ester liquori design

Free Wallpaper Calendar - February 2012 - Natural History Museum

2012-02-01T08:30:00.000+01:00

This months calendar, taken out from my Free London 2012 Full 12 Months Calendar, is dedicated to The Natural History Museum in London. Enjoy your size!

1920 x 1280, 1920 x 1080, 1600 x 1200, 1440 x 960, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768

PS, AI and ID CS5 Cheat Sheets

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000+01:00

Knowing the shortcut of a program is what makes the difference between an amateur and a professional user. When you use a software so much you simply need to shorten some annoying and mechanic passages using keyboard combinations instead of mouse clicks.

When a man with a .45 meets a man with a rifle, the man with a pistol will be a dead man.[A Fistful of Dollars]

The same cited sentence can be modified and applied in the following way:
When a man with a mouse meets a man with a keyboard, the man with a mouse will be a dead man.
That's why looking for training materials you can find many cheat sheets written to help in learning Adobe Creative Suite programs' shortcuts.
About one year ago, in my post titled Best Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, QuarkXPress Cheatsheet for Designers I've posted a list of useful cheat sheets.
I'd like to add to that list an updated dedicated to the CS5 version of Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign.

Photoshop

From Dummies.com

Illustrator

From Wellsdrew.com:

Indesign

From Wellsdrew.com:

From Dummies.com

As you can see no many people have thought it could be worthy to update the cheat sheets for the new CS5 version. Thank you to those that did and let’s see what’s up with the next one!

Free London 2012 Full 12 Months Calendar

2012-01-02T15:42:00.003+01:00

Happy New Year!!

As you have seen downloading my January Free Wallpaper Desktop Calendar I've decided to celebrate 2012 Olimpic Games with a calendar dedicated to London. Even more! I've also decided to dedicate the whole year to this event and prepared a twelve months calendar full of London shots.
You can dowload and print the pdf in A4 size.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Download your London 2012 Full 12 Months Calendar (12 Mb)

Free Photo Wallpaper Calendar - January 2012 - London Cab

2011-12-31T23:59:00.000+01:00

2012 is a mile stone year because it represents the year of the new Olimpic Games. To celebrate this special event I've decided to dedicate all twelve months to London, the city that will be the stage of the games.
Choose your size!

1920 x 1280, 1920 x 1080, 1600 x 1200, 1440 x 810, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768

Super Easy 2012 Vector Calendar

2011-12-08T08:30:00.000+01:00

With the new year which is approaching quickly anyone is looking for a beautiful brand new 2012 calendar.

The ideal and most flexible thing is preparing a vector one so that you can scale and transform it maintaining a good quality print.

A custom shaped calendar could also be a perfect new year gadget for your customers and you can set free your imagination to create wonderful ones.

During this tutorial I'll give you few steps and tools to get the goal and prepare your new 2012 calendar.

Tutorial Details

Program: Adobe Photoshop/Adobe Illustrator CS+
Difficulty: Beginner
Estimated Completion Time: 1 hour

Download Source Files

Calendar Hexahedral Template from Cartonus.com
Watercolor Brush Set form Premium PSDFan

Step 1

For our purpose we firstly need to download the 2012 calendar template from cartonus.comCartonus’ site makes available for free a wide range of mock-up and templates for packaging or merchandising to download. The provided high quality files, in .ai and .eps formats, are really accurate, structured into appropriately named layers easy to use and modify.
Once downloaded, open the 2012 Calendar Hexahedral .ai file in Illustrator.
The pre-set document size is for A4 print. Since we are talking of vector document you can resize it as you need without quality loss. I suggest shaping your calendar at least in A3 size, otherwise it will be really hard to read even for eagle eyed people.

Step 2

I want to apply a bit of color to the calendar. You can choose the palette as you want. In our example I’ve taken inspiration from seasonal photos, something of blue and snowy for the winter, light green for spring, orange and cold for the summer and brown and gold for autumn.
I’ve decided to create my palette by using the Adobe Kuler online tool.With Kuler you can create the palette from an image, picked up randomly from Flickr, or uploading your own shots.
By varying the Mood you can change the set of color having a brighter or darker or anyway different set.

