Articles & Inspiration
Just like stickers, t-shirts and pin badges, embroidered patches are a trendy fashion accessory designers love to produce with their custom designs. They come in all shapes and sizes, some with multiple colours; others with simple mono designs. Common uses include novelty promotional items, saleable merchandise, or souvenirs for events. What I personally love about these creative examples in this showcase is seeing how the digital design is replicated in thread, which transforms the artwork into a tangible little item with wonderful patterns and textures.
The Ampersand is loved by all types of creatives! Its shape has evolved into a variety of styles since it was conceived as a ligature of the letters ‘e’ and ‘t’ from the Latin ‘et’ for ‘and’. You can find a range of ampersand designs across different fonts and typefaces, from cursive script variants to more abstract and experimental styles that stray away from the original ‘et’ shapes. The Ampersand is commonly used as the main subject of art pieces too, where it is appreciated purely for its aesthetics rather than as a form of language. In today’s showcase I present 35 creative examples of the ‘&’ character which have been beautifully decorated to produce interesting designs and illustrations.
Color Fonts (also known as Chromatic Fonts) are the latest technological advancement in the world of typography and the next step in the evolution of typesetting. We’re all familiar with digital fonts that progressed from the concept of movable type, but one drawback that those two systems have in common is each character can only be produced in a single colour. Digital type can of course be modified with an array of text effects and customisations, but the new wave of Color Fonts use the OpenType SVG format to save colour, texture and transparency information directly into the font file. Essentially, Color Fonts are character sets of full colour graphics that provide exciting opportunities for creating vibrant typefaces.
Old packaging designs from previous centuries provide the ultimate vintage design inspiration. The best way to achieve realistic vintage effects in your modern artwork is to study the aesthetics of authentic examples. These relics were once every day household products with ordinary packaging artwork for the era, but as design styles and printing technologies have developed, designers are now finding new appreciation for the classic look. Check out these rare treasures and make note of the colours, layout and typography to inspire your own vintage style designs!
Over recent years the revival of futuristic art styles from the 1980s have proven to be a popular modern design trend. Highly reflective chrome effect logos with vibrant colours high-tech surroundings are common traits of this aesthetic. In today’s inspiration showcase I present 30 stunning retro designs with 80s style chrome text effects. See how this gaudy art style has come back into fashion as part of the retrowave/synthwave movement.
Overprint is a printing technique where two or more inks are placed over the same area, which allows the ink colours to mix and create an additional hue. Creative artwork can be produced by overprinting a second image over an existing print using a different colour. Wherever the inks overlap, a third colour is produced according to the subtractive colour model. Typically the effect is produced manually using screenprinting techniques, but it can also be easily replicated in digital design software using the Multiply blending mode. In today’s inspiration showcase I present 25 stunning designs with colourful overprint effects that cleverly combine multiple artwork into one.
