have accomplished up to this point, while fantastic, is only the beginning. We are expanding rapidly and have a strong feeling that we are on the cusp of what will be a real breakout time in our company’s history.

4. Your business card has an interface flavor? Could you tell us about the design of it? Are you satisfied with the end result? How effectively does it communicate the concept of what you all do at Guifx?

For the Guifx card I wanted to come up with a design that really showed what Guifx was all about while still staying pretty clean and easy to read. I felt it was important to illustrate the thought and effort that goes into our interfaces. Our attention to detail is what I think sets us apart from the crowd. I think our card communicates that pretty well.

5. Could you open up the Guifx hood for us. How is it collaborating on projects with your group? Is your team distributed or are you all located in Florida? Does everyone have a clear role on each project? Could you walk us through the Automobile Interface project displayed in your folio to demonstrate your responses?

We have an awesome group chemistry, we all get along brilliantly. These guys have become some of my closest friends, working with them isn’t only easy, it’s almost second nature. There are 7 of us total. Currently all of us are here in Florida except Nando is in Brazil, Chris is in Norway and Lance is in England. This past year everyone came to Florida to visit. We had such an amazing time that we’re trying to make it an annual event to assemble for an official Guifx trip.

The automobile interface was something Nando and I worked on. Every project has a different lead designer, I was the lead on this particular project. I created the layout, functionality, overall look and placement of all the graphics. For instance, I mocked up the wireframe of the car in the middle with a wireframe I found on google image search. After the layout was solid, Nando came back in and redrew a lot of the elements including the car, giving the interface the final look.

6. Could you tell us about your project Weloveicons.com. What sparked you to create this site? Could you tell us about the design? What motivated you to go so narrow with the layout? What prompted the style choice of wood and other elements? How quickly has this site grown and do you get numerous new icon submissions daily?

We Love Icons is a personal project by myself and my friend and co-worker Nando Albuquerque. I love changing and modifying my desktop with new icons. The reason we wanted to create this site is because there really wasn’t just one place to go to find the best icons out there.

The layout was determined by the content we were going to present. I wanted the site to be all about the icons. So many websites dwarf their content with over-done GUIs. In some cases that makes sense, but here I wanted the icons to be the focus. The wood texture is something I had been wanting to try for a while. My inspiration for the design, as weird as this may sound, was primarily a japanese bentō box.

The site has become popular a lot quicker than we thought. Within the first week we had around 1500 visits a day steady and it has grown to about 3000 per day now 5 months later. We receive about 10 submissions a week. I’m actually surprised people don’t submit more, right now Nando and I find most of the icons you see on the site. We’re thinking of finding some volunteers to help us out in the near future.

7. Where does Photoshop fit into your workflow? What are some of the other programs you use on a regular basis. Is sketching a part of your workflow? Do you use a digital pen/tablet?

Out of all applications I use to create designs, Photoshop plays the biggest role. I also use Illustrator extensively. Sketching is a big part of the process, as are what we call “lo-fi” mock-ups. At the moment I don’t use a tablet, though I want one. I’m holding out for the mythical touchscreen Mac tablet (come on Apple, please).

8. What is the inspiration behind the Quarian Media Player project? Is this a personal project? How important are personal design projects to you? How often do you find the time to experiment with new techniques?

Yes, the Quarian project was indeed a personal project of mine. I have always admired that “high-tech” style of design and I wanted to try my hand at it. Unfortunately while working on client projects I can’t afford to experiment too much. Personal projects are very important to me for this reason. I really wish I had more time to work on this kind of thing.

9. What top resources would you recommend for someone to learn icon design and interface design? Where do you go for your inspiration?

First and foremost you need to master the tools of the trade. For us they are Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. The best way I see to do that, without attending a school, is following tutorials, getting books and really studying hard.

The second part is what I personally do, of course this might be different for everyone. But I find artists, art and random things I really like. I study them, I find what I like and don’t like. I do this with anything really: industrial design, product packaging, interface, 3D, random objects, seriously anything. And I keep bookmarks in my browser, a folder on my computer, and notes of all this inspiration.

When it comes time to design something, I picture what it might look like. When things I have seen pop into my mind, I mash-up my thoughts with pieces from the different inspirational images and ideas I may have found. Then I start to build my own unique idea.

As far as links go, for interface I frequent: deviantART, No Ideas But In Things and GUI.Station.

10. I noticed in the Guifx store that your company creates industry specific software? What has your role been with this? Could you tell us about Koloroo for example? I see the Koloroo logo in your portfolio. Could you tell us about that branding project and how successful it was?

Guifx has been creating touchscreen GUIs for the home automation industry for almost 10 years now and makes graphic solutions for almost any touchscreen platform. Home automation focuses on simplifying day-to-day tasks that control various aspects of the home for example room temperature, lighting, audio, video, security, etc. Over the years my role has changed from creating the interfaces to planning and overseeing development of new products and interfaces as well.

Koloroo is a software project led by our Director of Operations, Morgan Strauss. He has a bit of a mild obsession with math and color. Koloroo is the software that blends those two things together letting you interactively explore color schemes beautifully generated by math.

Creating the Koloroo brand was a lot of fun. Morgan and I brainstormed names and ideas for the possible art direction. In the end he came up with the name and I came up with the multi-colored kangaroo and later added the final type treatment which really brought it to life. The branding for Koloroo was extremely successful. The logo has won quite a few awards and been featured in many top logo galleries.

11. What are the core skills you would look for in hiring an interface designer? Is a traditional education essential? Or can someone enter this profession with enough passion and through practice, tutorials, and hard work?

