Actual Objects™ provide design professionals with high-production-value, royalty-free design and illustration assets. Objects are crafted around specific themes and packaged as collections.
These campaign graphics have been designed to work in conjunction with our new "Politics As Usual” graphics collection.
Regardless of your party affiliation, these vector assets can help jumpstart your next rally, sit-in or town hall meeting.
We would love to see what you do with our graphics!
Growing up I spent many summers waking up at the crack of dawn to go catch blue crabs in the bayous of the gulf coast with my dad and grandfather. As I grew older, we would drive from Houston to New Orleans to go eat gumbo and fresh crawfish. I still think New Orleans has some of the best seafood I have ever eaten. Seriously, turtle soup is amazing. Just ask my grandmother.
It was during these trips to Galveston and Louisiana that I really began to understand that there are people in the world that don't have desk jobs and literally live off the bounty of the bayous and estuaries of the gulf coast. Over the last two months the BP oil spill has been heartbreaking for me. With hurricane season upon us there is no telling how the spill will affect the rest of the Gulf as well as Florida and the eastern seaboard. Like most folks I feel pretty powerless and want to do my part to help and to voice my own frustration.
Whether you are on the front lines of the spill or want to voice your concern at a local rally, we hope that you will find our posters and buttons useful in voicing your opinion. In addition, we have provided some links to resources online where you can donate and become involved.
National Resources Defense Council
Grassroots mapping the Gulf oil spill
Greater New Orleans Foundation
We are excited for the start of the World Cup! In celebration of the festivities we have assembled a collection of your favorite team flags along with a handful of other assets to commemorate the upcoming games.
Update: These objects are no longer available here on the blog as we've turned the flags into a proper AO collection, Flags of the World. Stay tuned here on the blog for more freebies in the future.
Have you ever listened to Roxy Music’s 1972 self-titled debut? It’s a wonderful record that I discovered somewhere toward the end of high school (as my punk-rock musical tunnel vision started to loosen up a bit.)
What makes Roxy Music special is that it synthesizes so much of what rock music had been (rock n roll, doo-wop, soul) and would be (glam, new wave). By introducing new sounds, and a new level of kookball, art-school, avant-rock (that, btw, Williamsburg hipsters are still struggling to recreate) Roxy Music managed to carve out a new space for themselves, and for the many artists that followed in their path.
The aptly titled opening track, “Re-make/Re-model”, is a riff on a galloping rock n roll tune that, at its core, is relatively straightforward. The backing track – drums, bass, piano – isn’t anything out of the ordinary. But then they layer on a rambling fuzzed guitar lead, insane saxophone squall, Eno’s non-stop synth oscillations and finally Brian Ferry’s vampiric crooning. The sum becomes something altogether unique.
Check it:
Oh, and the visuals! Wacky costumes, makeup, antics—the total package. How amazing is this:
After 10 years of digesting Roxy Music, the mythos of “remake remodel” has stuck with me. There’s something interesting in the idea that one can arrive at something unique by simply manipulating and expanding upon established patterns and conventions. Through this lens, creativity is less about being “original” and more about being clever in how you draw from the world around you.
I think this idea applies to all creative disciplines, and design in particular as it relies so heavily on the arrangement of separate elements (type, illustration, photography, etc.) Regardless of the particular expertise – be it motion graphics or web design – the designer’s job is to first understand the patterns and conventions of the world around, and then to arrive at a solution by manipulating the conventional forms in a unique fashion.
The real trick of course is in finding the little twist or turn that will take something from ordinary to remarkable. For Roxy Music that was a balding guy in a peacock outfit twiddling knobs on the synth. For the rest of us, who knows where the magic will sprinkle. CPL593H!
We're excited to have a number of illustrations in this month's Fast Company.
You will recognize a few things from AO's Social Networking and Icon Essentials collections.
We'd love to see what others are doing with AO assets. Let us know!
Inspired by tattoos, vices and all things tuff, our new Man's Ruin collection features some great vector assets for your next rumble or hot rod rally. We have broken down the collection into 4 objects - Weapons, Killer Hands, Various Vices and Skull and Banner. Whether you are opening a tattoo shop or making a flyer for your rockabilly band, the Man's Ruin collection will certainly come in handy.
View the full Man's Ruin collection here.
We have also posted a new free vector of a Tattoo Dragon, perfect for that neck tattoo you have been meaning to get with your tax return money.
We're excited about two new collections we have in the works. Have a sneak peek.
Lately we've been thinking about our digital lives, and the way technology and social networking have changed the way we communicate. From Facebook and Twitter to Chat Roulette and the iPad, social networking is everywhere.
In just the last year it seems we have all become more connected than ever before. Even my parents are trying to get me to play Mafia Wars on Facebook and jumping on Twitter to tell me about a church bake sale.
As a response to the social networking explosion, we put together a Social Networking Collection that talks about social networking and new technology. We often find information graphics to be a bit dry so with our collection, we decided to take a more human approach that pokes fun at our digital world.
All of the objects in the collection are modular so that you can create your own stories. We kept the overall look simple so that you can easily expand the collection with your own elements.
Finally, to bring the collection to life, we also put together a humorous information graphics video called "What Up With Social Networking." Check it out below. We hope you enjoy the video and the collection.
We are excited to present the Welcome to Toon Town collection. We have always enjoyed creating characters and thought it would be fun to create a family of cartoon characters that could be used together or on their own. Each of our Toon Town characters was developed around an illustrated scene that give each character a bit of a story and personality. As opposed to drawing each character as outlines, we decided to use flat color so that each character could be easily manipulated or moved around the scene. Toon Town is a perfect collection for anyone that is interested in using a character in a larger design project our if you want to expand upon a scene and add your own elements.
View the full Welcome To Toon Town collection here.
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Update: This freebie has expired. Lloyd is now available for purchase. Keep an eye out for future freebies!
Lloyd Goes Digital is part of a larger collection of information graphics we are working on centered around technology and social networking. As a digital culture, we always seem to be on the verge of "the next big thing". In homage to all things new, we wanted to have Lloyd Dobler hoisting a Kindle and an Apple iPad. We considered illustrating an Apple Newton or the first Blackberry but we will leave it to you to incorporate your own Amiga or Nintendo 64.
This object is available for free for the next month.
Once we get the new collection completed, Lloyd will join the rest of the objects. So turn up some Peter Gabriel solo jams and enjoy this actual object on us.
