3dnirvana - the bliss begins here........

KDX's brand new Laptop

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Wed, 14 May 2008 04:51:00 +0000

Beautiful Balance

Get the best of all worlds: performance, sleek design, and a rich feature-set - all in a perfectly-sized 15.4" laptop. The XPS M1530 is a multimedia machine that’s as gorgeous as it is powerful.

The Power of Two

The Intel^® Core^TM 2 Duo is optimised for processor-intensive multimedia and applications, driving your PC and digital entertainment experience further and faster than ever before.

Windows Vista^®

Take control of your PC with Microsoft's latest operating system. Enjoy improved organisation, search features and network controls and use the new built-in Media Center to manage your digital photos, videos and music.

Display Your Colours

Express yourself by choosing an XPS M1530 in one of our premium colours. Available in Alpine White and Tuxedo Black the M1530 gives you the ability to select a multimedia masterpiece that suits your personal sense of style.

One-Touch Access

With Dell MediaDirect, you have instant, one-touch access to movies, music and photos, plus selected Microsoft Office functions with Dell's exclusive Instant Office functionality. No need to boot up your PC – the low-profile, touch-sensitive media buttons can take you straight to what you want.

Protect Your Files with One Finger

Never forget your password again: the XPS M1530 features a biometric fingerprint scanner for added security without adding yet another password to your list. The scanner also lets you easily access different programs using different fingers.

Face-to-Face Communication

To help you stay in touch with friends and interact with the online community, the XPS M1530 features an integrated 2.0 megapixel webcam and enhanced-capture microphone array. Whether you're communicating across the street or across the world, your face and voice will be crystal-clear.

Google Me!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:43:00 +0000

DestopoGraphy Revealed!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:38:00 +0000

39 websites packed with inspiration…

Desktopography

Desktopography.net

If you’re going to spend all day at your desk, you should have an inspirational wallpaper to blow your mind every time you close a window. Desktopography features some of the most visually stunning wallpapers around - all based on nature themes so that you can fool you eyes into thinking you’ve been outdoors sometime this month.

The Ad Generator

TheAdGenerator.org

Out of all the sites listed here, this is probably the most innovative. By pairing up words set in semantic structures taken from real slogans with related images piped through from Flickr, the Ad Generator is disturbingly good at generating clever little adverts. Made as a Masters Thesis project, I can only hope that Alexis Lloyd (the site’s creator) absolutely dominated his course that year.

FaveUp

FaveUp.com

FaveUp is a site that pares back to the very simplest of galleries, showcasing logos, business cards, CSS websites and Flash sites all in the same place. The site only launched last week but already has some 250 entries on it.

New Web Pick

NewWebPick.com

Part Magazine, part web portal, all inspirational goodness. NWP with it’s super little logo is an oldie but goodie of design portals.

StyleBoost

StyleBoost.com

Not everyone ‘gets’ Styleboost and certainly it isn’t your run of the mill inspiration gallery/blog, but thanks to Johan’s adept steering of the site since way back in 2001, the gallery has flowered into one of the best and brightest showcases around.

CampaignMonitor Email Design Gallery

CampaignMonitor.com/Gallery

Think email marketing is all ugly? Think again. CampaignMonitor - which is a neat email sending web app - hosts a gallery of some really lovely email marketing, ordered up into type and layout for your perusal needs.

ComputerLove

CPLuv.com

Cpluv has hands down the coolest logo of this bunch of inspiration sites. As one of the grand-daddies of design inspiration, I’m impressed to see the site still churning out design news and inspiration to get your bum wiggling in its seat with excitement.

DailyPoetic’s Flickr Gallery of Business Cards

Flickr.com

Some five hundred business cards ranging from the cute to the elegant to the innovative. DailyPoetic has worked hard to pull this set together, so we can enjoy it!

BannerBlog

BannerBlog.com.au

Although many people find flash banner ads to be annoying they are in fact somewhat of an artform. This Australian site has put together a gallery of excellent banner advertisements ranging from the funny to the technically brilliant. Well worth a visit!

PDF-Mags

PDF-Mags.com

PDF-Mags is one of those sites where I am not entirely sure how money is made on the site. But frankly who cares, when there is this much PDFy Magaziney goodness to be had … for FREE!

CSSElite

CSSElite.com

CSSElite is one of my favourite CSS galleries and I say this not just because they happen to have a link to FreelanceSwitch on the cover page - though that doesn’t hurt! If you want good, clean design, be sure to pay them a visit.

DesignIsKinky

DesignIsKinky.com

They’ve been around since, like forever, spawned conferences around the world, a magazine and plenty of immitators. They’ve also managed to avoid redesigning their site for half a decade *hint*. Still DesignIsKinky continues to bring quality art/design to a screen near you.

Ads of The World

adsoftheworld.com

A huge archive of some of the coolest, cleverest or just prettiest advertising from around the world. Choose to browse print, tv, radio, online or ambient and let your creativity be inspired.

PortfolioBase

PortfolioBase.com

A big categorized directory of designer portfolios laid out for you to gaze at. I’m sorry I can’t resist saying this but … ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

WebCreme

WebCreme.com

One of my favourite web design galleries, WebCreme is simple, elegant and doesn’t let itself get in the way of the awesome designs.

DesignFlood

DesignFlood.com

DesignFlood does what it says on the box, with 30+ pages of design you’ll enjoy using their gigantic rating buttons to pass judgement on other people’s work!

StartDrawing

StartDrawing.org

StartDrawing is “the asia drawing portal” and it showcases some fantastic work. What was best about this site however was the gigantic banner that said “Nearly 4 billion Asians… there *must* be some good artists” - judging by StartDrawing, there certainly are!

CSSRemix

CSSRemix.com

One of the very first galleries to show my work, CSSRemix is another favourite CSS gallery of mine (you’ll find I have quite a few). It doesn’t list as many sites as some galleries but the quality is fantastic.

AdWeek’s Best Spots Gallery

CSSRemix.com

If you like advertising or motion graphics you’re sure to enjoy this gallery, provided that is, that you can handle the fact that they use RealPlayer to handle the video

Maxtango

Maxtango.com

If you’re like me you probably think ecards are a bit naff, but wait till you see some of the stuff at MaxTango. They have a growing gallery of some 400 ecards that you can score, upload, send and get inspired by.

TheSerif

SerifPublishing.com

Where would we be without gorgeous typography? Nowhere, that’s where. That’s why every designer should have The Serif in their bookmarks, for a daily feed of typey goodness.

Archinect

SerifPublishing.com

A lot of designers love architecture, certainly architects love elegant graphic design. So if you’re in the mood for a bit of inspiration from the built environment, try Archinect’s Gallery of 5000+ photos of architecture projects.

DesignMeltDown

DesignMeltDown.com

It took me a little while to ‘get’ DesignMeltDown, I think because its not as immediately visual as some of the other galleries around, but I figured 5000 subscribers couldn’t be wrong, and I was right… about being wrong that is. DMD has a LOT of websites listed but also includes jobs, tutorials and other goodies.

DarkEye

Dark-i.com

DarkEye is kinda weird at first, but once you get into it, it’s pretty cool. With innovative search tools and a feature where users can make their own galleries and then show them off, it’s certainly different to the typical gallery.

iStockPhoto’s Design Spotlight

iStockPhoto.com/Design_Spotlight.php

You might be thinking what is iStockPhoto doing in this list, and though perhaps browsing stock photos could be a source of inspiration, rather I’ve included iStock for it’s rather useful Designer Spotlight. The gallery is categorized up into everything from Advertising to Annual Reports, Product Packaging to Television. Some of the design isn’t exactly crash hot, but there’s some good stuff mixed in there and a few of the categories I know of no other place to find examples of.

Ventillate

Ventillate.ca

This is one slick blog/gallery/link hub, built by Canadians with superior design taste, you’ll know you’re getting only top quality filtered goodies.

DesignFCKR’s List of Flickr Photo Pools

DFCKR.com

While DFCKR probably deserves to be in this list in it’s own right, I was actually more interested in this super list of 28 Flickr Photo pools as there is some really great stuff in there.

PhireBrush

PhireBrush.com

Can you say gorgeous? Because that’s what you’ll be getting at Phirebrush which these days is getting to be a veritable inspiration institution. With some spectacular digital art that will blow your socks right off, you’ll love Phirebrush.

UrbanFonts

UrbanFonts.com

You know those moments when you see a font and it just makes you want to design something to use it, well with UrbanFonts you can browse a huge collection of free fonts to do just that. While I do enjoy paying for a good font now and then, I just can’t help myself when it’s FREE, FREE, FREE

TextureKing

TextureKing.com

Literally hundreds of textures freely available - from the dirty to the elegant, there is sure to be a pattern to grace your next design.

Veer’s Wallpaper Collection

Veer.com/Ideas

I only learnt about Veer recently, but I must say they’re pretty cool and they seem to have been around for ages. The Veer Wallpaper gallery spans five years of designs and includes something for everyone.

IconBase

IconBase.com

Icons that will make your drool. And what’s more, there are pages and pages and pages of them. And if that wasn’t enough, they are free for personal and non-comercial use… Yay!

MoreInspiration

MoreInspiration.com

If your flavour of design happens to be product, then you are going to love MoreInspiration, a site hosting some thousand plus innovative ideas and products.

Screenalicious

Screenalicious.com

There’s a lot of CSS galleries around, but screenalicious has to be one of the biggest with almost 9000 websites currently listed if you looked at one every minute that would take you 6 days straight to see them all.

Feed.Stashmedia

Feed.Stashmedia.tv

Whether it’s broadcast design, animation, stop motion or any other kind of motion graphics, Feed.Stashmedia lists some of the best

The Cool Hunter

CoolHunter.com.au

For a whole other kind of design inspiration including products, architecture, clothes and just about any other type of inspiration, the Cool Hunter is a must see.

Mojizu

Mojizu.com

If you’re into illustrations or characters, then this is the place for you. With some really innovative features like SuperMatch Character War and Moji Mobile, this site just oozes designer cool!

Brusheezy & Vecteezy

BrushEezy.com (and VectEezy.com)

Sometimes the right tool or resource can get your creative juices flowing. At Brusheezy and it’s sister site Vectoreezy you’ll find all sorts of freely downloadable Photoshop and Illustrator brushes and vectors that could just spark off your next uber design.

IconFactory

IconFactory.com

I’ve been getting into icons lately and have come to realise that there are quite a few cool icon sites around. We featured IconBuffet last time and IconBase is in this list somewhere, well add to that pair IconFactory who have allegedly pushed 60 million pixels - whatever that might mean!

Best Rejected Advertising

bestrejectedadvertising.com

You might be wondering why you would be interested in the stuff that got rejected, but then you might remember that clients aren’t always known for their…taste.

11 Inspirational Books…

Letterhead and Logo Design 9

See it at Amazon

Although this whole series of books was really good, number 9 is my favourite and one I still use to this day for branding and stationery work.

LogoLounge 3: 2,000 International Identities by Leading Designers

See it at Amazon

Like the book above, this one is another Rockport classic, a great addition to any collection.

Dos Logos

See it at Amazon

Dos Logos, the sequel to the similarly named Los Logos, is a huge collection of logo designs. It tends more to the funky than the corporate and is packed with iconic inspiration.

The Best of Business Card Design 7

See it at Amazon

I seem to be on a Rockport rampage today, here’s another great title from their catalogue, does pretty much what it says on the tin…

The Best of Brochure Design 9

See it at Amazon

Oodles of gorgeous print work to flip through including some pretty creative ideas as well as a few more average formulas.

1,000 Bags, Tags, & Labels: Distinctive Designs for Every Industry

See it at Amazon

I must admit I’ve never done any bag, tag or label design… but if I had, I probably would have needed this book!

New Masters of Poster Design: Poster Design for the Next Century

See it at Amazon

I’m not sure who the old masters of poster design were exactly, but I’m sure you’ll love the new ones as much as I do!

Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop

See it at Amazon

You know how they say you have to truly understand a rule before you break it, well Making and Breaking the Grid will help you do just that.

Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design

See it at Amazon

Not so much an inspiration book as an instructional one, this is still a must for any designer struggling with type. Once you master typography you’ll unlock a whole new room of inspirational goodness.

Layout Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Building Pages in Graphic Design

See it at Amazon

I often find that getting an interesting layout will then lead on to me designing out something great. It’s almost as if you just need a push from somewhere, anywhere, and once you have it, you’re off and running. In any case Rockport’s Layout Workbook is a handy book for doing just that.

Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain

See it at Amazon

I came across this book when we were compiling prizes for the FreelanceSwitch Survey. It’s a set of exercises to get your creativity flowing, perfect for those designer block days.

