Flakey Lunch Break

What does a designer do during her lunch break? Because I bring my own lunch to work, I usually heat up my lunch and take it into the back break room. Taking along my laptop, I would surf the web for design inspirations, design articles to read or design works to absorb and appreciate.

One of my first stops during break on the web is SmashingMagazine.com. On today’s lunch venture, I came across “50 Must-Have Photoshop Brushes” article. While downloading some of the Photoshop brush sets to try, I came across the “67 Health and Beauty Brushes” set, which ultimately brought me to Silvia’s website, http://graphics-illustrations.com.

Her intriguing and sassy sense of style and colors, and use of Photoshop brushes kept me locked on her website for a while. I browsed through her Tutorials and came across “Making a Christmas Card in Photoshop”. The tutorial gave me an idea for a “secret” side project. From there on, the tutorial led me to Silvia’s Grunge Christmas flakes, which ultimately landed me on a jolly website, “Make a Flake“.

“Make a Flake” is an interactive, Flash-based — you guessed it — snowflake maker. When you’re ready to make our own flake, a quick little flash introduction will start off folding the paper into an inverted isosceles triangle. Even your mouse turns into a scissor! How nostalgic — Barkley, the site’s creator, maintains the concept of creating a paper snowflake accurate to the “T”.

Using your mouse along the edges of the folded paper and making sure the scissor has a green circle inside it, click on one point and work your way inwards and outwards. Start snipping away! If you make a mistake, Undo and Redo are standing by. Once you feel your snowflake is complete, click on “Preview Flake”.

Does this strange, gangly cut-out resemble anything like a snowflake? But look at the end-product.

Magically, the folded paper unfolds itself and, Voila! Your beautiful snowflake — it’ll be assigned an ID # and added to the Gallery for the World to see. Yes, and you can download or email the snowflake(s) to your computer to share with friends, family and workmates.

Pass on the Holiday fun — “Make a Flake“. Be sure to post a link to your snowflake!