patterns

Book Suggestion: Visual Complexity - Mapping Patterns of Information

abduzeedo — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:07:08 +0000

The book of this week is a book I just got from a friend. It was in my wish list for a long time. The book is called Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information and as the reviews says, it's about our ability to generate information now far exceeds our capacity to understand it.

Finding patterns and making meaningful connections inside complex data networks has emerged as one of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century. In recent years, designers, researchers, and scientists have begun employing an innovative mix of colors, symbols, graphics, algorithms, and interactivity to clarify, and often beautify, the clutter. From representing networks of friends on Facebook to depicting interactions among proteins in a human cell, Visual Complexity presents one hundred of the most interesting examples of information-visualization by the field's leading practitioners.

"A rigorously researched, beautifully designed, thoughtfully curated anthology of the world's most compelling work at the intersection of two relatively nascent yet increasingly powerful techno-cultural phenomena, network science and information visualization.... A powerful tool in your visual literacy arsenal for navigating the Information Age. From the Bible to Wikipedia edits to the human genome, the gorgeous and thought-provoking visualizations in the book will make you look at the world in a whole new way, and the insightful essays accompanying them will vastly expand your understanding of the trends and technologies shaping our ever-evolving relationship with information." -- Brain Pickings

Author

Manuel Lima is the founder of VisualComplexity.com and a Senior UX Design Lead at Microsoft. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was nominated by Creativity magazine as "one of the 50 most creative and influential minds of 2009".

Manuel Lima is a leading voice on information visualization and a frequent speaker in conferences and schools around the world, including TED, Lift, OFFF, Reboot, VizThink, IxDA Interaction, Royal College of Art, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, ENSAD Paris, University of Amsterdam, MediaLab Prado Madrid.

Buy this book now

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. You can get in follow us via Twitter at @abduzeedo

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Retro Illustrations from Russia

paul0v2 — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:52:09 +0000

Iv Orlov is an illustrator from Murmansk, Russia and his work is absolutely amazing. A mix of retro with a strong use of colors and patterns blending everything together and twisting the mind of the viewer by creating different shapes using the white space. It's like each piece never ends. Check it out!

About the author

Hi there! I'm Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer - paulocanabarro.com I'm from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I'm truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com Stock me at Twitter and Dribbble

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Filter Forge Contest Winners & Free Patterns for Download

nathanbweller — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:24:37 +0000

A few weeks ago we held a design contest sponsored by Filter Forge with the prize being a free copy of their software up for grabs to the top three contestants. However, just in case you didn't catch that first post, here's a brief explanation of who/what Filter Forge is: Filter Forge is a high-end graphic software allowing you to create visual effects, enhance photos, generate textures, and process images. It features 7500+ free ready-to-use realistic and abstract textures and effects, and a powerful visual editor to create custom ones. Filter Forge can operate as a standalone application or as a plug-in for Photoshop and compatible hosts, under Windows or Mac OS X.

So, without further ado, here are your Filter Forge contest winners:

Jerry Maninang

Gaggo Ponti

DOTY (email address, didn't send name)

If you are one of the above three winners I will be sending your email addresses to Filter Forge today so that they can send you the serial numbers that validate the trial software you downloaded! Congratulations!

Additionally, I'd like to mention that Filter Forge has some new free patterns that everyone can download. They recently released "Freepack 6" which contains nine seamless patters. I've include some samples below. [Download here]

About the author

Hi, my name is Nathan Weller. I'm a Columbus Ohio based artist, blogger and freelance consultant. I manage business development here at Abduzeedo. If you'd like to partner or advertise with us, email me at nathan[@]abduzeedo.com. I also write for some other cool blogs and post everything I write on twitter. If I'm not working then I'm either tinkering around with personal projects or posting cool stuff as I find it on my Tumblr. If you're passionate about art or even an artist yourself, I'd love to connect and learn about what you do :)

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Architectural Patterns of the City

paul0v2 — Thu, 26 May 2011 14:18:07 +0000

Have you ever stopped to notice all the architecture around and realized all the patterns they make? Buildings, sidewalks, staircases and more. It's there to show that patterns are not only used on graphic design or web, but they everywhere and here are a few samples to show you.

