The science behind fonts (and how they make you feel) I’ve noticed how seemingly small things like font and the spacing between letters can impact how I feel when reading online. The right font choice along with the absence of sidebars and popups makes everything feel easier and better to read. Websites like Medium, Signal vs. Noise, and Zen Habits are like yoga studios for content. Their presentation of content puts me at peace while reading, allowing me to fully focus on the stories without distraction.
Just look at the difference between Medium and Cracked: Exhibit A) Medium.com Exhibit B) Cracked.com When you compare the two, it’s obvious which one makes you feel like crud. The Cracked layout is painful to look at. After experimenting with how we display content on the ooomf blog, I discovered there’s an element of science behind why we feel this way toward certain typefaces and layouts. How we read When we read, our eyes follow a natural pattern called a Scan Path. We break sentences up into scans (saccades) and pauses (fixations). 1. 2. 3. Speed Design with Illustrator. 14 tips to create interfaces in minutes.
Vector Polishing Techniques. Someone emailed me and asked how did I do the illustration background on Next2Friends. It inspired me to write this article. He asked "Did I do it in Photoshop or Illustrator? " Well, it is a mixture of both. First I created the artwork in Illustrator, then polished it in Photoshop. Here I will unveil all my secret techniques. This tutorial includes 9 Photoshop techniques that will show you how to add more depth, color, contrast, and texture into your vector art. Why do I need to polish the vector art? Vector artworks are usually very flat, dull, and lack visual effects due to software limitations; thus they look very boring. Technique 1: Lens Flare Effect First technique, let's start with one of my recent work on Next2Friends. I assume you have the vector artwork ready and you want to add a lens flare layer on top.
If you want the lens flare to focus on specify area only, you can delete the unwanted area. Sometime just the Lens Flare filter alone is not good enough. Technique 3: Rainbow. Create incredible B-movie poster art - Tutorials. Prepare to shock! Terrify! Amaze! Mark Mayers demonstrates how to recreate the shlock B-movie posters of cinema’s golden age. This spoof movie poster design is a simple but effective way of tackling those graphics challenges where there seem to be too many thoughts to fit in: it enables the designer to combine slogans and other textual elements with the bare bones of a storyline and striking images, all bound up in an iconic format that everybody will recognize. Of course, it doesn’t have to be the classic 1950s B-movie style that you adopt – the entirety of cinematic history is at your disposal.
Take your pick from gangster movie, romantic comedy, war film or chick flick. In this tutorial, Mark Mayer shows you how to combine 3D renders with stylized photography, text and smoke to capture all the camp horror of an alien invasion. Step 1Open City_render.png from this month’s cover CD in Photoshop. Design Gallery, Deals, Tutorials & Community. 50 Stunning Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials - Smashing Magazine. Photoshop’s text and layer tools can be used to create some really awesome effects. We’ve put together a list of 60 of the best tutorials we could find to help you stay up to date on the latest trends and techniques. You’ll find some really cool grunge and glass styles (plus a few surprises!) And learn how some of the best designers create their unique effects. Courtesy: LemonDesign1 Instead of listing 100 plus tutorials that you’ll bookmark never to come back, we’ve decided to take you through the basics of typography, hopefully inspiring and then teaching you.
Typography is an art just like any other. You have to feel the form, admire the curves and connect with the flow. You may want to take a look at the following related posts: Introduction to Typography Link Typography is the art of arranging type, designing type, and modifying type glyphs. Here are some resources to give you further insight: The Wisest Mind Has Something Yet to Learn Link How to Choose the Right Type Link Icy cold51 (al)
Design Instruct: A Web Magazine for Designers and Digital Artists. Graphic Design & Publishing Center. 41 Nicest Photoshop Photo Effects [Photoshop Tutorials] Looking at how powerful Photoshop can be in terms of photo editing, it’s probably not important if you suck at taking photographs or being labeled an amateur photographer. As long as you picked up a couple of Photoshop photo editing skills, it will still impress those who sees it. So the next time you want to publish some photos online, consider editing them so they look more impressive. Here’s a compilation of 41 Nicest Photoshop Photo Effects you can take into reference.
Full content after jump. Mental Wave Explosion EffectHow to create a crazy explosion, like a mix of Magneto’s ability with Peter Petrelli’s power. <IMG src=" 25 Brilliant Glow Effects. Written by RossAugust 29, 2008 Glowing effects are getting used more and more now and they look awesome when done well so I’ve compiled a list of the best tutorials showing you how to achieve these effects.
