Saturday, March 31, 2012





Hi Bloggers!

So Im a week or two behind thats because I've been really busy with work and school but Im back and will try to stay more on top of my illustrations. So for this illustration I still wanted to do this illustration just because I had a really good idea what I wanted to do. Now I know it might seem very typical and obvious when you hear the word Sunglasses and thought "she will do sunglasses" yes I was but not by itself so I was doing research online trying to get some ideas and inspiration and came across a women wearing sunglasses and used only part of it and started outlining the sunglasses just to get the structure of it, and began drawing the rest of the portion. I knew I wanted to draw something fun and chic so I thought of doing the obvious with my own twist to it. 





I first drew the sunglasses using the colors dark purples and lights and shades in blacks and browns to give it more contrast and tried to make it look realistic.

Next I added a background and choose the color pink because I wanted it to be girly and feminine, but later I will add a gradient color to give it more dimension and edge. 

Next I started to draw in the hair and mouth to start showing more of the women and building the whole image up by putting it all together so it would soon form into her face. 
Later I drew in the skin and layering different tones of skin values to enhance more shape and real life texture to her so it wouldn't look flat and boring and drew in her nose and shaded it in, made her lips look fuller by adding a gradient to add a shadow to it so it would look bigger and used the color purple as I did for her sunglasses, keeping the color scheme the same for this layout. 

So its looking pretty good so far and really liking how its turning out, so to continue I basically drew in all of the elements in, and finally added the text called"Your Perfect Shades"and think it fits well with the overall image. 


And finally just to add that special touch I added a purple and pink gradient background as I mentioned above to really give it that final touch to it so it looks edgy and classy, as for the text I used a drop shadow and bevel and emboss to make it stand out also using a cursive font to look more sleek and chic. So This is my final hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget to come back again and see what I come up with my next illustration.

Until Then, Fatima





Friday, March 30, 2012

Hey Bloggers

Before I get started I would like to personally introduce myself to you. My name is Fatima Ghaddar and  Im a Graphic Designer and a Fashion Photographer living in Hamilton, On. I work with the creative suite programs and work with traditional media and photography. I have explored many avenues such as "The Factory, 270 Sherman, and the Humblepie" which was my favorite place to visit. 

So on Tuesday March 27th me and my group of friends went to downtown Hamilton to explore and interviewed different shops and graphic design companies where we had to asked questions about breaking in the business and what its to be expected and what the life of a graphic designer is like. So to begin I would like to introduce the first place we went which was the "Humblepie". 

Humblepie is a retail store and studio/workshop inviting you to explore vintage, eclectic design details in a creative, fresh environment. The shop smells wonderful and with blues & jazz playing throughout the store and workspace, it’s a very inspiring experience. There is an in-house upright bass and piano for live music. We specialize in vintage and upcycled fashion & interior design accessories, kitchenware & barware, pottery & linens, jewellery, furniture and original artwork. Humblepie is a one-stop shop retreat for those in search of something useful, beautiful and unique.

Most of our items are ‘one offs’, not ‘off the shelf’, and a lot of them celebrate a bygone era of quality manufacturing that is unlikely to return. Our stock is ever-changing, and although diverse, everything we sell shares a common thread of great design, craftsmanship or engineering that has stood the test of time. However, we would like to offer more than a great deal or a nostalgic trip; and by breathing new life into tired items destined for the land-fill, we can all help to reduce, re-use and recycle. Join us for one of our creative workshops. 

Up-cycling, as it relates to interior design, is re-inventing and re-using old furniture/materials and turning it into something that works in today’s interiors. It is seeing the potential of discarded materials and developing them or incorporating them into bespoke, custom design. Contact us if you like the ethos behind up-cycling. It’s not only about reducing waste and consumption of new materials, but also to develop design processes that constantly seeks to add value for sustainable living.

Phone Number: 1 289.389.7208

I would highly recommend checking this place out it was certainly on of my favorite place to visit just because I saw alot of cool graphic work including fashion and vintage clothing and antiques which I really liked and interviewed two women about their shop, work life and style, I also took some pictures as you will see . I really learned alot and took notes while listening and asking questions because I found what they were saying was very useful considering they are working in the real world and handing clients, so I took advantage of what I was going to be in for. I have to say I got really excited when I saw all the fashion and vintage clothing, hand made jewelry, fashion art drawings, paintings and everything girly and  feminine which gave me an idea how I would like to decor my own graphic/fashion studio in the future hopefully when I have enough money to build my own business. It just really lifted my spirit and gave me so much inspiration and ideas to really know I was meant for graphic design and fashion. 

Here are the pictures I took at Humblepie!












