Perhaps, the first art masterpiece, featuring a human being, was the engraving “A Man on a Hunt”, made by some unknown artist on a cave stone wall in prehistoric times. Since then artists changed the type of canvas and improved painting techniques, but the image of a man still remains at the focus of many modern visual artists. In the below showcase Cruzine magazine, your true guide in the world of design and graphics, has prepared a new portion of modern illustrations, where a man is described in multiple situations – from funny to scary and from ordinary to extraordinary. Have fun viewing the gallery, spoon up some inspiration and share your own opinion by commenting below this post.

Actually, many of the works, presented here, can be characterized as cartoons – creative works, in which particular human features are depicted with significant exaggeration in order to make the emotions clearer and more vivid. This gallery of digital illustrations represents a kaleidoscope of personages and situations from the far away past, modern days and future time. Some of them are just funny, but others are sarcastic and ironic, pinpointing some particular flaws of the modern society. Actually, every art piece has always featured two major values – the first one deals with pure art qualities of the work, like colors combination, accurateness of lines and skills of the artist, but the other value, which is of no less importance, is estimated based on the social theme of the work, its key idea and messages, a particular artist tried to deliver to the audience through his graphic images.

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Trying to become a true beacon for all those, longing for the news and hot information from the very heart of design industry, Cruzine initiated the “Free Fonts of the Week” Parade. Every week on Wednesday we publish a hot list of top free fonts, chosen by our font partners. Here is the list of fonts, which collected the largest amount of votes this week. View it and use it in order to make the most of your designing projects. Feel free to comment below – let us know your vision of the most appealing font designs.

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State or country flag belongs to the key symbols, used to represent a particular country. Another two elements are coat of arms and anthem. The evolution and establishment of different country flags is a very interesting branch of science, yet the meaning of the flags is even more interesting and full of exciting facts and stories. Actually, the whole concept of flags is all about meaning. Hence, every element of the flag (shape, color, design, objects on it) has some particular meaning, showing connection to a particular country or nation. There is even an entire science, called vexillology, which studies country flags, their meaning, types, and designs.

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They say every new thing is the forgotten old one. It is, obviously, true, since many modern designers, artists, and architects among them, derive their inspiration, images and forms from the legacy of the previous generations. In this showcase we have collected the photographs of monumental architecture exteriors to demonstrate our readers all the creativity, versatility, and meaningfulness, which can be found in the bygone traditions in architecture.

Many of the buildings, shown on the pictures below, have already lost their primary purpose and remain only as the silent witnesses of the former glory. However, many of them still serve people like they did decades or even hundreds of years ago. Making pictures of old exteriors, photographers usually choose black-and-white photography to underline the solemnity of such architectural monuments and let viewers concentrate on the uniqueness of forms and not on the fading colors. Bridges, temples, castles, and residential buildings – this gallery features a full variety of architectural forms and designs. Looking at the magnificent constructions on these photos, one can get astonished with the deep imagination and conceptual yet harmonic vision of the architects. However, photographers, who made these photos, are also great artists, conferred with creativity, imagination, and skills to catch the moment and make it last forever.

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“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful,” said Alice Walker. Indeed, the Nature is the most talented and crafty artist on Earth. It is the Nature that creates the most beautiful masterpieces. Wild nature landscapes, collected in this showcase, are just evidences to prove such statements. What is interesting about landscapes is that the wilder the sceneries are – the more beautiful and attractive they are for people. Maybe it is because we are all a part of the natural environment and have the understanding of the true beauty and natural aesthetics somewhere at the level of our instincts…

What is the secret behind the beauty of such wild nature landscapes? Is it the forms, colors, or textures, attracting our attention? As a matter of fact, it is the balance and harmony, playing the key role in any natural environment and ensuring the aesthetic perfection of any natural creation and scenery. The greatest artists and painters of the human kind have always tried to master the skills of playing with colors, tones and half-tones, light and shade… However, any painted landscape is still nothing but a human-made reproduction of the masterpiece, created by Nature.

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If you are a grown-up person, but still enjoy cartoon stories, such as Madagascar or Finding Nemo, with cute animals, we bet you will definitely like the collection of animals illustrations Cruzine has collected in this new showcase. Naïve birds, funny bears, cute squirrels, tough penguins, mysterious octopuses, funny bugs, and many other animals are featured in these creative works from the selected masters of cartoon style illustrations. Today within the growing industry of digital graphics, fed by the virtually boundless imagination of artists, animal illustrations demonstrate a new level of their quality with extremely high detailing and verisimilitude of the images. Furthermore, illustrated animals can now clearly express emotions, greatly exaggerated of course, but this makes them look even more interesting and funny.

Vivid images, bright colors and a captivating story – these are, perhaps, the major components, ensuring the success of digital illustrations among the wide audience. We are sure both children and adults will enjoy this gallery of animal illustrations. If you are a designer, this gallery will demonstrate the capabilities of modern painting and illustration techniques, and it will also give you a source of inspiration for your own works in the similar style. If you are just a fan of digital art, we are sure these cute illustrations will give you a lot of joy, fun and excitement.

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It was 10 days ago, when Cruzine announced the first competition among the readers of our online design magazine. Now, it is time to announce the lucky winners, who will receive fabulous logo designs from our partner LogoMaid.com. According to the rules of the competition, the winners were randomly selected among the readers of Cruzine, who demonstrated their desire to participate in the competition by submitting their comment to the post, announcing the competition.

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“A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth.”
Joseph Conrad

Drawing a caricature seems simple at a first glance. Just take a famous face (a politician or a celebrity for example), find its most distinctive feature (it could be a nose, eyes, lips, ears or whatever draws the attention), exaggerate it so that the whole face becomes funny and comic and voilà – the caricature is ready. However, behind the seeming simplicity of the process, the art of caricature is pretty complex and requires expert painting skills, specific vision and a good sense of humor, of course. For many centuries, caricature has always been a vivid marker of human race evolution and social life, not only making people smile and laugh but also lashing the drawbacks of the society and drawing the public attention to the most questionable aspects of social life.

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