We’re totally digging these gorgeous Tarot cards designed for Neustellar, a Swiss organization run by Andreas Graf that provides spiritual teaching, mindfulness workshops and counseling. The creative talent behind the work is the lovely Caterina Bianchini, a multi-award winning designer and art director based in London. Tarot cards may not be the first place you look for drawing inspiration but we hope these have moved you just as much as they have us.  

These beautiful Tarot cards were designed to promote each of Neustellar’s classes ranging from old age and wisdom to crisis intervention. The concept behind creating designs that referenced Tarot cards was that tarot cards are used to indicate the future, give a sense of what might be ahead, to allow for the individual to plan or accept. Specifically, the designs were created to be a graphic interpretation of each class offered. You’ll notice tree lifelines symbolizing the old age and wisdom cards while outlines of mountainous shapes convey new perspectives for the healing card. Each card was designed using this thought process to create designs that were authentic to their specific healing power. Enjoy and check out more work by Bianchini here. 

ABOUT CATERINA BIANCHINI

Caterina Bianchini, is a multi-award winning designer and art director based in London.

Working across the field of creative direction, from design to art direction. Each project challenges current design norms by experimenting with unique typographic layouts and carefully curated colour palettes.

Projects are approached with conceptual and strategic thinking, creating work that is considered, charismatic and beautiful.

Clients include Levi’s, Diesel, Lush. Red Bull Music Academy, Red Bull Studios, Nike and Adidas.

 

On ABDZ, it’s rarely a case where we will feature a project that shares some of the thinking behind the design. We mostly see beautiful UI but most of the times are incomplete or misleading in terms of design thinking. But today, we are taking a look at this concept for Amazon Alexa App by Jooyoung Joung, what I liked about his concept is that he designed this experience based on problems from the current Alexa experience. To me, where the work from Jooyoung truly shines inside his user flow, super well-thought-out and totally defines his vision of the experience. In UX, we spend most our time working on building an experience or redesigning one.

My Alexa is a suggestion of new concept for Amazon Alexa app. This project has new visual and empathic interface. My Alexa will empower user’s daily life with inspiration, motivation, insight and empathy. The whole concept was inspired by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

More Links

• Learn more about Jooyoung Joung
• Follow Jooyoung’s work on Behance

UI/UX & Interaction Design

 

Lidia Lukianova shared a simple but quite awesome Photoshop tutorial. She shows us how to create a beautiful Paper Cut effect using the Pen Tool and Layer Styles in Photoshop. The result is quite realistic and below you can see a step-by-step. Lidia was also kind to share the source file, just in case you want to check it out.

You can download a practice file here: http://adobe.ly/1I2kW2C

Photoshop Tutorial

Step 1

Use the Pen tool to create the letter shapes and fill them with color.

Step 2

To add a shadow to the top part of your letter, double-click its layer in the Layer panel and choose Drop Shadow. Adjust the settings to achieve the desired effect. Uncheck the Use Global Light checkbox.

Step 3

Add Inner Shadow to the center part of your letter.

Step 4

Repeat Step 2

Step 5

To edit the shadow separately from the fill layer, go to Layer > Layer Style and choose Create Layer. In the Layer panel you’ll now have two layers: a shape layer and a Drop Shadow layer.

Step 6

Use the Eraser tool to remove parts of the shadow.
Next, let’s create a grainy paper texture. Make a new layer and fill it with grey color. Then go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise.

Step 7

To add a paper texture feel to your image, choose Soft Light in the Layer panel.

LEARN MORE:

• Turning sketches into vector shapes with Adobe Capture CC and using them in other Adobe applications: link
• Working with type in Photoshop and getting fonts from Typekit: link
• Syncing fonts from Typekit in Photoshop: link

Also make sure to check out Lidia Lukianova work at https://www.behance.net/lidialukianova

Jordan-River Low shared a great editorial design post on his Behance profile. The work was made for a university brief called Advanced editorial. For the project they were supposed to come up with our own unique, or local newspaper, with their own curated information, sections and contents related to the style of the newspaper.

I chose to create The Big E. This is a newspaper for the east londoners. The people who are lucky enough to live with in the E (Hackney Borough). The news, articles, information and general content is curated specifically towards this area and the people that live there. It is supposedly a newspaper printed daily, therefore works the generic role of a high-end popular newspaper, such as The Independent, or The Guardian. Although it is a paper for the people of East London, it however is for all forms of audience, as I feel the content within it applies to wider demographics, and those interested in the culture of East London may be intrigued by this style of newspaper. I tried to translate this through the design of the magazine, representing the ‘edgy’ aesthetic of like of Shoreditch, Dalston, Hackney and elsewhere. I think their thriving creative and art culture and influence was something I wanted to incorporate in the style, therefore a sort of retro style associates with this, while remaining to be viewed as a traditional working newspaper that can be easily navigated and read.

Editorial Design

Printed version