This is the cool part, the winners will be able to choose from any type of card, finish and size Uprinting offers. Nothing is held back! This includes funky custom sizes, so if you want a matte square card, a glossy strip or anything else they’ll print it! Uprinting is know for their excellent support and help so if you’ve never used an online printing service that wont be a problem.

It’s real simple, just leave a comment and tell me why you need the cards or what cool idea you have. I’ll select the winners from the most original, creative or honest comments together with Uprinting and before you know it they’ll be handling your business card printing.

This contest will run untill the last sunday of this month. Winners will be announced in the comments and they will be mailed. Please enter a valid e-mail in your comment!

To get you in that “business card” mood here are some inspirational showcases. So leave a comment first and then check them out!

Amazing business cards at Fubiz
Cool business cards at inspirology
Some excellent examples at Soulvision
Another cool collection on Dzine Blog

Just like the in the dark illustration showcase you’ll notice that dark backgrounds allow the subject to really stand out. Colors will “pop” more and the use of lighting effects becomes much more dramatic than it would have been on a lighter background.

This showcase is divided in four parts. First up are the typographical illustrations that make good use of the dark background in respect to light and color. Below that are sections for typography made from light, metallic effect typography and typography flavored up through smoke.

The pieces below make great use of vivid colors and gorgeous light effects. If you want to see more from an artist just click the name to check the site out.

Craig Shields
Craig uses dark backgrounds and a black and white base to make his subtle use of color really stand out.

Alex Trochut
Alex’s Beautiful decay is colorful on any background but the pure black background makes it liven up like no other background color could.

Go Media
Funky colors get a bit more serious on a black background in this piece by Go media.

Kliment Kalchev
Kliment uses a fruity gradient in his logo and accompanying illustrations to set a playful yet serious mood.

Nicolas Alexander
This piece has a great sense of motion and creative use of typography.

Pablo alFieri
Pablo has so much great typography work he could fill a whole showcase by himself. Make sure to check out his other work!

Rodrigo Braga
A colorful an heavily detailed piece that gains grounding from a black background.

Theo Aartsma
Theo’s awesome work is so full of detail that these small size images don’t do them justice. Head over to his Depthcore page to see them full size.

ShinBinary
Nik shows that while vivid colors can really stand out on a dark background, you don’t always have to go that route to impress.

You can use lighting effects to liven up a typographic illustration, but why not simply turn the text into light? Some examples below.

Guilherme Marconi
Guilherme’s illustration has a neon effect on all of the type.

Theo Aartsma
Another one by Theo. This is probably a made up symbol but one thing is for sure, it’s a beauty.

Tony Ariawan
Tony’s light streak illustrated type has a magical feel to it.

Mark Mustaine
Mark Mustaine created these by hand using slow shutter photography. Very impressive!

What’s shiny and lends itself very well to being illustrated in combination with stylized light and reflections? Metallic substances of course!

Alex Trochut
Alex makes the gold 3d type really jump from the background in this piece.

Emeric Trahand
Trust the KDU? Maybe, I’ll trust Emeric though, that’s for sure!

Rodrigo Braga
Rodrigo doesn’t overdo it with the reflections and ensures the bottom illustration radiates pure class.

Lastly we have smoke effects. Smoke stands out very well on a dark background and can really set a mood. I couldn’t find that many smoke examples unfortunately.

Von
Von’s piece isn’t really smoke but has a similar look. The piece gives me an uneasy and eerie feeling (in a good way of course).

Daniel Gordon
Daniel combines smoke with a strange effect on the type to set a strong mood.

Thanks for stopping by. If you liked this post a Stumble or a Digg would be much appreciated!

1. Hey Scott, nice to have you. Can you give the readers a short introduction?
I’m a designer/illustrator who lives and works in the United Kingdom and seem to spend most of my time designing characters of one kind or another. Surely not a job for a grown man.

