Design Shack - Design Articles, Inspiration & Guides

Inspiration / 24 Apr 2018

20+ Best Microsoft Word Brochure Templates

Today, we’re bringing you a set of professionally designed brochure templates compatible with Microsoft Word to help you get a head start on your next brochure project.

Every designer has a collection of pre-designed templates. These templates not only allow you to enhance your workflow, but also save hours of time otherwise spent searching for an inspiring starting point.

Whether you’re working on a brochure for a business, a case study, report, or a project proposal, you’ll find plenty of options to choose from in this collection of templates (and even more in our full series on brochure templates!)

Software / 23 Apr 2018

How to Install & Use a Photoshop Brush in 3 Minutes

Photoshop brushes can open up a whole new world of creativity. Brushes let you draw and paint in any way imaginable—creating anything from simple textures, to patterns in any imaginable element (from simple leaves to a beautiful night sky!)

If you haven’t used a Photoshop brush before, it can be a little intimidating. But once you start experimenting with brushes, you’ll never look back. Here’s a primer on how to use and install Photoshop brushes, plus ten free Photoshop brushes to kick-start your collection.

Inspiration / 19 Apr 2018

40+ Best Lightroom Wedding Presets

Designing a beautiful wedding album can be tough when you also have to go through hundreds of photos while enhancing and editing them as well. Thankfully, Photoshop introduced a solution to that painful process with Lightroom.

Now, all you need are a few Lightroom presets and you can instantly enhance your wedding photos in a way that looks professional and consistent. We hand-picked a few of the best wedding Lightroom presets for optimizing photos of your special day. You can buy them for just a few dollars. Add these to your design workflow and you’ll be able to save a ton of time!

Business / 18 Apr 2018

10 Tips for a Perfect Facebook Cover Image

Almost every business and individual – from personal pages to freelance business pages – uses Facebook. It’s likely an integral part of your marketing strategy. It might even be your main professional website.

So it is important that you make the most of this platform to ensure that your social media profile is polished and professional. A sloppy image, bad crop, or text that scales improperly can give the wrong first impression. Here are 10 tips for creating a perfect Facebook cover image that people will want to click.

Inspiration / 17 Apr 2018

20+ Best iPhone 8 Mockups

Having a set of up-to-date iPhone mockups to use when presenting your designs to clients is a crucial part of being a professional designer. In this post, we bring you a set of iPhone 8 mockups to add to your ever-growing collection.

iPhone 8 was one of the most anticipated devices in the Apple’s lineup. However, the device didn’t receive as much attention as it should have when it was overshadowed by the iPhone X release. As a result, many designers also focused on crafting mockups for the iPhone X, making it tricky to find a decent iPhone 8 mockup.

To help you out, we surfed the web to make a collection of the best iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus mockups so you don’t have to spend hours searching for them.

Trends / 16 Apr 2018

8 Typography Trends for 2018

Bigger, bolder typography is the go-to type trend of 2018. Designers are opting for less elaborate typefaces and pairing them with bold color, cutouts, gradients, and even customizations to create lettering that stands out.

Each of these trendy type styles is moving away from the flatter, more conservative options that have been popular for a while. These more creative type options can be a little more difficult to execute and should be part of a planned design strategy, not just a cool technique to finish a project.

Here’s a look at the top typography trends for 2018.

Inspiration / 12 Apr 2018

20+ Best Social Media Kit Templates & Graphics

Are working on crafting a content plan to promote your brand and business on social media? Then these social media kits and templates will help you design amazing graphics for your social media campaigns like a pro.

Preparing content for your social media promotions is a time-consuming process that most social media managers and marketers have to deal with.

But don’t worry. You can use these social media kits and graphics templates designed by professionals to quickly edit and use with your own social media campaigns. The best part is you can easily edit and customize them all by yourself.

Business / 11 Apr 2018

7 Tips for Finding the Perfect PowerPoint Presentation Template

A great PowerPoint presentation template can wow audiences, and help you to build a slideshow quickly and easily. While you can create your own custom template, there’s a whole market of affordable PowerPoint templates that you can customize. But what should you be considering when deciding which one to choose?

PowerPoint templates are a great option for designers – or practically anyone – who wants to create a polished, professional-looking presentation that doesn’t take a lot of time to put together. Here’s what to look for to ensure that you are getting the perfect PowerPoint template for each specific presentation.

Inspiration / 10 Apr 2018

20+ Best Responsive Website & App Mockup Templates

Are you looking for the perfect mockup template to showcase your website or app in a professional way? Well, look no further. In this post, we’re bringing you a collection of responsive mockup templates that can beautifully showcase your website design.

Whether you’re building a portfolio, promoting a mobile app, a SaaS business, an online tool, or a services website, these website and app mockup templates will allow you to present different features of your websites and apps while grabbing everyone’s attention.

You can download all these mockup templates for a single price by joining Envato Elements. The platform gives you access to over 500,000 design elements with unlimited downloads for a monthly subscription.

Graphics / 9 Apr 2018

7 Tips for Using Background Textures in Web Design

This is not your typical roundup of textures to use for website backgrounds. If you are looking for a specific texture, we have those here. But what if you want to create your own? Or find a way to customize a texture to fit your project? That’s what we’ll focus on today.

While there are many ways to use textures in web design, you’ll get a lot more mileage out of those backgrounds if you take a modern approach, and follow a few simple rules. Here are seven tips to help you use background textures in web design well (and in-line with 2018 design patterns and trends).

Graphics / 6 Apr 2018

How to Install and Apply a Photoshop Action

If you aren’t taking advantage of Photoshop actions for editing and image effects, you’re missing out on one of Photoshop’s best features. Here, we’ll take you through how to install and apply a Photoshop action in seconds, and share a few of our favorite free actions to try!

Photoshop actions can save you time when it comes to repeated tasks, and condense entire paths of editing into a single click. (While it might sound too good to be true, Photoshop actions are a very real thing.)

Freebies / 5 Apr 2018

40+ Stunning Vintage Mockup Packs & Graphics

Vintage design is all about presentation. You may have spent hours designing a vintage logo or a layout for your client, but in order to fully reap the rewards of your hard work, you’ll want to present it in a vintage mockup template.

All of these examples help to showcase the design you’ve poured time and attention into. We’ve featured a huge collection of free and premium vintage mockup sets that match your design aesthetic, all with a classic, retro style!