What Inspired me last week

Lately I’ve been thinking about what inspires me as a person, an artist and graphic designer.  I sometimes ponder back and forth thinking about what type of designer I want to be and exactly how I will be able to market myself.

Everything around me can be an inspiration that I use in my work.  From the moment I get up every day, I see something different every day.  My latest inspiration has com from a group of guys that work in a local barbershop.  I frequently visit the barbershop to get my hair cut.  They are very talented but do not have any type of advertisements, no social media sites and just overall lack an identity.

I offered to help them out by designing a logo that would help people identify who these guys were.  They need help in this area because they are extremely talented and they could bring in much more business with the help of some good advertising material.

I met with one of the guy that cuts my hair.  We took some photos of the guys that work at the shop and we will use those photos and create a Facebook page for them.  Next I pitched a logo design that I had come up with and thought represented their brand and what they do.  Here is what it looked like…

They really liked it and we are now working some other ideas to put this logo and items that customers can buy in store such as hats, t-shirts and other accessories.  I am inspired to help start up companies that might need a little extra push.

Logo for When Skies Fall

A few clients that my wife had worked with asked me to design a logo for their music group.  The band gave me the initial sketch of the design that they wanted, and I had some room to play with the actual creative aspect.  This has been a project that I have been working on for quite some time.  I enjoy designing logos but this one was definitely a work in progress, because the clients wanted the logo to fit on different types of platforms such as social media, hats, t-shirts and other advertising forms.

For example when we started the beginning stages of the logo creation, it started with a sketch of the logo that was simply some letters that said WSF.  I then turned it into this black lettering below.

We got together a few times to make changes to the spacing of the lettering and how the final logo would appear.  This is what we ended up with at the end.  We will continue on more projects but for now this is the logo that they wanted to represent their band.

What do you think?

Instagram and the vintage filters

The vintage look has definitely been a new trend, especially since Instagram launched in 2010.  With Instagram it is an easy way to take any picture or now even a video and apply a digital filter to it to create a photo shopped look.  It is almost like an action from Photoshop, except now anyone without any real graphic or photography experience can click a button and be creative with their photos.   

         I have really noticed the vintage look being applied to all types of images.  Now even videos on Instagram can take on all of these new vintage effects.  In my opinion, I think that most of the effects that Instagram has are very vintage inspired.  I decided to take a few pictures around the house and apply some of the vintage effects on them. For the first image of my cat, I applied the effect “Amaro” on Instagram.  It definitely gives it a vintage look, a more greenish-bluish look.

The second picture I took was of some lemons that we had in the kitchen.  For this effect I used “earlybird.”  It gives it a warm and more real traditional vintage effect.  

The most common filter on Instagram is the Lo-fi effect.  Here are examples of before and after the filter.  It is one of my favorite filters of all.  It brightens and makes your images look more crisp.  It also creates a vignette on the image.  

I think this is important to designers because we have to keep up with trends when designing for brands and creating ads.  

Engagement photo shoot

So here it goes, this is me with my Nikon D5100. This is what I normally like to shoot with. I shoot video and photography. I like the fact that it is user-friendly. It has many options and settings for shooting different scenes. One thing i have learned though, is that it is not the camera that takes the picture, it’s the eye of the beholder that makes it. I have shot weddings with my wife and it’s always so interesting how we can be in the same area taking a similar picture but when we look at the pictures on screen, they are a totally different perspective. So anyway, this is just to introduce you to a little bit about me behind the camera and what I see.

This is what I see when I accompany my wife on photo shoots. She has to compose the shot and pose the client, while I have to also compose the shot for behind the scene photos. While I take some of the photographs, I am also shooting video.

Typically when I shoot photographs, I find a good position behind the photographer and the clients so that I can capture the interaction and scenes of the shoot. When I put the video together, I will include graphics and typography that reflects the theme of the shoot and the clients personality. I also will add music of their choice.

Here is the final image taken by my wife of the clients Christy and Cody. They were an engagement couple and we took their photos at an outdoor location because they wanted to feel natural and outdoor.

Photo-graphics

Who am I!  My name is Vladimir and I love graphic design!  I also love photography and how the two flow together.  Therefore, I decided it would be appropriate to start a blog incorporating the two things I enjoy.  My journey started when I was in high school.  I always liked to draw and paint.  I have loved art for as long as I can remember.

My current focus is logo & brand development.  I am also working on custom logo design for photographers, musicians and small businesses.  My wife is a photographer and together we work side by side to come up with new ideas and ways to collaborate.  We are a pretty funny team…we make people laugh.  We tell other’s it doesn’t hurt.  We can do it all, and customize any design or photographic needs.  Often I shoot behind the scenes videos of her photo sessions, and I also have created logos for her work as well as other clients.

When you visit my blog, you will find some tips for designers and photographers and you can see what projects I’ve been up to lately.  More than likely I will post some of photography work as well as designs for logos that I have created.  I also like to include things that inspire me.  Inspiration is the most important thing to me.  Having a creative outlet is important to me.  For me working on different projects whether it is design or photography is most fulfilling.  I love that I can do both and help other people achieve their goals.

Thank you for stopping by!!!

-Vladimir-