Our good pal Denise Rashidi released her new book entitled: Daydreaming in Japan. It's not any kind of book, it's a coloring book! This book utilizes her stylish, 'pastel-ish' and detailed illustrations of the hidden backstreets of Japan. You know my love for the country of Japan, Denise does a remarkable job to illustrate its authenticity and by also adding her own signature.
It's Friday, happy Friday all. As a tradition to the good old days, I wanted to pay homage to fonts. More particularly to our series Friday Fresh Free Fonts, we used to publish every Friday, what we called the FFFF which were pretty popular back in the days. Let's keep the momentum for today and share about this yet interesting and cool collection of lettering works created for clients and personal projects by Rafael Serra.
I love side-projects, I particularly comprehend the personal explorations that one can do to pursue to learn new things, explore new mediums or just to perfect your craft. It's not always easy with keeping a schedule, living a pandemic, going through phases of life and etc... We will always have a place for 'personal explorations' on abdz. Let's feature atom63, a designer based in New York, NY, USA. He shared on Behance, a series of abstract 3d explorations titled: Gokusaishiki. Made entirely in Cinema 4D and Octane Render.
Ada Zielińska is an artist based in Warszawa, Poland. She has shared a series of commissioned & personal illustrations from the past year until now. These illustrations caught my attention of its retro aesthetics that would trigger memories from the 'Omni Magazine' days. Where science and fiction came together to combine and share knowledge for its readers. This is pure futurism and I really dig them. What do you think?
Mateusz Urbanowicz is back with more of his Tokyo Storefonts, a series of illustrations that would imagine a creative and unique shops on the streets of Tokyo. We have featured his first series on abdz. a few years back, it's really great to see a comeback that would carry the same appealing, charming and detailed results. Each storefront shares its own story, from an optician's salon, typewriter, photo studio, and more.
Amrit Pal Singh has been creating a really creative and unique initiative. Titled: 'Toy Faces Library', it's a series of 3D avatars that you can use for your mockups, UIs and/or personal use. The part where it gets very unique is that Amrit puts in a great effort to provide the most diverse library possible with over 70+ unique 3D avatars and that library keeps growing and growing.
Markos Kay is an visual artist based on London, United Kingdom, he shared a project that we wanted to feature on abdz. via his Behance profile. It's a series of intriguing illustrations for the Hemaware magazine to raise awareness of bleeding disorders, new treatments, and research. I would definitely push you guys to read the entire case study, there are some great explanations and videos. I personally love the style that Markos explores in this series and particularly like the color palette.
Here at abdz., we love 3D and Cinema 4D. I don't generally have the dedicated time to get into 3D so we feature the incredible designers/artists to feast your eyes. That being said and following this route, let's take a look at these 3D explorations by David Milan . David is the 'creative type' to push its boundaries and explore with lights, textures, shapes, colours through its work. What we are featuring is his series titled: EXPERIMENTYPE VOL. 2 and enjoy!
Let's kick it off with colors and 3D. We are sharing the work of Wes L Cockx who is a 3D designer based in Brooklyn, NY, USA. As 3D is becoming more and more part of the process of product design, it's really nice to see it applied elsewhere than marketing and communications. It served its purpose to communicate the key message whatever that you are selling a product or showing a new product feature for example. It's really nice to see this divergent move in our industry.
We have featured the work of Lena Vargas before on abdz., if you haven't seen this feature yet, check it out here. Ever since it's always amazing and inspiring to follow her progress. For those who doesn't know Lena, she is a talented illustrator based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. I just adore how her work is full of life, creative, colorful and diverse in terms of style. Inside this feauture, you will see her collaboration work and for 'Increment Magazine', Los Angeles Times, Popular Science Magazine, and more.
Shantell Martin is an artist based in New York, NY, USA; she recently shared a project where she collaborate with the Oculus. Even though this project has been produced last year, I think with the moments we are currently living. This is the appropriate time to do so.
I am a fan of Danny Ivan's work, following his experiments on Instagram. It's always inspiring and giving me enough boost to learn more Cinema 4D. Danny is a visual 3D artist based in Porto, Portugal and he recently released what he titled: 'Q2 2020 Personal Series'. A dedicated series of experiments with new gradients and forms; simple as that. As a follower of his work, you can notice right away that Danny really is playing with colors and shapes.
How is your situation in 'confinement'? Is the place you live in still in lockdown? I think will never go back to what we used to think as 'ordinary' or even 'normal'. We will have to get used to newer ways of living and having the right precautions if needed. Along those lines, I can't help to see a vision of a nearby future through this series by Robert Sundelin titled: 'Another Dystopia'. Taking place in Japan, the mixture of 'contemporary Japan' and this 'post-apocalyptic' world is what makes it even more compelling to reality.
Being a product designer, I sometimes miss the 'good old days' of graphic design where there were almost 'no boundaries'. Except for when you needed to send something to the print shop, those were the days. It was pure freedom, this is how I envision the folks using Cinema 4D. Pure creative freedom! Speaking of that, we are featuring this series by titled: 'Internal Reflection'. A series of personal and colorful experiments using that very same software. First of all, I think the color tones definitely caught my eye from cold feelings all the way to something warm.
Intercellar is a series of free wallpapers designed 'by accident' by Crtomir Just. I mentioned 'accident' because 'the images are the results of errors in particle simulations'. I think they are super stunning and crispy. We took the liberty to share Crtomir's entire collection and their 'download links'. You can download the 8K wallpapers, this feature is a reminder of what we used to do back in the days. We are definitely living in different times but it's always a nice reminder to remember what we were made of.
It’s a bit of an old project by Sean Lewis but I thought it was perfectly suited for ABDZ. During these pandemic times, we had to find ways to be more creative with our daily lives. I think we all did somehow. For my case, now I am currently living in Switzerland, I still remember the simple walks that I would take with the family especially early in the morning.
When I was surfing on Twitter today, I stumbled across this 'tweet' shared by our good friend James White who was reminiscing the early days of 'design internet' and how everything used to be about the pixels and the little details. We became so standardized in our principles that we tend to forget what the 'internet' used to be. Inspired by this moment of nostalgia, I decided to feature the work of Pixel Jeff, a pixel art who has been making magic for more than 10 years.
Vini Naso, a visual artist from Canada shared a very interesting series titled: 'The masks we wear'. With the current moments that we are all familiar with living, I think it's fitting perfectly our 'new normal'. Vini instead took a different visual approach based in 'human emotions' with a definite flair and honorable knot to the Japanese culture, Cyberpunk, and modern fashion. There are quite fascinating and I truly love it. It totally brings attention and the execution is so detailed and so unique in creation.
How about some 80s/90s Nostalgia to kick off the long weekend ahead. Whatever you are still in confinement or even lockdown, I thought about sharing some art to live up our spirits during these weird times. As you may have heard us saying that before but inspiration comes through many forms, what's important is how does it affect you to stay sane, creative and more. For me, I am a very fond individual of nostalgia. I think it's part of who we are and totally define us during the journey of life. We are almost there gang, #stayhome.
Rutger Paulusse has been teasing with his new colorful & vibrant series titled: Material World. I just love the fact that Rutger mentioned that these are from unused R&D experiments that happen all the time. Usually, we do forget about it but I just dig how Rutger embraces them and goes beyond deeper. Speaking of colors, I mean take a look at these gradients! It's lovely and it is embracing the exploration meanwhile you are trying to achieve a result needed for the project.