All these Photoshop tutorials give you great results and a good explanation of how to get there. I’ve included 25 so it should keep you busy for a while anyway! Glowing light trails Create this awesome effect and learn a thing or two about the pen tool. Sparkling girl Learn how to mix people with glowing effects in this great tutorial Electrifying energy beams Use Photoshop to create these energy beams that glow and sparkle. Learn a quick and useful technique to make stuff glow Advanced glow effect Use a combination of layer styles and blending to give the glowing effect.
Luminescent lines One of mine focusing on achieving the popular glowing lines effect. Simple glowing beams A simple yet effective light effect in Photoshop. Green glowing portfolio Use the glowing effects in web design. Neon text. 350 Photoshop Tutorials | Best Photoshop Tutorials. Photoshop is what makes the virtual world seem alive.
Its nothing less than a blessing for designers. The Internet is full of Photoshop Tutorials and you will find a tutorial on each and every tool. With that being said, we understand that these tutorials require time and effort to find so we’ve saved you both. How? Who knows, after going through these tutorials, you may end up being the next big thing in the world of Graphic Design.
This article is divided in 14 Sections: Advertisement Tutorials for Beginners 5 Common Photoshop Myths Solved for Absolute Beginners In this post, author will provide 5 Simple, Yet Useful Photoshop “How-to”s for Absolute Beginners. More Information on 5 Common Photoshop Myths Solved for Absolute Beginners How to Use and Create Brushes in Adobe Photoshop This tutorial will show you how to get and use brushes.
More Information on How to Use and Create Brushes in Adobe Photoshop A Beginner’s Guide to Photoshop Masks – Part One Bridge is Going to be Your Best Friend. 70 Photoshop Tutorials For Text Decoration From 2010. Photoshop is such a robust tool that every day is a new day to learn something new with the program. Today we are featuring fresh tutorials on one of its embellishing feature in form of Text Decoration. You can give any style to text you like. It can be a jungle effect or a flowery or musical effect or just a mix and match of two different styles.
Either way, you can definitely make basic text stand out by using any of the tutorials you will find in this list. These are some of the best photoshop tutorials for text decoration. If you’re a webmaster, you know that your website is going to be mostly comprised of text. However, how can you make the text on your website truly stand out? Advertisement Create a Funny Wooden Type Treatment in Photoshop In this tutorial author’ll show you how to easily create a wooden text effect. Tutorial Link Floral 3D Text Effect Learn how to turn a simple 3D text into a beautiful yet simple floral design. Tutorial Link Tutorial Link Tutorial Link Tutorial Link. Create a 3D Text Effect Using Photoshop Layer Styles. Photoshop layer styles are the first tool beginners learn to enhance text effects. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how powerful and flexible this tool is. We will go beyond the overused gradient overlay and 1px stroke effects. We will use patterns and some useful tricks to create a 3D text effect!
Preview: Click to enlarge Close-up For Mac users: ctrl=cmd Step 1 Create a new document in Photoshop. I want to create a grunge background for the text. Today, I will use a pattern. Step 2 Create a new layer, set black as the foreground color, grab a large soft brush with hardness 0% and gently paint over the edges of the canvas. Step 3 We need a bold font with keen forms/edges. Step 4 From the layers window, right-click on the text layer and select Blending options.
The first thing to do is add a gradient overlay going from a dark purple (#700760) to a lighter one (#b827a2), just to give it some color. Now select Satin, set its blending mode to overlay to add a glowing effect to the text: Step 5. Free Photoshop Tutorials. Christmas Wallpaper. Hello, today the topic of our tutorial will be the holidays that are coming very soon.
So enjoy the process thinking about time. We will do a lot of experiments with the brushes. Let's begin. Create a new document with these dimensions. Fill the with some color, then create a new layer for other color or . I chose this gradient: Click image to expand. Set the mode to linear light. I really like these . Use . Good! This tutorial is part 1 of a 2 part series. Christmas Wallpaper How to create Christmas Wallpapers or Backgrounds. Christmas Wrapped Text Effect. Final Image This is the final image that we’ll be creating. We’re aiming to create some christmas wrapped text. Step 1 Open up a new document (600X300px) and create a new layer called ‘background. Then drag a radial gradient ranging from D2EAFF to 9DCFFB from the center of your canvas towards the edge. Step 2 Now apply some white snowflakes to your background. Step 3 Now type out some text, and select each letter, changing them to different colors.
