Category: Guest

As human beings of a social world we like to be social and celebrate our events and others as well. These can be events like birthdays, baby showers, weddings and even house warming events. So a good party present can help make the event even better, and you can ensure that your gift stands out from the crowd. So make sure you are not left with gifting the same run of the mill gifts or even recycling the old school gift options.

Sometimes you may also be stuck with having to buy a gift for someone who is too picky. So you may have to come up with something that is truly special that they can appreciate. So what can you do – a nutella box with pears and flowers, a bouquet made with carrots or s’mores on the stick? Well the aim is to not just customising the gift but to take it a step forward and make them truly unique.

Any of these gifts we mentioned are customised but they are also a little bit more as they are a joke between friends, a romantic gift and a joke between colleagues. What is great is that these are gifts which offer a little more than just being customised.

Creating a gourmet gift basket

With this you can go beyond and above than the usual customised gift services. You can take a regular gourmet basket and add items to it, or customize the basket entirely. You can also gift them a basket which does not have any food inside it at all. Instead put together other luxury items or items that the person you are gifting to would like to receive. This is completely up to you, and you can be as thoughtful, quirky or creative as you want.

Creating a DIY gift for the recipient

There are number of items you can create yourself to provide an extra meaning to your gift. Creating drink bucket with their favourite drinks, an album of all their favourite moments, or putting together a tour package with all the favourite haunts in the city they love. You can even bring a store bought gift and add to it, in terms of packaging for that can make it stand out. For e.g. a wine bottle with a personalised message written with a paint pen can add a little extra touch. Take a lantern and add a bunch of small gifts inside the lantern to give it to the recipient. You can even create their favourite drink Popsicle and give them a batch of them frozen to have when they want.

It is more rewarding to gift to someone you loves something that you have especially created for them. The value of the gift far exceeds the sum of the parts as the meaning gets embedded far more than what a mass produced item has vs. what you create for them specifically. It goes beyond customisation as it adds a certain depth of story and meaning to the gift that cannot be added to something merely bought.

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Karen Denver is the author of this delightful post. She is a professional blogger and a romantic at heart who believes in happily ever after. She feels even simple things likes ordering gift hampers online can bring back the romance in your otherwise dull life.

With technology becoming ever more developed, those devices that were previously reserved for communications – such as computers, mobile smartphones and tablets – are becoming an essential element of the creative process of art. Digital art is the umbrella term for any artistic works or practices that use digital technology as a key part of the creative/presentation process, so what is exactly does this new fangled method of creativity entail?

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A Brief History of Digital Art

Also known as computer art or multimedia art, digital art has been around since the 1970s and is considered a method of new media art. Previously favoured artistic methods, such as painting, drawing, sculpture and audible arts have been transformed and repositioned in a digital environment – something that sparked mass resistance from the more traditional of creative beings.

Once the resistance subsided, artists across the globe started to embrace digital art, with some even pioneering new practices such as net art, digital installation art and virtual reality. In the modern day, the term digital art is applied to works that use some method of digitisation within their creation or, alternatively, art that uses methods of digital mass production when it comes to presentation.

What are the techniques?

There are hundreds of ways to produce digital art, but one of the most used methods is computer-generated art – also known as fractal or algorithmic art. Developed in the 1980s, computer-generated art is created by calculating fractal objects and representing the calculation results as still images, to produce a larger often abstract work of art.

Some artists however use materials from other sources to produce their work. Often images are scanned into a computer and used as an element within the final work (similar to a mash-up piece), whilst other artists work with vector graphics that are produced using a mouse or graphics tablet.

Digital paintings are also prominent in new media art. Produced in a similar way to traditional paintings, digi-paintings are created with the aid of computer software that produces pixelated brush strokes on screen or in the final print. Digital paintings are often printed as an image on canvas, just like their oil/acrylic/watercolour predecessors, or displayed on an electronic screen.

Prominent pop artist Andy Warhol was one of the first famous artists to incorporate digital art into his portfolio. Using a Commodore Amiga, he manipulated an image of Blondie front woman Debbie Harry, that was originally captured in monochrome using a video camera. He edited the image by adding colour through the method of flood fills, using an early graphics program called ProPaint. This article of Debbie Harry is widely considered one of the earliest and most notable works of digital art.

Andy Warhol’s Debbie Harry Digi-art (1985)

Source: http://images.thevine.com.au/resources/images/000/014/14549_harrydetail_010412034001_591w.png

What can I produce on a computer?

Computer-generated visual media

Visual media generated on a computer can be divided in two categories. The first is the creation of 2D visual information that can be displayed on an electronic monitor, whilst the second is information that is mathematically translated into 3D information. The latter is usually viewed through a perspective projection on an electronic monitor.

Graphics in their simplest 2D form are created via methods that reflect how artists draw using a traditional pen and paper setup. However, digital 2D graphics are drawn electronically, using a graphics tablet with a stylus or a mouse, but the final images still appear as a realistic painting or pencil drawing whilst on display on screen.

Meanwhile 3D imagery is created by using using geometric shapes in the production of three-dimensional objects and other scenes that can be ultimately used in sister media, such as film, game design or print, amongst others.

Computer-generated animated imagery

Animated digital imagery is usually produced using models that are created by specialist 3D artists. Computer-generated animated imagery is known in the film industry as CGI, and is often used in the production of special effects for the likes of the movies in the Harry Potter franchise and in Marvel films such as Iron Man and Avengers Assemble, amongst others. Computer images have been in used in movies since the 1970s, although it wasn’t until the late 90s/early 2000s that CGI became advanced enough to create animated images that looked impressively realistic.

Digital installation art

Digital installation art is often interactive, in that viewers can manipulate the art to put their own personal stamp on the installation. Most digital installations involve the use of projections or live video capture, but there are also many other techniques utilised in the production of installation art. Digital installations are a particularly good method for those artist-imagined pieces that wish to play on the viewer’s senses. Fruin’s (2003) installation at the University of Illinois in Chicago, US – entitled The Cave Automatic Virtual Environment – is a prime example of digital installation art.

With many subtypes beneath the umbrella of digital art – such as motion graphics, music visualisation, pixel art and others – this field will continue to grow alongside the further development of technology. As an already interesting field, creatives and fans of art can only become even more intrigued by the notion of digital art; it will be interesting to see which technology becomes the next virtual canvas.

Vicky works alonside Stuart Morris, a design and print studio. She is a keen illustrator and craft enthusiast who writes a range of art and design history articles as well as how-to tutorials.