Geometric Birds by Diana Hlevnjak
Diana Hlevnjak's concept idea behind the artwork are 4 seasons (winter, summer, autumn and spring). Every bird represents a season in a colorful abstract way, mainly through colors, minimalism and geometric shapes. Diana made this collection as graphic resources for her clients and fellow designers. She owns a vector stock shop polarvectors.com where she offer royalty free graphics that her clients use in their projects. She loves that her art helps others with their own work and creative process.
I wanted to tell a story about the changing seasons in a unique way. I know that seasons have always been a great source of inspiration. Since I am in stock graphics I can also tell when my clients have the need for seasonal images, so I thought that maybe there is a different way to describe a winter or a summer without using the "usual" elements of snow and the sun. I first tried to assemble a color palette that would describe the seasons and I wanted to use the color as the primary indicator of each season. For that reason I used abstract geometry instead of a realistically drawn landscape. The birds came at the end, just as a detail, to bring in the life into the colors. Of course, due to the latest trends in design, the birds where made in low polygon style which was a perfect match for the abstract geometric backgrounds.
- Diana Hlevnjak
I used Adobe Illustrator and I make all my illustration in vector format. I just can't get over how great vectors are and how many people still don't know their value. Vector graphics are unbelievably adjustable for every type of project. The reason I say that is because of their ability to scale, you can enlarge them to whatever size you need and the quality will stay the same, image will stay sharp, no broken pixels. If you have a raster graphics and you decide one day that you want to make an advertisement poster you will not be able to do so if the image is too small. If you have the art in vector format you can be sure that you will be able to apply it everywhere, in any size you imagine.
- Diana Hlevnjak
This project is all about stock vector resources, so that is how it came to be in the first place. I made a bird collection first, as an exploration of a upcoming "low polygon" trend. They were quite a big success, customers loved them. The great thing about stock vectors is that they can be used and reused again and again, for different subjects or projects without the feel "Ooo.. I've seen that already!" with just a little bit of creativity. Second vector resource was the "geometric shapes", again a huge success with clients, that I made while ago. The shapes were made with soft multicolored gradients with Illustrator mesh tool, the reason that those shapes were so popular were the colors. So when I started working on "4 seasons" I had a pretty good idea that color will play the main role and that geometry will bring in the contemporary feel and allow the work to stay minimal in style.
- Diana Hlevnjak
The next step was to combine geometric shapes and the birds with the colorful backgrounds. The first impression would be that the shapes and the birds are too different in style and can't match properly, but until you start playing around and combining the shapes you can`t really be sure. So, in the end, it did match great and the result was awesome. It was a pure experiment and it worked! The name was going to be "4 seasons" but when you do stock images you better leave the "artsy" names behind, stock illustrations should have a description in the name so people can find them through search.
- Diana Hlevnjak
They loved it, they would love to see a tutorial, but since this was a project that was created from 2 different separate projects it was really an experiment so tutorial didn't cross my mind at the time. I would say that I learned that there is always a way to be creative and to show something new and fresh with resources that you have, it enables you to be open minded and it saves a lot of time.
- Diana Hlevnjak
About Diana Hlevnjak
Diana Hlevnjak is an artist, designer and illustrator from Croatia, she has a master's degree in Fine Art education. Diana worked for a several years as a designer in a web and mobile development, this type of work was a great experience but it also pulled her away from illustration, which was always her priority. Soon she realized that she would love to be an independent artist, to just illustrate and do what she love the most, without the office, fixed working hours and all that comes with having a "job". She started freelancing, selling vector graphics through stock sites and finally creating her own brand and selling graphics and custom design directly from her website. She have great clients and I can say that I am truly grateful for having this type of lifestyle and freedom.