free – Norebbo

Generic smart phone illustrations

0 January 12, 2015 Standard

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The trouble with creating conceptual stock illustrations of anything related to the world of tech is that those images don’t have much of a useful lifespan. My 3d rendering collection consists largely of tech-related concepts, so it’s a major bummer that much of my early work (starting in 2006) has become horribly outdated and darn near useless for anything but laughs.

Because of that, I spend a lot of time recreating and modernizing some of my oldest and most outdated images. A perfect example of that is this series of smart phone illustrations, created to directly replace my old collection of conceptual flip-phone renderings. That flip-phone collection had a good run, but they are understandably not so relevant today and there is nothing more I can do with that set. They are gone for good, forever regulated to my personal archives never to be seen again. Maybe someday I can create a “Norebbo Classics” section of the blog where I can post old images and we can all sit around and laugh at technology long forgotten. 🙂

Anyway this collection of smart phone illustrations marks the beginning of what I hope will become a much larger set. There are a variety of concepts here featuring the same basic device, some with a blank display, and some with a generic home screen that I created. I realize that most people would want to map their own custom screens onto these illustrations, but I just wanted to include a few “complete” images just in case anyone needed them.

Free Smartphone

Smartphone Security

Smartphone Data

Smart Phone Audio

Smartphone Batteries

Chained to Your Smart Phone

Black Smartphone with Blank Screen

Black Smartphone with Home Screen

White Smartphone with Blank Screen

White Smartphone with Home Screen

Smartphone Help

Smart Phone Chips

UX Design for Mobile Devices

Smartphone Tools

Smart Phone Research

Smart Phone with Connected Cord

Smart Phone Sale

Locked Smart Phone

Smart Phone and Checkmark

Global Smart Phone

Broken Smart Phone

Hopefully you’ll find some of these smart phone renderings useful. You can always leave a comment if there’s something in particular you’d like to see, and I’ll do my best to try and get it into my rendering schedule. I also want to create some different devices (tablets, for example) just for the sake of variety. But I’m probably going to be forced into doing it anyway once the next big thing is on the market and I’m forced to retire this set…

Forklift 3d renderings

0 January 4, 2015 Standard

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As a recent convert to Maya, one of my first stock illustration projects I did in that software package was a simple forklift. I’ve always wanted to build one so that I could use it in a variety of my other stock illustrations, but it was hard to get it right in FormZ. It was certainly possible – but I kept putting it off and, well…you know how that goes. But I’m happy to report that building something like this is much easier in Maya, so I now I didn’t have an excuse anymore.

Forklifts are nice as conceptual objects for stock illustration. They represent things like “storage”, “organizing”, “movement”, “warehousing” and so on – all of which are topics that aren’t represented well in my existing portfolio of images.

Unfortunately, being that I’m a Maya newbie and all, these four renderings took far too long to complete. The biggest problem was rendering times. Holy crap! The image below with the globe took 24 hours to render, which is something I’m not used to at all. Even my most complicated FormZ renderings never took more than a couple hours. I’m pretty sure it’s because I’ve got the quality settings higher than they should be, so I’ll definitely have to look into that. My short attention span demands it!

Anyway, here are the final illustrations from this first batch, all measuring 1024x728px. Feel free to use them however you wish, and look for more illustrations with forklift-based themes in the future!

3d rendering of a bright yellow forklift carrying a glowing transparent globe over a dark reflective surface

3d rendering of a bright yellow forklift carrying a large wheel and tire over a dark gray reflective surface

3d rendering of an all white forklift over a white surface

3d Skype logo illustrations

2 Comments June 28, 2014 Standard

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I’ll admit it: I’ve never been much of a Skype user. It’s a great product, don’t get me wrong, but the introvert in me doesn’t really have much of a need (or want) for social technology such as this. All communication to my family and friends far away is easily and conveniently accomplished with email, sprinkled in with the occasional text and phone call from time to time. I’m about as far from the typical Skype user as it gets!

