Japan in Photography
Japan 日本 is one of my favourite countries. I love the culture, the food and technology. Located in the Pacific Ocean, Japan is an archipelago that comprises 6,852 islands and has the world’s tenth largest population with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area is the largest metropolitan area in the world with over 30 million residents. The characters that make up Japan’s name mean “sun origin” and is ...

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The Life of a Geisha in Art and Photography
Geisha (芸者?), Geiko (芸子) or Geigi (芸妓) are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance. The word consists of two kanji, 芸 (gei) meaning "art" and 者 (sha) meaning "person" or "doer". The most literal translation of geisha into English would be "artist" or "performing artist". Another name for geisha used in Japan is geiko (芸子)...

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World in Close-up - Amazing Macrophotography Collection
Macrophotography is close-up photography, usually of very small subjects. Classically a macrophotograph is one in which the size of the subject on the negative is greater than life size. However in modern use it refers to a finished photograph of a subject at greater than life size. Source Source The ratio of the subject size on the film plane (or image sensor plane) to the actual...

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30 Awesome & Different Web Contact Forms for Inspiration
Every business needs a website and every website needs a contact form. Contact page should be visible and accessible on websites; it should be eye cache and error free. It should be with possible fewer numbers of fields and security code enabled to stop spammers. You must have seen different contact forms online with titles ping me, awake me, stay in touch, get in touch, etc... Yes, designers showing...

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55 FREE Awesome High Quality Wood Textures
If you are a Photoshop fan then you must know about the importance of textures in Photoshop. Online Photoshop community is awesome enough to provide huge number of free textures and brushes to fellow Photoshoppers. Wood textures among those which bring awesome background look to any design instantly. Especially when you create any model portfolio then these textures helps you to create a really cool wooden...

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Awesome Artwork Inspired by Children's Drawings
I've often visited my family and friends homes and admired the many galleries of children's artwork that get pinned on the fridge or kitchen notice boards. I know that when I was younger I was really proud that my mum had pinned my drawings on the fridge door and my dad even took them to work. Art is one of my many passions. Today I am still always sketching or doodling ideas on my notepad, iPad and even post-it...

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Liu Bolin - Self-Portrait of an Invisible Man
21 November 2010 - Liu Bolin a.k.a the 'Invisible Man' is an exceptional artist from Beijing who has the ability to blend in with his surroundings by painting himself to appear almost chameleon-like in his series of work "Hiding in the City". Liu Bolin says that his work his inspired by feeling uncared for and a sense of unnecessary in the world and also as a protest against the Chinese government who shut his ...

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Natsumi Hayashi - A Life in Levitation
There are some inspiring photographers out there but there are non-more inspiring than the gravity-defying Natsumi Hayashi. Natsumi is a photographer from Tokyo, Japan and can be spotted jumping up and down around the city armed with her SLR and amazing self-timing which capture these truly amazing shots. The photos which are taken at exactly the right moment show Natsumi simply levitating in her...

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Amazing Living Architecture - Root Bridges of Cherrapunji
You may be mistaken for thinking that these are photos taken from the set of one the Lord of the Rings movies but in actual fact these are real examples of living architecture. The bridges you see are from Cherrapunji, India which is one of the wettest places on Earth and are actually made by tree roots. These bridges are very much alive! The amazing War-Khasis tribe in Meghalaya have been harnessing the...

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Why a Top Quality Logo isn’t Enough to be Successful
A logo is a small graphical element that has as main scope the representation of someone/something. This attempt of definition is preferable to the one provided by the Oxford Dictionary or Wikipedia because the main essence is synthesized. It’s simple: you instantly recognize an Apple product after the worldwide notorious logo. In the beginning, nobody figured out the importance of logo and many people consider i...

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The Beautiful Anime Art of DestinyBlue
DestinyBlue (a.k.a Alice de ste Croix) is a professional anime artist from London, England and she has exhibited for over 40 anime and comic events. Alice has also run courses with the BBC on how to draw manga and has a range of bath goodies, lip-balms and candles branded with her unique style. Alice states that Final Fantasy has been her biggest inspiration for her amazing artwork. Take a look at some of ...

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The History of Typeface
Typeface and their history is obviously an unappreciated evolution. However, the typeface from the first days of print until now is an ever changing medium, with more to it than there could ever seem to be. Typography is the study of typefaces and the evolution of printed letters. Early printers, were also typographers and the first registered one was a man named Claude Garamond. Garamond didn't invent type,...

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Gorgeous Collection of Cute Artisan Food Miniatures
A soon as I clapped eyes on these cute little artisan food miniatures I fell in love. The painstaking work that the artists have put into creating these great tiny masterpieces is just amazing. An artisan if you didn't know or craftsperson is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools. An artisan is...

