Friday, November 28
Tuesday, November 25
Great Designer resource list | Free Brushes Download: 45 Sites to Download Photoshop Brushes
The world of Photoshop brushes, something that always comes handy while creating some new designs. you can get the classy grungy effect or cool retro effect in couple of seconds, there are Hundreds of thousands of incredible Photoshop brush sets are all over the web, here we have listed 45 Best Photoshop Brush Resources Every designer should have in their Bookmarks
1. Blend Fu
2. Brush King
4. Brusheezy
6. PS Brushes
7. Chez Plumeau
8. Q Brushes
9. Get Brushes
10. Shizoo
11. In Obscuro
12. Brush Fed
13. Bio Rust
14. Valhalla
15. www.hybrid-genesis.com/freebies/free_brushes/regbrushes/regbrushes_01.html
16. Fractured Sanity
17. Aethereality
18. Art Flower
19. Paper Lilies
20. deviant ART
21. Free photoshop [ http://www.freephotoshop.com/html/free_brushes.html ]
22. PS Brush [ http://www.psbrush.com/ ]
23. Bash Carpo [ http://bashcorpo.dk/brushes.php ]
24.Tomle Din [ http://tomledin.com/stuff/brushes.html ]
25. Personainternet [ http://www.personainternet.com/echoica//brushes.php ]
26. Suite Psds [ http://suitepsds.com/psds.php?cid=226 ]
27. Lovely Trash [ http://www.lovelytrash.org/brushes.htm ]
28. Blinding Light [ http://blinding-light.com/download/brushes/0 ]
29. Pootato [ http://pootato.org/downloads?dl_cat=1 ]
30. Anna Von Holdt [ http://www.annikavonholdt.com/brushes/y.htm ]
31. Photoshop Brushes [ http://www.photoshopbrushes.com/brushes.htm ]
Round-Up’s
- Splatter and Watercolour Brushes For Photoshop | Smashing Magazine
- 100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes | Photoshop Roadmap
- 1000+ Free High Resolution Photoshop Brush Sets | Noupe
- 146 Photoshop Brushes | Deviant ART
- Tasty Tattoo Photoshop Brushes, Vector Art, and PNGs | Design Fruit
- 75 Insane High Res Photoshop Brushes | Elite by Design
- Free Hi-Res Watercolor Photoshop Brushes | BittBox
- 33 Beautiful Border And Corner Brush Sets | 1st Web Designer
- 42 Free Nature And Floral Photoshop Brush Sets | 1st Web Designer
- Over 550 Photoshop Brush Packs Free for Commercial Use | Arbent
- FREE abstracts and cool Photoshop brushes hand-picked from Deviantart | Francess Munganai
- 200+ Photoshop Brushes for Light, Sparkles, Glows and Glitter | Vandelay Design
- 1000+ great Photoshop free brushes | Abduzeedo
- 35 Tutorials for Mastering Photoshop Brushes | Vandelay Design
Source:dzineblog.com
Monday, November 24
Delightful Graphic Design Books
I have probed the web for the mosthighly recommended and best-selling graphic design related books thatcan inspire and help you as a graphic designer. These books cover manyareas of design, including typography, color theory, layout, designtheory, web design, business and even search engine optimization andmarketing for designers.
These delightful graphic design books will make a great addition to any graphic designer’s library!
1. Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines
This is a book you should not do without. It touches on every topic youneed to know about how to be successful as a graphic artist. If youwant experienced and practical advice on anything from setting pricesfor your work on the Internet to how to best manage your clientrelations – this is the book for you.
2. Sagmeister: Made You Look
Daring designer, Stefan Sagmeister, chronicles almost 40 years ofworking in this business in this book. Sagmeister conveys his wit andhumor into these pages, as he tells you his personal adventures.
3. Make It Bigger
This book caters to designers who work with businesses. Read this to beinspired and benefit from the wisdom of years of experience working inthe field of graphic design.
4. About Face: Reviving The Rules Of Typography
Talking about the large topic of typography, About Face, helps younavigate through the world with ease. Many wonderful and successfulexamples of typography are provided in this book.
5. Typographic Design: Form and Communication
This is the fourth edition of a best-selling book. If you want just onebook to help you learn about how to properly typography, it’s thisone. Whether you’re interested in the history of this art, or how itcan be effectively used in this modern-era, this book is chock full ofvaluable information for graphic designers.
6. The Elements of Typographic Style
Author, Robert Bringhurst, has written this book, which uses beautifullanguage to tell the story of how to apply your own artisticsensibility to typography. One treat in this book is the examples offonts in different languages such as Russian and Greek.
7. The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type
This book’s author, Alexander W. White, is a strong advocate of whitespace – what you can also call negative space. Many designers feelthe need to clutter things up, but less can be more. Learn how tomaster that idea with this great book.
8. Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
This book focuses on layout. With it, you can comprehensively learn theelements of layout so that you can better use them in your work.
9. Designing with Type: The Essential Guide to Typography (Designing With Type)
A book that’s been around since 1971, this is something that willintroduce you to typography. It offers pointers on how to take intoaccount such things as the feeling of a text, as well as howeffectively it is conveyed in different formats.
10. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design
This offers a wonderful writing up of the history of graphic design. Itmay be of interest to both current graphic designers, and generalartistic-minded people.
11. Graphic Design: A New History
Own this book and learn about graphic design history in a new light.The book talks in-depth of the different times of history incorrelation to what graphic design’s were used.
12. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students (Design Briefs)
Author Ellen Lupton has written this wonderful book. The book has threemain sections: letter, text, and grid. Learn the history of each, howtechnology can help you, and then see examples in practice.
13. The Designer’s Toolkit: 500 Grids and Style Sheets: 500 Grids and Style Sheets
As you may have already guessed, this book challenges designers tore-think their idea of how to work within a grid. There are 500 gridand style sheets ready for you to produce your work on and see what youlike.
14. Looking Closer 5: Critical Writings on Graphic Design
This is the fifth and final installment in a series of wonderful books.Within these pages you will find writing on controversial topics thatwill encourage you to think outside of the page, or the screen.
15. How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer
Learn what you have in common with other graphic designers who haveachieved success. What has helped them overcome obstacles may very wellhelp you as well. This book is full of interviews you will findinvaluable.
16. Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design
The title of the book tells you what you’re getting, right off thebat. Michael Bierut writes with whimsy and a critical eye in this bookthat you are sure to enjoy and be educated from.
17. How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul
The work of a graphic designer is not easy, and you probably alreadyknow that. Within these160 pages you will discover writing on topicssuch as how to generate ideas when your mind is void of them. Youdon’t want to become a slave to mundane tasks and lose your spark, ifyou feel yourself drifting – reach for this book.
18. LogoLounge 3: 2,000 International Identities by Leading Designers (LogoLounge)
If you’re crazy for logos then this is the book for you. In thisthird installment, you will find a myriad of different logos – 2,000to be exact. Get inspired with this book, and then get designing.
19. Logo Design (Midi Series)
This is a handy reference book on logo design. Students and professionals alike will enjoy this book.
20. Hand Job: A Catalog of Type
Fifty typographers are featured in this book, and what they all have incommon is that they reject technology, and design their fonts by hand.While the title at first can seem shocking to anyone, it will stayshocking to a designer. When’s the last time you reached for a penand paper for your final draft? Maybe next time you will, after readingthis book.
21. UniversalPrinciples of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, InfluencePerception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and TeachThrough Design
Well-written, this book is what it claims to be – 100 ways toenhance, influence, increase, teach – you get the idea. It is easy tounderstand and follow, and gives you well-researched briefs on avariety of topics that normally you’d have to read about in severaldifferent books.
22. Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book
Experts that make up the Adobe Creative Team have put together thisbook for you to easily expand your knowledge of the Adobe Photoshopprogram. Learn how to do things better and faster, all from readingthis book.
23. The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)
To have Adobe Photoshop is one thing; to be able to use it is onething, but to be able to use it well is another. And that is especiallytrue when it comes to digital photography. If you want the best tipsand tricks, this book won’t lead you astray.
24. Adobe Illustrator CS3 Classroom in a Book
Master the programs in Adobe Illustrator by using this book as astep-by-stop guide. The Adobe Creative Team will guide you where youneed to go.
25. The Adobe Illustrator CS3 Wow! Book (WOW!)
If you want to be the best with using Adobe’s Illustrator, you needthis book. There are tons of lessons in this book to help you learn newtools. Ever wonder how to take a desaturated image and make it appearto be a color photo? Read and learn.
26. Adobe InDesign CS3 Classroom in a Book
This is a good book for beginners. Make sure to get the second printing, as the first as some typos!
27. HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition (Visual Quickstart Guide)
You should know HTML, and probably XHTML and CSS as well. So learn ithere, with this wonderful book! This is not for advanced students.
28. CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
Authors Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll have written theultimate guide to CSS! Learn everything you wanted to know, and more– in this book.
29. Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS (2nd Edition)
When you build a Web site, you want it to work. This book will help youlearn how to get out all of the kinks and bugs from your site so thatthe widest possible audience can access it without flaws.
30. SEO Book
When you have a Web site, you want traffic. You get that through searchengine optimization (SEO). This is the only book you will ever need tomaster search engine optimization and you can download it!
Top 7 Most Overused Techniques & Elements Used In 2008 Graphic Design
Is all design looking the same to you? Are you following graphic design trends subconsciously?
Top 7 Most Overused Techniques & Elements Used in Graphic Design
Whenever you look for inspiration, you are bound to come across at least one of these techniques / effects / elements. These effects are neither “good or bad” however they are the most common elements found in today’s designs.
Stock images have been used to portray each element. On that note of stock, there was a great discussion about the use of stock art over at GoMediaZine.
1. Sunrays / Rays of Light / Rising Sun
By far the most overused technique used in design today is theinfamous rays of light usually found tucked away in the background of adesign or at the very forefront of the design such as in the pictureabove.
