Raul Esquivel
Raul Esquivel
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Raul Esquivel

Reviving a Passion: Getting Back Into Music

Music Photography |

January 13th, 2023

This is one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. I used this photo as the cover for my @acircleforsunday EP I released a few years ago...

A Commuter’s Tale of a Rainy Morning Journey

Los Angeles Vlogs |

January 11th, 2023

Driving around in LA during a major weather event like the one we are currently experiencing is not fun. Especially when the reason you’re driving...

Signs of Life: Griffith Observatory

Los Angeles Vlogs |

January 8th, 2023

After nearly 3 years since my last visit, the stars lined up to where I had a spur-of-the-moment opportunity to come back to Griffith Observatory....

A Renewed Sense of Purpose

Updates |

January 2nd, 2023

I normally sit down to write my thoughts on the first day of the year. But this year I actually for once had plans on...

Solar System – Typography – Timelapse

Art/Design Process |

December 31st, 2022

The process for this piece took about 1hr+ to make. I made this for a space themed merch collection I released on my shop!

Custom Alphabet – Timelapse

Art/Design Process |

December 31st, 2022

A quick 20 minute warm up I did this morning. Turned out pretty decent. Nothing too crazy. Just a standard looking sans-serif alphabet.

After Midnight – Typography – Timelapse

Art/Design Process |

December 31st, 2022

Started on a new custom type design last night. I worked on the initial vector process first where I start off with a font as...

Sunspot Alphabet – Timelapse

Art/Design Process |

December 30th, 2022

Here’s another font timelapse I recorded this morning. I spent almost 2 hours on this one. Also note how I decided to leave all my...

Gravity Alphabet – Timelapse

Art/Design Process |

December 30th, 2022

Getting back into the habit of doing a complete alphabet in about 30 minutes as a morning warm up. The more i so this, the...

Reflector Alphabet – Timelapse

Art/Design Process |

December 30th, 2022

Another 45 minute morning warmup. I’m trying to get into the habit of making number sets with each of these alphabet sprints. I really like...

Binary Star – Typography – Timelapse

Art/Design Process |

December 29th, 2022

Quick 30 minute warm up from this morning. Was experimenting with creating some single-weight sans-serif characters.

Water – Serif Typography – Timelapse

Art/Design Process |

December 25th, 2022

Here’s a quick timelapse process video of me designing the word WATER from scratch. Total process time took about 20 minutes.

Planning Ahead for the New Year

Art/Design |

December 14th, 2022

I’m already doing TONS of prep work for all the things I have planned for next year. Lots of the projects I’ve started and unceremoniously...

Custom Typography Timelapse – Asterism Font

Art/Design |

July 22nd, 2022

Another morning warm up. This one took a bit longer than most. Roughly a little less than an hour. Which is fine. Main reason being...

Patreon Rewards for January 2022

Art/Design Updates |

January 1st, 2022

For as long as I’ve been on the platform, Patreon has been a open doorway to being able to pursue one of my goals as...

36 Days of Type – 2021 Edition

Art/Design |

May 10th, 2021

36 Days of Type is a project that invites designers, illustrators and graphic artists to express their particular interpretation of the letters and numbers of...

Quartez – My Newest Serif Font

Art/Design New Releases |

December 11th, 2020

Quartez, the newest font that I’ve been working so hard on for the past two weeks is finally available! I'm selling this font for $15...

When Dark Skies Roar

Photography |

December 11th, 2022

On this cold Sunday morning, I woke to the sound of rain. The atmosphere is calming, a much needed break from the strain. I climb...

For The Birds

Photography Thoughts |

December 8th, 2022

This morning started out just like every other typical work-from-office day. I woke up slightly before my first alarm and just laid there, half awake/half...

Thirty-Two

Updates |

June 2nd, 2022

With each year that passes, my birthday always becomes more and more of a day I take a step back to reflect on everything I’ve...

The Luxury of Time

Thoughts |

January 11th, 2022

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about time and how I experience it. Most days just blissfully come and go with nothing more than a...

New Year’s Resolutions for 2022

Thoughts Updates |

January 1st, 2022

Out of all the years I’ve lived, (31 to be exact as of me writing this) I’ve never really made any New Year’s Resolutions with...

2022 – A New Beginning

Art/Design Thoughts Updates |

January 1st, 2022

I’m not sure if it’s just the optimist in me, but 2021 was better for me in almost every way than 2020 ever was. Sure,...

