Although technically these tips apply to any graphics software, this particular tutorial over at Spoon Graphics focuses on the exact steps to set up bleeds for print design in your document within Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. The method to do so in other graphics application might be slightly different, but these walkthroughs should give you enough info to apply it to non-Adobe software.
Continue reading 'Setting Up Bleeds For Print Design In Creative Suite'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Symmetries from Earthlinksoft Software is an interesting symmetrical vector object generator tool.
The control system is very intuitive, requring no knowledge of how to manipulate vector paths. While simplistic, it gives one a high level of control over exploring interesting symmetrical objects. I did find that there seemed to be a bit of a genre of shapes that were the calling card for this tool, but maybe I just didn’t play with it enough.
Symmetries does not generate tiled patterns, but rather single vector objects, which then can be pasted into the vector software of your choosing for futher editing. The demo mode doesn’t allow this, so I couldn’t test it.
Continue reading 'Symmetries - Vector Path Software Tool'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Found this neat little gallery of surfboard logos via Paul Howalt on Twitter. A huge library of surfboard logos, including multiples of some.
These logos aren’t vector art or anything ready for print (unlike the Brands Of The World vector logo library), just a reference library or perhaps a design inspiration resource.
Seems a high percentage of these are photos of the logos on actual surfboards.
Continue reading 'Surfboard Logo Library'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
I recently completed a concert poster design featuring a fez-wearing cartoon genie mascot character for Nashville, Tennessee roots-rock jam band Vinyl Soup.
I have been working with guitarist Andrew Hooker for some time now with t-shirt designs, a logo redesign, concert posters and other promotional materials for the band.
Recent gig poster design work for Vinyl Soup had started to go down a path of design-only work. Andrew initially contacted me for a t-shirt design for the band, and his initial interest was in my cartooning/illustration work.
Starting out on concepts for this poster, I was again working on a solely design-oriented approach, and before I got too far along I dropped Andrew an email to see if going back to an illustrative style would be cool with him. It most certainly was, so I set about to work up a theme for the poster.
Continue reading 'Cartoon Genie Concert Poster'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
I recently finished up this cartooning project of a cartoon mascot & logo of a dog with a cigar and a hockey stick. The client had a specific vision for this character, which initially included a cowboy hat (see sketch below), but the hat was nixed before going to the final vector art.
Continue reading 'Cartoon Dog With Cigar - Mascot & Logo Illustration'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
A while back I was ranting about the myriad issues I had been reading about concerning Adobe InDesign CS3 and Apple’s (then) new operating system Mac OSX 10.5 “Leopard”.  I am happy to report that upon upgrading to 10.5, and using InDesign CS3, everything has been working (for the most part) just great.
Continue reading 'InDesign CS3 & Mac OSX 10.5 “Leopard”: The Good, The Bad & The Not-Too-Shabby'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
James Dempsey’s illustration & design software tips and tricks blog The Creative Guy has been retired, and rising from the digital ashes is The Graphic Mac. Looks like all the previous GC content has been migrated the TGM. James mentions that the big reason for the big change was to switch from WordPress to Drupal so he could implement more community features like message boards and the like.
Continue reading 'The Creative Guy Is Now The Graphic Mac'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
I stumbled across Design Float recently, can’t recall where. The title says it all: it’s a Digg.com type site for designers. For those of you not familiar with Digg (or Reddit), it’s a social news site, where content is submitted and then voted up or down by users. The idea is that only good content makes it to the top.
The site seems pretty new – you don’t see votes in the hundreds (or thousands) yet, as you do on Digg. I’ve already found a few cool resources on there, it’s definitely worth checking out.
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Pantone just released a brand new color matching system, touted as a “complement” to the PMS system they’ve used for 45 years. Once Adobe gives it the OK, PMS colors will be out the window. This has been in the works for about 4 years, so it predates the X-Rite buyout.
Supposedly the new numbering system is much more logical and expandable. It even comes with it’s own software now – even those who just opt for the standard fan books. Adobe hasn’t yet embraced the new system, but I can’t see why that won’t happen eventually.
Continue reading 'Pantone Announces New “Goe” Color Matching System'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
Illustrator extraordinaire Von Glitschka has a very cool podcast out that I just started listening to, The Illustrative Designer podcast. Each podcast is basically an interview by “the Vonster” (as he calls himself) with a chosen professional illustrator, cartoonist or designer. The most recent illustrator interview was with (the unimaginably prolific) cartoon illustrator & designer Bob Staake.
The “illustrative designer” moniker comes from Von’s idea that when asked to describe his work, he says he’s not a graphic designer that can draw, but rather an illustrator who can design. Hence, “illustrative designer”.
Continue reading 'Podcast review: The Illustrative Designer'
by George Coghill -
View my cartoon character and mascot illustration portfolio • Contact me to get started on your own custom cartoon illustration projects.
