Graphic design is an ever expanding creative discipline. A great designer is not just someone who is skilled and versatile on the tools. Great designers are also exceptionally rigorous researchers. We would argue that the ability to research and continually invest time in expanding your knowledge of graphic design styles, both contemporary and historical, is a key ingredient to being an exceptional designer. This is true whether you plan to work in-house or focus on freelance client work. Every designer must cultivate a rich personal library of references to work from, because these become the ingredients of your own design process.

• Illustrator Graphic Style Libraries Near Me
• Illustrator Graphic Styles Library Free
• Free Illustrator Graphic Style Libraries
• Illustrator Graphic Style Libraries Free

Historically, the generation of new design styles is a cyclical one. If you aren’t aware of where design has been, trends in design can seem to rise and fall on the daily, as though out of thin air. In reality, new stylistic approaches in design develop by taking a little from what came before and a lot from what is happening around it, whether that is in art, film, fashion, politics, music or society in general.

Each design style listed here can be recognisable based on certain elements or design choices. These key components of style can be specific, such as precisetypographic choices, a preference for illustrated or photographic images or the strong use of grids. Alternatively they can be more general, like a tendency to a flat depth of field to the design, thecolour choices, the prominence of negative space or the quality of the lines used in imagery.

First, select the Symbol Styler tool (if you select a graphic style first, then Illustrator will apply the graphic style to the entire selected symbol set). Then choose a graphic style from the Graphic Styles panel by going to Window → Graphic Styles, and click or drag across symbol instances for a gradual increase in a graphic style. Choose Open Graphic Style Library from the Graphic Styles palette to see great options for 3D effects and shapes, buttons and rollovers, textures, and much more. Patterns can be used to fill objects (fill patterns) or can be applied to a path with the Brushes palette (brush patterns). The characters and forms depicted in this design style possess flowing curves which speak to the unique forms found in nature. The design style is whimsical, romantic and highly technical. A perfect example of a well-known practitioner of this style is the Czeck-painter, illustrator and graphic artist Alphonse Mucha. Create a New Document in Adobe Illustrator and open the Graphic Styles panel. Notice how a handful of default styles are visible, but our new styles we used in the previous file are not. Go to the panel's Options Open Graphic Style Library diamondstyle in order to load the downloaded styles we placed in the preset folder previously.

At Shillington, we teach you how to make research a fundamental part of your design process. You will develop diverse and well researched references for each brief you tackle, which in turn allows you to back up and argue for your design choices as they relate to the brief. Read on to learn more about the history of graphic design styles, what their key features are and how you can use them tocreate an incredible portfolio.

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is a style of architecture, decorative art and graphic design which rose to prominence in Western Europe and the USA during the late nineteenth century, continuing into the early twentieth century, reaching its peak by the 1920s.

The key characteristic features of this style are the bold outlines and flat yet intricately hand-illustrated designs and typefaces. The characters and forms depicted in this design style possess flowing curves which speak to the unique forms found in nature. The design style is whimsical, romantic and highly technical.

A perfect example of a well-known practitioner of this style is the Czeck-painter, illustrator and graphic artist Alphonse Mucha. His designs graced posters and advertisements of the era, yet his work has also consistently crossed into fine art with paintings and lavish object designs. Characteristic not only of Mucha’s work, Art Nouveau is known for the consistent use of the female form. Most Art Nouveau designs depict sumptuously dressed women, often crowned with flowers, poised amongst beautiful depictions of plants and nature.

Characteristics

• Intricate illustrative style
• Bold, heavy weighted outlines
• Hand drawn and coloured
• Use of natural forms
• Use of a natural colour and tonal palette
• Regularly features female personas

Art Deco

Art Deco is a form of design, visual arts and architecture which came to prominence as a symbol of luxury, wealth and sophistication in challenge to the austere influence of World War I. A diminutive of Arts Décoratifs, the name was taken from the 1925 Parisian exhibition titled ‘Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes’ which was the first to feature works of this style.

The characteristics synonymous with this graphic design style are bold curves, strong vertical lines, capitalised type, rich contrasting colours, aerodynamic forms, airbrushing, motion lines and the geometric treatment of patterns and surface.