Even though I’m not anywhere near to being a Skype power-user, I do appreciate it’s usefulness and I fully understand why it’s so popular. As a matter of fact, I have friends who keep in touch with family overseas, and it blows my mind each and every time. How can anyone not get excited about free HD video chat? If I were an ultra-social person, I’m fairly confident that Skype would be my number one favorite app.

3d rendering of a movie production clap board with a Skype logo in chalk on the front

And that leads me to my latest 3d illustration set: Skype logos! I didn’t really plan on doing a set for this communications power-house app, but it’s been a while since I’ve created any stock 3d illustrations and this seemed like as good of a choice as anything else in my “to do” list. It’s a logo that I’ve always liked, so that helped to make the decision to bust out this set that much easier.

3d rendering of a partially disassembled blue skype logo showing gears on the inside

The Skype logo is actually pretty simple. It’s just a simplified cloud shape with a large “S” in the center of it, so before I started I was a bit worried that it would be too plain to do anything interesting with. I did find that to be the case initially – the first renderings I created featured a straight representation of the logo with a flat face and beveled edges. They weren’t very interesting.

I eventually discovered that carving a section out of the face so that the “S” stood out was all it needed to give the logo some added visual interest without straying too far from the Skype brand – anyone should be able to look at these and immediately tell what company they represent. At least I hope so!

3d rendering of a pair of black sunglasses posing in front of a large blue and white Skype logo

I also created some versions in other configurations, just for the sake of experimentation and variety. But I definitely think I prefer the cloud version with the recessed center.

3d rendering of a set of keys with Skype logos embedded into them

3d rendering of an upright blue Skype logo with a wrench and screwdriver standing in front of it

Here are some others that I did which I’ll may (or may not) upload higher res versions of later:

More Skype logo renderings are available on my store

Feel free to use these however you wish, and a link back to my site would be much appreciated. Thanks for looking!

Industrial design template for PowerPoint

0 April 14, 2014 Standard

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I’ve been creating royalty-free stock illustrations for a long time now, and I’m constantly looking through my archives trying to figure out how to keep all that content fresh and viable as the years pass and styles change. There are parts of my portfolio that are really starting to show it’s age, but on the other hand there are plenty of illustrations that I think will be very useful for many years to come.

Case in point: my “nuts and bolts” illustrations. I’ve lost count of the number of 3d renderings that I’ve created which feature these simple objects, but they are just so darn versatile and conceptual in nature that it’s hard not to incorporate them into whatever I’m doing as much as I can. And that leads me to this free PowerPoint template with an industrial design theme.

If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll instantly recognize the chrome nuts and bolts that are the predominate element on the cover slide. I placed them over top of the same generic blueprint drawing that I used for my recent design and engineering Keynote templates, and then placed the title text to the left. I was originally thinking about creating some sort of dark background texture for this slide, but ultimately decided that the sterile clean look of the white backdrop was the way to go.

The interior slides of this three-page presentation deck contain the same bullet-text page and sample table that I’ve used in some of my other templates, but if you’re feeling creative, you might experiment with reusing that same image from the cover slide as a background for these interior pages. Make sure you reduce the opacity of it though – almost watermark-like so that it doesn’t compete visually with your content.

Click here to download it!

precision calipers presentation templates

5 Keynote presentation templates featuring precision calipers

0 April 4, 2014 Standard

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I recently finished up a set of stock illustrations featuring precision metal calipers, and it dawned on me that the industrial designer in me really likes the design of those little things. No, not my own 3d illustrations (ha!), but the calipers themselves. You’ll see that they are truly works of art if you take the time to really study them, especially when they are built really well with the right amount of heft and silky smooth operation. Precision tools are an amazing thing.

Anyway, I had been kicking around some ideas for some stock presentation templates featuring calipers for a long time so I spent some time this week to knock a few out. I based all of these on this single upright caliper illustration – mostly because I think they look best in this position and I thought it would be easiest to build templates around them in a simple straight-on view.

This first keynote template is a colorful design featuring the calipers over top of a purple and gray background with an abstract blueprint-style drawing texture. It’s generic enough that you could use it for pretty much anything relating to engineering and design.

colorful metal calipers presentation theme

Fully editable Apple Keynote presentation template. Includes cover, text, and table pages. Precision calipers theme.

