Graphic Design

Free Illustrated Typography Glossary for Beginners

Discover typography and lettering terms such as stem, serif or spine and learn how to identify them in other languages Unlike calligraphy, the practice of lettering does not follow predetermined patterns or rigorous standards. Although it follows, in some cases, a typographic basis, the act of drawing letters goes through a freer and more spontaneous creation. To create your own letterings, therefore, it is necessary that you have knowledge of typographic terminology to understand where and how you can innovate to create new combinations. After all, the possibilities are endless for you to test and experiment by combining manual and digital techniques.

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The Pattern Library: The Home of Free Design Patterns

Download pattern designs from this virtual library and take your illustrations and designs to a different level When a pattern design is good, it can be repeated to great effect. The samples included in The Pattern Library are precisely that: a handy tool for designers and creatives looking for patterns and inspiration. Furthermore, this virtual library allows you to download your favorite designs free of charge. Read on as we tell you how this website works and what you’ll be able to find in it. You will also find out about three artistic ways for applying pattern designs.

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What Does a Web Designer Do?

Discover the skills and mastery needed to be a web designer Internet is the perfect and obligatory stage in which to showcase our work and projects to the world. Good planning and functional web design are essential for achieving a professional, current, and creative look. Web designers are a critical factor in this process. But what exactly does a web designer do? What is the thought process they follow? What tools do they use? Read on as we analyze the know-how and skills needed for such a key profession.

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How Ken Garland's Manifesto Impacted Generations of Designers

We celebrate the British designer, writer, photographer, and teacher who wrote the legendary First Things First manifesto in 1964 As the world mourns the loss of Ken Garland (1929–May 20, 2021)–an influential talent who famously took a stand against consumerist culture–we look back on his legendary First Things First manifesto, which spoke about the importance of making a difference. Published in 1964, First Things First had 22 signatories and called for “a reversal of priorities in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication”. The designer wrote that using one's talents to sell trivial things like cat food, slimming diets, and striped toothpaste, “which contribute little or nothing to our national prosperity”, was wasteful.

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75 Sketch Shortcuts for UI Designers

Learn these basic keyboard shortcuts for Sketch and speed up your UI design workflow in Windows and Mac Sketch is a pioneering program for UI design. Very intuitive, it offers endless possibilities, such as scaling graphics to different screen sizes or testing out your design directly on a device with just a few clicks. To fully master this program you will need to constantly practice. To make learning easier, you can use these 75 keyboard shortcuts. They will optimize your workflow and help you achieve professional results.

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Free Great Examples of Invitation Design

Do you want to design some great invitation cards? Check out this examples shared by graphic designer Sarah Lewis Whether you're hosting an event yourself or working for a client, the right invitation can set the stage and prepare guests for what's to come. You can learn how to blend color, typography, and texture to create professional printed invitations to promote any event. Graphic designer Sarah Lewis (@sarah_lewis) specializes in print and identity projects, and runs Alphablots, which makes graphic greeting cards and playful prints for kids and color-loving grownups. She has created a free guide providing ideas for designing original invitations for any special event.

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Farewell to Willian Santiago, Illustrator of Vibrant Colors and Infinite Talent

We remember the life and work of the Brazilian illustrator and teacher, who died at the age of 30 Domestika deeply regrets the passing of Willian Santiago, a Brazilian illustrator, teacher, and member of our creative community. The artist's agent has announced his death. His strong artistic instincts are expressed through the work that he made, characterized by the combination of simple shapes and vibrant, uniquely Brazilian colors. Willian was primarily a digital artist, but he gave his work an artisanal and analog touch by digitizing old papers or mark making with chalk and splashed of ink.

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Lettering Tutorial: Hand Lettering Design Using Layers

Learn professional hand lettering tricks with step-by-step instructions so that you can confidently start from scratch, with Cyla Costa

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10 Free Graphic Design Tutorials for Professionals

Learn all the secrets and techniques of graphic design from the experts Several areas of expertise fall under the umbrella of design: screen printing, editorial layout, illustration, user experience, and more. Although they may all be connected, each of these skills requires a unique and specific learning process. To become a true professional, you need to master a bit of everything. The following tutorials include essential tips from big-name professionals that will help you improve your knowledge of graphic design.

