Articles & Inspiration
Hot foil stamping is one of those super cool special print finishes that every designer wishes to use in their projects. It’s often combined with embossing to transfer metallic foil to the print stock with the use of a heated die, which leaves the designated portion of the design covered in a shiny reflective material. In today’s inspiration showcase I present 40 creative print design projects that make use of hot foil printing, including business cards, invitations, posters and packaging. See how foils in a variety of colours are used to highlight patterns and details within the artwork.
Motorcycle helmets, wooden signs and bananas. There’s a never ending source of solid objects that can be used as canvases for hand lettered artwork! Typically we see inspiring typographic designs on paper, but today’s inspiration showcase focuses on those that appear in more creative places, ranging from quite normal signage applications like shop windows and cafe walls, to the slightly more bizarre like hand tools and loaves of bread! Each one has been carefully illustrated by hand with ink and paint to create unique hand lettered works of art.
The double exposure effect has been extremely popular over recent years, and has been a featured topic before in my inspiration showcases. Originally the effect was produced using a photography technique where two images are exposed onto the same piece of film, but the style has since been digitally replicated by designers in Photoshop, as I explain in my recent double exposure effect tutorials. I’ve noticed the effect has also been adopted by illustrators who mimic the trendy double exposure style, but rather than use existing imagery, they skilfully recreate the effect by hand and combine multiple illustrations into one layout to form interesting compositions. In today’s showcase I featured 30 cleverly illustrated poster designs that have been hand drawn in the popular double exposure style.
I’ve seen these fun pop art style magazine cover doodles springing up in many of the design inspiration galleries lately, but I never realised they’re all the works of two talented ladies! Ana Strumpf is a Designer, Illustrator and Vogue Columnist from Brazil who is famous for her Re.Cover art series. Hattie Stewart is a London based Illustrator whose doodle-bombing has led to her working with big name brands and having her work exhibited around the world. Both of them have a range of brilliant reimagined magazine covers that have been enhanced with hand drawn patterns and embellishments. Check out this showcase for a taster of their fun artwork.
No matter whether they’re made digitally, or using scissors, glue and a scanner, collage art is loads of fun! The pieces I love browsing the most are those with hilarious results, where the artist uses totally random imagery to create an abstract result with a comedic touch. In today’s design showcase I present 30 fantastic collage art projects, each with a surreal (and sometimes disturbing) outcome.
Since the hipster style and culture has become more and more popular, we’ve started to see design work for barber shops become increasingly common! In today’s design showcase I present 55 great examples of Graphic Design projects based on this particular industry. Some of the designs are from live client projects, while others are personal works, but they all feature a mix of logo designs, business cards and product packaging that form a unique brand. Many of them are perfect embodiments of the retro/vintage theme, but others take on a much more distinctive style.
