Got an important client meeting coming up?

Make sure you impress with an exceptionally smart appearance when you turn up! Get your tie on correctly!

A smart appearance can give that professional first impression that can be the difference between you winning the pitch and not. How many times have you had a meeting where you have been put off by a bad first impression.

Give yourself a great chance of impressing by using the diagram above to tie that infamously difficult windsor knot!

There are hundreds and hundreds of examples of Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials abour recreating long exposure photography lighting effects, but TheDesignOven asks... Can you really beat the real thing?

It is going to be the focus of our next series of illustrations for this blog.

It has long been something that has fascinated us. Lighting effects. The change of lighting in an image can dramatically alter an image to a huge degree. Many clients ask for photographs to be changed, with lighting effects added, particularly for eCommerce product shots. Subtle lighting can make products appear more appealing online, and more dramatic and energy filled lighting can make even the most static of ...

We recently completed a flyer design to advertise a clients sale.

The retail store, selling designer menswear, were looking for a flyer to advertise their January Sales.

The images shown above show the imagery that we completed for the design, not the completed flyer as it went to print.

We have also included the source image that we used for the design to show our process, as well as a secondary option with a simple colour change.

We have produced a heavily toned image with strong geometric shapes to contrast the frail and innocent photograph of the model.

What do you think of the design?

Earlier today we showed you some excellent illustrations using negative spaces.

After looking around on the artists website, we just had to add the images shown above to the 'must see' category of our blog!

Tang Yau Hoong's Surreal Light series of illustrations are breathtaking. They are the personification of simplicity, but they just ooze class.

We'll let you make your own mind up on the images we have shown above, but be sure to leave us you opinion using the form below!

We're still musing over their brilliance in the office!

In todays blog post we bring you a fantastic example of the use of negative space.

Tang Yau Hoong's series of illustrations (the full collection can be seen at his website) are very cleverly composed. Simple in there appearance, but massively complex in their composition, his works really captivate their audience. When viewing the collection we found ourselves thinking... "That's brilliant, what's next!"

For every image we viewed, we were left wanting to see what else could be achieved with his illustrative style.

Our favourites are shown above here, in particular the pen nib. As quite often is the case with good graphic design, it is ...

TheDesignOven have produced a poster to promote recycling. As mentioned in our previous blog post on Friday we were working on a poster design.

The recent success of BBC's David Attenborough documentary 'Frozen Planet' inspired TDO designers to come up with an idea to assist in saving the planet.

Based on a cross section of the Arctic Sea and littered with animals from both poles, the message of the poster is simple... Don't ruin our planet.

We want the beautiful scenes witnessed in the documentary to be around for our children ...

Part 2 of our blog post showing off the work of Ben Heine's 'Pencil vs. Camera' series.

You can view Part 1 of our blog entry here.

The images shown above highlight more of the creative and illustrative qualities of the artist.

In particular, the photographer with the bursting camera is a brilliant image. You really are drawn into the artists mind through his lens, with an illustration of his imagination pouring from the camera lens.

The ants carrying the heart cut leaves along the wire is our ultimate favourite of the series however. Fascinating creatures ironically and beautifully detailed ...

This mornings blog entry comes in two parts highlighting the fantastic work of Ben Heine.

Artist, Photographer and Illustrator, he is a man to admire. His portfolio of work is second to none.

In our part one of his 'Pencil vs. Camera' series we have shown 5 of our favourite images. You can view another 5 inspirational illustrations in Part 2 here.

Looking down the list of images, we were particularly impressed with the caricature of the two donkeys. The way he has brought their characters to life and the simplicity in which he has transferred the fur into pencil sketch (a very difficult skill) is particu...

We've been working on a little cross section illustration which we thought we would give you a little teaser too.

We are creating a poster for a website we are working on.

We thought while we were on it would be good to use the work to realyshowcase our creative talents too. This is just a teaser of what the end result will look like!

Giampaolo Miraglia. Ever heard of him? No?

If you haven't, check out his portfolio!

Simply put... WOW.

We absolutely adore the geometric style he uses for his graphic designs. A beautiful blend of 2D and 3D works with some really interesting typography incorporated in there.

Check out his portfolio and let us know which are your favourites. Our favourites are shown above.

Particularly like the monochrome first poster. The floating 3D shaded object contrasting with the uber clean circles (even where the circle is exploding) is very, very nice indeed. The whole composition almost ...

If you are looking for a nice way to show off your brilliant design work, you will find a few excellent ways to do so over at the Design Resource Box.

We've picked a couple out here which we thought might be useful.

If you are designing any kind of film poster, motion graphics or a action packed landscape image, or if you have competed some video editing that you would like to place within a frame as an illustration, then this Cinema PSD would be a brilliant and dramatic choice to put a finishing display environment to your design.

Alternatively if you have completed a small ser...

FULL SIZE IMAGE : TDO OFFICE

Over the past couple of (working) days here at TDO, in between completing a few Christmas projects for clients, we have been working on a new illustration just for fun!

We've released a few teaser images such as this vector kettle and this Wacom Tablet pen on our Facebook page, but now is the release of the main image. ...