It's Not All Bad It has occurred to me that I might have been a little bit negative regarding the design profession the past couple of days. Fearing that it is coming across as if I hate my job or the profession, I decided that I might need to clarify that it is just...
The business of graphic and web design is a difficult business to break into. Designers are no longer expected to simply be print experts, but they must also have web knowledge as well. Most designers these days are well rounded and are capable of handling both...
This is one of the hardest things sometimes as artists and designers. We are constantly expected to come up with new ideas and concepts. We are expected to think outside of the box and really knock everyone's socks off. We all tend to work well under pressure and...
Imagine going into a clothing store and walking out with a completely new wardrobe of clothes, without paying or saying anything to anyone. When the alarms of the store go off, the workers confront you and claim that you are stealing the clothes. You're reply is...
This is a list of 10 quality serif fonts that you will find in most professional graphic design work. These are all found in body copy of books and magazines. They are all beautiful and elegant for their own reasons. They all come in different weights and italics,...
Bryoglyphics Computer Arts Typorganism Amautalab Funnel Design Group Lab.Mathieu-Badimon Gabriel Moreno Color Hunter Lotie The Designer's Jumpola
Creative Edge is a new site launched by Safari Books Online that is a design resource site for creatives. They have an extensive library of creative professional design books at your fingertips. With a subscription, you can browse any topic, and you have unlimited...
11 Quality Fonts to Use in Your Professional Design Work Quality fonts make your work look much better than using free novelty fonts. Granted, there are some really well-crafted fonts out there for free now. However, if you are looking for high quality fonts for your...
Magic Bullet PhotoLooks This Software looks spectacular! The cool part I like about this software is that you can use it as a plug-in inside of Photoshop, or you can use it as a standalone version to save on memory. This software isn't just a set of plug-ins- you can...
Inspiration:10 Examples of Beautiful and Interesting Web Design Beautiful web design is something that every company wants. Below, you will find 10 inspiring examples of web design that really stands out. You'' find digital magazines, design publications, and even a...
This is a great way to take a still photo and create motion around your subject, to give it some extra depth and narrower focus on the subject. First, select a good action shot, such as a sports shot, or a car shot. First, duplicate the background layer, so that we...
Creating a dotted line stroke in Illustrator First, create a new document in Illustrator. I created one 1024 x 768. Then, select a typeface that you want to use and create a nice large word or couple of words. For our purposes, I am taking away the fill to see the...
Create a new layer and fill it with a color. I chose a rich orange. Then, find a nice textured photo, and size it to fit your document. Desaturate that layer and set the blend mode to overlay. Then, grab your text too and choose a nice bold typeface. I chose Helvetica...
Make Hi-res Custom Brushes in Photoshop We are going to use a shape to create a custom brush. You can take a shape you have made in Illustrator, or you can use a custom shape in Photoshop, or you can paint your own with other brushes in Photoshop. First, create a new...
I had a great time this past week seeing everyone's entries. Tons of work poured in that was absolutely marvelous. There can only be one winner per week, though, and one group's work stood out amongst the crowd this week. Steve Miceli from Miceli Studios submitted his...
First we are going to open a texture image, such as a rocky background, but you could use anything- a brick wall, a rough surface anything that you'd like. Then, go to Image>Adjustments> Desaturate. Then, do a save as to save the file as a new document and make...
In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to transform an object in perspective in Illustrator. This is extremely handy when trying to make a pattern fit a certain perspective. First, we are going to create a simple circle pattern. Select your ellipse tool, holding...
3D Electric Type This tutorial uses Illustrator and Photoshop to create 3D electric type, quickly and fairly easily. First open a new Illustrator document and pick a nice bold typeface. I chose Helvetica Black and the text is set to 225pt and the color is set to a...
Today we are going to use the extrude and bevel options under the 3D menu in effects. You can use a simple default setting, or we will show you how to play with the settings to get a unique and more dimensional look that might fit your application better. Start by...
The 3D option in Illustrator is a great tool for rendering quick 3-Dimensional shapes for your design work. First we are going to make a solid vase shape. Then, we are going to edit it to make it a hollow 3D vase, so you can see how to do a live edit on a vector 3D...