ICY BOMB'S BLOG

The story begins a few weeks ago with Musketon wanting to collaborate with 4 designers to design the next Mazda Design Car. The four winners of his contest : Magic, Vexx, Zhion and Myself teamed up with Musketon during an entire week-end to design the most beautiful design car in the world. As a young designers, this has been an awesome opportunity for us to work on such a great project. The fact that we all have different universes and styles make it even more special and unique. Designing a car wrap is something I always wanted to accomplish and I hope it’s not the last time this happens. I’d like to thank Musketon, Magic, Vexx, Zhion and Mazda Belgium. I had a blast working on this !

It’s been a while since I actually updated this blog. Thought this would be the perfect time to do so. Here’s my story with Battlekart. Hope you’ll enjoy !

How it all started

What’s Battlekart?

First of all, you may be wondering what’s Battlekart? Well, Battlekart is an augmented reality karting. Let’s make things simple. Did you already dream about playing MarioKart-like games but in real life? Stop dreaming because it’s now possible, at Battlekart only. While evolving and driving a real kart in a completely mapped  environment, you race against your friends and shoot missiles at them, grab a bonus, engage turbo mode to try and finish first.

How I met them, and how I started working with them.

The adventure started back in 2014, when I was still a student. While doing an internship, I received an email from a friend of mine :

-”Dude, I met 2 guys... they created an IRL mariokart, wow! I just showed them your portfolio, they loved it and want to work with us :))”

I can’t tell you how hyped I was. Being a student and having such an awesome opportunity was a dream come true. And this is how it all started. A first contact with them, where they showed us the first prototypes of their concept. A few meetings and discussions later and I started working on their brand identity. This was my first step into the world of work.

One Man Army

After working with them for a few months on their identity, and being more than happy with it, they offered me a full time job at their place as a Designer. And this is how I signed my first contract while still being at school. As soon as I graduated, I could start working with them and build Battlekart together.

My role here was more than just being “the design guy”. Being the only person that could actually open photoshop, I had the role of a 5 men team. My main occupation was to create Illustrations. But also web design, motion design, UI design, take care of the overall communication... Creating Illustrations (Banners, tarpaulines, ingames tracks, bonus, etc ...) aswell as motion designs were not big deals. I already had a couple of years of experience with it. 

But there were also challenging stuffs to create. For example: Incorporated and mounted on the kart, a tablet giving you informations about your in-game status : laps, position, current weapon, experience, level. I had to create a complete layout for it. This UI design was kind of challenging as I never had to do such things before... But “if there is no challenge, there’s no fun !”

2 times harder.

As you may already know, I’m a freelancer. I started the “Icy Bomb” project while still being at school. Having this fulltime job was a great opportunity and chance for me but on the other hand, I didn’t want to let Icy Bomb down. This meant I had to work 2 times harder. Combining those 2 jobs involved a lot of things. Being well organized, short nights and a lot of coffee. This allowed me to prepare the future of Icy Bomb and my freelancing career.

Everything ended quite well. When the contract with Battlekart expired, their wish was to continue and work with me. This time as a freelancer on some more specific projects, which allowed me to focus and work on more projects at the same time. But this is another story !

The outcome

Lastly, I hope you enjoyed this post and that you learned some interesting things. It’s been a real pleasure to work with Battlekart and i’d like to thank them for this opportunity they offered me. It was an awesome experience and if you'd like to see more of what I created with them and all the energy that has been put in it, I suggest you check this behance project.

Thanks for reading !

Alex

Alright, I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. And let’s get the things started. I’m holding a sticker design contest. And here’s the opportunity for you to collab’ with me on a piece. I am providing a vector skull I’ve been working on. This is my part of the collab’. Now it’s your turn to make it even more awesome. Add details, textures, color it, flip it, cut it, have fun with it. That’s it ! I’ve been in touch with my friends at Stickerapp who are kindly sponsoring this contest. This means the winner will have his sticker design printed and directly shipped into his mail box. Awesome isn’t it ?

Like in every contest, here’s a small rules list that you’ll have to keep in mind while working on this sticker.

RULES :

Final file must not be larger than 5″x5″

Final file must be provided as a .AI / .EPS / .PSD

Final file must be 300 DPI & CMYK

Fonts must be outlined / vectored / -Rasterised (if worked in PS)

You can enter as many times as you want.

Files must be submitted through the google form. (Link below.)

Any technique is accepted

Deadline : 01-07-2015 ( 07-01-2015 for y’all ‘Muricans that can’t put a date in the right order)

HAVE FUN ON THIS PIECE

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DOWNLOAD LINKS & SUBMISSION FORM

Download the ICY BOMB vector files here : http://www.mediafire.com/download/0alyza8l9py62sb/IcyBombCollab.rar Submit your design through this form :

http://goo.gl/forms/zglrfKrL3R

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FAQ :

- “You provided vector files, but am I allowed to work in photoshop ?”

