Design Shack

Inspiration / 28 May 2020

15+ Free Sticker Mockup Templates

Stickers are a fun and versatile way to promote your business, raise awareness for a cause, or simply get your brand out there. It’s not just little kids that are excited by the prospect of getting a sticker!

Regardless of what you’ll be using them for, it’s important to ensure that when your stickers have been produced, they look the part – and it can be tricky to do this before you receive them! That’s why sticker mockups are such a brilliant idea – they show you exactly what your sticker design will look like in real-life settings before you’ve even sent them to be printed.

Creating a professional and realistic mockup can be time-consuming and fiddly, which is why we’ve hunted down a selection of both free and premium sticker mockup templates, available for you to download and customize with your design. Read on to find the perfect mockup template for your stickers!

Inspiration / 28 May 2020

How to Design a Professional PowerPoint Presentation

Our series of tips on presentation design outlined some generic rules and ideas that you can live by to create better, more professional presentations. Today we want to follow that up by taking you through the actual process of designing a presentation from start to finish.

We’ll break down every step of the design process, from choosing colors and images to using whitespace properly. After reading through this you should be all set to design your own beautiful presentation slides that will put your coworkers to shame.

Using a pre-built PowerPoint template can be a good starting point for many people (we collected some of the best PowerPoint templates for you!). But if you’re wanting to design your own from start-to-finish, you’re in the right place!

Inspiration / 27 May 2020

How to Embed Fonts in PowerPoint

Using custom fonts in PowerPoint presentations is one of the best ways to make your slideshows look more professional and stand out from the crowd. But, what if you have to share the PowerPoint file with a team that doesn’t have those same fonts installed on their computers?

Don’t worry, there’s a quick and painless solution to this problem. In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to embed fonts in PowerPoint so that you can share your presentations without having to worry about font issues ever again.

Keep reading to find out how it’s done.

Inspiration / 27 May 2020

Trend: Retro Serif Typography

Serif typography is having a moment. From thin lines to interesting shapes and even modern serifs, this trend is taking over new website projects. What’s great about serifs is that they can add a certain flair or mood to a design based on the style of letterforms.

This trend is using retro-style serifs in a number of ways. (Our favorite option is for display text that pairs a retro serif with a simple sans serif, to create some eye-catching contrast and variety).

Here’s how to use this trend with some examples that do it exceptionally well, covering a range of different design styles and niches.

Inspiration / 26 May 2020

15+ Best Affinity Publisher Templates & Assets 2020 (Free & Premium)

Affinity Publisher is a great, affordable alternative to Adobe InDesign. And much like InDesign, Affinity Publisher also supports pre-made templates. With Affinity Publisher templates, you can easily create professional-looking documents, brochures, flyers, and more with just a few clicks.

We handpicked some of the best Affinity Publisher templates to show you what kind of designs you can make with the software. You can download and use them for your own projects as well.

Adobe InDesign (IDML) templates are also fully compatible with Affinity Publisher. However, Affinity Publisher (AFPUB) templates offer more flexibility for customizing the design using the Serif software.

Still unsure whether Affinity Publisher is a good fit for you? Our Affinity Publisher FAQs might help!

Inspiration / 26 May 2020

Design Psychology: 8 Strategies to Use in Your Projects

Psychology, the study of the human mind, is a very complex subject that even the scientists struggle with. In fact, scientists and researchers are still trying to figure out why we have dreams when we sleep.

However, thanks to many studies, years of research, and the dedication of brilliant minds like Sigmund Freud, we now have a general understanding of how the human mind works.

As it turns out, our minds are pre-programmed to respond and react to certain things in certain ways. There are also specific patterns of how our mind reacts and the way we think. In psychology, these patterns are called “schemas”. Researchers have also found strategies that could influence these patterns to control our reactions.

Everyone from magicians to big brand corporations and the mass media have been using and taking advantage of these strategies for generations. To influence our behavior and sell products.

In this guide, we look at how you can apply the same psychological strategies they use for the good of others. And make better and more effective designs.

Inspiration / 25 May 2020

20+ Best Photoshop Filters + Plugins 2020 (+ How to Use Them)

If you’re looking for unique Photoshop filters to turn your photos into artwork, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we feature a collection of the best Photoshop filters and plugins you can use to add various effects to photos.

There are many benefits to using Photoshop filters. They are quite useful in crafting creative graphic designs such as posters, flyers, logos, and much more. While Photoshop itself comes with a set of default filters they don’t offer much value. Thankfully there are many filters you can download from third-party sources.