by Darrell Godliman

by Jim Frazier

by Anjan Chatterjee

by Trevor Morgan

by robep

by David Ocker

by fluxxus1

by Craig Webb

by David Harmantas

by Teng Tan

by Aquila

by Dialed-in!

by Myra

by Melissa Moore

by Lynne's Lens

by Valerio P.

by Ana Compadre

by Sérvulo Torres

by Brian

by Taddeo Zacchini

by Tremulent

by Bruno

About the author

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Adobe CS5 Design Premium Box Artwork in Photoshop

abduzeedo — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 02:45:08 +0000

We have been receiving tutorials suggestions and we love that because there are some great ideas for tutorials. This one is exactly that, well not really exactly because since I saw the box of the CS 5 suite I always wanted to try to recreate that in Photoshop, but somehow I had forgotten until I read the email with the suggestion.

So in this tutorial I will show you how to create a design like the one we see on the Adobe CS 5 Design Premium Box. The tutorial is probably the longest I have ever written, but it's not complicated at all. Actually it's fairly simple and we will be playing with pattern a lot. If you want to create the design of the Photoshop CS 5 box for example, it will be pretty much the same process.

Step 1

Open Photoshop and create a new document. I'm using Letter size but with 72 DPI. After that fill the background with black using the Paint Bucket Tool (G).

Step 2

With the Rectangle Tool (U) create a rectangle using pink/red color (#d43e3e).

Step 3

Go to Edit>Transform>Distort. Change the V option to 26º.

Step 4

Add another rectangle with the Rectangle Tool (U) but use a more orange color (#d44d33). Repeat the same thing to apply a perspective to the rectangle, this time however use -26º for the V option. After that position the 2 rectangles in order to create a box.

Step 5

Group the 2 rectangles and duplicate the group. Move it to the right and change the orange color the side to pink too. You can merge the groups as well

Step 6

Merge the box 1 layers so you will have one layer only. So go to Layer>Layer Style>Gradient Overlay. Use a gradient with (854c23) and (fff600) for the colors, Overlay for the Blend Mode, Linear for the Style and 90º Angle. Also over the Blending Options, change the Fill Opacity to 0.

Step 7

For the box 2 apply a gradient overlay as well but use (852376) and (ffa800) for the colors.

Step 8

This is the result you will have after the Gradient Overlay.

Step 9

Create a new document with 6 pixels for the Width and 100 for the Height. Make sure the background is white and create a black rectangle with half of the width. After that go to Edit>Define Pattern.

Step 10

Change the name of your Pattern to Vertical Lines. We will use it in our design in the next steps.

Step 11

With the Rectangle Tool (U) create a rectangle beneath the box 2. After that go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. Change the Fill Opacity to 0. After that select Color Overlay. Use pink for the color (d81437) and Multiply for the Blend Mode, then select Pattern Overlay. Select the Vertical Lines pattern we created in the previous step.

Step 12

Duplicate the box 1 and move it down. Change the Opacity to 50%.

Step 13

Go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. Then select the Brush Tool (B) and a very soft brush. With black for the color start painting over the mask to hide parts of the layer. The idea here is to create the famous wet floor effect.

Step 14

With the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) create selection of one the sides. Add a new layer and fill it with the Vertical Lines pattern. Then change the Blend Mode to Multiply.

Step 15

Create a selection of the box 1 by clicking on the thumb of the layer holding the Command(mac)/Control(PC) key. Then add a new layer and fill it with the Vertical Lines pattern again. This one will be on top of the box 1. After that go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Use 90º for the angle and 250 for the Distance.

Step 16

Go to Layer>Layer Style>Color Overlay. Use yellow for the color and Multiply for the Blend Mode.

Step 17

With the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) select an area to hide. Once you create a marquee selection, go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide Selection. A layer mask will be created automatically (1). Click on the layer mask on the Layer Palette and again with the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) create a marquee selection on the top left. Then with the Brush Tool (B) and a 50% opacity brush paint over the selection to make the pattern less visible (2). Repeat the same with a rectangle on the edge of the side of the box 1 (3).

