madeofsquares

Cats, mice, clouds, winds, soft fruit and triffids

Steve — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:05:24 +0000

Over the last couple of months since my last Penguin update I’ve managed to make some nice additions to the collection. You’ll have to excuse the picture quality — I don’t currently have access to my scanner, so I’m relying on my phone’s camera for now which is less than ideal. Anyway, on with these additions (in no particular order (I can’t remember what order I got these in!)).

The House of the Four Winds, John Buchan, 1960 reprint

Cat & Mouse, Günter Grass, 1968

Soft Fruit Growing, Raymond Bush, 1951

The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham, 1960

I was mainly drawn to these for their charming/odd cover illustrations, although I’m yet to read any of them — due to both being engaged in reading other things and in an attempt to maintain their condition. I also managed to get hold of a copy of Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud, which I mentioned wanting in my last update. Whilst not in perfect condition, I still love the cover, in particular the assertion of “science fiction by a scientist”!

The Black Cloud, Fred Hoyle, 1960

CAT!

Admin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:13:54 +0000

Here’s a nice little drawing of a particularly self-satisfied looking cat sitting by a letter “L”. For anyone wondering, the “L” is in Minion Pro. But you already knew that, right?

Pencil rough; lined in black indian ink with a dip pen; type blocked in with more lovely indian ink using a paintbrush. Scanner is out of action so I had to resort to an iPhone photo for now!

Social Media Icons

Steve — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 10:49:41 +0000

A while ago, I decided that, for me at least “shiny” was dead. I noticed that I wasn’t the only one too. By a long shot! I went ahead and removed all the shininess from my logo, adjusted my CSS so form buttons would match and redesigned the social media button on the right there. But I didn’t stop there, oh no. I carried on and made a load more buttons, and now you too can have clean, sexy, solid icons of your very own.

Allow me to present the madeofsquares Clean icon set — 21 social media and sharing buttons for use on your very own website.

Icons included in the set

RSS feed
Email
Twitter
Google +
Google
Picassa
YouTube
StumbleUpon
LinkedIn
Flickr
Flickr alternative
Blogger
Bebo
Facebook
Digg
Digg alternative
Delicious
Spotify
Skype
My Space(!)

Each icon has a fully editable ai vector file and a transparent png. For now these are optimised to work at 32×32 pixels but I will be adding other sizes soon. I’ve strived to get company colours as accurate and vectors as precise as I can. However, some of these have been slightly adjusted to fit pixels for the sake of clarity.

What can you do with them?

Anything you like, apart from sell them! These are totally free to use wherever you want. I’ll always welcome a mention or a link, but don’t feel like you have to.

I intend to add to this set in the future and I welcome any requests, use the comments if there’s a specific icon you want. Anyway, that’s enough waffle. What are you waiting for?

Download the Clean icon set

Penguins and Pelicans

Steve — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 18:35:00 +0000

I recently started reading Penguin by Design, which is so far fantastic. It’s also inspired me to continue seriously with my old Penguin book collection, which currently stands at a colossal total of seven books! Well, I have only just properly started — I actually purchased three (below) from a bookshop in Rochester quite some time ago, but never got around to buying any more.

Voters, Parties and Leaders by Jean Blondel, 1965 print; Penguin Survey of Business and Industry 1966, 1966 print; The Economic History of the World Population by Carlo M. Cipolla, 1974 print

I liked these three purely because of the covers, particularly the brilliantly witty use of hats to depict the various class divisions in Britain in the sixties on Voters, Parties and Leaders.

So, to further the collection I scoured eBay for more. After narrowly missing out on The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle which I wanted for it’s brilliant cover, I did manage to get hold of a May 1939 reprint of One Man Against Europe, interesting as it was one of the Penguin Specials published just before the start of the Second World War.

One Man Against Europe by Konrad Heiden, 1939

The latest additions to the collection were found in one of the many bookshops along Charing Cross Road. The first I bought for it’s sinister cover illustration, The Speciality of the House, a collection of short stories by Stanley Ellin.

The Speciality of the House and other stories by Stanley Ellin, 1968

The last two consisted of both volumes of the amusingly dated and only slightly patronising titled The Intelligent Woman’s Guide To Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Facsim by George Bernard Shaw.

The Intelligent Woman's Guide To Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Facism (1) by Bernard Shaw, 1937

So, this represents the beginings of my collection. I’ll keep adding to it, choosing books for their sexy covers, intriguing subject matter or their interesting background. If anything, this will help anyone stuck for birthday present ideas!

Proof that I’m working

Steve — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:08:24 +0000

Here’s a little peek at something I’m currently working on…

Another guy in a hood

Steve — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:50:05 +0000

So I got a version of Corel Painter Sketchpad (presumably a cut down version of Corel Painter) with the new graphics tablet which I’ve been piddling about with for the last hour or so.

The result is nothing special—I couldn’t even be arsed to bash out a convincing London skyline for a start!—but it was just a quickie to see what you can do with the program.

Honestly, I know there’s two “hoodie” drawings up here now, but I definitely do not have a fixation with them!

Dinner time

Steve — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:03:05 +0000

Standards of Business Conduct

Steve — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:08:53 +0000

I was about two thirds of the way through the compulsory Standards of Business Conduct online training when I found a way to make it more fun.

The idea was to quickly sketch the assortment of grinning models-in-office-gear before the voice over finishes.

Here are the results, of varying quality, arranged on a “things to do today” pad.

Not that I wasn’t paying attention of course!

Pixelinx

Steve — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:25:24 +0000

A friend of mine runs a blog called Pixelinx on which he documents his experiences and thoughts on web development. Recently, he invited me to contribute my thoughts on design — which I’ve started doing.

My first post concerns the use of the Place function in Photoshop and Illustrator. This is something I discovered a few months ago and now use on a regular basis, and is something I highly recommend using (or exploring if you’re unfamiliar with it).

The post is here if you fancy having a look. Do also have a read and see what Adam has to say — most of it is beyond my design knowledge but don’t let that ruin your enjoyment!

Mario

Steve — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:49:34 +0000

I know this sort of thing has been done to death, but I enjoy wasting office supplies too, you know.

Not only were 138 Post-it notes harmed in the making of this, but I also wore down one black white board marker (the red one is doing just fine).