31st Birthday

Art/Design Updates |

June 2nd, 2021

My life is significantly different than it was a year ago. I moved to a new city just outside of Los Angeles in December and...

First Visit to NHMLA of 2021

Photography Science |

April 7th, 2021

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles is one of my all time favorite places to visit. Before the pandemic, I would go fairly regularly...

Hello 2021

Thoughts Updates |

January 4th, 2021

I’ve always been someone who casually disregards the symbolic celebrations of a new year. Mostly because I felt so comfortable and safe in my little...

Landscape Thumbnail Sketches – March 28, 2020

Art/Design |

March 28th, 2020

Last night I finally came up with a recording setup that works perfectly. I decided to test it out this morning by doing a quick...

A Morning at Griffith Park with Shannon

Photography |

July 27th, 2020

This past Sunday I woke up super early to hang out with my really cool friend Shannon (@thepiemaker), who I met during my visit to...

How I Came To Dislike Being A Musician

Music |

July 23rd, 2020

It’s crazy to me that I used to be able to play like this back in my prime in 2016. I’ve been playing guitar for...

A New Self-Realization

Thoughts |

July 20th, 2020

I’ve been slacking-off real hard lately. I find that when I’m not actively busy, I feel lazy and unmotivated to do absolutely anything. I’ve tried...

So This is 30?

Thoughts Updates |

June 2nd, 2020

If you had told me even just a few months ago that I would be spending my 30th birthday stuck at home during a global...

Daily 365 Round-Up | February 2020

Art/Design Daily 365 |

March 1st, 2020

Another month's worth of work is now complete. This Daily 365 is definitely going a lot smoother than the one I did in 2018. I...

Pt. 5 | Chapter 4 – Managing Your Mind & Time

Process |

May 11th, 2020

The very idea of being a self-starter and realizing that anybody can learn anything at any time if they put in the required time and...

A Circle for Sunday – The Astronaut Pt.1

Music |

May 8th, 2020

Here’s a quick little video I recorded this morning with my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K of the intro to one of my favorite A...

Pt. 4 | Chapter 3 – Get Shit Done

Process |

May 3rd, 2020

The key to all of this is knowing what to share and when would be the right time to begin sharing. If you’re anything like...

Pt. 3 | Chapter 2 – Take Action

Process |

April 26th, 2020

Coming up with ideas, let alone good ideas, can be a tough task. Sometimes they just come to you. Other times they come as a...

BMPCC4K – First Outdoor Test

Photography |

April 23rd, 2020

I went outside today to pick up some food with my sister. Luckily for me she offered to drive so I took the opportunity to...

The Weight of All the World’s Clouds

Music |

April 15th, 2020

Here's a quick little video of me playing a piano piece I wrote a long time ago. It was always one of my most favorite...

Pt. 2 | Chapter 1 – Fear & Wonder

Process |

April 19th, 2020

Comfort is the nail and acceptance is the hammer. Never settle for anything short of what you know you are capable of. Even when faced...

Pt. 1 | Foreword & Introduction

Process |

April 13th, 2020

Creativity is one of the most common things in society today. Yet it is also one of the hardest things to truly grasp at a...

Borrowing Focus – A Book Written by Raul Esquivel

Process |

April 9th, 2020

About 5 or 6 years ago, I started writing a book about my process and the mindset I have that allows me to have the...

None Of This Is Normal

Editorial Thoughts |

April 2nd, 2020

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions. I have felt everything from confidence that this wasn't as big a deal as...

The 2020 Daily 365 Is Now Over

Daily 365 Thoughts Updates |

March 18th, 2020

So this is a post I never intended to make so soon but given the circumstances with the world and how things are progressing, I...

#StateOfNASA 2020 – NASA JPL

Science |

February 20th, 2020

Space is something I've been extremely passionate about since I was a very young child. I vividly remember being obsessed with an old space encyclopedia...

Leap Day Star Party

Science |

March 5th, 2020

This past Saturday was Leap Day. A day which only happens every 4 years. The day also happened to line up with February's Star Party...

A Day At The Getty Center

Photography |

February 8th, 2020

Visiting museums is something I enjoy doing pretty regularly. Although art museums are some of the most common, those are the ones I visit on...

The Quest for Mango Sticky Rice – Part. 1

Food |

January 30th, 2020

A few nights ago I had a dream that I was eating dinner at a Thai restaurant and had ordered a dessert dish called Mango...

