Myriad Pro

Myriad Pro’’s clean open shapes, precise letter fit, and extensive kerning pairs make this unified family of roman and italic an excellent choice for text typography that is comfortable to read, while the wide variety of weights and widths in the family provide a generous creative palette for even the most demanding display typography.

Designers: Robert Slimbach, Carol Twombly, Fred Brady, Christopher Slye
Priced at ~ $29, Myriad Pro is definitely worth the purchase.
via MyFonts.com

ITC Franklin Gothic

This typeface is a standard choice for use in newspapers and advertising. In 1991, David Berlow completed the family for ITC by creating compressed and condensed weights. ITC Franklin Gothic Compressed is designed especially to solve impossibly tight copyfitting problems, while maintaining high legibility standards. ITC Franklin Condensed provides medium weights of narrow proportions.

Designers: Morris Fuller Benton, Victor Caruso
Priced at ~ $29, Franklin Gothic is definitely worth the purchase also.
via MyFonts.com

Avant Garde Gothic

Letterforms built of circles and clean lines are highly effective for headlines and short texts. The condensed faces have the same modern look, while retaining legibility in lengthier texts.

Designers: Edward Benguiat
Priced at ~ $29 starting and going up depending on which package you choose. Avant Garde Gothic.
via MyFonts.com

ITC Bauhaus

Herbert Bayer of the Bauhaus School in Dessau, Germany, designed the inspiration for ITC Bauhaus, known as the Universal typeface, while he was teaching there in 1925. Ed Benguiat and Vic Caruso redrew the typeface in 1975. ITC Bauhaus is a rounded sans serif design whose forms were developed from the straight edge and compass. ITC Bauhaus can be used in period pieces reminiscent of the 1920s and the Art Deco era; its simple, clean lines and not-quite-closed counterforms make it noticeable in display settings.

Designers: Edward Benguiat
Priced at ~ $29 starting and going up depending on which package you choose. ITC Bauhaus.
via MyFonts.com

Neo Sans

Neo Sans is most notable as the official typeface of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. The design concept called for a versatile, futuristic typeface that didn’t look “crude, gimmicky or ephemeral”. The font was released with a companion typeface called Neo Tech. Facebook uses a similar font called “Klavika Bold”.

Designers: Sebastian Lester
Neo Sans.

Let us know what fonts you use in your projects using the comments below or by joining our forums.

This is especially a very common feeling among all web designers and developers. This has happened to me many times before, where I just find it hard to get any ideas or motivation for a design project that I’m working on. It becomes very frustrating because I can’t come up with a creative idea as fast as I used to with previous work or back when I started my first design projects. It feels as if someone has turned off my creativity and motivation switch.

Unfortunately, there is no way to force creativity. However, fortunately for us, there is a way to turn that switch back on. Over the years I have tried many different methods to get over this problem and now I am going to share them with you.

However before I start sharing this methods, lets take a look at what are some things that cause this problem the first place.

Things that turn off the inspiration

There are actually many things that you, everybody, and I do in our daily lives that turn off our inspiration. One and foremost is that most of us find ourselves doing the same thing over and over everyday because our jobs usually don’t leave us enough room and energy to focus on other things, and that is yourself.

For artists and designers however, the problem starts here. In most cases, many designers try to out due themselves or their previous projects in a new project that they are working on. Usually at some point, the designer does not realize that he or she does not necessarily have the skills or the ability to do such task. And this could be a big let down for the designer since the goal set can’t be reached.

The Cure

The methods given below are some that have worked for me over the years and I’m sure one will work for you as well. They are nothing fancy, and you would probably say that you already knew them, but when was the last time that you did them?

Relax, just chill Yes, just chill.

If you are getting to a point that you are getting frustrated or ready to give up, then this is the first thing that you need to do. Without having this, none of the other methods are going to work for you.

Don’t try to out due yourself when you’re not ready

In many new projects you might feel like that you have to come up with something new or never done before, but that is not the case. Try to ease some pressure off of yourself by trying the same concepts and methods that you had used in your previous projects. If there was nothing wrong with your last projects, then there won’t be one with this one. Trying new concepts or new creative ideas are always best things when you are working on a new project, but you can never force your exhausted brain to just come up with creative ideas out of the blue.

Stop comparing all the time and start examining

All of us have a favorite artist or designer and usually we compare our own work with them to see how good we are getting. But sometimes we forget the point of comparing and before we know it, we are in an imaginary competition. We try to out due ourselves to become better than those artists or designers that we look up to. Suddenly it comes to a point that what was once your hobby for fun becomes the job that takes away most of your free time. There is nothing wrong with that, but once a task becomes a job, then the fun goes out of it and it becomes an exhausting task.

Instead of comparing, start examining. Try to look into their work more closely and learn what are the techniques and concepts that they use in their work. By examining each work more closely, you might find a pattern or technique that makes that artist’s work better than yours.

