Freelance

An Example of Excellent Branding: Enexis

Enexis is a branding brainchild of the branding and design powerhouse EdenSpiekermann. EdenSpiekermann was founded b the famous and ingenious Erik Spiekermann, co-author of Stop Stealing Sheep & Learn How Type Works. This book is considered a must-have for anyone...

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Should Pentagram Sue? Would it do any good?

I recently came across a case involving Pentagram, where one of their designs were blatantly ripped off by a famous clothing company Sean John, owned by the famous rap artist known as P Diddy. Sometimes you can argue that a work is inspired by someone else's work, and...

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Multiple Masks on One Layer in Photoshop

This is a great method to get great masks in Photoshop. You can actually have 2 masks on an image at the same time. You can use a vector mask and use a custom shape to mask out an image, creating a clean mask for sharp edges. The pixel mask is great for creating...

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Is There A Gap Between Your Ears? Lesson Not Learned

After being constantly attacked last week for ruining their logo, Gap decided to revert back to the old logo that everyone knows and loves. They admitted that is was a wrong step for the company, and that the customer comes first, which is great. They should come...

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Create a Dark and Gritty Effect in Photoshop

Create a Dark and Gritty Effect in Photoshop

First, take your image and duplicate the background layer, so you can go back to your original if you need to. Hide the background layer and work from your copy. Go into the channels panel and hold down the command key (CTRL on the PC) and click on the RGB channel to...

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The Future of Design and Advertising

I was asked a question yesterday that really got me thinking: What do you think the future will hold for design and advertising? What will be the next big platform to design for? I thought about this for a long time, and my guess is as good as yours. People are always...

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Is the design field seeing the end of its day?

I frequent a lot of design blogs, simply because I like to know what is on the mind of other designers, and also because I like to have my ear to the ground regarding our industry. One thing that I caught wind of was a discussion about designers and web designers and...

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Winner Announced: Free Design Book Giveaway

First off, I want to thank everyone that participated for their invaluable comments for this post. There are many aspects to branding and corporate identity, and I think each comment touched on a different aspect. Branding is a vital part of marketing and building a...

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Design Book Giveaway: Comment for a chance to Win!

Contest Rules: It's simple- All you have to do is go to the Creative Beacon website and post a comment at the bottom of the giveaway announcement page to win. Post a comment about what you think is the most important aspect of branding or identity. Post your comments...

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Make your text fit an object in Illustrator

Make your text fit an object in Illustrator

I got this question yesterday, and thought that it would be a good topic for the day. If you want to fit text to a certain shape, you have a couple of options. The first option is to do what is called an envelope distort. First, you make your shape, and then take the...

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Quiktip: Key Commands For Type

When creating type in Photoshop, and you are looking for just the right display face, it helps to use the key commands to get things just how you want them. If you double click your text icon next to the layer, it will highlight your text. Then, simply go up to the...

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Is the New Mixer Brush in Photoshop Considered Cheating?

I was playing around with some of the new stuff inside of Photoshop CS5 and came across one of the new tools that they have included called the mixer brush. This is a great new tool that allows you to take a photo and use different settings to create a painting from...

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Places to go for Creative Inspiration #9

X-RITE With this site, you take a color test to see if you are as good with color as you think you are. This site goes off the notion that a large number of people have color deficiencies. RECAVE This is a cool blog about all types of interesting artworks, including...

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Create a Quick Photo Gallery Using Lightroom

I really like to create my own image galleries, but let's face it, in the real world, we can't always have things how we want them. Sometimes we need to get the job done in the best possible manner, as quickly and effectively as possible. When I need a quick image...

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Playing with Opacity and FX In Illustrator

Playing with Opacity and FX In Illustrator

Opacity has a lot of uses for different types of effects. We like to see certain things bleed through in some areas, while in others we want a shape or text to be a certain color. Recently, I was playing around with opacity in the appearance panel in Illustrator, and...

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Web Design: Layout and Tools

Web Design: Layout and Tools

When creating your web site, it is important to create a site that flows in a way that helps to get your message across to your viewer. You have to create something eye-catching, but well designed. Having a solid structure is key. To me CSS is the only way to go for a...

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Web Site Design: Choose Your tools Wisely

There is certainly a lot to consider when laying out your site design. There are so many tools to help you out, and so many methods to get the job done. You really have to consider what your needs are, and which method will help you accomplish them. When I design a...

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Create a Painterly Effect Easily In Photoshop

Create a Painterly Effect Easily In Photoshop

This is a neat trick that is easy and creates a subtle painterly effect with just two filters. First, find an image and open it inside of Photoshop. Then, hit Command +J (Ctrl + J on the PC) to duplicate your background layer. Do this twice, because we are going to...

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