In this interview, Richard shares his experience as a digital illustrator, his own unique approach to digital art creative process and tips and tricks for attracting clients as a freelancer. Make sure you check out this interview, and hopefully you would find it interesting and useful.

Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. Would you mind giving a little personal background information about yourself and your websites for our readers?

My name is Richard Roberts; I was born in the Wales and moved to the United States when I was young even though all my family still resides there. A positive side of the move is the fact I have had the opportunity to travel back many times.

I am a 20 year old digital Illustrator and started theotherstream about two and half years ago which is my online portfolio and also my freelance company. Other than art being my life I also enjoy soccer, music, and food, friends, reading about world affairs and other cultures and just having a good time. Oh and also I am a massive tea drinker, it’s almost an obsession.

Is digital art something that you’ve always been interested in? Can you give us a bit of idea of how did you get into this field?

I have always been the creative type and very visual. My story behind my venture into digital art is quite a funny one. When I was thirteen I played online games like most other kids my age, and I came across a digital art piece on a gaming forum and was instantly fascinated. It led to me installing a early version of adobe photoshop.

For a few years it was just a hobby but it grew into more of a profession once I knew it was possible to make a living off it. My school years were quite dysfunctional because of moving which led me to finishing high school online. This allowed me to have ample free time, which resulted in me putting my full focus on improving myself as an artist and mastering my trade.

Although I have much to learn, my current knowledge and skills have got me to where I am today. Like I mentioned before two and half years ago I started theotherstream and since then my freelance career has really taken off.

Your artworks are extremely detailed and impressive, could you explain some of your creative process to our readers?

I always find starting with a solid idea and plan is the best way forward. I think some of the best artworks out there always start in some sort of pre planning stage.

Many of my ideas come to me in dreams or at the most random moments. For example my piece Supernova was based the song Champagne Supernova by Oasis. I was listening to the song and I had the idea of a women floating in space thinking about life and the idea was born.

Once I have the ideas I start laying out everything and work on the composition. It’s best to work on a piece as a whole because if you work on it one part and a time and later need to change something you will have wasted a lot of time.

Designer always face a series of challenges during the artistic process, do you have similar difficulties? What are they and how do you tackle those issues?

The classic artists block, of course I have had many of them. Most recently I faced one during the fall months of September to November. They can be really demotivating and a real pain in the ass.  But when you do work your way through them it feels like your reborn and you come back stronger then ever.

I think the key to avoid an artistic block is do something everyday; it doesn’t have to be a serious portfolio project just something to keep you fresh. If you in a block the best advice I can give you is look around the net for inspiration, write down ideas that come to mind. And then just mess around and try to get something going, it will work with time.

My first piece after my block was Supernova and I spent two months working on it on and off and it really helped me get out of the slump.

What would you do to find inspiration for your design work, if it happens to dry out?

Inspiration is everywhere for me, some of the best websites are the cg society or deviantart. They are filled with so much talent and ample of amazing inspiring pieces. I also find inspiration from nature, movies and music.

You’re a freelance at the moment, could you tell us a bit of your own experiences in terms of finding/attracting clients?

My freelance carrier at the moments is going very well! I am constantly learning new things and love working with new clients. As for finding and attracting clients that’s the harder part of the game. For finding them the key is publication and also sending out emails to who ever you can.

Social networking is a key thing to, twitter and facebook are great tools I would advice any freelancer to take advantage of them. Entering contests is also another great way to get exposure. No matter how good your work is if you just sit around waiting for them to come you won’t get far. Networking and making connections is crucial! Attracting clients has more to do with your personal style and quality of your work. Only put your best pieces of work in your portfolio, even if that means you will only have 5 pieces to show.Quality of quantity wins every time.

I see so many artists doing the trendy styles to try and attract clients, while that may get you a few jobs it doesn’t build a unique name or style for yourself. So long term your hurting yourself more then helping. It’s important to do your own thing and have your own style. It takes much longer, but building a name for yourself and style will attract clients long term.

And lastly, thank you once again for the interview. Before we go, could you give the readers a bit of intro of your current project and future plans?

