spray graphics

a community for creative minds

spray graphics

design sponge

design spounge. another great design blog. 

so many "wish i thought of that" moments.

design you trust

design you trust is worth checking out. a lot of nice design in all areas of the field. also somewhere you can contribute to.

Marc O'Brien links

i meant to do this a while ago, but these are some helpful links for graphic designers and job searching provided by Marc O'Brien.

Why Young Designers Should Avoid 'Design Capitals'
Dissecting the Logo Design Creation Process
AgencyTool Web Design Dashboard
Notes to a Generation - anthony dines's blog
Coroflot's Creative Seeds Blog
25 Graphic Design Career Preparation Tips
Shifting Careers - Making Artistic Careers Lucrative
10 Great Places to Find Graphic Design Jobs
How Designers Fail
Not Hired

handmade

i love etsy.

web site

I just made a few re-vamps to my web site. 

check it kelsey.desostoa.com

fashion blog

just a cool fashion blog i felt like sharing. nat the bat

web portfolio inspiration

positive space just added a blog called 30 awesome design portfolios for your inspiration and the name pretty much covers what i have to say about it. 

contains good ideas on how to display/photograph your pieces for your website an/or design a website.

like christopher allens clean and easy design or luciano marx website which feels very personal. i am currently trying to photograph some of my pieces for my website and am trying techniques similar to the ones luciano uses.

patience

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

how amazing. i cant imagine how much time this took. after ben gaydos sequential i never again wanna touch stop-animation...but its just such a cool look. beautiful.

found on formfourtyfive design blog.

ukelele

im gonna just go ahead and shout the next two videos out to rachel g because she  is definitely responsible for making me aware of the very overlooked coolness factor of the ukelele. so now, i am here to do something about it.

Watercolor Paintings - Telephone Wires from If You Make It on Vimeo.

these two are brother and sister and just plain sound cool. bryce, lets make things happen.

Sophie Madeleine - Beard Song (Chords)

this is for all my beard lovers out there (you know who you are) these are some cute and "funny because its true" lyrics.

ohh momm

sandra d and brooke

so my mom just sent me an email about me spending a week with her up in pittsburgh for this three rivers arts festival. 

its enough to just spend a week in pittsburgh because i love spending time together with my mom and ive had so real fun times visiting her while shes been living in PA (maggie) for the last year. so sandy, my mother, nonchalantly mentions i may know some of the performers and would love for me to tag along so i go to the website and the first performer mentioned...the black keys! this cool kid hunter introduced me to these two guys who call themselves the black keys only a couple months ago but ive quickly fallen in love with there music. theyve randomly been showing up everywhere since i started listening like eastbound & down and random stores ive walked into.

needless to say this all just made me a little excited and very happy. 

moral of the story : ill be there. thanks mom!

...did i mention this is all before we leave for a week in austin!! oh happy day.

logo process

airside presented a post showing the development of a logo the designed for Dream Ranch. they explain each step of the process along with illustrations. 

frustratingly fun to see how much goes into a logo.

update : airsides blog is just interesting in general.

book trade labels

Libreria Mexico, Los Angeles, Ca

found an amazing collection of some vintage book trade labels at seven roads gallery. 

some really beautiful ones in there. gotta love vintage. 

tune in

best station for richmond radio. 103.1 WNRN

tune in.

poster overload

this is a HUGE collection of some amazing typo/graphic posters from all over the world. 

typo/graphic posters is definitely worth checking out. 

warning : may occupy the next couple hours of your life, but the journey will lead you to some pretty incredible work.

whistle while you work

here at outlaw design blog i found a blog post where he asked a number of his designer friends what they listened to while they worked.

i always think about this because it is almost impossible for me to sit in silence while i am working.

lilian, who is the last on the post, chose explosion in the sky who i love. they are definitely top 5 for getting those creative juices flowing on my list.

leave a comment with your choices!!

Xavier Encines

this guy xavier encinces makes some beautiful, clean print pieces. 

huge fan.

the grid

“ The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee.

It permits a number of possible uses and each
designer can look for a solution appropriate to his
personal style. But one must learn how to use the
grid; it is an art that requires practice. ”
Josef Müller-Brockmann

I found this quote today on the grid system website and found it worthy of reideration. it does a great job of encompassing the grid system and its baggage.

the site is definitely worth checking out. it has a ton of inDesign, Illustrator and photoshop templates you can check out for inspiration or download. 

and what. the slammer is a Mac OS X application that allows you to superimpose a grid over any selected window. you can edit, combine, and save all grids. just downloaded it. tested it. freaking out a little bit.

black and white logos

this article, is it time to retire the black and white logo?, i found on Ben Terrett's blog, Noisy Decent Graphics. he is a graphic designer from london, and in the article he makes a solid argument as to why we do and why we do not need black and white versions of logos today. it argues for both sides so read the article and you make your decision.

im gonna go ahead and support the "for b+w" argument for sake of his first point, "it's good discipline." i have created an identity system before and i know that thinking about a logos strength at the simple b+w stage is beneficial later on in the game.

book covers

book covers have always been a favorite of mine in graphic design and here i can look at thousands on one site. a large collection of beautiful book covers on bookcoversrchive.com 

the cover above is designed by Heads of State. all the information a designer would want to know about the cover including the typeface, designer and publication information is found on the site. go crazy.