As promised earlier today:
(click on image to see it in full size)
Meta info:
Program: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 10-15 minutes
Idea: 2009/Dec/21
Total lack of realism, just vectors and lots of fun, while sketching the little ship (btw, the idea came while I was quickly showing Fireworks to a good friend of mine ;-).
An inspiring article in Smashing Magazine: Design Something Every Day! (even if you are not a designer or photographer, it’s worth to use 10 minutes of your life to read it!).
Lately I noticed that I spend a lot of time in reading all kinds of articles and tutorials about design (Web/graphic/print) and photography, twitter quick links, lists with “the best of…”, etc., instead of trying to create myself a vector illustration, try in practice a new CSS3 technique, or take some great photos — all of this, just for fun, or to improve some of my skills.
I would not deny the importance of reading a lot in a specific field, to check new tutorials, to study the work of other designers, to see long lists of inspiring links (or photos or illustrations), to watch for the latest news in the Web design field (CSS, HTML, AJAX)… But sometimes, this takes away the time that one can use to spend, trying to create something new, on his own — to write a short article/blog post, to shoot something nice and later edit the photo in an intersting way, to quickly sketch some vector illustration, to play with Illustrator/Fireworks/Photoshop, and all sorts of similar things…
In one word: practice is not less important than theory and reading!
Last year, I didn’t manage to finish a lot of the things that I planned to do earlier, at the end of 2008. Some of them, I didn’t manage to finish because of pure laziness; some others, for lack of persistence; others — because I put them away too much or was scattering my efforts, instead of concentrating them in a few specific goals! Thus, the re-design of my own website/blog “traveled” into the distant future; I was writing about Adobe Fireworks much less that I would like to; I didn’t find the time to help @molif with an amazingly good idea about an illustrations’ website; I didn’t publish any tutorials about Web or graphic design (with only one exception); the list is too long, so I’ll stop here…
And because my three-years old blog has more than one reader now (including its Bulgarian language version), it will be much better if I fail in front of all my readers!
So I challenge myself — in the next year, to create/publish every day at least one illustration — could be a vector illustration in Fireworks/Illustrator, or a photo, edited in an interesting way, or a drawing with a tablet (in Adobe Flash or ArtRage)… the important things is that it should happen on a daily basis, and to show it to the world — in illustration/design a day, or die! ;-)
Shall I succeed? I don’t know. But if I become lazy or bored by this, my readers will know first! So it’s maybe worth trying…
Was it done before?
O, yes. And some of the projects became very successful and interesting:
The 365 photography blog by Dustin Diaz
The Daily Monster
To start something new is interesting and funny! And I don’t think that 15 minutes a day will be an obstacle for me to take care of the new design of my blog, to spend my energy in my freelance projects, as well as with all of my other hobbies and new ideas!
So, happy new 365 364 beautiful ugly or strange illustrations in 2010! :-)
PS Because I already missed a day, I will probably publish another illustration later today in the Daily Design category.
PPS I also challenge Ani — do you dare to take the challenge? :)
PPPS (update @ 2009/01/05) Oh, someone else took the challenge, too! ;-) It’s cool not to be alone!
This illustration is made in Adobe Fireworks:
(click to open in full size)
All you see is pure Fireworks power, all vectors and symbols and live effects!
This amazing work was created by Lucian Dragomir, a talented Fireworks designer, and has won the 1st place in a recent Adobe Fireworks contest, run by FWZone and Adobe.
If you’re curious, you can download the original and de-construct it in Fireworks:
[ download original Fireworks PNG file (6.5 MB, .fw.png) ]
There were some other very good contributions in that contest, too — take a look at the other winners:
…but 1st place is really my favourite!
And it also perfectly shows that the creative possibilities with Fireworks are almost endless! (Some time ago, I have shown a few other good Fireworks examples here:-)
Finally, if you sometimes wonder, is Fireworks better than Photoshop (for screen/Web/UI design), wonder no more! :)))
Doing graphic design in Adobe Fireworks is easy. And not only easy, but fun.
The following imitation of the oh-so-well-known-around-the-world logo of Looney Tunes was created by me just for fun, a couple of days ago:
(click on the image for original size!)
I don’t have the Looney Tunes font, so it doesn’t look as close to the original… I could have imitated it better, of course, but maybe some other time — it looks not bad even as it is now… :)
A few days ago, Jeffrey Zeldman said: I love the smell of HTML in the morning.
To which I replied: @zeldman I bet it smells like a good cup of coffee! ;-)
And Jeffrey replied: @optimiced How right you are.
This inspired me to quickly create the following illustration in Fireworks:
(NOTE: Coffee cup is re-created from scratch in Fireworks, although it looks like this illustration. The final appearance of my little drawing was also inspired by @molif, for which I’d like to thank her!:-)
An amazing contest to participate in!
Just create an original wallpaper in Adobe Fireworks, send it (along with your contact info) to FireworksZone, and you are in!