Thanks so much for the opportunity to be interviewed, it was a real pleasure! I am currently working on a book cover design in the style of my piece titled “Melting Time” I can’t say any specifics but it should be released with in a month or so, I think people will like it! As for future plans, pretty much just keep working hard and hopefully expanding theotherstream at some point.

Where to find Richard?

Portfolio site

Facebook

Twitter

That’s it for this interview! Hopefully you enjoy it and find it useful. Till next time, have a great day!

In this post, I will share with you Tadeo’s answers to my interview questions, along with some of his fantastic works. Hopefully you will enjoy them and find them useful.

Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. Would you mind giving a little personal background information about yourself?

Amm well, personally I’m a little crazy I think that’s the first thing to start taking Photoshop. I have been handling Photoshop for 3 years.

I am 17 years old and currently living in Monterrey, Mexico. And my general style but I try to edit is much the specifics about rap music, rock, graffiti, most models are women, galactic, light, 3d’s, and urban cultures.

Have you done any formal graphic design training before or you simply learn everything yourself?

I think this question is that if I took a course or diploma. Not really, I’ve been learning from good designers and artists through the web. I incorporate my ideas and forging some types of styles.

What’s your major source of inspiration? Do you follow any design blogs online?

No, I don’t really follow any design blogs. Primarily I take inspiration from many sources. Lyrics, experiences, fantasies, some design ideas but find it difficult, and not seen many blogs. but a good idea. ;)

If you like to offer some words of advice to beginner who just starting out in this graphic design field, like who just received an online graphic design degree, what would you say to them?

Well first of all do not t be carried away by copying all of any artist, I have seen and also lived in what is certain Pharmacopoeia all artists. Try to forge a personal style ideas from the mind itself, try that work will gradually be cleaner and believe me it will be well accepted by the world because the design is of the few things that attract much interest worldwide.

That’s it for this interview! Hopefully you find it useful and inspirational. You can find Tadeo on his Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29076453@N03/

Also if you got some great work and would like to be featured here, simply contact me :)

Blogs have become a great resource for designers for a long time and there are tons of useful tips and tricks you can absorb and use for your own works. Among the vast sea of design-related blogs, there are serveral primary ones which attract majority of attention from the design community every day.

The webmasters of those design blogs are designers, but they’re also entrepreneurs – they have turned their blogs into huge communities, loved by millions of people around the globe.

In this post, I collected Interviews of 15 Absolute Top Designer Bloggers on this Planet and put into one place. Hopefully they will inspire you and learn from the experiences they shared in those interviews.

Here goes the list, enjoy! (Please note that by click on the image will take you to actual interview)

Interview with Walter Apai of Webdesigner Depot

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the popular design blog Webdesigner Depot. In much less than a year WDD has become one of the leading blogs in the niche. I recently had a chance to interview the man behind WDD, Walter Apai.

Source: designm.ag

Interview with David Leggett: Founder of Tutorial9.net

David Leggett is a designer, blogger, and founder of Tutorial9; a leading website that provides Photoshop, Web Design, and Photography tutorials. David shares his experience in developing and growing Tutorial9, and provides advice for bloggers who are just getting started.

Source: brandfreeze.com

Interview With Steven Snell From Vandelay Design & DesignM.ag

I first connected with Steven back when I used to run Freelance Folder almost 2 years ago (Steven wrote some great articles there) and we’ve been in contact ever since. Here’s the interview I did with Steven recently, I hope you like it! Make sure you stop by in the comment section and feel free to ask Steven questions! :)

Source: spyrestudios.com

Interview with Fabio Sasso

You may be familiar with Fabio’s blog, Abduzeedo and his company site, Zee in Brazil with business partner, Fabiano Meneghetti. His design focus is on Graphic and Web design (he is very talented and I admire his work!), he also does regular tutorials for PSDTuts.