6 magazines to subscribe to for recurring inspiration…

ComputerArts

See it at Amazon

OK unless you are in the UK this magazine might be a little steep. Over here in Australia I just read them in my local borders because I’m so cheap! But if you can get your hands on them, ComputerArts and its sister magazine ComputerArts Projects (below) are absolutely fantastic.

ComputerArts Projects

See it at Amazon

Where ComputerArts is a general magazine, the Projects editions which run parallel each go into one specific theme in depth with tutorials, profiles, associated software on the discs and so on. Examples of themes include Typography, Illustration, Flash and so on.

Note that it was just so appropriate for this site that I swiped the image on the right from Sam Gilbey’s Site, so go check out his awesome illustrations so he doesn’t get mad at me

HOW

See it at Amazon

How has to be my favourite American magazine, it’s quite practical which I like, sometimes designers can get a little self-involved elsewhere…

See it at Amazon

Another super well known design magazine from the US, copies of Print unfortunately cost me a fortune over here in Australia

Communication Arts

See it at Amazon

CommArts is a bit of an institution these days, mixing photography, illustration and design, it’s a great read.

CMYK

See it at Amazon

I have to confess, I’ve never actually read CMYK, but it had such a gorgeous cover that I had to include it.

And 4 free ways to get the juices flowing…

Mind Mapping

A mind map is an awesome tool to think outside the square for a project. It’s a diagram used to represent ideas and words. If you don’t know what this is Wikipedia has a good explanation here. Especially handy for logo and design work, as you can explore more obscure interpretations and representations.

Ask Someone

It sounds like a no-brainer, but if you’re stuck ask everyone what they’d do with your brief. This is more effective if they’re not a designer. The more crazy ideas you have in your arsenal, the more likely it is that inspiration will strike.

Find A Quote

Search for a quote or creative description that relates to your brief. Use the elements and metaphors you find in it as your inspiration for a concept.

Download New Music

Download a piece of music or album which is totally outside of your usual taste. Listen to it while you fiddle with your first concepts. Try some gregorian chant, tribal or classical music and see how it influences your style.

World Symbols and Iconic Representation !!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:03:00 +0000

Data Visualization and Infographics

Country Codes of the World
Country Codes of the World maps 245 top-level domain country codes encompassing all United Nations countries as well as numerous islands and territories. Each two-digit code is aligned over the country it represents and is color coded with the legend below for quick and easy reference.

Flags as Infographics
These posters have been designed for the political magazine Grande “Reportagem”. The main idea behind visualization is to turn flags of various countries into infographics by adding a legend to them. For instance: United States. Red: In favor of the war in Iraq. White: Against the war in Iraq. Blue: Don’t know where Iraq is.

Independent: Infographic
Middle-East: who backs immediate cease-fire? The infographic below was published on the front page of the “Independent” magazine during the Middle-East crisis in July 2007.

Virtual countries
This stand present the largest virtual countries according to the gross domestic product of the countries and world’s largest companies.

Net Neutrality
This infographic is supposed to emphasize the importance of net neutrality; it isn’t really a data visualization, but it instantly delivers the message: this is how our future might look like.

Corporate connections:
An extremely compact and useful source of information.

DIZZIA, Gregory M.
This is the documentation of every intimate relationship Gregory Dizzia has ever had. The data spans 23 years.

Amadana Infographics
Amadana is a Japanese company, which explains why they might not have realized that a scapegoat isn’t the same as an “acuarium.” The first row is for that toaster oven, the second and third rows are for an air purifier, while the last is for a hot plate.

The Japanese Wii Safety Manual
This Japanese Wii safety manual is pretty much indicative of Japanese people’s general insanity. [via Gizmodo]

Virtual Water
Simple, clean, elegant and effective. A double-sided poster visualizing the water footprint of products and nations.

Apple’s Tipping Point: Macs For The Masses
Very calm, soft and appealing colors within a clearly presented context. Design by Paul Nixon.

AT&T/Bell System Pre- & Post-Divestiture Chart
Peter Ross. 1985.

Flickr User Model
A slightly more complex data infographics, however still clear and well-presented.

Journey into the Universe (1985)
Information design, 1985.

Megan Jaegerman
A review of Megan Jaegerman’s work by Edward Tufte. Notice how clean and legible the infographics are.

Good Magazine Infographics
In each of its issues Good magazine offers good, even excellent, infographics related to aspects of our life. Some excellent examples below.

Who Participates and what people are doing online
A slightly different presentation of usual charts gives it some uniqueness and appeal. [via Kottke.org]

The Cost of Living on the Bleeding Edge of Gadgetry
Price and market penetration of consumer electronics over the past 50 years. By Arno Ghelfi. Infographics from a quite different perspective.

A year in Iraq
An unusual data visualization which gives information on the type and location of each attack responsible for the 2,592 recorded deaths.

Cubism and Abstract Art
Clean, informative and elegant. Alfred Barr’s work, found in Edward Tufte’s book.

MyMap
A data visualization application capable of rendering the relationships between the user and individuals in the address book by examining the TO:, FROM:, and CC: fields of every email in the 60,000-large email archive.the intensity of the relationship is determined by the color intensity of the line. “My Map” allows to explore different relational groupings and periods of time, revealing the temporal ebbs and flows in various relationships. My Map thus becomes a veritable self-portrait, a visual reflection of personal associations and relationships.

When Bots Attack
Using rented botnets, you can launch hundreds of thousands — even millions — of infobombs at a target, all while maintaining total deniability. In this hypothetical scenario, a single attack launched by China against the US lasts only a few hours, but a full-scale assault lasting days or weeks could bring an entire modern information economy to its knees. This infographic is supposed to illustrate it.

Mapping the Blogosphere
This is what the blogosphere looks like…

Globalization
…what about globalization?

George W. Bush Speech Infographics
An interactive infographic, compares the number of times certain words appear in the address. Both are a nice example of how information design can give readers more ways to evaluate and contextualize a given text or set of data. So simple, but extremely intuitive and clear.

yHaus: BookScape, Query Bursts. Experimental projects by Yahoo! Design Innovation Team. These query bursts depict individual IP numbers that start very popular bursts of search queries. each particle shows a query from a unique location worldwide. bookscape represents about 250,000 illustrations taken from children books, originally collected by the Open Library Project. The experimental interface uses dynamic resampling of image data to place all the images in a single zoomable space, arranged alphabetically by title.

Awesome Typographic Wallpapers!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:57:00 +0000

Awesome Typographic Posters

Christina Koehn / University of Washington, USA

Alex Banks / United Kingdom

Emiliano Lionel Suárez / Argentina

Juanma Teixidó / Asunción, Paraguay

Emil Kozak / Spain

Pablo Alfieri / Buenos Aires, Argentina

HeyHo / France

Vincent Bousserez / Paris, France

Drew Kora / Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA

in the lab

Aron Jancso / Budapest, Hungary

Andre Bergamin / Brazil

Oh Ishi / Siam, Thailand

Alejandro Paul / Buenos Aires, Argentina

mrgraphicsguy / Germany

lee25 / United Kingdom

Shaun Morrison / Brighton, England

25ah / Stockholm, Sweden

Andy Cambiaso / Argentina

Puerto Baires / Buenos Aires, Argentina

Todd Roeth / USA

Piotr Fedorczyk / Florence, Italy

Noel Tanner / Minneapolis, USA

Kate Andrews / London, United Kingdom

Experimental Jetset / Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Lennart Wolfert / Netherlands

Farhad Fozuni / Iran

Yaronimus Maximus / Israel

Bunch / USA

Playful applications for the 55DSL 2007 Christmas instore incentive. Tape and posters were designed and sent to each store where the staff were then encouraged to get creative with what they taped up to win 555 GBP worth of prizes.

Alex Trochut / Spain

Arjo Wiggins Poster

Pixelgarten / Germany

Apirat Infahsaeng / New York

Poster announcing Brian Collins’ lecture Design Changes Everything.

MAISON DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE Création de la nouvelle identité visuelle.
Projet non retenu.

Purple Haze / Germany

Rote Sonne Club (2007). Poster design for a clubnight.

Think Experimental / France

Aaron Pou / USA

Maxime Delporte / France

Job Wouters / Netherlands

In collaboration with Roel Wouters. Printed by Knust.
Folded A3 flyers for Jungstar (formaly known as Zeitgeist) a bimonthly party held at the sugarfactory organised by the MRKMLN-group.

Zak Group

There’s always work in progress / you’re always a work in progress.

Sterk Water / Belgium

Poster made for a expo of a local art school promoting the free grahics and the sculpturing department.

C100 / Germany

A Club Poster from Berlin

Mark Andrew Webber / Falmouth, England

Hanna Czapka / Germany

Free Wallpaper Downloads !!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:53:00 +0000

Typography Wallpapers

I Love Typography Wallpapers
18 wallpapers dedicated to typography-lovers. Including iPhone Typography Wallpapers.

Veer Wallpapers
A growing collection of (not only) typography-related wallpapers in a variety of resolutions — from 320×480 (iPhone) to 1920×1200. Free registration is required to download the wallpapers.

I Love Typo Wallpaper
1024×768.

Art Wallpapers

Wallcoo Wallpapers
Hundreds of beautiful high-quality wallpapers from China. Stunning!

Ton3 Calendar Wallpapers
Every month Patricia Villanueva releases a new desktop background for the coming calendar month. It’s in Spanish, but beauty speaks all languages.

Design Wallpapers
By ndesign. 9 themes, a variety of resolutions.

JuneWind
30 colorful wallpapers available in numerous resolutions.

Happy Diwali! Wallpaper
Scroll to the end of the page. 800×600, 1024×768, 2000×1500.

Design is… Wallpaper Flickr Pool
A collection of wallpapers dedicated to design: designers explain what design is.

Freelanceswitch Wallpapers
4 wallpapers, 1920×1200, 1600×1200, 1280×1024, 1152×864, 1024×768

Rabbit Wallpaper
1280×960.

David Lanham’s Art Wallpapers
Over 20 art wallpapers in different sizes (widescreen — 1600×1200 and fullscreen — 1680×1050). Unique, and unusual.

Customize.org
A growing collection of wallpapers in the Deviantart’s style. User-generated content on over 900 pages. That’s going to take some time to browse through.

The Elemental Wallpaper
The Elemental: water extinguishes fire, fire entraps air, air encompasses Earth, Earth is the mother of all. 1024×768.

Oh Lolliop! It’s a desktop wallpaper
A wallpaper coming in 6 resolutions: from 1024×768 up to 1900×1200 px.

Bloody Hippy Wallpaper
Bloody Hippy, available in enourmo-scope 1920×1200 resolution.

Lothaleng Robot Wallpaper
1024×768.

Top 10 Gaming Wallpapers
All at 1920×1200 HD resolution, and a stunning image quality. There’s a link the the Flickr page of each wallpaper as well.

Apple, Windows, Google & Co.

Leopard Wallpapers
Wallpapers for designers, developers and bloggers who use Leopard. Wallpapers currently come in the following dimensions: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1600×1200. If none of the above suits you, get your own personalized Leopard wallpaper.

Simpsons OS X Wallpaper
Homer seems to be pretty hungry. Simpsons Mac Os X Wallpaper, Aqua.

Apple Love Wallpaper
Well, that’s pretty stylish. For Apple-lovers. 1024×640, 1920×1200.

Conquer The Universe Wallpaper
A galaxy background with Apple logo to honor the birth of Leopard. 1920×1200. Non-Apple-version is also available (also good for dual display).

Twitter Wallpaper
1280×800.

Google Wallpaper
1024×768. Light-version.

Technology Dekstop Nexus
The Elemental: water extinguishes fire, fire entraps air, air encompasses Earth, Earth is the mother of all. 1024×768.

Leopard Server Aurora Wallpaper
1024 x 640, 2560 x 1600

Firefox Desktop Wallpaper
46 Firefox Desktop Wallpapers in different sizes and colors.

iPhone Wallpapers
7 320×480 iPhone wallpapers.

30 Nice Mac OS X Wallpapers
After searching high and low, here’s some good 30 Apple-related wallpapers (Apple logo, MacOS, iPod) that’s definitely worth a look.

Vista Wallpapers Pack
These wallpapers come in 3 different style — Vista curves, Silky embossed and Corporate clean. 2 high resolution formats – 1600×1400 px and 1920×1200 px.

Photographic Wallpapers

Fantastic Free Wallpaper Images
An impressive selection of free crystal clear wallpapers. 8 different resolutions, up to 2560×1600.

Above the clouds
You’ll need to change the size of the image to place it on your desktop. More beautiful photos in the Flickr: Awesome Pictures Pool, Golden Stars Flickr Pool

Flickr: Wallpapers and Backgrounds Pool
Over 9,000 photos available as wallpapers for your desktop. Every month the “Wallpaper of the Month” is selected.

