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DesiCreative.com Forum: My nine posts in 2009

antzFx — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:39:16 +0000

Whenever I see an interesting advertisement or related information in web, I usually share it with some of my friends who have similar interests through e-mail or tweet. One day in June – 2009, I happened to visit the forum of DesiCreative.com.

I said to myself: “Here are some people who are genuinely interested about ads.” Then I started posting some articles in this forum. This blog post is entirely dedicated to nine posts authored by me in DesiCreative.com Forum in the year 2009. These nine posts discuss art, advertisements, animation film…
Enjoy!

1. Photoshop is helping “you!”

2. ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’

3. Color! Or is it ColoUr?

4. Inspiring — I hope one day I too will be doing this!

5. Darth Vader in our life

6. Devil, will you return (again)?

7. Careful when you park your car!

8. “Tell me, what was your first design?”

9. HP: Student work in response to D&AD Student Awards brief

"Tell me, what was your first…

antzFx — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:59:45 +0000

…design?”
A couple of days ago, I happen to read a blog post by Gavin Elliott: “Designers, what was your first piece of work?.” 24 designers speak about their first designs. Since I am not a celebrity, Gavin didn’t take the trouble of contacting me.

So today morning, I spent some hours digging through my back-up data in CDs and got some old stuff. For those who are interested, here is my story.

“What is a computer?”
I am one of those very few ‘youngsters’ out there who have actually used Windows 3.1 OS in 1996. Windows 95 had appeared by that time, but my village in India was far, far away from the latest technology (Now it is better!). For a long time, computer for me was the CRT Monitor. I never really observed the box with a power-ON switch near that monitor. Yes, yes, now I know how a Mac looks like.

Going digital
I bought a ‘Dummies’ book and started learning Adobe Photoshop 5.5 in August, 2000. Since it was a limited day trial version without the ‘save’ command, I couldn’t save the early designs I did. I vaguely remember making a composition of a straw in a glass of yellow fruit juice. At that time, I was not a technologically advanced guy to think about ‘Print screen’ and ‘MS Paint.’ Alas!

This is the oldest Photoshop work I could get from the archives. The time stamp of the file says 28-Nov-2000. I created this on my friend’s PC while I was staying with him in Bangalore, in search of a job. You can see the influence of Hollywood in my earlier works.
I followed it up the next day with the ‘Perfect storm’ scene, a space shuttle and a satellite and some logo renderings of DOLBY Digital and DTS.

Animation
I started to learn Macromedia Flash 4.0 in August, 2000. I made a DTS trailer and fortunately I have the original file with me. It is fun to see it now. It even had a typo – ‘Aiso featuring…’ instead of ‘Also featuring…’ — just after the appearance of DOLBY logo! And, there is no audio in this file.

Then I made a ‘Jurassic Park-Lost World-Godzilla’ inspired short animation. After a couple of years, I lost interest in animations completely.

Website
As per records, on 03-Sep-2001, I made an htm file to use in a server for my colleague’s project. I don’t have that file with me, but I remember placing the LINUX logo in it. The project was called ‘Peripheral Sharing Device (PSD),’ I cannot remember what it was. I may have used Microsoft FrontPage to design the page.
The first website I made is for my own use and it was hosted in a FreeServers domain. The date of upload is Saturday, 22-Sep-2001. This domain is still active and what you see there now is an updated version I did in 2005. Click here to see the original version. If possible, view in Internet Explorer to see the gliding effect of the background. I designed it in Macromedia DreamWeaver.

I also had a mirror of this website in the now defunct Geocities account.

Back to 2009
That was a nostalgic journey. I am surprised to see how much design I was doing back then. I took a mental note to design more diverse stuff from now onwards.
So, what is your story? What was your first design? The below space for comments is all yours…

Design — Calendar 2009

antzFx — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:47:43 +0000

I know.

I know that it is too late to design a 2009 Calendar. I am looking at the 2008 tabletop calendar that is faded a little bit and has a lot of scribbling – my reminders of various tasks. I was thinking “Well, so far nobody has given me a 2009 calendar. Can I make one myself?” The result: I designed one yesterday and it appears to be nice. So I thought of sharing it with you.

I started the design as a tabletop calendar. Two sheets can be printed on a single A4 sheet. I can make a tabletop calendar with six such sheets and some cellophane tape. Or, I can stick it on to the wall or partition of your cubicle in my workplace. Later I manipulated the pixel ratio such that anyone can use these images as their computer desktop wallpaper. At the moment only 1920X1200 pixel ratio (widescreen) is available for download.

Let us see what went behind the design. I will try to answer your immediate and obvious questions.

Why a calendar?

When I used to work in a technology company (Now I am a student of Product Design), I had a tabletop calendar gifted by a friend. Everyday, before I switch ON my computer, I always spare a minute to look at the calendar and try to remember the deadlines for the day or coming days. The thought will go on about the coming holidays. The graphic and images on that calendar was interesting and I am sure that most of you will love to start your day with a good image and thought. So, here is a calendar with nice graphics and taglines.

How did you fix the layout?

All of us use computers for personal and professional work. My desktop is always messy and I never tamper with the position of taskbar. All the icons or files tend to be on the left side of the screen. So, the calendar wallpaper should not have any numerals on that ‘forbidden’ area. Also, there should be ample space at the bottom to accommodate the taskbar. At the moment, I have not tested the wallpapers in a Linux machine, but I hope that a taskbar at the top may not be hindering the calendar. A graphic can cover the rest of the space with a nice tagline.

1. Main graphic. Overall colour scheme of a sheet is determined by the dominant tone of this graphic.

2. Current month’s calendar. The font used is Century Gothic. For easy ‘deciphering,’ Saturdays and Sundays are given in a contrasting colour than the weekdays.

3. A flowing curve adds to the beauty of the sheet. In all the sheets, I have tried my best to maintain a continuity between this curve and the main graphic. An ‘outer glow’ effect makes the curve attractive (100% opacity of white, 15% spread, 30 pixels size – if you understand Photoshop).

4. The ‘ground.’ We design school students refer it as ‘ground’ after learning ‘figure-ground theory.’ The ground displays the dominant colour of that sheet.

5. I have tried to add an inspiring tagline in all sheets. Well, we can argue on this point…

6. This is where the promotional matter comes into picture…

7. The coming month’s calendar. Its presence is justified by the fact that people always plan things in advance. These plans can spill over to a date in the next month. So, no need for turning pages in and out while planning a project or a holiday break.

8. Credits of the photos used in the sheet.

The graphics are very interesting. You designed them?

No. Even a single photo taken by me could not find its way to the final version. All the images used in the design are taken by a bunch of very creative people across the world whom I ‘discovered’ with the help of Stock.XCHNG. See the Acknowledgements section for the names and links.

All the photos have ample white space around them so that they are easy to be edited in Photoshop. I have tried to select photos that can be linked to the tagline of the page.

Download the whole Calendar (ZIP, 2.28MB) »

Acknowledgements

All the sheets feature the image ‘The curve (Halm)’ by Martin from Duesseldorf, NRW, Germany

January 2009 Download (JPG, 1920X1200, 290KB) »

2009 Graphic — Shlomit Wolf from Jerusalem, Israel

February 2009 Download (JPG, 1920X1200, 237KB) »

Painting (Inspiration) — Fernando Mello from Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil

March 2009 Download (JPG, 1920X1200, 231KB) »

‘Quake in tie’ — Sundeip Arora from India

April 2009 Download (JPG, 1920X1200, 238KB) »

Pinwheel — Michal Zacharzewski from Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

May 2009 Download (JPG, 1920X1200, 258KB) »