Otherwise you can create your palette starting from a definite color. Input the basic color codification fields and play with the available options.
If you are registered to the service you can also save your palettes and download them as Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ASE) files.

Step 3

Once you have saved and downloaded your swatches go back to Illustrator and open the swatches window. Click to open the options menu.

Step 4

Go to Open Swatch Library > Other Library and choose the folder where you have downloaded the .ASE files. The new swatch set will appear in your Swatch Window.
Add a new layer and rename it as ‘background squares’
Move it beneath the grid layer one

Step 5

Open the grid layer and look for the second level layers which contains the month backgrounds. Select them all then drag and drop those levels to the ‘background squares’ layer.
Check if you have moved all of them properly by toggling the layer visibility (the small eye icon on the left)
Perfect. You have now all the backgrounds on a different layer.

Step 6

Lock all the layers except for the backgrounds one. This will avoid you accidental date and numbers nudge.
Select one of the background rectangles by using the Direct Selection tool. Change the color as you want.

Step 7

Lock now the backgrounds layer and unlock the numbers grid one.

Step 8

By using the Selection tool draw a square in order to select more than one object in an area. Change the color of days and month.Do the same with all the twelve months.

Step 9

Select the complete grid layer content and change the font with one that is suitable with your personal style.

Step 10

Because of the template from Cartonus.com is fully editable, you can also change the 2012 color and customize the words by placing your logo or name.
This is our final result in Illustrator.
The first part of our customization is done. Let’s move now on Photoshop to add some extra decorations to our calendar.

Step 11

In this case I want to give a watercolor look to my calendar so I need a watercolor brush-set to download and use. To set up my tutorial I’ve used the brush that I’ve created exclusively for PSDFan and that, as premium member, you can download from here. PSDFan provides a lot of useful stuffs and great tutorials to the members for few dollars. The high quality of the goods worth the membership fee and I suggest to subscribe it to get these tools available for your graphics works. Otherwise you can find watercolor brush-sets available for free just surfing a little bit. Just remember to find high resolution brushes so that the printed result can be of high quality too.
Before importing the .ai file into Photoshop I strongly suggest being aware of the final size you need to print to be sure that you are going to work raster in the proper final size.
Run Photoshop and import the .ai document in a new document.
During this step pay attention to resolution and color mode settings to avoid a low quality artwork. In order to be print properly you have to select a resolution of 300 pixel/inch at least and CMYK as color mode. Once you have selected the right options click OK.

Step 12

The artwork will be opened in a new document which has transparent background. Rename this level as ‘calendar’.

Step 13

Add a new layer beneath the calendar one, rename it ‘bg’ (stays for background) and fill in with white.

Step 14

Add another empty layer between ‘bg’ and ‘calendar’ and name it ‘watercolor’.

Step 15

Select the Brush Tool and open its options. Go to Load Brushes and look for the watercolor brush set that you have previously downloaded. Add the brush to your available set.

Step 16

We need now changing some brushes options. Open the Brush window and play with Shape Dynamics, Scattering and Color Dynamics. Here below you can find the settings that I’ve used.

Step 17

Brush all around also changing colors and varying brush size.

This is my final result.

free download ester liquori design 2012 PDF calendar (2.5 Mb)

Step 18

Cut the calendar shape by following the guidelines. If while you are cutting you are trying to guess what are useful for those two little hooks than go to Cartonus and, in the page dedicated to the calendar, you can also find a short video which shows you how to cutout and fold the shape to bring your calendar to life, solving also your curiosity about those hooks.
Here below a picture of mine ^__^.The calendar created during this tutorial is free to download. Grab it and Happy 2012!

free download ester liquori design 2012 PDF calendar (2.5 Mb)

Free Photo Wallpaper Calendar - December 2011 - Best wishes

2011-12-01T08:30:00.000+01:00

Christmas Holidays are coming and everywhere lights and decoration are hung to make the atmosphere magic. How can your desktop stay out of all this? Download the new December Wallpaper Calendar and festivities will be always with you. Choose your size!

