See the story behind the poster and if you’re lucky enough pick one up for yourself. http://www.dkngstudios.com/2011/11/07/william-james-murray-art-print/

The first bit of helpful advice will be a CSS tip, full CSS box drop shadows. This is a fairly well-known technique for creating drop shadows that are very simple and easily controlled fully through CSS.

To add a drop shadow to an element simply use the below code including the bits to make sure you are Mozilla (Firefox) & Webkit (Safari/Chrome/Konqueror) safe:

-webkit-box-shadow:3px 3px 9px #ccc; -moz-box-shadow:3px 3px 9px #ccc; box-shadow:3px 3px 9px #ccc;

Here is an example of what this does:

Box drop shadow!

To control each element just change the values as follows .box { box-shadow: <horizontal offset>, <vertical offset>, <blur>, <color>;}

I hope this helps and possibly saves you some time from the old image based method of creating shadows.

Enjoy!

During my habitual morning Google Reader cleaning I came across a stunning calendar, which I was disappointed to see was sold out. My disappointment was soon forgotten when I got a look at the work of the artist who was responsible for the calendar, Matt W. Moore.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quantity and level of his work. His illustrative mural pieces are the standouts, in my opinion, like the one below called Crystals & Lasers, but there are plenty of great pieces to admire.

I’ve always had an affinity for black and white illustrations so when I saw that he had a catalog dedicated solely to his black and white illustrations I had to check it out. I was dropped, there are some simply killer pieces of abstract illustrations  as well as some awesome typo illustrations.

So If you have a few minutes and are looking for some daily inspiration swing over to http://mwmgraphics.com/ and take a look around. To top it off he has a good deal of his work available at his store http://mwmgraphics.com/store.html

Simply beautiful work done by Hampus Jageland of Sweden. Great melding of intelligent whitespace usage and killer photography. Ah, you Swedish designers you, you never fail to impress. Not to mention how fun saying the studios name is. Try it!Check the site out at http://www.hampusjageland.com/

Outstanding  work by Josep Roman Barri. This piece, a trimonthly magazine layout and design,  stuck out in particular but his entire portfolio is worth a gander. Amazing work for a student, clean type and challenging design. Made my day!

One of my favorites in a series of funny simple type project called Type Sandwiches done by designer David J. Schwen. You can view the rest of this series on his flickr feed here. After that I would recommend visiting his site for some very smart work.

I just recently wrapped up the creation of a new identity for Dine Out, LLC a trusted culinary content and events company. You can preview some of the work on the Identity page, Design Page, & Web Page.

Working with Cloud Nine Press I developed a new look for Dine Out by creating a brand mark that communicated a modern direction and would help brand Dine Out and establish itself as the go to resource for dining events and upscale restaurant reviews.

In addition to logo design I created a style guide, collateral set, website, and restyling of the existing mobile site built by mobile caviar.

If you’re are looking at rebranding your existing companies identity or need help establishing your brand please feel free to contact me.

- bobee