Since we launched our MOO MiniCard Design Contest last week, we've seen nothing but creativity coming in every day. The assignment was to submit your best color palettes using the MiniCard template and the 5 most loved palettes will be bundled together in the new MOO + COLOURlovers MiniCard pack. The winners also each get a $100 from our friends at MOO.com.

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At MOO their motto is "We love to print" and boy do they. Offering a variety of materials from business cards to postcards to stickers, they allow you to use your own design creations or they also offer awesome Ready Made Designs. Below are just a couple of the awesome products you can order from MOO today.

Entries for the contest are closing later today, but you can still vote for your favorite palettes between now and end of day on Sunday, July 29th. Winners will be announced on Monday, July 30th.

Remember, it's the top 5 palettes that win -- if you have entries in the running, now would be the time to share those and try to gather votes, and if you didn't enter, help show love and support to your fellow COLOURlovers by hitting that "Love" button.

Check out all of the entries on our MOO Contest Page. Cheers and happy voting!

Scavenger Hunt Challenge:

You didn't think we were done, did you? :)

The MOO Scavenger Hunt is pretty simple:

- Search MOO.com for your favorite items.
- Create a color palette based on these items.
- Post it as a comment.

That's it! We will select a winner from the comments to receive a $25 gift card to MOO.com.

As an example, I put a palette together based on MOO's awesome postcards:

Have fun!

Guess what time it is? Time for yet another moo.com contest! We had such a blast with the first one (not to mention several thousand entries) that we just had to do it again.

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MOO is an online print company that creates a variety of materials including business cards, postcards, and MiniCards. Today we are focusing on their MiniCards. Half the size of a standard business card, MiniCards are great for showing off your portfolio, your products or your business. With the option of a different image on every card, upload your own artwork or choose from thousands of designs.

Ok, let's get down to the details now! I know you are all dying to enter our MiniCard contest.

How to Enter:

Head on over to our contest page and submit your best color palettes for a MOO MiniCard pack. Once you have created something you are proud of, show it off! The palette will be in the gallery to gain "love" from the community.

As a tip, you can adjust the width of each color using the red bar right above the palette color.

Submissions close at the end of the day on Wednesday July 25, 2012. You will have the chance to gain love votes until July 29, 2012. We will announce the winner on Monday, July 30. The top five most ‘loved’ designs will be announced as the winners and these five designs will be bundled as a new COLOURlovers pack and will be available for sale on moo.com.

Once you create your awesome palettes, check out the other entries and vote for your favorites.

The Prizes:

The people who created 5 most loved color palettes will each receive a $100 MOO voucher to be used at Moo.com for any of their available products.

Not only will you receive a voucher, but the 5 most loved palettes will be included in the next set of COLOURlovers mini cards by MOO.

Good luck and get designing!

Thanks to everyone that participated in our PrintRunner Bookmark Design Contest! You guys really showed off your summer style with tons of fun and festive designs.

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This contest was sponsored by our friends at PrintRunner.com -- one of the top online resources for printing including: business cards, brochures, postcards, letterhead, envelopes, and more!

Prizes include $200 in printing credits for the Grand Prize Winner and $50 in printing credits for the 4 Runners Up. Now let's get to the good stuff!

Grand Prize - ☀StainedGlassGarden by COLOURlover praxicalidocious

Runner Up - Summer Berries by COLOURlover wondercake

Runner Up - Steampunk by COLOURlover ScarletWinter

Runner Up - Citric Hearts by COLOURlover testebarbie

Runner Up - Soft buttons by COLOURlover eeexuan

Congratulations to all of the winners and thanks to everyone that voted! Keep an eye out for more contests coming soon from COLOURlovers.

You guys have really been rocking the Summer Celebration designs in our PrintRunner Bookmark Design Contest! Just looking at some of these inspiring bookmarks makes me want to go fire up the grill and throw another prawn on the barbie. (One of our developers is Australian so we're allowed to say that.)

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If you had any more design ideas you wanted to submit, now is the time -- we stop accepting contest submissions this evening around 5pm Pacific. Voting will remain open until end of day on Thursday, July 12th and then we'll be announcing the winners on Friday, July 13th.

