July blog round-up: tutorials, featured designers and reviews

July has been a busy month on the Astute Graphics blog with the publication of brand new tutorials, interviews, Phantasm CS tips and more.

July has been a busy month on the Astute Graphics blog with the publication of brand new tutorials, interviews, Phantasm CS tips and more. Here is a round-up of the indispensable articles you may have missed…

 

Vector Halftone Week

 

Vector Halftone Week was a series of articles dedicated to the ever-growing popular use of infinitely scalable offset print dot effects – “Halftones”. From introducing what this is all about to demonstrating how to creatively use the flexible Halftone tool found within the Illustrator plugin, Phantasm CS, there is something for everybody who wishes to expand their knowledge and available toolset:

Vector Halftone Week: introduction to vector halftones
Learn the principles of what a Vector Halftone is and its benefits to design

Vector Halftone Week: free Halftone tool settings
Halftone effects don’t just have to be and endless pattern of dots and this article provides a wide range of Phantasm CS Halftone settings to start you on the road to Vector Halftone experimentation!

Vector Halftone Week: major vector Halftone tutorial
This significant video tutorial goes beyond the basics of combining a myriad of Illustrator live Effects including the Halftone tool to result in fully dynamic glitter text

Vector Halftone Week: free Halftone Graphic Styles
Building on the previous tutorial, download a set of disparate Illustrator Graphic Styles which aims to ignite further design experimentation

 

Meet the designers

 

Through the sales of our leading Illustrator plugin, Phantasm CS, we are privileged at Astute Graphics to come across a wide range of very talented designers. This month we highlighted two A-list designers and their work who between them can boast of clients including Nike, Adidas, Mars, Microsoft, TIME Magazine, The New York Times, GQ and Yahoo!

The Halftone designs of Daniel Kopton
Featured specially in the Vector Halftone Week, Daniel’s personal work using the Phantasm CS Halftone tool is so cool, it just had to be shown off to the world!

Interview with Josh McKible – “MCKIBILLO”
Having recently moved to Japan, Josh produces very stylised and striking vector artwork, this article featuring a set of his latest

 

Knowledge, comment and free artwork

 

A mixed bag of usefulness… and comment!

Illustrator users: Knowledge is Power
An invaluable list of 10 must-follow sites for all Adobe Illustrator users!

We asked for new Illustrator features… and we got them
Illustrator CS5 was released a few months ago; can it be peeled away from your toolbox yet?

Experiment with Illustrator’s 3D Effects and Halftones with free downloads
Free vector artwork of eight 3D objects rendered in a vector woodcut-esque halftone effect, such as the sphere shown above

 

Latest Phantasm CS published reviews

 

Two new reviews – one in print, the other via an established design blog – of Phantasm CS Publisher plus Astute Graphics’ own mini summaries of three great new Illustrator tools made freely available on the web:

Another thumbs-up review from Fuel Your Creativity!
Fuel Your Creativity has re-visited Astute Graphics’ software to see what enhancements the Publisher edition has brought to the Phantasm CS range

Hot off the press… Phantasm CS Publisher review in Digital Artist magazine
The day one the UK’s leading design magazines hit the shelves, containing review of Phantasm CS Publisher, we brought you some snippets of what they thought…

Three great new free Illustrator tools
If you use Illustrator, expand its capabilities for free with these three free new resources