Your Questions About Psychedelic Artwork

cjbarnaby answers:

Vanna Sweet has some good advice, but let’s get serious for a few minutes, shall we?

First, Psychedelia is a state of mind, and it has a LOT to do with drugs. That does NOT mean that everyone who does it does drugs, but the original artists like Victor Moscoso of the Fillmore posters (Greg Irons and Kelly/Mouse Studios were other creators for that venue) definitely knew their audience. Letterforms are very important to psychedelic design — but the letters are usually difficult to read because they are so similar. This was deliberate: they wanted you to look at he designs for a while before you came to understand them. “Psychedelic colors” had nothing to do with psychedelic artwork. Moscoso, an instructor at the San Francisco Institute of Art at the time, used complementary colors a lot, and that was difficult to look at, but he was creating tensions which were the normal lot of your average hippie/dopester of the period. And he was using very conventional design principles to do it with. Check out his website:

http://www.victormoscoso.com

cjbarnaby answers:

Http://tommyn.com/

http://www.africancreations4.com/african-flower-vases/

http://www.casbahdecor.com/new_products.cfm

http://www.tribalmonsoon.com/

Of course I would visit an antique store or something like that too.

cjbarnaby answers:

There are freeware tools you can use for design,
you could design picture on paper first as well, and scan copy to computer,
and reedit in software, or draw with copy programs,

Gimp ~image editor,

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

Inkscape illustrator

http://www.inkscape.org/screenshots/index.php?lang=en

PhotoPlus

http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PhotoPlus/

DrawPlus

http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/DrawPlus/default.asp

Dafont Themes

http://www.dafont.com/themes.php

..

cjbarnaby answers:

Wow, nice to see someone that age is interested to find a design job! I can give you some pointers.

For starters, you better search for a freelance job on this website:

http://www.99designs.com

Minimum price is $100, and there are a lot of different contests (freelance job posts), I am an illustrator/designer, and I managed to win a contest as soon as I enrolled. Once you get to winning contests, you’ll have a lot of experience behind you.

Similar website is www.elance.com – a freelance illustrator job board, but if you’re a free member you get a limited bid number for projects. This website is a great site to improve skill and see your competition.

But before that I can wholeheartedly recommend Deviant Art to you, a place where you can show people your art and get appreciated. Maybe there you can meet some people that could recommend you to someone, who knows
The address is www.deviantart.com

Also, you can get exposed on websites like www.dripbook.com – but they are paid websites. If you can afford it, I can recommend it to you, because the website is really good, and gives you your own online portfolio, that really looks professional.

And in the end – you must fight for your position as a designer, because there really are a lot of us, and you need to be better than the rest, if you wanna get noticed.

Hope this helped.

cjbarnaby answers:

Like the Rowan & Martin Laugh-In Joke Wall. See the whole thing at 3:45 (but watch the whole thing, too.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf_Oz9yFAak&feature=related