Design Shack

Inspiration / 22 Aug 2019

25+ Best VSCO Lightroom Presets

VSCO is a popular photography app for both Android and iOS, known for stunning filters and effects. Today we’re featuring a selection of VSCO Lightroom presets, inspired by the VSCO app, to help you achieve similar results with greater power and flexibility.

If you have a copy of Lightroom, you probably want to have more control over the specific nuances of how a filter is applied. We’ve found this collection of Lightroom presets that feature pretty much the same filters, effects, and adjustments included in the VSCO app.

The only difference is they are quite a bit easier to customize and change in more dramatic ways. Plus, you can apply these Lightroom presets to your photos with just one click!

Inspiration / 22 Aug 2019

15+ Free Brochure Templates for Word (Tri-Fold, Half Fold & More)

Today we bring you a collection of professional and creative free brochure templates you can download and use at zero cost! For this free Word brochure templates collection, we handpicked all kinds of templates with tri-fold and bi-fold designs you can use to make printable brochures for various purposes.

Whether you’re looking to make a simple brochure for an upcoming conference, a school event, or even a business newsletter, you’ll find plenty of choices in our list.

We’re also walking you through a quick guide on how to customise and edit a brochure template in Word. Have a look and start downloading!

Features / 21 Aug 2019

Wedding Design

Every wedding deserves a beautiful design. Your special day should be accompanied with stationery, cards, invitations, and a website that reflects you both as a couple. This series contains inspiration, tips, and ideas for designing everything you need for your wedding day!

When you envision the perfect wedding day, are you thinking about design? There’s a strong chance you are.

From color to calligraphy to how invitations or your wedding website looks, almost every aspect of your wedding will involve some design. Start thinking about these elements early to help take some of the stress out of the process with our guide to elements that will help you design the perfect wedding.

Accessibility / 21 Aug 2019

Should We Kill the CAPTCHA?

Do you like CAPTCHAs? Don’t lie, of course you don’t. On the fun scale, you rank them right up there with dentists and IRS agents. However, as an intelligent web designer or developer, you understand that they are a necessary annoyance.

But wait, are they really? Given the collective talent and intelligence of the web design community, is a fuzzy string of letters really the best that we can up up with?

If users hate these things so much, why not come up with something new? Let’s explore this idea and see if we can inject some fresh ideas into the conversation.

Software / 21 Aug 2019

How to Embed a YouTube Video in Keynote

If you’ve ever wanted to embed a YouTube video in Keynote to create a more engaging slideshow for in-person or recorded presentations, don’t worry. It’s not complicated at all.

We’re going to take you through how to embed a YouTube video in Keynote step-by-step, and share a few tips for how to use video to supercharge your presentations.

You don’t need any special software, and you’ll be all set with a video-packed presentation in minutes!

Inspiration / 20 Aug 2019

30+ Best Minimal PowerPoint Templates 2019

Delivering a minimalist PowerPoint presentation can clearly convey your message, and remove any clutter. This collection of modern, minimal PowerPoint templates is a great place to start—they put the focus on you as the speaker, and what you have to convey!

These files are all fully editable and can be easily tweaked according to your needs. Most come with hundreds of example slides with graphs, tables, images, text, and more. They’re perfect for giving that next presentation a special touch.

Embrace the minimal design philosophy, choose a stunning PowerPoint template for your next presentation that has clean lines, subtle design, and a simple, professional look-and-feel.

Graphics / 20 Aug 2019

10 Tips for Designing for Wearables and Watches

Every day, we see more and more people sporting an Apple Watch or similar. These devices are constantly changing the way we think about wearable technology and how to design websites and apps for unique interfaces.

Wearables present challenges unlike other design projects. Function is a primary concern, as is the size, with what will be one of the smallest screens designers have ever worked with.

The key is creating a design that is visually pleasing but is user-friendly and provides a functional experience.

Here are 10 things to consider as you design for a wearable interface (with examples other designers are already imagining).

Inspiration / 20 Aug 2019

20+ Best Free Photoshop Brushes 2019

If you’re a professional designer or an illustrator who use Photoshop for design work you’ll find this collection of free Photoshop brushes quite valuable.

With the right set of brushes, you can go beyond your imagination to create unique graphic designs, illustrations, effects, backgrounds, and so much more using Photoshop. Of course, you don’t always have to pay to get the best brushes.

We scoured the web to find the best free Photoshop brushes and divided them into a few popular categories. Have a look.

Reviews / 19 Aug 2019

UX Designers Will Love Phrase

Have you ever struggled with translation management across languages for a website project? It can be a complicated task to navigate. Phrase is designed to make it a lot easier, saving UX designers time and effort during website builds.

