This post is published extremely late, but better late than never. I knew this post would turn into a multi post project, so I kept pushing it back until I had enough time to really share the whole FITC experience with you.

When I started my blog last year, the first post was a video recap of FITC Toronto 2010. At the time, I didn’t have the money or the vacation time to attend and I regretted it. Sure there would be other FITC’s and other design events but I missed the chance to see 2 of my most influential designers in once place: James White of Signalnoise and Scott Hansen of ISO50. So I said next year, I’m going.

A year lapped pretty quickly and my buddy Francois Hoang of Aoiro Studio was asking me if I’m joining him at FITC this year. Initially I was disappointed that I couldn’t afford the $700 ticket, so I said I couldn’t go. Then I got a tweet from Colin Oakes that Shawn Pucknell, the founder of FITC happened to be looking to give out free tickets to bloggers who were willing to liveblog the event. One quick email and score, I’m in!

So it was off to Toronto for FITC. I was lucky enough that my good pal Giulio at work lent me his iPad so I could cover the event, since I only have a desktop at home. My best friend Wesley gave me a ride to Toronto on his way back to Owen Sound from a visit to Montreal, and my little bro let me crash in his cramped downtown Toronto apartment for almost a week. Super Friends, assemble!

So the event itself was amazing. I was excited to see the presentations and be blown away by the design jedis that were on the card to present. The first presentation was the Rainbowman himself: Signalnoise. I had taken my “reserved for live-blogger” seat which was a nosebleed seat all the way to the far right of the stage. It was selected because I would have access to a power cord. Then I got a text from Francois: “We have a Signalnoise cheering section in the front row.” The iPad was fully charged, so I jumped to the front and sat with François Hoang, Drew Gilchrist and my go-to web guy: Colin Oakes. Most of us had seen James at a design event organized solely by François called Montreal Meets. So it was cool to relive it again with the same group of people.

James White of Signalnoise, Photo Credit to Jackie Brown.

Back to the Future II, by James White

James’ presentation was called Back to the Future II. The theme was how rich experiences from his childhood shape his work and influences as a designer. Working to create things he thought were cool his whole life keeps him excited about his projects. His presentations are always a mix of insight and humour, it was really sweet that his parents were in the crowd since they were a big part of the presentation. Teachers with their nose out of joint would approach Mr. and Mrs. White with concerns that their son James was drawing too much in class and that had to stop. He was a distraction to himself and to others. To which they replied, we will not tell our child to stop drawing.

After the show, James handed out limited prints of the Hobo with a Shotgun poster and shook hands with everyone and smiled for pictures and cracked jokes. After the crowd had moved on, we met up with James to catch up since we last saw him at Montreal Meets. We all then made our way to the main stage to catch the next big presenter of Day 1: The insanely talented and potentially insane in the general sense guys at MK12.

Shaun Hamontree of MK12, Photo Credit to Jackie Brown.

How Do You Turn This Thing On?, by Radatz and Hamontree of MK12

I’m not a motion guy, so I wasn’t familiar with MK12 going in this presentation, but I’d leave an MK12 fan. Obviously I must have had my head in the sand, not knowing who these MK12 guys were. Ben Radatz and Shaun Hamontree took the stage to a very charged crowd. I felt a little embarrassed that I had no point of reference for this presentation. Everyone I ran into was anxious for their presentation. Ben and Shaun introduced themselves, crack some good jokes and played the FITC intro video they created for this year’s event. It was a dark twist on the classic “Let’s All Go to the Lobby” video popular at drive-in movie theatres about 25 years ago. I’d rather not spoil the details of the video so feel free to check it out!

FITC Toronto 2011 Titles from FITC on Vimeo.

Again, I’m not a motion guy. But I highly recommend checking out their work and if you have to chance to see them speak, don’t miss out. This concludes part 1 of my FITC Toronto 2011 recap. Part 2 should be up sometime soon.

PS Thanks to jackie Brown for sending me the high res shots from the FITC Awards show!

I don’t have a lot of the details yet, but I’ve been invited to attend FITC Toronto as a live blogger. I’ve never been to an event like this so I’m expecting to have a lot to write about during the three days of the event.

In my first blog post ever on this site, I wrote about missing FITC and hoping that I would find myself there in 2011. So this event is like a full circle effect for me. The work put into building and feeding this blog has paid off and allowed me to attend a show I otherwise couldn’t experience. If you’re going to be there leave a comment and let me know.

A special thanks to Shawn Pucknell for the invitation.