Flickr: Wallpapers Pool
24,000 various desktop wallpapers. Minimum resolution: 1024×768.

Lightning at the night
You’ll need to change the size of the image to place it on your desktop. More beautiful photos in the Flickr: Awesome Pictures Pool

Beautiful Photographic Wallpapers
A set of 25 excellent photographic wallpapers which can be downloaded as a .zip-archive. Bonus: Second Pack.

Abstract Wallpapers

Flow Wallpaper
“Flow” comes in two variants: a single display one with a resolution of 2560×1600px and a dual screen one with a resolution of 2×1920×1200px. A bunch of iPhone/iPod touch compatible variants is added to the package.

Strukt Wallpaper
1024×640, 2560×1600.

Colorcharge
Three wallpapers. Format: 2000×1440 px.

Outta Space
Four wallpapers in the resolution 2560×1600 px

Disruption
4 wallpapers designed by Till Nowak. 1600×1200, 1280×1024 and 1024×768.

What’s your favourite?

PhotoShop, Life and Colors!! @ 3dnirvana

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:16:00 +0000

Sometimes there are things that capture us. Sometimes there are things we capture for others to get captured. Designers die day in and night out choosing colors, designs, relativity, contrast, and subject. Some come out to be the best, some go on for a short while.

I feel the designs here are great, something I cant do so easily. I had a long search online to get these swirly designs which really fascinates me!!

Free Icons for WEB, Applications, and the Desktop!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:32:00 +0000

1. Photoshop Brushes and Design Goods

2. Online Application Collection

3. 20+ Free And Fresh Icon Sets

4. Popular Online Generators

5. Free Icon Set

6. Smashing Freefont and Wordpress-Theme

7. 3 Icon Sets

8. Pixel Press Icons - Free Icon Set

9. August Icon Set

Web Developers Icons

A set of 105 cool icons for Web Develoers by Sekkyumu

thumbalizr - thumb your webpages

With thumbalizr you can take screenshots of any webpage you want. Use it for your presentations, documentations, visualisations or your webpage.

125 Code Snippets

Useful list of 125 Code snippets for Web designers.

Free Vector Clipart Database

Over 500 Free Vector Cliparts for download.

Fresh Badge

Quickly freshen your site/blog, sales page, or scrapbook with your own uniquely designed, and very web 2.0 “fresh badge”!

Web Page Technology Profiler

Find out what a site is built with. Gives info like Analytics and Tracking, Server Information, Advertising, Aggregation Functionality, Document Information and Encoding…

Icon Search Engine

Almost like Goole Images for Icons. Could be a web designers best friend

Ribbon Generator

Choose from a set of pre-defined styles with custom text to generate a javascript snippet for easy integration.

Free CSS Website Templates & Resources

Huge collection of free CSS based web templates and resources for downl0ad.

Icons, Buttons and Templates

Article by Smashing Magazine with some cool design resources…. Dezinerfolio ( this site ) has twice been included in the article…

Styling the Button Element with Sliding Doors

The following technique demonstrates a cross-browser technique for button elements with sliding doors.

Tabbed Navigation Using CSS

Web 2.0 Button Generator

Web 2.0 free buttons maker! makes it super easy to generate those bright, glossy web 2-ish buttons. Pick size and colour, add text or text and and icon (RSS, for example) and then generate your button.

300 Fonts

A collection of 300 Graffiti fonts for download.

77 Vector Buttons

Moo Gallery

Asad Sheth has created an image gallery in 182 lines of code that work with Prototype and Moo.fx.

3D Cartoon Icons Pack III

Dividers ( Brushes for Photoshop )

Vanilla 1

Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web.

Vecteezy

Vecteezy is an index of Free Vectors available for download by some of the best designers around the world.

Complete Typography Guide

Over 200 links related to typography, including typography basics, tips and tutorials, free fonts, online font tools, desktop font tools, resources and more.

Grid Calculator

Grid Calculator allows you to choose the font size you are going to use, and then select the number of columns, column width, and gutter width based on that base font size. As you fiddle with the dimensions, the total width is dynamically updated, so you can check that you havenâ€™t gone over that magic 1024px!

165 Vector Icons

This was already out… but now with 5 different colors.

Japanese Foilage Brushes

Photoshop Plugins

All About Photoshop Actions.

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:29:00 +0000

What are Photoshop Actions?

An action is a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or a batch of files - menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. You can create an action that changes the size of an image, applies a filter to the image for a particular effect, and then saves the file in the desired format. Nice, isn’t it !

Actions can include stops that let you perform tasks that cannot be recorded (for example, using a painting tool).

Photoshop and Illustrator come with predefined actions installed that help you perform common tasks. You can use these actions as is, customize them to meet your needs, or create new actions. Actions are stored in sets to help you organize them.

You can record, edit, customize, and batch-process actions, and you can manage groups of actions by working with action sets.

Free Photoshop Actions

Turning Turnip: Photo cube effect - Apply 3D photo cube effect to any image.

Turning Turnip: Soften skin effect -Produces a natural ‘clean’ appearance whilst retaining important skin textures.

- 9 more Free Photoshop Actions from Turning Turnip

Page Curl Photoshop Action - Create a page curl in any of the four corners of an image.

PanosFX: B & Big picture - A 3-D collage effect

PanosFX: Discrete - Make your images visually more appealing.

PanosFX: Spiral Bind - Make the creation of a spiral binding effect a very easy task

PanosFX: 3D - Out of Bounds Action

PanosFX: Stamp v.2 - A highly customizable stamp action

PanosFX: The Big Picture - Make an image look as a collage made up of 25 individual photographs that are layed down in a ’slightly untidy manner’.

- 32 more Free Photoshop Actions from PanosFX

Color Actions 2 - deviantART

Vintage Photo - deviantART

- more deviantART Photoshop actions

Finesse FX: Old Parchment action

Finesse FX: TackIt! Mini action

- 65 more Free Finesse FX Photoshop Actions - image, text and custom effects

Liknes: FilmStrip Action

Liknes: Puzzle Action

- more Photoshop actions from Liknes - border, text and special effects

Shutter Freaks: Crystal Ball Action

Shutter Freaks: Hayes Island Variant

- more Shutter Freaks Free Actions

Additional resources:

Addicted to Design - Night Vision Effect, Polaroid 600 Instant Film, Lomo, Infrared and 1 Pixel Border effects

Atncentral - Comic Effect Action, Editorial Lomo, Kent’s LensBlur and more

Elated ActionKits - ActionKit 1-5

Mayhem Studios - Red Eye Removal, Productions Action, Sharpen Action and Center Guides Action

WORLDS BIGGEST DESIGN INSPIRATION GALLERY!! LOGOS - WEBSITE DESIGN - CSS DESIGN - COLOR SCHEMES - WOW!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:39:00 +0000

Logos

LogoPond - Identity Inspiration

faveup - Design Inspiration Gallery

LogoSauce - Logo design, inspiration and information

Icons

IconBuffet - Free Icons, Stock Icons, Custom Icon Design

IconBase - Connect ideas

Iconfactory - World leader in icon design

Website Style Showcases

theBestDesigns - The Best Flash and CSS Web Design

FWA - Favourite Website Awards - Web awards at the cutting edge

Unmatchedstyle - CSS Web Design Inspiration and CSS Gallery

MostInspired - designs from all the popular css and design galleries

Webcreme - Web design inspiration

Screenalicio.us - Get inspired!

CSSbased - Designers love nature

CSSnature - well designed css and xhtml nature based website designs

CssZenGarden - The Beauty in CSS Design

CSSimpress - the most updated css gallery

CSSGalerie - just a galerie

CssFlash - Your daily inspiration dose

CSSclip - Web Design Inspiration and Gallery

CSSmania - the most updated css showcase all over the globe

cssBeauty - CSS Design, News, Jobs, Community, Web Standards

cssvault - The Web’s CSS Site

CssLeak - CSS Gallery, Showcase of beautifull webdesign

CSSElite - CSS Gallery and Website Development Resources

csswebsite - Website Design

CSSdrive - Categorized CSS gallery and examples

CSS Hazard

CSS Remix - A fresh blend of the best css web design

BestWebGallery - CSS & Flash Design Inspiration

stylecrunch - css and standards websites gallery

Apps Mania - Web Applications Showcase

styleboost - showcasing outstanding websites since 2001

PortfolioBase - Showcasing the best portfolios from all around the world

csstux - The best dressed sites on the web

splench - Designs for Creative Minds

Colors

kuler - Explore, create and share color themes

COLOURlovers - Color Trends + Palettes

Forums

DeviantArt - where ART meets application!

Mojizu - A Contemporary Character Design Community

Blogs

SmashingMagazine - useful and innovative information for web-designers and web-developers

thecolorhunter - today’s most happening movements, styles and trends

MOCO LOCO - Modern contemporary design & architecture

netdiver - digital culture magazine + new media design portal

startdrawing - the asia drawing portal

Design in Europe - Design News from Europe

LCSV4 - the illustrator news portal

Ventilate - A portal for artistic ideas, thoughts and works

picli - Constantly changing gallery of photos created and moderated by a large community of creative users

Other

Elements of Design - A Web Design Showcase

DesignFlood - Waist Deep in Pixels

Threadless - Designer Clothing Submissions

Graffiti - The Writing on the Wall

MAilmeART - the ongoing mail art project for artists, illustrators and general doodlers

Design Melt Down - Design Elements, Trends & Problems in Web Design

with love --

KDx

imagination and magic

STUPID COMPUTER PRANKS TO ANNOY UR FRIEND!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:16:00 +0000

Unclick-able desktop
Allright, this one is really old but sometimes users will not know what happened. Just make a screenshot of your desktop by pressing "Print Screen" on your keyboard (sometimes shown as "Print Scrn"). Now go to Paint and Paste (Ctrl+V). You should now have an image of your desktop. Save the image to your PC (not on your desktop) and save it as BMP. You'll now have the file like this: C:/Desktop.bmp.
Next, right-click on your desktop and select Properties. Select the tab Desktop and click Browse... Navigate to your screenshot and press OK to set it as your background. You're almost done now.
Right-click your desktop again and navigate to "Arrange icons by" and uncheck "Show desktop icons". There you have it, the icons on the desktop can not be clicked anymore.
Desktop upside down
Do you still have the image from the previous prank? Open it again in Paint. Now rotate the image (Ctrl+R) and set it to 180 degrees. Save to file again as BMP, like this: C:/Potksed.bmp.
Now set the image again as your background and there you have it: Your desktop is turned upside down. But wait: The taskbar at the bottom is still there? Right-click on it and select Properties. On the Taskbar tab, select the Auto-hide the taskbar check box. Press OK to save the changes.
Strange sounds
A PC has some build-in audio files that are played when doing something. For example, when you start navigating you'll hear a "click" and when you disconnect a USB device you'll hear another sound. Change these sounds into something that you want!
First, search on the internet for the correct audio file (Example: Farts, Screams etc.). If the file is in MP3 format, convert them to WAV. Save the WAV files to C:/WINDOWS/Media/.
Now go to Start > Settings > Control Panel and double click on "Sounds and Audio Devices". Go to the tab Sounds and look for the correct sound in the list that you want to change. Change it by selecting the event and clicking on Browse... Navigate and select your new WAV file and press OK to save.
Be creative and your prank will succeed, just like this startup sound prank.
Boogieman
Normally, WAV files are played with Windows Media Player. In this joke, you don't want this to happen. We'll write a VBS-file (Visual Basic) in this joke that will run audio files that you can't see.
Open up Notepad and copy the following code:
strSoundFile = "C:\WINDOWS\Media\[YOURSOUNDFILE].wav" Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") strCommand = "sndrec32 /play /close" & chr(34) & strSoundFile & chr(34) objShell.Run strCommand, 0, False
Change the [YOURSOUNDFILE] to the sound file you want to play. Now save the file to your harddisk, like this: C:/Sound.vbs. Double-click the VBS file to try if it works.
You probably want to play these files automaticly. You can do this by creating tasks. Go to Start > All programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks. A new window will appear. Double click on "Add scheduled task" and follow the instructions. Select your VBS file when the wizard asks if you want to open a software application. You want your PC to scream at 4 AM?
Shortcuts changed
Pretty corny joke, but still one that can drive other users insane. Shortcuts are nothing more than files pointing to other files that they should startup. For example, if you have a Windows Media Player shortcut on your desktop, right click on the shortcut and select Properties. The Target will be something like:C:/Program Files/Windows Media Player/wmplayer.exe. Change this line into another one, like C:/Program Files/MSN Messenger/msnmsgr.exe for MSN Messenger. Press OK to save the changes.
Probably the icon will have changed too. No problem about that, you can change that. Right-click the shortcut and select Properties. Choose the Shortcut tab. Click on the Change Icon button and navigate to your previous program, such as Windows Media Player. Click "Open" to select the file and press OK to save.
Format C:
Formatting is what users are very afraid of. Go to RJLSoftware and download FakeFormat. The title is self-explaining: It'll look like as if you're formatting your PC. Additionally, the creators from this program disallow the functionality of shutting down. Double trouble!
"The Finger"
And while you're still at RJLSoftware don't forget to download The Finger. This little program will change your cursor into another finger and you'll already have guessed which one it is. Make sure you check the command line options. Place the EXE file in de startup folder of your PC and wait untill other users find out.
Haunted DVD-/CD-Player
Software can have control over hardware. If you used Nero, you'll probably noticed that, when you're done coping a CD / DVD, the CD / DVD will be ejected automaticly. Why not make use of this function? Go to cd-eject-tool.com and download the program. The specialty about this program, is that you can create shortcuts that directly drive the program. Create a shortcut that opens the CD / DVD drive and put it in the scheduele and wait for your victim.
Melting Desktop
Go to Soft4fun and download the "ScreenSmelter". When you run this program, it'll look like as if the desktop is melting in front of your nose. Make it a task and nobody will know what happened. Except for you.
Fatal Error
What can I say, an image (or movie) tells us more than 1000 words. Watch this movie on how to create a fake fatal error message that you can customize.