Using the Photoshop filters on our list, you can extend the functionality of Photoshop and create unique effects more easily.

Inspiration / 25 May 2020

8 Tips for Designing Instagram Stories That Don’t Suck

Instagram stories are one of the hottest social media formats. The vertical format allows creators to share videos, photos, and mixed media content in a streaming medium, and introduces an entirely novel layout to design for.

The tricky part is creating stories that are enjoyable, shareable, and help people engage with your account, brand, or even get clicks to your website.

Here, we’re going to look at eight ways to create Instagram stories that help you meet goals, and stand out from the crowd.

Bonus: You can apply these design tips to Facebook stories as well.

Inspiration / 22 May 2020

40+ Best Photoshop Logo Templates (PSD)

We’ve collected the absolute best Photoshop logo templates to help you choose a pre-made logo design as a starting point for your new brand. All these logo templates come in a PSD format, for you to tweak and customize in Photoshop.

It’s all too easy to burn through a budget, crafting a logo that fits your business and mission. Some design agencies and freelancers charge thousands of dollars to craft basic logos that never really live up to your expectations. Logo templates give you another option for a quick-start to your logo design.

Whether you’re a freelance designer looking for inspiration, a blogger starting a new blog, or a brick and mortar business, this collection has a logo template for all types of brands. The best part is you can easily customize these templates using Photoshop to change text, colours, and resize however you like.

As you embark on your logo design, don’t forget to check out our in-depth guide on how to design a logo, as well as our quick tips (in this post) covering a quick intro to logo templates, and tips for designing with logo templates.

Inspiration / 21 May 2020

How to Add Fonts to Photoshop (Mac and Windows)

There’s no need to be intimidated when it comes to adding fonts to Adobe Photoshop for use in projects. Whether you’re on a Mac or Windows, adding a font to Photoshop can be a straight-forward process.

Any designer will regularly need to be working with new fonts and typography, and knowing how to quickly get them working in your design app is a key part of your workflow.

Today, we’ll walk you through how to add fonts to Photoshop (using a few different methods) so that you can speed up your workflow like a pro.

Inspiration / 20 May 2020

How to Loop a PowerPoint

A self-running or looping PowerPoint presentation can be great for using in booths at conferences, displaying information on screens before a live event/presentation, or even to use in the waiting room of a business to showcase information.

The great thing is that if you can create a PowerPoint presentation, saving it for a looped playback is a breeze.

You can loop a PowerPoint in two different ways depending on playback method – as a PowerPoint or as a video file.

Here’s how you do it.

Inspiration / 19 May 2020

20+ Best Instagram Mockup Templates (Story & Post)

Instagram is a platform full of visual designs. The better your photos look, the more attention you get. And when you’re a designer promoting Instagram posts and story designs, you’ll need an equally beautiful mockup to showcase them.

Whether you’re a digital marketing agency showing off designs on a portfolio or a freelancer presenting Instagram designs to a client, you’ll need gorgeous-looking mockups to showcase your designs like a true professional.

To help you find the right mockup for your Instagram design, we rounded up some of the best Instagram post and story mockup templates. There are all kinds of mockups in this collection, featuring perspective views and customizable designs.

Inspiration / 19 May 2020

20+ Best Free Photoshop Plugins 2020

Photoshop Plugins are one of the hidden features of the photo editor that many designers fail to notice. We created this list of the best free Photoshop plugins to show you how plugins can help improve your workflow.

When it comes to graphic design, the way you organize your Photoshop app interface and plan the workflow plays a key role in efficiency and productivity. That’s why every designer should experiment with Photoshop plugins as they can permanently improve your workflow.

With a single plugin, you can create gradients instantly. Or sharpen an image with just a few clicks. Or even find high-quality stock photos without ever having to switch to Chrome.

Explore our collection of free Photoshop plugins and you’ll find a whole new world of useful tools.

Inspiration / 18 May 2020

50+ Best Free PowerPoint Templates 2020

Not everyone can afford to buy premium PowerPoint templates to create their slideshows. But, that doesn’t mean you have to settle for a default template. There are dozens of incredible free PowerPoint templates to try out!

A great thing about the design community is that there are designers out there who willingly share their amazing work for free of charge, including gorgeous free PowerPoint templates.

To help you save some money, we scoured the web and handpicked a collection of the best free PowerPoint templates with modern and professional designs that you can use to make various types of presentations. Good luck with your presentation!