Nik Ewing is a designer from California with a talent for creating beautiful cover artwork and strong typographical design pieces. His type treatment is chosen very well and I really enjoy that he doesn’t limit himself to a small list of fonts.

Check out more of Nik’s work at nikewing.com and follow him on twitter.

Françoise Nielly is a french painter specializing in portraits that combine elements of cubism and abstract painting. Beginning with a subject and colour palette in mind, Françoise begins her her process by applying ubiquitous slabs of colour with her palette knife.

This technique sounds like she would be creating abstract art, but as the colours overlap, the portrait begins to reveal itself. Then she just follows the cues to focus it into a collage of amazing colours.

To view Françoise’s complete gallery and view a demonstration of how she begins her process work visit www.francoise-nielly.com.

I’ve been a fan of Signalnoise for a couple years now. I was initially drawn by his traditional illustration work found here, but as I explored his gallery a number of great pieces caught my eye. This post is a collection of my favourite works by Signalnoise. They are not ordered in preference.

If this is the first time you see James’ work, I recommend connecting with him. His work is always very strong and he encourages designers to push their work to it’s potential by not limiting your work to projects assigned to you either by client or employer. Go out and find what you want to do and just do it.

With that method, James was able to create some amazing work. It was so successful that he has to keep a close eye on his personal projects to make sure they aren’t used commercially (specifically his Tron poster, which was appropriated illegally on the cover of a Marvel Comic as well as a number of other medias).

James also runs a successful weekly broadcast aimed at sharing the progress of the Signalnoise brand and connecting to his audience of designers with the aim of inspiring them to make smart decisions about their work.

Connect with James at signalnoise.com or by his twitter and facebook.
His broadcasts are Thursdays at 3pm EST at signalnoise.com/live.

With an extensive library of impressive vector work, it’s easy to forget that James White of Signalnoise is also an accomplished artist. I was initially drawn to James’ work by his collection of skull composites. Relying on traditional technique is a great way to ensure that your designs will be unique and keep you from falling into design trends. The technique in these pieces if very impressive, walking the line between hard and soft (soft textures, hard lines, whispie greens contrasted with deep reds).

Connect with James at signalnoise.com or by his twitter and facebook.

I came across Allison’s work the other day and I was amazed by the effectiveness of it’s simplicity. Each of these photographs are very strong on their own, but crossing them over the way Allison takes them to another level.

To view more of Allison’s work check out her site.

I opened my inspiration folder of amazing album work collected over the last year and pulled out these colourful selections. It’s not always easy to use a lot of colour on a piece and still have it come together and speak efficiently as a piece of design. A plan in mind and careful consideration in your colour choices can lead to some beautiful work.

The Miles Davis cover at the bottom is a great example of a great concept and execution of colour. Cool hues emerge from the centre and quickly transition into warm yellows, reds and oranges. When expanded, you reveal they are being contained inside the cool tones that emerged and faded from the centre.

I came across these gorgeous helmets the other day. I immediately feel in love with them. The classic design and minimal graphics are stunning but the leather interior gives it that modern elegant highlight. The bright Ruby logo on the top of these helmets adds a sharp punch of colour to complete their design.

The Ruby helmets have become so successful in the design world that Carl Laggerfeld collaborated with the Atelier to release a Carl Laggerfeld model helmet.

Read more about these amazing products at www.ateliersruby.com.

Massachusetts — created by Mark Weaver

Nevada — created by Katie Lee

Florida — created by Two Arms Inc.

Alabama — created by Matt Lane Harris

Texas — created by Curtis Jinkins

Iowa — created by Adam Flanagan

South Dakota — created by Aaron Anderson

New York — created by Dan Cassaro

Kentucky — created by Nate Eutesch

Georgia — created by Dreg Zlanabitnig

Ohio — created by Mikey Burton

This post comes directly from Abdzuzeedo. I don’t normally just re-post articles from other blogs, but this one is an exception. A collaborative project grouping 50 of America’s brightest designers, representing their home state’s motto. My personal favourite is Mark Weaver’s.

Any Canadians who may be considering organizing a similar project, count me in!

The truly wonderful people at Abduzeedo featured a tutorial I published for them this week. Anyone who was interested in how I created the World Collabs 4 “Terrorize” poster can check it out right here.

I was happy to create this tutorial and also include a PSD for download so that anyone can see what my steps were and play around to unlock their own techniques. Fabio Sasso spoke about this concept of open-sharing in the design community and it has altered how I view my own work on the web.