Step 4 Now go to blending options for your text layer, and apply a gradient overlay (blend mode: overlay, opacity: 50%). Step 5 How apply an outer glow effect to your text (settings shown below): Step 6 Now apply a texture to your text. Step 7 Create a new layer called ‘ribbon’. Step 8 Now apply an inner glow and gradient overlay to your ribbon layer. Step 9 Now duplicate your ribbon layer and apply the duplicates to each letter. Step 10 Now option+click on your text layer in your layers palette. Step 11 Step 12 Step 13 Then create a new layer.
Step 14 Step 15. Christmas ornaments lights balls. Christmas ornaments lights balls November 6th, 2008 by ART-D Posted in Adobe Photoshop, Designing In today’s quick tip tutorial, I will show you how to create a nice christmas card with ornamented New Year’s toys using Adobe Photoshop CS4 techniques. Let’s get started. Final Image Preview Start working by creating a new document (Ctrl+N) in Adobe Photoshop with the size 1280px by 1024px (RGB color mode) at a resolution of 72 pixels/inch. Use the Paint Bucket Tool (G) to fill with #320000 color the new background layer. Choose the Pen Tool (P), set the drawing mode on Shape Layers in Options bar and draw the next wavy shape as shown. Click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Drop Shadow. Add Outer Glow: Also apply Gradient Overlay: Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. You’ll get the next result: On the next step we’ll create another wavy shape using Pen Tool (P), like it is demonstrated below.
Add Inner Glow: The Santa Claus Wallpaper. The Santa Claus Wallpaper November 27th, 2007 by ART-D Posted in Adobe Photoshop, Drawing Techniques Learn how to create nice wallpaper with Santa Claus. Final Image Preview Let’s begin by creating a new file (File>New), having 800×600 px and 72 dpi. Next step includes applying the Rectangle Tool (U) for representing the background of the picture we want to have finally. The layer’s parameters may be set out by clicking on the layer we work with, on the layers’ panel:Blending Options>Gradient Overlay Gradient’s parameters: Using the Ellipse Tool (U), it’s possible to represent the primary layer, reserved for the Santa’s portrait’s frame.
The layer’s parameters: Blending Options>Gradient Overlay Make a copy of the last made layer and select Free Transform option to make the copy smaller, applying for it the next demonstrated parameters: Blending Options>Gradient Overlay Gradient’s parameters: Next we’ll try to draw the Santa’s head. Blending Options>Gradient Overlay Blending Options>Drop Shadow. Make a Sketchy Wallpaper for this Christmas. This tutorial will show how we can create a sketchy wallpaper for Christmas this year! We shall cover watercoloring, pencil sketching and some simple lighting effects. It will be good if you are working with a pen and tablet. Preview of Final Image Create a document of size 800×600 pixels.
Make a new layer and create a gradient like what I did below. Select the Brush tool and open up its Presets Brushes. Select the Gradient layer you made earlier and create a Layer Mask on it. Make a new layer above the Sky layer and name it as Snow Border. Create a Levels Adjustments layer and set the values to 11, 0.5, 255. Create a new layer above the Snow Border and name it as Slope. Create two slopes roughly the same size and place them side by side. Create a new layer above the Slope and name it as Huts. Then set the Brush Size to 4px and Opacity to 100%. Create a new layer and name it as Snow. Create a new layer and name it as Glitter. Create a new layer and name it as Lens. Computer Arts magazine | Inspiration, Technique, Great Design. How not to design a logo | Common mistakes | The Logo Factory.
The top 10 design mistakes that will ruin any logo attempt A look at things that designers might do that will utterly ruin, destroy, wreck and bastardize a potentially decent logo attempt. I’ve tried (you can judge how successfully) to write this with both designers and clients in mind. So without further ado, we present 10 things NOT to do when designing your next logo… #10: Pixels are dandy for photographs, but not for your logo Creating a bitmap logo in pixel based design software is only going to lead to headaches and more importantly, needless expense over the long haul. Take a quick peek at your logo files – if you don’t see anything with the extension .EPS or .AI, it’s time to visit a designer who will introduce you to the joys of vector based logos.
. #9: Ignore kerning and spacing Whenever words are input into any design software package, the program ‘guesses’ how close the letters should be to each other. It often depends on the software too. . #7: Throw in the visual kitchen sink. Real World Illustrator. Car Wrap Vehicle Design - Custom Car Wraps. How to make Car Advertisement Mock-ups. How to Make Painterly Picture Frames in Adobe Illustrator. How to Create a Photo Frame Social Icon Set – Illustrator Tutorial.