THE AWESOME DESIGNS WHICH RAN ALL OVER THE ROAD!! - designs and designers.

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:12:00 +0000

Courtesy : http://www.logodesignlove.com/car-manufacturer-logo-designs

This is the first in a series of logo designs from well-known car manufacturers across the globe. Where possible, I have indicated the year in which the logo was designed, and the designer responsible.

Alfa Romeo
Originally designed by Romano Cattaneo and Giuseppe Merosi, in 1910

The Alfa Romeo company was founded in 1910, and the logo has changed many times since then, but its main items have remained - the red on white cross of Milan, and the serpent from the Visconti family coat of arms. I’m not a big fan of the Alfa Romeo logo. Mainly because I think there’s too much detail in the serpent, which becomes lost at small sizes.

Audi
Designed in 1932

Audi’s four ring logo was designed to symbolize the merger of four individual car companies. It’s certainly one of my favourite car manufacturer logos.

BMW
Designed in 1917

The blue and white panels of the Bavarian flag were placed at the centre of the design. During the late 1920s, the BMW logo was given a new interpretation, that of a rotating propellor. Simple and iconic.

Fiat
Designed by Robilant Associati and the Fiat Style Centre, in 2006

Between 1931 and 1968, a shield emblem decorated Fiats. This logo design recalls the older icon, and the revised version has been made 3D. There’s something about the type that just doesn’t inspire a good feeling. Is that just me?

Ford
Designed by CH Wills, in 1909

The designer, CH Wills, was actually an engineer and draughtsman, working for Henry Ford in the early days. Extremely recognisable through the sheer scale of Ford production. The logo has certainly stood the test of time, but I’m curious as to what other logo designers think of it. Maybe it’s just that I’m not so keen on ovals.

Honda

Here’s a question, who designed the Honda logo?

Jaguar
Designed by The Partners, in 2002

In updating the older Jaguar logo, The Partners altered the logotype and digitally remodelled the leaping Jaguar. I’ve often wondered why the Jaguar is shown leaping from right to left, countering how the eye reads the text from left to right. Perhaps it’s to create a more streamlined end?

Lexus
Designed by Siegel & Gale, in 2002

The name ‘Lexus’ has been attributed to the words ‘luxury’ and ‘elegance’, and this is one that I quite like.

Mercedes-Benz
Designed in 1909

One of the most recognisable logos around. A three-pointed star had been designed by Gottlieb Daimler, to show the ability of his motors for land, air, and sea use. This star first appeared on a DMG model in 1909, so it was chosen for the new logo. The traditional laurel wreath symbol used by Karl Benz was added along with his name to complete the new logo. The logo with a plain ring, as seen today, was not used until 1937. More on Wikipedia.

Mitsubishi
Designed by Yataro Iwasaki, in 1870

I featured the Mitsubishi logo in an earlier post, 15 wonderfully simple logo designs, and it’s a design I greatly admire. ‘Mitsubishi’ is a combination of the words ‘mitsu’ and ‘hishi’. ‘Mitsu’ means three, and ‘hishi’ means water chestnut. Japanese have used the word ‘hishi’ for a long time to denote a rhombus or diamond shape. In speech, Japanese often bend the ‘h’ to sound like a ‘b’ when it occurs in the middle of a word. So they pronounce the combination of ‘mitsu’ and ‘hishi’ as ‘mitsubishi’.

Nissan
Designed by FutureBrand, in 2000

This metallic roundel is part of a successful Nissan revival, and in my opinion, is an improvement on those older designs that can be viewed by scrolling down on this page: Cartype Nissan Logo.

Renault
Designed by Éric de Berranger, in 2004

Interesting typeface info: both the Renault logo and its documentation (technical as well as commercial) had used a specially designed typeface called Renault, developed by British firm Wolff Olins. This type family is said to have been designed not for prestige reasons, but mainly to save costs at a time where the use of typefaces was more costly than it is now. In 2004, French typeface designer Jean-François Porchez was commissioned to design a replacement. This was shown in October of that year and is called Renault Identité. Found on Wikipedia. I have featured Wolff Olins on my other blog: London 2012 olympic logo disaster.

Seat
Designed by Enterprise IG, in 1950

The striped ‘S’ came about from the first letter of the previous logotype.

Volkswagon
Designed by Franz Xaver Reimspiess, in 1938

No official designer has been recorded for this logo. The latest variation of the VW logo include a 3D highlight from MetaDesign, added in 2000. A lot of car firms are implementing a 3D appearance nowadays. For how long do you think this trend will last?

If you can add to the explanations for any of the above logos, please do. I can’t ensure that I’m 100% correct, and will gladly modify possible errors. Do you have a favourite car manufacturer logo? There are many more that aren’t listed, and I’ll feature them in upcoming blog posts.

TOP DESIGN BLOGS TO QUENCH YOUR DESIGN THIRST!! <> @ 3DNirvana X-clusive

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:23:00 +0000

PR 7 blogs

Authentic Boredom – by graphic designer, Cameron Moll

Core77 / design magazine + resource /

Design Observer: writings about design & culture

Hicksdesign – Journal of a small creative agency based in Witney, Oxfordshire, UK, authored by Jon Hicks

Subtraction 7.0 – NYTimes.com’s Design Director, Khoi Vinh, blogs about design and other relevant info.

Veer: The Skinny – provides visual elements for use in professional creative work

Veerle’s blog 2.0 - Webdesign - XHTML CSS | Graphic Design

PR 6 blogs

Be A Design Group - a blog for graphic designers, created in March of 2004 by Adrian Hanft and Bennett Holzworth.

BittBox - Homemade vector freebies, design tips, tutorials and bitts.

CR Blog – News and views on visual communications from the writers of Creative Review

Designers who Blog – features blogs discussing graphic design, web design, illustration, marketing, photography, branding, writing and advertising

Design is Kinky – a proudly Australian blog on design

Design View: Articles, Essays and Opinions by Andy Rutledge

Graphic Define Magazine – focuses on the business of running a graphic, interactive, or web design studio.

ideasonideas, a blog that invites dialogue on issues relevant to communication designers and brand strategists

I Love Typography, devoted to fonts, typefaces and all things typographical.

ISO50 – The Visual Work of Scott Hansen

Mark Boulton: Design Thinking. Web Delivery. By a designer based in Cardiff, UK.

NOTCOT.ORG - for your ideas + aesthetics + amusement.

Quipsologies - Corralling the most relevant and creative on- and off-line bits that pertain to the design community.

Randa Clay Design – Design, Marketing, Blogging, Branding and all things Creative

SonSpring | Journal by Nathan Smith

Speak Up > Design Dialog

Swiss Legacy – Graphic design and typography

swissmiss – tina roth eisenberg | swiss designer gone nyc

Typographica. A Journal of Typography.

PR 5 blogs

Anamorphosis. learn design create

Andy Budd :: Blogography – based in Brighton, England

Chris Glass, The Last 10 Days. A creative fella’s journal from Ohio.

Design Adaptations | Charity Ondriezek

Design Notes published by Michael Surtees who tries to see life filtered through design as opposed to placing design on a pedestal

Elliot Swan survived three days without the internet

Graphic Design Blog – graphic design, freelancing, illustration, advertising, web design

Inspiration Bit – Get inspired and learn from the latest technology, art and design buzz on the Web.

Jasongraphix :: A journal of art, thoughts, and projects by Jason Beaird

Lealea Design: Blogblog: Design inspiration and introspection

Luz Cannon: The Work of David Brooks : Designer, Photographer and Audio Producer

Noisy Decent Graphics by Ben Terrett, a Graphic Designer in London

Reflections – the personal blog of Paul Enderson, a freelance web and graphic designer from England

Russell Davies – incredibly diverse UK-based blog on topics associated with design

The Serif – Your daily dose of design inspiration

things to look at – plenty of images, and oddly, things to look at

Tutorial Blog – Design Articles and Tutorials

Type for you. A blog on typography, by Pedro Serrão, a graphic designer from Porto, Portugal.

PR 4 blogs

Ace Jet 170 – Found type, print and stuff

AdGoodness – advertising and design blog from Frederik Samuel

AisleOne – Design, typography and everything else.

Computerlove – Connecting Creative Talents

creativebits | Apple orientated design community (must register to comment)

Creative Curio – Learn, discuss and explore the realm of graphic design.

Numbers 51 and upwards

PR 4 blogs

David the Designer – don’t underestimate the knowledge this man has acquired (and don’t call him Dave)

FormFiftyFive – Design Inspiration – the pet project of designers Glenn Garriock and Jack Daly

gradient dropshadow curve – by Henry Tapia

graphicPUSH – “a sporadically but faithfully updated design blog”

Journale - Asgeir Hoem – A Blog on Design, Typography, Creativity and Randomness

Laughing Lion Design : Web, Graphic Design & Illustration Ireland

Milienzo – Aaron Russell blogs about web and graphic design, the creative industry and multimedia…

Smashing Magazine – a weblog dedicated to web-developers and designers

We Made This (It’s Our Blog)

PR 3 blogs

Creative Guy – tips, tricks, tutorials and discussion about Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator for designers running Mac OSX

Gazelle Creative – by Elizabeth Jackson (a.k.a. Zabs)

Grain Edit - covers contemporary graphic design / illustration, as well as design from the from the golden era of advertising (1950s–1970s).

Your Brain on Design: A Graphic Design Blog | Leslie Tane Design

High Resolution Photoshop Brushes Download!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:14:00 +0000

High Resolution Photoshop Brushes

Click on each image to go to the brushes download page

List of Recommended Brushes Sites

» Photoshop Support Brushes

One of the best Photoshop brushes page available. It gathers links to some of the finest brush designers on the web. There you will find some amazing Photoshop brushes sets created exclusively for this site.

» Brushes at Obsidian Dawn

Stephanie is a talented artists and a regular contributor to The Photoshop Roadmap. At her site she offers a vast gallery of beautifully designed brushes that you can download for free.

» 500ml Brushes

Loads and loads of unique and high quality Photoshop brushes. Go there and download them all.

» Valhalla Vania Brushes

A great selection of high quality brushes.

» Mutsie’s Brushes

An excellent collection of frame brushes of all kind. Lots of creative ideas.

» Sage Brushes

A collection of beautiful classy brushes. Some commercial, some for free. .

» Brusheezy, Ps Brush, Get Brushes, Ps Brushes, Chez Plumeau, Photoshop Mosaic and The Photoshop Roadmap

Photoshop Brushes directories.

» Deviant Art Photoshop Brushes Section

Although I’ve been browsing this site for three days, I wasn’t able to reach the last page of the Photoshop brushes section. Huge Photoshop brushes source. The largest of all sites mentioned in this article.

» 10,000 Photoshop Brushes Collection from GraphicXtras

If you still believe you need more brushes, take a look at this commercial collection.

LIVING ON THE EDGE......

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:07:00 +0000

Sony’s Apple Remote Control

Sony’s Apple Remote Control
Is there any place for innovation when it comes to the design of remote controls? Apparently, there is. This Sony’s”apple” allows users to perform basic functions like changing channels, volume etc. with simple motion gestures (see image below). Once “apples” are placed on the bowl, the remote control is being recharged. Neither price nor production dates are known.

