The Brilliant creative team blog

Currently working with Adobes Creative Suite 3 I had missed all the new features of CS4 and before I knew it, the software giants were starting to release CS5!

Adobe have just released the trials for CS5 and I managed to get my hands on a trail version of Photoshop, first impressions... awesome!

The workspace has been updated once again to allow a free flowing environment even allowing you to change layer opacity over multiple layers and an on-screen color picker. I have been desperate to try the new ?Content-Aware Fill? which matches lighting, tone, and noise when content is removed from an image and fills the background as if the object never existed, although I was skeptical it didn?t disappoint and seemed to work flawlessly over the three images I tied out.

The new interface also has a ?Bridge light? palette which makes finding images and graphics a breeze without having to have Adobes Bridge program open or manually navigating to images.

The most exciting development for me is one of the new transform option called ?Puppet Warp? which allows you to select an object or part of and distort it to a curve without degrading the image, it may not seem like a big deal but performing this task manually with the original warp transform tool was a drawn out process of trial and error which usually ended in trying to find another way of getting the result along with a few strong curse words.

There is plenty more that CS5 has to offer and I personally cant wait to get it installed :)

Napoleon Bonaparte once said "Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu?un long discours," or "A good sketch is better than a long speech". That phrase embodies the sentiment of information graphics, a branch of design which has always fascinated me and was the focus of my studies at university.

Little did Napoleon know that his disastrous march to and retreat from Moscow in 1812-1813 would be recorded in one of the best statistical graphics ever drawn (above), by Charles Joseph Minard in 1869.

The drawing communicates the story in seconds, effortlessly describing the route of the march on a map, combined with underlying statistical data about climatic conditions and the resultant separation and loss of soldiers from Napoleon?s army along the journey.

Minard?s graphic is not only enlightening, but also inspiring; and in my view, as designers we should always aspire to communicate messages as clearly and concisely as this, regardless of the medium being used.

This BBC News article about typefaces caught my eye, not only because I have a passion for typography, but also because it?s a subject which is rarely brought to the general public?s attention.

As a discipline, typography involves more than simply choosing a font for a particular purpose; amongst other things it also requires an appreciation for the subtleties of the art of typeface design, a knowledge of the history of alphabets and letterforms, and perhaps most importantly a functional understanding of legibility and readability.

But these things don?t consciously concern most people. Type is there to do a job, and when done well, it should be ?invisible?. Counter-intuitively, it?s for this very reason that typefaces really do matter.

It?s true that there are snobs who needlessly complain about the proliferation of fonts like ?Comic Sans? and ?Papyrus?, blaming it on the wide availability of standard fonts within DTP software on affordable desktop PCs; but frivolous elitism should not be allowed to cloud the issue.

For example, using the wrong typeface for a corporate document is almost as disastrous as using the wrong company logo. Typefaces should be specified as part of any good brand identity guidelines because, as well as facilitating the readability of text, they contribute to the style, tone and personality of your communications.

Underestimate the power of typefaces at your peril!

Here at Brilliant we are lucky enough to be involved with projects that require nicely designed and highly detailed illustration on a daily basis. This is mostly a good thing but it can also mess with your deadlines and cause mini panic attacks if you get carried away or even worse, a change in style or subject is required.

We love to produce artwork that is something a little different from the last but delving into the new and unexplored; whilst exciting can be deadly with a time constraint so its a good thing that everyone at Brilliant are designers at heart and not just at work!

Personally I spend as much of my free time as I can practicing my design and illustration techniques, which can be anything from an hour a night to the whole evening and few early morning hours. The practice allows me in theory more time to complete the work and produce something awesome as well as being able to offer a variety of styles, techniques and concepts.

Having an arsenal of finishing abilities behind you allows you to put more time into the purpose and messaging of a design.


(Image is a mixture of 3d, vector, photography, hand drawn elements and Photoshop techniques)

I have used a few tablets in my time and to be honest felt quite put off by them, to me they always felt unnatural, especially being so used to gaining the effects I needed with a mouse. There are many styles and techniques that just cannot be achieved with just the use of a mouse and so went out and bought myself the Wacom Intuos 4 A5 tablet.

