What are those little vine looking things graphic artists put on everything now?

It's very trendy now to have those - well they look like vines almost - on posters and ads. They're usually faded into the background or something, but create a graphic element.



What are they called and how do you make them?

What are those little vine looking things graphic artists put on everything now?
I wonder if you can provide an example? I notice a lot of TV ads and commercials use silhouette style flourishes of flowers, vines and circles. Like The Food Network. Below is a link to Adobe Photoshop "brushes" which include silhouette style images you can add to graphics. I've downloaded some myself and I'm trying to decide how to use them.
Reply:They are called trim, which does several things for a document.



One to take up extra space. Another reason to make a document more classy and sophisticated.



For the most part, these trims are just clip art or special fonts that were made into a graphics format.



You can download some free fonts from the Internet and find other interesting art images. Or you can buy some fonts at a store. And if you feel capable enough, you can also create them in Photoshop (save as TIFF), or Illustrator.



Rob
Reply:I've seen them called many things - flourishes seem to be the most popular term. They're a current trend that seem to take inspiration from art nouveau. Learn how to make them quick though, as they've hit mainstream and could be on their way out soon :)



There are a couple ways to 'make' them:

- Freehand them, scan them, and then vector trace them using something like Illustrator.

- Buy a vector pack, or download a free one

- Find an example of these flourishes, take a photo, (I tend to use ironwork from around that time) and then vector trace it.



The sources include some links I found by googling "flourishes vectors".