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Curious Minds Podcast: What Does It Take For a Movie Poster to Be Iconic?

Discover how movie poster artists combine creativity with commercial art with Curious Minds, an original podcast by Domestika Curious Minds is an original podcast by Domestika that explores the curiosities and untold histories of the creative world. Each week we’ll bring you a new episode, interviewing experts and creatives as we dive into the unusual origins of the images, patterns, and designs we take for granted. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to never miss an episode.

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6 Design Documentaries That You Need To Watch

Discover amazing documentaries on design and designers, from Dieter Rams to the legacy of the Bauhaus movement Javier Zamora is a graphic designer and founder and creative director of Plácida (@placida), a graphic design studio based in Granada, Spain, specializing in corporate brand identity and product packaging design. Javier and his team are dedicated to creating original visual and tactile experiences that go that extra mile. Until 2012, Javier had been working in an architecture studio as an illustrator. Realizing that editorial design was his true passion, he quit his job and enrolled on a degree in graphic design, graduating in 2016.

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Get Thousands of Free Cassette Designs on Tapedeck

Download thousands of images of cassettes, the retro object that is making a comeback On March 11th, it felt like the death of Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette tape, signaled the death of his creation. However, nothing could be further from the truth: the cassette tape is back, not just as a piece of design to be admired but a tangible way for independent bands to distribute their music. This has resulted in increased interest in the way they are made. The site Tapedeck.org is a project created by German graphic designer and street artist Neck Cnse, which showcases the amazing beauty and, sometimes, usualness of the designs. Below, we share a selection of unique models and explain the story behind this revival.

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5 Websites For Downloading Free UI Design Icons

Find the perfect icons to make your project shine One of the most important decisions when carrying out UI design is choosing the right icons. When you start working with icons, you soon realize that this decision is not just a question of aesthetics. Every detail counts, and there are various factors to think about, such as whether your icons need a supporting element for users to understand them. Christian Vizcarra (@christvizcarra) is an expert in interface design and is here to guide you through this process. Here he shares his favorite websites for finding icons in a range of styles. Enjoy! Iconfinder You’ll easily find what you're looking for on the world's largest icon marketplace. With more than 4,900,000 different types, this website is the place to go to find one icon in particular or a complete collection for your projects. One of Iconfinder’s key features is its team of creatives, who are always on the lookout for what users need. Its filter is very detailed, and you can browse through different sections: designers, categories, or styles. Aside from the icons that are available for free, you can also access their Premium rates.

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What Are NFTs, and How Are They Transforming Digital Art?

Discover the fascinating universe of NFTs, how they benefit the art world, the risks they pose, and why people are concerned about their environmental impact NFTs have taken the creative world by storm in recent weeks and prompted many questions. To fully get our head around this new technology, we need to put the current conversation into context. In February this year, the Nyan Cat meme sold for $600,000. On March 1, visual artist and musician Grimes sold some videos for $6 million. And on March 11, a single jpeg file sold for $69 million. Aside from receiving a lot of attention over recent weeks, the creator of this jpeg–digital artist Mike Winkelmann, best known as Beeple–has become a record holder: 'Everydays: The First 5000 Days' is the third most expensive artwork to be sold by a living artist. What do all of these works have in common? Well, they don't exist in the physical world and have conquered the mainstream.

