Improve Your Google Search Skills [Infographic] Don’t limit yourself to just plugging in simple search terms to Google; check out this infographic and learn a search string search or two. You don’t need to limit yourself to searching just for simple strings; Google supports all manner of handy search tricks. If you want to search just HowToGeek.com’s archive of XBMC articles, for example, you can plug in site:howtogeek.com XBMC to search our site. Get More Out of Google [HackCollege via Mashable] Jason Fitzpatrick is a warranty-voiding DIYer who spends his days cracking opening cases and wrestling with code so you don't have to.
Love Is Making Its Way Back Home (Stop-Motion) Production studio Prominent Figures used over 12,000 pieces of paper to animate Josh Ritter’s music video, “Love Is Making Its Way Back Home.” It was filmed frame-by-frame the old school way. “We had to determine ahead of time which images to cut as positives or negatives, how to anchor the cutouts to the paper frame that surrounds it so the pieces wouldn’t fall out, as well as a host of other problems. It was definitely the most labor intensive video we’ve been a part of,” [1] states Sam Cohen, concept designer. Full Credits: Director: Erez Horovitz Concept: Sam Cohen and Erez Horovitz Illustrator: Sarah Graves Text Illustrator: Savannah Wolf Lead Production: Marlie Pesek and Eric Giordano Photo Editor: Felipe Sanchez Technical Director: Ali Mohammed Grip: James Wells Production Assistants: Paige Ellis, Jacqueline Geisheimer, Angelina Zhou, Jesse Ashcraft-Johnson, Jovin Cronin, Faizan Ahmed, and Ricardo Gonzalez Produced at Danger!Awesome Filmed at Industry Lab Rigging: High Output
45 Awesome Abstract Textures Finding that perfect texture for your design can be quite the search, and also quite time consuming. To help you out a bit we’ve browsed through the large collection of textures over at deviantART and picked out some abstract textures. These can inspire you in making your own ones or you can use them. Maybe this can be the helpful start to a new project? Let’s dive in! 10 Useful Web Apps for Designers DesignWoop welcomes this guest post by Tomas Laurinavicius. Since the iPhone and iPad entered the market you can hear lots of news about apps for these devices. Tons of apps available today and you can find everything you want. But today I would like to share 10 handy web-based apps for designers. To use these apps you don’t need to buy an iPhone or iPad, you can use them without any additional software or device, you just need a web browser. In this collection I’ve picked 10 useful and time-saving web apps for designers. Invoice Bubble Invoice Bubble is free invoice software that lets you create an invoice and send to your client in seconds. Gridulator Tell Gridulator your layout width and the number of columns you want, and it’ll spit back all the possible grids that have nice, round integers. Browize Useful tool for resizing current browser window size to set or custom resolutions. Screenr Screenr is a web-based tool that lets you create screencasts without installing any software. Kuler
50 Fresh Free Fonts of 2010 Though there's a broad variety of fonts available for download online, designers keep on tracing the fresh ones to enhance their design copy, a website, brochure, or even an advertisement in a brand new an' awesome way. Still, the free stuff could not always boast of good quality – premium goodies always demand some kind of money investment. However, now it's possible to find the appropriate font that's free, clear, beautiful, and effective for design purposes. Many great designers are now offering professional quality fonts completely for free. Today's round-up actually goes outside the standard font variety. We've managed to gather a collection of 50 novelty styled free fonts which you can instantly download and use to add a powerful impact for your designs. Geomancy Kilogram Tribbon Quadranta Adec Teardrop St Marie Dekar Code Cube Piron Glide Planer Paranoid Circled St Ryde Danger Pincoyablack New Garden Titillium Text Sylar Scriber Mentone Circula Sansation LT Oksana Font V4.0 Lintel Frgmnt Amsterdam Sol Pro Zag
The BIGGEST ever list of design resources! - ProofHQ Following the huge success of last year’s “World’s Biggest Ever List of Graphic Design Blogs”, we’ve decided that we should turn it into an annual event – after all, more people than ever before are blogging and the talent pool continues to grow. This year, we’ve added in some additional categories including typography and image sourcing sites to help you along your way. The list is at least 40% larger than last year and is the one stop shop for all that you could need in terms of inspiration, reference material or tools for you to use. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen…. drum-roll please! Graphic Design 1stwebdesigner Blog by Dainis Graveris in Latvia covering all things design and freelance. 2expertsdesign A blog filled with tips – whether it’s graphic design, logo design, web design, advertising, branding or typography. 456 Berea Street Blog from Roger Johansson containing articles and tutorials on web standards, accessibility and usability. 72dpi Graphic design inspiration.
