This Week's Favourites – September 19th 2008

My favourite findings for this week include some cool tutorials from Design Blurb and PSDTUTS as well as inspirational content from Ray Frenden. After viewing all that, there's then the chance to put your newly inspired skills to the test in the Don't Panic Street Work Design Competition.

Design Blurb
This great little Illustrator/Photoshop tutorial covers some interesting techniques used during the creation of an abstract illustrative design. The post explores some of the menus tucked away behind the scenes of Illustrator and led to me discovering a few new tricks.

PSDTUTS
I'm pretty sure almost all the readers of Blog.SpoonGraphics will already be familiar with PSDTUTS, but the latest post by Sergio Ordóñez is another fantastic insight into his unique character design methods. This time Sergio talks about his workflow during the design of website mascots for Mafia Death.

Ray Frenden
I recently discovered Ray Frenden's website and portfolio during research for my latest VECTORTUTS article. Included on his blog are some cracking video screencasts of his workflow. While many artists show a sped-up or short clips of their works in progress Ray really goes to town recording the whole process in real time, this does mean each video can span hours in length and I have to admit I didn't find the time to watch them completely, but seeing his illustrations take shape and his techniques used is a great insight to his work.

Don't Panic
Isabel from Don't Panic recently contacted me with information of the Don't Panic Street Work Design Competition in associated with 3 Mobile. They are looking for designers to participate in the design of a personal and unique poster representing the freedom, communication and locality you can draw from the 3 Mobile Broadband Dongle.
With a £500 cash prize and the chance to have your work reproduced as a limited edition it's definitely worth a look. See deadlines and more information at the official competition page.