Showcase of Interesting Navigation Designs
Sep 7, 2010 General, Inspiration, Resources, Tutorials
Everyone is always looking for interesting and effective ways to organize their website and allow users to move about and find things. But there’s a fine line between unexpected and unusable. Three points to consider in any navigation scheme are consistency, user expectations and contextual clues. If page is long and provides different levels of navigation , will users be able to find their way through the site and use proper navigation quickly?
Tags: article, background, calobee-doodles, collision-labs, content, Design, flywheel-design, footer, Resources, showcases, slideshow, Tutorials, twitter, user, wishbone-design
Create a Beautiful Paint Brush Icon in Photoshop
Aug 30, 2010 General, Resources, Tutorials
This tutorial is meant to explain how to design semi-realistic objects achieved through simple procedures. The tutorial mostly uses shape layers, which will help you edit them later on and make your work more flexible and scalable. Continue reading… Continue Reading: Create a Beautiful Paint Brush Icon in Photoshop
Tags: background, bristle, color-overlay, gradient, illustrator, Light, Photoshop, Resources, shape, supratim-nayak, tools, work
In Defense Of A/B Testing
Aug 27, 2010 General, Inspiration, Resources, Tutorials
Recently, A/B testing has come under (unjust) criticism from different circles on the Internet. Even though this criticism contains some relevant points, the basic argument against A/B testing is flawed. It seems to confuse the A/B testing methodology with a specific implementation of it (e.g. testing red vs.
Tags: background, css, Design, fitness, icons, Inspiration, opinion column, Photoshop, Resources, time, Tutorials, wallpaper, wallpapers
40 Cool Twitter Background Designs
Aug 27, 2010 General, Inspiration, Resources, Tutorials
Twitter is a continually growing trend with a shocking popularity worldwide so it’s impossible to avoid a Twitter-related article here (the Twitter icon on the right side of this very article is enough proof of my statement, and very hard to ignore, indeed!). This time we will discuss about Twitter from a designer’s perspective and we’ll be referring to Twitter background designs – something you really shouldn’t take for granted if you care about giving a clue of your personality to your followers, and that at the first glance! So we’ll be looking at some Tweeter backgrounds that are impressive because of their original and very well-balanced graphics, and, in fact, because they have style! A Twitter background is much less demanding than that of a site or blog, but considering that thousands of people could relate to you through that, you should give it a bit of thought, however. Basically, you have to decide about a picture that you place on your Twitter page and usually you get the best results either if you choose a very complex photo-manipulation or composition that catches the eye or if you prefer a simple but striking and very original photo that is cool to look at and makes quite an impression! Don’t forget about the most important element, though – the background that you choose should be a close reflection of your personality! I hope the examples in this article will inspire you for that! Tamar Weinberg ( @tamar ) Adam Plitt ( @adamplitt ) Eric Steuten ( @ericsteuten ) Veronica Belmont ( @Veronica ) The New School ( @thenewschool ) Mark Nikolewski ( @mnik ) Praveen ( @praveenar ) Matt Clark ( @imagedesigns ) Go Media ( @Go_Media ) Michiel Nagtegaal ( @designia ) Chris Spooner ( @chrisspooner ) Happy Tree Friends ( @happytreefriend ) Fresh ID, LLC ( @freshid ) Mark Fulton ( @DotSauce ) Steven Pitts ( @stevenpitts ) Fire Eagle ( @fireeagle ) Basti Hirsch ? ( @cervus ) Wotto76 ( @wotto76 ) iJustine ( @ijustine ) Doug Cone ( @nullvariable ) Jarrod De Lange ( @Designer_Wall ) Knox ( @knoxeo ) krftd ( @Krftd ) Lisa Worsham ( @LisaWorsham ) Eric Bush ( @PlanetXbox360 ) CowboyX ( @cowboyx ) Killer Tweets ( @badasstweets ) Aviary.com ( @Aviary ) Vince Blackham ( @vinceblackham ) Michael C.
