I’ve seen a ton of free brush sets for download on a billion different blogs. The coolest I’ve run across came from Smashing Magazine. But it got me wondering, why use someone else’s brushes when you can easily make your own to suit your needs? Custom brushes can come in handy for personal or professional projects, especially illustrations. Plus it gives you a reason to bust out your neglected art supplies, turn your back on your computer and get your hands dirty again.


The first thing you need to do is rediscover your storage unit, basement, garage or attic so you can dig up all your old art supplies to make some custom marks. This is what I found…





I used some watercolor paper and went to town, not worrying about what kind of mark I was making, just that they were getting on the page one way or another. I’m a big fan of mistakes and the result that can come from them.

Next scan your work at 300 dpi and then save the marks you like, each individually, in a 2500px by 2500px Photoshop file, Grayscale mode.





You want to create contrast in your custom brush so the mark will show up well when being used. We also want to lose the paper gain in the background. To accomplish this use your levels slider in Photoshop (command + L) and adjust accordingly. I copied this layer on top of its self and gave it a multiply to make it even darker. If there are random marks, just erase or mask them out. Rinse and repeat for your other brush marks.





Now where to store these files. Set up a My Photoshop folder in your Documents folder and make a sub folder called Brushes. Create a folder shortcut of your brushes folder in your Photoshop Default Brush folder (Applications > Photoshop > Presets > Brushes). Now open your brush palette in Photoshop and clear out all your current brushes.


For every 2500 by 2500 brush image you’ve saved, open it up and choose Edit > Define Brush Preset and save the newly made brush to the palette you just cleared.

There you have it. Making custom brushes is easy and relatively fast from beginning to end, so experiment with this technique and make something uniquely yours.

Here’s an example of how I used this technique to design a grungy, custom brush background and navigation for the Nestle Nutrament website. You can check out the real thing here.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon some photos I took while in Los Angeles. I spent ten days there checking out the sites and sounds but mainly to seek out the cool graffiti that proliferates the back alleys and abandoned train stations across the city.

I really appreciate the boldness of the colors and the amazingly creative type treatments these artists use when creating their pieces. If you kick around this stuff long enough, you can start to see the stylistic tendencies of each artist emerge, allowing you to immediately identify their work.

So, here’s a brief collection of some international graffiti artists that have work in L.A. and some unnamed local talent that may not be household names but, in my opinion, deserve props.

Daim is a graffiti artist/Graphic Designer from from Lueneburg (near Hamburg / Germany). He’s easily one of the most talented urban artists to grab a paint can. What else can I say about his work…the color, the 3-D effect, the type treatment, it’s all there for the taking. Beautifully crafted, meticulous art.

If you want to see more of Daim’s work, check out his website here.

This wall was inspired in opposition to Proposition 21, the Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act. It was a ballot initiative that, when passed, sent California’s youthful offenders from the juvenile system to the punishment-oriented adult-justice system.

Its impact is especially sharp in Los Angeles County, source of nearly a third of the state’s juvenile offenders.

SEAK has a knack for creating these visually riveting biomorphic compositions based on space, aliens and technology themes. Super creative stuff.

I couldn’t dig up much information on his career. He trashed his website in 2008 but through the genius of the Way Back Machine I was able to dig up his last viewable version here.

These are self-prescribed (and rather humorous) acronyms for SEAK’s name:

Superficial Exposure Alarms Kindergarten
Self Educated Autistic Knave
Surprisingly Easy Access to Knowledge
Surely Equals Any Kind
Style Evolution At Knifepoint

I shot these at an abandoned train station in East L.A.. I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous being there, but it was worth it to see some cool old-school graffiti.

The exterior walls of this station had been sprayed time and time again for decades. Thinking that the paint layers would probably show like rings in a tree when it’s cut, I took my knife and sliced down to the original wall. I counted 50 layers of visible paint.

I recently ran across a article on veerle’s blog where she provides a tutorial on how to make a cool poster using the blend tool in Illustrator. That article gave me the inspiration to try out some experimental shapes myself. I really like the look and feel you can get from complex blends, the textures and patterns produced can be beautiful.

I started by drawing some random lines in Adobe Illustrator.

From there I double clicked the blend tool and set the blend to: specific steps > 100. Next, you can do this one of two ways, select the lines you want to blend by clicking on each line with your blend tool or you can select your lines with the selection tool and go to Object > Blend > Make. Voila! Instant awesomeness.

Here are some of my experiments.

I decided to layer some of these shapes on top of one another, creating a more depth. Remember you can use your selection tool to distort and transform these shapes as needed.

Next I imported my blends into Photoshop and layered them. I added some color and some spheres to give the composition more depth and “pop”.

This was a fun experiment that has limitless possibilities and doesn’t take a ton of time. In the future, I’d like to incorporate typography in some way with these wispy vectors, similar to some design work done by an extremely talented designer named Alex Trochut. If you do go to his site, be sure to check out the Neo Deco. Typeface and Nike Basketball T-Shirt.

Think back to when you were a kid and you’d watch the beginning of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Remember how the camera would glide in from the tree tops and give you a birds-eye view of that idealized little town where Mr. Rogers lived? Tilt Shift photography is similar in that you can manipulate still photos (and movies) to essentially achieve the same effect. All you needed is a camera and a image editing program and you can be well on your way to creating some uniquely fun images.

I first heard rumblings of tilt shift photography on flickr. They have a Tilt Shift Group Pool dedicated to miniature fakes. It’s definitely worth a look so check it out. Everyone is welcome to upload one of their creations for public consumption. All you have to do is join.

So, what is tilt shift? It refers to the type of lens that allows the photographer to focus on a specific area of a photo and then shift (blur) everything around it to create the illusion of a miniaturized world.

Most faked tilt shift photographs are taken from a high angle to further simulate the effect of looking down on a miniature. The technique is particularly effective on buildings, cars, trains and people. To achieve the angle I wanted for my first tilt shift photo shoot, I took the elevator up to the 20th floor of Skyscape, which overlooks the NW side of the city and provides some pretty decent views.

In addition to focus manipulation, the tilt shift photography effect is improved by increasing color saturation and contrast, to simulate the bright paint often found on scale models.

A cool benefit of discovering a new photo technique is that you can now dig up all your old vacation photos and repurpose them. Here are a few from my rafting trip down the Grand Canyon last June.