Don't worry about the date though, nothing ominous awaits our 5 winners on the 13th, only great prizes from PrintRunner.com! Just to recap, the Grand Prize Winner gets $200 in printing credits and the 4 Runners Up get $50 in printing credits. Pretty sweet, eh?

Remember to vote for your favorite bookmark designs by clicking that "Love This" button between now and end of day on Thursday. Cheers and happy voting!

Who's excited for another fun design contest? Well starting today we've got an awesome bookmark design contest brought to you by our friends at PrintRunner.com!

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Founded 10 years ago with little more than a small press and a dream, PrintRunner is now one of the top online resources for printing including: business cards, brochures, postcards, letterhead, envelopes, and more!

They've been kind enough to offer some great prizes for the winning designs, so let's get on to what you really want to know, the details of the contest.

Theme

We don't know about you, but we're pretty excited that summer is officially in full swing. With the Fourth of July just a couple of days away, we thought it would be fun to have a Summer Celebration theme for your bookmark designs. Some inspiration ideas include: fireworks, barbecues, blue skies, puffy clouds, green grass, and picnics, just to name a few. With all the fun activities you can do during summer, the possibilities are endless. We can't wait to see what creative ideas you all come up with!

Photo credit: bayasaa - Flickr.com

Contest Dates

The contest will run from Monday, July 2nd through Friday, July 13th. Submissions will be accepted from July 2nd until July 10th. Voting will remain open until Thursday, July 12th. Winners will be announced on Friday, July 13th.

How it Works

COLOURlovers use our design tools to create your own patterns and color in a Summer Celebration themed bookmark template. The patterns you use will have to be patterns that you have created and then you can color them however you like! Submit as many entries as your heart desires, but to keep things fair you are limited to one prize per person.

Voting Process

COLOURlovers will vote for their favorite designs with "loves". The top 5 most loved designs will receive gift certificates they can use for any products on PrintRunner.com.

Prizes

·         Grand Prize - $200 worth of printing credits from PrintRunner.com

·         Runners Up (total of 4) - $50 worth of printing credits from PrintRunner.com

All users (including you international folks) can participate in the fun. Good luck and we look forward to seeing all of your creative designs!

You can view all of the entries and submit your own over on our contest page.

I hope you have all enjoyed designing your 4x4 piece during our 4x6.com design contest! We really enjoyed seeing all of the awesome entries that you guys created.

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4by6.com is a printing company that focuses on high-end printing services of all types of collateral including business cards, fliers, square cards, etc. It is definitely worth checking out for all your printing needs.

Winners:

To recap, here is what the winner's will receive!

·         First Place: $250 in 4by6.com print dollars

·         Second Place: $100 in 4by6.com print dollars

·         Third Place: $50 in 4by6.com print dollars

·         4th - 20th Honorable Mentions: 50 Free 4x4" Satin Square Cards (not including S&H)

In First Place with the most loves was happy swing by COLOURlover blimblimb.

Second Place was Primitive art by COLOURlover Alisa Overland.

And Third Place went to magnolia morning by COLOURlover twister.

Below are the 4th-20th place Honorable Mentions:

Congrats to all the winners and thanks to everyone for voting!

Artist Markus Linnenbrick creates some amazing and colorful art pieces. Whether he is creating art installations or sculptures his use of color is so creative and much different than anything you will probably ever see.

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Here are a few of his art installations that he has created in multiple buildings.

These sculptures are so amazing. The process involves glass pieces and a drill! Look how amazing these sculptures look.

Here are some great pieces he created on canvas. Wow, I really want one of these pieces in my house right about now.

Check out Markus Linnenbrick's art work! Would love to see the palettes and patterns you all could create using this as inspiration. Send those over in the comments!

I'm excited for the return of floral prints. From fashion to design, this print has grown back into our lives and secured a very special place in current trends. These print pieces are so simple and sweet and will definitely add extra sunshine to your home office.

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Today we are going to take a look through all the various uses of such a trend. So get your pinning buttons ready, as you are in for a treat.

Source: Tags, Journal

Logo design? Using Florals? You better believe it!