Source: fuelyourcreativity.com

Interview With Adelle Charles From Fuel Your Creativity – Design, Blogging And Business

Hey everyone! Today we have an interview with Adelle Charles of Fuel Your Creativity! Adelle is awesome, I’ve known her for some time now and have been an avid reader of her blog since the day I found it. I hope you enjoy the interview! :)

Interview with Nick La

Continuing with our designer interview series, I took the opportunity and am very excited to present today’s interview with Nick La. Nick is a well known freelance illustrator and web designer based in Toronto. He is the founder of N.Design Studio, and popular blog Web Designer Wall, Design Jobs on the Wall, and Best Web Gallery. He also recently launched his new site Icondock exclusively dedicated to icons.

Source: vector.tutsplus.com

Interview With Jacob Cass From Just Creative Design

If you are a web designer who also happens to read blogs, then you must have heard of Jacob Cass. Unless of course you have been living under a rock for the last few years. Jacob is a graphic designer who also has a blog with tens of thousands of readers. He also owns another 2 exciting websites! You can find Jacob Cass at his main website Just Creative Design, and also at his other 2 websites, Logo of the Day and Logo Designer Blog.

Source: webdesigndev.com

Interview with Chris Spooner

We’ve got a great interview for you today! We chatted with Chris Spooner of SpoonGraphics and Line25 about the last 12 months and his future ambitions.

Source: psdfan.com

An Interview with Freelance Designer Danny Outlaw

Danny Outlaw is a fulltime freelancer, and the guy behind the popular Outlaw Design Blog. Danny is well known in the community and shares his experiences of freelancing from abroad, managing clients and outsourcing work in video and blog posts. I caught up with Danny to ask a few questions of my own…

Source: line25.com

Interview With Jacob Gube, The Man Behind Six Revisions

I have had the pleasure of connecting with Jacob, the man behind the very popular design blog Six Revisions, on multiple occasions through various social sites and I recently interviewed him for SpyreStudios. I hope you’ll enjoy this interview with Jacob! Make sure you stop by in the comment section and feel free to ask Jacob questions! :)

Source: spyrestudios.com

Interview with PSDFan’s Designer and Blogger Tom Ross

Tom Ross of PSDFan is a web designer of 8 years and currently posts up tutorials, interviews, and even some free graphics here and there onto the blog. PSDFan has grown rapidly, and I feel honored to have an interview with Tom as we learn a bit more about what makes PSDFan such a success.

Source: insidethewebb.com

An Interview with Graphic Designer, Brian Hoff – The Design Cubicle

Brian Hoff is a one of those folks in the design community that make logo design look effortless. His logos are sleek and elegant. A fantastic acid test for a logo is how well it displays in black and white. Given that Brian’s logo gallery is entirely in black and white, yet looks stunning, I’d say he gets an ‘A’ on that test. Oh yeah, he is also a very good web designer and blogger. Brian was kind enough to answer some questions here on MyInkBlog, check out the insight he shares in the answers that follow.

Source: myinkblog.com

Interview with Johnson Koh from 10 Steps

Johnson Koh is a graphic and web designer from Singapore. 10Steps.SG was created with the purpose to share his experiments with Adobe Photoshop and interesting news he come across in the design world.

Source: digitalartempire.com

Graphic Designer and Blogger Andrew Houle of MyInkBlog

Graphic and web designers, lend me your ears! We have another great graphic design blog to add to our list today, MyInkBlog. Featuring all sorts of free goodies to download, amazing tutorials, inspiring articles, and a whole lot more! MyInkBlog is one of the premiere graphic and web design blogs on the web, with over 3,000 Twitter followers and almost 4,000 RSS followers.

Source: insidethewebb.com

An interview with Nick Pagano of Think Design Blog

To continue meetings with hard-workers and helpful persons in Web Design, I’m pleased to share this quick interview with Nick Pagano. Nick is the founder of Think Design Blog, a graphic design site where you can find freebies, resources, inspiration and much more.

Source: pvmgarage.com

That’s it for this post! Hope you find this collection useful and inspirational! Remember if you enjoy those interviews and haven’t yet checked out their blogs, please pay them a visit! You won’t be disappointed :)

Till next time, have a great day!

Hence I sought to have a chat with him about a series of questions I have in mind and sent him a Flickr mail – and thought I would share his answers to my questions with the reader of PSD Vault.

