So I’m getting into pixel art again (It’s been a few years!).

Polaroid 1000
  Polaroid OneStep
 Kittens Stuck up Trees (incomplete)
It’s soooo slow creating anything with pixel art via Photoshop’s pencil tool. If you have a PC, stick to paint. Photoshop doesn’t have pixel rulers, shapes or “pixel-art-friendly” paint buckets! It takes literally 3 times more time to produce the same thing on Photoshop…

I’d have to agree that there are creative and very conceptual ad designers out there that could apply all of that to art & design instead of selling products…When was the last time you saw really creative street art that makes you go “wow”? I’m pretty sure you’ve seen more Guerrilla Advertisements that caught your attention.

Credit
Credit  OR when was the last time you saw art work (or even design) that made you go “hmmm” and think? And I’m pretty sure more ads make us think about their concepts than art pieces. We *are* constantly being surrounded by them.

The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever
A piece about my “emotionless” childhood. Filled with excerpts from my childhood journal (that expresses no emotions at all!).
A reject

Just playing around with graph paper and impact on photoshop

I have to say that ever since I started designing at 15, I felt the crap from the design industry say… a year after freelancing. At first, I enjoyed designing my own stuff but when it came to projects for clients, it completely made me strongly hate designing for a good 3 - 4 years since I first started. That’s when I said I’d shoot myself if I ever got into Graphics Design as a career for life, I still feel that way.

There are so many things about designing that makes me hate it, yet I do still love some parts of it..

Dislikes:

1) Lack of creative freedom: There is a huge lack of creative freedom (in general) when dealing with clients. When I’m dealing with clients there are the good ones who give me full creative freedom but there are those who do not. I don’t mind suggestions about a design but if I’m placed in a box and limited by many specifications of theirs, I don’t feel like the work is mine at all. The worst type of clients that I had are the ones who “think” they’re designers by making me add changes to the design that makes my initial design a complete disaster.

2) Lack of respect: There’s a huge lack of respect most of the time among designers. I’ve gone through the “if you design my website for free, I will give you free exposure”, “can you design a free logo for me?” and so much more. The worst I must say was a client that said I charged too much, and when it was time to pay the invoice, he told me to take my pennies, 1 word: hypocrite.

3) SELL OUT DESIGNERS: Yes, I’m a bit ashamed to be called a designer because there are soooo many designers who are sell outs. They’re truly the ones who give designers a bad name. These are the designers who are willing to sell their self dignity & soul to suck up to their clients or “higher power” for MONEY.

After 4 years of freelancing I’m going to finally say I’m fed up. I’m not taking on any client work that will make me hate designing. I rather be my own boss, and since I’ve found a niche that allows me to do that (designing blog designs ) I’m ditching a lot of client work, the only client work I’m accepting are from the clients I enjoy working (because they respect me and my design directions). It’s a shame, all of that work thrown away but I’m not going to go through the crap that comes along with freelancing.

Here’s a cute “Valentines Day Record” illustration created by my gf! Check out her site for more work at denisekwan.com

(Yes that’s us :))

I’ve uploaded some of my paintings & designs into the gallery section of the site (old stuff from a year ago, except for 1 piece).