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Domestika Diary: Silvia Ferpal

Designer Silvia Ferpal tells us about her daily routine and her sources of inspiration in Madrid

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We Talk to Serafim Mendes, Graphic Designer and Winner of Domestika Scholarships 2017

One of the 2017 winners, Serafim Mendes how he’s evolved as a designer thanks to Domestika's 50-course scholarship Serafim Mendes (@serafimmendes) is a young Portuguese designer who is passionate about 3D design and likes to experiment with different textures and materials to create pieces full of color and present different perspectives. Aside from already having participated in the 36 Days of Type challenge, in 2017, he was crowned a winner of Domestika Scholarships. We caught up with Serafim to discuss his career, his progress over the last four years, the influence the scholarship has had on his work, and any advice he would give to those who are starting out and want to participate in the third edition of Domestika Scholarships.

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After Effects Tips to Speed Up Your Workflow

Do you want to speed up your workflow in After Effects? Check out these tips from expert Borja Holke You probably already know that Adobe After Effects, one of the best post production and motion graphics software on the market, adds final touches to videos, images, and graphic design pieces. In addition, you can use this software to add movement to your lettering, typography, and illustration projects and help your portfolio stand out from the crowd.

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What Is Eco-design and How to Apply It to Your Products

Learn the difference between eco-design and sustainable design and how the creative industry can reduce its impact on the environment Did you know that 80% of a product's environmental impact can be reduced at the design stage? Eco-design was conceived by experts who became aware of the consequences their products were having on the environment. Eco-design can be defined in many ways: eco-friendly, green, sustainable, conscientious, ethical, and responsible. Tati Guimarães (@tati_guimaraes), an eco-designer of products and packaging from Brazil, believes the best definition is 'circular design.'

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5 Maps and 5 (Very Different) Views of the World

In recent decades, designers, mathematicians, and cartographers have tried to redesign the world as we know it Except for flat-earthers, there is a more or less generalized consensus on Earth's shape. It's a geoid—an imperfect sphere—and an ellipsoid, slightly elliptical and flattened at the poles. Representing these features on a two-dimensional plane is, in itself, a considerable challenge. Doing so reliably is a problem that has puzzled cartographers, geographers, and illustrators for centuries. But some have decided to get to work and created different representations of the world that, with greater or lesser success, help us locate continents, islands, oceans, and countries. More often than not, they do so serving specific political and social interests, too. 1. The Mercator projection The most famous planisphere, whose variants continue to be used, for example, by Google Maps, is the one devised by Gerhard Kramer (in Latin, Gerardus Mercator). He was born in what is now called Belgium during the 16th century and introduced the so-called Mercator projection in 1569. In addition to the remarkable wealth of detail in the continents' design, this projection has a characteristic that has contributed decisively to its adoption in many countries: it places Europe at the center of the world and presents it larger than it really is.

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What Is a Circular Economy and How to Apply It to Graphic Design

Discover how graphic design can help a brand move from a linear to a circular economy The current paradigm of linear economic models might be coming to an end. That's what experts like creative director and graphic designer Núria Vila Punzano (@nuriavilapunzano) think. Today, she will help us understand what exactly a circular economy is and how graphic design can help brands embrace it. A circular economy is a strategy that tries to reduce both the use of raw materials and the production of waste. With a linear economy, what we usually do is extract, create, and then throw away after use. What a circular economy proposes is to create, use, and then recycle.

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Interview with Graphic Designer Diana Estefanía Rubio, Winner of the 2018 Edition of Domestika Scholarships

One of our 2018 Domestika Scholarships winners tells us how she was inspired to get into infographics illustration thanks to her 50 free courses Diana Estefanía Rubio (@diana_estefaniarubio) is a Mexican graphic designer who is an expert in turning elaborate information labyrinths into clear and concise infographics. In other words, she knows how to translate complex data into a language of simple images. Thanks to an exciting portfolio, Diana was awarded one of the Domestika Scholarships in 2017 and won 50 free courses of her choice to develop her skills further. Diana, who has collaborated with CNN International and Turner Broadcasting and was awarded the Award of Excellence SND #36 of the Society For News Design, tells us how she made the most of her prize and which training has had the most impact on her professional development. Discover what effect an opportunity such as Domestika Scholarships can have on a creative person’s work.