Of its era, Art Deco became a popular style utilised for advertising. The style was at once progressive and expansive, yet never crossed the line into outrageous. It was enticing, familiar yet exciting. Art Deco style lent itself perfectly to the purpose of promoting luxury brands, fashion labels and far flung travel destinations.

Interestingly, you could google almost any location alongside the words art deco and find a classic tourism poster from this style. Try it and see what you find.

Characteristics

• Bold geometric shapes
• Use of vertical and motion lines
• Capitalised typefaces
• High contrast in colours
• Flat (in terms of depth)

American Kitsch

The influence of Art Deco lasted long after the 1930s, inspiring a proliferation of new design styles. One unique style which followed was American Kitsch. This design approach rose to prominence in the 1940s to 1960s in the USA, with an idealised, cartoon-like illustrative style. American kitsch designs of this era were known for their particular font styles and a futuristic stylisation with dramatised or caricatured imagery.

The graphic design style is synonymous with informal shapes, rich and high contrasting colour use, hand drawn and coloured illustrations, space-age forms and dramatic curves. We might observe a cross-pollination between American Kitsch design and the tone of voice in the advertising and signage of the day. Both employed the characteristic idealism of the American dream, peppered with caricatures. Film posters offer some of the best examples of American Kitsch style film, especially those of the science fiction or fantasy genres.

Characteristics

• Contrasting imagery and fonts
• Cartoon-like illustrative images
• Bold, vibrant colours
• People in dramatic poses
• Aerodynamic shapes

Swiss/International

Originating in Switzerland in the 1940s, Swiss style design has concurrently been referred to as the International Typographic Style or the International Style. Hugely influential, this style of design was the foundation upon which the majority of design movements grew throughout the 20th century. Favouring objectivity, simplicity and legibility, this design style was initiated and led by the designers of the Zurich School of Arts and Krafts and the Basel School of Design.

Few other schools of design contributed as much to last century’s stylistic innovations. In particular the use of grids and asymmetrical layouts, alongside sans-serif typography were amongst the most prominent stylistic developments. The combination of typography and a general preference for photographic images are also noted as key characteristics, though colourful, geometric block illustrations were also common.

The style demanded a clean coherent design space, with a considerable amount of negative space given amongst elements.

As with Art Deco, poster design in particular became one of the most influential forms of the Swiss/ International design style.

Josef Müller-Brockmann is amongst the most celebrated graphic designers of the 20th Century. As a figurehead of the Swiss style, his designs offer a veritable cornucopia of references. Müller-Brockmann studied at the Zurich School of Arts, previously noted here as one of the key institutions from which this design style sprung. His work is praised for its simplified, gridded design approach and a preference for unornamented typefaces, such as the sans-serifAkzidenz-Grotesk typeface.

Characteristics

• Consistent use of negative space
• Saturated, matte colour palettes
• Very ‘clean’ and simple
• Sans serif fonts favoured
• Asymmetrical layouts

Psychedelic

The phenomena of psychedelic design, art and music is synonymous with the 1960s and 1970s. It influenced and was influenced by the style of dress, philosophy, literature and culture of the time, while holding sway over the design culture throughout the decade. It still emerges as a recycled stylisation in design today.

In its epoch, psychedelic design sought to encapsulate and inhabit the mood of the era—a time of hallucinogenic drug trips, counter cultural exploration and innovation.

Band and concert posters of the 1960s to 1970s offer a vast reference library for this style. We see the use of bright and clashing colours, illegible hand-drawn curvaceous type, abstracted curvilinear shapes and metaphysical or surreal illustrative or photographic subject matter. The psychedelic design style harbours the influence of Art Nouveau designs, particularly in the hand-drawn type and consistent use of images depicting women or the female form.

Characteristics

• Influenced by the psychedelic drug culture
• Intense, clashing colours
• Type and image use influenced by Art Nouveau
• Hand-drawn type generally illegible and hard to read
• Abstracted curvaceous forms and design elements

Punk

A strong ethos of DIY and anti-establishment attitude permeates all aspects of punk design. The rawness of this form of design came from the culture in which it originated in the late 1970s punk music movement. The design of the time spoke to the individual designers and artists creating these works. Most were entirely untrained as designers and usually were the band members or friends of the bands whose posters they made.

Their limited means—sometimes only scissors, found print media, a camera and a photocopier— heavily informed the way they designed.