2. When I look at your illustration work you seem to be able to produce the popular Japanese inspired cute style but also have pieces which have a more local feel to them. Is this duality a conscious decision on your part or something you just rolled into?
I think it’s a bit of both. It’s very important for an illustrator to have their own defined style but I have worked for a number of years at in-house roles and there is a great need to be very flexible when it comes to style. One day I could be working on specifications for a new product prototype and the next I may be asked to ghost the illustration style of a colleague far removed from my own.

In general life I have always been a bit of a Jack of all trades and I don’t like the idea of being a one trick pony. What I’m trying to say is I think I am the product of my past and it shows in my work.

3. I’m always curious what inspires cute character illustrators? Do you look at colleagues for inspiration or do you have less obvious source for feeding the creative furnace?
I’ve always been inspired by Japanese and American mascots that you’d find on packaging and I’m also a massive fan of the surf clothing label Mambo and the stable of artists they had a few years ago.

One of my most loved design books is a copy of Mambo’s “Still Life Through Franchise” and I’m very proud of the fact that Reg Mombassa who must be my favorite artist signed and doodled in it for me.

I’m hugely into character design and illustration and if I didn’t do it for a living then I would have it as a hobby so I am constantly checking out other designers work and I have a bookmark list of design portals that I check every day and I’m happy to list designfeedr amongst them.

I get a huge amount of inspiration from my contemporaries and I feel very lucky to have access via the web to such an amazingly rich source of influences which simply didn’t exist a number of years ago.

4. We often see character illustrators who’ve made a bit of name for them selves move into getting their work on apparel, prints, buttons and even toy lines. What makes this expansion so compelling for illustrators of this kind? Do you have any such plans?
I think the ultimate goal in a characters evolution is to be released from the constraints of a 2D world and to be applied to something more tactile which in a way is breathing life into a character, be it by applying it to a product, animation, t-shirt or the ever popular vinyl toys. In the past I used to make designs and illustrations for a lot of licensed products so I’m pretty used to seeing my work on all manner of things from lunch boxes to clothing and bed spreads. the most obscure thing was a toweling, hooded bath robe for a dog.

One feather in my cap was a range of little PVC characters that clipped onto your zipper called Zipper Pals. I designed them from the ground up a few years ago and apparently they sell around 14 million a year around the world.
Note to self: Next time agree on a royalty deal.

5. You told me that you’re planning to migrate to Australia, that’s a long way from home. Why the drastic change?
I’ve always had a thing about Australia since being a kid. I remember sitting in front of the TV being completely captivated watching Rolf Harris painting his outback murals.
A few years ago my now wife Claire an I were lucky enough to spend a few months traveling there in another love of mine, a 1973 VW Kombi called Cilla. We even secretly got married in Sydney.

I then discovered Vegemite and became even more smitten by the place. We’re in the process of applying for a Visa at the moment. If there is anyone out there who fancies employing and shipping over a slightly affected pommie designer, feel free to make my day.

6. How do you think clients respond when a freelancer they do regular business with leaves the country? Do you think you’ll be able to hang on to most of them?
I hope so. Almost all my clients are in other countries to myself already and one of the good things about what I do is that it’s not location sensitive in any way. The main thing for me is to have a reliable internet connection.
Since the internet came along and especially in the past few years there has been an emergence of the “location independent professional” with sites like locationindependant.com and anywired.com springing up to inform this new kind of remote worker. Although it must be wildly impractical, you must admit the idea of the beach being your workplace does sound nice.

7. What’s your take on the current character illustration scene? Is it friendly amongst the illustrators or much more cut-throat than the rainbow colored cuties might suggest?
I love the current scene and I really hope it’s popularity continues. There is so much talent out there and I don’t think a day goes by without me seeing something that makes me say WOW out loud.

I’ve gotten to know quite a number of other character designers and illustrators through sites like mojizu albeit in a long distance way and without exception they are all lovely people. I don’t think designing cute little characters for a living would appeal to egomaniacs or people that take themselves too seriously. Then again I may be wrong, I’ve never seen two of them in the same place at the same time. They may fight like cat and dog. That would be something worth seeing!