Optimus Tactus & Optimus Maximus

Artemy Lebedev’s Optimus keyboards offer an unusual approach for a traditional input device. A small OLED-display (Organic Display) is placed beneath every key to enable users to define displayed characters and the keys’ functionality manually. In other words, with Optimus the placement of labels on the keyboard can be varied at any time.

Optimus Tactus does not have physical keys, which means there are no restrictions on their shape and size. Any part of the keyboard surface can be programmed to perform any function or to display any images. Production date and price: unknown.

Optimus Maximus (Demo). Each of the 113 keys is a stand-alone display that shows the function currently assigned to it. Optimus’s customizable layout allows convenient use of any language — Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic, Quenya, hiragana, etc. — as well as of any other character sets: notes, numerals, special symbols, HTML codes, math functions and so on to infinity. Production date: the end of January 2008, price: 460$.

The Keyboard Configurator. You can assign any images and characters to display on your Optimus keyboard.

Nonobject Behind the Scenes Camera

The Nonobject Behind the Scenes Camera (Video) has “lenses and displays on both sides for simultaneously recording what you’re aiming at, and what you’re not.” Behind the Scenes Camera is designed to capture what’s going on behind our back, beyond our control, while simultaneously capturing the scene in front of us.

Duofone

The main idea behind Duofone is the possibility to put multiple devices together to combine their screen real estate. The battery power can be shared, and a movie can be watched on a larger screen.

Toast Messenger

Toast Messenger incorporates a little message board where one can write quick notes and then instantly print them on the toaster. Simple, yet innovative.

Dual Music Player

Compared to traditional music players, this Dual Music Player is different. It is a portable solution that supports both CDs and Flash-memory. You can listen to MP3s stored on your Flash-drive and copy music via USB while once you need to play your old CDs you can simply open both sides and let the player do the rest.

Vaio Zoom

The Vaio Zoom notebook takes everything we know about holographic technology and squeezes it inside a thin glass form factor. When off, the screen is completely transparent and the keyboard goes opaque. Turn it on and the touchscreen holographic festivities begin. Even the mouse buttons are holographic! [via Gizmodo]

Visual Desktop Charger

Quite often the details are not the details. They make the design. Saying that, Charles Eames was right: the beauty of Visual Desktop Charger lies in its close attention to small details. The device is a visual indicator of the charge status of a mobile phone. It is supposed to like like a “bird bath-like charger, complete with radiating rings of light to indicate charge status and to top it all off, thirsty birds that glow once the rings of light hit ‘em.” [via YankoDesign]

Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard

This is reality. This BlueTooth Laser Virtual Keyboard, a laser projection keyboard, allows you to type on any flat surface. You can use it to compose an e-mail on your Bluetooth enabled PDA or Cell Phone. With 63 keys and and full size QWERTY layout the Laser Virtual Keyboard can approach the typing speed of a standard keyboard. Size: a little larger than a matchbook. Already released. Price: $150.

Omaura HTPC

Omaura Home Theater Personal PC is a new face in HTPCs. “When we first opened the PDF containing the concept images of Omaura’s concept TT chassis, we thought for a second it was a large, TV-stand-ready all-in-one PC whose display had a seriously distorted aspect ratio. We’ll confess to a little disappointment once we realized it was simply an upright case, but that shot of its interior got us excited again. Imagine sticking the TT on a low-profile table under your wall-mounted LCD or plasma screen.” [via CNet]

Hi-Tech Office: Eclipse Partitioning System

Eclipse Partitioning System (Video) includes a desk, task chair, expandable hood, integrated speakers, and power all set on casters for true mobility. The central idea behind this hi-tech office is versatility. Its retractable hood allows for various levels of privacy and access to accommodate to the changing work flow of one’s daily job. You should really take a look at the video. Neither price nor production dates are known.

EmTrace’s PS100 Photoskin Frames

EmTrace PS100 offers one single dock station for all your personal needs and interests. Looking like a digital photo frame, it fits into a wallet and syncs data for stocks, weather and other information via Internet. You can load whatever information you’d like on your personal dock station and take it with you — in your wallet. Neither price nor production dates are known.

iRing

iRing is a control playback for your Apple media devices. As a simple ring which fits on a finger, it has a wireless Bluetooth connectivity with iPod and iPhone. “iRing features a bright OLED status display with touch-sensitive function strip, and a rechargeable battery life of up to 2 days. Conveniently recharge your iRing using the included cradle.” Neither price nor production dates are known.

Pock-It

So simple, yet so effective. Pock-It is a simple design concepts that allows you to use a little pocket instead of usual stick-it-notes.

Bonus: “sQuba” Diving Car

Rinspeed’s sQuba Diving Car is the “first real diving car designed to autonomously turn into an amphibious vehicle at the push of a button — can submerge up to 10m (33ft) under water.” Powering the concept is an electric motor mated to the rear wheels.

The propulsion on the water is ensured by two propellers in the stern and two powerful jet drives in the bow to propel the vehicle under water. The body is constructed from light weight components made of Carbon Nano Tubes and contains an on-board air-filling system. Neither price nor production dates are known.

GREAT LOGOS AND GREAT DESIGNERS!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:51:00 +0000

Paul Rand – Corporate Identity Designs, Innovation and Excellence

Paul Rand was one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century. His valued contribution to the design medium is remarkable and acknowledged by clients and critics alike. His work received recognition in his early twenties due to his groundbreaking innovation in design, typography and graphic design.

However, it was the area of corporate identity design during the mid of his design career, that he shot to worldwide fame. He is regarded as the one who has actually set standards for the creation of corporate logos, and that too, by devising the pre-requisites of modernity, simplicity and ease of recognition. Many of these logos or their basic designs are still in use.

INNOVATION:

Paul Rand was a prominent advocate of employing a wide variety of techniques such as typography, painting, collage, photography, and montage - creating a combination of elements to produce a distinctive and modern visual image, whether it was a poster, a magazine cover design or a corporate identity design/logo.

1. Typography:

Paul Rand’s distinctive style was a result of his talent and extensive design education. It inspired his success at the merger of modern typography with nineteenth-century engravings. Rand strove to unite letters, finding unique graphic ways of bringing together letters of a word (name or title of a person or entity). And he excelled at that, as seen in his logos for IBM, EF and Yale University Press.

Typography was one of his strongest command areas, and with his impeccable understanding of both visual content (image/illustration) and technical content (typography/typeface), he produced designs which lasted decades. Balance, uniformity and equilibrium of spacing were the three common elements of Paul Rand’s typography related work.

2. Simplicity:

Simplicity was a common element of everything and anything Paul Rand created, whether it was a page design, a magazine cover, an ad, or a logo. And everyone loved it. He was always of the opinion that the design of a logo must be simple, in order to appeal aesthetically.

3. Rebellion:

In the 1940s, Paul Rand broke away from the conventional standards of typography and layout, and started incorporating Swiss style of design into his creations. He merged American visual culture into European avant-garde (modern art) design, integrating Cubism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus and De Stijl into his work.

Poster for the New York Subways Advertising Company, designed by Paul Rand in 1947.

Poster for the UCLA, designed by Paul Rand in 1996, one of the last creations before his death.

CORPORATE IDENTITY DESIGNS:

The most important achievement on Paul Rand’s portfolio is in the area of Corporate Identity Design and logotypes. His talent and excellent execution was apparent in the logos he designed for many firms from a broad range of industries like IBM, Apple, UPS, ABC Television, NeXT, Enron, the Cummins Engine Company, El Producto Cigar Company, Compton Advertising and Westinghouse Electric Corporation and many more.

IBM:

The image that virtually became Paul Rand’s identity was his corporate identity design/logo for IBM. Rand was selected to revamp the IBM logo by Thomas J. Watson, Jr., the president of the multinational giant in 1956. Paul’s concept of expanded typography within a contained format gave birth to a new corporate identity.

The IBM logo with the three letters in bold font was a design concept that gave birth to corporate and public awareness at the same time.

Paul Rand’s design of the IBM logo was modified in 1960, and the striped logo design was unveiled in 1972. Rand also designed packaging materials for IBM from the early 70s to the early 80s.

He also came up with a very eye catching poster design for IBM, with an eye in place of the letter ‘I’, and a bee in place of the letter ‘B’. The poster was used in-house for a conference/event.

ABC:

In 1961, Paul Rand designed a new logo for ABC (The American Broadcasting Company). Now used for over 40 years, it is the current “ABC Circle” corporate identity design, with a circle encompassing the three lowercase letters ‘abc’. The typeface/font used in the ABC logo is a simple geometric design inspired by the Bauhaus school of the 1920s.

In September 2007, a shimmer was added across the circle, giving the design a new look. The ‘abc’ logo is a clear example of simplicity in Paul Rand’s design creations. The use of black and white indicates the formality in his work.

UPS:

Another design that added stardom to Paul Rand’s corporate identity design portfolio was that of UPS, the United Parcel Service. Designed in 1961, the UPS logo displayed an iconic package and shield, in black and white. While the color scheme was again a sign of Rand’s simplicity theory in design, he also retained the shield believing that it had symbolic importance for the men who wore it.

The logo was modified in April 2003, retaining the letters ‘UPS’, with large font in it. However, the colors used are yellow and brown, with the same shield theme.

When Steve Jobs created NeXT, the new education computer company, he also realized and understood the purpose and power of a logo. This realization was made obvious by a payment of $100.000 for the corporate identity design/logo created by Paul Rand in 1986. Maybe, because of similar reasons, Steve Jobs once called Paul Rand, “the greatest living graphic designer.”

Others examples of Corporate Identity Designs by Paul Rand:

Paul Rand enjoyed a very long career, achieved fame at a surprisingly young age, and saw his principles adopted by whole generations of design professionals and students. He is no longer alive but still lives in his creations, and the identity he gave to corporations, institutions, entities and even ideas. Rest in Peace.

Tribute to a Legend - Paul Rand – The Graphic Designer of All Time

“Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions, there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.”

These remarkable words were spoken by Paul Rand (1914 – 1996), the most important and undoubtedly, the most gifted graphic designer of our time. Paul Rand’s design expertise covered advertising design, illustration and industrial design, and typography. He was known as an artist, painter, and lecturer and recognized for creating outstanding design mechanisms. More importantly, Paul Rand became increasingly famous in the 1950s for his corporate logo designs.

He was one such pioneer whose work in advertising design and typography has an astounding influence on the design profession. One of his most important achievements was to bring up commercial art from the low caliber of masses, to the discipline of fine arts. Not to forget, Paul Rand was famous for creating simple designs, but nothing he crafted, was without concept.

Early Life:

Peretz Rosenbaum aka Paul Rand was born in 1914 in New York. He studied at the Pratt Institute, the Parsons School of Design and the Arts Students League, New York. However, he was much of a self-taught designer. Paul’s father had the impression that studying art would not be enough to earn a living, so he had to be enrolled in night classes simultaneously with high school.

He loved to design and the first corporate identity he created was that of his name. He shortened his original name to ‘Paul Rand’, showing his sense of symmetry and balance, with four alphabets on one side and four on the other. Being an infant prodigy, Paul Rand’s work received worldwide recognition in his early twenties, especially for page design.

Design Career:

Paul Rand’s design career is divided in four phases. Having established his own office in 1935, he worked as the art director of Esquire-Coronet and Apparel Arts magazines for two years.
In the second phase of his career, advertising, he created a series of cover designs for Direction, a culture magazine, from 1937 to 1941. Here, Paul Rand worked for free, without being paid, as he thought he could produce more honest art without financial obligation. These covers immediately caught attention due to their propaganda-free style, identifiable imagery, and often hand-written text.

From 1941 to 1954, he served as the advertising director at the well-known William H. Weintraub Agency in New York. Here, Paul Rand and his team produced advertisements that combined type and image in a remarkable pictorial manner. In the mid 1950s, he became a freelance graphic design consultant and created corporate identification images for various leading American corporations.

Achievements:

Paul Rand received extensive acknowledgment for his talent and groundbreaking designs. In the 1950s, he was voted one of the ten best art directors in the USA. He also won many design awards, including Gold Medals from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and the Art Directors Club of New York. He was elected to the latter’s Hall of Fame in 1972. Rand was also a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI).

His work has been exhibited at the National Museum, Stockholm (1947), and at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1954), and in exhibitions of the Alliance Graphique Internationale in Paris, London, and Lausanne.

Teaching:

The fourth part of Paul Rand’s career was when he started teaching design and other related elements. He taught at the Cooper Union in the year 1942 and at the Pratt Institute in 1946. He was associated in a similar teaching capacity with the Yale University’s Graduate School of Design and the School of Architecture as a Professor of Graphic Design from 1956 to 1992.