Iconic elements of the punk design style are the DIY hand written or cut and paste typographic elements. Often designers collaged text using found and incongruous type elements—haphazardly intermingling bold serif and sans serif typefaces to achieve the classic punk style.

Punk design style lives on in contemporary zine culture, album cover designs and DIY poster design. These creative communities often operate from the position of having low to no budget. The cheap and readily available production mediums of screen printing and photocopying offer punk design a consistent aesthetic which is very easily emulated.

Characteristics

• Low quality, photocopier printed images
• Grainy and matt screen printing effects
• Found and collaged type
• Predominantly photographic imagery
• High contrast, bold colours
• Overall rough, textured aesthetic

Grunge

Emerging as a design style in the wake of the millennium, grunge takes its name and inherent style from the 90s music and subculture movement, synonymous with Nirvana and the Seattle sound. Distressed and layered textures, ripped and uneven edges alongside a rather chaotic approach to layouts are all key features of grunge design. While there are certainly some nods to what punk design created, grunge is very much a unique design style.

Embracing the grit and urban grime that was endemic to the 90s grunge scene, this style embraces the use of many critically avoided approaches in design. Uneven lines, crooked elements, dirty stains, badly hand-written text and very grainy or torn photographs all play their part in conveying the tone of grunge style.

Some popular and recognisable contemporary uses of grunge design style can be seen in the branding of skateboarding companies and magazines, band websites and gig posters, alternative fashion brands, music venues and street art culture.

Characteristics

• Dirty textures and background images
• Irregular lines and crooked elements
• Dirty stains such as coffee rings and spilled out liquids
• Torn images and paper edges
• Hand-written and hand-drawn elements

Minimalist and Flat

Minimalist and flat designs are a current graphic design style, which first started to gain popularity in the 2010s. This style is easily recognised for its monochromatic or limited approach to colour use, minimal shading, bold line work, strict adherence to grids, crisp photographic images, simplified linear illustrations and a preference for sans serif typefaces.

Reflecting historically, this style lends some kinship with Swiss style design, especially the strong grid use, though here its outcomes are symmetrical. This style is a return to a celebration of clean, highly legible design.

The ongoing popularity of minimalist and flat design is palpable. It is utilised in every sphere design is found, from branding and packaging, to editorial, infographics and digital. This style is everywhere because when done well it offers clean, stylish and easy to read design outcomes which are easily translated across every design format.

Iconic examples of the minimalist design style can be seen in the branding of well-known skincare company Aesop, whose brown glass bottles and minimally designed packaging are recognised as a style icon globally. An example from print and editorial would be art and travel magazine Cereal, with its sleekly designed covers and efficient, minimalist layouts. In all, despite seeming sparse, this approach to design offers our digital age a versatile approach for the effective communication of information, branded style and story telling.

Characteristics

• No depth of field
• Minimalist design space
• Neutral tones and secondary colours
• Linear design elements
• Use of negative space

3-Dimensional

As technology advances and becomes more widely available, innovations in design continue. While not entirely recent in its use, the quality and realism of 3-dimensional design has skyrocketed with the advent of more powerful and refined programs.

This style is highly popular across a range of designed spaces, though particularly amongst gaming, online and digital brands. While characters, logos and online content are all designed with a 3-dimensional view in mind, so too are the simple appearance of skeuomorphic elements such as buttons, icons and other interactive features. These seemingly simple design elements are often highly considered and are in turn given a more weighted and lifelike appearance with a few simple 3-dimensional additions.

A perfect example would be to turn on your phone and look at the Google suite icons. With just a few indications of depth and light, many of these icon illustrations are given a 3-dimensionality. Most app icons maintain skeuomorphic elements, meaning the imagery has been designed to mimic the weighting and lighting of the original 3-dimensional object they replicate.

Another key use of this style of graphic design which many new designers are excited to use is the ability to swiftly mock up designs digitally and offer a sense of weight and presence to the designed object. The simple inclusion of a drop shadow and some design tweaks can move a completely fanciful product design from a flat, lifeless digital image to a more believable, lifelike object.

Characteristics

• Illusion of live-like depth and volume
• Employs various lighting effects
• Shadow and depth indications often utilise one colour, with tonal variations

While this is by no means an exhaustive list, there is no doubt you will now begin to recognise these and other distinctive graphic design styles all over the place. Developing and cultivating your knowledge of design styles through continuous research will allow you to become a more adaptive and effective designer no matter what project you take on.