8. Anything you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t gotten the chance for yet?
Is there ever! I’m a complete make-a-holic and I don’t think a day goes by without me thinking about some project or another.

There are a few things I’d like to do. I have always wanted to design a t-shirt for Mambo, do a little animation and the obligatory vinyl toys.

There are one or two little things that I’m working on at the moment that I’ve wanted to do for a while. One being an Illustrator tutorial for yours truly and I’m also working on a flat-pack paper toy that I hope to make free to download via my site. I’ve always enjoyed sculpture and wood carving and I’m going to be getting the chain saw training and certificates to enable me to do some pretty big pieces.

Designfeedr thanks Scott for his time and wishes him the best of luck in Aussie land. Should you want more Scott Jackson character love then check out his site. If you’d love to know more about the process that happens in Scott’s head when he’s doing his craft then check back soon for the tutorial he is currently writing up for Designfeedr. As always eye candy below!

1. Welcome Ee, please tell us a bit about yourself.
Hi, my name is Ee Venn Soh, originally hailing from Malaysia where I work under the creative identity of EIII. I am a 21 years old self-taught freelance digital artist. Currently I am majoring computer science at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. I’ll be focusing in computer graphics and image processing in later stages.

2. You’re on communities like Behance and Deviantart. What’s the benefit of being on social art sites like this in your opinion? Do you feel it helps in getting freelance jobs?
It definitely helps a lot. I’m living in Malaysia, a third world country where creativity is relatively new and cultural appreciation even more so. The quality of educational system is limiting people to carry out their ideas and work on their inspiration. Through social networks we are able to share and mingle around with international artists. We are able to get involved with the latest trends and styles in the industry. It also exposes us more so people are able to find and explore us.

3. Can you describe your average workflow when doing an illustration project?
Normally I start of with a photo and a blank canvas. Looking at the photo itself I’ll be thinking what kind of elements, ideas and concepts to integrate. From that point on I will work on it straight without much sketching and drawing. I prefer to work this way.
I play around with shapes, colors and perspective a lot. Sometimes I’ll also spend some time drawing and painting around. I use various genres of styles in a work. It is a mixed media. I pay attention to every single detail in a piece and make sure i deliver the best I can. Lastly when vector and raster blend well and everything is in composition I’ll work on the overall colors and make sure everything delivered is fresh and new.

4. What’s the art scene like in Malaysia?
The art scene is still new and somewhat immature. Many people here study design because of the vague promise they’ll earn good money or because they enjoy having the title of a designer. This won’t work! A person can only be successful if he really enjoys what he’s doing.

Malaysians are still pretty unaware or ignorant of what is happening in the industry. The work produced is mostly not up to professional standards. So-called graduates and designers in the country really should constantly update and work on their skills and concepts.

5. In ten years from now where do you see yourself?
I will work in a studio where programming, motion, sound and graphics blend together. I want to work as a designer and coder. I’ll be focusing more on image processing and computer graphics as I am confident the trend in the future will shift more this area.

6. What do you do when the well of inspiration runs out?
Take a walk, take a nap or take a bite. Anything that can pull me away from the computer is fine. I have a great collection of works from various artists on my hard drive. When needed I’ll take a quick glance at various works and styles to keep my mind fresh.

Designfeedr thanks Ee for his time and of course wish him the best in achieving his goals. Eye candy below!

1. Hello Luke, please introduce yourself to our readers.
Hey Youri! I’m just a typical Aussie bloke that likes to surround himself in sexy SKAFFS chicks all day. My career is basically creating colourful characters.

2. Your characters are cute but at the same time also very sexy. Is this sexiness in your work a deliberate choice or did it just happen over time?
I guess my appreciation for the female form started during life drawing classes at high school. Over time, I adapted my technical skills to come up with my own version of the SKAFFS sexy chick. Basing my work on the symmetry, flow and curves of the female form allowed me to obtain this look.

3. What other creative things are you involved in besides illustration?
Most of my work is illustration and animation. I also help companies with character design, installations, Flash interactives, mobile phone content, website design and music composition. My most recent creative project was designing a one storey installation for the 2008 MAC World Conference booth which was pretty cool.

