Articles and News
Something is up!
You may have noticed that things have slowed down here a bit. I’m also diverting all interviews and keep answering mails to a minimum for the time being. The reason for all this is that I am working on Veerle’s blog 3.0. The journey was long and hard!
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogEECI2009, the first ExpressionEngine and CodeIgniter Conference
In October I’ll be traveling to Leiden, The Netherlands. Never been there but apparently the city is famous for its almshouses, university, museums and glorious history - and the spirit of the Golden Age lives on here. This is a place where Rembrandt was born and inspired so many other influential painters. Read on for free tickets and a special Veerle’s blog reader discount.
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogUsing Text Wrap in combination with the Area Type Tool in a compound shape in Illustrator
One of the requests I received lately was how you can flow text into a compound shape. To flow text into a shape you use the Area Type tool, but this doesn’t work for compound shapes. In this screencast I show you a workaround to this problem.
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogMy drawing for the Travelling Moleskines
A while ago I received an invitation from Jon Hicks to join a project called the Travelling Moleskines. It immediately triggered my interest to accept the invite as I love to sketch!
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogWin a free copy of Phantasm CS Studio
Do you remember my article about Phantasm CS Studio? Well, Astute Graphics is now holding a design competition, and in honor of the launch I’ve been offered to give away a copy of this fabulous Illustrator plugins serie.
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogIllustrator ring shape via overlapping crescents effect
Today I have a very easy to follow step-by-step tutorial for people who just started out with Illustrator. This is another request from a reader who asked if I could explain how to draw this ring shape (see image on the left). Looking at this shape I can see it’s made of 2 overlapping crescents which are then rotated at 45 degrees. There is also this interesting overlapping effect which adds a bit of unrealistic depth effect which makes me think of the work of M.C. Escher. This time I thought it would be a good idea to work with screenshots again!
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogIcons I designed for projects
Over the past few years I’ve designed a bunch of icons for different projects. Sometimes the icons were part of the finishing touch of a design, like special bullets for a list, or like the calendar icons on my site here. It’s one of the aspects in a design I really enjoy doing, whether it’s a set of tiny pixel icons or bigger and more detailed illustrative icons. I like the variety of it, and I also like the fact that it needs some dedication and insight from the designer. Today I want to share some of the icons I’ve designed!
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogAbstract my WordPress theme for WooThemes
It’s a bit too busy here at Duoh! HQ to find the time to write an article for my blog this week, but not to worry, I have written an article about my process when I designed my WordPress theme for WooThemes…
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogIllustrator type technique using shapes
One of the questions I often get from readers is if I could write a tutorial on how to create a certain logo. It’s something that I think is not very good material for a tutorial because it’s so very specific. The hard part is not the execution in Illustrator, it’s the design itself, the creative process. Then again I think certain parts are explanatory e.g. a logo made of letters you draw yourself using circles, simple shapes and lines of equal thickness. The technique I have in mind is something that only works for logos that contain only a few characters, ideally not more than 5. It also stands or falls with the characters at hand e.g. if o’s and other circular shapes are involved, than it can get interesting to try this technique out!
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's BlogHow to create a skewed checkerboard pattern in Illustrator
A reader asked me if I could explain to him how to create the Bavarian flag in Illustrator. Instead of explaining this with text and images I decided to capture another screencast tutorial instead.
Posted on 05 Nov, 2009 - 12:00 AM in Veerle's Blog