I compiled some of my greatest tips for creatives in a tight package called the Creative Producer Guide. Are you an artist, composer or graphics designer who want to boost your creativity? Are you looking for creative inspiration? This guide is for YOU!

Furthermore, in the guide you gain access to inspiring topics to build your artistic confidence and career.

The Creative Guide – Topics

• Boost your creative mindset
• Turn the bad into good
• Inspiration and reference collections
• Build your artist brand
• Picking the right name for your brand

Sign up and gain access to the pdf!

All you have to do is sign up to the – Morningdew Media Weekly and the guide will be sent to your email.

Don’t worry, the Morningdew Media Weekly is only sent out once every week with tons of great tips, articles and videos and general ideas / philosophies for creatives.

What’s the Free Creative Guide about?

The Creative Booster Guide focus on the mindset of a creative.

Firstly, it’s a collection of inspirational tips for creatives. Secondly, you will get some tools to defeat writers block. Moreover, we talk about artist branding and your social profile. In conclusion, the idea is to give you a solid direction to build your confidence and artistic brand.

Is the Free Creative Guide for me?

My hope is that it will inspire you to see things with fresh eyes. Importantly, I want to spark ideas on how to approach your craft.

This guide is written with a broad perspective on the creative process and obstacles we face as creators. Furthermore, you learn how to tackle real life situations. In conclusion, you learn how to get going faster with focus and confidence.

The Creative Booster Guide is Suitable for artists, musicians, composers, sound designers, illustrators, graphics designers and entrepreneurs.

When you start on a new project and the page is blank. It’s easy to get the freeze / writers block and fall down the famous rabbit hole. Download the guide and give it a spin before you start creating.

Why the Free Creative Booster Guide?

I created this guide to help you take the big leap upwards with great confidence. Those first stumbling steps can be daunting, I know. Above all, my hope is that these shared, real life tips will give you a new perspective.

During my years as a creative I’ve absorbed various ways of working and thinking. Importantly, I think it’s crucial we have the right tools when working in this field. This guide has been long in the planning. Finally, early 2019 I started to gather my notes and begin this inspirational document for creatives.

Boost Your Creativity With Creative Booster Tips

My approach is that there is always something new to learn. The journey really has no end. It’s always good for your personal growth to let yourself be inspired by new ideas, colors and shapes around you. Don’t lock the door and NEVER stop trying.

Importantly, don’t be afraid to fail. Life is a rollercoaster of ups and downs.

If we fail on a venture we get important information on what works and what does not work. Above all, this is some valuable information to tune in your material for the next interation.

In conclusion, the win is just postponed a bit along your path. Have faith on your journey.

Welcome to the party!

Boost Your Productions – Pristine Sound Packs

The post FREE Creative Guide – Boost your skills! appeared first on Morningdew Media.

In this video we look at some tools that will ease up the strain on your body while working with audio editing, film editing, animation etc. Work Smarter In The Studio 2019 with a Wacom Intous Pro drawing tablet!

Importantly, you need this if you work long hours with audio editing & film editing.

Tools that will help you work smarter

In the video we look at how the Wacom Intous Pro will enhance the workflow in your DAW – Logic Pro X, Bitwig Studio 2 and FL Studio 20. I’ve been using the Wacom Intous Pro for a long time and never looked back.

It has helped me ease up the strain and load on my wrists, shoulders and neck.

Wacom Intous Pro (affiliate link):
https://amzn.to/2Sxlgk5

Another excellent choice is the XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro. It’s a 15.6 Inch Drawing Monitor Pen Display Graphic Monitor. Featuring Full-Laminated Graphic Tablet Display with Tilt Function and Red Dial (8192 Levels Levels Pen Pressure, 120% sRGB) Pen

Another excellent tool to help you work smarter in the studio

Some other great tools which can help you work smarter in the studio are hardware controllers like the Maschine mk3. Using outboard hardware is a great way of breaking away from the computer mouse. While working with hardware with a different layout you will relieve your shoulders, wrists and body from the static motions of the everyday office.

