Recently in Designers Category

With all there is to choose from at MAX, be sure to not miss these great sessions that focus on design, inspiration, and all-things Illustrator.

Get Inspired

Jacek Utko
Can Good Design Save the Publishing Industry
Jacek Utko is an extraordinary Polish designer whose redesigns for newspapers in Eastern Europe not only win awards, but increase circulation. Jacek shows how designers can combine content, strategy, business, and art to deliver new solutions to the complex problems we face today. For anyone who cares about the power of design for any media, this is a must-see.

Jonathan Jarvis
Learn How Design Can Make Complex Concepts Clear and Provide New Roles for Designers
Jonathan Jarvis is a young and very talented media and interaction designer with a lot to say. Come see how the complexity of today's issues, such as the recent (ongoing?) credit crisis, demands designers' skills to make these confusing, convoluted issues clear to others.

Joshua Davis
New Experimental Work from Joshua Davis
Joshua Davis is a New York-based artist, designer, and technologist who hardly needs an introduction to the MAX audience. Come see why Joshua's work is always "infinitely interesting."

Chevon Hicks
How to Create Vector Portraits with Illustrator CS4
Chevon is president and creative director at Heavenspot in LA, and his vector portraits of celebrities and actors go way beyond the photorealism to capture the personality of the subjects. Come see how to inject power and personality into your own work.

Get Moving

Chris Georgenes
Basic Character Animation with Illustrator CS4 and Flash CS4 Professional
Chris is the art and animation director for Acclaim Games, whose background in the fine arts, printmaking, illustration and art history and coalesced when Flash came on the scene. His excitement for animation is contagious; come be a part of it and learn how to take you Illustrator artwork and make it move in Flash. You can see more of Chris' work on his portfolio site Mudbubble.

Chris Jackson
Learn Basic Character Animation with Illustrator CS4 and After Effects CS4
Chris Jackson is a computer graphics designer and professor at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), who will show you how to take your Illustrator artwork and turn them in to motion graphics that let you communicate in memorable ways.

Get Inside

David Macy
Hot Tips and Cool Tools in Illustrator CS4
Come get it from the source. Adobe Illustrator senior product manager David Macy gives you the scoop on the latest in Illustrator features as well as those critical techniques you need to know to master this essential design tool.

Contributed by Terry Hemphill, Illustrator Product Marketing Manager

The complexity of the important issues of today and the reduction of these topics to sound bites, invective and the outright misrepresentation of facts by print and broadcast media, as well as blogs and other social media, is so commonplace today it’s a cliché, a banal sideshow that we’re bombarded with at most every turn in our modern lives.

But we are still faced with the issues, and no matter how involved and convoluted, we still struggle to extract the facts and craft our own opinions, at least those of us who care or who are threatened in some way by either the issues themselves or their possible outcomes.

Good graphic design can make these complex subjects more clear. Just as a good teacher can make even the most difficult subjects exciting, thoughtful graphic design can combine the mediums of print, motion graphics, video and interactivity to bring clarity to convoluted problems, and be visually elegant, entertaining and downright fun as well.

Two cases in point:

Jonathan Jarvis, and his video The Crisis of Credit Visualized, is an ingenious explanation of how our credit markets ended up in the mess we’re still struggling to understand and dig ourselves out of today.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

In addition to being a lively thinker and dissector of issues, Jonathan’s a wonderfully talented designer. Check out his Process as Drawing, where he’s captured 24 30-minute illustrations created using Illustrator and Photoshop into lively 90-second videos that are just pure fun to watch. His inspiration for these exercises came from participating in the Cut & Paste Design Tournament last year. Cut & Paste 2009 is just wrapping up in Europe before heading to the Asia-Pacific, and back to New York City for the final, global championship June 20.

Jonathan evolves this rapid illustration technique in The Stimulus: Unpacked to deliver an on-the-fly analysis of a speech by President Obama.

Jonathan’s work in The Stimulus: Unpacked called to mind sosolimited, a group of designers and artists who used their custom software to remix the 2008 presidential debates into Reconstitution 2008, a live performance that deconstructs both the spoken words and the body language of the candidates. And does so beautifully.

We may face a noisy, often hostile world of “news” and “entertainment,” but it’s a delight to discover designers and artists who are turning this media barrage inside out, in ways equally thoughtful, provocative and beautiful.

Contributed by Brenda Sutherland, Illustrator Team Rowing Captain

Last Friday Terry talked about some of the exciting new libraries and How To’s that we shipped with Illustrator CS4. I wanted to take time today to focus on some additional new CS4 Sample Art Files that show how Illustrator can be used to create visually intriguing, creative flow charts. Yes, you heard me right, I did say “Visually Intriguing” and “Flow Charts” in the same sentence!

Jennifer Willis is one of those rare designers who doesn’t cringe when taking on information graphics. Instead she has found a way of infusing her creative style into flow charts, while obviously having a great time doing it. Jennifer uses a variety of symbols and arrowheads that she creates. This adds a personal touch that reflects not only the designer but the client as well.

Contributed by Terry Hemphill, Illustrator Product Marketing Manager

I always like to get good news about all of our customers, but especially those "FOIs" (Friends of Illustrator) who use vector graphics to help craft their unique styles.

Catalina Estrada, Simone Legno and Chevon Hicks are amazing designers who have been working on some interesting projects. Check em' out after the jump...