Featured Designer: Jon Phillips of SpyreStudios

If you’ve been following this my posts over the past few months, chances are you’ve heard me mention Jon Phillips, founder of SpyreStudios, at least once. I’ve done some writing for his blog, and just this week Jon released Tweevil – The Dark Twitter Bird, a freebie vector pack that I designed exclusively for SpyreStudios.

I’ve really enjoyed working with Jon, and I definitely hope to collaborate on more projects with him in the future. Jon is also a strong force in the design community, remarkably generous with his time and knowledge, and above all, a very talented designer and developer.

Recently, I had the chance to ask Jon a few questions, which he was kind enough to answer. I think you’ll find that some of his responses are really interesting! Also, I’ve included several works from Jon’s portfolio for you to check out.

Jon Phillips - Founder of Spyre Studios

Jon Phillips - Founder of Spyre Studios

1. Hi Jon! Thanks for agreeing to do this interview. Why don’t we start with the basics? Tell us a little bit about yourself and SpyreStudios.

It’s my pleasure, thanks for inviting me. My name’s Jon Phillips, I’m a 27 year old web-designer from Montreal, Canada. I’ve been designing for the web for many years now and have launched my design business, SpyreStudios, in 2007. SpyreStudios acts as my portfolio as well as my design blog where I also have regular contributors and guest authors.

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Categories: Featured Designers, Interviews

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7 Responses »

Posted: 9:04 PM on October 29, 2009

Freebie: Tweevil – The Dark Twitter Bird

Alright guys, here it is, the freebie that I’ve alluded to several times over the past few weeks. I’ve partnered with Jon from Spyre Studios to produce this freebie, available exclusively from Jon’s website.

When we first started discussing the possibility of this partnership, Jon and I threw around a few different possibilities, and I suggested that it might be cool to create some Twitter graphics, but with a bit of a twist. Thus was Tweevil born (and affectionately named by Jon!).

So here he is, just in time for Halloween. He’s big. He’s black. He’s mean. He’s Tweevil, and he’s not your average Twitter bird!

Tweevil - The Dark Twitter Bird

Tweevil - The Dark Twitter Bird

The freebie pack contains four different graphics, all included in the preview above. Each graphic is highly detailed and meticulously hand drawn by me in Illustrator.  I used all kinds of photo references to help with this one, and I have to say that I’m thrilled with the results!

I hope you are too!

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Categories: Freebies, Vector

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8 Responses »

Posted: 7:58 PM on October 27, 2009

Unique and Sensational RSS Icons

I’ve been doing some work a blog design recently, and I have needed a few icons here and there. So, I waded through my collection of various freebie icons and actually found everything I’ve needed so far. However, in my wading, the one thing that I found I was somewhat lacking in (much to my surprise) was a good variety of RSS icons.

Now, I know that everybody and there mother seem to have posted their own roundup of RSS icons. Well I’m going to join the fray I guess, because that’s exactly what this post is all about. I’m going to point in you in the direction of some really great RSS icons and graphics. Now, I’m not making any claims at this being an all inclusive collection of all the available icons. Quite honestly, I think that might border on impossible. I certainly don’t have the time to tackle a project like that.

Instead, these are just some of the icons that I think are sensational, either in their simplicity, their exectution or their creativity. I hope that you can find a use for some of these, and if not, that you will at the very least enjoy perusing a collection of beautifully crafted icons! First, though, a website:

www.feedicons.com

www.feedicons.com

If you’re looking for good, plain old RSS icons, this is the place to go. There is the standard orange icon, a pack of coloured icons, and a developers kit, containing icons in AI, EPS, SVG, PSD, PDF, PNG, JPG, and GIF formats, offering you plenty of flexibility for tweaking the icons to match your website design.

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Categories: Icons

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Posted: 8:44 PM on October 22, 2009

21 Tactile and Textured Poster Designs

Textures are one element that I really enjoy using in my designs. They can be extraordinarily effective at taking a dull and plain looking design and adding just that extra bit of visual flair that is needed to take the piece to the next level. Just recently, I was working on a design which, though it had a solid general composition, still felt flat and dull. However, by adding just a little bit of texture, I was able to give the design a richer and more luxuriant feel, which was right in line with that I was trying to accomplish.

In today’s post, I’ve collected 21 beautiful poster designs that make use of texture to some degree or other. Some are really strongly textured, while others are a bit more subtle. All of them are extremely cool and inspiring. I hope you enjoy these!

Break the Grid

Break the Grid

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Categories: Textures

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Posted: 7:19 AM on October 20, 2009