Arts & Entertainment
Designing Products
Lesson time 09:52 min
Turning your products into art gives them a new life. Futura reveals his product design checklist and shares how he designed the coveted Nike “FLOM” (For Love or Money) high-tops and his unique art car for BMW.
Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars
Topics include: A Road Map to Product Design · Build Demand With Limited-Edition Products · Casy Study: BMW M2
Preview
[MUSIC PLAYING] - I want to show you how to give your art life beyond the canvas by talking about products. From t-shirts to album covers to painted cars, there's really no limit to what you can create. In today's world, there's so many possible products to be made. I mean, even just a generic idea of a lighter, flashlight, coffee cup, Moleskine, pen, mug-- there's just so many generic things out there that you could put your artwork on, you could put your logo on, you know, I mean, you could put your name on. So determining exactly what it is you're going to make determines the process in which you're going to make it. [MUSIC PLAYING] - Let's talk about, like, taking your artwork into the digital space exactly, right? And how are you going to do that, and what might I do, even? The checklist is one, I say grab your image. Two, scan and/or photograph. So that's where your DPI and the resolution is going to be very important. Let's get that up first. Let's make sure our DPI and everything is cool. 300 minimum, no doubt. Three, bring it into your application. Let's say we've opened it in Illustrator and it's photographed. Well, there's a lot of ways to create a vector, if you will, of the digital image you've imported. You can have the machine do it. There's an application there called Image Trace. It'll just trace it for you. Or you can just be really fanatical, and you can go in yourself and you can do all of this manually. And then let me get some blank t-shirt images. And then, just to say, manipulate them. And now you're looking at a mock up of your t-shirt. Have a look at it. Does it work? Do you like it? If you were going to make t-shirts, you could do it yourself. Right? I mean, if it's really low run, 50 or less, you could get your own screens made. And if you want to pull some screens in the basement, or you know, out there in the garage, you could do that, too. If you had a little more budget and you were actually going to have them done somewhere, then you know, I would look very closely into finding the best manufacturer for you in your area, wherever you may be. So figuring out first what it is you want, that's most important. And then as I say, what's the checklist to getting you to that point? [MUSIC PLAYING] - Products present a new opportunity for your art to become a part of the culture. I have a long history of working with Nike, and one of my favorite items was a shoe that was never actually for sale. My brand, FUTURA LABORATORIES, opened a brick and mortar store in Japan in 2004. When I opened my shop, Nike said to me, hey, can we do anything? You know, want to make a shoe or something for the store? I was like yeah, maybe. You know, making just something for friends and family? You know, just like a small, limited release? You know, unbeknownst to us what we did at the time. But it was the beginning of what was called these limited runs. Now unfortunatel...
About the Instructor
A pioneering painter and street artist, Futura has exhibited at institutions like the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, collaborated with Louis Vuitton and Supreme, and created album art for The Clash. Now he’s teaching you his signature, kinetic approach to abstract art. Learn how to express yourself and paint with color, dimension, and detail. All you need to create art is an idea and a can of spray paint.
Featured MasterClass Instructor
Futura
Pioneering abstract graffiti artist, Futura teaches you how to create art with a can of spray paint and an idea.
Explore the Class