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I love the use of watercolor + free hand floral drawing in this logo. This is one fun logo overall, and just check out how she plays with it in her branding.

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Floral print in fashion is coming back fast! It is important to find those modern floral patterns as opposed to those your grandma used to own. But if you can find something vintage modern, you'll be golden in pulling off this trend.

Source: Shoes, Skirt, Outfit, Pants

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I wasn't aware that the floral print trend had hit the seating market so heavily. But I stand corrected by these images that shed a whole new light on floral print seating. Which one is your favorite?

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Source: Chair, Etsy

I loved this floral pattern that one blogger created.

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And it looks like you all are creating your own floral patterns on COLOURlovers as well! There are pages and pages of floral patterns for you all to explore on the site.

Source: hana*, ksantipa, Skyblue2u, Skyblue2u 

My challenge of the day is to create some awesome floral patterns on COLOURlovers. Once you have created something you love, comment them all below. Let's help get everyone else inspired with floral patterns too!

I posted one of Andy Gilmore's pieces on the COLOURlovers Facebook page a few weeks back. While digging deeper into the site, I found myself in awe over every single piece. I don't have enough space to feature them all on this blog post, but I would highly recommend checking out his entire collection of work if you are as impressed as I am by this small feature.

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Creating magazine covers is nothing new for Andy. He shows plenty of them in his body of work. I do however remember this Wired issue which I thought was great when I saw this. Opposite of Wired is the cover he created for the New York Times Key Magazine.

Here are a series of excellent pieces using bright colors and some very modern shapes.

Source for all images: Andy Gilmore

What do you think of this art? Would you use these patterns on something fun such as your iPhone case or throw pillows? Let us know what you think.

Today we are featuring an awesome artist and giving you all a bit of an insight into the creative process behind his pieces of art. Each piece is bright and vibrant and  each tell a story.

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This talented artist started small and kept, all the while he gained more and more traction in the blogosphere and now you can see his art work featured all over. The artist behind it all is Adam Sidwell, AKA The Skid. Check out his Tumblr for lots more pieces are art that are not featured here, you'll definitely get lost in the great color palettes and pieces he has created.

First up, why don't you tell the community a bit about who you are, what you do, how long you have been doing it.
I was into illustrating as a kid. In 2010 I started doing weekly drawings of pop culture, started taking requests, and would post one online each week. The blog started gaining traction after some time and I started freelancing.

What past experiences do you think have contributed the most to where you are now?
Growing up as a kid in the 80's, playing video games and watching movies like rambo and terminator, that had the most influence on me in terms of content.

How do you choose your color palettes?

Generally I kind of stick to 6 colors. I primarily use green, yellow, red, orange, purple, blue. I usually use a lot of complimentary colors in the same series. As long as the colors are bright and vibrant there is really no method to the madness to the way I choose colors.

What colors do you think we will see a lot of in 2012?
I started out using very traditional colors but I like more neon and vibrant colors. I did a series of video game box posters and the way those colors blended together are my favorite colors of any piece.

What is your general design process?
I stick to thumb-nailing and sketching. Then I take it into photoshop and I usually redraw the image because I don't use a wacom board the first time around. I like to get the feel of real pen and paper. I print out the wacom board drawing on water color paper and watercolor it, then rescan it then touch it up. Then the color palette comes to form and I start creating from there.

As an artist, what is the best advice you have ever received?
There is always going to be someone more talented than you but you can always work harder than them. I'm from the midwest, hard work ethic is what I grew up with. I was a part of a blue collar family and it is transformed to the digital sense.

Source: All Photos by Adam Sidwell

When you are feeling stumped, where do you turn for inspiration?
Tumblr, but it is sort of  bad because I get stuck. I don't explore that much outside of that.

What's one thing you tell designers that are just starting out?
I feel like a lot of people take things too personally, whether it comes to critiquing or posting and not getting likes then giving up. I started out and my friends at work and my mom were basically the only one's following me. I kept at it and the blog gained footing and things took off. That never would have happened if I just gave up. It is kind of hard receiving negative criticism. I see artists start up and get discouraged and though they are creating awesome art work they give up. Basically, just keep going and going.