Dirk

Sydney

Creative Director. UI background & UX nut. Design, drawing and basketball make my life slightly less quirky. Will out-nerd if challenged.

copywriting, front-end coding, illustration, ui, ux

Pretty Darn Evil — Logo done for a group of individuals that collectively partoo... ... you know what, it was for my World of Warcraft guild, back in 2012. Sue me. ;) Wacom, PhotoShop. Kinda fun sharing this, since it's a style that's, well... not usual, anymore :]
The devil is a blank canvas — As I near 15 years in the industry, my goals are shifting away from creating "the latest newest most awesomest" thing. Instead, I'm focused on a combination of efficiency and repaying my debt to the internet. I feel like I've not contributed to the design community as much as I should've. This is something became aware of 2 years ago, and have gradually started changing. Now I'm part of severa...
Infection Prevention branding — Infection prevention is an important part of running any health practice. Colour choices for these were pretty basic; "cop blue" and "GTFO yellow". These combined imply a sense of impending doom (our brains still associate this yellow with wasps and bees!) and a high level of authority. Posted here because, honestly, our branding was all-over-the-place... and seeing the attached assets gather...
Not complicated. Or difficult. Nor did it take ages. — I love simplicity. Especially when it comes to "let's stomp out a marketing campaign. Quickly." And design isn't always complicated or difficult. Nor does it always take ages to come to fruition. Sometimes you get a vague brief and go "... I've got it!" within seconds. And 15 minutes later, you've got a pretty decent mock-up of what your final campaign art will look like. Take a stock photo, ...
SPACE FORCE — So my American friend shows me this video of Trump talking about "SPACE FORCE". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T_nwIe8td4 ... an hour later I've drawn my first Darth Vader (always avoided him because he looked mad difficult to draw!) and created my first t-shirt. Ever. We had such a blast, such a laugh doing this. Design really can be awesome when you have an idea, pizza & beers, and a...
Cleric wizard mage thingy person. — Character art for a role-playing game we're working on. As much a test in character design as it was a test in this particular art style.
2 Dribbble invites ready to pick up! — So, I've been sitting on these two invites, and I thought it time to spread the love! Let's do this! TWEET me your portfolio!
Ready to launch? — As I've mentioned before; I love going from 0-100 FAST. For speed, simplicity is key. Get a good message, shoot it out to the target audience. The words "launch campaign" immediately triggered this idea, and 30 minutes later... lift-off! Whilst this idea might not be as original as the "WE CAN'T HIRE YOU" page, it got the job done: it provided us a solid percentage of leads, that converted i...
Headshot podcast logo — My buddy told me he was going to do a podcast for Press Start, and that they were gonna call it "HEADSHOT PODCAST". My caffeinated brain immediately envisioned a microphone getting popped in the noggin'. An hour or so later, I told him "I might have a logo for ya". Rest is history! Podcast can be found right here: http://press-start.com.au/category/podcast-2/headshot-podcast/
Moooo — Animals drawn for an iPad app for kids, by a bank! Hence the Euro coin :) It literally is what you think; tap the animal and it makes its sound. Oh the memories ;)
WE CAN'T HIRE YOU — Question: Did I make you look? What happens on a whiteboard, doesn't always STAY on a whiteboard. What you're looking at is the header of a campaign dedicated to a recruitment related product. We have a very, very small team. Currently, I'm a designer, copywriter, front-end developer for a pretty big corporate. We build and maintain several apps for the dental industry, built over the past 1...
Darkest Dungeon - Dolphin Chemist — I am involved in a lot of Twitch communities, and occasionally do some art for random streamers that I'm watching. Today, a user called DolphinChemist was streaming Darkest Dungeon. During the stream, he shouted "SOMEONE DRAW AN ELDRITCH DOLPHIN CHEMIST!" I thought that idea was hilarious, and thought I'd give it a go. Basically, this is just an attempt to copy the style of this game, since ...
Vegemite - I suppose it's easier than licking a tyre? — As a Dutch guy living in Australia, I get asked about my opinion on this stuff far too often. So... ... there it is. .edit: excuse the re-upload, due to nasty background going-ons I felt like it was a blemish on my otherwise orgasmic portfolio. (harharrharrr)
Did I mention... I work in Dental? — Messing around creating some toothpaste. This is one of those in-between thingies. Where you're not sure whether you're doodling or designing the next ad campaign for the company. They mostly happen when my caffeinated brain goes "ALRIGHT TIME FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT" They're great to get some quick inspiration out when you're having a slow, dragging Monday. Or a fast one. Any time really. ...
Confession: I never used Illustrator, even for line-art. — Popped into Illustrator to do some quick mockups for icons. It's amazing how often we've been able to use the actual mockups for projects lately. This is looking like it'll be one of those times. Related; I love drawing in Illustrator. I've used Photoshop for 95% of the drawing I've done in both my professional life and personal life. (The other 5% is MS Paint) This will change now though. Il...
Retirement jar — "Let us fund your retirement". Ad campaign scribbled with a thick, cheap felt tip, on a green post-it note. The artwork is far from flawless, but we turned it into an ad anyway, and the sketchy feeling ended up working quite well with the rest of the (very simple) branding. The slogan relates to how we help dentists sell their practice - and how we help dentists *find* the practice that will ...
Least interesting charts you'll see today. — These will quite possibly be the least exciting charts you'll see today, maybe even this week. So why are they here? Some of the work we do isn't sexy. It's not flashy, no sweet animations and doesn't have exciting new colour combinations. Instead, it fits in with older (legacy) applications and just gets the point across. There's Arial. Simple flat shapes. No fancy effects. Heck, this could...
Happy days! — Sketch for Canvas-based in-browser RPG. His name's Happy (... no lie!)
Perspective — Putting some perspective on a 1-10 score... Scoring a 9.1 out of 10 doesn't always mean you're amongst the best! (Ps: Yes, that's Arial! Legacy apps sometimes get updated too!)
Product illustrations — These illustrations accompany the story about one of our products. I used a crayon-like brush (Photoshop, Wacom) and the primary colours of our logo, grey and orange. Looking at these always reminds me that I don't draw often enough... a feeling I'm sure some of you can relate to.
Sir warrior — Another piece that was supposed to be used for a video game. I messed around a bit to make it look like a piece for a Warhammer related setting, as there were no final thoughts regarding deities at the time of creation. This piece is heavily work-in-progress, with fundamental flaws in lighting, blatant disregard of anatomy, and a general lack of respect for the laws of physics... ... but it w...
Rome — All roads lead to ... the Colosseum? Shit I had it a minute ago.
Lich — Main character for a game I've been working on, on and off. Also second honest attempt at digital drawing using a tablet, and probably my personal favorite piece. Drew it four years ago, might not have topped it yet ;) Special thanks to the graceful Paul Webb for tossing me a Dribbble invite.

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