I recently wrote an article and produced a video on using the Maschine Jam with Bitwig Studio. It has helped med tremendously to reduce wrist pain and make it more fun to work with music production in the studio.

This is not a sponsored video. I only recommend the tools that I use on a daily basis to produce quality content in media productions.

I hope you find this video helpful in your decision to upgrade your studio gear with tools that makes your day better.

What gear I use in the studio? Check out the Resources Page.

Join my exclusive community: https://www.patreon.com/gelhein

Be sure to sign up to our newsletter for new exciting articles in design, music production and sound design.

The post Work Smarter In The Studio 2019 appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Do you struggle trying to find a great topic to write about. Do you find it hard to come up with content for your next marketing video that should reach out and grab your audience attention.

In this article I will reveal my 5-step process for creating new topics and content for the articles, videos and general things I create.

How to find great topics for new blog post videos?

The topic should answer a question and give value to your audience.

Are you a marketing or communication strategist creating content for a company or specific brand? These tricks that I found might be helpful in deciding on content for your next potential marketing campaign.

We want to build a strong relation with our audience, without direct and obnoxious self promotion.

I’ve been writing a lot of new articles lately and wanted to share with you a little insight into my process of creating articles and videos. How I go about answering the right questions and giving real value to the viewers / readers.

Creating a logo for your brand – article coming soon!

Firstly, one of my upcoming articles is about – Creating logos for brands and products. It’s not totally finished and I want it to be complete before I release it. Sorry, no beta versions with blue screens all over the place (sorry Windows). =)

Finding a great topic for new posts, articles and videos

Let’s say you have a blank page and you want to come up with a great topic.

Begin by asking questions, or more importantly, look at what your audience and/or customers are struggling with. It’s OK to answer questions from your own struggles, but by answering questions that your customers are asking you are giving real value.

Leave the self promotion, give value and your customers will love you!

You can find these questions all over the place (and internet).

Just take a look at your customer polls and customer support emails. Recent questions on your social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or whatever.

I know technology changes faster than ever, and it’s very hard to keep up to speed with all the new topics and relevant trends. But if you have extensive experience in a subject or skill I am sure there are plenty of questions that you could answer for your audience.

And the great thing is that this preparation and research does NOT have to take hours of your valuable time.

If it does, I am sure it will pay off since you might discover several other articles and content relevant to the article / video that you are preparing.

Google is your friend for finding new topics!

Just type anything into the Google Search Engine and it will probably auto-suggest some phrases for you.

After that you scroll down on that first search result page you will see related posts that Google suggests. These are all valuable questions that people ask and want to know more about.

Take the Google Search Phrases into account when picking the topic for your next post. It will help you select a relevant topic!

I select a topic. It might have been something I’ve struggled with myself, or a topic I know creative people struggle with. I’ve worked in the media and entertainment industry for over 15 years, and I’ve seen my share of “road bumps” along the way. Or, “Betong-grisar” as we call them in Sweden.

Let yourself be inspired by others

You probably worked with tons of great people through the years who inspired you in some way? Use that inspiration to your advantage when selecting the topic for your next article!

I have worked with many talented creatives both in graphics design, photography, programming geniuses and authors. And of course many music artists who could play with their main instrument upside down. Importantly, they all shared a deep passion for their profession.

That passion is very inspiring and I learned a lot just by observing them and absorbing as much as I could when our paths crossed in life.

Inspiration and energy from other creative people, helped me create the content I do today!

Like these articles (with video) about:

How to create cinematic sounds

How to design album cover graphics in Affinity Designer for iPad

Shooting from the hip – is not the very best way of hitting a target

My past process of preparing material for a video looked something like this:

1. I picked a topic from the top of my head. A question I have been asking myself and solved in a more or less clever way.
2. I would do some minor preparations like setting up the camera in a decent position.
3. Shoot!
4. …
5. Re-shoot x 40 (because I was unprepared on the topic…)

This is not the very best method. It’s like shooting from the hip… several times without hitting the target.

