Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

Toulouse Lautrec is known for his sketches, paintings and lithographs,
specifically from the dance halls of Montmartre, Paris at the turn of the
century.  He painted dancers, prostitutes and theatre goers with no ire,
cynicism or judgment.  He lived in two worlds, the bohemian and the
aristocratic, but did not treat either with scorn.

Orange Tree by William Morris

William Morris was credited to be the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement in England (that predates the Arts and Crafts movement in America)  The movement was sparked as a reaction to the heartless Industrial Revolution and mechanisation of fabric, furniture and architectural design.  It was also on the heals of the Victorian Era with its crowded, stuffy rooms of dark fabrics and furniture.  William Morris called for hand crafting and simple, thoughful designs based on nature.

This is a composition of his tapestry "Orange Tree" and his famous quote.  "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

freefallin'

           

The inspiration for this surrealistic composition was from some photos of two acrobats performing inside the foyer of a city building in Austin.  This one selected pose looked as if she were diving into a pool.  The second image, the splash, was downloaded from the Internet.  It is cover art to a piano music CD that was cropped and layered under the blue field.  The orange background was a psychedelic pattern that was transformed, stretched and adjusted in saturation.  The gradation in the blue below, was created by accident by trying to color stamp and/or paint with a large brush.  It was stretched and cropped to work in the area below.  

The choice of complimentary colors, blue and orange, add excitement and liveliness
to this freeze frame moment.  (Freeze Frame?  Free Fallin'?  Am I dating
myself?)

Duotones: Recapturing the Past?

Duotones recreate the feeling of photos from the past.  This image is a playful Photoshop combination of 17th century Chateau and 21st century VW Passat.

A duotone is a process of printing with 2 halftones, usually black and another
color, to evoke a feeling or mood.  Halftones are created in printing with a
series of small dots spaced to give the illusion of dark and light color. 
Halftones can be done with black, cyan, magenta, yellow and/or a specially
formulated color dots.   In researching duotones, many examples surfaced of how
images can be manipulated within photo imaging software, such as Photoshop, to
get this two tone effect.  Selecting yellow-orange or brown can give the effect
of a sepia image or an earlier daguerreotype. Selecting a blue can give the
appearance of early cyanotypes.  It is interesting to think, in this day of high
definition and high quality digital cameras, that these changes in coloration
were inspired by a time where achieving realistic colors in photography was not
possible. 

Welcome

Welcome to NRDesign Spot.  I look forward to sharing interesting design images and comments on the design world.  Thank you for visiting.