Hope you enjoy this interview and if you like to check out more of Mhark’s work, visist him on his Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32188606@N03/!

Thanks for taking the time to be interviewed on PSD Vault. Could you please introduce yourself to our readers ?

Hi there :D…im Mhark De Guzman a.k.a Aboynamedmhark, 23 y/o and im a Graphic designer from Philippines.

Is graphic design something that you’ve always been interested in? Can you give us a bit of idea of how did you get into this field?

My mentor(Shufflepath) encourage me to go into this kind of art, I liked photo manipulation very much..for me its very simple and easy…you just need right stocks for your piece and thats it.. just play on photoshop and explore everything…put something that comes from your mind and … enjoy it :D

Your works seem to be a mixture of C4D and Photoshop, what’s your experience with these two software?

c4ds are not mine, some of c4d renders i used are from Deviantart. I’m a pure Photoshop user, mixtures of c4ds and light FX + nice stock are pretty cool for me..eye catching also :D..

Inspiration is something designers constantly seek, what would you do to find inspiration for your design work if it happens to dry out?

Browsing net, looking for eyecatching creation designed by the other great artist, plus music too :D…if im not into mood to make a design..i dont force myself :D.

Do you follow any design blogs? Any favourite artist?

I’m not into blog…more on forums…GFX forums…my fave artist is also my mentor…Shufflepath…also a Filipino Designer…he put me into this GFX world…i admire his artwork much…and he is the one who always helped me with all my questions about graphics…specially in FX..I also Admire PoisonVectors for his unique pieces…mixtures of C4Ds and light FX..always caught my attention…and gave me inspirations also :D

Are you a freelancer? If yes, what’s your experience in terms of attracting clients?

Nope, I worked as Graphic designer at the advertising company.

You have quite an extensive gallery here on flickr. Out of those work, what’s your most favourite one? Could you give us a bit of idea of the design process of it?

My greatest manipulation ever …”Curse of Nature”..took me 3 days to finished that piece..also won in Large Art of the Month themed “Supernatural” in a Filipino forum..inspired in “trapped and submerge” artwork of my mentor.

My first plan for that piece is to make just a fairy..but word “curse” comes to my mind, then i decided to make a manipulation which involving the fairy + curse effect + nature concept. Thanks to the owner of the stocks i used in that art.

That concludes this post! Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and this interview. If you like to check out more of Mhark’s work, visist him on his Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32188606@N03/!

If you would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, simply contact me :)

In this first interview, we have Elena Savitskaya – an Amazing and Aspiring Graphic and Web Designer from London, UK. I came across her work from flickr and was immediately impressed by the skill and talent displayed in those works, not to mention that her work has been featured on Advanced Photoshop Magazine!

Here goes Elena’s story, hope you enjoy this interview and if you wish, check out Elena’s website for more!

Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. Would you mind giving a little personal background information about yourself and your websites for our readers?

Well, first of all thank you James for asking me to do an interview for one of my favourite blogs.  My personal background is a bit mad to be honest.  I was born in south of Russia, in a place that none of you probably ever heard of, a small city called Orenburg. I’m actually really proud of myself, being born in a small place people don’t get much choices and motivation to make it big carrier-wise.

But i was odd one out i guess. As my favourite painter Salvador Dali said: “At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.” I grew up in a family of two big business people and i guess that’s where ambition comes from. At some point i was told “you are going to England to study and we’re afraid you don’t have a choice to say “no”. So i ended up in UK, i am still in London and i’m hugely grateful for all the experience that I’m gaining here.

Jumping back a little, first time I’ve produced some sort of artwork happened ages ago when i was 5. Me and my family went for some sort of safari in woods in south Russia and i’ve seen an awesome butterfly, once we got back home my grandmother equipped me with paint and brushes and i did my first little “masterpiece” of that butterfly. I think my granny still has that picture somewhere.  But on a serious side, i come from Marketing and Business Management background; all of my studies were based around those two subjects.  Currently i’m continuing my Business Management studies in London , writing for my design/marketing Designwithathought.com and freelancing. You can also visit my portfolio at www.elenasavitskaya.com.

Is graphic design something that you’ve always been interested in? Can you give us a bit of idea of how did you get into this field?

At one point in life when i was a teenager i had to find a job and pretty urgently, being a teenager applying for a marketing job would be pretty much pointless. Being a waitress wasn’t a choice either, as i knew I’m capable of much more than that.

So i started looking at options to work from home, designing little things in Photoshop and Illustrator was a small hobby of mine, but then the light bulb moment came and i realised that i could turn this into a job.  From there i started doing some free projects for friends to build up my portfolio, reading (a lot of reading) blogs about design and books, loads of them. In fact all the background knowledge i was looking for to become a decent designer came from books. You can find a lot of tutorials online, but to get serious with it, you have to read books.

Bit by bit, I’ve build up my portfolio, skills and experience.  And at some point Advanced Photoshop magazine contacted me saying that they found my work on deviantart.com and asked me to do a 5 page tutorial which then turned into a cover artwork as well. I was so incredibly proud of myself. From being nobody to getting featured in a magazine that i was learning off was a massive personal achievement.

Are you a freelancer? If yes, what’s your best methods in terms of finding/attracting clients?

Yes, i am a freelancer.  And this is a hard question :).  To be honest the strategy turned out like this: I started by just advertising on local websites like gumtree.com etc, and once i had a small client base i turned mainly to entertainment industry as it’s the best one for my type of work and most fun to work with to be honest. And as a lot of people know each other in that industry, being reliable and thoughtful with your clients gave my clients a reason to spread the word about me.

It grew from there. Right now my main tool for finding clients is probably online exposure, websites such as deviantart.com, behance.net, redbubble.com and my portfolio and blog of course. The more you expose your work, the more attention/clients you are going to get. Pitching works sometimes too, if you are an expert in one particular niche, doing some e-mail pitching can work, just be prepared that clients can be very cheeky and if you’re the one contacting them they will drive a hard bargain.

Inspiration is something designers constantly seek, what would you do to find inspiration for your design work if it happens to dry out?

CHOCOLATE! Just joking :), but it actually works sometimes too. Design books, new knowledge, are always a massive source of motivation and inspiration for me. My family, my boyfriend – best man on the planet and a massive support. I visit a lot of galleries and exhibitions too, i get a lot of inspiration from Salvador Dali paintings,  and classic art, Da Vinci, Raphael , those guys really knew what they were doing, imagine, no TV’s, no internet, no distractions from what you’re doing. Those were the proper geeks, guys! So much to learn from them, if you just dig a tiny bit deeper, rather than just looking at the picture.

Sometimes when you’re out of inspiration simply switching on a random radio station works too. And a very important thing to do in order not to run out of inspiration – give yourself a break every now and then, don’t work 24/7, you will start to hate it then.

Do you follow any design blog? If yes, what’s your favourite ones?

Hell yeah! A lot of them, this psdvault included. My RSS reader is seriously overcrowded. Among favourites:  Smashing Magazine, Abduzeedo, PSDTuts, Tutorial9, Freelance Folder.

And lastly, thank you once again for the interview. Before we go, could you give the readers a bit of intro of your current project and future plans?

My biggest current project is my blog, I’m in the process of writing up a lot of content for it. Tutorials, articles, book reviews and some very interesting things that no one was writing about yet,  i will also concentrate a lot how design and marketing should work together,  which is the main point in my blog.

I am also currently working on a few exciting projects with my clients which will surely end up in my portfolio, I’m also opened for artwork commissions, it’s very interesting to do.  And the top secret project of mine involves video, but I’m not going to give it away just yet. I hope you will hear about it once it’s out :). Thank you once again for a great opportunity and keep up your amazing work on this blog, i will surely stay tuned.

That concludes this interview with Elena Savitskaya, a London based Aspiring web and graphic designer. For more info and get in touch with her, please log on to http://elenasavitskaya.com/.

And lastly, if you would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, simply contact me and send me some sample of your work, and I will be in touch with you.

Cheers and have a great day!