Drips, Sprays, and Splatters
1st edition — by Patrick McNeil — Mar. 23, 2006
The Design Element
Drips, sprays, and splatters are such a fun design element. Apparently,
the element is far more flexible then one would expect. My initial thoughts
on this topic are more along the lines of the distressed style
site. But this isn't what I found when looking at the samples.
Sure some sites like Dimension Boards could easily fit into the distressed category.
But take a look at Produce Media
or
Lonnroth, both have managed
to work this bit of chaos into their ultra clean designs. Most of the sites
though seem to have a nice balance between the nice designer feel and the
ultra distressed feel. Organic Level
and
Year of the Sheep both show this combo in action.
So what is the message behind the drips? I think it brings out a bit of
an urban style. The Year of the Sheep
site in particular shows this well. With out the pink splatter, the site
would be ultra clean and feel high class. The artists work has more of
an edge to it though, so the splatter brings this element to the site design.
As it is, you get a much younger hip feeling. The
Organic Level
site uses drips to convey a sense of what the artist does in a more literal
way. This fits perfectly
considering the style of work the artist produces.
This is one of those cases where getting outside the computer can lead to
some really terrific results. I did just that and have posted some sprays
and splatters for download (bottom of this page).
All I did was play with a can of black spray paint on some white paper. Color
doesn't matter. We can easily add that in photoshop. Rather, the goal should
be to produce a high contrast texture that can be scanned in. I have also
posted a series of tutorials that provide some key guides to implementing
a style such as this (These can also be found below).
Sample Usage
Resources
Get the SplatPack -
a set of drips and splatters by ka05
Design Melt Down Tutorials
Blend If Layer Styles (The key to easily overlaying sprays)
Colorize Those Sprays
Drips With Depth