I know, I hate that “shooting from the hip” saying too. But it was a favourite quote of an old friend with which I shared a company a few years back. It kinda stuck. haha!

Nonetheless, it’s not a very focused way of attacking a topic and it might not answer a relevant question to your audience. But maybe you are not building an audience? =)

I’m sure you are!

How can we improve on our topics and video content?

If you are building an audience there is a much better way to prepare our topic and content. Importantly, it will laser focus your topic to a relevant question asked by your customers.

With this 5-step workflow we will enhance our content and get a more clean video with a clear message.

Improved way of preparing a topic and content for your video:

1. Research the topic: look what the audience and customers are asking. Google the phrases, rinse and repeat until you find phrases that are super relevant.
2. Write a script: this does not have to be a novel. But can be anything from an article, blog post or bullet point lists. As long as you have a  question and an answer clearly written out.
3. Short Intro: prepare a short introduction for the topic in your script, when you read it out loud it should be no longer than 10 – 30 sec, and clearly present what your article is about.
4. Prepare an outro: this should summerize the video in short. This “closer” is important to give your audience a reason to go back to your other / new content.
5. Shoot!

Wow, we didn’t have to re-shoot this video as many times. =)

And our video just got 100% improved in all areas just by doing a little research and preparations.

It’s a wrap

It’s no big surprise that this workflow has improved the process of creating a great topic and content relevant to the questions of your community.

I hope this article helps you in your struggle in How to find great topics for new blog post videos. These are some general tips and tricks to help you decide on new topics and creating content for your upcoming marketing videos.

Now back to the writing with a sharpened pencil (or Apple Pen).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via the contact page.

AUTHOR – Mattias Holmgren / Creative Director 
@ Morningdew Media

What gear I use in the studio? Check out the Resources Page.

Join my exclusive community: https://www.patreon.com/gelhein

Be sure to sign up to our newsletter for new exciting articles in design, music production and sound design.

The post How to find great topics for new blog post videos appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Today we are going to talk about the process of creating album graphics in Affinity Designer for iPad. We are going to talk briefly about the software and then do the walkthrough on creating the cover. I will be taking you from the concept idea, through the image / photo selection and processing to the importance of triangles and the final polish before we are done.

I am warming up my design skills after the vacation today. We have had the hottest summer ever in Sweden which is both wonderful and troublesome. Didn’t see that one coming our way in the cold north. The heat has worn off and so it’s time to boot up that Mac and get back to the reality of fun work in the fresh autumn breeze.

What is Affinity Designer

Before we dig in to the production of a product cover let’s just first discuss what kind of app Serif developed in Affinity Designer.

If you are unfamiliar with the app I would say that it is a superb vector and pixel application for designers. The app draws inspiration from the famous desktop programs Photoshop and Illustrator. It combines the two into one solid package and also goes beyond when it comes to usability, stability and modern features. Oh, and that sleek modern design and color scheme of Affinity just make you design better things. Hrm, well I wish!

I’ve been working with Affinity Designer desktop version for many years on multiple client design projects for the webb, print and mobile apps. So I was pretty eager to try out the iPad version.

Can we really let go of our precious Illustrator?

Yes, indeed!

Artboards – excellent layout overview

One great feature of Affinity is that you have something called artboards which could be described as separate documents within a document. You can easily setup each page of a product folder or each page of a business card as a separate artboard.

The artboards give you a very good overview and can separate parts of your design layouts very easily.

The three main workspaces of Affinity Designer

Affinity Designer is split into three major workspaces: Draw Persona, Pixel Persona and the Export Persona. In the Draw Persona you create and manipulate vector shapes, in the Pixel Persona pixel graphics and finally in the Export Persona you adjust how you want your final images output.

If you ever created icon graphics for applications you know how cumbersome it can be to create all the different icon sizes. Or setup batch scripts / macros that create the different sizes for us.