4. What’s the craziest thing someone ever asked you to illustrate?
I was asked to illustrate a sealed section for Scarlet Magazine in the UK. There was definitely some crazy stuff going on there ;)

5. If I’m not mistaken you’re currently working on getting a toy produced based on one of your illustrations. Can you tell us a little about that process? Any complications you had to overcome?
I have two toys in the process of being produced. Both are based on artwork that I have produced. The process involves preparing an orthographic illustration of the character (side, front and back). There is usually 2 ways of creating a finished sculpt; traditionally by hand or through a 3D printer. Once the sculpt has been finalized, a mold is created and by then the colorways have usually been decided. Finally the finished pieces with colorways are sent off for manufacturing. The process is both time consuming and expensive, but, definitely rewarding.

6. So what’s on the horizon for you? Any new ground you want to break?
There are always things going on in the SKAFFS world. I am involved in numerous upcoming exhibitions in Australia, UK and the USA. I am finishing up my first children’s book to be launched in early 2009 and I continue to work on my animation concepts for television. I also hope that in the not too distant future we’ll see one of my creations on television.

7. Let’s say you scored an illustration job for a big brand name, your deadline is pretty thin and you’re totally not coming up with any solid ideas. Now what?
I have actually learned to work to ridiculous deadlines. But, doing Taekwondo or playing the guitar is my outlet when my mind may not be moving as fast as I like. My problem seems to be not having enough time to record all my crazy ideas!

Thank you for your time Luke, we hope you keep producing sexy curves for a long time to come!

Hey Radim, please introduce yourself.
Hola, my name is Radim Malinic and I am a freelance designer & illustrator working under the name of Brand Nu. Most of the times I am very happy individual, the rest of the time I am even happier. Quite easily amused too. Tell me a shit joke and I will no doubt laugh. I turned 29 a few months ago and my girlfriend got me a nice cake. No candles though. Actually I need to find out why.

I started up doodling and creating visual mishaps some 14 years ago, but never really thought much of it. Playing the bass in a band and djing was back then taking most of my time. Helping out with screenprints at my mother’s design agency was possibly the nearest I got to the world of design. It was fun, but possibly I needed time to really make my mind up on what to do.

Having worked freelance around my day job for years and years, I decided to quit my daytime job of 5 years as a Senior Designer in March this year. It was the right time to go on my own and I love every single day of it. I had to juggle two more or less full time jobs and it was getting a bit tiring. Now I have had the pleasure to work on the ‘big gun’ projects, but also on the smaller ones, where going against the rules was quite enjoyable and rewarding.

What does the Brand:Nu working environment look like?
We’ve recently moved into a 3 bedroom house on the sea front where I have a small-ish room just for my creations. Having only been full time freelancer for about 4 months I haven’t had the need of an office space. Xeon MacPro, a Wacom Tablet, 20″ cinema screen, a knackered scanner and b/w laser printer form my arsenal along with an overpriced glass desk from Habitat covered with tearsheets of my work. Nothing to really write home about though. At the moment it’s the peace and quiet that I enjoy the most. I had spent last 5 years working in a studio enviroment with various characters and I’ve got to say I like to be able to concentrate on my work now. Last month I started working as an art director for a local lifestyle magazine, I get my injection of the civilisation there. Man’s gotta have the balance in place, lol. After spending the last 14 years partying, it was time to slow down a bit too.

I read on your site that business is good and that the projects you have coming in are relatively open briefs allowing you plenty of room. This is of course a great position to be in. Was it a long and tiresome road getting to this point or did it come relatively easy?
It’s not been long and tiresome, but I’d done things differently it could have been even faster. I didn’t put my website up for quite a while as I didn’t feel the need for it. Since I launched however I haven’t really had a proper holiday yet. The commissions been coming from left, right and centre from around the globe. Most of the new commissions are wanting ‘a brand nu’ type of work. People don’t give me work for what I can do, but for the style I use. It’s very important to have a unique style of work to be successful on the current market. Young designers easily get inspired by the new trends and latest ideas and their portfolios look like a mash of many other designers.