Books and Publications:

Paul Rand wrote several design related books and articles throughout his lifetime. He published his non-descriptive book, “Thoughts on Design”, with reproductions of almost one hundred of his designs and some of the best words yet written on graphic design, in 1946. It was a publishing event that gave him added strength, improving his international reputation and identifying him as an influencing designer, from Zurich to Tokyo.

The 1985 publication, Paul Rand: A Designer’s Art gave insight to his work, influences, beliefs and a number of reprinted essays from his illustrious graphic design career. As seen in his text Design, Form and Chaos published in 1994, Rand was also highly critical of many aspects of contemporary graphic design practice.

Paul Rand also published many children’s books with his wife Ann Rand, which are known for their clever artwork. One such example, “Sparkle and Spin”, is a Mid-century children’s classic re-published by Chronicle books.

Paul Rand passed away in 1996. He was suffering from cancer. He was labeled the ‘greatest living designer’ by one of his clients. The design theory put forward by Paul Rand will remain with us for a long time, with much appreciation shown by people who still idealize him.

After his death, many of Paul Rand’s books were donated by his widow, to the Arts of the Book collection at Yale University. Yale turned down this offer, refusing to accept a collection of a teacher and design maestro who taught on their campus for decades, a collection worth millions if sold and trillions if valued.

HOW SEARCH ENGINE DESIGNERS CELEBRATE HOLIDAYS??

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:35:00 +0000

HIDDEN SECRETS OF ADOBE PHOTOSHOP!!! @ 3DNirvana Exclusive!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:31:00 +0000

1. Press Tab will hide tool bar and palette, Shift+Tab will hide only palette.

2. Hold Shift + click the top blue bar for toolbar and palette will move them to the nearest edge.

3. Double click the top blue bar, on any palette window, to minimize it.

4. Double click the gray background will bring up open file option, Hold Shift+double click will open up the browser.

5. Sick of the default gray background around your image? Select paint bucket, hold shift and click on the gray background, it will change to whatever color you have in your foreground color box.

6. In Photoshop, all "Cancel" buttons in a window can be changed to a "Reset" button by holding Alt.

7. Caps lock will switch your cursor for accuracy.

8. Press F button, it will switch between 3 different screen modes and give you more working area.

9. To draw a straight line, click then move to the end point and hold shift + click.

10. Hold Ctrl will temporary make any tool into move tool until you release Ctrl.

11. Ctrl + Alt and click drag the image, it will make a duplication of the current image over lay on top.

12. Hold Space bar, it will make any tool into "Hand Tool" until you release Space bar.

13. While in Zoom Tool, Ctrl+space = zoom in, alt+space = zoom out.

14. Hold Ctrl and press "+" or "-" it will change the % for image in navigator window.

15. When Using eyedropper tool to capture foreground color, hold Alt and click, it will instantly capture the color for background.

16. With Measure Tool, draw a line then hold Alt and draw another line from the end of the first line, it will measure the angle.

17. Ctrl+Alt+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z will go back and forth in the history.

18. Alt+Backspace and Ctrl+Backspace will fill in the whole screen with foreground color or background color, Shift+backspace will bring up option window, Alt+Shift+Backspace and Ctrl+Shift+Backspace, will fill the image with foreground or background color but will leave the alpha transparent area alone.

19. When free transforming with Ctrl+T, hold Alt to keep the original image and then to transform a duplicated layer of it. Ctrl+Shift+T to repeat whatever you did in the last transform.

20. To make sure your Crop is on the edge of the image, hold Ctrl while cropping.

21. Ctrl+J will duplicate the current layer.

22. Ctrl+Shift+E will merge all visible layers to one layer, Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E will make a copy of the original and merge all visible layers.

23. While using Marquee Tools, hold Alt it will make the starting point as a center of the selection.

24. Ctrl + D to deselect, Ctrl+Shift+D to reselect what you deselected.

25. While selecting with Marquee tool, pressing the space bar can allow you to move the selection.

26. Hold Shift and press "+" or "-" it will switch between the layer mode:

N = Normal
I = Dissolve
M = Multiply
S = Screen
O = Overlay
F = Soft Light
H = Hard Light
D = Color Dodge
B = Color Burn
K = Darken
G = Lighten
E = Difference
X = Exclusion
U = Hue
T = Saturation
C = Color
Y = Luminosity
Q = Behind 1
L = Threshold 2
R = Clear 3
W = Shadow 4
V = Midtones 4
Z = Highlights 4

***The shortcut works even for following situation:

***Alpha turned off, Indexed Mode, Line tool, Bucket Tools, Dodge and Burn Tools

27. While using Brush or any other tools, change the opacity by typing the number.

*** type one number for % of it's ten times [4=40%]

***type two number for exact % [press 7 then 2 will get 72%]

28. Hold Alt while clicking on the eye icon beside the layer, it will hide all other layers.

29. Hold Alt while clicking the pen icon beside the layer, it will unchain this layer from all layers.

30. Select a layer, hold Alt and click the top edge of another layer, it will group them.

31. Hold Alt and click the button "Create a new layer", it will create a new adjustment layer.

32. Select a layer and hold Alt, then click on the garbage can button. It will instantly delete the layer, marquee where you want alpha and Ctrl+click the "Create new channel" button, it will create an alpha only on the area you marquee.

33. File> Automate > Contact Sheet: this can create a small thumbnail for every file, this can save you some time from searching.

34. When Move Tool is selected, toolbox on top can be useful from time to time, these are "Auto select layer" and "Show bounding box".

35. While Move Tool is selected, hold Shift (Alt+Shift+Right click) and allow whether or not to make a current layer chain with your upper layer.

36. With grid on, click the top left corner of the grid and drag to anywhere on the image to set the pivot, double clicking on the icon again reset the pivot.

37. After, draw a path on the image with pen tool, Ctrl+shift+H can hide/show it.

38. Control Navigator with keyboard sometimes can be more time efficient than mouse.

***

Home = move to top left corner
End = move to right bottom corner
PageUp = move up one page
PageDown = move down one page
Ctrl+PageUp = move left one page
Ctrl+PageDown = move right one page
Shift+PageUp = move up 10 pixel
Shift+PageDown = move down 10 pixel
Ctrl+Shift+PageUp = move left 10 pixel
Ctrl+Shift+PageDown = move right 10 pixel

39. Ctrl+Tab allows you to switch between different image files you are working on.

40. F12 = Revert to how the file was the last time you saved it.

41. Shortcuts for Channel: RGB, CMYK, indexed color...

***

Ctrl+"~" = RGB
Ctrl+1 = red
Ctrl+2 = green
Ctrl+3 = blue
Ctrl+4 = other path
Ctrl+9 = other path
Ctrl+"~" = CMYK
Ctrl+1 = light green
Ctrl+2 = pink red
Ctrl+3 = yellow
Ctrl+4 = black
Ctrl+5 = other path
Ctrl+9 = other path
Ctrl+1 = Indexed
Ctrl+2 = other path
Ctrl+9 = other path

42. hold Ctrl then you can draw a red box in the Navigator thumbnail for viewing.

43. Hold Alt and click on any of the history steps, that step will be copied and become the most recent one.

44. Alt drag a step from a serial action can copy it to another action.

45. Alt-click the flare preview thumb, and you can fill in numerical co-ordinates for lens flare.

46. Holding Shift + Alt while transforming an object will do it proportionally, from the center.

47. If you have the move tool selected and you want something duplicated just hold the alt key and move the image, holding the Shift + Alt while doing this, it will move it along one axis.

48. If you want to straighten an image that is crooked (maybe from scanning), click on the eyedropper tool or hit the I key 3 times to get the ruler. Click on the left side of the straight edge, then the right side of the straight (but crooked) edge. The choose Image> Rotate Canvas> Arbitrary, Photoshop will give you the degrees of rotation you just click ok.

49. If you create something in Illustrator, copy and paste it in Photoshop, it will ask you if you want this to be a pixel, path, or shape layer.

50. If you have a mask on a layer and you want to place a image in there and keep the mask. Simply open the image, say copy, and then Ctrl click on the layer to select the mask and use Shift + Ctrl + V to paste it into the mask which will also put it on a new layer as well.

51. To center an image, Ctrl + A , Ctrl + X, Ctrl + V, I think it also puts that image on a new layer.

52. Ctrl+E will merge the highlighted layer down to the next

53. When you have a brush selected, using [ or ] will scroll up or down that brush list.

54. Double clicking the zoom tool will make the image 100%, double clicking the hand tool will fit the image to your screen resolution.
55. Typing Content:

Ctrl + H will hide the highlight on your selected type.

If you click once while your type is selected on the font list, you can use your arrows to scroll up and down and see the fonts change on the fly!

Alt + Left or Right arrows will change your tracking in increments of 10
Ctrl + Alt + Left or Right arrows will change your tracking in increments of 100
Ctrl + Alt + Up or Down arrows will change your leading in increments of 10 pts
Shift + Ctrl with <> will change your font size in increments of 2 pts

56. Ctrl + Alt + T to make a copy of the layer in which you want to transform.

57. Ctrl + Alt + Right arrow. duplicates the layer you are on.

58. Change the active layer : Alt + [ or ].

59. Move the active layer up and down : Ctrl + [ or ].

60. Link 2 layers: with move tool click in the first layer hold Shift and click in the second one.

61. Ctrl+[plus key] will let you zoom in on an image anytime while Ctrl+[minus key] zooms out. Ctrl+Alt+[plus key] will zoom in AND RESIZE the window to fit the image size... same for Ctrl+Alt+[minus key] as well.

62. When using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, click backspace to undo a lasso step.

63. Pressing X will switch the selected foreground and background colors.

64. Pressing D will reset the foreground and backgrounds colors to black and white.

65. If your image has multiple layers, create a Marquee selection and press Ctrl+Shift+Cit won't work if you selected a hidden layer) will copy the image into memory as if they were flattened! Paste it on a new document to see the result.

66. Ctrl+Alt+Z will do multiple undo, versus just one.

67. Ctrl+click a layer thumbnail to select the layer transparency

68. To see what your layer mask looks like (and edit it), Alt+click its thumbnail in the layers palette

69. Press and hold Ctrl+Alt and click the Help bar with your mouse, drag it down and highlight "About Photoshop" and let go of the left mouse button for a different About Photoshop splash/screen.

70. When using Polygon lasso tool hold Shift to make a perfect line, it goes every 30 degrees

71.Photoshop CS2: Group many layers by clicking the layers you want to group by clicking it while holding the Shift key down, and then press Ctrl+G to group them into a folder for means of better organization.

72. Ctrl+Shift+N creates a new layer with a dialog box; Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N gets you a new layer without the hassle.

73. Back to brush, [ and ] will increase/decrease your brush size, Shift + [ or ] will soften or harden your brush edge.

74. Still in [ and ], Ctrl + [ or ] will move your currently selected layer up and down the hierarchy and Shift + [ or ] will select upper layer or lower layer.

75. Stamp Tool (s) is used to copy an area of image (defined by alt+clicking and area) and paint it somewhere else (cloning). It also works when you have multiple images open at the same time. Alt click an area of any opened file image and paint it anywhere else.

76. After you created a text you can click on font type tab and tap "down" key over and over to scroll through the font list and see the changes in (relatively) real time. A feature that I am tired of waiting to happen in illustrator.

77. Still in text mode, a trick from Microsoft word to apply hi-light to your text hit Ctrl+Shift+ <> to resize your text, to your preferred font size. Pressing Ctrl key while you are typing also gives you a free transform box temporarily and will go if you release it. Resizing text also works by pressing Ctrl+T (on selected layer, not when you are typing). It still retains as an editable text layer after.

78. And remember, pressing enter when you type will take you to a new line just like typing a letter but pressing Ctrl+Enter or Enter on numeric key will finish what you type.

79. You can drag a layer on to any other opened images in Photoshop and it will copy it as a layer (better than copy and paste image). Holding down Shift while moving it will snap the image right on the center of the other opened image

80. If you are working with sets....

Click on the set, in the blending mode it shows pass through by default... if you have an adjustment layer within a set and you want that adjustment layer to effect those layers underneath it within the set only, set the blending mode of the set to "normal" instead.

CODE

Mentioned before with more explanation:

- Pressed F to switch to 3 different viewing mode... when I first try it I said "wtf? what it's for?" Well, if you are sick of painting your image on the corners just to find yourself resizing your current image window, with F you can pan way outside your image. Happy corner painting!!

- Create a new file, 500x500 px, create a new layer, get a standard brush and paint a dot on the top center of your image (like the number 12 position on a clock). Press Ctrl+Alt+T, it will duplicate your original layer and free transform the new one. Move the pivot point (the circle with little dot in it found when you are free transforming something) to the center of your image, rotate your image 30 degrees to the right and hit OK to confirm the transform

now.........