One minor adjustment to your icon and you have to do several steps to render out new icons.

Fear no more!

Image export that just makes you smile…bigtime!

With Affinity Designer the image export is a breeze in the Export Persona. There you define which areas of your artboards to export. It’s like a super macro batch exporter where you also set file formats and target resolution. Export a press ready PDF/X-4, a fully layered PSD, SVG or EPS file.

There are tons of great presets for the exporter and note that you can define multiple export files for a single image. It’s just the best export function I have ever seen in a application. Definitely a big leap for modern graphic apps.

A great mobile solution for designers

These excellent functions would be so great to be able to have on a mobile device like the iPad Pro.

And now we haven’t even touched the easy and straight forward vector editing functions of Affinity Designer which we will cover later in this post. So the desktop app have been around a few years and some years back I bought the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil to research if I could transition some of the design work to a more mobile solution.

Serif posted that they had started the development of Affinity Designer for iPad but it was in a early closed beta and development focus seemed to be on the photographic oriented app, Affinity Photo.

Then we have the price question:

Everyone (your old favourite graphic software) is going subscription based payment model. It’s kind of sad since you might have already payed for the software previously.

I understand the importance of regular income if you are running a product development company since I’ve been developing quite a few products myself.

Most recently a bunch of iOS and Android apps for the family audience with Morningdew Media. You need a constant cashflow from the product in order to make all the necessary updates to keep the audience happy. And get those important 5 star ratings (or was it rantings?).

I was very glad to see that Affinity offers the app for a one time fee of £19.99 (209 SEK) which is a bargain if you look at the quality you get.

And now for the ultimate of questions:

Is it possible to go all in mobile with designing vector graphics and product layouts?

When Affinity Designer finally was released I instantly got my hands on it to see if Serif could translate the app to the touch environment of the iPad. I wanted to see if I could actually do some serious vector and design work on the iPad rather than the desktop app. The iPad Pro has quite some power, let’s see if we get the chance to play with all that power?

How to design album cover graphics in Affinity Designer for iPad

Ok, so now we have some background on the software we will be using. Let’s discuss the design workflow and how we design album cover graphics for the single – Fly.

The story behind the album cover – Fly

I’ve composed a new single song called – Fly. It will be released very soon under the artist name Gelhein. The music is a mixture of future bass and chill out electro. Fly is a uplifting track featuring a new vocalist I just started working with. I am currently wrapping up the final pieces before it’s release so why not do the album cover graphics as the first real sharp project in Affinity Designer for iPad.

Selecting a design direction and color scheme for the album cover

The song is about trying new things in life and to step out of your comfortzone. Keep the faith and to not be afraid of failing. The music is a mixture of chill out, future bass and pop with a banging and uplifting chorus. I’m a big fan of the uplifting future bass genre featuring artists like Said the sky, Illenium, Seven Lions etc.

So how do we start? Where do we go from nothing to something?

Let’s first come up with a few keywords (not Adwords keywords). But rather keywords that define our product, the song in this case. I always make some quick notes of the key ingredients that I come up with before I start the actual design of the cover graphics.

The key ingredients should not be overwhelming or hard to grasp, remember the key here is that simple is better. If you choose too many keys you probably have…too many keys. Thus the title Keeper of the seven keys (Helloween *hint hint*).

Sorry I got carried away, I know, once a rocker always a rocker.

…the key here is that simple is better.

So my keywords quickly materialised in:

1. Blue & light green colors – inspiration from mediterranean beaches and earth colors, slightly washed out
2. Heart – since it’s about keeping faith
3. Wings – since the title is fly, obviously. =)
4. Clouds
5. High Mountains – as a background
6. Flying eagles, angles, deamons (nah… this is for uplifting future bass music, not a metal record)

In what direction do we take the keywords?

Let’s stop there and just take a quick summary of what we got.

