Guide: Depth & Flow, Part II - Flow

[FAoOHxSniperFox]

View part one of this guide here: Part I - Depth

FLOW

I would like to point out that, unlike depth, flow is almost always a necessary thing. A signature doesn't always have to have depth - that really depends on the signature, and the style - but there should always be a general direction in which your signature "moves", otherwise, it ends up being a bit of an eyesore.

The main purpose of flow, is to guide your viewer's eye to where you want it - to your focal point. A poor flow can end you up with a poor, likely confusing, or boring, signature. As such, it's a tad bit more important than depth - as a break in the flow can really break the entire tag.

The main thing you want to watch out for, is the image itself that you choose for your signature/project. This makes all of the difference. If your stock/render has no flow to it, then your signature will likely have no flow as well.

Let's start by showing an example of a good render choice, and a bad one.

A Good Render Choice

THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN RESIZED FROM IT'S ORIGINAL FORM. As you can see, there is good movement in this render. She is leaning to the right - we can work with that. There's also a good sense of lighting in this render as well - helpful for depth.


A Bad Render Choice

Aside from this render being poorly cut and of poor quality - it's also very static. He's doing nothing but standing straight up and down. There's nothing really going on here, and it's overall very boring.

Flow is not just achieved by the image you choose, however - it's also built with your effects. C4Ds, Pen Tooling, Brushing, etc. These things can make or break the flow of your signature massively.

Take that Lightning render for example. If I were to use it in a signature, and have my effects going to the left, while she leans to the right - your eyes wouldn't really know which way to focus. "Where is the focal? Is it the effects, or is it the character?"

It's like playing a mission based game - the character, or whatever your focal is, is your objective - the effects are the game's way of telling you how to get there.

Here, let me give you a visual example.

The following, are 2 examples of signatures WITH flow, and 2 examples of signatures WITHOUT flow.

WITH FLOW



WITHOUT FLOW

As you can see, the top 2 signatures have a sense of direction to them - they guide your eyes to their focal. The other 2 are very static and stale - there's no movement what-so-ever in them.

This is pretty much all I can give you on this subject - and it goes for more than just signatures - any design work should really follow this, be it web design or advertising, graphic and logo design, etc.

RESOURCES

FLOW Tutorial by =FluidStudios@deviantART ~ Flow Tutorial
SigTutorials.com - Creating Flow Using The Liquify Tool
Samus Flow Signature Tutorial via Photoshop Professor
UnderGround Forum - Creating Flow in a Signature Tutorial

[RaXavier]

sweet ty