Artwork by #ShilloNY teacher Shrenik Ganatra.

Ready to learn more? Study graphic design with Shillington, in London, Manchester, New York, Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, and you’ll learn to create designs in every style imaginable, alongside the design theory and the technical skills to compliment it in three months full-time or nine months part-time.

Illustrator is the best way to quickly and efficiently compose vector based artwork for all kinds of projects, and here are 50 best Illustrator actions, brushes and styles that will help you create incredible illustrations, informative infographics and artful type.

Create beautiful designs with the help of these handy watercolor brushes! They are really easy to use, you can change the size and the color as you like!

Each set uses three brushes, one for the main part of the zipper and two for the open sections. The brushes can be scaled to any size, re-posed and easily re-coloured.

Transform your text with my highly detailed Steam Punk Text Styles! Layer styles allow you to quickly change the look of text and objects with just one click!

Graphic styles allow you to quickly change the look of an object. All the changes are applied with just one click! To use, simply write a piece of text and select a style from the graphic styles tab. the styles work well with text and images (the rocket above was drawn using one of the ball pen styles).

With this Adobe Illustrator add-on, you can give watercolor effect to your design with just one click! And the effect can be applied to both text and shapes. Made from real watercolor texture, so you can give a realistic look to your design. And the output is fully vector! Ideal for logos, invitation, wedding card, banners, posters or any of your next project. You’ll also get 8 logo templates as an extra.

Quickly and easily create elegant gold stamping vector effects without the hassle of sourcing materials and becoming a Illustrator wizard!

Illustrator Artsy Graphic Styles is very easy to edit with bonus backgrounds and other all elements are included. These Styles are 100% vector and therefore 100% editable and scalable without losing detail. This could also be used for Text, objects and other shapes.

Perfect for your spooky projects, halloween, a zombie apocalypse, black Friday parties, these styles can be mixed and match to create your own unique and terrifying titles.

Get the naive charm of a doodled school exercise book into your designs and illustrations with these messy, sketchy brushes! Giving your art that loose, naive feel can be harder than it looks. My Doodle Brushes make this very easy as the line inconstancy and scribbled feel are built into each brush.

This is a pack of 10 different vintage and retro graphic styles for Adobe Illustrator. You can apply these styles to your text/artwork with just one click. So enhance your artwork with these styles and give it a vintage look. These styles are suitable for poster, typography, web, banner, illustration or your next project. Styles are fully vector so you can re-size them without losing quality.

This set contains twenty Freezing Graphic Styles in beautiful highly scalable vector detail vector. It’s A must have for Winter, Christmas, Snow Day, Ski, Snow Board, Hockey, Ice Skating and all other Chilled & Frozen themes. The Styles are set up for 72 pt text and all styles are easily modified from the appearance panel. Each element in the style can be adjusted, scaled, hidden or removed to make your own fun new creations. They are also great for logos, primitive shapes, borders, graphic elements and buttons.

The brushes are ideal for adding texture to more than just emulated print – try for yourself to see the superb texture depth that comes from layering these brushes! Even better, you don’t need to apply brushes in a complicated and time-consuming way to achieve the effects demonstrated in the preview. First, use the large, sparse print noise brushes to cover big areas easily and efficiently. Secondly, apply the light print noise brushes on areas where you want stronger texture. Finally, use the halftone, clustered print noise and random print texture brushes to finish your design with those all-important extra details. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3…

You’ll get a library of 172 pressure sensitive, pencil brushes for Adobe Illustrator CS6 or higher. They are based on actual graphite pencil strokes; as such they have varying degrees of texture (and also grunginess) and thickness. There are brushes to suit different path lengths.

Draw or distress your designs with my realistically textured sponge brushes! Using a mixture of natural and artificial sponges gives this pack has a wide range of textures and shapes so its ideal for almost any task. It is over 200 brush marks and picked only the best for this product. These were painstakingly refined to produce the 56 brushes that are included.

Most realistic add-ons to date: 67 Painted Canvas Brushes. They were sourced from real painted canvas strokes which gives them a look that’s so natural that it’s hard to believe you can’t feel the texture. Use it to create digital art or to give your designs an eye-catching edge.

Set of low polygonal abstract geometric vector seamless pattern brushes with corners. Used pattern brushes included in Brushes panel. Can be used on illustrations, cards etc.

Magic Monogram Light is a script for Illustrator which creates monograms, logos, frames and other decorations from your art elements. Select any object, run script and get monogram in one click. See this video to know how it works: Create monograms, frames and logos by script. You can set any number of sides for your monogram. Script has no limitation. It also has an option to add inner and outer frames. Batch processing is available. Select a lot of objects and create monograms with them in one click. Magic Monogram Light is much faster and easier than brushes.

This set now includes 32 updated hand drawn ink sketch lines created with various sized quill pens and brushes. These brushes are perfect for giving your vector lines an imperfect “inked by hand” look. The brushes are essential for cartoonist and comic artists working in Adobe Illustrator.

This is an Illustrator Diamonds & Gold Graphic Style with random sparkles with a gold outline border plus, a Diamond Pattern Swatch. The Diamond Pattern has a Transparent Background so you can add any color behind the diamonds. It is vector based so it can be sized as needed without losing any detail. This could also be used for objects/shapes. This Graphic Styles allow you to save a collection of effects as a Style so it can be used over and over again. It is vector based so it can be sized as needed without losing detail. Some are for text, some are for any kind of object.

16x vector actions pack for Adobe Illustrator CS4 and above wich allow turn your logo or any vector objects in cool and trashy vector stamps, vintage labels, retro effects etc. Finalizer action allow flatten your stamped logo after you edit trash pattern.

Sketch Your Logo is template and action for Adobe Illustrator. It will help you to present your work as hand drawing sketch.

It contains 64 hand drawn art brushes from longest to shortest and 40 scatter brushes for Adobe Illustrator including airbrushes, sponge brushes, chalks and other.

Illustrator Artsy Graphic Styles is very easy to edit with bonus backgrounds and other all elements are included. These Styles are 100% vector and therefore 100% editable and scalable without losing detail. This could also be used for Text, objects and other shapes.

Give text and vector shapes a knitted woolen finish with this set of graphic styles.

The Vegas Games Styles is the perfect styles collection for create logos, titles, illustrations or decoration about games of chance or about all themes that you can imagine.

These styles are perfect for use in retro designs and illustrations. Many of my customers use them for Tee-shirt designs where the design requires an authentic, retro look. Because they are vector effects, they can be scaled without loss of resolution. The seamless, repeat patterns that are used in the layer styles are also included and can be used independently. The styles come in eight different variations. Each variation comes in loads of different colors.

This is a pack of 45 different halftones graphic style for Adobe Illustrator. You can use it for texture your font, background, print designs, web or artwork. All patterns are 100% vector you can edit, recolor, resize or combine several styles.

Use the brushes to illuminate your designs and illustrations. They’re ideal for headlines, drawings and much more. To use the brushes, select one of the brush icons from the brushes tab then draw a line using the brush tool. The width, length and color can be easily adjusted.

This set of Highly detailed Barbed Wire pattern brushes (silver and rusted) is complete with ends and two styles of inside/outside corners.

105 Patterns made with 100% Patterns Brushes for Illustrator that the elements are great for cycle, rounded, badge, ellipses, label, frames, borders, underline deco , separators elements and any design project, on the wab also in print etc.

This set includes 50 hand drawn pencil sketch lines created using various pencil techniques. These brushes are perfect for giving your vector lines an imperfect hand drawn look. The brushes are essential for cartoonist and comic artists working in Adobe Illustrator.

Two unique Illustrator styles. Both are 100% vector so they can be scaled to any size without loss of quality. Graphic styles are extremely easy to implement. Just select an object and click on a swatch! Each of the styles contains 5 different color variations for a total of 10 styles. These styles are extremely easy to customize in Illustrator’s Appearance Palette! A short tutorial is included in the help file.

20x vector actions pack for Adobe Illustrator CS3 and above wich allow to detonate your logo, text or any vectors in cool destructed objects.

Give headlines an old-fashioned, classic look with these retro styles! Graphic styles allow you to quickly change the look of an object. All the changes are applied with just one click! They save time and work with both text and vector images. No fonts are included but you will find information on where to download the fonts that were used in the preview in the download pack.