A cloudy mountain scenery backdrop with a character flying (or wanting to fly) in the foreground. But how do we get the heart of love and faith into this. Since I already mentally selected a mountain background as the backdrop maybe we could start thinking about symbols or signs instead. Thus I came up with the idea of the person making a heart sign with the hands.

We don’t want too many images within the image or things will start to get too complicated. Remember, simplicity is the key.

The cover will be much easier to read if we keep things simple.

The cover will be much easier to read if we keep things simple. There are of course great covers with plenty of details too, but I found it more relevant today to keep things less cluttered.

Some early ideas of a strong flying eagle in the background was excluded, and replaced with the idea of putting wings to the character in the foreground instead.

After the cover image was composited I would color correct and make adjustments to make the overall tone of the image blue and ocean green.

Although I kept the colors in mind while doing all the parts to keep myself within the color range.

Finding a great background to set the tone of the album cover graphics

I have a large batch of nice photos taken from all over the world but sometimes it’s faster to find a great stock photo online. There are plenty of great free stock photos on the web, if you have the eyes to know what you are looking for.

And if you have done your keyword homework…right?

There are plenty of ugly and dull photos too, if you are not comfortable selecting images, hire a professional designer.

Do not to forget the copyright license format of the images you select, make sure that they are free for personal and commercial use. Important!

I found the nice backdrop from the website  – Pexels since I knew exactly what I was looking for. In this case a mountain rising from the sea with some mist or clouds above.

I tried playing around with some additional layers of clouds on top of the mountain but, but I felt I had to step back and let the photo breath. Again, simplicity won!

Designing the flying character in blue

I did a quick search in my photo library and on a few stock sites but didn’t find a suitable character to fit the album cover. I thought about painting the character to get the heart sign included but that would take the cover into a completely different direction. With the mountain photo we selected earlier we established a photographic realistic cover design.

So one option was to take a photo myself. In the back of my mind I remembered a blue training jacket that was hanging in the wardrobe. This would be a great match for the album cover graphics color scheme.

I knew it’s very easy to mask out objects with Affinity Designer so I was not that bothered with the background of the photo as you can see. I could match the light of the scene from the mountain photo by taking the character photo on a cloudy but not too murky day.

Always make sure to match the light as much as you can if you are merging images from different scenes.

I also found a great closeup photo of an eagle spreading it’s wings. It was a breeze masking and cutting out one of the wings with the selection tool.
After selecting your object you can refine the selection with some nifty tools that Affinity offer to make the selection even better. And it’s very accurate and fast to work with!

Making the images work together

And so it was time to merge the images and put things together in Affinity Designer.
I created a new project file with the size 3000 x 3000 pixels which would be enough for the target platforms of Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes etc.

Then I imported the mountain, eagle wings, logo and character into the project. Selected a cropping size for the mountain where I felt there would be enough space for a logo on the top. The character was placed in the center and the wings resized and rotated to look good and embrace the logo on the top.

To all images I added a adjustment layer with the color curves to adjust and ever so slightly pull all colors towards the right color scheme I had defined.

It’s almost like glue, when you do these subtle or mild changes you feel that the scene comes together.

Creating vector shapes in the Draw Persona

In the Draw Persona I created a vector sigill with some basic symbols and markings. The sigill was put on a multiply layer above the character which would enhance the zen like (or alien) state of the piece. The tilted (or shared) blue rectangle on the top beneath the logo was added as a “breaker” to give the image a little bit of odd angles, I’m a big fan of triangles in designs. Ever played The Legend Of Zelda, maybe Breath of the wild in particular where they went bananas with the triangle theme.

Add triangles to your designs to make them more interesting.

After that it was only a matter of adding some grit and a small amount of color filter to the image to make it glue even more. It’s almost like using a compressor or mastering device on a song. You make the piece feel complete and finished.

On top of it all with very low opacity setting I created a vector box with a light color and added a ton of grain. There’s a slider where you can control how much grain you want to add to all surfaces / faces of your vector shapes. It’s very useful to get some movement and life into the sterile world of digital art.

