Oh yes, I think we've done it!
The past week was a hectic one, but a good one. Too much screentime, coffee and no sleep. Oh well, I passed out last night quite early with some burning eyeballs, and I'm still alive, which is a +1 too. Anyway! I figured I wanted to share something about what's happening behind the scenes of my MIA blog, as it may have seemed that I returned to be inactive again. On the contrary, The last couple of months I've been quite busy for Hive, will it be designing, or lobbying. Yes, even during my holiday. More about that later (hopefully).
Got paged by the one and only, legendary RoelandP
For those who don't know about Roeland, he is the founder of HiveFest, the biggest community event for Hive.
"I heard you can make some slick designs, can you help me out with..." Sir, yes sir! Tell me what you need, and lets make it happen. I got the idea we were working on the clock, as a tight schedule was presented when I popped the question "When do you need it?", so I had to check my calendar to see if I can move things around, or work a few hours extra in the middle of the night. Mind you, my standard working hours are 06:15 - 22:00, with a lunch and dinner break in between (for obvious reasons, man's got to eat). Just a few flyers? We should be able to make that in less than a week, right? RIGHT? YES. RIGHT. (Spoiler alert: We did)
"I cant make any promises, but..."
Here it is :)
Big ass banner
I didn't think it would look this cool when I started it, but I think this is some bad-ass result, and one that will get some eyeballs on it! I love how the red Hive symbol turned out. It's there, yet still it needs to be discovered. All you got to do is move your own two feet, walk close to it, and put some time and energy into it. I think anyone on Hive can relate to it.
Did I tell you it is a 10x8 ft big banner? THAT'S HUGE! Anyway, the idea of the glass panel came from some studies I did a few weeks ago on design, and this was the perfect moment to implement it. It worked great for the flyers!
Flyers?
Did this mfker just mention something about flyers?
WHAT FLYERS?
Well, let me elaborate
Flyers
The initial ask was to design some all-round flyers we can continue to use. At first, 
I spend some time researching on what the best approach should be, and due to a rather enclosing time frame when it should be delivered, I halted some of my work I already had planned for the week to continue to work and contribute to Hive. It has to be good, not just 'fine' or 'ok' for the time being.
The concept is 'simple'; something we can use over and over, and adjust with a few minor changes. While the idea is 'easy', executing it the right way can be challenging as something simple is often mistaken to be something easy as well. And even though I've finalized the designs, it's still an unknown adventure for these designs to see if execution has been done well. Time will tell :)
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3D
Rather than just flat designs with cool gradients or something, I explored and ventured a bit in the world of 3D once more. Why? Well, realistic 3D renders are not faulty where as 2D flat designing you'll basically are eye-balling shadows, light, comp, and refractions (or you'd need to do math, which basically comes down to the same as what 3D engines do for you). Either way, with a few simple techniques it would be making a whole lot of a difference! And much more scalable in the future.
With the help of AI, I could turn some flat designs into 3D models which were half-baked most of the time, but some of them were pretty useful. Damn, the memory of figuring out how to display 'community' the easiest way possible, without having a 'family' emoji or corporate group-shoot as a 3D render, is still fresh in my mind. Gratitude is what I mostly feel when I check back on Hive. The people, the connections, the gift of rewards, in terms of trust and favor.
Simple shading, with not that complex shaders/textures, I was sooner than later on my way to implement the 3D objects into my design. Each of them having the same light source, and similar shading texture to make it feel cohesive and part of each other.
But damn, at some point I was rendering a 10x8ft background design that took about 2.5 hours to finish. Lol. What happened to the flyers Roeland? Got to love my job, which I truly do.
FYI: that's 32K by ~29K pixels, and about 1.25GB for a frigging PNG.
So why did Roeland end up sliding into my DM's?
 | Well, I can only make assumptions, but it had probably something to do with the designs I made Conf3rence event in Germany. @Guiltyparties requested a design for the booth. Something I haven't done in a long time. But hey, I love Hive, and I love to be able to contribute to our path forward and share my theory on how I look at designs and the strategy/concept behind it. As well as it meant some growth for myself in design. |
You might have seen photographs of the booth with the happy faces of 
Hope you guys like the designs, andddd it also will be a small sneakpeak on what to look out for during HiveFest!
Who's going to be @ HiveFest? (I'm jealous).
Cheers,
Ruben