CategoryGraphics

June 9, 2008 — If you’ve been following Smashing Magazine for a while, you know that almost all posts from the Monday Inspiration series are pretty colorful and eye-catching. This post is an exception. Compared to colorful designs where catchy colors help the design to stand out, in black-and-white designs the ability to stand out depends only on its ability to communicate rather than on its appealing visual presentation. Read more…

June 6, 2008 — Nowadays we can see icons everywhere, from a game console to web applications. Icons are getting more and more popular and play an important role, maybe the most important role in user interfaces. However, the resources about icon design are not that popular which is why when we have done our first steps in icon design, it was really hard to find a good starting point. Read more…

May 21, 2008 — When it comes to icons, web designers and graphic artists have an excellent opportunity to showcase their craft, prove their experience and explore their creativity. A sweet, nice icon set is a perfect showcase of designer’s work and a powerful instrument to build up your reputation online. In fact, designers make use of it, creating absolutely amazing icon sets and offering them for free download. Read more…

May 1, 2008 — This tutorial will go through how you can create the Firefox logo in a scalable Photoshop format. Read more…

April 28, 2008 — Photography is a very powerful medium and a very difficult craft. Excellent photos don’t only display some facts — they tell stories, awake feelings and manage to share with the audience the emotions a photographer experienced when clicking the shot button. Taking excellent pictures is damn hard as you need to find a perfect perspective and consider the perfect timing. To achieve brilliant photography you need practice and patience. However, it is worth it: the results can be truly stunning. Read more…

April 3, 2008 — Lighting effects in Adobe Photoshop are used to add flare and polish to images. They communicate feelings of creativity, technology, magic, and fantasy. Creating beams, glows, motion trails, rainbows, or an assortment of other lighting effects, give your images ambiance and depth. Read more…

April 1, 2008 — We love high-quality freebies. Over the last years we’ve featured a number of designers and developers who released their work for free — among other things we presented high-quality free fonts, free Wordpress themes, free wallpapers and, of course, free icons. Read more…

March 5, 2008 — This post presents the results of the contest — 45 beautiful blog header designs you can use for free. Below the designers have described their themes, intentions and shown us some examples of how header graphics can be used. Read more…

February 25, 2008 — You can’t design without type. However, yon can use only type (or mostly only type) to create breath-taking designs. In fact, many graphic designers and artists take exactly this route to communicate their ideas through their works. The results are sometimes crazy, sometimes artsy, sometimes beautiful, but often just different from things we’re used to. Thus designers explore new horizons and we explore new viewing perspectives which is what inspiration is all about. Read more…

February 13, 2008 — In this article I will explain step-by-step how I’ve designed an attractive character in one of our recent projects, namely for the company “Drunken Monkey Collectibles”. I will review the entire design process, from the first sketches and drafts to the final touches with Adobe Photoshop. In the post you’ll find further references to different articles published in my blog SOSNewbie; you might want to check them out as they cover more details of each phase of the process. Read more…