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36 Days of Type 2021: This Challenge Pushes the Boundaries of Letter and Number Design

From April 5 to May 10, this challenge invites you to design a letter or number every day for 36 consecutive days 36 Days of Type is the challenge par excellence that explores the graphic possibilities of the letters and numbers in the Latin alphabet. For the eighth edition, represented by the color orange, letter lovers, designers, illustrators, and graphic artists from all over the world will create and share one letter or number a day for 36 days, from April 5 to May 10.

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Interview with 3D Designer Alejandro Olmedo, Winner of Domestika Scholarships 2017

One of the winners of the 2017 edition of Domestika Scholarships tells us how he developed his work as a designer thanks to winning 50 Domestika courses 3D and graphic designer Alejandro Olmedo (@hollmed) was one of the winners of the first edition of Domestika Scholarships in 2017. He gained free access to 50 Domestika courses by submitting a strong portfolio that showed great commitment and creativity. Four years on, we decided to speak to him to find out how he made the most of this opportunity. We find out which courses he opted for, what benefits these brought to his practice, and generally what advantages can be reaped as a creative by taking part in Domestika Scholarships.

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What is an Editorial Illustrator and What Skills do I Need to Become One?

What is working as an editorial illustrator really like? The experts tell us all about their experience.

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6 Interesting Facts about Color Theory

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Bruce Nelson Blackburn and the NASA “Worm” Logo

The NASA “Worm” logotype will not be forgotten, and neither will its creators If you’re a millennial, when you hear the word NASA, it’s likely that the first image to pop into your head is the logo known as the “Meatball” (you might even be wearing a sweatshirt with it on as you read this). It’s the logo that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration used during its greatest accomplishments, including the Apollo moon landings, and still uses today. Designed by James Modarelli in 1959, a year after NASA was established, it's made up of a blue circle filled with stars, a red swoosh that represents an airplane wing, a spacecraft orbiting the wing, and those four white capital letters.

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UX Tutorial: How to Conduct Qualitative User Research

Learn the basics of UX and user research to analyze what your users are doing and why they are doing it, with Patricia Reiners UX research can seem like an intimidating area of study but it is actually based on a set of simple principles and methods that you can learn and apply to your own projects. Patricia Reiners (@ux_patricia) is a UX/UI designer based in Berlin who is an Adobe resident and the host of the Future of UX podcast. In this tutorial, she explains the basic principles and techniques of qualitative user research and how to use it to improve your product’s UX.

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Free Graphic Visualization Presentation Template

Use, modify and enjoy a template with 60 stunning slides prepared by Data Designer Katya Kovalenko If you truly want to impress your clients, your colleagues or potential collaborators, you need to develop your concepts in a visually compelling fashion. Presentations and data visualization will help you to organize your ideas and articulate what you want to communicate. That’s the area of expertise of Presentation and Data Designer Katya Kovalenko (@katyakovalenko), whom specializes in creating graphic visualizations that help companies articulate what their product is about. Her secret is to deeply understand how our brains perceive information and align that with design principles.

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10 Adobe Illustrator Shortcuts for Pattern Design

Streamline your pattern design workflow with the most commonly used Illustrator shortcuts The beauty of pattern design is that it has no limits: you can stretch your design infinitely and create patterns in all sorts of detailed or minimalistic styles. If you are an illustrator, a graphic designer, or perhaps both, you will likely create patterns that can be applied to all sorts of projects at some point in your career. Sarmiento, better known as Sara Tomate (@saratomate), knows this for sure:

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What Does a Graphic Designer Do?

Top experts tell us more about this role in their own words A graphic designer is a problem solver. Essentially, their job is to find visual solutions that transmit ideas and concepts. To do so, they use programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, and After Effects, and often collaborate with advertisers, journalists, marketing directors, and many others. A graphic designer can develop a wide range of products and services of varying levels of complexity: from an exhibition poster to the entire visual identity of a new brand, from magazines and books to logos, packaging, illustrations, and prints. The list is never-ending. They are experts in applying their creativity to the project in question’s needs and characteristics.

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