Pixel art was an art form that I never really new much about. Until earlier this week when I made a post about pixel art in which I showed you my first effort at drawing in the new style. Well as the week has gone on I have progressively added more and more to my drawing, which you can see above. Since I am having so much fun with this project I thought it would only be appropriate to show you some of the great uses of pixel art in the past and present.

The first of which I bring you is from Eboy. Eboy is the most popular maybe even most well versed group of people that design in pixel art and their blog and designs are simply amazing and I suggest checking it out. After looking through their awesome designs which their are tons of and browsing their site I found this awesome little ditty, which is not little and comes in poster form click to see the full version. It is a complete internet city if you look close enough you are likely to find every hot site on the net in this image. A concept that is outstanding and developed better than I could even imagine.

If you like social networking and I know that you do I would check out citypixel.com. City Pixel is an all new social networking site that has turn pixel art into an amazing form of social networking. You can live in Pixel York find yourself a job, watch videos, advertise all in pixel format. One of the cool features of citypixel is that you can advertise on the building of Pixel York. citypixel is really taking pixel art and social networking to the next level. I will most likely be signing up for this as I think it could be really fun. If you sign up make sure you let me know and we can hang out in pixel york.

Pixel Art is partly based from the art form used in creating video games back in the day. However that doesn’t slow designers such as insert name here form creating new games using pixel arts. If you click this picture it will take you to insert name heres site where you will find many examples of pixel art including 5 different games all design in the pixel art style. Be careful when browsing the site at work though you may find an image or two on the site that are not safe for work. Even pixel penis shouldn’t be seen in the work place.

Well that is it for now, I have run out of great uses of pixel art for the time being.  I am going to keep looking around so look for this post to be updated periodically.  If you know of any great pieces of pixel art please link me to them.

If you are awesome subscribe to my rss feed.  If you like emails subscribe via email.  Remember only you can prevent forest fires help me achieve my goal of 100 subscribers by June.

As a graphic designer I am always pushing myself to design in new styles. So for my newest project, a web design for a top quality web host, I wanted to do just that. I decided that in order to make the site for my (themecannon.com’s) client to stand out I was going to make a banner in isometric pixel art.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what isometric pixel art is well then look at the image above this post to see the little bit of my first effort at designing in it. But to better understand and learn how to draw in this style you really need to check out The Complete Guide To Isometric Pixel Art.

According to the complete guide to isometric pixel art (the site that is teaching me how to draw). Isometric Pixel art is…

“Isometric Pixel Art (IPA) is a modern form of digital art that only recently has been accepted as a new art form. I’m sure most of us have seen this typical type of artwork in old games such as ‘X-Com’ or the relatively old ‘Ultima Online’. The 2-Dimentional (2D) representation of a 3-Dimentional (3D) object is fascinating to many people. This is possibly because of the simplicity and amount of small details that can fit into a single IPA piece. It doesn’t need that much brain power to figure out, yet it is pleasing to the eye. IPA can be compared to cartoons in many ways, as people like to look (watch) and accept the 2D art form as it is very simplistic and easy to follow. The main purpose of any art work is that it draws your attention. In many ways IPA is set out to achieve this, that is, to represent something that looks like it could come from the real world, yet you know it’s just a computer generated image (CGI).

Each separate IPA image is always going too made up of single computer generated blocks, known as pixels. Each pixel is the same size as any other pixel, but it can be any colour you can think of and it can fit together with other pixels, any way you can think of. You can think of a pixel-based image as you can a mosaic in real life that is made up of tiles to form an overall picture. To see an example of a single pixel take a look at this letter ‘i’, the single pixel is the small dot you see above the long vertical line. In fact the whole letter is made up of single pixels that have been joined together to appear as one long stoke or line. The pixel will be explained further along in this reading when we look into tools used to create IPA.”

So sharpen up those graphic design skills of yours and check out their tutorials.  Pixel art is a fun and exciting way to create new design works in an exciting style. Give it a try and link me to your pixel art projects.

If you are awesome subscribe to my rss feed.  If you like emails subscribe via email.  Remember only you can prevent forest fires help me achieve my goal of 100 subscribers by June.