I don’t say I don’t get inspired, but if I look at someone’s work I try to understand the reasons why they decided to solve their brief in that way. I look for the logic or non-logic reasons behind the piece.

With the internet opening doors to international business it’s very possible for a designer to acquire a job hailing from a different country. How do you deal with the downsides like not being able to sit down with a client face to face?
Some people can be difficult to work with without the face to face contact but on the other hand, some people can still be vague after a 2 hour meeting. Everything has got a positive and negative side but my experience so far has been very positive really. My first international commission came from the USA, less than 3 months after I launched my site. Since then I’ve got almost every corner of the globe covered. You learn to ask as many questions as humanly possible to narrow down what the client wants. Saves time, a lot of time.

It’s quite a random when you hear from an Ad agency in down under saying someone recommended my work to them. Who, what, where? :) Internet is a great and exciting tool. Whenever I have a chance I try to get my name out there, link my site in various places etc. It shows people you’re working your socks off and developing the style of work.

Looking at your client list I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you don’t have to pitch that often anymore. Nonetheless I’d like to ask you if you could give struggling designers some tips on this aspect of the job?
I’ve not pitched once. Well, technically once, but it was more about testing the water. There’s thousands of of other designers out there with an impressive clients list. Does it make them better than anyone else? I don’t think so. It’s more about being in the right time in the right place. From the beginning of my visual work, I decided to do the best work for any little client I had. I made it look a million dollar. They might not always have appreciated it but I stood firmly behind this principle and it came back to me tenfold!!! The work speaks for itself, the big gun clients will find anyone who is innovative, fresh and has the right stuff to offer.

What would my advice be? If you want to work for a big name client, stop wanting to work for a big gun. Do the best design ever for someone who has really shit ad campaing now. Knock their socks off, you will make a name for yourself.

Tell us a bit about the cover work you did for Drowned magazine which depicts none other than Madonna.
The magazine approached me via Myspace, offered no fee but a great opportunity. No time to ponder, it was a sure goer from the first moment. I only worked for free for charitable courses a handful of times but everytime it came back to me with truckload of new commissions. There’s some magic in it.
As the result of this cover a various people commissioned me, I will be redesigning DM website and heaps of other work. On the top of that, half of the design public on the internet has stumbled over the image and commented on the piece. All I had to do, was make it ‘Brand Nu piece’ :)

Freelancing has lovely benefits like overall freedom and choice of clients/briefs. There are of course some downsides as well. One thing that I myself would dread most is if the situation arises where a client doesn’t want to pay for the work done. Has this happened to you in the past?
I wouldn’t say I had a situation where a client didn’t want to pay. However, sometimes with a bigger ad agencies, it takes a while to get the payment processed. It has been relatively easy to get the remittance on time, but I had to use the name of British Trading Standard Office a few times to threaten various people around the globe. Most of the time, you write a nice and polite email even though you’d rather use the best swear words you know. This is business as any other, good reputation goes quite far.

You’re the initiator of a project called the Nu visual language which involves you collaborating with other designers and artists. Can you tell me some more about that?
Having been busy with a million of commercial projects, I’ve not been left with much time for personal work. There has been a number of collaboration requests from my favorite artists and designers over the years and although I really wanted to work with them I hadn’t had a chance yet. A couple of months ago my contact at BBC offered me an opportunity of a gallery space and a mini help to get an arts project off the ground. The ideas came from my previous work done for various record labels and artist.

The Nu Visual Language is a project where I collaborate with other 12 artists on 12 pieces of art based on a musical track. One day when I was sorting out my songs in iTunes I thought it would be cool to give some of my favorite tracks some sort of visual form. There’s a lot of great music album covers. We live in times where most of the original music is being remixed for various purposes. So I decided to create a visual mix tape of my long time favorite tracks with my favorite visual artists.

The whole project will be rounded off with a gallery exhibition, interactive website, a fair bit of printed material and possibly it will become an annual event. My plan is to get the whole project up and running and set a platform for other artist to collaborate on some other tracks in the next year. The results so far are outta this world, can’t wait to get it all finished.

More details will be soon available at Nu visual language

You’ve recently released your first showcase book. What was the process of putting such a book together like?
I always toyed with the idea of having a book, but to be frank, now it just kind of happened. I have been making random announcements on my site for about a year or two, but a few weeks ago everything slotted in the right place. Not much planning was needed, everything really went from the printers specification. The book is self-published so the budget was the decider. The only plan I had was to give the people out there something a bit special. The publication is packed with some very nice exclusives, some of the work won’t even see the light of the world til the next year. All in all, something to do me proud and to sum up two years of sleepless nights. I feel my work is evolving into great new directions and this book would be nice bridge to the past and the new.

Thanks for the time Radim. The best of luck in the future and make sure to give us a heads-up when the nu visual language project goes live. For more of Radim’s work check out his website .

Please tell us a little about yourself?
Hi, my name is Mathew Thomas and I work under the moniker Couscous Kid. I have a studio in the world heritage city of Bath in the UK. I’ve been a graphic designer for over 13 years working with clients that have included: Jack Daniel’s, Hewlett Packard, Coca-Cola and Southern Comfort. Only recently however I picked up a ink pen and started to doodle and have been exploring, developing and creating new illustration styles.

I launched the Couscous Kid website in January 2006 as a way of letting people see what I had been up to. Since then it has grown and I now sell limited edition canvas frame prints online and have had commissions from Canon in Sweden and HMV in the UK among others.

My style is pen and ink based, dream-like and innocent, naive fantasy, fairy tale doodles that combine intrigue, mystery and sex! With my images I attempt to draw the viewer into a deeper and sometimes darker space, with ideas, messages, humour and physical freedom. It is a never ending journey of discovery, a work in progress!

Some of your pieces combine a lot of hand drawn elements with photography. This obviously makes you stand out a lot against the illustrators that use vectors a lot. Was this a conscious decision or did you just evolve this way?
I think I did make a conscious decision to work with hand drawn elements at some point, mainly to help create an organic feeling that could be truly original and unique to me. The addition of photography did just evolve over time but I do also use a lot of vectors, especially lately as it can be so much quicker. The detailed doodles take a long time to do and usually I sit and fill doodle pads at night curled on the sofa with a bar of fruit and nut chocolate.

How do you feel about the design scene these days?
I love it! I have been inspired to push myself forward by so many amazing contemporary image makers that are around today people like All Your Prey, Insect, Hort, Dave Kinsey, Vault 49, Non Format, Si Scott, Eduardo Recife, Swak, Universal Everything, Kristian Olson, Stunt Kid, Hellovon, Tiffany Bozic and Deanne Y. Cheuk. The list is endless!

What part of your average workflow is digital and how much happens away from the mouse and keyboard?
I think about 70% is digital, the rest is scans and hand drawn elements which are then pulled together in Photoshop but if I tell you any more secrets I will have to kill ya :)

Everyone always asks artists their inspiration. Let’s switch it around, what’s your biggest turn off concerning design/illustration?
People blatantly copying other peoples styles or ideas really annoys me. Sure designers have always done this but if your going do it at least try and bring something new to the party.

Name the one book every designer should read one day
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.

What’s your most valuable lessen you’ve learned in this business?
Step away from the Mac! I have to remind my self of this lesson quite often! It’s all to easy to just start designing on screen but its always so much better to start out on paper. Even half way through it helps to go and do some more ideas on paper. Go for a walk and the ideas can start to flow without you hand being glued to the mouse.

Anything exciting on the horizon for you?
Designing some children’s socks is the next thing I am getting tucked into which is a totally new one for me. Some illustrated belts are also on my list of things to do.

That wraps this one up! We’d like to thank Mat for his time. Make sure to check out his site for more illustrated goodness.