Phrase is a translation management solution for software products. It’s built with designers in mind, and their recently released Sketch Plugin can be incredibly helpful for anyone designing with multiple languages in mind.

We’re taking a look at the broad tool, as well as the new Sketch Plugin, and explaining how it works.

Inspiration / 19 Aug 2019

30+ Best Watercolor Photoshop Actions

Whether you’re designing a unique website background, a poster, sketch, or creating an artistic photo composition, using a watercolor Photoshop action can make your design stand out from the crowd.

A watercolor effect it’s not an easy effect to master when created from scratch. It takes a lot of work, time, and skill to achieve a realistic watercolor effect in Photoshop. The good news is that using a watercolor Photoshop action can help you skip the learning curve and experiment with a watercolor effect in just a few clicks!

In this collection, we’re featuring some of the best watercolor Photoshop actions you can use to turn your photos into watercolor art, craft amazing backgrounds, and do much more.

We’ve also collected a set of tips for choosing watercolor Photoshop actions to help you make a decision on what type of action you need.

Software / 19 Aug 2019

What Is Adobe After Effects (And What Is It Used For?)

Adobe After Effects is a video and animation-based tool that’s used to add elements to moving pictures and animations. Most designers use it to create titles, intros, and transition between clips for more seamless video production.

After Effects is part of the Adobe Creative Suite of products and is included in cloud plans. Full suite users already have access to this tool, or you can get it on its own if that’s all you need.

As with other Adobe tools, the great thing about using this set of tools is that functions and interacts have a look and feel that you are probably already used to, making it easier to learn on the fly.

Here’s a look at Adobe After Effects, what it is, and how to know if you should use it for projects.

Software / 18 Aug 2019

How to Insert a GIF Into PowerPoint

GIFs are more popular than ever right now and they can be a great way to add a touch of personality, character, or humor to your PowerPoint presentation. We’re going to quickly cover how to insert a GIF into PowerPoint in a few quick, easy steps!

Of course, you have to find the right image to use in a presentation. If you’re going for humor, aim for something short, punchy, and easy to read from a distance as well! If you’re using a GIF to explain a workflow in your app or product, try zooming in on the areas you’re getting people to look at.

Once you have your GIF sorted, here are the steps you need to focus on in order to insert your GIF into PowerPoint.

Inspiration / 16 Aug 2019

30+ Animated PowerPoint Templates (Free + Premium)

In this collection, we’re featuring some of the best, animated PowerPoint templates (both premium and free) to create stunning presentations filled with stylish object and transition animations.

Designing a PowerPoint presentation is not an easy job. It requires a lot of work and time. When crafting presentations, most people completely ignore one of the key elements of a creative slideshow: animation. Adding creative animations and effects not only makes your presentation slides interactive, but it’s also useful when emphasizing key points and data.

Of course, you don’t have to be a PowerPoint expert to design animated slideshows. You can simply use a pre-made animated PowerPoint template. We handpicked these templates just for you.

We’re also featuring a series of tips for creating animations and transitions in PowerPoint with some extra pointers and advice.

Inspiration / 16 Aug 2019

20+ Best After Effects Slideshow Templates

Adobe After Effects is one of the most popular and effective tools for making attractive motion graphics. With the ability to use pre-made templates, After Effects can be a powerful tool even at the hands of a beginner.

Especially when making wedding photo album videos, presentations, and promotional campaigns, After Effects is quite useful in turning ordinary photos and videos into gorgeously animated slideshows.

To help you find inspiration, we handpicked a collection of After Effects slideshow templates you can use to easily make professional motion graphics without an effort.

All you have to do is edit the template and drop the images into the placeholders.

Font Collections

This is our series of beautiful, inspiring collections of fonts and typefaces. These articles feature bold poster fonts, decorative scripts, and everything in-between! Find the perfect font for your next design project with one of these collections.

How to Design a Logo

Everyone wants their logo to stand out, and represent their brand perfectly. But it's no easy task! Our helpful feature will walk you through how to design a logo. From brainstorming logo ideas to practical logo design tips, you'll be in a great position to create the perfect logo for your business.

Photoshop Actions

Photoshop Actions are the perfect timesaver to save you doing the same processing on multiple images. Using other people's actions can help you tap into creative techniques, cutting edge post-processing styles, and beautiful effects. In this series, you'll learn how to use Photoshop Actions and find professional examples to use in your own design work.

PowerPoint Templates

Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) is the go-to choice for creating presentations. This series shares tips and ideas for working with PowerPoint, as well as beautiful PowerPoint templates and themes to make your presentations look stunning.