Adobe Photoshop Tutorials from Beginner to Advanced | Psdtuts+ Photoshop 30 Christmas Holiday PSD & AI Flyer Templates The success of any event, being it a show, a sale, a party or a simple get-together, often depends on how well you can promote it. These flyers are diverse and eye-catching examples of promotional materials created for events that take place during the holiday season. 45 CV Resume Templates That Will Get You Hired You could make your resume in Microsoft word. 24 Really Cool Photoshop Actions To Enhance Photography Photoshop actions are the best — they save time and make you more productive during post-processing. 110 Free PSD Web Design Elements Looking for some nice and high-quality web design elements? 80 Helpful Photoshop & Illustrator Icon Design Tutorials In this article we have gathered 80 Best Photoshop & Illustrator Icon Design Tutorials that will teach you the techniques you will need for designing your own icons using mainly Photoshop & Illustrator. 80 Random Best Photoshop Brushes 100 Adobe Photoshop Wallpaper Tutorials
External Tip – 10 Advanced Photoshop Tutorials You Should See In this category we want to give you an advice to other great sites, where you can get a lot of very useful information, inspirations and materials. Here I collected 10 great Photoshop tutorials, which can help you to expand your skills. Create a Devastating Tidal Wave in Photoshop Create Quick Particle Effect on Photo via Custom Brush Options in Photoshop Create a Surreal Upside Down Mountain Painting in Photoshop Business Man – Awesome Black & White Tutorial Create A Human/Robot Hybrid In Photoshop Create a Vintage Memorabilia Poster Design a Awesome Supernatural Dark Scene with Fiery Effect in Photoshop How to Create Cityscape Concept Art Create a Water Girl Photo Manipulation Mixing with Splatter Brushes in Photoshop Create a Nebula Cosmolady in Photoshop – Tutorial
Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills. You just have to know where to look. Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills , but I figured I’d save you some time. Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new. Hack a Day - Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks (short tutorials) every day from around the web and one in-depth ‘How-To hack’ guide each week.eHow - eHow is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss solutions and tips for completing day-to-day tasks and projects.Wired How-To Wiki - Collaborate with Wired editors and help them build their extensive library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips.
Blog Archive » Indie Publishing Heads’ Up: Cover Size Requirement Change Starting June 14, Smashwords updated their requirements for covers to get into their Premium Catalog (worldwide distribution through Apple, etc.). They are planning ahead for requirement changes in August from Apple: Apple will start requiring that the covers be at least 1400 pixels on a side. The minimum requirements for Smashwords still are 600 pixels on the short side, but that will not get you into the Premium Catalog, and you want that. Previously, I’d recommended covers be 750 by ~1000 pixels. Here are what the requirements will be: Smashwords: 1400 pixels shortest side minimum.Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon): 1000 pixels minimum longest side, recommended 2500 pixes longest side.PubIt (B&N): 2000 pixels length maximum, longest side. The minimum size of a Smashwords cover will be 2100 pixels (proportional to a 6 by 9 cover) or 2240 pixels (proportional to a 5 by 8 cover), which is incompatible with PubIt requirements. I recommend switching to two covers: