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“The most important is to do something that makes you feel happy” – design and illustration by Christian Siles

Updated on 26 July 2016

Christian Siles is a designer/illustrator based in Barcelona. His work focuses mainly on product illustration and icon design.

Quick, easy, no commitment!

I just left my day job as a Junior UX Designer. Right now I’m focused on personal projects to build a new portfolio and hopefully start to receive new projects.

Pipedrive logo The CRM platform to grow your business
  • Great for entrepreneurs
  • Powerful data analytics
  • Manage sales and data
Rippling logo Manage all your employee data
  • Run in 90 seconds
  • 100% error-free
  • Automatic tx filing
Wix logo Powerful web builder and advanced business tools
  • Great for startups
  • Powerful web page builder
  • E-commerce available
Planable logo Supercharged content planning
  • Great for marketing
  • Better than lists or sheets
  • Manage social media
Webador logo Create a new website in 10 minutes. Easy.
  • Launch your website fast
  • Powerful data intuitive
  • No coding skills needed

I’m an independent illustrator and designer specialized in illustration and icon design.

fuel_illustration

I went to university but I’m a 95% self taught designer. Almost all I know about design, illustration, etc. Its because I spend a lot of hours in front of my computer trying to understand how the software works.

breakfast

In the design world there are lots of opinions and you have to respect everybody’s words.

Another thing I learned is that you have to stay focus on your work, share your work on social media, but you don’t have to go crazy thinking about all the likes, retweets, etc.

This will come if you work hard.

bulding

 cafe_building

The first thing I do when I’m about to start something new is to search information about it and save it. For example, if you have to do some icons for a magazine, you want to know the feel, look of the design elements they used before in their magazine.

Then I start building my color palette. When I work I usually work with minimal colors, maybe something like 3-5. But the most important is to use colors that match with the project that you are doing. When I have my color palette I start to create geometric shapes to combine them to create the desired final vector piece.

When I finish the vector artwork I copy them on Photoshop so I can play a little bit with light/contrast, levels and curves.

chair

plant_shelf

For inspiration I use a lot Dribbble. I enjoy to spend some time every day in this community and see what people is doing. From my point of view this is very important.

For reference material I really like to search what I need on Pinterest. It is a very useful tool because there are lots of images and you can create boards so easy and pin whatever you want. I like to create boards for color, buildings, tech, cars, vintage stuff, etc.…

I have small notebooks to make a list about what I’m going to do, make some doodles, sketches…

And my computer of course…

My main software is Illustrator and I usually finish my work on Photoshop.

Bacon-Parmesan-Brussels-Sprouts

I think that the most important is to do something that makes you feel happy. If you like Illustration or design, just try to spend some time every day and do whatever you want.

Try to spend some time watching others work and think what did they use to do this piece and try to replicate their work.

hogwarts_express_badge

I would like to continue doing designs and illustrations for all kind of clients so I can still learn.

Learn more about Christian on his website.

Reviewed by , Managing Director

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