The most important things I look for is originality and attention to detail; a good designer puts his or her own personal spin on their work. It’s important for them to really make the design their own, while making sure that it’s perfect down to the finest details.

Yes, you can make it without a traditional education. If you have an eye for great design, work hard enough and really love what you do, the sky’s the limit. Most of our guys have no formal training whatsoever. They are self-taught and absolutely amazing artists.

12. Thanks for chatting with us Dan, any parting tips for aspiring designers hungry to grow professionally?

The pleasure is all mine Sean. My only tip for aspiring designers is to remember that all it takes is an eye for good design and some hard work. Good luck!

Where to find Dan on the Web

If you have any questions feel free to give me a shout, all of my contact info can be found on my personal site, danwiersema.com. You can also find me on Twitter: @danwiersema and on deviantART: SmarTramS

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]]> http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/interview-with-dan-wiersema-of-guifx/feed/ 21 http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/vladimir-tomin-interview/ http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/vladimir-tomin-interview/#comments Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:05:50 +0000 Emil http://psd.tutsplus.com/?p=4663 ]]> Vladimir Tomin is a Russian native with a unique style of design. A fantastic mix of hand drawn elements and digital art fused together create imagery from Vlad’s life as well as his favorite things in life.

Vlad also creates motion graphics and talks about how he incorporates Photoshop into them. He also tells us his opinion on the most important parts of attracting clients. And as usual we get an explanation of how he created one of his best illustrations. This is another great interview with another talented artist, so lets get into it!

1. Welcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?

Hey Psdtuts+, thanks for the warm welcome. I’m happy up here! My name is Vladimir Tomin, I’m from Khabarovsk, Russia. We have -35C winters and +35C summers, we’re located so far away from civilization, only Google knows where we are.

I’m 27 years old 172 cm short; I love my girlfriend, cats, ice cream, and life! I started photoshopping 2 years ago, in the summer of 2007. My friend Sergei showed me Graphic-Exchange and I was really impressed by the works there. I was inspired enough to try doing some graphics/art myself.

Lifeform

2. What was your first experience with Photoshop? And tell us how you have evolved as an artist since then, what lessons have you learned that stuck with you all these years?

My first Photoshop experience was pen-tooling photos for footage in motion graphics. It was 4 years ago. I learned a few tricks since that time, but I can’t call myself a Photoshop master because I rely more on my drawing skills and imagination, and maybe that’s why my photo manipulations are not very photo-realistic. 

Lessons? Art is subjective. Critique is gold. Improve or leave. Love or leave. Industry lessons: name and connections are everything; your real skills can help but will not guarantee success. Remember, art IS subjective.

2012

3. “The Story Of My Life” is an amazing illustration that you made for SlashTHREE’s latest art pack “Déjà Vu.” Can you please walk us through how you created this piece and what exactly you intended the message to be when you created it.

Thank you! This picture is about a boy, and girl who left him. (to make the situation even worse, she left him for another girl – take a close look at the hand she is holding)

This is a very beautiful girl but for this guy at this present moment she is the ugliest monster from his worst nightmares. I lost love once, in a similar situation, I know how this boy feels and how he sees the world. This picture reflects it precisely. At least for me. Technically there was nothing unusual in creating it, a lot of drawing-drawing-drawing and some basic photo manipulation.

The Story Of My Life

4. Your design style varies from piece to piece, it could go from typography, to photo manipulation, to a full painting. Why do you experiment with so many different styles instead of sticking to one and mastering it?

I’m not a perfectionist. I think I can’t really master any style, but I do respect people who can. For me, it is the process of creation that matters most. And every time I have an idea of a picture in my head, I don’t really know how to create it so it is a challenge for me every time and it is great. It also helps to keep a fresh eye and keep your graphic-mojo in good shape.

Set The World On Fire

5. You have built up a great client base having done work for larger corporations line Nike, Addidas, Toyota, and more. In your opinion what would be the best way to market yourself as a designer to attract clients?

Well most of these clients are only local representatives of big brands. Your attractiveness as a designer depends on the scale of territory you’re working with. For example, on the local market you must be a universal master of everything, you must be capable of doing every kind of job in short period of time with good quality.

On a world-wide market, it is easier to master a unique style, and it’s better be ad-adaptable. But remember, name and connections, it works everywhere, even in design. Having good friends in big agencies or productions is a much more reliable way to get a job compared to just having your unique style and super-human Photoshop skills. Sad but true.

Madness

6. You are also proficient in motion graphics, so tell us a little about what goes into making them? What programs do you use? And lastly walk us through a typical session.

Motion graphics involve some more direction, storytelling and sense of motion. But design itself can be less detailed compared to still imagery, because viewers don’t have that much time to actually see all the details.

For my motion graphics project Adobe After Effects is a perfect choice. And the typical process is: idea (or goal in case of commercial work), story, storyboard, style frames, footage preparation, and work. A lot of work.

Anarchy In Tokyo

7. Do you incorporate Photoshop into making your motion graphics if so then how?

Photoshop helps with cutting objects from their backgrounds, preparing backgrounds, matte-painting, preparing footage, making style frames, making illustrations – 30% of most motion graphics projects are Photoshop work.

Fight For Alpha

8. Thanks again for providing Psdtuts+ with this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

Having fun is all that matters, if you’re not enjoying creating your works, why should you do it at all? It was my pleasure, thank you for the invitation!

Freestyle

Where to find Vladimir on the Web

• Vlad’s Portfolio

No Concept

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