Within moments of playing with it I felt a great sense of relief that I had not wasted my money on a cool looking but ultimately useless piece of kit. I have always been told that anyone who works with image editing, painting, or illustration software needs a Wacom tablet. Graphic designers, illustrators, visual effects artists; if you ever brush on a paint stroke, it?s seems ridiculous to use a mouse.

The pen/tablet interface makes painting and drawing much easier and faster. It?s more comfortable on your hand and, thanks to pressure sensitivity, more expressive especially within the fine details of a piece. Because the tablet can send pressure, tilt, and bearing information to the computer, you can create calligraphic brush strokes, and other effects that work just like real tools. All this without clenching your hand into the tight little claw a mouse requires.

The Intuos 4 has a scroll wheel with a big button in the middle that?s called the TouchRing. Anyone who has ever picked up an iPod will identify with this feature straight away, it can control zoom, brush size, tilt and cycle through the layers palette, in the long run it will save you so much more time.

I am really impressed with how far drawing tablets have come since I first used one and although it will never eliminate the need for a mouse, its great to be able to pick it up and just draw!

I love the fact that I can be inspired to either start a new piece, try a different approach or a new technique just by taking the time to appreciate others work. I get excited when I see a colorful illustration or a nice piece of typography but until recently, photography has never really given me the same ?buzz?.

I stumbled across the photography of Dave Hill and at first glance his work gave me that ?How in the world did he achieve that?? Each piece has been thoroughly thought out, incredibly well composed and the details are amazing.

His website has a massive behind the scenes section which is a must if you?re like me and need to see how things are done.

Upon my weekly browse of design blogs and illustration websites I found a website dedicated to the works of Roy Lichtenstein. His work has always inspired me to draw in a way I feel comfortable and not to follow the latest trends.

Within seconds of landing on the site Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein I was greeted with a showcase of over 60 examples of Lichtensteins work opposite the original works by artist?s such as Jack Kirby (DC Comics), Jerry Grandenetti and Russ Heath (Men at War).

I had always been aware that Lichtenstein had used reference for his artwork but with much of it looking very similar to the original, I couldn?t help but wonder how it had been allowed to happen...

I don?t enjoy jumping to conclusions, it happens, but there are plenty of points that this particular website fails to mention. I have always believed that Lichtensteins work was a concept; at the time no one was creating such new art, not to mention the massive difference in scale between the original and the artwork so although the reference was copied the context was unique.

Whether I truly believe this or not is another matter, I found a quote via Wikipedia which sums the argument up nicely; "Lichtenstein did no more or less for comics than Andy Warhol did for soup."

In this article on the Guardian website, internet guru Clay Shirky shares his predictions about the future of online services.

He surmises that printed media such as newspapers will disappear in less than 50 years, and claims that "... no medium has ever survived the indifference of 25-year-olds."

Whilst I too believe that the traditional channels for delivering certain content will eventually be replaced by cheaper, more convenient and environmentally friendly media; I do not think this portends the end of print in a wider sense.

Much like the survival and resurgence of vinyl due to demand from music enthusiasts, there will always be a market for high-quality printed material.

There?s nothing quite like opening a new magazine and being hit by the smell of freshly-printed ink on a special paper! And that?s the point: we mustn?t forget that with print, our senses are spontaneously engaged in a unique way. In any case, if print dies how else will we package all that lovely vinyl in the future ;-)?

I paid a visit to the Royal Society?s summer science exhibition "See Further" at the Southbank Centre on Sunday.

It was not only enjoyable, but also truly enlightening.

I?ve always found creative inspiration in nature, just as human kind has since time immemorial. Science helps us to delve deeply into the contrasting constituents of nature: symmetry and asymmetry; simplicity and complexity; order and chaos.

Sometimes taking a step back from contemporary design to consider the world around us yields valuable insights into the nature of creativity.