2. Black (or Coloured) Silhouettes
Vectorised silhouettes of people and other objects is definitelysecond on the list. Made famous by the iPod campaign this technique cannow be seen everywhere. Notice the combination of the sun rays andblack silhouettes?
3. Ink Splatter
Closely contending with number 4, ink splatters are everywhere. InkSplatters do add a cool / trendy look to a design and they do blendwell with grunge style designs however ink splatters should be used inmoderation.
4. Swirls / Flourishes / Ornaments
Swirls seem to be all the rage at the moment as they are quiteappealing and generally just nice to look at. Flourishes &ornaments go well together to create organic, fresh designs which isquite ‘in’ at the moment.
5. Flowing Lines
Flowing lines generally add motion and fluidity to a design whichgives it a certain emotion when combined with other elements (ie. funkycircles as seen above) which is generally why they come up so often.
6. Funky Circles
The funky circle colour combo is evident in numerous designs acrossthe web and like the name suggests it does give a design a quite funkylook however they are being used everywhere!
7. Smoke Textures
These smoky effects are not as blatantly obvious as the other onesas they are always in the background of a design however if you look abit closer, these smoky effects are everywhere.
Wednesday, November 19
Tuesday, November 11
Best of CSS Design idea and Inspiration
For those who don’t know, I’m also the guy behind Best Web Gallery and N.Design Studio. In 2006, I started Best Web Gallery as a gallery site where I feature the best CSS and Flash sites. I’m glad that I started the project because it gives me the opportunity to keep my design sense up-t0-the-trend. In the past year, I’ve seen a lot of sites from the submissions (some are great, some are horrible). As 2007 is wrapping up, I would like to share the best design sites with you. Here is a list of 50 websites hand-picked from Best Web Gallery — Best of CSS Design 2007.
Capture the Valley
Beautifully designed single page site.
Squawk Design
Impressive design by a graphic arts student, Dominik Lenk.
Holiday To Go
Love the red color applied on the tinted background.
Team Green
The torn paper and grunge effects are nicely put together. If you like my previous artistic design collection, you will like this site.
Radiant Plumbing
How can a plumbing website be so artistic (check out the header artwork)? If the contrast on the text area is higher, it would be a perfect design.
Alex Buga
Love the semi-transparent effects applied on the wood texture.
Burnett Dairy
Very cooperative, yet friendly.
Variable
Another artsy site.
Pixelmator
A Mac application site with nice icons and layout structure.
Jon Tan
Good use of web typography and grid layout.
Scrapblog
A beautiful web-app frontpage.
Marius Roosendaal
Single page portfolio site of Marius Roosendaal. Don’t forget to check out both "Day" and "Night" theme.
Trale
I particularly like the details spent on the typography of Trale.
Sarah Hyland
Very well-done on the header design.
Eye Candy
Mmm yummy… both the design and chocolate bars. Another good design site powered by WordPress.
RealaSponse
Nice 2-column homepage.
Flame Digital
Very unique layout structure and nice background images throughout the site.
Tickerville
I like the design a lot, but I’m not sure if this design/style work for a financial related site.
Webstock
New Zealand’s web conference website.
Cabedge
Simple, clean, and comfortable layout.
I Love Typography
A blog by John dedicated to typography.
Shylands
Simple, large bold font, great color contrast…
Superawesome
Very unique illustration style and color theme.
Happy Cog
A classic beautiful site.
Free People
One of my favorite ecommerce sites. The amount of details spent on this site is incredible.
Wish Tree
The wish/tag cloud in the background is simply creative!
Biola Undergrad
Another artsy design.
Viget Labs
Nice use of Javascript and CSS (I mean the scrolling effects).
Svenigson
Very clean and boxy layout.
Stuff and Nonsense
Site of Andy Clarke.
J R Velasco
Designed by Miguel Ripoll (one of my favorite designers). He has great sense of web typography. The layout looks very chaotic, yet the content is organized.
Explore Cascadia
One word, beautiful.
Yellow Stone Park
A very nice design within the box.
Elliot Jay Stocks
A design blog by Elliot Jay Stocks. He is a very talented designer with great personality (based on my personal conversations with him).
Freelance Switch
Good design and great content (freelance related).
Knoxville
Retro style in collage form.
Electric Pulp
I’m loving the watercolor effects.
Vivabit
I’m not a big fan of liquid design, but this is a good one.
Surfgarden
Nice and clean 2-column blog design.
Tanya Merone
Another great example of single-page site.
Matt Brett
A nice design blog by Matt Brett, he is a designer gamer.
Larissa Meek
A beautiful blog design by Larissa Meek, formerly a model, now she is an art director at AgencyNet.
Noodle Box
Nice use of color contrast.
Kineda
A blog by Terry and Tami Ng (celebrity and entertainment news).
Pod3.tv
Another nice design blog.
Kev Adamson
Another sketchy design.
Eleven3
Another retro/collage approach.
Turbo Milk
Nice icon.
Veerle’s Blog
Another classic beautiful blog.
31three
Blog and design portfolio of Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain.