Los Angeles Arboretum

Nature Vlogs |

January 28th, 2020

One of my absolute favorite places to visit is the Los Angeles Arboretum in Arcadia, CA. Its a place that is beyond peaceful and makes...

Game Over Pizza

Photography |

January 24th, 2020

What do you get when you mix pizza, old-school arcade games, retro neon lighting, blazing 80's music, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

A Nice Little Saturday

Nature Photography |

January 25th, 2020

Here's a collection of photos and a short video I took of my friend Emely at the Los Angeles Arboretum in Arcadia, CA.

Typical Saturday

Photography |

January 27th, 2020

Over the years I've grown into a routine that I usually follow at least once every weekend where I wake up early and go to...

New Year Stuff

Thoughts Updates |

January 13th, 2020

We're roughly about 3 weeks into 2020 and I've been doing lots of thinking and planning for some projects I want to work on this year....

DesignerCon 2019

Travel |

November 26th, 2019

This year I attended the most conventions I have ever been to in a single year. DesignerCon 2019 marked the 7th and final convention of...

BlizzCon 2019

Travel |

November 9th, 2019

This past weekend I attended my 5th BlizzCon with my good friend Jose. We weren’t sure at first if we were going to actually attend...

AT&T Shape / Warner Bros Studio Tour

Vlogs |

June 25th, 2019

While I was at E3, I met someone in line while waiting to see the gameplay footage for the new Avengers video game. After a...

E3 2019 Vlog

Vlogs |

June 18th, 2019

My favorite time of the year has come and gone. E3 is something that I look forward to every single year. Even though I don’t...

How To Use Lightroom Presets

New Releases Photography |

March 13th, 2019

Adobe Lightroom is a great program to edit photos with and having presets can speed up your workflow a considerable amount. But sometimes installing and...

The Quest for Mental Clarity

Thoughts |

March 3rd, 2019

Over the past couple of weeks I have gone down a rabbit hole that seems like it has no end. I have been trying to...

An Observation of Morning People

Thoughts |

February 26th, 2019

One of the things I’ve come to realize about waking up super early is that there isn’t much to worry about. Since I started my...

5:18 am

Thoughts |

February 19th, 2019

I feel as though some things seem to finally be falling into place. I spend lots of time thinking about stuff I want to create...

Silence & Solitude

Thoughts |

February 15th, 2019

Finding a place where I can truly be alone with myself, my work, and my thoughts is tough. Everywhere I go there always seems to...

Eagle & Bison Design Company – A New Start

Updates |

September 19th, 2018

For what seems like years now at this point, I've always dreamed of starting a project/business that was based seamlessly around my main creative interests....

The Rainy Drive to Work

Travel |

February 14th, 2019

Hey would you look at that, it's yet another rainy day in Los Angeles. As much as I look forward to rainy days, too many...

Stuck at Home

Nature |

February 2nd, 2019

Another rainy weekend here in Los Angeles and I'm stuck indoors. It's not all bad though. Staying home forces me to work on stuff I...

The Changing of Times

Music |

January 24th, 2019

One of the things that has fallen to the side over the years is my willingness to set aside time to write and record music,...

The Mystery of Time

Thoughts |

January 26th, 2019

Living your life at the mercy of time is an easy life to live. Living your life in spite of time is much harder. Who...

Getting Back Into a Routine

Process |

January 22nd, 2019

We’re almost a month into 2019 and one of my goals for this year is to finally get back into a regular schedule and routine....

Life In Miniature

Nature |

January 16th, 2019

Griffith Park has always been one of my favorite places to go to whenever I want to capture beautiful footage or photos of nature. On...

BlizzCon 2018 Vlog

Vlogs |

November 9th, 2018

BlizzCon 2018 was a whole lot of fun. This was the 4th BlizzCon I've attended since 2011 and by far, I had more fun at...

Coffee

Food |

September 25th, 2018

A few days ago I went to LAX to pick up my great-grandma who was returning from Colombia. When we came back, I helped her...

Nature Moves

Nature |

September 19th, 2018

I bought a new motorized camera slider the other day. I made some time to visit Wildwood Canyon Park and I brought the slider along...

The Voice of the Wind

Nature |

September 19th, 2018

Wildwood Canyon is one of my favorite places to relax. It's located in the hills of Burbank, one of my favorite cities, and it's so...

Coffee Shop Ambience

Food Travel |

September 19th, 2018

There's something about working out of coffee shops that has a calming effect on me. Whenever I go to one, I end up doing some...