Chalk Illustrator Graphic Style with 6 different filled chalk styles each on 21 different colors. This is a vector based file so it can be sized as needed without losing detail and can be used also for objects/shapes.

Everything you see in the preview including examples of the styles in action.

Do you want to get instant retro effect with just one click? Then this pack is here to help you! This pack contains total 40 Adobe Illustrator graphic styles. 20 high quality text style and 20 background generator style. Just type your text, click on the style, and you’ll get the effect! Also you can generate amazing retro background with just one click using background styles. Styles are fully vector, once applied, you can re-size your artwork according to your needs without losing quality. Furthermore, you can apply effect to any shape/object.

Draw like a Victorian illustrator with this set of 50 art brushes! To use the brushes simply select a brush and draw with the brush tool. The color and stroke width can be changed as required. The majority of what you see in the preview was created using the brushes and I’ve included the map image in the download so you can see exactly how to use them.

The pack contains 19 brushes. These include bonus Christmas and Valentine themed stitches along with loads of traditional stitching brushes.

This five brush set is perfect for adding a torn paper edge effect to vector objects. Also included is a bonus set of 12 recycled paper graphic styles which have been designed to work with the brushes. To use the brushes simply draw a line with any of Illustrator’s drawing tools then apply the brush by clicking on an icon from the brushes tab. The color can also be changed to suit your needs.

A special collection of 75 drawing and sketching brushes to give your art a unique retro cartoon style. The preview image here was made in a short time using just a small selection of the whole range, which you can see in the Screenshot. It included a Beginner’s Help file (together with the AI and EPS10 files) in this item to encourage people who feel less experienced with Illustrator.

A set of Graphic Styles for Adobe Illustrator. Also included is a swatch with all the Patterns used. Graphic Styles are a great way to add a set of attributes to text or objects in one click. So draw any shape you wish wether it be cute elephants or pretty birds or just text, then click on the style of your choice and instantly turn your shape into a gorgeous handstitched item. I have premade many styles as you can see in the preview but you also have the option of loading the pattern swatches and seeing what variations you can come up with via the fills in the appearance panel. The colors of the stitching is also easily changed via the stroke color in the appearance panel.

These time-saving styles work well with both text and vector images. The styles are easy to customize – over 40 patterns included and instructions on how to use them with the styles.

Illustrator Graphic Style Libraries Near Me

Use this set of brushes to quickly add Magic sparkle effects to your design or illustration. Included in the set are three styles: dense, medium and thin (shown in the preview). These are supplied in large magic and small magic pre-sets. ‘Layered brushes’ use the power of the appearance panel to package multiple layers of brushes into a graphic style (to install them you do need to place the file designated ‘graphic style’ into Illustrator’s graphic style folder). All settings such as size, spacing, rotation and scatter are further customizable through the appearance window So go hokus-pokus it up!

Adobe Illustrator “Shape Mesh” to distort your vectorial text, logo or anything else to look like a photocopy or similar.

9 Templates For Round Ornament Creation Each template is named due to angle of segment and number of segments that form round ornament.

Ideal for web designers for graphic designers to quickly create ribbons layouts style flat. You only need to draw a curve to choose the color and style. The rest of the shades ribbons appear themselves.

Sketch like and artist and add a hand-drawn look to your designs and illustrations with this set of 18 art brushes! Each brush was made by scanning a real pencil stoke then carefully converting it into an Illustrator art brush.

Illustrator Graphic Styles Library Free

As you can see from the preview, these styles look authentic despite being vectors. Here are 10 different varieties with varying levels of ink density. You can adjust the colors and customize the effects to suit your needs after application.

Free Illustrator Graphic Style Libraries

You will get 3 files with the brushes (each brush type in different file) inside the brush panel – just choose the desired brush and start designing. Also there is a Main file where you will find all the brushes together in one file with example strokes on the artboard.

Illustrator Graphic Style Libraries Free

There are two very different sets of brushes that are included in this pack to work together harmoniously to make stunning inked art. The outline brushes undulate with the inconsistency of real ink while the scatter brushes build up interesting stippled texture and shading. Use them to create stunning digital art or to give your designs an eye-catching edge. All brushes were made from real hand-drawn source material.