We also went to the "Factory" which I really enjoyed and gain knowledge that would benefit my career and helpful advice she was sharing, her name is Cheryl Blankeney and she is the Arts Administrator and you can contact her at info@factorymedia.ca and visit her website at www.factorymedia.ca. Cheryl was talking about some interesting things like how the Factory is a place for anyone interetsed in film and directing also a great place to get inspired, which I also loved how anyone could come in for free and find out more about what field they want to direct themselves and learn more about the business. She also mentioned about a workshop where you can come in for a couple of week and they give you hands on experience to get you familiar with filming and camera lighting and adjusting settings and your basically getting it for free and that was something I think everyone should get a chance to be involved depending what their into.I  think I will go down there again and pay her a visit because this was very useful to me so would my brother because he is also very interested in film and directing and she is an amazing person to talk too so I first thought of my brother when I walked inside the factory and thought this would be the perfect opportunity for him to learn more about film and know he would be happy to go which would be worth while. 

Here are some picture I took while I was there and got some nice photos like Cheryl and the studio. Hope you enjoy them!



Cheryl Blakeney - Arts Administrator 
You can contact her infor@factorymedia.ca

Samples of Graphic Design work



I would highly recommend paying these places a visit because you will be getting real world advice and experience from experts who have been in the business over 20 years and from my personal experience visiting down there I really gained alot of information, that I think not alot of companies wouldn't give. And from speaking with Cheryl she seemed very confident and enthusiastic about how much she loves her job and the people she works with. I hope after reading this you will take advantage of these events and shops and pay them a visit and hopefully enjoy it!

Until Next Time, Fatima!


Sunday, March 25, 2012

Hi Bloggers!

So today I have created yet another two very cool photoshop text effects and wanted to inspire you what I have created in photoshop. So the first effect I did was  a 3d electric effect done in photoshop and another one using only layer styles and alot of them. The first one I mentioned I used alot of layer effects such as gradients, burn tool, layer styles and many more. I first typed my name using the font called "Xenippa" and duplicated the letters to over lay each other and space them out, and added the glowing effects using the effects panel like the outer glow, drop shadows, bevel and emboss, to be creating a 3d look to it, the tutorial  I found is called "http://psd.tutsplus.com/".  


So the next one is something I really enjoyed creating and its this grungy gold hard metal rocker effect to it, I used the same font and used alot of different layer effects such as drop shadows, outer glow, different blending modes to create this look. I hope you all enjoyed these effects I created and you can see where I got the tutorial from at http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/royal-gold-text-effect/. Take a look at it and see for yourself!


Thanks, Fatima 



Saturday, March 24, 2012

Hello Everyone!

So lately I have been working on my photoshop booklet for my class where we have to show photoshop techniques we leaned throughout the semesters and I was very excited to be creating photoshop techniques and thought it would be a good idea to show you what I have completed. So we are suppose to create effects from a tutorial and and incorporate it in our booklets and write a small bio how you created and give credit to the author. The first technique I did was a baseball effect taking my name and create a textured velvet red laced look, where I used layer effects and brush presets to also create a dirty grass effect layered on top to make it look blended on. So as you can see I wanted to use the original image to show you how I replicated it and was very happy with end result considering it took me 3 hours but still worth it. The website I got it from is called http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/create-a-layered-glowing-text-effect/




Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Hi everyone, so Im here for my next illustration which the word is "popularity" as soon as I heard this I knew I wanted to do something glamourous and fashionable, so as most of us know when we hear that word "popularity" we think popular kids in high school and thought that was too typical and think most people would draw a group of kids showing them how cool they were and think that was too easy to do, so instead I first drew a thumbnail showing a celebrity at a red carpet event and wanted to illustrate something fun and glamourous. As you can see I drew a girl arriving to a red caret event, and drew some paparazzi's snapping and flashing cameras at her to focus the attention on her to show"popularity" and thought I was on a good start.

 Next I grabbed my wacom tablet and drew a nice flowing red dress in illustrator just to get the shape going but later I will make it smoother and make the dress a darker color, and draw the face and hair later on.
Later I added the paparazzi's and duplicated them to show a busy crowed crowding the girl because she's a famous celebrity and with cameras flashing at her.

 Next I added the black background with cameras flashing at her and drew a red carpet since she is arriving at a red carpet event, along with her face, red dress, and hair done to make her look glamourous while posing with her arms on her hips facing towards the crowd.


                                          


 Lastly I got all the images and formed them into one and brought them all in together and placed the paparazzi's on the bottom and made them smaller so the girl would be the focus of the attention to show she's popular and think it helped balance the overall illustration. I really liked how it looks 1950's glamourous and fits with the style with the red dress and hair, I think it helped the design even more with the choice of colors and the red dress almost like marilyn monroe kind of. In conclusion I was happy with the end result and hope you were too.

Thanks
 Fatima!


