Fonts With Specific Purposes Every designer has a set of fonts that they like to use for most projects. Most of these typefaces are versatile and can be used in a wide variety of applications. You can use them in headlines and in large bodies of text as well. A great...
Making Your Typography Shine Sometimes you need to create a quick type treatment to dress up a project. This situation applies when flat text just won't do. You just need an extra something to make a headline or an important word stand out. Photoshop is great for...
15 Essential Serif Fonts for Professional Designers This is a list of 16 quality serif fonts for professional designers 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...
This tutorial is just in time for Halloween, with an eerie background and 3D text with textures. In Photoshop CS5 the Repousse abilities give you a lot of flexibility, especially with textures, so you can create some really interesting work. This is only available in...
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...
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...
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...
I recently posted a tutorial on the blob brush in Illustrator. Using this tool, you can create some nice hand written effects. First, open up Illustrator and grab the blob brush tool. Go into your brushes panel and create a new brush. I will note that this is much...
X-height refers to the height of a lowercase letter in a typeface or the top of the midpoint of lowercase letter such as d, p, q and so on. Some typefaces have a tall x-height, some medium, and some have a short x-height. This drastically changes the look of the text...
Weight and Width Understanding how type works is an essential part of design. Weight and width can both have a drastic effect on the look and feel of an overall design piece. This is true for both print design and web design. Understanding how letterforms interact...
When reviewing your designs to make sure that you have created the best design and solution possible for your client, it is good to ask yourself a few questions. Does it flow well? Does your design have a good rhythm? The overall flow and movement of your design can...
There are many different ways to classify typefaces. They come in many different weights, widths, and contrasts, and have different x-heights, ascenders and descenders. They may also be set to different angles, such as an italic version, or a script typeface. This is...
This tutorial is great for adding quick and simple contrast to a photo. When using this in your design, it is a good idea to choose a subject that has to do with target market. To start, find a photograph with a main figure of subject in the middle, with a lot going...
This week is filled with beautiful photography, illustration, and fantastic paintings. One of my personal favorites is the one where the alphabet is beautifully painted throughout a city. I personally love expressive and beautiful ways that people paint or illustrate...
Some of these sites will inspire us as designers, artists, and photographers. Others will make us think about how we are all responsible for our actions, and how what we do can make a huge impact. WITNESS DAVID B. REEVES FERIC BENJAMIN KRAIN CHRIS BUZELLI CATH RILEY...
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,...
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...
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...