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FYI Monday: The West End Show by Brand Nu

Franz Jeitz — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:09:11 +0000

This post is part of the For Your Inspiration Monday series showcasing the most inspiring designs out there. Each week a new artist or design style will be presented in order to get your creative juices flowing for the upcoming week. I hope you enjoy the series.

For his first self-intitiated solo show ‘The West End Show‘, graphic designer and illustrator Radim Malinic, aka Brand Nu, has taken the multifarious, vibrant and frequently taxing area of London’s West End as his inspiration. Radim explores the magical and bustling part of the capital in a series of elaborately illustrated poster designs, bringing together classic old century design with the dazzling neon future of the 22nd century.

I was at the opening on Friday night and loved it. Radim really managed to capture the essence of each of the 10 areas. The show runs until the 2nd March at the Nancy Victor Gallery in Fitzrovia. If you’re around London then I urge you to check it out. You’ll have to see the work up close for all the details. For more information visit thewestendshow.co.uk

Book Review: Print Handbook for designers

Franz Jeitz — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:15:35 +0000

I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on the Print Handbook for designers by the kind folks of the UK-based Media Collective. So today I’m gonna give you a short, but concise insight into this book, call it a book review if you like. Not to worry though, there’s gonna be a lot of pictures too. Let’s have a look then, shall we.

What’s in it?

The print handbook is a very handy tool which every designer doing print work can benefit from. It is full of printed experiments and examples, plus a whole load of reference material. Here’s a few examples of the stuff that’s included:

Most common paper sizes chart
Examples of different blacks printed on gloss paper
Selection of brochure folds
Unit conversion chart
Text point sizes comparison

The handbook takes out the guesswork that happens when your job goes from screen to print. It even features a ruler all around the (fold-out) cover.

Final Words

The Print Handbook has now found its place on my desk. It’s a great reference for every print designer and I can highly recommend it. There’s loads of references that you can find on the internet, but it’s always better to have real-life, physical examples. For more info about the book and to buy it go to www.printhandbook.com. Starting at £4 (incl. shipping) for the UK there’s no reason not to get it.

Vandelay Premier Texture Bundles Contest Winners Announced

Franz Jeitz — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:25:36 +0000

Time flies. Just over a week ago I announced the latest contest giving you all the chance to win one of 3 Vandelay Premier Texture Bundles. Today is the day where these winners will be announced. Using a simple random SQL query on the comments database was used to pick the lucky readers. Thank you all for participating! And thank you to Vandelay Premier for sponsoring the textures. The winners will be notified via e-mail shortly to explain how to claim their prize. Congratulations!

Winners:

Chloë
Courtney Tiberio
Yuni Ardita Sari Dewi

Fudgegraphics gets a facelift (v7)

Franz Jeitz — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:01:31 +0000

It’s been a long time coming, 18 months to be precise, Fudgegraphics presents itself with a shiny new look. Those following me on Twitter or checking what I’m up to on Dribbble will know that I’ve been working on this new design for quite a while now. As every designer will tell you: You Are Your Worst Client! I knew that, which is why I never predicted an exact release date. It would be ready when it’s ready. That time is now.

Why get a new design? Why re-design instead of re-align?

The simple answer is: I got bored of the old one and didn’t think that it reflected my personality anymore. Long before I started with the webdesign work (you know, sketching, researching and all that) I made the decision to update my logo. This turned out to be the hardest job ever. Over the years this blog has gained a loyal fanbase and coming up with a new brand image is never an easy task (Gap anyone?). For months I’ve been working on different designs in Illustrator, only to come back a few weeks later not to like it anymore.

The main aim was for the logo to be:

recognizable
effective in both gray scale and colour
heavy typography-based
having that vintage touch
flexible

So here we are. See below the final evolution of the brand spanking new Fudgegraphics logo.

Once set on the logo it became clear that this should be the main focal point of site, resulting in a rather minimal design.

What’s new then?

The first thing returning visitors will notice is that the site is dark now. While this isn’t as text-friendly as a light website the decision to use it nonetheless was based on the fact that most articles on the blog are highly visual. There have never been long discussion-type articles (apart from this one) and as such the dark colour scheme didn’t raise much concern.

The other major change is that the post excerpts now sport thumbnails. There’s still a few posts which haven’t been updated with their own featured image. As you can image this is a tedious task.

In terms of general layout, not much has changed. It still uses a right-aligned sidebar, horizontal navigation and the icon blogroll in the footer. I was always happy with the general layout and didn’t want to confuse visitors too much.

No design blog re-design would be complete without a custom 404 page. Here’s mine (hopefully this is the only time you will see this page).

Under the Hood:

These tools were used to design and develop the site:

Pencil and paper
Adobe Illustrator CS5
Adobe Photoshop CS5
Coda (by Panic)
Firebug (Firefox plugin)

Fudgegraphics is powered by WordPress and uses the HTML5 Doctype as well as some fancy CSS3 properties.

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed the look behind the scene of the new design. Should you encounter any bugs then please let me know and I’ll do my best to fix them promptly. All other suggestions are welcome too.

Happy Holidays

Franz Jeitz — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:47:38 +0000

It’s this time of year again. Everything slows down and you spend the days eating and drinking with your loved ones. While I can’t do that with you I still want to take this opportunity to show my gratitude and appreciation to all of you. 2010 has been a great year for me and none of it would have been possible without you.