Well I guess I can say that Im done both my wine labels, so as you can see I have completed my sexy mask and that it looks pretty good and that I added the "Vinemount Estates" which is the company's name and that I will be supplying the image for, and the slogan"Midnight Fantasy" and made the font cursive to show it that sleek sexy feel to it and put a red outer glow on it. so there you have it my wine label for "Vinemount Estates" I hope you liked these wine label designs as much I enjoyed creating it.





So here is my second wine label design as you can see I started off drawing a well in photoshop and painted in the bricks and the roof, then added some grass around to make it more nature like. I really like how I made the well look more 3d instead it looking flat and wanted to give it more shape and diminutional and was looking pretty nice. 

 As for the last stage I drew some grapes and duplicated them around each corner so the image wouldn't look plain ad dull so I added some more life to it by drawing grapes to make them blend with the well and give it a fresher more tasteful look and was very happy with it and think it turned out great and incorporates with the word"conservative" for the wine bottle label.    
Thanks for stopping by
Fatima !

Monday, March 19, 2012

So here are my next stages in progress, as you can see I first drew a black background in illustrator and made a red carpet rolled up towards the end, and added some in the second layout and was getting how i pictured it in my thumbnail concept but twisted it a little. later I will take the same girl as you saw in the previous steps and make her dress much more smoother making the lines more crisp and begin to draw the face and have her posing for the paparazzi while they are taking photos of her.




Hello Bloggers!

Well as promised Im here for my next word which is "Popularity"  as soon as i had heard this I knew I wanted to do something glamourous and fashion related. So as most of us know when we hear that word popularity we instantly think of high school as being of of the popular kids and thought that was too typical and think most people would draw a group of kids and showing them as being cool they are, and thought that was too easy so instead I drew a thumbnail showing a celebrity at a red carpet event and wanted to illustrate it into being something glamorous and fun that I would enjoy doing. So enough of me blabbing lets get straight to the thumbnail, as you can see I drew a a girl arriving to a red carpet event, and drew some paparazzi snapping and flashing cameras at her to focus the attention on her to show "popularity"and thought I was on a good start. Next since I had my thumbnail drew out i grabbed my wacom tablet and drew a a nice flowing red dress in photoshop just to get the design up and going but later on i will make the dress smoother as i just wanted to get the outline of it. So thats it for now just wanted to update you on what im working on!







Thursday, March 15, 2012

Hello Bloggers!

So Im here for my next illustration which is for the word "Suspense" and the first thing I thought of was mac cosmetics, and so I made a few thumbnails to show you.  Here are the thumbnails I did and the first one you can see I was trying to make it look suspenseful with the two girls covering their mouth with her hand just seeing how it would look, then I came across with my second thumbnail and messing around with her face adding tears falling off her face even though their wasn't that much emotion on her face but just playing my ideas. Here are my thumbnails like the girl with tears except I took away the tears and added leaves and feather because mac always has these outrageous yet awesome ads each month and wanted to use that as my theme.






Since I shop there alot I always so that mac comes out with a new collection every month and always have these crazy cool awesome make up ads which always gets me excited because I love their crazy fun style that always goes beyond their imagination and creativity. Here are examples of what I mean.





So as you can see they are pretty out of the ordinary but still gets clients around the world to shop at their stores, because I believe people are attracted to packaging and colorful products and so I decided I wanted to use their ideas and incorporate the word "suspense"by using lots of bright and wild colors since their make is very bright and stands out. To start off I found an image of a a eye with feathers around it and thought it looked very mysterious and wild like its hiding in the woods or something so I used it and colored it in and adjusted different effects and changing opacity to make it stand out more. here is the first beginning.







Now that you have seen the previous stages and begin to conceptualize my idea I began shading in the shapes and the feathers into bright colorful colors and later on drew the eyes to make it look like its afraid and wondering in the woods like its lurking so see if someone is after her so I kept coloring in the feathers all the way around and was finished later on I added the mac logo and began drawing it and placed it on the bottom right corner. I liked the placement of everything just because it flows nicely and organized the design and so this ended up being my final and think it incorporates the word "Suspense" 
Hope you all enjoy and watch out for my next illustration which is the word"Popularity" .
Until the Cheers! 
Fatima

  

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

What is emotional labour? Emotion Labour is difficult work that other people don't feel like doing today for free. Meaning people are willing to do work for other people that doesn't not cost them anything and require free services in order to gain attention. Seth Godin says" The future belongs to people who take initiative" meaning that if you have determination and initiative you can gain success and clients to view your work and blog and let them know who you are, To start this you need to create a verity of connections called "The Social Hub" like facebook, g-mail, twitter, tumbler,flicker, carbonmade and most importunely a blog.