For the next template, I decided to strip out the color of the previous one (you know me…the king of monochrome) and use little splashes of color in strategic places to bring visual interest to the template. I tend to like this one better than the first, simply because it’s not so visually busy and it lets the content stand out a little more.

Fully editable Apple Keynote presentation template. Includes cover, text, and table pages. Dark precision calipers theme.

The next template is a lot simpler. I really liked that light orange accent color I had been using in the previous two templates so I wanted to create a light layout that used that specific color as the core of the design. I also decided to step away from that generic blueprint image in the background and keep things really simple instead. One other thing to note is that the cube icon on the cover slide can be removed and replaced with your own.

orange and white metal calipers presentation theme

Fully editable Apple Keynote presentation template. Includes cover, text, and table pages. Orange and white calipers theme.

The final two templates are based on that stacked cube icon that I created for the previous template. I intended that to be just a placeholder corporate logo icon (that you cold replace with your own), but I thought that it was a strong enough element to use as the basis of an abstract background texture. These two templates will probably be less useful to most because of the fact that the background pattern is based on the company logo/icon, but I included them here just in case there is an odd chance that someone likes them and can somehow integrate thier own brand into them.

Fully editable Apple Keynote presentation template. Includes cover, text, and table pages. Blue and gray block pattern precision calipers theme.

abstract large blue and gray blocks precision calipers theme

Fully editable Apple Keynote presentation template. Includes cover, text, and table pages. Abstract large blue and gray blocks precision calipers theme.

One final thing: you’ll need Keynote to open and edit these files (and then you can then export to Microsoft PowerPoint if you’d like). If you haven’t tried Keynote yet, do yourself a favor and start using it. No, it’s not as powerful as PowerPoint, but it’s user-friendliness and the way it handles elements with pixel-perfect precision makes up for that in a big way. It took me a while to fully convert over myself, but I’m glad I took the time to experiment with it.

Metal and glass Hello Kitty 3d renderings

0 March 29, 2014 Standard

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I’ve been making stock illustrations featuring the logos of popular companies for several years now, and up until this point, I’ve always focused on brands that are either interesting to me or very newsworthy in some form or another. On top of that, it’s pretty obvious that I’m pretty much entrenched into my own style of 3d illustration – l use lots of metal and glass textures with very limited color, and I’ve never been a big fan of trying to create overly-detailed artwork. Simplicity rocks! I realize that my stye is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not trying to make everyone happy. You either like my stuff or you don’t. 🙂

So what happens when I decide to break out of my comfort zone a bit and create a series of illustrations for a brand that I’d not normally consider? Let me explain…

A certain family member of mine is a huge fan of anything related to Hello Kitty, and I’m not going to lie when I say that her interest in that little cat has affected me in ways I never thought imaginable. It’s to the point now where I know the history of the brand, all the names of the characters, and of course…I’ve seen my fair share of trinkets and gadgets adorned with bright pink and white Hello Kitty markings. This crazy cartoon character has been etched into such a large portion of my brain that the choice to create a set of Hello Kitty stock illustrations was all mine – she had absolutely nothing to do with this. I realize that could be considered grounds for turning in my man card, but hey…I thought it might be fun considering that I don’t normally focus on these sorts of brands.

I knew right from the start that I wasn’t going to recreate Hello Kitty into a round, plush-like 3d character. That’s just not what I do. Instead, I wanted to see what would happen when I modeled the iconic shape of Hello Kitty in my usual ways, which means simple geometry built with industrial materials like metal and glass. It’s a very masculine style, I know, and I didn’t know what was going to happen when I applied that style to something so feminine.

Long story short, I don’t consider this image set to be one of my best. I guess that my expectations (and excitement) were too high, and there were a few frustrating moments along the way. Trying to create conceptual 3d illustrations which mix high-tech and industrial textures and objects with girly cartoon themes was not easy, and it was challenging to end up with illustrations that I felt were truly useful as stock imagery. In that sense, I don’t think I succeeded.