I’ve been busy with client work and tried my best to keep the blog content fresh and relevant. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. So here’s to you: I wish you all happy holidays and hope to welcome you again in the new year.

Love, Franz

Design Cocktail III – A Killer Deal! Just $29 for $904 Worth of Design Resources.

Franz Jeitz — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:26:57 +0000

Design Cocktail has launched with even more valuable resources than before! I’m happy to announce the release of the third Design Cocktail Bundle. This new and premium bundle by Designious.com includes an amazing collection of high-quality resources for creative people. The best part is the price: only $29 for $904 worth of design resources. You save $875 from the start!
The amazing goodies included in this design pack are offered by designious.com, wpwizz.com and tshirt-designs.com, meaning you will get only the best quality products.
This is an amazing opportunity for designers, creatives and artists of all types to grab some really awesome resources at a bargain price.

Design Cocktail 3 includes:

Hurry up! This offer is only valid for 7 days, from December 8th until December 15th. Don’t waste any time and get it now from the Design Cocktail page.

The Threadless Book Review: Inspiration for any T-Shirt Lover

Franz Jeitz — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:50:36 +0000

The kind folks of Harris and Wilson have recently sent me a review copy of the Threadless Book celebrating the company’s 10th anniversary. If you love t-shirt graphics you’ve probably heard of Threadless already. Just in case though here’s a short bio: Threadless is a community-driven t-shirt store where people can submit and vote for the next designs to be printed. With more than a million members it’s certainly the largest of its kind.

What’s the book about?

Threadless came to life 10 years ago out of a simple idea by its founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart, better known as “the Jakes”. In order to celebrate this incredible milestone they released this book featuring 400 inspiring t-shirt graphics as well as telling the story behind the “accidental business”. It’s great to see the designs in chronological order as it shows the evolution of the designs (and the community).
Furthermore the book also includes interviews with Threadless’ most famous artists. It’s always nice to get some insights into a designer’s journey and experiences.

Sample Photos:

Conclusion:

A-Side Studio have done a great job with the design and layout of the book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in design as well as internet businesses. I’ve read it cover to cover as soon as I got it, but will sure go back to it many times to get inspiration.
There’s also gonna be a special edition hardcover with sketchbook coming out soon. You can watch a video of it here.

Design Cocktail Bundle 2 Available Now

Franz Jeitz — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:00:55 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that the Design Cocktail Bundle 2 by Designious is now available to purchase. The bundle contains design resources worth $829 and you can buy it for only $29. That’s right, you can save a whopping $800. This offer lasts for only 7 days and expires on October 31st. So better be quick to make sure you don’t miss out. Find below descriptions of some of the amazing resources included along with a list of all the content.

Featured content:

Giga Vector Pack 3 from Designious.com VALUE $195.99 – This giga pack contains an awesome collection of 531 vector elements with floral motifs, knights, armors, retro girls, angels, hearts, hands, skulls, birds, seamless patterns, crowns, wings, music elements and evil creatures, all included in Vintage Vector Packs 4,5 and 6 and in Floral Mega Pack 3. Every clip art in this giga pack is handmade and original, so you can be sure you get top quality vectors.

10 Photoshop Brush Packs from Designious.com VALUE $100 – Designious has an amazing library of Photoshop Brushes for you to use in your design projects, all top notch. You’ll get the following Photoshop brushes packs: floral brushes packs 13, 14, 25 and 27; dragon brushes pack 1; griffins brushes pack 1; buildings brush pack 2; scrolls brushes pack 4; music brushes pack 1 and kanji brushes pack 1.

1 Hexagon Business WordPress Theme Developer License from wpwizz.com – VALUE $80 – This is a modern and stylish WordPress theme, ideal for portfolios, business websites, blogs and more. It has a very fresh look, has tons of features, it’s easy to customize and it will make your visitors fall in love with your new website, just take a look : http://www.wpwizz.com/hexagon/

All content:

Buy Design Cocktail Bundle:

Please click the banner below to buy the Design Cocktail Bundle 2.

Azigos Giveaway Winners Announcement

Franz Jeitz — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:30:16 +0000

After a week of commenting the chance of winning one of the five yearly subscriptions to the premium Photoshop Brushes service Azigos is now over. Using random.org I selected the 5 winners out of all eligible entries. I will contact each of the winners shortly via e-mail as well as pass on their details to Azigos. You should hear from them soon explaining how to claim your prize. So without further ado here are the winners:

#36 Ubiquitan
#20 Donnie
#11 Anneka
#9 John Berry
#12 Adam

Congratulations to all of you. Thanks for everyone who participated!

Designious Giveaway Winners Announced

Franz Jeitz — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:09:55 +0000

The amazing folks of Designious were so kind to sponsor $1000 worth of vector packs and Photoshop brushes. The contest has now ended and I’m delighted to present you the 10 lucky winners each getting $100 of Designious credit to spend on whatever resources they fancy. Congratulations!

Winners:

#1 Steve Robillard
#9 Julie Martin
#16 Bryan
#23 Sebastian
#39 Kimi Boustany
#48 Philip Davis
#58 Stefani Koorey
#63 designbyarm
#73 KD Munoz
#82 Seth Rexilius

The winners were chosen at random using random.org.

Thank you all for participating. Don’t be too sad if you haven’t won. There will be more giveaways on Fudgegraphics.