Tag: Inkscape

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portfolio

165 of 365 is an apology to all of you in #Inkscape #design #sorry

An apology
An apology

I don’t have an excuse. You all deserve better. I know we’ve had this conversation before, but I promise you I’ll try to get more sleep tonight and the next night and so on. Let’s start over today. Right now. This moment is new for us. Really. Zzzzzzzz.

Also, this is a response to Dan Wadlinger who recently asked me to create a grunge styled sketch, and while I have some others in the silo, this was especially inspired by him. I used a rust texture in conjunction of the letterforms to create a rough looking overlay in an urban grunge style. Thanks, Dan!

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portfolio

164 of 365 is hot air balloons over dunes at dawn in #Inkscape #design

Hot air balloons over dunes at dawn
Hot air balloons over dunes at dawn

I love this sketch. I saw a photo by Soe Zeya Tun for Reuters that was of exactly this subject and topic as part of a photo piece at http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/lighter_than_air.html and decided that the image would be easy to emulate in Inkscape. (Apologies to Soe Zeya Tun)

In Inkscape, I created the dunes by creating 4 rectangles and converting them to paths and tweaking them into hilly shapes. I added increasing levels of blur to each receding ridge to add atmospheric depth and distance. I then created a single balloon complete with basket and connections, and when I was happy with it, I duplicated and resized two more.

The really great thing about creating this image from scratch is the ultimate control of placement and composition that Soe had to rely on the balloon pilots to provide for her.

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Illustration Inkscape portfolio

163 of 365 is a smack in the face

Smack to the face
Smack to the face
Smack to the face
Smack to the face

So, as someone who grew up watching 10 year old reruns of campy Batman shows, I was imprinted with the message of typography as softcore violence. Oh, you too? So anyway, I recently saw an article on the topic of typography in the 60’s Batman series, and decided to make some of my own.

In Inkscape, I added the text in a clear font, converted to path, and applied the bend live path effect. I bent the text (as a path) and then tweaked each of the corners of each letter with the node tool. I converted the bent path to a new path without the live path effect, and rotated it to fit better in the frame.

Using the shape tool, I created a star, converted it to path, and used the node tool to tweak it. I made the stroke a bit transparent on the star to give it a few colors at the edge. I duplicated the text and made it into a shadow by choosing a flat gray color and blurring it a bit. It was a lot of fun, and it took me back to a lot of childhood afternoons.

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portfolio requests

162 of 365 is a #library wish revisited in #Inkscape #typography

When in doubt, ask a librarian
When in doubt, ask a librarian

So, you may think you saw this design recently, but in fact this is an altered version of that design. One of my favorite librarians Marie Radford made a suggestion that made a lot of sense to me:

I’d like to see a slightly different message. How about “ask a librarian” instead of “visit your library”? Two reasons, 1) highlights the contribution of librarians, 2) opens up possibilities for virtual reference, phone, txt, facebook, etc. to get help rather than just the physical library.

It made perfect sense to me, Marie, after you brought the logic of it to light. If I had thought about it just a little bit (or a lot) more, I might have had the insight to make that jump, but my view was limited. I am thrilled and thankful that you cared enough about the message and the design to make the suggestion. It’s people like you who have helped me the most in this project to grow not only in my design, but in my worldview.

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portfolio

161 of 365 is a note of gravitas in #Inkscape #line

Bang
Bang

So this post is about the way that we are often protected from the horrors of war in our society. I know that I myself was thankful today for those who gave their lives in the service of our country, but that it’s difficult for me to really know or appreciate what they went through because my societal interpretation of war is an awful lot like this graphic above. It’s clean, neat and straight. It’s easy to see and understand at a glance. It’s not complicated or distorted.

I’m no fan of war, especially those we’re in now, but they do take place, and as a result, people die. If you talk with a veteran, or look at raw footage on sites like Live Leak you might be able to begin to gather some superficial intrinsic understanding of the reality of war, but even that is likely wishful thinking. For those of us who have not seen war, our feelings about it are likely as shaped by movies or video games or news stories as anything else. As a result, I think it’s easy to let Memorial Day be a day about shopping or almost anything but memorial. I hope it’s just me, and that I’m missing what’s really going on.

Thanks to all of those who gave their lives pursuing our want to be free.

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portfolio requests

A birthday cake wish by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #cc #design

Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday!

A birthday cake wish by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #cc #design
A birthday cake wish by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #cc #design

I recently wished an old friend, and a very good friend of this project, Craig Smith, a happy birthday, and he replied “Thanks John, now how about a birthday cake sketch? :D”. I love that! Done, buddy. You all can use it too. 😉

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