Illustration is a vast range of artwork and styles of drawing, painting and digital art, however, it remains that illustration is inspirational, for any field of art or design. I composed this list of illustrators to help you find inspiration, if you need it, or just become introduced to the different works of these artists. I begin with:

1. The Heads Of State - The Heads of State use a nice texture to add to their illustrations that already speak a clear message.

2. Dennis Juan Ma - A neat style of illustration, along with several humorous pieces of work make Dennis Juan Ma inspirational.

3. Yoshi Tajima - Yoshi Tajima’s covers many types of illustration and even covers graphic design. This artist’s work is inspiring and beautiful.

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I recently saw this book in the bookstore and was instantly fascinated by its typography. Not only was it inspiring, but also interesting. I found this book to be well designed, and I personally liked the bold colors on the covers.

I recently came across the amazing Sydney-based artist Nanami Cowdroy. Her style is both unique and captivating and it has left me staring at the simple beauty of her artwork, I highly recommend taking a look at her portfolio, its quite spectacular.

Continuing along my series on minimalism, I decided to discuss the pros and cons of a minimalist design. The arguments for both sides are valid, however, personally I lean a bit more to the “minimalism is good” side of the argument.

What is minimalism?

Minimalist design is, in short, design that has only the needed elements. In other words, minimalist design is a design that has been simplified down until it has only exactly what it needs for usability and nothing else for extra style or flare.

Although this may seem like a lousy excuse for being lazy, it is not. Minimalist design, just like any other form of design, covers certain principles and elements of design. Space (particularly negative space), balance, emphasis and contrast are all used in minimalist design.

To be minimalist

Yes, I will admit, there are many designs out there that fail to heed the necessity of the elements and principles of design, leaving their minimalist design to be simply whitespace. White space when used properly can look nice, however misusing it proves to be a critical mistake of many designs…

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To start off my short series of articles on minimalist designs, I collected over 40 minimalist web designs to showcase what minimalist design looks like for those of you who are not familiar with it, and to provide inspiration for those of you who do. So, I present:

1. Ninezero - Simple and Clean. It has an effective use of simple images.

2. Seo Design Studio - Communicates effectively.

3. Feelwire - Neat Javascript effect.

4. SimpleBits - Clean use of short entries.

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When someone first begins to play your game, usually the first thing they will see is your intro. Your intro is not only an outright promotion of your site or yourself, but it also is a first impression.

Many times, I begin to play a game, see that the author refuses to put time and effort into the intro. Most of the time, I stopped playing the game. The intro, if done well, can make the player more interested in the game.

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While I was browsing, I found this one site with an interesting idea, Trauma. Trauma is a language structure developed by Aliceffekt (Ikaruga), that focuses on giving a clear message quickly.

On the plus side, it is a very interesting language and it looks very neat when put into sentences, however, it seems to be very hard to memorize. It requires a reader to have memorized twelve (thirteen really, but the thirteenth is a closing tag) symbols and the three levels of each symbol.

When I see Trauma in Ikaruga’s artwork, I still have to rely on the grid on the Trauma website in order to decrypt messages. Despite it being difficult to read, I still find it a neat language (and an interesting read), and it’s still under development, so he might solve these problems.

Trauma Website - Click on the Trauma tab on the left
Trauma Wiki