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Spectacular Fireworks Photography
I've always loved fireworks. They paint the dark sky in bright neon colours and can make a huge bang that gets your heart racing. No doubt this year in November I will be standing in the cold on Guy Fawkes Night which is a celebration in my country. I will probably be holding a nice hot chocolate in one hand and a toffee apple in the other going "ooohh" and "ahhh" at the many fireworks being let off into the sky...

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20 Gorgeous Examples of HDR Photography by Trey Ratcliff
If you have been fortunate enough to be using Google+ recently you may have seen one of Trey Ratcliff's stunning photographs being shared in your streams. Trey is best known for his blog StuckinCustoms.com which is the No.1 Travel Photography Blog on the web and had the honour of having the first HDR photo ever to hang in the Smithsonian. Trey's background is in computer science and math, so he brings an...

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Stunning Showcase of 3D Street Art
While I was visiting London the other month I came across some truly amazing 3D street art. 3D street art although drawn in 2D gives a 3-dimensional illusion when viewed from a specific standpoint. Some of the artworks are visually stunning and you can almost believe that what you are viewing is real. A lot of the street art you may see is actually clever advertising commissioned from a variety of the big...

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Awesome Light Painting Skeletons by Janne Parviainen
I saw these photos the other day and was totally blown away. I have seen light painting before but these eerie skeletons by the fantastic Helsinki photographer Janne Parviainen are the best I have ever seen. Light painting is a special technique in photography when exposures are made at night or a dark room by moving the camera or a form of hand held light. In many cases the light source itself does not ...

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Delicious Food Landscapes of Carl Warner
I love art, I love photography and I love food. What if all these were combined? What are the chances? Well I need look no further because having checked out these truly delicious food landscapes created by the very creative Carl Warner then all my dreams have come true. Carl says that the food landscapes are taken in stages because this is to stop the food from wilting during the process and then put...

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Common Mistakes Made by Starting Freelance Graphic Designers
Whether you’re interested in designing logos, building websites, or helping clients to create incredible PowerPoint presentations, you may find that working as a freelance graphic designer appeals to your professional sensibilities and your distaste for traditional job markets. There certainly are a lot of benefits to working for yourself; no annoying bosses or coworkers to contend with, no frustrating commute, ...

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Why I Love Anime - My Top 10 Studio Ghibli Films
8th December 2010 - I love animation and I have a vast collection of animation on display on my media shelves at home but on there you won’t find the sugary sweet world of Disney Cinema (apart from Pixar collaborations!) but a huge collection of Japanese anime. I’ve been hooked on anime since I was very young. I think the first experience of anime was Castle in the Sky and Akira. In this post I wanted to show ...

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The Various Meaning of Colors
The concept of good design represents the sum of several elements, all of them realized in a professional manner and then blended together. The final result is beautiful and functional at the same time. From this perspective, it is simple to comprehend that the quality of a design depends on more than just the components on their own. A very important factor that contributes to the overall aspect of a website in...

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A Showcase of Grunge in Web Design
Web design has become more hand tooled, organic and versatile. Classic retro and vintage typography with authentic textures and withered paper backgrounds have helped bring back the grunge web design trend. Grunge gives web design more style and less uniform, there is no structure only worn out and faded graphic elements, these look beautiful and creative. The trend is inspired by the vintage and retro design...

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20 Awesome Facebook Timeline Cover Photos
Well unless you have been hiding under a rock for the last several years then there must be some time in your life you have heard of or come across the No.1 social networking juggernaut that is Facebook. Love it or hate it and with more than 800 million users (real and bogus!) on there and companies and brands favouring promoting their Facebook page over their own websites it is hard to avoid these days. I have...

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Life in Miniature - 38 Stunning Shots of Tilt-Shift Photography
You may think you are viewing photos of miniature villages but these are in fact photos of real life. These photographs have been taken using the special art of tilt-shift photography. The effects can be produced by the use of camera movements on small and medium cameras. The name originates from the tilt-shift lens which is normally required to produce this effect optically. The tilt refers to the rotation of ...

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30 Delicious Examples of Latte Art
Art is all around us wherever we look and even in your local coffee shop, but I'm not talking about the paintings they may have on the wall, I am referring to Latte Art. Latte art if you haven’t seen it before is a method of preparing coffee which is created by pouring steamed milk into a shot of espresso and resulting in a pattern or design on the surface of the resulting latte. The art can also be created or e...

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Creative 90's Music Videos
Continuing on from our previous post Creative 80’s Music Videos here is a superb collection from the 90’s. A decade where I think the music video really came alive. Aphex Twin – Window Licker Love it or hate it this video by Chris Cunningham and Richard James which mocks the bling of hip-hop videos of old. The video starts with a particular lengthy intro and features a very long limo. The ...