I didn’t ever have a problem showing my friends exactly how I did a project, or anyone who may ask in a comment or on facebook and email. But I probably wouldn’t have uploaded my PSD files like Fabio does. Fabio mentioned this reluctance in his presentation at Montreal meets this year. He said that it felt like a mistake publishing his workflow and giving the working PSD files for anyone to own, but he did it anyway. It paid off. His free sharing turned into countless designers now turning to him for their design questions. Rather than save up his knowledge and bank it for his own projects, he shared it with all of us and because of that designers look to him as a key figure in the design world. You can view this presentation at Montreal Meets.

Cheers guys, have fun and thanks Fabio Sasso and Francois Hoang at Abduzeedo!

I thought I’d try something different today. Usually I write about what drew me to whatever I’m posting that morning. Instead, today I’m featuring Alex Koplin and I thought I’d grab a few quotes to share from his about page. It may seem like the lazy thing to do, but I felt really inspired when I read it. So I thought to share that as well. Enjoy.

“One could spend years, as I did, pursuing these creative impulses, exploring, achieving, failing, learning, yet without motivation and direction, inspiration and aspiration, the chances of meaningful progress are diminished exponentially. Often, one need look no further than their own unfulfilled desires, be them material or immaterial, to find a reason to stand up and do something, and that convergence between the form (creation) and the function (needs and wants) is what I think we, as designers, strive for.
‘To measure up to all that is demanded of him, a man must overestimate his capacities.’ Not sure, found in a fortune cookie one evening.” – Alex Koplin

To see more of Alex’s work visit h34dup.com and check him out on twitter.

This collection of album covers by Brian Gossett caught my eye on Designspiration last night. Refreshing and clean type treatment layered on beautiful images that capture the city’s life in a single frame. Your eye is immediately drawn to the contrast type, but it’s the image selection that makes these covers so successful. It’s not easy finding an image that communicates a specific city to all audiences, but Brian did a great job at doing just that.

You can see more of Brian’s work on http://since78.briangossett.com/

Jeff Finley is one of the creative minds behind Go Media as well as one third of the three piece indie/folk/pop punk band from Cleveland, Parachute Journalists. As most would imagine, having 2 of Go Media’s creatives in a band means they produce incredible visuals for their music. Here are some of my favourites.

Enjoy and hit up Jeff on twitter @Jeff_finley and check out his site too, http://www.jefffinley.org/

The first thing I’m going to talk about is how I render my shapes. I usually start with either a shape or a closed path I create with the pen tool. Rasterize it, then select the smudge tool.

Select the middle of your shape and start pulling outwards into open space to extend the shape or do the opposite and pull the open space towards your shape to tighten it up.

Start sketching out how you want your work to turn out. Don’t worry about any of the details yet. Just draw in the darkest portions.

Next, create a new layer. You will be adding some mid-tones right now that will layer on top of the dark spaces you already created. In my example, the black lines are the first layer and the grey sections are the second layer. If I were to turn off my second layer, I would be left with the black shape from above. Just like before, don’t focus on shadows and highlights, just try and get your shapes to look right. You’ll building on them later.

All done? Create another new layer. Now you’re going to do the samething again. Tighten your mid-toned shapes until you’re satisfied that your work is complete and you’re ready to move on to some highlights.

Start by adding some soft highlights where appropriate and then use stronger highlights to focus on the brightest points of those original highlights.

The next step will be to add some depth with some textures and then adding some shadows around the top of the eye socket. Select a soft black brush and paint your shadow then select multiply on your layers palette and adjust it’s transparency. For the texture, there are countless of options available online. Put out a good description of the texture you’re looking for and you should be able to find something useful. Pick one and layer it onto of everything and select the best blending mode in the layer palette. I like to add a layer mask to adjust how the texture works within the artwork.

Now we’re moving onto the eyeball. select the area with the pen tool and then fill in a solid colour. The colour you choose now, will be framing the eye.

Add a layer mask on your coloured eyeball and mask the edges.

In this image, I copied the red eye with the layer mask and changed it to blue. Then I masked out the edges of the eye to bring out the red from the previous layer. So now the blue eye layers over top of the red, but the edges are masked out to bring out the back layer and create this gradient on the eye.

Just like in the previous step, I used a soft black brush to draw in his shadow and used a multiply blending mode.

The highlight was a white line I smudged into place.

The last step is adding a honeycomb texture onto the eyeball. Experiment with different blending modes to get the effect best for your project. Happy painting.

When finished, I added the eye into a poster I was working on for the Abduzeedo World Collabs 4 contest. To view this poster, click here.