By minimizing your clutter.

The words, aka the content of your site, are the most important parts of it.  It is what search engines see, it is what users read, it is the lifeblood of your site. Yet you spend more time creating images than you do content.

I am a fan of simplistic design, I like white space, straight lines, and sharp corners.  It is the way my house, my office, and my website look.  I may not have the most readers, or the most popular website on the net, but the one compliment I get more that any other is that people like my site because it is clean and easy to read.

When developing your site you must remember that in order to mazimize your space and get the most out of your content you must remove the extras that clutter it up.

Images are a wonderful thing, and they add a dynamic to your site that plain text can’t. As a designer I know this full and well.  Yet I can’t stress enough that even the best graphic in the world can detract from your site when placed incorrectly.

So how do you maximize your space and remove the clutter?

Seperate your graphics from your content. 

Many bloggers love to have an image associated with each one of their posts because it allows the reader to take a break.  This is good, yet bad.  Most bloggers don’t take the time to do it right and you end up with 400px of graphic with 100px of text squeezed in to the right of the image and between the margin of the div.  Place your images wisely so they don’t junk up your text.

Move Your Ads

It would be horrible I know your ctr would drop tremendously, but what is worth more to you a few dollars or a happier reader.  If you are going to advertise within your text I would reccomend using a content link system and not some pick ad image or block advertisement that really just ads crap to your site.

Use A Sans-Serif Font

Serif Fonts are very pretty, but truthfully unecessary for web applications.  Your reader will have an easier time reading a not serif font and your site will look cleaner without millions of tiny text tails everywhere.

Keep Your Widgets On The Side

Websites are generally categorized in columns ( 2 column, 3 column designs ) keep your sidebar outside of the main column.  Don’t try to add to many widgets into your posts.  If readers have to scroll too much to get from article to article they may not do it.

There are many ways to design a website and many ways to design it well.  I hope you find some of these tips to keeping a design clean and simple helpful in your design process.

If you are awesome subscribe to my rss feed.  If you like emails subscribe via email.  Remember only you can prevent forest fires help me acheive my goal of 100 subscribers by June.

As a designer you will meet many people that will ask you to do work for free, to do work for a fraction of what it should actually cost, and to do work at a fixed rate (per design).   When you are first starting out these will all be very tempting offers for you because you won’t have a strong portfolio or the work experience that is needed to charge the prices that you want, right? 

Wrong. Very Wrong. Just because you are a new designer doesn’t mean your work is worth less. 

I am writing this article because as of recent I am working on a website which I quoted at a flat rate. A mistake I made as a rookie designer. In my case I quoted a company a reasonable price, roughly 600.00, for a wordpress theme designed and developed.  But what I did not take into my estimation was many weeks worth of revisions and modifications.

When you are estimating a project for a client I recommend giving them exactly that. An Estimate. Make sure you leave some wiggle room for charging for modifications and revisions.  In my case I suggested that the revisions where included which is why months after the fact I am still working on the same project without any new income from it.

I am not upset with my client for making the revisions as the finished product is supposed to be exactly what they are looking for and it is my responsibility to deliver that.

Setting your pricing and being strong in your convictions about what you want to earn will benefit you as a designer.  But I do throw caution to the wind.  You will lose many business opportunities. 

For some reason many people believe that design and development is way overpriced therefore you will probably never ever here back from many people requesting quotes from you.  Don’t be discouraged.  The problem with design and development jobs is that most people looking for a design don’t have a business plan, don’t have a budget, and think that they are going to make a fortune online without spending anything. These are the people you are going to quote 7 / 10 times, these are the people that aren’t going to get back to you.  Expect that you are going to find 1 client that is going to pay your prices out of 10 and keep sending out  your estimates.  You will eventually generate a real strong client base and won’t have lost your ass by doing work for to cheap.

Some things to take into considerations when estimating a design:

• Your Value - Estimate your salary
• Your Expenses
  • Internet Connection
  • Drawing Supplies
  • Web Hosting
  • Learning Materials
  • Computer
  • Software
  • Work Space

There are plenty more expenses that will come into your design career and you will need to estimate their cost into your rates otherwise you will end up losing money in the long run.  Don’t be afraid to charge what you are worth even when you are starting out.  The better you establish yourself in the beginning the better off you will be in the future.

