How to Create a Set of Highlighter Brushes for Illustrator
Published January 26th, 2012 in Design - 0 Comments
A few months ago at Vandelay Premier we recently released a set of highlighter brushes for Adobe Illustrator,and in this tutorial we’ll show how you can accomplish the same thing on your own. We’ll scan some lines made by a highlighter and that will give us a nice brush for using whenever highlighter or marker effects are needed.
Ultimate Roundup of Photoshop Custom Shapes
Published January 25th, 2012 in Design - 7 Comments
Photoshop presets like brushes and patterns get more attention, but custom shapes can be equally useful. Because custom shapes are vectors, they can be scaled to larger sizes with no decrease in quality.
In this post we’ll link to some of the best custom shapes sets that can be downloaded for free. As always when working with freebies, be sure to read the terms of use or license details to make sure that you are using it in accordance with the designer’s guidelines.
Showcase of Outstanding Portfolio Websites
Published January 24th, 2012 in Galleries - 4 Comments
Portfolio websites are a major marketing tool for most designers and design agencies. The portfolio site allows you to showcase your work, provide information about your services, and receive inquiries from those who are interested in your services. Portfolio sites are often examples of quality design work, as every designer wants to make a positive impression through the design and usability of the portfolio site.
In this post we’ll showcase 30 fresh examples of well-designed portfolio sites for your inspiration.
25 Amazing Nightscape Photographs
Published January 23rd, 2012 in Galleries - 3 Comments
The same scene captured in a photo at night will have a completely different feel than one taken during the day. Night photos can be intriguing and amazing, but the low levels of light make them a challenge to master.
In this post we’ll showcase 25 examples of beautiful nightscape photos taken by various photographers. To see any of them in a larger size simply click on the image to be directed to the source.
You may also be interested in Showcase of Night Photography.
Photo credit: Byrd Thanakiatkrai
7 Keys to Effective Blog Re-Designs
Published January 19th, 2012 in Design, Design Process - 6 Comments
Many blogs get re-designed every couple of years, if not more frequently. Re-designing a blog brings a number of challenges because more content is being added to the site all the time, new types of content may have been introduced since the last design, and the priorities and goals of blogs often change or evolve over time. This means that when re-designing a blog you’ll need to take some time before jumping into the design work in order to think about how to prioritize the right content, how to make it easy for visitors to find what they want, and how to use the design to make the blog more effective at achieving it’s purpose for the owner.
The success of a blog re-design is more heavily influenced by a proper planning process than it is by the design skills of the person creating it. A blog can get a fancy new design that looks great, but if it doesn’t help to make the site more user-friendly and it doesn’t do an effective job of achieving the blog’s purpose, the impressive look ultimately has very little impact.
In this article we’ll take a look at 7 keys to the blog re-design process. These are all things that should be considered at the time of the re-design in order to make the site more useful for visitors and more effective for its owners.
1. Same Design Style or New Approach?
Most of the time when a blog is re-designed it will maintain a similar style or look and feel, just with an updated approach. Brand development takes time, and if a blog has established a certain identity with its audience you will usually want to maintain that identity through the re-design process. However, there are some cases where the re-design presents the opportunity for the blog to go in a new direction. This includes color schemes, logos, and general design styles.
One of the first decisions that should be made is whether the blog should keep a similar style to the existing design, or if it should feature a new design style. Think about the blog’s current audience, how they view the blog and the brand, and if that still fits with the direction the blog is headed.
13 of the Best Hosted CMSs
Published January 18th, 2012 in Web Development - 12 Comments
Open-source content management systems like WordPress and Drupal get a lot of attention on design blogs, but they are not the only options when it comes to choosing a CMS. There are a number of hosted CMSs available that are popular with designers and their clients.
While the features vary form one hosted CMS to another, several of the primary benefits are common to all or most of them. Things like having the hosting included, the possibility for designing and developing sites very quickly, availability of pre-designed templates, and support tend to be listed among the benefits of choosing a hosted CMS.
Some hosted CMSs allow designers the opportunity for a private label, meaning that designers can brand the CMS as their own. In this case clients will see the designer’s branding rather than that of the company behind the CMS. In many of these cases the designer can also earn a commission on monthly hosting fees, which provides a nice stream of residual income for designers who use the CMS with a number of clients.
Here is a look at some of the best and most popular hosted content management systems.
25 Corporate Websites for Design Inspiration
Published January 17th, 2012 in Galleries - 6 Comments
Every company, regardless of the industry, can benefit from a quality website. While design is certainly not the only factor in creating a quality website, it does play a significant role. In this post we’ll take a look at 25 excellent examples of corporate website design. You’ll see examples from a wide variety of industries, and hopefully this showcase can provide inspiration for your own work.
30 Examples of Photoshop Disasters
Published January 16th, 2012 in Design - 13 Comments
Photoshop is an amazing tool that allows designers and photographers to do some incredible things. But not every Photoshopped creation works out exactly as planned. Whether it is poor execution, going too far, or oversight of something important, Photoshop disasters are not uncommon. In this post we’ll showcase 30 examples that come from psdisasters.com, photoshopdisasters.com, and photoshop-disasters.net.
How to Photograph Your Own Textures
Published January 12th, 2012 in Tutorials - 6 Comments
Textures are used all the time by designers for both web and print projects. A effective use of texture adds character and makes a design more interesting and appealing (for some examples see our post 35 Websites with Outstanding Use of Textures). At Vandelay Premier we provide high resolution textures to our members and customers, and there are of course countless other places where you can buy textures. However, creating your own textures is also an option, and in this article we’ll provide some tips to help make your texture photography more effective.
For the purposes of this article, we’re assuming that your goal for photographing textures is to use them in your own graphic design, or to distribute them to other designers. Someone who wants to photograph textures for the art of photography may approach things differently. We’re primarily interested in photos that will be highly useful for incorporating into graphic design. Scanning textures is also an effective option for flat objects like paper and fabric, but for this article we’ll focus on photographing textures.
35 Stunning Infrared Photos
Published January 11th, 2012 in Galleries - 5 Comments
Infrared photos are taken using a filter, allowing infrared light to pass through the filter while blocking other light. When used with infrared-sensitive film or sensors amazing results are possible. In this post we’ll showcase 35 examples of infrared photos from various photographers. If you want to learn more about infrared photography, this post is a good source of information.
Photo credit Mike Burdon