Step 18

Add a new layer and fill it with a linear gradient using the Gradient Tool (G), use (d1b60d) and (854c23) for the colors. Move it so it will only be on top of the box 1.

Step 19

Change the Blend Mode of the gradient to Overlay.

Step 20

Duplicate the box 1 and move it a little bit up and to the right, then go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. With the Brush Tool (B) get a very soft brush and using black for the color start painting from the top to almost the middle, just to hide and create a sort of fade out effect.

Step 21

Now go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 5 pixels for the Radius.

Step 22

Add a new layer and with the Brush Tool (B) and white for the color paint a little spot on the side of the box 1. After that apply a motion blur and then a gaussian blur in order to get an effect similar with the one you have in the image below. For mine, the Opacity is at 70%.

Step 23

Add another layer and group it so it will be inside a folder. Change the Blend Mode of the folder to Color Dodge. Select the layer inside the folder and with the Brush Tool (B) and a very soft brush with white for the color, paint a little light streak. Again apply motion and Gaussian Blur to get an effect like the one I did below.

Step 24

Add a new layer and with the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) create a rectangle marquee selection right on the edge of the side of the box 1. Use the image below for reference. Fill the marquee selection with any color.

Step 25

With the layer selected go to Layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. Change the Fill Option to 0 and go to Drop Shadow. Use Color Dodge for the Blend Mode, 100% Opacity, 170º for the Angle, Distance of 2 pixels and Size of one Pixel. Also for the color use white.

Step 26

Select Inner Shadow. Then for the Blend Mode use Color Burn with Black for the color, change the Opacity to 100% and use 3 pixels for the Distance and for the other values use 0.

Step 27

You will have an effect very similar with the one of the image below.

Step 28

Now lets add some text. I added the letters A and B using white. Change the Blend Mode to Overlay. After that go to Edit>Transform>Distort and once again repeat what we did in the Step 3, change the V option to 26º.

Step 29

Mask the areas that are not over the side of the box using layer mask.

Step 30

Add again a text layer with the same font, size, color and blend mode. Then go again to Edit>Transform>Distort. Use now -26º for the V option.

Step 31

Mask the area that are not on top of the side of the box with the same perspective. Then just make sure the two letters A are aligned as if one was printed on the front and the other on the side of the box.

Step 32

With the Magic Wand Tool (W) select just the B. Add a new layer and fill it with the Vertical Lines pattern. Change the Blend Mode to Overlay, then go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Use 90º for the Angle and 100 for the Distance.

Step 33

Clean up the area that is not over the box. I used masks to do that but you can erase if you prefer.

Step 34

Duplicate the AB layer and reduce the Opacity to 50% (1) . Then with the Rectangle Tool (U) create another rectangle (2) and apply the perspective of the side of the box. Fill this layer with (d71238) and change the Blend Mode to Screen.

Step 35

Go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. Then with the Brush Tool (B) and a very soft brush, paint from top to a little bit before the middle to hide some parts of the layer. Use the image below for reference.

Step 36

Now let's work on the box 2. Add a new layer on top of the other layers and then with the Brush Tool (B) and a very soft brush, paint with black on the top right corner, like the image below.

Step 37

Go to Layer>Layer Style>Pattern Overlay. Use the Vertical Lines pattern with Multiply for the Blend Mode. Then just change the layer's fill opacity to 0%.

Step 38

With the layer with the pattern created in the previous step selected, get the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and then select a rectangular area on top of the front-side of the box, it ends where the pink rectangle starts. Go to Layer>Layer Mask>Reveal All. With the Brush Tool (B) and a very soft brush. Start painting with black for the color but 40% of opacity. The idea is make this area less dark than the rest of the pattern.

Step 39

Add the D and Z. Rotate them a little bit and mask them so they will be visible only on top of the box.

Step 40

Rasterize the text layer and then with the Blur Tool, make the edges of the letters blurry.