But to say that I’m happy that I got this out of my system is an understatement. It was a fun experiment, but I think I’ll stick with the “manly” brands going forward.

3d rendering of a Hello Kitty character surrounded by four large red and white drug capsules

hello kitty electronic circuit over white

3d rendering of an extruded circuit board with a Hello Kitty charcter integrated into it over a white isolated background

3d rendering of a bright red glossy NEW tag attached to a simple metal-framed Hello Kitty character over a dark gray reflective surface

3d rendering of two large buckets of paint behind a transparent glass Hello Kitty character over a dark gray reflective surface

3d rendering of a glowing pink transparent Hello Kitty over a bright pink textured background

3d rendering of a pair of precision calipers measuring the thickness of a chrome Hello Kitty character

2d illustration of a white Hello Kitty head integrated into a pink electronic circuit board pattern

3d rendering of a bright pink transparent Hello Kitty over a black and pink textured background

Here are a handful of others that I did, which I’ll upload at a later time:

Additional Hello Kitty 3d renderings are available on my online store

Ford logo illustrations

2 Comments March 1, 2014 Standard

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Right after finishing my GM logo illustration set, I thought that there’s really no reason why I shouldn’t render some Ford logos as well. After all, the Ford logo is more complex and I thought it would be more fun to render. So…here you go!

To be honest, things didn’t start out so well. The shape of the logo is odd and it was hard to compose with other objects. I usually like to render objects that are symmetrical all around as opposed to oblong shapes such as this, and the designer in me was sort of thrown off balance trying to find compositions that work. It’s not as easy as it looks, and I probably spent too long with this set than I should have. But I think I captured the essence of the brand with these – there’s some techy stuff, industrial concepts, and some that are more plain which focus on the logo itself.

While I’m on the subject of the Ford logo, can I say that I think it’s time for a rebrand? My thinking is that Ford has really come a long way in the past 5-10 years, producing some world-class cars and trucks that are light-years better than the crap they were producing in the 80’s and 90’s. Their logo doesn’t reflect that at all – it’s too classical for my tastes, with the frilly script and overuse of chrome. I think there’s a real opportunity here to evolve the mark using modern typography and materials which reflect the types of automotive products they are producing today.

Anyway, are some medium-res versions of this Ford logo set:

3d rendering of a large red and white lifesaver hanging on a metal and glass Ford logo over a dark blue background

3d rendering of a glossy metal and glass Ford logo sitting on top of a red SALE tag

3d rendering of a large wrench and screwdriver sitting on top of a bolted metal plaque with the Ford Motor Company logo carved out of it

3d rendering of a ring of transparent binary digits orbiting around a frosted glass Ford logo over a dark blue background

3d rendering of a large wrench and screwdriver lying in front of an upright transparent glass Ford Motor Company logo over a dark gray background

3d illustration of a glowing blue Ford and pulse graphic logo sitting on top of a glossy microchip

3d rendering of two chrome automotive engine pistons lying over top of a large metallic Ford Motor Company logo over a gray background

Thanks for looking! Remember, you may use these images however you wish (although you may not redistribute them yourself), and a link back to my site is always appreciated.

Stock illustrations featuring the GM (General Motors) logo

2 Comments February 8, 2014 Standard

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It may seem as if I used a great deal of restraint in creating this set of stock illustrations featuring the iconic blue General Motors logo, but to be honest, my goal with this set wasn’t to highlight their faults. Yeah, it would have been all too easy to take cheap shots at ‘em and create an image set full of doom and gloom metaphors – but I purposefully held back a bit and decided to play nice.

Despite a long history of producing poor quality cars and trucks, I just can’t lower myself to drag them through the mud any more than they have been already. And besides – they’ve really stepped up their game over the last few years and are really starting to produce some high-quality products that rival any other car maker in the world. I’d have no shame in buying a GM product today, and as a matter of fact, I think that a shiny new C7 Z06 would look downright fantastic in my garage. Just sayin’…

In terms of their logo, I personally think that they are due for a good old-fashioned rebrand. After all, they have turned their business around quite remarkably in the past few years, and despite some minor lingering issues, they are a reborn car company. So why are they still using their old square blue logo? I don’t know – and I’m not necessarily a logo designer myself so I’ll let some other designer play with some conceptual ideas that represent a fresh new beginning.

