Blog.SpoonGraphics

How To Create Digital Particle Waves in Adobe Illustrator The blend tool in Adobe Illustrator is often used to create abstract wave graphics, but I’ve been experimenting with some additional adjustments and discovered some handy tricks to create sci-fi inspired digital particle waves. This kind of imagery perfectly complements hi-tech interface designs with colourful data visualisation effects, or it could be used to create abstract art in its own right. We’ll create the initial effect in Adobe Illustrator, where I’ll show you a few options for randomising the result, then switch over to Adobe Photoshop for some extra colour enhancements to really boost the vibrancy. How To Create an Editable Retro Text Style in Illustrator Many of the text effect tutorials I produce for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop tend to require the text to be permanently set, which means if the wording needs changing, the effect would have to be created all over again from scratch.

How To Create an Abstract Geometric Poster Design Some of the coolest designs can be created with the simplest of tools. In this tutorial we’ll create a cool abstract poster design using nothing more than a hexagon. With careful composition, an enticing colour scheme and a series of textures you can easily create a great looking design that would work perfectly as a poster, or even artwork for a book or album cover. The design we’ll be creating is made up of a series of repeating hexagon shapes. View the final abstract geometric poster design We’ll use a mix of Illustrator and Photoshop to create the artwork. Select the new offset shape and clear out the fill and stroke. Press CMD+Y to turn on Outline mode, then hit CMD+U to turn on Smart Guides. Hit CMD+D numerous times to repeat the transformation until you have a long line of hexagon shapes. Draw a selection around the line of shapes and scale them down to fit onto the artboard. Repeatedly press CMD+D to repeat this transformation. Press CMD+Y to turn off Outline mode.

Infographic Of The Day: Why Should You Care About Typography? I have a confession to make. There was a time, many years ago, where I thought that typography was fashion by another name. I didn't really appreciate how different typefaces function, and how the discipline evolved over time, under pressure from aesthetics and technology. And it makes me particularly red-faced to remember that I once flaunted that ignorance, going so far as to tell a noted creative director that bit about type as fashion. Created by someone who only calls themselves Noodlor, it does a pretty superb job laying out the basics of typography, such as the common types of faces, ranging from regular to condensed, and the anatomy of letterforms. From there, we get into more subtle territory: The basic principles of layout, which begins with the basics of direction, contrast, and rhythm: "Don't try to be original, just try to be good" — Spoken, originally, by a master of typographic clarity, Paul Rand.