I have been doing emotional Labour by using the above following tools to get attention by creating various tools like facebook, twitter, flicker, gmail, carbonmade tumbler, and a blog, these are all valuable sources to help yourself get attention as Seth Gordin says the most precious thing is attention and by using these tools I am able to do that, I have been frequently updating each of my internet sources by posting internet links on the best graphic design websites, how to budget your money wisely and how to start freelancing as a beginner and posting my artwork to inspire others and providing them helpful links and how I create my artwork by showing step by step and what medium im using to create my artwork, also by commenting on others work.

I am very interested in these three websites which are"Dulce Candy87, MakeUpGeek, and
Beauty Broadcast. The reason for this is that we all share something in common which are fashion, make up, and hair and for me this is a way of connecting more with my feminine side and embracing who I am as a person and to know that their are other girls who have the same passion as me.

The first blogger I follow is DulceCandy87 known as a fashion blogger who first started her youtube channel and blog in 2008, she did this because it was a way for her to feel more feminine, because she was in the army and become a mechanic and didn't like her job, later on someone told her about a youtube channel where people could post videos and right there she realized this was something she wanted to do and thought she was ready to provide emotional labour doing work for others for free. She created a youtube account and posted make up looks and how to create your own clothes, and how to become a fashion designer and all these other valuable sources she was sharing, later on she was receiving a huge flow of followers on youtube and her blog reaching more than five hundred thousand views each video and realized she came successful. This has benefited me in many ways because I have used what she has shown us and started my own youtube channel and a blog which mine is called"My everyday fashion and beauty life" Because I wanted to start my own blog and become successful like her and used her ideas into my transforming them into something that would inspire other people. Dulce Candy87 Blog is http://dulcecandy.com/

Screen captures of Dulce Candy's Images








The second blogger I follow is named"MakeUpGeek" she is a Make Up blogger and has a youtube channel and her own company called makeupgeekcosmetics. She is a freelance make up artist but got fired because they were not enough jobs in her city and decided to create a make up youtube channel fully dedicated to make up and wanted to teach others how to properly apply make up and find inexpensive make up products and reviews them. She also shows us step by step make up application and what products she uses which has made me to go to the store and buy it so i could learn how to get her looks and realized I was very attached to her blog that I have twitted and sended out links on youtube and my facebook account so people would be aware of her valuable videos that she was sharing with and wanted everyone to watch her, once again an example of doing emotional labour. This is meaningful to me because she has taught me things that few people would do and I am very fortunate to find her and get tips and ideas done all for the cost for nothing. Here is her blog http://www.makeupgeek.com/

Screen captures of MakeUpGeek images






My third blogger I follow is named"Evelina Barry" she is also a fashion and make up blogger her videos are very unique and interesting because she does looks from every culture. She is very well known for her day to day fashion because she gathers clothes from different cultures and shows us how to put them together, She also does lots of DIY aka do it yourself designer bags, how to build a nail polish nail rack, nail polish tutorials, making bracelets, hair looks for special occasions, how to start a business and shares her life story, and where to shop to buy high end products for less and so on.Which really connects to me because I have the similar interests and life as she does and went though the same things in high school and that really made me feel connected to her. Its so meaningful to me and other girls because she is so passionate about helping others feeling inspired which makes me really want to support her and follow her more because she does it for us not for herself, and thats why she is where she is today because we helped her as she helped us. Here is her blog link http://evelinabarry.com/ and her youtube channel link http://www.youtube.com/user/Evelinicutza?feature=watch


                                                 Screen captures of Evelina Barry




As mentioned the above following I was saying that I have been doing emotional labour, here are some examples of what I mean.







This is a great example of doing emotional labour because I have been using all of these valuable networking tools to help promote myself and my work to help and inspire others and that Seth Godin said "if nobody knows your ideas their worthless", and so I was able to force myself to do what I had to do in order to get"attention" and was trying to gain trust by engaging people by visiting my blog and shows them step by step drawing and tools to create them. This is just the beginning for as I know it will not be easy and it will require alot of work but if just one or two people visited my blog just to read what I write and look at my work then I know I have succeeded into doing emotional labour  and this will make me continue into doing it more because it's something im passionate about and want others to feel the same way by participating in what I have to offer. I think we underestimate all the information that people are offering online and we tend not to be bothered looking at it but I think its because it wasn't something that interested them and thats why I think its important to start a blog about what you like and what others to like so both you and the person are benefiting something together like the person visits each day and the blogger gets a huge amount of views and know that they are both becoming successful by engaging in each others company and inspiring them and thats what's important to me is to inspire other people by sharing what I love and take what they learned and apply it to their own mind. So in conclusion networking is the best way to gain attention, because it allows you to give your ideas for free and Seth Godin said that "the most precious thing is Attention" and if nobody knows your ideas their worthless because the audience is not benefitting from your blog and neither is the person who created it. Lastly Growing up i didn't have all these networks to show my creativity outside my time I did the best I could with what I had but now I can express myself more on the level of who I am.