Anyway – I wanted to capture the current essence of GM with these 3d renderings, so that meant focusing primarily on compositions that show getting down to business and producing quality products. Ok, I did have to make at least one illustration with a lifesaver as the main object, but otherwise, I played nice.

Hopefully you’ll find use for some of these in your blogs and articles. Please send me a link to show me how you use them!

3d illustration of two large pencils sitting on top of an unrolled set of blueprints showing a drawing of a GM logo

3d rendering of a disassembled General Motors app icon over a dark blue surface

3d illustration of a large blue battery featuring a GM logo with chrome exhaust headers attached to it hovering over a gray reflective surface

3d rendering of an all white General Motors V8 engine over a white surface

3d rendering of large chrome screws, springs, and nuts lying over top a blueprint drawing of a General Motors logo

3d illustration of a large syringe lying in front of a large transparent white GM logo over a blue background

3d rendering of a large frosted glass General Motors logo over a dark blue reflective surface

3d illustration of a clear glass light bulb lying in front of a large chrome General Motors logo

3d rendering of a large chrome and blue General Motors logo over a dark gray reflective surface

3d illustration of multiple stacks of gold coins with General Motors logos printed on them

3d rendering of a chrome General Motors logo sitting inside of a large red and white lifesaver over a blue reflective surface

Android text logo illustrations

0 January 30, 2014 Standard

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Following up on my last post, here is another set of orphaned 3d illustrations that haven’t been uploaded anywhere else as stand-alone stock illustrations. This set is a series of Android logos (the typography-based version – not the robot) rendered in a variety of different settings. The bulk of the set consists of transparent glass Android logos over a gray background, which are very simple and should allow you to modify them however you like.

All of my other Android logo illustration sets (which can be found here, here, here, here, and here) were all based around that iconic green robot in some form or another, so that makes this set a bit unique. It’s funny though – whenever I think “Android logo”, it’s only the robot that I think of. Never the text version. That reason alone may be why these images never made it to this blog or my store – but another reason could be that I personally don’t think these are as visually interesting as my other sets. Either way, I thought that they aren’t doing any good sitting unused in my personal archives, so I am releasing them out into the wild right here and now.

Just like all the other images on my blog, you are free to use these however you wish for your own personal projects. The only thing I ask is that you do not redistribute them yourself. Thanks for your support!

3D illustration of a transparent glass Android logo hovering over a smartphone over a reflective pastel background

3d illustration of a transparent glass Android logo over a light gray background

3d illustration of a transparent glass Android logo with a red and white lifesaver in place of the O over a light gray background

3d illustration of a transparent glass Android logo with two large silver keys lying in front of it over a light gray background

3d illustration of a transparent glass Android logo with a red SALE tag attached to it

3d illustration of a transparent glass Android logo sitting on large red SALE tag over a light gray reflective surface

3d illustration of a transparent glass Android logo with a large magnifying glass hovering over top of it

Stock illustrations featuring 3d NFL logos

5 Comments January 29, 2014 Standard

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It occurred to me the other day that I’ve got a pile of old illustrations that I haven’t yet uploaded to this blog. I’m not entirely sure how that happens, but I assume it’s because I create them with the intention of doing one thing with them, then I change my mind once they are complete. From there, they go into my archive to be “dealt with later”, but in reality, I forget about them until I stumble across them years later by pure accident.

That just so happens to be the case with these older renderings I created which feature the NFL (National Football League) logo. You may recall the first batch that I uploaded back in 2012, but I created another round of them one year later – just as the 2013 NFL season was getting underway here in the US. It should be noted that this batch of NFL logo renderings are mostly intended to be used as background images for banners, presentations, or posters – as opposed to being plain 3d logos hovering in space. This was entirely intentional because I was in need of some background images for some presentation templates I was working on at the time.

All of the NFL logos depicted in these stock images are metal or glass – some with a metallic football, and some without. I am offering these here free for the taking, so feel free to use these however you wish.