1920 x 1280, 1920 x 1080, 1600 x 1200, 1440 x 810, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768

Instantshift Guest Article: Perfect Blog Articles: from the Idea to the Post

2011-11-28T08:30:00.000+01:00

New guest article on Instantshift!

Writing blog articles requires patient and writing abilities that can be trained. Either if you already run your successful blog, or, otherwise, you are at the very start of the play, you surely have thought once in your writing life “How can I fill in this blank page in a way that is clear and interesting at the same time?”.

If ever you had experienced the panic that a blank page can give with the approaching deadline, or even if your block note is stuffed with brilliant ideas for new blog articles, this reading is for you.

Go to Instantshift to read the whole article >>

Free Photo Wallpaper Calendar - November 2011 - Autumn Leave

2011-11-01T08:30:00.000+01:00

Autumn colors on your desktop this month. The last color touch in the landscape before that Winter's white hood covers everything around. Choose your size!

2560 x 1920, 1920 x 1440, 1920 x 1280, 1600 x 1200, 1440 x 1080, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768

Instantshift Guest Article: Construct a Framework for a Cross-Cultural Design

2011-10-24T08:30:00.000+02:00

New guest article on Instantshift!

Nowadays Graphic Designers work globally in many different Countries.
The designer should visually communicate symbols and colors. These elements are part of our social everyday life and come together with a various range of meanings which are different for each culture.This makes obvious how much the study of the cross-cultural communication is important for properly deliver the desired message.

Designers sometimes tend to propose solutions which reflect their own tastes and social habits. Aesthetic canons are strictly related to the environment and background information about the target should be well studied. In a cross-cultural communication the use of symbols which are culturally accepted is field which must be taken in consideration during preliminary studies and benchmarking.
During this article we are going to explore the wide range of cultural issues you need to bear in mind for designing cross-cultural communication products.
Starting from a target, that is part of a culture different from ours, we will try to construct a framework useful for creating an effective design product.

Firstly we will define which the most common basic cross-cultural design patterns are.
Secondly we will see how to construct a framework to identify them.
Finally we will close with a practical case study on this topic.

Go to Instantshift to read the whole article >>

Free Photo Wallpaper Calendar - October 2011 - Creepy Pumpkins

2011-09-30T23:51:00.002+02:00

Creepy Pumpkins on you Desktop Wallpaper Calendar of October to celebrate Halloween. Autumn is coming! Choose your size!

2560 x 1920, 1920 x 1440, 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768, 800 x 600

Create a Sleek Coming Soon Page in Photoshop

2011-09-15T20:19:00.001+02:00

New guest article on Onextrapixel.
There are various reasons why you may need to create a Coming Soon Page. You may want to start to have the domain indexed by the crawlers and fill in the white space with something that recalls your website launch; or start to spread the word about the service that you are going to offer, writing about that in focus forums and collecting a bunch of interested people; or perhaps you may want to create suspense about the launch. Whatever the reasons are, you should consider the relevant information that goes into a Coming Soon Page.

In this tutorial, I will walk you through how to create sleek coming soon page, keeping its content and the design in mind.

Go to Onextrapixel to read the whole article >>

Free Photo Wallpaper Calendar - September 2011 - Rapacious Eyes

2011-09-01T00:13:00.000+02:00

Letal quietness in the owl's eyes facing the caw of the crow, aware of its own supremacy.

choose your size:
with calendar

2560 x 1440, 1920 x 1080, 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768

without calendar:
2560 x 1440, 1920 x 1080, 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768

Powerful Titles for Your Blog Posts

2011-08-08T20:30:00.000+02:00

New guest article on Instantshift.

