Showcasing Illustration at its Best

High brow, low brow, check out 

An independent publishing platform for emerging graphic and illustration artists, Nobrow has the most delightful prints and fascinating publications - printed on quality paper. If you are keen to get into print you can send your submissions to Nobrow at nobrowsubs@gmail.com 

Take a look at the Dicephaly Brothers by Ben Newman. Love it!

I did it myself!

Following on from Branding Your Arts Business we continue to explore the world of marketing and branding your business with a book review. And the book is.....
D.I.Y. Design It Yourself.



Described as a manual for anyone wanting to design their own branding and publicity materials, Design It Yourself covers a wide range of different visual media and packaging ideas. The book is a collaborative project by post graduate students from the Maryland Institute College of Fine Arts and edited by graphic designer and author Ellen Lupton. This is a soft back book bursting with graphic design ideas from Books to Zines, Blogs to Websites and everything else in between.
Who is this book for? This book is aimed at anyone who is not a graphics or design graduate but has basic idea of design and layout. Primarily, it is a book about IDEAS and is written in a style that makes the reader think "yeah - I can do that".
What about the content? The first three chapters: Why D.I.Y? D.I.Y Theory and Basic Design are a Must-Read as they delve into the Why Who and How of design - why we need design to get our "message" out, who we are targetting with our message and how we are going to create a strategy to get that message to those people. The subsequent chapters are alphabetical from Blogs through to Zines. Design It Yourself covers media design and old fashioned illustration with great promotional ideas such as making books, printing on textiles, designing logos and my favourite, making and decorating envelopes.
The layout of the book is clean and clear (which you would expect from a book created by design students) with great images and photographs. It is not a book to copy designs from - you can buy books and CDs for this from Dover Bookshop - but a book about cultivating your own design ideas and creating your own branding and marketing campaign.
So, is this a great book? Not exactly. Some of the chapters are too basic - these are the ones about on-line tools such as blogging, web design and, most disappointingly, Presentations. The ideas and advice were fairly sketchy and, if you are a total novice, you would be better advised just to follow the templates direct from the blog site or use a website package such as Websites for Artists. Plus the examples of websites, blogs and presentations weren't particularly inspiring. However, the chapters on Press Kits, Postcards, Logos and Books had plenty of information and great ideas to start the reader thinking about how they can stamp their own design style onto these promotional tools.
Oh, and check out the chapter on Brands. Mike Weikert takes the reader through the processes of branding and brand identity, using his company, Small Roar, as the example. A whole book of different companies talking about branding and marketing of their products would make a great read.
Am I glad I bought it? Yes, as a book on design and style it sits alongside The Laura Ashley Book of Home Decorating and my Habitat catalogues from the seventies and eighties, although Design It Yourself is not a design classic (and didn't set out to be one). This book was first published in 2006 and, with all books covering technology and design, will date fairly quickly. Design is about selling a life style and addressing how people aspire to live and current design trends lean more toward the hand made and vintage rather than slick design and CAD.
Jo Whitehead

The opinions and views in this book review are solely that of the author and not the general opinion of Artists in Business. Neither the author or AIB has received any payment or sponsorship in exchange for the review nor has the content of this review been influencedby any third party.

Graphics Fairy - Shameless Promotion

The Graphics Fairy has an image to suit your every need.
"The Graphics Fairy is an Angel Company. You are free to use all clip art and photos, with the exception of the banner, in any of your projects created for resale or pleasure. Please do not use more than 4 of the graphic images within any one project, or withing a single page of a blog or website. A link to the Graphics Fairy is very much appreciated, when including clipart on your blog or website."

Visit The Background Fairy Here

Visit Fleurish here

Graphics Fairy on Etsy

Copyright Free

The law regarding copyright of images is simple - don't copy! However, some businesses do offer copyright-free images for either personal or business use. Dover Bookshop is a good example of this. A really good on-line resource for vintage images is The Graphics Fairy. Here Karen tells us about her blog and the images.




"I started my blog in the Fall of 2007. I initially came up with the idea after my hard drive crashed twice, the year before and I lost all of my favorite images on my computer, both times! (and no nothing was backed up). I thought storing my images online would be a safer option and then I came up with the idea of sharing them. At the time nobody was really doing this, many were selling the images but they were not offered for free. (Not that there's anything wrong with selling them!)
I already had a blog for my shop Fleurish so, it was a natural progression to add a second blog. That's how the Graphics Fairy began. Too date, I have over 800 images that my readers can use in their artwork or on their blogs. They are all free and can be used in projects for resale as well, providing that no more than 4 images are used in any one project or web/blog page. I've been an antique dealer for over 18 years and have always loved old paper items. I have loads of paper in my collection and I'm always out looking for more images. Many of my friends are in the antique business as well and they often lend me pieces to add to my site. You'll find a variety of graphics on my blog including, antique postcards, early sheet music, old ephemera, antique flourishes from early Spencerian pages, old children's book illustrations etc. I offer a combination of color and black and white pieces. I try very hard to only include pieces that fall under "Public Domain" laws and as far as I know all of my images are safe to use.
It's an absolute joy for me to see how my readers reinterpret these images into their artwork. I have seen my graphics used in jewelry design, card making, web design, decoupage, home decor items, even quilts!"