The mighty Museo Typeface all rolled up in a tootsie roll wrapper.

For almost two months I have oohed and aahed over mindblowing 3d text effects and digital artworks depicting the same. Then yesterday, I decided to finally succumb to the need to make one of my own. It took me a little less than 2 hours from start to finish, working in both Illustrator and Photoshop; to come up with this wallpaper. Needless to say, I was thoroughly happy with my amateur attempt and enthusiastically took screenshots of the various stages of the design development [which I hope becomes my very first tutorial for the next blog post].

So what is the wallpaper all about? I think by now, the entire world knows what “Museo” is. Developed by designer Jos Buivenga of the Exljbris Font Foundry fame, it got everyone’s attention when 3 out of the 5 styles were offered for free and alongwith fellow “Museo San” rose to the top 10 fonts of 2008 on MyFonts.com. When I first saw it on Francesco Mugnai’s website, it was love at first sight for me. It is quite brilliant and has a feel good quality to it. I have created 3d letters that spell out Museo and wrapped them up in red tootsie roll wrappers [a candy I have only heard stories about and continues to be elusive here in Australia]. Sticking to a green theme, I have tried to use all elements and aspects of design that I love so much …. crushed paper, black grass, retro colors, swirls, foliage, butterflies, grunge and dirt.

Enjoy the wallpaper, it is high resolution and available in a cartload of sizes to suit your desktop needs.

{ 2560 X 1600 } { 2048 X 1536 } { 1920 X 1200 } { 1680 X 1050 } { 1600 X 1200 } { 1400 X 1050 } { 1280 X 960 } { 1280 X 800 } { 1024 X 768 } { 800 X 600 }

I was browsing the web to see if I could come up with green business cards and I was amazed to see a bevvy of beautifully designed cards, some with a conscience, some purely aesthetic …. but all nonetheless quite interesting.

here are 45 snazzy Green Business Cards.

Seed Stencils that sprout alfaalfa or watercress when dipped in water!

A fun card that grows .. way to go to reduce your carbon imprint!

A lone seedling springs to life .. a la Wall-E!

Fresh & Tantalising, you wont be able to resist touching!

Illustration Style Business Card.

A pretty, floral black and lime treatment.

A cute, chubby character plays Peek-A-Boo!

Simple & Minimalistic.

A very stylish, boutiqish card.

Depth & Energy on a flat card .. now that is hard to achieve!

 

Roman Nine Diecut! Very Clever.

 

This reminds me of Xbox.....

I love the play on "I Code". This is so similar to my own business card!

A feel good business card.

This one is very plain, but effective.

I love the font! Wonder whether it is handwritten?

A very eclectic and Zen-style business card.

A christmas tree ornament? Would it work if it wasn't christmas?

A clever illustration that says it all.

A clean and classy bc design.

Modern, this design is bold and adventurous.

Eye Poppin!

A nice play on typography in a business card.

The logo is a beauty.

Stylish Embossed Effect. How's that for attention grabbing?

Grungy, plantable business cards. Innovative?

An interesting use of green.

A pretty Wedgie!

I love the design elements here.

Punched out business cards!

A simple card that works.

I just love the retro look and feel here!

Fresh & Clean, just as the name suggests.

Very Web 2.0!

Never thought I'd use the word on my blog but this card is so Gangs-ta!

A brilliant business card that usesnatural elements.

This guy has a lovely sense of humor!

Creative to boot!

Incorporating Halftone Patterns in your bc.

Solid Colors on both sides with a simple image treatment.

An interesting play on shadows makes the logo pop up.

Green Bottle Opener BC

Futuristic Etched Metal Business Card

An interesting muted green tone.

Green on White Reverse Treatments.

And my very own ...

Little Box Of Ideas Business Card - Front & Back

After 2 weeks of revisions and color adjustments, the print guys finally got it right. My business cards came in a couple of days ago and I couldn’t be happier. My logo was recreated recently with me striving towards a simplistic, modern and green brand identity. Green can be a beautiful color if used in the right context and the right hue. I didn’t want a subtle green, at the same time I didn’t want it to be too loud. “Vibrant” was the look I was trying to achieve.

Business Card Front

Business Card Back

I decided to have the front or back [its a perspective thing] of the business card entirely green with striking black text. The other side of the card is very minimalistic with my logo sitting on white space. Initially I wanted to have a combination of  just 2 fonts for the information presented on the card. But that didn’t draw attention to the parts I wanted, everything seemed to blend in and become invisible. So I introduced a couple of extra fonts, but this time around I played with the opacity of the text in order to draw the eye to the most important bits without overcrowding the card. I also stuck to one color … black with just “I Design” in white.  The simple use of one color made up for the excessive use of different typefaces. The effect was instant!

Wordle.net

Create Tag Clouds for a website or a design or just for fun. It is also interesting to see what people create and what goes on in their minds when they are keying in words for the tag cloud.

Newspaper Clipping Generator

Create Your Own Newspaper Clipping

This is really really fun. I used it for a Christmas Flash E-card last year. And I just generated my very own piece of fantasy .. well sci-fi fantasy. Go ahead, become a celebrity and have your name pop up on the headlines of a major newspaper. You know you always dreamt of it!

Visual Thesaurus

This is a brilliant concept. A visual play on words. I could spend hours on this website. It is essentially Pandora’s box. You dont know what’s coming next and where it is leading you. The free version only allows you a limited number of searches.

Kuler

Adobe’s pet project for the visual addiction of coloured minds. It is a funky website and a revolutionary concept. You can browse hundreds of color swatches, modify them, bookmark them, download them for use in your design softwares, create new ones and a cartload of other community activities prevalent in social sites like these. The Most Popular & Highest Rated Swatches will immediately shout out the current colour trends in the market and the crazy, creative names people think up for the colour schemes are another plus to browse the website.

LBOI was an idea that developed over 5 years ago and has pretty much remained at the evolutionary stage, until now. With a spanking new logo [that I am finally satisfied with], some viable business cards and some projects to bring in the bucks to fuel my consumership of design magazines and photography props, I have finally reached a stage where I want to be. Evolutionwise, the amoeba has stopped inching sporadically in the ocean and has reached landmass where it has developed some appendages and the urge to crawl uncertainly through the sand, leaving a teeny tiny mark as it goes. There are a million and one ideas in the box but not enough time to cater to them all. I hope to take the most viable ones, or the ones that appeal to my whim the most and realise them, in the real world and on this blog.

The web with its endless bounty of free knowledge and free expression is a candy shop for a thinker. I am constantly fascinated by images I see and  ideas that inspire. You do learn a lot here. I have created my share of designs over the past 5 years, but I have never documented them. I wish I had. Well, now is a good time to start.

Let’s talk Freebies! I love doing freebies. What is the kind of stuff you who visits a design blog is looking for? I don’t care much for icons but I do love all the usual stuff … brushes, fonts, textures. Vectors get me really really excited. Got any suggestions or requests? Drop me a line at sneh.roy@littleboxofideas.com I’d love to hear anything you have to say … hopefully it will be about design or photography or trends …..