Titles and headings have the difficult intent of sum up the whole article content in a few words. Those words have to be attractive, eye-catching, tell the story and transmit curiosity to invite the reader in continuing his reading.
Are your titles powerful? Are they able to stick the readers? Do they let your posts coming out from crowd link list?
Writing effective headlines is a skill that is essential and that any writers should be able to manage. Articles, website contents, presentation, either on the Web or for printing, need to be titled. Even more, long texts need to be fragmented to let an easier scanning reading to the user. Here is where headings are important.

Which words are better? How to say them well?
The aim of this post is giving you some tips about how to successful create effective headings for your written projects.

Go to Instantshift to read the whole article >>

Creating a Juice Ad Poster + 3 Filter Forge Licenses Giveaway

2011-08-05T07:56:00.004+02:00

New guest article on Onextrapixel, a tutorial with a small surprise...a giveaway from Filter Forge!

Photoshop is a great tool to create scenarios that can be successfully used for poster advertising. The use of Filter Forge 2.0 and its great collection of available filters gives you even more power and flexibility in creating what you want by bringing your creativity to life.

In today’s tutorial, we will combine a couple of stock images and some interesting effects from Filter Forge to create a refreshing juice ad in Photoshop. You’ll learn how to deal with Filter Forge effects and stock images and create elements to match for a brilliant highly professional advertising result.
In addition to that Filter Forge has kindly provided us 3 x Free Basic Edition Licenses of Filter Forge (worth $149 each) to win with this giveaway for our readers community.

Let’s get started and see how to select and compose a successful portfolio.

Go to Onextrapixel to read the whole article >>

Free Wallpaper Calendar - August 2011

2011-08-01T08:30:00.000+02:00

August is definitely the month of Summer. Blue sea and sky walking along golden beach with a big ice cream in your hands. I've decided to report this blue Summer on my August Photo Wallpaper Calendar.
Enjoy your holidays!!

choose your size:
with calendar

1920 x 1280, 1920 x 1080, 1600 x 1200, 1440 x 960, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768, 800 x 600

without calendar

1920 x 1280, 1920 x 1080, 1600 x 1200, 1440 x 960, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 1024 x 768, 800 x 600

How to Prepare a Well-Focused Graphic Design Portfolio

2011-07-20T07:25:00.003+02:00

New guest article on Instantshift, this time dedicated to how to prepare a well-focused graphic design portfolio.

A graphic designer has to take care of its portfolio because it is the way in which he presents his abilities. The portfolio is a collected sample which showcases your creativity and ability and you need to submit it properly to your public.
Potential employers or clients may read it and what they see can help them to decide whether they want to hire you. That’s why a good presentation has to be properly built up.
Along this article we will analyze which samples are better and how to arrange them, we will see example of both online and printed portfolio and how to present them to potential customers/employers.

Let’s get started and see how to select and compose a successful portfolio.

Go to Instantshift to read the whole article >>

Free High-Res Texture: Desert

2011-07-13T23:23:00.001+02:00

Today I'm giving away another high-resolution texture, a nice desert image. ^__^
This is available for your personal or commercial use.

Click on the thumbnail or the link below to get it immediately.
Enjoy!

desert texture 1.5 Mb

Free Photo Wallpaper Calendar - July 2011 - Postcard from Provence

2011-07-01T08:21:00.000+02:00

The Provence in July is the same as a great painter palette. Colors go from the blue of the sky and the okra of the ground, the green of the trees and the violet of the lavender. A postcard painted in watercolor for your next holidays. Smell the lavender in the July Photo Wallpaper Calendar.

choose your size:
with calendar

1920 x 1280, 1600 x 1200, 1440 x 900, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1024 x 800, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!)

without calendar

1920 x 1280, 1600 x 1200, 1440 x 900, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1024 x 800, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!)

Good Creative Brief for Better Customers

2011-06-21T07:56:00.000+02:00

New guest article on Instantshift.
A good brief is the very first step for a satisfying creative project and this is true for both, the designer and the customer. It is the mile stone to ensure to the designer working with the right kind of customers and to the customer having best result and high professionalism.
I’ve started this article by saying in the title “Good Brief for Better Customers”. What does it means?
Every designer doesn’t matter if specialized for the web, for printing or more focused in creating identities or packaging, hopes to work with good customers. But what “good customer” means? A famous name?An high budget? An interesting and challenging project? Sure all of these points and many others.