Maybe I’m Just Tired

Travel |

September 18th, 2018

After spending a whole day hanging out at my grandma's house with my sisters, it was pretty late by the time we started heading home....

Griffith Park Nature Walk

Nature Photography |

September 17th, 2018

One of my favorite places to hike in LA is the Fern Dell Trails at Griffith Park. Its a nice, short route that transports you...

I’m 9131 Earth Days Old

Updates |

June 2nd, 2015

What do the Hubble Space Telescope, Adobe Photoshop, Windows 3.0, and I all have in common? We were all released in 1990.

KTHNXBAI 2014. OHHAI 2015.

Art/Design Projects Updates |

December 31st, 2014

It's the last day of the year again and just like what I did at the end of last year, I'm taking a look back...

How To Not Be A Lame Designer

Art/Design Process Thoughts |

August 6th, 2014

As some of you might recall, I've talked about a book I started writing over the past few months tentatively titled "Waiting To Wake Up"...

Monotony Kills Creativity

Los Angeles Photography |

July 9th, 2014

Doing new things for the sake of not going insane from boredom can be hard. It seems as though you try to live out perfect...

24 Trips Around The Sun

Updates |

June 2nd, 2014

Well here I am. Another year of life under my belt. I am now 24 years old. It's weird to type that out, let alone...

The Blood Moon

Astronomy Photography |

April 15th, 2014

So yeah, back to last night. A total lunar eclipse happened and I was super excited about it. I was finally able to properly collimate...

Windows H8

Thoughts Updates |

April 8th, 2014

About 2 months ago, my beloved MacBook Pro suffered a GPU failure. It was about a sudden and unexpected as one can imagine. Being a...

Why I Gave Up Television

Thoughts |

April 1st, 2014

Television, along with my will to watch it, is dead. The reason being is that there just isn't as much quality programming available to pique...

Object vs. Subject

Editorial Thoughts |

March 31st, 2014

I've come across lots of forms of art over the past few years. I've also come into contact with the creators of those artworks and...

What Do I Do Now?

Process Updates |

March 26th, 2014

I do a lot of things. Like seriously. Let's be honest here. I have my hand in tons of different creative outlets and I enjoy...

Fake It ’til You Make It

Process Thoughts Updates |

March 20th, 2014

One of the best quotes that pretty much sums up my life as a working designer/developer up to this point is "Fake it 'til you...

Goodbye 2013. Welcome 2014.

Art/Design Updates |

December 31st, 2013

Time is a strange concept to me. It's probably one of the few things I always think about and wonder what the origins of it...

The Rise and Fall of AetherAeon

Art/Design Updates |

November 22nd, 2013

I'm just going to come out and say it up front; the project you all know and were excited and hopeful about is officially done....

Searching For The Sunset

Art/Design Process |

November 20th, 2013

Despite what I was talking about yesterday about not having motivation to do anything, I am still running off of a great high from spending...

I Like To Waste Time In My Spare Time

Process Updates |

November 19th, 2013

It's mid-November. Leaves have started falling and the weather is changing. Daylight Saving Time is (finally) over and I'm stuck with, for the first time...

Just Some Updates, Nothing More

Art/Design Updates |

October 31st, 2013

It's that time of the year again. No, not the holiday season. I'm talking about me updating this damn site. I really suck at keeping...

Terragen 2, DeviantArt, & Me

Art/Design Updates |

June 27th, 2013

I'm really excited right now. I feel like I've been reunited with an old friend who has changed quite a bit but is still the...

Twenty Three Years & Counting

Updates |

June 2nd, 2013

Today's my birthday! Woo!! Cue the marching parade! Cue the festivities! Cue the gun-fire! (although that's a common occurrence given the area I live in)...

I Am The Galaxy Mission Statement v.2

Art/Design |

May 10th, 2013

For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past few years, you'd have no way of knowing it, since you'd...

When Only The Grey Makes Sense

Art/Design |

May 6th, 2013

Here is my newest design piece I worked on over the weekend. Its a retro custom typography poster I started on a few weeks ago...

The Making Of…

Process |

May 5th, 2013

One of the more exciting aspects of building this site was finally using Zurb's Foundation Framework more in-depth. I briefly used it last year when...

Welcome

Thoughts |

May 4th, 2013

This is a big day for me for a couple of reasons. The first being, obviously, the launch of this new site you are currently...

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