Nothing is perfect!

Exporting the finished album cover graphic

After that I felt the image was complete and clicked the Export Persona and exported the image as a png and also as a smaller jpg for lighter emails etc.

Case closed!

I hope you found this design case interesting, and that you can take something with you from the ideas I presented. If you have any questions or design requests please do get in touch.

Thanks for reading, and have a splendid weekend!

Cheers,

Mattias Holmgren / Creative Director

Morningdew Media AB

About the author:

Mattias Holmgren is a creative director sailing from Sweden. He runs Morningdew Media and works as a freelancer for various creative design, app, music and sound design projects. He has lectured in both music production and app publishing & marketing. Became fluent in programming in the young teens. Developed small game projects on various computers in different languages, then went to music & design school. Released a bunch of albums with a bunch of metal bands. Graduating from bands to composition then production, he relishes the chance to play anything that makes noise. The past years Mattias has developed and released a floura of apps for the kids and family market, apps like; Nisse Playful (Lek och lär med Nisse), Playful Math, Nisses Music and Luminati. On YouTube you can find multiple technical tutorials from Mattias where he teaches and spreads love around design, art and music.

About this post
I use affiliate links on my website, but my opinion isn’t for sale. Therefore, I only recommend what I use, have used or vetted in the best interest of my readers. While I may earn a commission if you click on an affiliate link, it won’t cost you extra. Finally, I hope you like my recommendations. Feel free to contact me if you have questions regarding some of the gear I use!

What gear I use in the studio? Check out the Resources Page.

Join my exclusive community: https://www.patreon.com/gelhein

Be sure to sign up to our newsletter for new exciting articles in design, music production and sound design.

The post How to design album cover graphics in Affinity Designer for iPad appeared first on Morningdew Media.

First out is the animation project we did with Norra Skogsägarna.

https://www.morningdewmedia.com/projects/norra-skogsskolan-intro-animation-and-sound-post-mortem/

The post Intro animation and sound post mortem appeared first on Morningdew Media.

The post Norra – new web published appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Sound match and music making app released!
We are proud to reveal our latest iOS app release today – Nisses Music – Sound Match and music making.

Welcome to the sound playground!
Nisses Music is a 3-in-1 game with Sound Match, Groovebox and an awesome Augmented Reality mode. Made for kids and young adults as a fun play and learn experience in the wonderful world of Nisse Playful.

Practise your sound recognition memory with the Sound Match game, beat the best hiscores.Unleash your creativity in the Groovebox and explore rhythmic and melodic ideas.Learn what different instruments sounds like.Make Nisse a part of your livingroom with the augmented reality mode.
* Available for iPad and iPhone

Download Nisses Music from iTunes App Store Download Nisses Music- Sound Match!

The post Sound match and music making app released for iOS devices appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Check out Marsiascope on Spotify!

We also now have a brand new showreel video for Motion Graphics, Design and Audio which you should check out!

The post New single and showreel video appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Just arrived back from Cyprus after a week of sunny vacation. The swedish summer was not that good this year so I needed to take a quick break in the sun with the family. It was a blast!

At the moment I am finishing the third animation film for Norra Skogsskolan called “I skogen växer välfärden”. I am also working with multiple game companies on music and sound for some new games. They will probably be officially announced sometime in 2018.

I had the pleasure to work with the film company AJP again from (South Korea) and finished the score for a new shortfilm called FENDER.

I got the new Maschine Mk3 from Native Instruments and have had tons of fun with it and I see many potential creative sound design possibilities for future projects. So it is now a defined part of my creative setup. Recorded a quick video while jamming out a chillout vibe song that I produced called Marsiascope.

Last weekend me and my brother Nicklas had a game jam session and worked on a new game project we have been talking about for months. You can watch some character concepts and small animation clips on my twitter account.

The post The Secret Of Game jam appeared first on Morningdew Media.