How to paint an atmospheric environment
This piece is one I did in my free time. I always have fun when I sit down and do personal drawings, because they help me to escape from my busy professional life. When you're discovering how to draw things just for pleasure, you're totally free in your artistic decision making. You're like a writer, director and production designer all rolled into one.
The 36 best tools for data visualization
It's often said that data is the new world currency, and the web is the exchange bureau through which it's traded. As consumers, we're positively swimming in data; it's everywhere from labels on food packaging design to World Health Organisation reports. As a result, for the designer it's becoming increasingly difficult to present data in a way that stands out from the mass of competing data streams. One of the best ways to get your message across is to use a visualization to quickly draw attention to the key messages, and by presenting data visually it's also possible to uncover surprising patterns and observations that wouldn't be apparent from looking at stats alone.
Z Scores and T Scores
Z Scores A Z score (also known as a z value, standard score, and normal score) is used to describe a particular score in terms of where it fits into an overall group of scores. In other words, a Z score is an ordinary score transformed so that it better describes the location of that score in a distribution. A Z score has a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. T Scores
5 Unbeatable Types of Infographic + Free Tools to Create Them
An infographic (information graphic) has been a very effective way to bait for links and social media votes for ages. Like anything else, it can be done right or wrong (I am sure you have seen dozens of poorly implemented infographics by now and maybe a few really good ones). How to create a good one? The secret is in days (maybe months) of brainstorming. A cool concept doesn’t even have to be too very well-designed.
Amazing Resource for Design Freebies
The Complete Social Media Icons Set [EPS, PSD, CSS] Is it time to mix up the social media icons on your website? Try Candy, a new social media icon set from designer Ahmed Kaludi. The set has everything you need to help users... UIcons – Free Line Icons (AI, EPS, SVG, PNG) There’s nothing bigger in design right now than the use of great icon sets throughout a project.
Blog.SpoonGraphics
How To Create Digital Particle Waves in Adobe Illustrator The blend tool in Adobe Illustrator is often used to create abstract wave graphics, but I’ve been experimenting with some additional adjustments and discovered some handy tricks to create sci-fi inspired digital particle waves. This kind of imagery perfectly complements hi-tech interface designs with colourful data visualisation effects, or it could be used to create abstract art in its own right. We’ll create the initial effect in Adobe Illustrator, where I’ll show you a few options for randomising the result, then switch over to Adobe Photoshop for some extra colour enhancements to really boost the vibrancy. How To Create an Editable Retro Text Style in Illustrator Many of the text effect tutorials I produce for Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop tend to require the text to be permanently set, which means if the wording needs changing, the effect would have to be created all over again from scratch.
Commercial Open Source Business Intelligence
What is the Pentaho BI Project? The Pentaho BI Project is an ongoing effort by the Open Source community to provide organizations with best-in-class solutions for their enterprise Business Intelligence (BI) needs. The Pentaho BI Project encompasses the following major application areas: Reporting Analysis Dashboards Data Mining Business Intelligence Platform
Reversing course on controversial PARCC, CPS to test all students
CPS back-tracked on its previous stance on Monday, saying it will give the new PARCC exam to all students instead of just those students in 10 percent of schools. Meanwhile, parents are setting in motion a major opt-out campaign a week before the March 9 date on which testing is scheduled to begin. (Schools have 20 days to give the test.) The district’s decision was perhaps a foregone conclusion since the state announced that up to $1.4 billion in state and federal funding was at stake CPS didn’t test its students on the new state-mandated test, which is becoming increasingly controversial across the country. Illinois risked losing federal funds if it didn’t test 95 percent of students in the state, impossible if CPS gave the test in just a small sample of schools. “We cannot accept this risk,” School Board President David Vitale said Monday.
Ultimate Guide to Create/Design an Infographic
There is an updated version of resources to design your own infographics. Check it out! Introduction to Infographics
Over 45 Free Speech Bubbles to Make Your E-Learning Courses Talk
If you add characters to your elearning courses, odds are that you’re also adding some speech bubbles. PowerPoint comes with the ability to create your own text callouts, but I find that I like to use ones that look more organic than the PowerPoint shapes. I try to create my own. I created some speech bubbles for a recent project so I’m making them available for you to use as you wish.