First prize is a retail version of Adobe CS4 Web Premium, USD 200.00 in cash, plus a chance to write a tutorial for Adobe Devnet | Fireworks!
Full details can be found here: http://www.fireworkszone.com/g-2-535…
…but for your convenience, I will re-post all of them below:
| Theme | Fireworks Zone is holding a design contest. Use your imagination and design/illustration skills to create wallpapers using Adobe Fireworks. Size: 1280×960 pixels. The theme is open, with one wallpaper per contestant. |
| Who can compete? | Everybody can participate as long as the artwork is a source PNG file (editable Fireworks PNG), which means you require the use of Adobe Fireworks. Your submission must contain contact information and a short, one or two line biography, along with the artwork. The contact information must include at least one of the following: home address, phone, or email address (preferably all of them). If you like, include your website URL so we can include it with your biography, if you are selected as a winner or runner-up. |
| Period | From mid October 2009 — till December 1, 2009. |
| Artwork | The artwork must be original and created specifically for this contest. Formats accepted: Adobe Fireworks source file PNG, in vector format. Submissions should be emailed to webmaster(at)fireworkszone.com with the following subject: “Wallpaper Contest — 2009” |
| Converting Text to Paths | Because every computer has a different set of fonts installed on it, you should never assume that the client has the particular font you used available. It is often illegal to deliver font files with your logo, so it is important that you convert all your text to paths, curves or outlines. This step will convert all fonts into a vector shape, and will not allow you to edit the text any further. In Adobe Fireworks, simply select the text you want to outline and go to Text > Convert to Paths. |
| Judging Criteria | Creativity & Originality; Graphics skill |
| The judges | A panel of judges will be selected. Each member will be part of the webdesign industry, fireworksgurus, Fireworks users and/or evangelists. |
| 1st Prize | $200,00 (payable through Paypal) + 1 copy of Adobe CS4 Web Premium + T-shirt. Additionally, Adobe we will invite the winner of the contest to work with the Adobe Developer Connection (Fireworks Developer Center) to write an article highlighting his/her inspiration and steps for creating the winning art. If the winner declines this opportunity, the invitation would be extended to the runners up. |
| 2nd Prize | $100,00 (payable through Paypal) + Fireworks book + T-shirt |
| 3rd Prize | $50,00 (payable through Paypal) + Fireworks book + T-shirt |
| Prizes | Prizes will be awarded to winners at the end of the competition’s period. The top 3 wallpapers will be published on Fireworks Zone. |
| Sponsors | Adobe and Fireworks Zone sponsor this contest. |
| Downloads |
To participate, you will need to have installed Adobe Fireworks CS4 (earlier versions are acceptable, too). If you do not own a retail version of Adobe Fireworks CS4, you can download a full-functional 30-days trial version from www.adobe.com/products/fireworks/ (Windows and Mac versions are available). We also strongly recommend to you to upgrade your Fireworks CS4 version with the latest update (10.0.3.011), which can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/downloads_updaters.html |
If you have comments or questions, don’t hesitate to contact FWZ, which is organizing the contest!
In just two weeks, you could be the proud owner of Adobe CS4 Web Premium Suite — by simply creating a nice wallpaper in Fireworks!
So hurry up, as deadline for participants is December 1st, 2009!
Please, re-tweet and re-blog, as we are trying to bring together as many designers and Fireworks gurus as possible! Thanks! :)
Short URL for this post: http://bit.ly/fw-w-contest
Today I am happy to announce for download the following Fireworks styles, by Fireworks guru Mikko Vartio:
(You can find Mikko in Twitter and Flickr, where he often posts about Adobe Fireworks.)
The styles are called Fireworks Grunge Styles, version 1.0.
They are absolutely free — but if you mention their author, Mikko, in a project where you plan to use them, this will be greatly appreciated! ;-)
[downloaded over 300 times between Nov 14, 2009 and Dec 30, 2010!]
Simply copy the file “Grunge Styles.stl” (found in the ZIP archive) to the Adobe Fireworks “Styles” folder and restart Fireworks.
1) Example location of the folder on Windows XP, for Fireworks CS4:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Adobe\Fireworks CS4\Styles\
2) Example location of the folder on Windows Vista, for Fireworks CS4:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Adobe\Fireworks CS4\Styles\
(For Windows 7 and MacOS X, please, refer to Adobe Fireworks Help, for the exact location of the “Styles” folder!)
That’s it! :-)
After you have copied the styles to the Fireworks “Styles” folder, and restarted Fireworks, you can can select “Grunge Styles” from the dropdown list in the “Styles” panel [screenshot], then select an object on the canvas, and apply any of the styles to it. They can be also edited easily (color, for example), so feel free to experiment!
Of course, you can also load the styles without first copying them: Open the “Styles” panel in Fireworks, then select “Load Style” from the panel menu [screenshot], and load them! (But personally, I prefer the other method.)
[ Download Fireworks Grunge Styles 1.0 ]
Enjoy! :)
[ short URL: http://optimiced.com/en/?p=644 ]