Step 41

Duplicate the layer and group it inside a folder. Change the folder's Blend Mode to Color Dodge and then select the layer and go to Filter>Blur>Radial Blur. Use 5 for the Amount, Radial and Best for the Quality. After that go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 5 for the amount.

Step 42

With the Magic Wand Tool (W), select the D and Z. Add a new layer and fill this layer with the Vertical Lines pattern. The pattern will be applied only in the selected area. Change the Blend Mode to Screen.

Step 43

Go to Filter>Blur>Motion Blur. Use 90º for the angle and 270 pixels for the Distance.

Step 44

Select the layer that is on top of the others then click Command(mac) or Control (PC) + ALT + Shift + E to create a new layer with all the other layers merged into it. Then go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Use 4% for the Amount and Gaussian for the Distribution.

Conclusion

To complete the image just create a very subtle vignette effect if you want and also you can add an Adjustment Layer with Hue and Saturation just to reduce a little bit of the Saturation of the colors, but that is not really necessary. Although the tutorial is quite long the techniques used here are quite simple, it was more a repetition of some process than something totally new.

Download the Photoshop Files

Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial

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Crazy Cool Illustrations by Guilherme Marconi

abduzeedo — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:26:46 +0000

Guilherme Marconi is a great friend and he has been helping us since the very beginning of the blog, besides that, he illustrator, with, probably, one of the most unique styles out there. Pretty colorful, his work is basically a crazy cool mix of vectors in patterns. As Marconi has just updated his portfolio we had to feature his work over here. ;)

If you don't know Guilherme Marconi, he is an illustrator from Brazil with work for clients such as MTV, AT&T, Nike, Yahoo, Banco do Brasil and many other big companies Guilherme is definitely a reference. For more information visit his website at http://brain.marconi.nu/

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Portraits of Global Mass Culture by Chris Jordan

abduzeedo — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:22:31 +0000

We live in a society of mass consumption where everything seems to be disposable, causing one of the worst problems of our time, the huge amount of garbage produced by us and thrown away in the ocean or other areas every day. Chris Jordan, has been using this subject in some his photography exhibitions, alerting us to how terrible we have been treating our planet.

Chris photos are incredible and in his Running the Numbers II Portraits of global mass culture exhibition, each image portrays a specific quantity of something: the number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes, for example. But this time the statistics are global in scale, rather than specifically American.

Finding meaning in global mass phenomena can be difficult because the phenomena themselves are invisible, spread across the earth in millions of separate places. There is no Mount Everest of waste that we can make a pilgrimage to and behold the sobering aggregate of our discarded stuff, seeing and feeling it viscerally with our senses.

We highly recommend that you visit Chris' website (http://www.chrisjordan.com) and take a closer look at his photos, they are incredible but show us how bad we are with our world.

Gyre, 2009

8x11 feet, in three vertical panels

Depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean.

Shark Teeth, 2009

64x94"; based on a watercolor painting by Sarah Waller

Depicts 270,000 fossilized shark teeth, equal to the estimated number of sharks of all species killed around the world every day for their fins.

Photos from other Exhibitions

Cell phones #2, Atlanta 2005

Cell phone chargers, Atlanta 2004

Spent bullet casings, 2005

Container yard #2, Seattle 2004

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Awesome Laptop Sleeves Design

GisMullr — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:43:23 +0000

I was looking for a sleeve for my laptop online and I found so many options and designs for it that I decided to put some of them together to show here to you!

The sleeves are made of very different materials to please all kind of users. Here are some materials I found pretty interesting: high-grade lycra, neoprene, EVA, cotton, nylon and also the eco-friendly sleeves made of recycled material. They are modern, stylish, slim and very well designed. So if you are thinking on getting a new bag to your computer check them out before buying a regular backpack.

Also, if you have a laptop we would like to know what do you use to carry it around, backpack, sleeve, nothing?

