Domestika's blog

5 Reference Websites for Ad Research

Discover new sources of inspiration for your high-impact advertising campaigns Whether you specialize in design, creativity, production or another area of ​​advertising, this list of sites we have put together for World Advertising Day could prove useful to you. All of them will help you research your campaigns and find documentation of numerous other campaigns throughout history, with detailed archives organised by categories, countries and media. In addition to being excellent reference options, they offer instant inspiration, so bookmark them all!

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Challenge: Hanoch Piven is Faced With an Improvised Collage

Hanoch Piven, mixed media visual artist and expert in collage, takes on the Domestika Challenge Hanoch Piven’s (@piven) work has featured in iconic magazines like Time, Rolling Stone and Der Speigel and won him the Society of Illustrators of New York's Gold Medal. He also publishes children’s books in which various textures and materials are woven together to build unexpected characters and universes. The mixed media artist is an expert in making faces through the collage of objects. But how will he fare when confronted with our mysterious box? Find out in the video below:

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The Dos & Don’ts of a Creative’s Resume

5 creative professionals tell us what to do and what to avoid when applying for a job

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Domestika Talks: Catalina Estrada

During last year’s Domestika Cup the Colombian illustrator encouraged us to lose the fear of color

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Free Icons that Redefine Professional Women

Download these free icons from Noun Project that promote equality and the fair representation of women “Visual language has the power to give form, reinforce and change our perceptions of the world,” says Sofya Polyakov, CEO and co-founder of Noun Project (@nounproject). That is why her company launched a collection of more than 60 free-to-use icons that represent women in design, arts, technology and other professional fields.

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What Is Foundational Calligraphy?

Calligraphy artist Leo Calderón introduces us to Edward Johnston’s type, a writing style that combines aesthetics and functionality

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10 Wildlife Photographers to Follow On Instagram

Amaze yourself with the photos of artists fighting to protect our planet We have brought together 10 wildlife photographers whose work is aimed at inspiring others to care for our natural resources. Many are scientists committed to environmental activism. From big cats and sea mammals to tiny insects and majestic plants, you will find daily inspiration on all their Instagram accounts. Christina Mittermeier (@mitty) Photographer, engineer in marine biology, conservationist, and author born in Mexico City, she founded the prestigious League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP). Her work has been published by National Geographic and TIME, and has won numerous prizes, such as the Smithsonian Conservation Photographer of the Year Award.

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The art from the Everything but the Kitschen Sync Exhibition

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Meet the Creatives Launching Domestika Courses Over March

Discover all the new material dropping this month so that you don’t miss out Meet the creatives who are launching courses this month on Domestika. This month, newcomers to the community, as well as members who you probably already know, present courses across a range of creative disciplines. Get to know them all as you prepare for a month packed with creativity. Design Create your identity as a designer with Sagi Haviv Sagi Haviv is a designer and partner at Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv–the legendary studio that handles design for brands such as Mobil, PBS, NBC, Showtime, and National Geographic. In this course, Sagi will show you how to add personality to graphic design and make the most of your creativity in every one of your projects.

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5 Ideas to Dedicate a Day to Your Creativity

Get to work and dedicate a whole day to your creativity, and focus on your personal and your professional projects There are many small actions we can take to invigorate our professional and creative lives. The Domestika community shared their ideas for what to do to give new life to your career. Try them out and see what you can achieve in just one day.

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Tips for Starting out in Character Design

Joel Santana talks us through his career as a character designer and shares advice for starting out Character designer, visual artist and illustrator Joel Santana creates magical worlds inhabited by curious beings. Based in Florida, Santana grew up in New York where he was fully immersed in the city’s energetic art scene and “grittiness”. By his early teen years, he had already begun to paint landscapes and still life with oil paints, inspired by the likes of Bob Ross, Disney animation and, one of his all-time favorites: Norman Rockwell. It was during these early years that he got to grips with traditional techniques and developed an understanding of color that he would later apply to his character designs.

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Illustration Tutorial: Applying Sumi-e Techniques to Watercolor Painting

Learn the basic elements for using the Japanese illustration technique with illustrator Flor Kaneshiro Although traditionally done with Indian ink, the Sumi-e drawing technique includes a series of strokes that can be applied using other materials, such as watercolor. Its delicate and soft strokes (which should be carefully controlled if you're just starting out in the technique) make it suitable for anyone who wants to widen their watercolor skill set. In the video below, illustrator Flor Kaneshiro (@florkaneshiro) goes over the most important considerations for anyone starting out their journey in Sumi-e, taking into account pressure, speed, direction, and rhythm of the brushstrokes.