I spent a few posts discussing a character logo a while ago that I was creating for my newest project: ThemeCannon. A friend and partner in business Ned Watson and I are building our own Wordpress and CMS template and theme development business.

Well since the last time I posted about the subject Ned and I have been working pretty well together to get the site up and running.

I invite you to stop by Theme Cannon to see the development of the site. We just started the build and I encourage you to come watch our progress as it may give you a good look into how we work.

I designed a business card for a client yesterday . . . it was pretty good, but it wasn’t as good as it could’ve been had they not been so protective of their logo.

I’m the first to tell you that a logo is (and rightly should be) a keystone in any sound brand architecture . . . it should be created with extreme care and introspection, as well as consideration for outsider’s (i.e. customer’s) perceptions. It should be revered, never handled carelessly, else one runs the risk of losing some indefinable quality through thoughtless alterations.

But, having said all that, you’ve got to be willing to evolve! What works today won’t necessarily represent the same way tomorrow. Case and point: my client’s tired logo [I won't show it, to protect the innocent]. It does the job, and is widely recognized within the market, so it has come to represent some accumulated brand equity. All great news, meaning it’s not broke (so I wouldn’t suggest fixing it just yet).

Unless, of course, they’re trying to change the way they are perceived! They themselves are tired of how people (who don’t yet know them) view them. So they wanted a really progressive-looking, urban-grit-styled card. “Great,” says I, “I’ll give your logo the same treatment so it doesn’t look like an afterthought on the card!”

“Neigh,” says they, “our board is very strict about our branding collateral.”

Review: Company wants to be perceived as upbeat and progressive. Company wants new card to reflect new identity. Company refuses to allow logo to be handled differently in any way (we’re talking simple, here, not redesign; more like a Photoshop filter). Company now looks like an old man with new pants.

Lesson: A logo, while extremely important, is still just a graphic representation of your brand. Consider it a rallying point for cognitive associations with your company. See swoosh, think “Nike, shoes, Michael Jordan (or Tiger Woods), sweatshops” . . . what have you.  See Old Glory, think “America, purple mountains majesty, rockets’ red glare, George Bush (take your pick)”.  Altering either of these symbols a bit (how many versions of the flag have their been?) won’t drastically change the associations one has already made with the entity it represents–for better or for worse.

The way your logo interacts within a given context is also extremely important. When the context changes, your logo might need to as well. Do it thoughtfully, do it carefully, do it subtly, but do it! Otherwise the mismatch of the card (poster, billboard . . . ) as a whole might be speaking more loudly than the consistency of that one part.

Do any designers out there have any thoughts on the subject?

This post is for anyone thinking about working with a creative professional (designer, writer, programmer, et cetera) . . .

The money aspect aside (that’s another issue altogether), the most important conversation you can have with your Creative is about defining the project:

Who is your intended audience?

What are you trying to communicate to them?

What are the important dates? (”Whenever you get a chance” is not a deadline)

How is the finished product being produced/used?

Who is the decision-maker for this project?

We creatives are great at filling any gaps in project scope with our own ideas of how things should be . . . but there are some decisions we can’t/shouldn’t make for you. You’re not paying us to run your business . . . you’re paying for our creative expertise. It’s important to note that expertise varies even within fields (print vs. web design, grant writing vs. copy writing, et cetera).

Having said that, keep an open mind to suggestions we make within our area(s) of expertise. Offering your own ideas is almost always helpful (gives us an idea of where you want to go with the project), but remember that you’re seeking our help for a reason. If you’ve got something all drawn out and you just need someone with the right software to produce it, then save some cash and help a student get some experience with a real-life project. If you’ve got a rough idea of what you want and are open to different interpretations, a professional will be happy (and well-qualified) to bring that idea to fruition for you.

Take Away: Get to know the scope of your Creative’s expertise, then work with them to determine how their expertise can best serve your needs.