Get out more often and try new things

Try to get out more often. Do things that you used to do or haven’t done in a long time. Try to exercise more often, relax. Stay away from the net for a while. Sometimes we spent too much time on the net, TV, and it becomes hard for us to think outside of the box. Because of that, we need to take some time off the computer or television for a while. Try new things, for example, if you play soccer all the time, take a break for a day or two and play basketball. If you eat fast-food all the time, take a break and cook your own meal.

Music

Music can be a great source of inspiration. I usually try to listen to a different genre every time. If I like it, that’s great, I gain some inspiration from it. If I don’t like it, then I will appreciate the other genres that I use to listen even more. Another recommendation from me is to listen to music that you like while you are working, but make sure it is a music that you are used to and that it won’t distract you from what you are doing.

Sketching or doodling

What a great way to ease of some pressure off of yourself. Just pick up a paper and pencil and just start doodling or sketching. Don’t really try to come up with another masterpiece, just have some fun with the lines. In the middle an idea might just pop in your head and you got the tools to capture it, a paper and a pencil.

Look into other cultures

There are so many different colorful cultures and languages around us that we could take inspiration from. Learning about other cultures will not only open your eyes to more ideas, but it will also help you reach a greater audience in your next project.

Now it’s up to you

I’ve shared my experience with you, and now it is time for you to start yours. Just take my advice and use it if your own ways did not work. Just remember that this is a temporary problem and giving up is not the way that you want to go.

Please introduce yourself and tell us how you got your nickname AXL99.

I’m Jessie Lam, a part-time animation major student and lead colourist at Switchstance Inc. Back in the days of dialup I went by ”archangel_XL99″ since plenty other Yahoo users seemed to like the ”archangel” handle. “XL” meant “excel”, and “99″ was the year I started taking art seriously. I was pretty shy back then so I often used that alias on the credits of my professional work with the studio. As time went on, I stuck with aXL99 because it was easier to type.

Favorite movie/game of all time?

Tough question… Hands down, Grim Fandango and [trying to decide between my tastes for North American and Asian movies] Out of Sight / Zatoichi … For now…

What influenced your decision to do what you do today?

As a storyteller, asian comics, animation, and action movies. As a colourist, Dreamwave Productions [now Dreamengine]. They were famous in the comic business for their Japanese-inspired cellshading style. I was a huge fan of lead colourist Ramil Sunga’s professional work in comics. On one of my first few trips to the studio he was even nice enough to give me his photoshop brush set and give me pointers on how to paint!  That’s just one of the greatest things a pro can do for an aspiring novice in digital art.

Of all the works you have done, which are you the most proud of (painting, drawings, ect…) and why?

I take pride in most of the pieces I do, but the real milestone for me was the Siris cover I coloured for the fourth issue of Rotogin. It was my first ever professional comic book cover, gives me the
perfect excuse to frame the book up on my wall and go “Holy crap I did this~!?!” and pinch myself.

What aspect of your work do you find the most challenging?

Colouring period! Nah, just kidding, I mean colouring consistently during crunch times. Sometimes I’m forced to sacrifice quality to make deadlines, I often find ways to cut corners to getting the best results in the shortest time. After that there’s the challenge of finding a distinct visual style people can identify with your work, especially if it’s your personal work.

Are there characters from movies or games that really got your attention growing up?

James Bond, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. I was raised on action movies after all. Of course then there came Tetsuya Nomura’s stylish always-3/4-view designs with FF7, FF8, FF10, Parasite Eve and The Bouncer. I became one of those rabid fans with the secret ambition to be a lead character designer at Squaresoft, or any other place for that matter. Then I grew up.

Could you break down your creative process for us?

Sometimes I draw random scribbles until I hit on something that might look cool, or I start with a theme in my head. With some col-erase pencils I block out the composition and character posing and flesh it all out. I then clean it up with graphite either on the sketch or on a new sheet of paper before I scan it into the computer and work out the basic colour scheme. From there I colour however style I think suits the purpose of the image. If I ever get stuck midway I usually try to work it out on a screencap until I’m comfortable applying it on the real thing.

If you were offered the opportunity to work on any movie or game character ever, what would it be?

Dan Smith of the Killer7~!!

Jessie Lam’s website: http://www.axl99.net/
Jessie Lam at Static-Design: axl99

After much thought and debate I decided it was time to move away from vBulletin and convert the forums to a new software call xenForo.  This forum software is much faster than vBulletin and the template system allows me to come up with a design I want and implement it faster than ever before.

Another major change is that Static-Design.com is now using WordPress for homepage.  This will allow for faster updates and more tutorials down the road.

As always I am looking forward to see you all active in the website again.  And please bare with me as I am somewhat new at writing blog posts which is much harder then I imagined.

If you are new to Static-Design.com, you can start by registering at our forums.

Thanks again for all your support throughout the years Static-Design.com has been active.