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Photoshop Tutorial: 6 Great Brushes for Digital Painting

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Automatic Equidistant Color Palette Generator

Choosing the perfect color gamut palette is now as simple as choosing a single color and letting Data Color Picker do the rest of the work for you There are countless options and tools that can help us create our own color palettes. Data Color Picker is one such tool but it comes with a twist: it is a color palette generator that creates equidistant color ranges. You are probably wondering what that means." Simple, the system will ask you to select the initial color with which you want to start building your color palette and the color with which you want to finish it; Next, it will automatically create a palette with the number of colors you desire, choosing the range that best suits the two initial colors.

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Tips For Transforming Your Illustrations into Pins, by Charlotte

The talented Mexican illustrator shares, step by step, how she transforms her beautiful drawings into pins Karla Hernández, better known as Charlötte (@charlotte.khm), is a graphic designer and illustrator who has a passion for color, fauna, flora, climate, and all other aspects of nature. Influenced by Asian folklore and the artists Koralie and Conrad Roset, she has found a visual style that draws on figures from nature and women. Charlötte has focused on bringing together these different areas of interest into her designs, with certain elements becoming key features in her work. She uses a palette of soft and shiny colors, finding inspiration in shapes and details from her day-to-day life. Her pins stand out among her creations. Here Charlötte walks us through her process for transforming her beautiful drawings into pins.

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Over 10,000 Movie Posters Available to Download for Free

Film lovers of the world, rejoice! The Harry Ransom Center is digitizing more than 10,000 posters of classic movies

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Challenge: Draw a Character in 5 Minutes Using Photoshop

Joel Santana, the character designer and illustrator, faces the Domestika Challenge Joel Santana's career (@themaddhattr) extends from illustrations for advertising campaigns, to packaging and toy design. He has developed projects for well-known brands such as Walt Disney World Orlando and Champs Sports. But now he faces a challenge he has never faced before... In this Domestika Challenge, the illustrator only has five minutes to draw a character from scratch using a graphic tablet and Photoshop. Will he succeed? Find out in the next video:

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5 Arm Knitting Artists That You Should Get To Know

Be inspired by these textile artists who knit using their hands instead of needles Arm knitting is a technique that takes the basic rules of knitting with needles and replaces the needles with your hands and arms. The results are soft, oversized pieces that accessorize your living space. The majority of artists use a special type of wool, known as Merino wool, that comes from Merino sheep. Get to know these artists and feel inspired to create your own designs! Javiera Ortiz (@inspiratemirando) Chilean textile artist Javiera Ortiz, who created the studio Inspírate Mirando (@inspiratemirando), specializes in knitting and fabric dyeing with a contemporary edge. She is also a photographer and costume designer. She works with XXL knitting, giving it a modern twist, and divides her time between Chile and Australia. She recently launched her Domestika course, Introduction to Arm Knitting and Wool Dyeing.

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Domestika Talks: Marta Cerdà

Discover what inspires Marta Cerdà, an eclectic creative who struggles to identify herself The graphic designer fascinated the public with her career and reflections on Copa Domestika Colombia, which took place in Bogotá on September 28th. Cerdà is able to flip many of the most common conceptions of the worlds of design, typography, and illustration on their head. She proposes new interpretations that you can discover in the video below:

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Malika Favre: Feminine Vector Illustration

We spoke with the French illustrator Malika Favre about her creative process She is one of the most successful illustrators in the world at the moment and her style is 100% recognizable. She has designed almost a dozen front covers for the New Yorker and has worked with big brands and publications across the planet. Her work is purely vectoral and, between negative spaces, the optical illusions and plays on perspective tend to hide themselves in the female form, which has become a staple of her illustrations. We spoke with her about her work and her creative process.