Sure thing, but if you’re not working on the vector file provided, make sure your photoshop canvas is set up to 5x5″, 300DPI , CMYK.

- “How do I submit my design ?”

There’s a google form link at the bottom of this post, make sure to fill it properly. I will not accept submissions trough email / facebook / twitter. - “I’ve got a couple of different ideas. Can I enter more than one time ?” Yes, you’re allowed to enter as many times as you want. But don’t forget that quality > quantity.

- “Dude, I love you so much I want to buy you a brand new Ferrari”

Thank you random citizen, but I’d rather go for a ‘69 mustang, if it’s not too much to ask !

- “Can I share my design on twitter or instagram ?”

Of course, and don’t hesitate to mention StickerApp and myself in your post. We’d love to see what you made !

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If you have any other question. Feel free to email me : [email protected] I’ll be happy to answer ! For those wondering. Here’s a preview of what you’ll be working on if you decide to enter. Hope it will inspire you.

If you’re following me on social medias, you’ll see I’m really active there. I think it’s important to create contact with your audience, with your fanbase and your potential clients. I’ve also been following a lot of different people, designers, illustrators and all kind of artists from different ages and places and one thing that shocked me is that there are a lot of them playing the “too cool for you” game. Acting like they don’t see you, or only replying to so called “twitter famous” for exemple. The amount of followers you’ve got doesn’t make who you are. I’m not aiming my gun to anyone here. This is just something I noticed while browsing on social medias. It takes time indeed, especially when you’ve got a big fanbase and a lot of reaction. But you should always be available for them and create a direct link between 2 persons. A personnal contact is always better than a group message and will have more power.

That’s what I try to do, everyday. A simple “thanks” on someone’s tweet showing support to you and your work could make him happy. It will also show your availability.

Let me tell you a little story.

I’ve got a friend, called John, met on twitter, we started discussing design and stuffs. Really simple. Days after days, we’ve been discussing, arguing sometimes.... One day, he told me his son, Sean, was a big fan of my work.

“Sean is only 10, but he’s really into your work. I think you motivated him to something, he asked me to buy coloring books and markers.” Said John.  He even sent me some pictures of what he did. I thought that someone who’s so dedicated to something, someone that is a so special supporter, deserved a special “thanks”. That’s why I decided to send Sean a care package filled with stickers and inspiration for him to keep going. I’m not telling you should send free stuffs to every fan or supporter you’ve got. You should just take some times to be available for them. Maybe you’ll make someone’s day.

Having your own style can be a real benefit for you and your career as it also can be a kind of « brake ». Let me explain, a lot of illustrators make their own way in this world by promoting and having a certain style. It’s a way to be exclusive.

By having your own style, you’ll have clients that will come to you because they like your work and they would like « something like you did here, with your style, i like it ». It’s great to work with people like that because they know what they want, and if you master your style, it will be an easy job for you.

On the other hand, not everybody will like your style (unfortunatly) and you’ll maybe lose some job opportunities because of that. I personally experienced that while applying for internships. Some replied they did not liked my style and I understand completely. A thing you don’t have to forget is not to be locked in your style otherwise you will only be able to produce a very few amount of designs in the certain style you’re focused on. There will come one time in your life when you’ll have to make a decision : Assume your style or be versatile. I don’t mean people having a hardcore, trash and assumed « Street » style can’t produce clean and flat designs. But designing is like everything. To be good, it requiers several years of training. And to be the best in one field you’ll have to practice those certain skills it requiers. People are all born the same, finding your style is about finding what you love and let your inner self express itself the way you want. The best exemple I can give is probably 123KLAN.

This is the first article on my Blog. Why did i choose to publish this one ? Probably because it’s one of my favorite Illustrations. You’re gonna ask me : « this does not even looks like a potato dude ? » -Indeed.

What i call a hot potato is a project especially made for a « potential » client just to make him hungry for more. In this case, the poster was a personnal project made for Eptic, Downlink, Zomboy, Doctor P, etc… ( see full line up on the poster ). Artists I would love to work with as I am a big dubstep fan and would like to make my way trough this scene.

The way a hot potato works is to offer your services to someone by showing your skills in creating something they could be interested in. If you create a hot potato for someone, this shows how much you want and would love to work with them. Of course, this poster has been catchy to people involved more than a simple illustration or a random project from my portfolio because they saw their name on it without asking anything. People love « fan-arts ». It’s a fact. I received feedback from Eptic and Downlink wich was great and really motivating to me.

This kind of project takes effort and most of the time leads nowhere but adding another project in your portfolio. Yet, sometimes, luck could smile back to you. In that case, I had a great feedback from Downlink who really appreciated this poster and even offered me to work with him. Mission accomplished.