I just finished creating an artwork piece for a board that will be built by talented shaper Dan O’Hara from Solid Surf Co.  The model is “The Newman” which Dan himself describes as a board “for boosting airs.”

This is just a preview of the preliminary design.  I ended up making some mods for the final version.  Until then, check this one out.  When the board is ready, I’ll post up a photo of the finished board with the final artwork.  The artwork is all vectors in Adobe Illustrator.

I just updated my site’s style switcher and added the first of 3 styles.  This one is for the surf theme.  I’ve got 2 more coming…  Dirt and snow.  You might be wondering how I created the wave that sits below the header.  It was a small sketch I drew this morning.  I then scanned it and “painted” it in Adobe Photoshop using bits and pieces of real photos of real waves.  There’s some foam from Teahupoo, bits and pieces of Pipeline and some glare from Jeffreysbay.  All in all, a fun project to take on.  See below the “before and after” photo.  The first photo is the sketch exactly as my scanner saw it.  The colorful barreling wave below is the finished picture after quite a bit of work.  -D

Just finished this artwork for a buddy of mine. This dude hosts an awesome windsurfing camp for kids every summer in Puerto Rico. I’ve been doing the artwork for this program for the last 6 years. I just finished creating the artwork for the 2010 camp T-shirt. This was mostly done in Adobe Illustrator piecing original artwork together with stock vectors off the web. The windsurfer image on the back was a photo modified in Photoshop and then vectorized in Illustrator. For more information about the Summer Sessions Kids Windsurfing Camp check out velauno.com.

I’m going straight to the point here so the only warm up sentence is this one.  I’m writing this post for 2 reasons:

1. To remind you that you can still visit my old kiteboarding site
2. To test my site photo lightbox display.

For some reason, the lightbox didn’t want to work on my last post.  I’m using this opportunity to see if it’ll work on this one.  You don’t have to worry about this, but if you want to know more, I’m talking about the little window that shows up in front of the page when you click a photo.

As far as the number 1 reason for this post, you can click the link below to visit my old kiteboarding site:

http://dannycruz.com/kiteboarding/home.html

What makes this site unique (apart from all the cool kiteboarding photos and videos) is that it represents a big landmark in my development as a designer.  I created all the artwork for it back in 2004 and it was mostly all done in Photoshop.  While I wouldn’t design this way anymore due to the functionality limitations, I was able to prove to myself I could do something really cool and rather unique at the time.  Fast forward 6 years and my development as a designer has grown exponentially.  The screen capture below was taken from the video page of that old site.

By the way, I just tested the lightbox and it works.  I wonder what’s going on with my last post?

After the success of my recent Bubble-Button vectors I decided to create a set of rectangular bar buttons. These are high-quality and original vectors. I included a multitude of colors to choose from. You can likely get as creative as you want and hack them apart in Adobe Illustrator to get whatever color combination you want. I’m posting them up for free. The only thing I ask is that you respect the license and if you use them please link to this site. The buttons were created in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and you can download them as .ai CS3. Please don’t resell them. That would be a really stupid thing to do. Please retweet and share with your designer friends.

I just created this cool set of glossy vector port-hole bubble buttons.  These would be great for your website or as a gimmie in a flyer or sale campaign.  They are high-quality, original and perfectly done.  I’m posting them up for free.  The only thing I ask is that you respect the license and if you use them please link to this site.  The buttons were created in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and you can download them as .ai CS3.    Please don’t resell them.  If you do, I can give you my address so you can mail me a big fat check.  Oh! And please retweet. Enjoy!