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Instagram Tutorial: 5 Tips to Create Your Own style

Learn these basic tips for generating content and finding your own style with Derio Ilari What is the secret to success as an artist or photographer on Instagram? It would be too optimistic to believe that there is only one magic solution, but what is clear is that looking at the advice of those who have managed to make their profiles a success can greatly help us improve our fan base and the quality of our posts. That's why commercial photographer Derio Ilari (@derioi) has shared his five fundamental tips for creating your own style on your Instagram profile, working on concepts ranging from your personality as a creator to the style of your photographs or images. Discover them in the following video:

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Top 10: Best Projects from February

We run through our favorite February projects shared by members of the Domestika community As we do at the end of the month, today we’re sharing our favorite projects shared by members of the Domestika community over the last 30ish days. Among these top projects, you’ll find projects by some of our course teachers and work that has been created by students on our courses, as well as personal projects. This month we’re sharing illustration projects, collage, animation, photography, embroidery, and editorial design. Which is your favorite? Ground Zero by Carles Marsal (@carlesmarsal) This digital illustration was created by visual artist and graphic designer, Carles Marsal. Just like his characters, we feel like explorers about to discover this post-apocalyptic world. You can learn to create fantastic scenes like his in his course, Secrets of Photomontage and Creative Retouching.

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The Dragons Method to Grow Your Instagram, from Dot Lung

Dot Lung, Mother of Social Media Dragons, shares her tried and tested method to grow your business on Instagram “If you don’t show up on Instagram, you’re leaving money on the table,” explains Dot Lung (@dotlung), calling me from Tel Aviv, one of the many places her social media genius allows her to work from. “Social media has given me everything.” Over the last 8 years, she has given talks in over 30 countries and worked with a whole host of multinational brands. While TikTok is exploding for Gen Z, “Instagram is still where your business happens.” It is the place to exhibit your brand visually on social media, most of all to millennials, but also to an ever-growing and varied number of people. A direct path to your client that lets you work out what they want and how, it’s about time we learnt how to use it. Her Dragons method is a simple recipe to promote your business or product on social media:

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10 Essential Books to Spark Your Creativity

We take a look at Helio Vega’s reading collection and find out what his go-to books are when looking for inspiration

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Download a Free Template to Embroider a Sausage Dog

Learn needle painting techniques to use in pet portraiture

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Take Part in the 36 Days of Type Challenge

Nubikini gives us the best tips on how to be part of this fun, creative challenge

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Fold-out Inspiration From a Pop-Up Book Creator

Discover the pop-up books that inspired Silvia Hijano Coullaut to dedicate herself to them professionally Although modern pop-up book design might make us think that they’re a modern trend, the fact is that these fold-out publications have been around for centuries. Designer Silvia Hijano Coullaut, founder of the studio Libracos (@silvia_libracos), tells us about the books that have influenced her most, from stories that have come out in recent years to more surprising inclusions that are hundreds of years old. Ars Magna Generalis, by Ramón Llull The first pop-up books weren’t made for children, they were science books. This book, which dates back to 1306 and can be found in the El Escorial library in Madrid, is one of the greatest exponents of the earliest fold-out books. All kinds of calculations can be found inside and it even incorporates wheels that come out from the book itself in a slanted way, something that caught Silvia’s eye.

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Domestika Creatives: Lauren Tamaki

Illustrator, designer, and art director Lauren Tamaki has mastered how to adapt her unique style to a range of mediums: from editorial illustration to animation and portraits You’ve probably spotted her work when you’ve opened The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, or come across her commissions for Apple, Google, Nickelodeon or the agency Pentagram. Lauren Tamaki’s unique and vibrant style and passion for acrylics have made her one of the most interesting US illustrators of recent years. Tamaki recently welcomed us into her New York studio to talk about her passion for fashion design, her celebrity portraits, drawing from a feminist perspective, and her greatest feat: drawing Bill Cosby’s trial. Discover more in the following video:

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View The Oldest Color Guide in the World Online

At almost 200 years of age, 'Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours' gets a digital update

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Photoshop Tutorial: How to Select Hair in Photoshop

Discover how to use Photoshop selection tools to properly separate a figure from the background It is one of the most dreaded tasks for those taking their first steps in Adobe Photoshop: how can your subject be perfectly separated from its background, in order to manipulate both separately? Fortunately, the photo editing software has some smart selection tools that make this task easier—if you know how to use them. Photographer and post-producer Oriol Segon (@oriolsegontorra) explains an efficient technique to select your subject in Adobe Photoshop, even when we face lots of hair or other complex edges that need to be separated from the background. Watch the video tutorial below:

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