1. Authors ›
  2. Joshua Johnson

Joshua Johnson

Joshua Johnson

Equal parts editor, writer, designer, and photographer. Hit me up on Twitter, or check out my photos.

Freebies / 22 Mar 2011

Weekly Freebies: 30 Seriously Useful Seamless Textures

A designer can never have too many seamless textures and patterns in his arsenal. These resources make it effortless to flood a background with something more interesting than a solid color.

Today we’re showcasing an awesome collection of over 30 fully tile-able textures and patterns that you can download free. Some are raster images for Photoshop others are vector swatches for Illustrator, all of them will make great additions to your resource library!

Critique / 20 Mar 2011

Web Design Critique #42: Peter and James

Every week we take a look at a new website and analyze the design. We’ll point out both the areas that are done well in addition to those that could use some work. Finally, we’ll finish by asking you to provide your own feedback.

Today’s site is Peter and James, an online jewelry retailer.

Layouts / 18 Mar 2011

Drag and Drop WordPress Layout With Platform Pro

Building and even slightly altering WordPress themes can be a real hassle. You could buy a book or watch hours of video tutorials until you’re an expert on WordPress, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could skip all this and jump into building your own theme today?

Today we’re going to take a look at an impressively innovative product that allows you to use the simplicity of a drag and drop interface and basic forms to completely customize a WordPress site. The product is called Platform Pro and you’ve simply got to see it…

Business / 17 Mar 2011

A Freelancer’s Guide to Preparing for Retirement

Life is tough as a freelancer, especially when it comes to planning for the future. Today we’re going to discuss some hard facts about how to financially prepare for your retirement on your own.

You won’t find an article filled with vague tips on being frugal, instead we’ll introduce you to some basic financial instruments that you should be familiar with so you can decide which are best for you.

Layouts / 16 Mar 2011

10 Tips for Troubleshooting a Lackluster Design

One of the biggest problems that designers struggle with is how to improve a design that didn’t quite hit the mark. Sometimes we’re on our game and can bust out a beautiful design in minutes, other times we struggle to complete something that should be simple.

Today’s post is a checklist that you can bookmark and refer back to for those times when you need a fresh perspective. Browse through the list for inspiration on how to improve a design that’s lacking in an area that you can’t quite identify.

Freebies / 15 Mar 2011

Weekly Freebies: 10 WordPress Portfolio Themes That Aren’t Ugly

In putting together this week’s freebie post I noticed two things. First, everyone has a free WordPress portfolio theme roundup. Second, though the titles may boast 50 or more themes, most or even all of the selections are so ugly that no designer in his right mind would go near them.

Consequently, I set out to find ten completely free WordPress portfolio themes that actually look like they were designed in this decade. Whether you’re a web designer or a photographer, these portfolio themes will give you a quick and easy way to show off your work in a professional manner.

Critique / 12 Mar 2011

Web Design Critique #41: Rachilli

Every week we take a look at a new website and analyze the design. We’ll point out both the areas that are done well in addition to those that could use some work. Finally, we’ll finish by asking you to provide your own feedback.

Today’s site is Rachilli, the personal portfolio of photographer and designer Rachel Shillcock.

Business / 11 Mar 2011

How Dogs and Rats Can Make You a Better Designer

Today we’re going to venture far outside of the designer’s typical learning bubble. We’ll leave Photoshop behind and pick up the tools of a marketing executive studying consumer behavior.

This article will teach you two distinct approaches to impacting your target audience. Knowing these terms and theories will not only help you become a more effective designer, they’ll also make you look super smart at work!

Software / 10 Mar 2011

25 Professional and Incredibly Powerful Photoshop Plugins

Freebies are awesome, and design blogs are full of them, but sometimes you need a professional tool to handle professional tasks. There are a wealth of extremely powerful and high quality photoshop tools that can dramatically improve your workflow and are worth every penny you have to spend to get them.

Today we’ll look at a number of the best tools available for making color adjustments, adjusting focus, enlarging images, transforming layers in 3D, reducing noise, creating textures, applying complex masks, and even taking that PSD into full-blown HTML.

Graphics / 9 Mar 2011

5 Quick and Easy Photoshop Textures You Can Make From Scratch

The web is full of free texture resources. Unfortunately, we’ve all used them before and hate all the inherent restrictions that come as a result of using borrowed art. For your next project, why not just use textures that you make yourself from scratch? You skip the restrictions and the end product is much more unique because you’re not using the same resources used by everyone else.

Today we’re going to get you started by teaching you how to use a couple of basic Photoshop filters to create five completely different textures. Each texture should only take you anywhere from one to three minutes to bust out and can therefore be quickly applied without eating up your crucial design time. Let’s get started!

Freebies / 8 Mar 2011

Weekly Freebies: 12 Gorgeously Grungy Fonts

Who doesn’t love a good collection of free grunge fonts? These twelve are some of my favorite free fonts around and can really add character to whatever project you’re working on. I downloaded each to build the custom previews below so I can attest to them all being perfectly functional.

Browse through and download a few and leave a comment below letting us know which are your favorite! Also let us about any we missed that you particularly like.