Go to Instantshift to read the whole article >>

PSDFAN Guest Article: Grunge Splotches Photoshop Brush Set

2011-06-09T07:41:00.000+02:00

This premium brush set contains 10 quality Photoshop brushes of grunge splotches. Each brush is hugely detailed, and is sure to add a professional touch to your work.

Each brush is super high-res, at around 1000-2500px.

Go to PSDFAN and subscribe the member area to download the brush set >>

Free Photo Wallpaper Calendar - June 2011 - Poppy Summer

2011-06-01T08:30:00.006+02:00

Poppy flowers all around are announcing the upcoming Summer. A walk in a field of wheat call to mind smells and colors from the past. Find this dreaming atmosphere in the June Photo Wallpaper Free Calendar.

Also festured on Smashingmagazine June Calendar!!

choose your size:
with calendar

1600 x 1200, 1440 x 1080, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 768, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 800x600

without calendar

1600 x 1200, 1440 x 1080, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1280 x 720, 1024 x 768, 1024 x 1024 (iPad size!), 800x600

Guest Article: Photoshop Leaves Brush-Set

2011-05-26T21:04:00.000+02:00

This premium brush set contains 10 quality Photoshop brushes of leaves. Each brush is hugely detailed, and is sure to add a professional touch to your work.

Each brush is super high-res, at around 1000-2500px.

Go to PSDFAN and subscribe the member area to download the brush set >>

Guest Article on Instantshift: How to Create a Small Business Card Size Calendar

2011-05-20T08:33:00.000+02:00

New guest article on Instantshift, this time dedicated to how to ensuring long life to your business card in your customers' pocket.
You can make memorable your logo and your company in many ways. You can prepare gadget for your customers, beautiful business card for new meeting but, depending on your business activity, in my opinion, one of the best way to promote your business card is having a small calendar printed on the back.

The business card is intended to be hold in a purse or in a wallet, making a beautiful and eye-catching business card size calendar you will be sure that it will be kept and used. This kind of business card is particularly suitable for commercial activity as beautiful centers or restaurant where business card are left on the entrance desk, free and available to anyone. An annual calendar ensures a long time use of the business card.

Let’s get started and see how to prepare a small business card size calendar by yourself.

Go to Instantshift to read the whole article >>

PSDFAN Guest Article: Vectorize a Landscape Photo Into a Watercolor Painting

2011-05-13T22:39:00.000+02:00

I live in Turin (Italy) and the Mole is the symbol of this city. Rome has Colosseo, London the Big Ben whereas Turin has the Mole. It is a very good subject to use, vectorized, to decorate this city’s merchandising items.

A city skyscraper is a must to do as merchandising subject for mug and t-shirt. The image may need several sizes and needs to retain it’s detail so a vector is the most suitable kind of file to use.

Follow this walkthrough on how to turn a landscape photo in an elegant watercolor painting like vector. The procedure, as usual, is just one of the thousand applications that you may found for the same technique.

Well start by adjusting in a suitable way the photo in Photoshop and we will go ahead to get a sketchy figure skyline, fully detailed vector. For this purpose we will be using Adobe Illustrator.

Go to PSDFAN to read the whole article >>

Guest Article: Spot or Process Color? Essential Guidelines

2011-05-09T08:30:00.002+02:00

New guest article on Instantshift, this time dedicated to difference between Spots and Process Color, with a particular attention in Illustartor platform. When you create a color swatch with Illustrator you may need to know some easy settings which the software proposes. Particularly the difference between Spot Color and Process Color is really important for a good printing result. Moreover, properly choosing the type of color between these greatly affect the final costs of the printing whole process. In this article we will see which options are the best for the job, why, how to properly manage Illustrator Swatch Options window, color options and book library.

Go to Instantshift to read the whole article >>