Here’s a recent submission of mine to Threadless. For those that don’t know, Threadless is a t-shirt company that accepts submissions from Joe Public. Other people vote on the design, and if it gets enough good votes, and the Threadless team like it, it gets printed, and the designer wins a prize. The prizes are quite substantial, but the competition is tough!

I’d really appreciate it if you could take the time to vote for my design, by clicking on the link below:

It’s my first submission to the website, and I’m really pleased with it. The design is inspired by Nordic/Inuit/Finnish symbolism, and more specifically, Finnish mythology. The name “Linktukoto” refers to a mythical place on the edge of the earth where birds fly for winter.

I’ve been designing t-shirts for a few months now, as a side-project to my main designs. Hopefully, you’ll see more and more of them as time goes by. I design some sports and humour stuff for Toffee Monkey, and work on my own designs too. I’m working on a nice project with some friends of mine, and if you grew up with me, you’ll probably see those designs in the near future.

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This entry was written by xander, posted on January 19, 2010 at 1:35 pm, filed under Images. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Sub-blue is a blog run by one Tom Beddard, who likes to play around with home-brew programmes that can generate pretty pictures.

More specifically, astounding pictures that strike an elegant balance between art and logic. Which makes sense, as Tom is an ex-physicist who now fills the role of Technical Director at one of Scotland’s leading digital agencies, tictoc family.

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This entry was written by xander, posted on January 8, 2010 at 12:50 am, filed under Images. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Or, “La Potenza della Chiesa”.

Silvio Berlusconi is a joke, an embarrassment to Italy, and a slimy toad of a man who has bought his way into power, and amazingly has held onto it, presumably because his media empire still churns out thinly-veiled propaganda about him. Take a look at some recent news stories if you’re still doubtful as to his joke status as a “world leader”.

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This entry was written by xander, posted on at 12:26 am, filed under Images. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

I love this flickr collection of patterns from various modes of public transport around the UK from around the world.

Some will trigger nostalgia, while others are more an experiment in a special, geometric kind of visual assault. Click through for more.

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This entry was written by xander, posted on January 3, 2010 at 1:29 pm, filed under Images and tagged bus, pattern, public transport, unusual inspiration, visual. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

This is Lars Holdhus at rest.

And this is Lars, hard at work.

Lars Holdhus has a Christmas Sweaters Collection.

While it’s an apt website for this time of year, it’s also undeniably another collection that treads a fine line between joyous nostalgia and web-based retinal violation.

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This entry was written by xander, posted on December 20, 2009 at 1:26 pm, filed under Images and tagged christmas, clothing, collection, kitsch, nostalgia. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

After a lot of hard work, auto-didactic self-discipline, and cups of tea, I’ve managed to finish and upload my portfolio website. I had designed several self-promotional pieces, but was hanging fire with the printing and distribution until my folio site went online.

Well, the wait is over…as of this friday, http://xanderashwell.co.uk is now live!

(I strongly suggest you check out the hire page too, if not only because I’m wearing a fetching little number on that page)

I’ll now be concentrating on thonlyshape.com, my new zine, featuring loads of creative geniuses.

I’ll also be revamping this blog at some point, as I hate having a generic theme.

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This entry was written by xander, posted on October 11, 2009 at 8:52 pm, filed under Images and tagged freelance, graphic design, photography, portfolio, website, xander. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

In this super-simple tutorial, I’ll be showing you how to turn natural skin tones into a golden hue. Ad campaigns such as the recent Chanel “J’adore” have used this stylization to good effect. Not to second-guess that production team’s workflow, but I’m willing to bet that the vast majority (if not all of) of this effect was done in post-production. The technique I’m about to show you can’t reproduce the high levels of glossy chiaroscuro that come from actually painting a model in high-gloss gold (think bond girl); This would require some seriously advanced retouching (digital painting, for want of a better term), and would look pretty obviously retouched. (more…)

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This entry was written by xander, posted on August 9, 2009 at 9:34 pm, filed under Images and tagged gold, golden, photo, retouch, skin, Tutorial. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Doodling is a wonderful source of relaxation. It’s escapism, therapeutic distraction, and a very instinctive time-killer. When it comes to drawing, my sense of depth or perspective is pretty limited, my aptitude for anatomic proportion is childlike at best, but when it comes to abstract, organic shapes and modular forms, I like to humour myself by entertaining the idea that I’m not that bad.

“Anyway”, I tell myself, “If I was any good, I’d call myself an Illustrator. I don’t lay claims to that level of greatness. Doodling isn’t even a real hobby, I don’t have to be good at it, I can just scribble away and hope it looks nice”

Whether it’s to kill a half-hour waiting for a train, to clear my mind of the busy busy to-do list at work, to zone out for ten minutes, or simply as a brainstorming aid, doodling needs little more than a pencil stub and any sort of paper…and even that’s not strictly necessary. Doodles are time-fillers, little visual panaceas, and the catalysts for countless unborn inspirations. (more…)

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This entry was written by xander, posted on April 7, 2009 at 9:24 pm, filed under Images and tagged design, doodle, draw, etch, illustrate, Inspiration, scribble. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.