Be excited..........

Hit Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T 10 times and see what happens!

81. When using the "move tool" you can select any layer by holding down the CTL key(CMD on a Mac) and clicking on the part of the layer on the canvas with your mouse. This way you won't have to go to the Layers palette every time and you don't have to keep checking on or off the auto select options for the move tool.

82. You can link up layers without going into the layers palette, by selecting the layer (how I just mentioned above) and holding down CTL + Shift(CMD + SHIT on a Mac) for each additional layer you want to link up. You can unlink them by clicking on the layer again.

83. You can delete more than one layer at a time.......by linking up all the layer you want to delete, and holding down CTL(CMD on a Mac) while you click on the garbage icon to delete the layer.

84. When using the type tool you can ok it by pressing CTL + Enter(CMD + Enter on a Mac) instead of clicking on the check mark on the options.

85. If you have more than one type layer, and want to make any of the following changes color/font/size/alignment/initializing to all of the type layers at the same time.....All you have to do is link up the type layer, hold down the Shift key and in the options for the type tool make your change i.e. color, size, etc.

86. You can use your number pad to change opacity for a layer.... I.e. type 5 and the opacity will be 50; type 55 and the opacity will be 55. You can use the number pad for any tool that uses opacity...like the airbrush tool, stamp tool, brush, gradient, etc.

87. Pressing Tab key will hide the Tools palette and any other palette that you have on the stage. Pressing "F" will change between Full Screen modes. Using these two tips you can view your work Full Screen without any palettes.(You can press CTL+Alt+0 to fit your work to the screen, or you can press CTL+0 to zoom to 100%)

88. Pressing the "+" and "-" keys while holding down CTL+Alt will resize the whole document window, not just the work area.

89. You can delete a layer by holding down the "Alt" key and pressing "L" twice......actually now with Photoshop 7 you got to press "L" three times. It's not actually a keyboard shortcut, but it's a quick way to do it....don't know if it works on a MAC.

90. Pan documents with the space bar.

91. Ctrl+click a layer (in layers palette) to select it's transparency.

92. Ctrl+Alt+click between 2 layers in the palette to group them.

93. Alt + click in “add layer mask” button to add a black layer mask (instead of a white one).

94. When you select something, pressing Ctrl+J will copy the selected area and add another layer with the copied area - opposing copying the layer, making a new layer, and pasting it.

95. To glue the palettes together (all palettes combined into one strip), you just drag & drop a palette onto the end of another palette (watch the rectangle that indicates where the palette will get attached to).

96. Hold down Alt while Burning to Dodge instead, and vice versa.

97. Ctrl-click a layer to select an objects; alternatively, you may select more than one object/s in more than 1 layer by holding Shift while using the method just mentioned (Ctrl-click). To deselect, just press Ctrl+D.

98. If you have a mini scroll on your mouse, you may use that to zoom in (scroll up) or zoom out (scroll down).

99. Need to locate a layer quick? Use the Move Tool (V) and right click on the area the object lays. There should now be a “cursor-menu” with all the layers that is in that particular area. Now take a good guess and see which one of them fits the shoe; select a layer and Ctrl-Click the layer in the Layer Palette - see if the selection traces the object you desired to edit/find. Useful for those messy people (i.e. me!).

100. Need to get rid of a background quick? Assuming you at least know how to crop around an object, do so. Now press Ctrl+I or Shift+Ctrl+I for Inverse Selection. Press Ctrl+X to %@#!* that part out, and you should be left with the object!

101. Want to save the time from loading All your Photoshop brushes, when your Photoshop accidentally forgets to load them up (happens to me sometimes)? Select the brush tool, and click the little arrow pointing right (located at the top toolbar), next to the Master Diameter tick. Go down to Preset Manager and now there should be a menu of all the brushes currently loaded. Click on the first brush (top left) and scroll down to the bottom. Now hold Shift and click the last brush (bottom right). This should highlight all the brushes. See the “Save Set” to the right in the menu? Click that and name your brush set whatever you want, for this matter I just name it All (so I remember that this brush set contains all the brushes I currently have loaded, and is located near the top when loading the brushes up).

Creative Smoking!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:24:00 +0000

More Business Design Cards!!! YAH!!!! HOOOO!!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:17:00 +0000

WORLDS MOST CREATIVE, ELEGANT, INFORMATIVE, BRANDED, EXCLUSIVE AND FOREVER LOGOS!!! @ 3DNIRVANA EXCLUSIVE!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:10:00 +0000

LET ME INSPIRE YOUR DESIGN TASTE BUDS!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 04:53:00 +0000

Hi All,

This is me, Roshan Kolar after a very long time personally. Today I have a great news for you. Check these sites below. They are awesome. Whoever designed it, are really freaked out great designers.

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3dNirvana CEO

THIS IS INSPIRATION. THE GREATEST DESIGN INSPIRATION A LIVING SOUL COULD GET!!! - kdX

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:09:00 +0000

Logo Design Inspirational Showcase Sites

Free LogoTypes - This web site provides you with an opportunity to discover the world of logos, brands and trademarks. However, besides being just a resource for "logotype fans", the site is of a specific importance for designers and design studios that are involved in the logotype creation themselves.

Good Logo - This site is dedicated to the artform of the logo and its accompanied corporate identity.

Go Promos - Our stock logos are listed alphabetically so you can easily find your company or organization's image.

Logo Blog : 56 Most Inspirational Logo Designs - Logos are one of the most creative elements of graphic art. These creative logos have a tendency to not only provide brands with essential recognition, but also ensure its success. In order to recognize the creativity behind these artistic visual identities, we at LogoBlog, have listed some of the best creative logos (though it’s not a ranking) in a random way. We hope that you will appreciate these creative logos as much as we do.

Logo Pond - Logo Pond is a great site for logo inspiration. You will just love this one.

Buzz Shout - Listing of beautiful logos - I think they are only web 2.0 logos.

Logo in Process - Watch a logo being designed and learn from the process.

Logomarket.com - designers present their designs to an interested public and to potential customers. The showcases contain both closed commissioned work and designs for sale at an attractive fixed price.

Logo Sauce - Gallery oozing with logo goodness. Find the best logos and find some good ideas of your own.

Logotypes Russia - More than 5000 logos available in EPS and Vector graphics. You need to impress creative director at agency X tomorrow. You think of a great campaign for their client X. You need the logo - and you need it now... Start looking here.

Logo Two - Inspiration for Web 2.0 Logos.

Logotypes - Archive of Logos.

Satlogo.com - The world's radio & television channel logotypes and logotypes of satellite related entities.

Best of Web Design & CSS Design Inspirational Showcase Sites

Banner Blog - Banner Blog started in June 2005 to showcase online advertising, much of which goes unnoticed. It was also seen as a good opportunity to pimp our own work too!

Beautifully - Web design inspiration gallery with start base of thumbnails.

Best Designs - Best of the Best in Web Design

Best Web Gallery - Best Web Gallery is an inspirational gallery site where we collect a wide range of quality design websites (Flash & CSS).

Brain Fuel - A portal of inspirational and design resources.

Coolest Designs -The best web sites directory

Cool Home Pages - The most popular portal to sites with exceptional website design.

Cool Websites - A gallery of the coolest websites.

CSS Based - CSS Based is a project providing web designers a gallery of well designed CSS-based websites from all around the world.

CSS Beauty - A gallery of beautiful designs on the CSS Beauty resources site.

CSS Bloom - A blog style CSS gallery.

CSS Collection - Gallery of naked sites, shed your tables and run free.

CSS Demo - A Spanish gallery of sites designed in CSS.

CSS Drive - Categorized CSS gallery with examples.

CSS Dump - A CSS web design gallery.

CSS Elite - One of the best CSS web site design galleries out there.

CSS Glance - CssGlance is the first italian website focused on providing its audience with a database of well designed and innovative CSS based websites from all around the world.

CSS Hazard - Showcase of the best of CSS web site designs.

CSS Heaven - Web design gallery for inspiration.

CSS Import - Yes, another CSS web design gallery.

CSS Liquid - Resisting Fascist design.

CSS Love - CSS blog and inspirational gallery.

CSS Princess - A site promoting female designers and showcasing their works.

CSS Vault - This site is a wonderful inspirational CSS design site.

CSS Reboot - The CSS Reboot is a community event for web professionals and enthusiasts. Every November 1st and May 1st at 18:00 GMT, Rebooters from all over the world launch their standards based website redesigns simultaneously; bringing traffic, interest and a little respect to their sites.

CSS Remix - A fresh blend of the best CSS Designs in Web Design.

CSS Showcase - A gallery of CSS menus and tabs.

CSS Tux - The best dressed sites on the web.

CSS Website - Css Website is an innovative gallery of simple websites. Its purpose is to showcase designer’s work and to expand the CSS design community. We propose a classification by color and contents for a better usability.

CSS Zen Garden - A demonstration of what can be accomplished visually through CSS-based design.

Daily Slurp - A dialy list of beautiful sites.

Design Crush - Web design inspirational portal.

Design Diary - An archived gallery of web art and design.

Design in Europe - A gallery of the most beautiful web sites in Europe.

Design Eye - DarkEye is a new breed of ‘living’ web design showcase. Browse thousands of custom web designs from designers around the globe. Rank and add comments on any design, then create a gallery of your favorites.

Design Licks - A showcase of some of the best web designs from around the world.

Design Melt Down - Great designs listed beside many great articles for better designs. Great resource for any web designer.

Digital Refueler - Your daily portion for creative inspiration.

Design Shack - A site offering the cream of great design, filtering through lots of the redesigns that occur every day across the Internet, and cataloging the greatest projects out there.

Digital Thread - Take a look at only the best of the best web site design firms.

Doble Pixel - Cool sites on the net (in Spanish but you don't need the words).

Dreamer - Inspirations for the Mind. Portal of design inspiration.

Email Design Gallery - The Campaign Monitor email design gallery highlights the amazing email designs being sent by our talented customers each and every day. Clever aren't they!

Favorite Web Sites Awards - Look no further than the FWA to find the best of designs to inspire you.

FaveUp - Design inspiration gallery.

Flickr Web Design Inspiration - A set of web design sites to get inspiration from on Flickr

Fcukstar Awards - Find inspiration on this design awards site.

Inspiration King - A site organizing the best web site designs in the world.

iStockPhoto Design of the Week Spotlight - This a great source of inspiration - they have these great designs listed in different categories including one for web design.

Light on Dark Sites - Enjoy sites that are on the darker side.

Misspato - Directory of Inspiring Web Sites.

Modern Day Billboard - Modern Day Billboard is a site that provides you with some of today's most creative and inspiring websites on the internet. The styles you'll see shall vary from different types of medium... CSS, AJAX, Tables, Flash, or Old school Frames as well as many others. Enjoy our site and if you have a creative site then submit it below. Thanks!

Moluv - The best of the best, if you will. These sites are all beautiful, innovative, functional, and consistent.

Most Inspirational Designs - Most Inspired aggregates designs from all the popular css and design galleries.

Newstoday - Awesome site for new and great work.

No Limit Media - A collection of the best designs on the Web.

One Star Gallery - A new inspirational gallery for designers.

Piepmatzel - A unique gallery of beautiful websites...a gallery is filled with clickable thumnails of beautiful sites.

Plastic Pilots - Plasticpilots.com assigns awards to web sites featuring excellent design.

Screenalicious - One of the biggest web design inspirational galleries out there.

Screen Fluent - Zeitgeist of screen design.

Showcase Point - On PortfolioBase, you can see fellow portfolios from your industry, see how others have used that color that you like so much, see portfolios from your own country, and much much more.

Smashing Magazine Lists - Smashing magazine has great lists of inspirational designs including 50 Beautiful CSS-Based Designs in 2006 ... 70 Expert CSS Ideas ... 60 Elegant & Appealing Designs ... 50 Beautifuul Web Designs ... 50 Simple Web Designs ... 45 Excellent Blog Designs ... 45 Fresh and Clean Designs ... 30 Dark Designs ... 83 Beautiful Wordpress The mes You Probably Haven't Seen ...and more.

Style Boost - Showcasing outstanding web sites.

Style Crunch - StyleCrunch is a css and standards websites gallery, you can find the best sites in the www, best design, best coded and what engine used.

Style Gala - A nice collection of beautiful web designs.

The Best Designs - A gallery of the best of CSS and web design.

The Dezine - There is a major difference between this inspiration gallery and the other galleries. This gallery is not just web oriented and definitely not tableless-standard-compliant web oriented. This gallery is design and innovation oriented. But besides the good looks, I will also count the innovative approach, usability and functionality.

