by Justas | Sep 29, 2015 | Articles
Hello guys! So something big and exciting happened today – I’ve launched my very first t-shirt campaign on the Cotton Bureau! I’m super ecstatic and I of course want to share it with you. Even though Cotton Bureau messed up a bit and haven’t launched my t-shirts on time.. Grumpy is finally here! And it’s grumpier than ever! Now it’s way easier to show your attitude towards Mondays without having to say a word! Just show up wearing one of these tees at the office, school or uni, and it speak out. Get your grumpy tees! And with the Christmas season approaching and all the buzz surrounding it, it’s better to start preparing the gifts for your best mates now, don’t you think? Do you play Secret Santa at your office or uni? Well, you can get a Grumpy t-shirt for those you don’t like that much and express your feelings without being caught. While you are making a list of people to gift the t-shirts to, I’ll tell you a little bit about the process behind them. Design Process Oh boy, it took me so long to make this illustration right! You can’t imagine. Sadly, I don’t have all the design steps, but you can take a look at my early attempts and awkward-looking deformed cats here. Truth be told, it was a real struggle for me to design Grumpy, as I was not used to working with the organic forms such as animals or plants. Nevertheless, I took this challenge because I believe in the deliberate practice. As you all know quite well by now, the quality of the practice is just...
by Justas | Sep 25, 2015 | Inspiration
Hey Fellas! Once again I’ll present you collection of 21 best icons and icon sets I’ve collected through the week. I reckon you will like my choice and discover some great icon designers with awesome icon sets. So without further ado, let’s jump straight into the greatest icons of this week: Here they were. Amazing icons, aren’t they? Have a lovely weekend, and I’ll talk to you next...
by Justas | Sep 22, 2015 | Articles
When I first started designing icons, I never even for a second thought I could work as a full-time icon designer. My background is UI/UX design, and I haven’t been into icons that much, to be honest. The first time I bumped up against icon design was when I couldn’t get a proper fit for one of my projects. I had nothing to do but learn a few techniques, and I eventually came up with some shitty icons for the website I was working on. Right when I thought I was done with it forever, the company I was working for back then got a few icon design requests, so I had to do those too. Frankly speaking, I didn’t like it, and it didn’t seem like something important to me at the moment. But everything changed when one day I decided to create a small icon set just to get the feel of it. It was summertime, I wasn’t overloaded with work at my studio, so why not dedicate this free time to design practicing, I thought. I took a few icons from my previous web project, refined them and started building a travel themed set. That was the very first time I felt that creating icons could actually be fun. While making them just for myself, I was able to play with styles and choose only the metaphors I liked. That was also the moment I got interested in the passive income and selling my works on Creative Market. Even though I’d never tried anything similar before. Starting big wasn’t my intention, so I signed up and...
by Justas | Sep 18, 2015 | Inspiration
Hello, Icon Lovers! May I say that Thursday is officially becoming one of my favourite days as I get to skim through the best icons of the week and share them with you all in yet another blogpost! I’ll be honest with you, guys—picking icons for this week’s collection was beyond difficult. There are so many incredible sets, it was almost impossible to choose just a few of them leaving the rest out in the cold. But impossible is nothing, right? I reckon you will like my choice and discover some great icon designers with awesome icon sets. So without further ado, let’s jump straight into the greatest icons of this week: Here they were. Amazing icons, aren’t they? Have a lovely weekend, and I’ll talk to you next...
by Justas | Sep 15, 2015 | Articles
Today I woke up feeling tired and unmotivated. I know I have to prepare and upload a new shot to my dribbble profile everyday, but I just don’t feel like it. Maybe it’s the rain outside my bedroom window, or maybe that’s just the autumn blues. Days are becoming shorter, and I swear it gets darker every morning when I wake up. It might as well be the fact that I have been working until midnight yesterday. Or did I just run out of icon ideas? I reckon that is what they call the creative block. The state of mind when you feel unmotivated and idealess. So how do you overcome this creative block? I bet every designer experience creative block from time to time. I myself get tired of everything and sometimes feel unable to create anything decent and meaningful ever. Such doubts are natural, and creative blocks like that happen to all of us at some point. The important thing if you want to be the best one out there is to get over it and don’t give up to the creative block. Fight and demolish it once and for all. Becoming outstanding at what you do is all about constant hard work and daily publishing of the outcomes. You have to push yourself everyday, every minute, every second. Since I understood there was no place for creative block in my design routine, I’ve found some great tips on how to overcome it. So instead of lying in bed for half an hour, figuring how I could cheat this time: post some old icons or skip the...