Tags: background, best-twitter-backgrounds, custom, Design, downloads, friends, illustration, Resources, stumbleupon, templates, twitter
Proper Standards-Compliant Color Use in Web Design
Aug 22, 2010 General, Inspiration, Resources, Tutorials
As designers who’d like to turn our creations into works of art, we want to design towards our heart’s content — letting our eyes be the final judge of our masterpieces. But as we all know, creating a web page is different from creating a painting — with a painting, we can freely express ourselves on the canvas. However, with a web page, we need to effectively pass on information, first and foremost. Continue reading…
Tags: article, background, contrast, design-tutorials, graph, image, priority, Resources, standards, Web Design
Design a Coffee Shop Menu Layout from Scratch with Photoshop and InDesign – Part 2
Aug 16, 2010 General, Inspiration, Tutorials
This is the second part of this tutorial series about creating a ready to print booklet menu for an imaginary coffee shop named "Violet Coffee." In this final part of the two part series, you’ll learn to create a ready to print booklet on InDesign, work with master pages, text, tabs, paragraph and character styles, import external files and actually print the booklet. Let’s move on! What You Should Get Now In the Part 1 of this tutorial series, I showed you how to design a background for both the cover and internal pages, besides two additional graphics that we will use later. Before starting with this part of the tutorial you should have all the following PSD files on hand. Psd Premium members can find those files in the source folder of the Premium download.
Tags: articles, background, character, image, layout, master, pages, swatches, tutorial, Tutorials
Creating Complex Style Illustrations: A Process
Aug 4, 2010 General, Resources, Tutorials
Learn the process of making a tribal-style illustration using only some fundamental techniques in Adobe Illustrator. This is more of a process overview than a play-by-play tutorial and thus, some basic skills in the program are needed in order to follow along. The main goal here is to show a workflow process, and from there, it’s up to you to add your own style and aesthetical preferences to your piece. I encourage you to let loose and experiment while doing this project! Continue reading…
Tags: background, blend, Brushes, cloister-black, design-tutorials, duplicate, ellipse, heinritzh-sales, illustration, illustrator, pattern, process, Resources, Tutorials, work
How To Capture a Stylish Smoke Photograph
Aug 4, 2010 General, Inspiration, Tutorials
Today we’re going to delve into the arena of smoke photography, investigate some of the post-processing techniques available to you, as well as a few different methods for obtaining certain effects. Grab your camera, and join us after the jump! Step 1: Equipment Selection While photographing smoke, you can get spectacular images using minimal equipment. I used the following kit in today’s tutorial: A prehistoric flash released in 80′s (power range – 35 Ws) A small halogen floodlight with the power of 100 W (sold in home improvements stores) 2 tripods for holding the lights Optical Flash Trigger Photo Sensor Black fabric background (1.5m square) DSLR camera Pentax K-m with lens DA 18-55 mm Step 2: Illumination Settings Ensure that your flash is installed so that it illuminates the subject from the side. The most important point is that the light from the flash shouldn’t illuminate the background.
Tags: background, composition, facebook, Inspiration, Light, Lighting, post-processing, shooting, theory, Tutorials
Create an Artistic Scene with 3D Light Bulbs and Type
Aug 2, 2010 General, Resources, Tutorials
In this graphic design tutorial, we will combine Photoshop, Cinema 4D, and Illustrator to produce a composition that includes elements such as 3D text, 3D light bulbs (which we will create from scratch using only a reference photo), and florid ornaments. My concept for this scene started from a simple thought: “ideas are all around us.” We are constantly surrounded by ideas wherever we are and everywhere we go — we just have to find them and make the best ones happen. Continue reading… Continue Reading: Create an Artistic Scene with 3D Light Bulbs and Type
Tags: background, color, group, image, layers, opacity, paths, Resources, Scene, settings, tutorial
The Benefits of Wide Aperture (And Choosing a Lens for Under $500)
Jul 21, 2010 General, Inspiration, Tutorials
Today we’ll look at a few of the benefits of shooting with a wide aperture. If you’re new to photography there will be some key insight here into one of the biggest factors for taking professional quality photos that will stun your friends and family. After this, we’ll take a look at several lenses that will help you get to f/2.0 and wider without forcing you to give up food and electricity for the next six months to make the purchase! Why Don’t My Photos Look Amazing? So you finally decided to get serious about photography and went out and bought a new camera.
Tags: aperture, background, basix, become-a-fan, canon, facebook, Inspiration, Lighting, photography fundamentals, post-processing, shooting, Tutorials
