Design By Eye

dbe

Learning to design is, for me, much like learning to play an instrument. When you first start playing an instrument, there are certain rules and exercises that help you get started. Continue reading →

Posted on March 21, 2013 by ogvidius | 5 Comments

My top 10 albums of 2012

top10

These are my top 10 albums released in 2012. It was actually a pretty tough list to do this year because there haven’t been as many new releases that I’ve loved, I’ve been mostly discovering music from a couple of years back, but here goes! Continue reading →

Posted on December 3, 2012 by ogvidius | Leave a comment

Achieving the “washed out” photo look

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I’ve been spotting images all around the web recently with this kind of washed-out look and I love it! It gives images a really nice retro tinge while staying classy and not quite going as extreme as some of the instagram-type filters. I had a bash at comparing originals with filtered images and trying to achieve a similar look in Photoshop, during which I came across a quick way of achieving the look with ‘levels’. You photographers have probably known this for years, but for anyone that might not, here’s how I do it: Exhibit A: the original photo (one I took in France this year, in fact!). So, step one is to bring up the level panel and bring up the lows, and down the highs to a point where it looks horrible and the blacks are all clashing and running into one big mush and the whites seem to blowing everything out (trust me, everything will be ok, but you might want to keep a copy of your original!) As you can see, the shadows under the bush have now been crushed to mush… flush. And the white parts like the rock under the sign have lost a … Continue reading →

Posted on October 9, 2012 by ogvidius | Leave a comment

Next step for Typographic Verses

nextstep

I’ve been really enjoying watching Typographic Verses expand and get tweeted about. But even more amazing for me is reading the comments from people who reblog certain designs and put a little note on why that particular verse is important to them. Continue reading →

Posted on April 13, 2012 by ogvidius | 3 Comments

A week off Twitter, Dribbble and Instagram.

notwitter

Last week I decided to take a week off Twitter, Dribbble and Instagram. I’m back on it today, but I really enjoyed the time off. Here’s why. I’m about to get all philosophical on you here, but I think there’s a natural human desire for affirmation and encouragement… Continue reading →

Posted on February 16, 2012 by admin | 12 Comments

An Interview for Majestart

interview

I did an interview not long ago for the super cool French website, Majestart. You can read the full thing over here although it’s in French, and Google translate makes me say funny things. So here it is in English! Continue reading →

Posted on December 4, 2011 by admin | 3 Comments

Spec work? More like, rubbish.

rubbish

I just posted a tweet saying: “As much as I think spec work is bad, the AntiSpec campaign feels like the wrong way to go about it to me.” And I got a few questions, so I am hitherto expanding upon said tweet. First things first: I don’t like spec work. Spec work (or crowd-sourcing) is essentially like a competition for design work. It means… Continue reading →

Posted on September 9, 2011 by admin | 5 Comments

Designers talk too much

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“Hi there! My name is blah blah and I create beautiful clean minimal interfaces with awesome simple user-experience-enhancing gloss and shine that makes your face melt and rainbows come out of your ears.” I’m sure many of us have seen this somewhere, and are perhaps guilty of doing it ourselves. Let’s try and get in the habit of showing people what we do, rather than telling people about it. Continue reading →

Posted on August 23, 2011 by admin | 5 Comments

Website Updates

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You may have noticed some changes around here recently. I’m working on updating my portfolio site a little bit. I think the website works well and it has done for over a year so I’m not dramatically changing anything, but I needed to tweak certain parts to reflect my current style. Here’s what’s changed, what will be changing and why. Continue reading →

Posted on July 3, 2011 by admin | Leave a comment

Make Design Make Sense

make-design-make-sense

Have you ever been to a website, and spent 10 minutes looking at all the little details and enjoying the design, without actually realising what the website is, or what it is for? Maybe it’s just me, being a designer, but it seems to happen quite often now, particularly when browsing gallery sites for some inspiration. Continue reading →

Posted on April 30, 2011 by admin | 1 Comment
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