Unmatched Style - Web design and CSS inspiration gallery in blog format.

Visual Designer - Another Inspiration portal - Find inspiration for your next design project.

W3C Sites - W3C Sites is a collection of web sites created by designers that conform with the W3C standards.

Web Creme - Best of the best web designs featured in this web design inspiration blog.

WebDigity -WebDigity is a css Gallery where all the best designs are displayed and new ones can be displayed. It has a forumn for interaction with its members.

Web Design Gallery - Inspire yourself to design better.

Web Standards Awards - See all of the winners of the Web Standard Awards.

Well Done Sites - Web design CSS gallery using Web 2.0.

PRINT COLLECTIONS - GRAPHIC DESIGN INSPIRATION & IDEAS

Coolest Business Card Designs, Part I - Here are the coolest, most innovative business cards that you have ever seen. Here is Part II.

Best of Brochure Design : Cool Brochures - These brochures will give you some artistic inspiration when you feel like you are out of ideas. I hope that you enjoy the

Cool Designs for Flyers and Posters - Some of these flyers have cool textures, shapes, and some are even 3d-like.

Ad Classix - Vintage ads offer a fascinating glimpse of history and represent the archival documents of our consumer driven society. If you own a vintage or show vehicle, a print of its original publicity advertisement is the finishing touch to your investment.

Adobe Kuler - On Adobe Kuler you can browse and share color combinations from other designers.

Ads of the World - Ads of the World is an advertising archive and community showcasing the best and most interesting work worldwide.

ABC Typography - A virtual museum of typography.

Ad Week - Spotlight of the best creative ads. There are also a lot of helpful articles here.

ArtzMania - An art showcase from global designers. Get your creative juices flowing with this one.

AIGA - Visit the AIGA's graphic designer portfolio showcase.

Album Cover and Album Art - Flickr Collections of album cover designs and album art.

Best Rejected Advertising - A great idea for a site. Best Rejected Advertising was the first book to publish ads that had been rejected by clients on aesthetic, commercial or strategic grounds. This website broadens the original concept by including rejected, banned, spoof and most complained about ads and commercials.

Cary Graphic Arts Collection - Graphic arts library and digital image database.

CD Design - Creative Music (CDs and Albums) artwork and designs.

Cover Boom - See the most beautiful book cover designs.

Daily Input - A new blog about inspiration for graphic designers.

Design Archive Online - Review twentieth century magazine design and photography with biographical profiles of designers. A project of the Rochester Institute of Technology, the image archives have limited access.

Design Snips - A collection of snips of great designs.

DFCKR - DFCKR keeps tabs on designs on Flickr. This includes 28 wonderful inspirational photo pools found on Flickr which could be of some use to those looking for some inspiration including Magazine covers, Book covers, Posters, Typography and Lettering, One Letter (Typography), Vintage Advertisements, Illustrations, Vintage Illustrations, Vintage Christmas Designs and Art, Drawings, Sketches, Moleskine Art, Visual Scavenger Hunt, Art after Art, Pop Art, Graffiti Archeology, Contemporary Arts, Street Art, Retro Records, Retro Kid, T-shirt Revolution, Screen-printing, Post-it Ar, Paper Fetish, Graphic Designm Logos, and Character Design.

DimeStore Packaging - A gallery site featuring vintage dime store packaging.

Form Fifty Five - FormFiftyFive is a independent online archive of inspiring work in graphic design, illustration, photography, architecture, web and product design.

Graphic Arts - The Senate maintains a collection of over 900 historical prints and engravings. This collection contains a rich array of 19th and early 20th century images portraying the events, people, and settings of the U.S. Senate

Graphic Artists' Guild - Find other graphic artists / designers' portfolios and get inspiration through others talents.

Graphic Design Archive Online - 20th Century Editorial Online Design Archive.

Hard Format - Need more CD packaging design inspiration, then you cannot afford to miss this site.

Imaginary World - Archive of design packaging including cereal boxes, Food Packaging, Store Displays, Premiums, Newspaper Ads, and much more from 1950s-1970s, etc.

iStockPhoto Design of the Week Spotlight - This a great source of inspiration - they have these great designs listed in different categories for ease of use including Advertisements, Annual Reports, Branding, Campaigns, CDs / DVDs, Covers, Editorial Magazine, POP, Poster, Product Packaging, Self Promotion, Video / Television, and the Web.

Kunst - The print collection contains prints and other art on paper, i.e. drawings, engravings, woodcuts within and relating to the subjects addressed by the Library.

Library of Congress Print Collections - Collections of prints.

Medicine and Madison Avenue - This website explores the complex relationships between modern medicine and modern advertising, or "Madison Avenue," as the latter is colloquially termed.

NY Public Library - The New York Public Library encompasses a specialized reference collection of over 15,000 volumes on the history of prints and printmakers; artist clipping files; and a collection of close to 200,000 original prints.

Off the Shelf - A Japanese packaging design scrapbook.

Old Ads - Old advertisements from the 60's, 70's, and 80's.

PDF Mag - pdf-mags.com is your infobase for PDF magazines made all over the world.

Pharmaceutical Designs - Beautiful Pharmaceutical designs from the 60s and 70s.

Phirebrush - Phirebrush is an online magazine (art group if you want) that displays user submissions in monthly issues. These submissions showcase visitor submitted artwork, photography, music, desktop wallpapers and writings of various styles. Unlike most art groups and e-zines, we let ANYONE submit, trying to showcase both the famous and beginners, giving everyone a voice and a chance in the spotlight.

Posters American Style - View major posters from the last century. Learn about their design, printing and historical impact on culture. Includes audio. Collection by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Progress PKG - You can find a variety of creative packaging designs in here, from CD packs to metal packaging. A very creative company who aim to be market leaders in the field of creative packaging.

Propoganda Posters - Over 200 political posters from years back.

RBird - A series of professional observations about package design practices within specific product categories.

Swiss Posters - Take a look through The Carnegie Mellon University's Swiss Poster Collection exhibit.

The Art of Poster - Contains 5000 images and descriptions of posters.

The Die Line - The main source of packaging design inspiration. According to the webmaster Andrew Gibbs, he started theDieLine because as a packaging designer, he needs resources for research and inspiration. But he found none, so he set this site up dedicated to creative packaging design.

Tons of Conert Posters for Inspiration - We all like a little inspiration sometimes, and we all need some sometimes too. I like browsing concert posters or “informational art” as I like to call it. Pretty much anything goes in the world of poster art, so you never know what to expect (which is great) and it’s an area of the art/design world that is very rich on the visual side, not to mention the creative type treatments.

Tribu-Design - More than 900 designers and manufacturers... you can choose your browsing : Timeline, Designers or Manufacturers or go directly to the last added section.

Vintage Packaging Collection on Flickr - Take a look at these vintage packaging images on Flickr.

World of Spectrum - The official world archive for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the largest on-line gaming center on the Internet

Other Sources of Design Inspiration ~ Both Graphic Design and Web Design Inspirational Showcases

3DM3 Computer Graphics Gallery - A gallery of 3D designs that might strike up some ideas.

Ad Generator - The ad generator is a generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed and randomized to generate invented slogans.

All Freelance Work - Visit All FreelanceWork's gallery of portfolios.

Apps Mania - The best of application designs.

Apple Brochure and Ads - Here is a gallery of archives of all of the Apple Ads and brochures.

A Source of Inspiration - Ideas on advertising, creativity, online marketing and the web brought to you by Armando Alves, a Interactive Ninja from Portugal.

Aquent - There are very talented graphic designers and web designers showcased on Aquent.

Boonika - A mashup of different types of art and designs. Some are too funky for my taste, but some are quite good.

Behance - A collaboration of graphic designers (and other designers) with great exhibitions.

Brusheezy - Cool Photoshop brushes with cool vector patterns that are great for inspiration.

ColourLovers - ColourLovers is a resource that monitors and influences color trends. COLOURlovers gives the people who use color - whether for ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification - a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.

Computer Love - Computer love has a nice gallery of great designs.

Coroflot - Coroflot has a great section with graphic design and web design portfolios.

Creative Binge - There is a beautiful portfolio site with graphic designers and web designers.

Creative Hotlist - Creative hotlist has 1000s of portfolios to browse for inspiration.

Design Flood - A digg-like site where designers can vote designs either up or down.

Cool Hunter - Find inspiration on the Cool Hunter...all types of designs here.

Design Inspiration - A place to introduce talented illustrators and designers to other creative professionals in their industry. A forum for old and new talent, a venue to be seen and noted. We hope that your time spent here will prove to be both stimulating and inspirational.

Design is Kinky - One of the old timers...it has been around forever and enjoyed by many designers. There are many inspirational designs that they display.

Design You Trust - A design inspiration site.

Desktopography - Desktopography is an exhibition, a showcase of nature themed wallpapers created by designers worldwide.

Deviant Art - Deviant art is the largest design community out there and they have a huge gallery of designs to browse through in both print design and web design.

Digital Artist - Always a good source of design inspiration.

Einbahn Studio Blog - A blog filled with inspirational designs from all design genres.

From Europe - Inspirational spotlight of the best designs coming from Europe.

Gaga Over Web Buttons - Great button designs list.

Icon Base - Here you´ll find the best icons from the best artists in the world. The icons here listed belong to the individual authors and companies. They are free for personal and non commercial use. If you are an icon artist and desire to share your work with the world, this is your place. Icons can help with ideas sometimes.

Icon Buffet - This site is a collection of beautiful web icons and could be inspirational.

Icon Factory - Get some ideas for your icons or base your designs on the icons that you find.

JPG Magazine - A place for people to share photos....there are a lot of very inspirational photos here.

LCSV4 (The Little Chimp Society) - Find some very inspirational illustrations to get your creative design juices flowing.

Moco Loco - A magazine that features the best of contemporary design.

Mojizu- A character design community that could strike up some inspiration.

More Inspiration - Browse design innovations to spark your creativity.

Net Diver - An online dezine ezine that features mixtures of different inspirational designs.

New Web Pick - An online design magazine that has a lot of inspirational design goodness.

Portfolio Base - A gallery of portfolios from around the world.

Portfolios - Portolios.com has extremely talented designers to showcase...very inspiring.

ProWebArt - ProWebArt is web design gallery where we collect the most inspirational and quality web designs. The main goal of ProWebArt is to put in one place the best websites world wide.

QFolios - Online creative portfolios.

Reset Blog - A blog filled with inspirational designs and art.

Salzman Illustration Portfolios - These illustrations will get your creative juices flowing - they are amazing and if nothing else, you will find color palettes.

Start Drawing - Wow! This is what you are going to say when you get on this site - the colors are so vibrant that right away I am thinking about the color combinations that are used.

StashMedia - An online multimedia design magazine that showcases the best in multimedia design.

Sugar Frosted Goodness - These illustrations and designs should give you some ideas.

TheDreamer - Thedreamer is a simple inspirational catalogue, where some works are selected and divided in categories. You can interact with TheDreamer sending your inspiration in the fields below, it will be evaluated and could be added in the data base TheDreamer.

The Serif - Your daily dose of design inspiration.

Threadless T-Shirts - Browse through these clever tshirts and you will see design elements in some of them that will bring you inspiration.

Veer - Veer has some very inspirational wallpapers that really have an inspirational effect on many designers. Take a look.

We Are Sharks - We are sharks, we never stop swimming for inspirational designs.

LOGO DESIGN INSPIRATION !! Choose your destiny........

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:33:00 +0000

Some Logo Design Inspiration

Stuck trying to design that logo? Here are some good places to help you break through that designer’s block.

LogoPond: A great source of Logo Design Inspiration
Corporate 2.0: If Major Corporations had 2.0 Logos

Logo Creators: The Fastest Way to a New Logo

Albeit it won’t be the best, this is a great resource for getting a new Logo done fast when you are strapped for time. Also works for creating a placeholder logo while you work on the real deal.

Creatr: The Web 2.0 Logo Creator
ImageTool: Online Logo Creator

Sources for Logo Design Tutorials

Looking for a certain style for your new logo? Between the two sources below, there are 64 logo design tutorials to choose from.

eLogoDesign: 50 Logo Design Tutorials
LogoTutorials: 14 Logo Design Tutorials. A few of them are worth a look.

Some Popular Logo Design Tutorials

Out of all the logo design tutorials available at the sources above, these are some of the ones that got the best feedback.

Alleba: How to Make a Web 2.0 Logo
BAMagazine: Designing a Logo with just Letters
SpoonGraphics: Designing a Logo: From Concept Sketches to Completion
DigitalWeb: The Process of Re-designing a Logo

Painting Effect !! The best animated painting i've ever seen!!

noreply@blogger.com (kdX) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:28:00 +0000

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