Welcome to Our “Behind the Desk” Series!

In this series, we take you behind the scenes of Nollie Design to show you how we create our work. We aim to inspire and guide you on how to create similar work in your own style.

In this post we’ll be looking at the Design Process behind the Frequency Illusion Featured Image Illustration.

We also share the tools we use so that you can try it for yourself.

About The Illustration

• Title: A Design Journal
• Medium: Digital Art
• Discipline: Aesthetics
• Genre: Illustration
• Designed by: Connor O’Neill
• Tools: Pen, Paper, Photoshop, Google Pixel 7, Samsung Book3

What is the Illustration For?

This image was created for the How to Harness Frequency Illusion as a Designer post.

The post outlines how when designers learn something new, they begin seeing it everywhere they look. This experience is named the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon or Frequency Illusion.

What Was The Inspiration?

The first time I properly experienced the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon was as a college student studying Graphic Design. When I was introduced to typography, I began seeing it everywhere.

One font in particular kept popping up, Bank Gothic. I began seeing it on store fronts, in marketing materials, in flyers and on billboards. It felt like I couldn’t escape it, but only a week before I’d never heard of it.

This experience was so strong and unusual.

Now as you embark on your multidisciplinary journey, you’ll know what it is if you begin seeing something everywhere you look!

Step-by-Step Guide

Below is the Process I used to create the image.

Step 1: Pen to Paper

I always start my work by putting pen to paper.

For every designer, I recommend starting out with pen and paper. Starting out this way always helps ground your work in simplicity.

The act of drawing is good for your brain and makes you feel like you’re being creative. In a world of AI, starting out with pen and paper gives you a human quality to your work and puts your personality on display.

Step 2: Scan the Image

The next step is to scan the image.

You can use a scanner, your phone or even your webcam in a pinch.

Step 3: Photoshop Illustration

With the scanned image, I open it in Photoshop. I lowered the opacity of my photo layer to around 80% and used my Sumsung Book 3 to draw on to the laptop screen, helping me save time recreating the image digitally.

This saves me a huge amount of time, even when compared to using a Graphics Tablet.

The Tools I Used

Below is a list of tools that I’ve used. You can click the links below to get them for yourself.

Sketchpad

I have a separate sketchpad just for Featured Images on Nollie Design. This keeps things focused and all my drawings are in a similar style and focus.

Pen

I just used Biro for the initial sketches.

Google Pixel 7

I used my Google Pixel to send a photo of my illustration to my computer. The camera quality of the Google Pixel phones are amazing, so I know it will be easy to draw over in Photoshop.

Photoshop

With a photograph of my sketch, I opened the file in Photoshop. I highly rate the Adobe Creative Suite and as it is the industry standard, it’s the software package I would recommend for Multidisciplinary Design.

You can find out why in The Best Software For Interdisciplinary Designers (2024).

Samsung Book3

I recently switched from using a Wacom Intous Pro to the Samsung Book 3, and been really impressed with it’s ability for digital sketching.

The Connection to Multidisciplinary Design 

This image is from the How to Harness Frequency Illusion as a Designer post, where we delve into how Multidisciplinary Designers experience the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon and begin seeing design every where they look. 

As a Multi-disciplinary Designer, that feeling is a sign that you’ve understood new concepts. Your brain now recognises them easily and you begin seeing it everywhere you look.

Why Illustration?

Illustration is the bridge between your artistic ability and your ability to create design proposals. It’s fundamental to Multidisciplinary Design as it allows to draw your ideas, communicate your solution and show a personal style, which with GenAI, is more valuable than ever.

Illustration is the most fun way to develop your drawing ability. Which plays a huge role in how you communicate your ideas and show off your design solutions.

The upcoming posts for Nollie will be heavily focussed on Illustration as we talk about one of the easiest ways to start developing your skills as a designer, by drawing. We’ll then expand from Illustration into Graphic Design from there.

See Our Latest Process Photos

If you want to stay up to date, we post upcoming content and process drawings on our Instagram page, @nolliedesigndotcom.

Stay Up To Date

To see more behind-the-scenes content and gain insights into our creative process, follow us on Instagram @nolliedesigndotcom. Check out our blog for more posts like this!

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