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30 Gorgeous Examples of Anime Artworks
Being an art student myself I really like anything which shows creativity, imagination and talent. One of the types of art I am really digging at the moment is Anime/Manga style. I like the look, the fantasy, the sexiness and the cuteness. I know that Web Design Mash has featured anime many times (See the list at the bottom of the post for more), but I wanted to feature some new artworks that I personally have...

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Design After Dark - 90's Rave Flyer Designs
The 90's isn't the one of those decades that sticks out for memorable design but one thing I do remember from the early 90's is the bright, trippy, euphoric design of UK rave flyers. If you can remember dancing your ass off all night to trippy repetitive beats from DJs like Sasha, Carl Cox and Grooverider whether it be in a club or field then some of these flyers you might recognize from back in the day. Let's...

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Amazing 'Pencil Vs Camera!' Series by Ben Heine
Today’s post is all about some of the great work by Ben Heine and his exciting series titled “Pen Vs Camera”. Ben states - "Pencil Vs Camera" is nothing but the result of a long graphic exploration and a logic consequence of my artistic evolution. It's a new concept. My primary intention was to create a "battle field" between 2 disciplines: drawing and photography, mixing imagination and reality. The onl...

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20 Insanely Creative Photo Manipulation Graphic Designs
Throughout the ages, artists found ways to express their creativity and more importantly, themselves through different forms of art… now that we are in an era of digital revolution is no exception. Photo manipulation is a technique where an artist (graphic designer) uses different photos or images to create a whole new scenario using a graphic manipulation application (e.g. Photoshop). It can also be a single ph...

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Posts tagged Blog

Blogger’s Bottleneck? For and Against Moderating Comments in WordPress

Jun 27th

Posted by Ellis in Blog

Generally a blogger faces the dilemma of whether to keep the visitor comments for moderation or to have them get published directly. More often than not, a visitor to your blog will be happy to see his comment flash immediately rather than waiting for it to get moderated. More >

Blog, wordpress

Which Blog Platform Should You Use?

Jan 26th

Posted by Louise in Blog

17 comments

So you’ve decided to set up a graphic design blog but before you even begin to wonder what content to produce you have to think about what platform you are going to use to best showcase your graphic design articles and work. More >

Blog, wordpress

Most Popular Design Links 18 – 24 July 2010

Jul 25th

Posted by Anjelica in Art

18 comments

It’s that time again. Here at Web Design Mash we are huge fans of Twitter and on this weekly post you will find the most popular links tweeted by our Twitter Account throughout the week. These are not the top links chosen by us but chosen by you and the amount of clicks they received.

If you wish to stay up to date with all the latest design news and links then follow us on Twitter and you can also click on our Twitter page for a real-time up date of our ‘Love Design’ List featuring over 260 designers and design enthusiasts.

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Art, Blog, Design, Photography, Tech, Web

Most Popular Design Links of the Week – 11 – 17 July 2010

Jul 18th

Posted by Anjelica in Art

16 comments

It’s that time again. Here at Web Design Mash we are huge fans of Twitter and on thisweekly post you will find the most popular links tweeted by our Twitter Account throughout the week. These are not the top links chosen by us but chosen by you and the amount of clicks they received.

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Art, Blog, Design, Freebies, Inspiration, Tuts, Web

Most Popular Design Links of the Week 27 Jun – 3 Jul 2010

Jul 4th

Posted by Anjelica in Art

20 comments

Art, Blog, Freebies, Inspiration, Photography, Tech, Tuts, Web

Most Popular Design Links of the Week 13 – 19 June 2010

Jun 20th

Posted by Anjelica in Art

11 comments

Here at Web Design Mash we are huge fans of Twitter and on this weekly post you will find the most popular links tweeted by our Twitter Account throughout the week. These are not the top links chosen by us but chosen by you and the amount of clicks they received.

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Blog, Design, Inspiration, Photography, Tech, Tuts, Web

20 Great FREE WordPress Themes That Don’t Suck!

May 30th

Posted by Anjelica in Themes

19 comments

If you use WordPress for your blog or site then you know how easy it is to add, customise and change themes. There are now literally thousands of themes out there both premium and free but if your not able to code your own and you are on a tight budget you may not want to fork out for a premium WordPress theme when there are some great free themes available out there. The only problem is finding them. Loads of sites out there boast about how many free themes they offer but most of them can be pretty lame. I’ve trawled through the web to find some free themes that I think look pretty good. Hope you like the collection that I present here to you. Enjoy!

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Blog, free, wordpress