About the author

Someone with a bachelor degree in Foreign Trade that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. A person ‘digging’ a new way as a ‘geek apprentice’, blogger 'wanna be' and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil
Twitter user: gismullr

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Kapitza Geometric Book Giveway

abduzeedo — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:16:50 +0000

I dare say that one thing that is common for most designers is the crazy addiction of having as much resources as possible, from textures to fonts, brushes and patterns. Yes, patterns are awesome, no questions asked. But as you probably know, these are not easy to create and sometimes we struggle to make them seamless tileable. And that's why this new book called Geometric is so cool.

The book is all about geometric patterns inspired by basic shapes, but the best thing is that with the book you get a CD with 100 pattern fonts that you can use the way you want, allowing you to create many more different patterns. For more information about it and how to get your copy which includes the CD with 100 pattern fonts visit their site at http://kapitza.com/shop/geometric-book.

Also, as it's Christmas time we have 1 copy of Geometric to giveaway, to win it is pretty simple: just leave a comment expressing your love for Geometric Patterns. We will announce the winner in 2 weeks.

What is Geometric?

Geometric is a unique exploration in graphic pattern design and the most extensive pattern font collection available from a font foundry. The project consists of 100 pattern fonts which form an inexhaustible resource for creating patterns in numerous styles.

What’s your inspiration for Geometric?

Geometric is inspired by movement and basic shapes; finding and testing the limitations of computers and software and the art of gif animations. It all started with stripes in various widths and angles. To experiment, we moved the stripes in pre-defined intervals across the standard design space of the font software (1000em
square). The intersections between the stripes and the design space then formed the characters of the first Geometric fonts. We introduced other basic geometric shapes like circles, squares, triangles, curves and generated more fonts for the Geometric fonts collection. When using the fonts to create patterns, the often surprising results don’t cease to excite us.

What are pattern fonts?

Pattern fonts can be installed on your computer just like any other font. But instead of letters they contain a graphic shape on the keys. The power of pattern fonts lies in the way they allow patterns to be created in any software application (from word processing to graphics); and standard font features - like size, leading and letter spacing - make tweaking and tuning pattern designs limitless and easy.

How can I use Geometric?

This book is an extensive collection of graphic art exploring the unlimited possibilities of Geometric. All the patterns featured in this book were made using the Geometric font collection, and the accompanying CD-ROM features the full set of Geometric fonts for your use. Our tutorial, included in the book, is a great way to get started.

Where can I order the book?

You can order a copy of the Geometric book, which includes the CD with 100 pattern fonts from our shop at:

http://kapitza.com/shop/geometric-book

Abou Kaptiza

Kapitza is an independent design company run by sisters Nicole & Petra Kapitza who share a passion for everyday life, minimalism, patterns & colour. Their studio is based in East London, a vibrant and dynamic area which forms part of the inspiration for their work. Other inspirations include nature, people and software.

The sisters have been developing an extensive series of unique picture fonts and illustrations that lie somewhere between image resource and art project. Kapitza supersede commercial boundaries with their own mix of genuine curiosity and technical expertise.

For more information visit the link below:

www.kapitza.com

Other exmaples

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M. C. Escher Impossible Structures and Inspiration

Daniela — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:37:46 +0000

Last night I was looking for some references about mathematics for a t-shirt design I’m working on. I found an incredibly cool Dutch artist named M. C. Escher. You have probably already seen his work and haven’t realized it was him, so that’s why I decided to blog about him.

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is one of the world's most famous graphic artists. His art is enjoyed by millions of people all over the world, as can be seen on the many web sites on the internet.

He is most famous for his so-called impossible structures, such as Ascending and Descending, Relativity, his Transformation Prints, such as Metamorphosis I, Metamorphosis II and Metamorphosis III, Sky & Water I or Reptiles.

But he also made some wonderful, more realistic work during the time he lived and traveled in Italy.

http://www.mcescher.com/

Looking at his work we can clearly see inspiration from the universe with small planets and a very good use of patterns, which I love; with the exception of the impossible structures which make me dizzy :)

For more information about M. C. Escher visit http://www.mcescher.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.C._Escher

About the author

My name is Daniela Zatti, I'm a graphic and product designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil . I Love art, music and colors, currently working with surface design for products. You can contact me at danielazt@yahoo.com or follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/danielaz