Graphics / 9 Aug 2011
Tips for Designing With Multiple Photos
Photography is one of your most powerful resources as a designer. Here we’ll take a look at some clever and unique ways to create photo-centric designs using multiple images.
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Graphics / 5 Aug 2011
Separating Content: 10 Ways to Draw the Line
The story is as old as graphic design itself: you have two different sections and you need a way to visually separate them. As a designer, I frequently spot myself reverting to the same old one or two tricks to pull this off. Why not mix it up a bit?
Today we’ll show you ten awesome ways to create two distinct sections of content. Each example is from a real website so you can click through to see it in action.
Graphics / 3 Aug 2011
Designers, Do You Really Know Anything About Design?
Does learning the requisite software make you a designer? Just because you know CSS and HTML, can you really call yourself a web designer?
Today we’re going to explore the idea that, while you may be a Photoshop wizard, you might lack in fundamental design training that could drastically help you in your every day career.
Graphics / 28 Jul 2011
Three Quick Design Tricks: Sliced Text, Metal Knobs and Curled Stickers
Today we have a small collection of completely random but very useful design tricks that you should keep in the back of your mind the next time you need a new idea.
We’ll be showing you how to slice up some text in Illustrator to give it an edgy feel and how to build a metal slider and a curled sticker in Photoshop.
Layouts / 20 Jul 2011
Ditching the Grid: Alternative Layout Strategies and Tips
Are you tired of creating building websites using the same old grid-based layouts for every project? Have you been itching to break away from the norm and attempt something a little more organic?
Today we’ll take a look at a few sites that have done just that to see what we can learn about alternative layout methods and how they can be successfully implemented.
Graphics / 14 Jul 2011
Build Awesome Color Palettes Effortlessly in Illustrator
Here at Design Shack we can’t get enough of good color schemes. We recently discussed some Awesome and Unusual Places to Steal Color Palettes From and today we’ll follow up that discussion with some tips on how to build your own awesome color sets in Adobe Illustrator.
We’ll go over the extreme basics of working with color in Illustrator and jump into how to use the excellent built-in Color Guide to get you on the path to lightning-fast generation and manipulation of custom color schemes.
Graphics / 12 Jul 2011
5 Quick & Simple Design Tricks to Liven Up Any Project
Sometimes you have a perfectly good layout, but your design needs a bit something extra to finish it off. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get stuck and become completely void of ideas.
Today we’re going to help you solve this problem by highlighting five random design ideas that you can incorporate into your back of design tricks. Let’s get started!
Business / 11 Jul 2011
How to Teach Someone Graphic Design
Do you have a friend, family member or colleague who is considering design as a profession and looks to you for guidance? Your instruction could mean the difference between a meaningful career and a non-starter.
Today we’ll offer up some basic advice that everyone should consider before attempting to teach someone to be a graphic designer.
Inspiration / 8 Jul 2011
10 Unbeatable Premium Memberships and Courses for Professional Design Training
As a professional designer, it’s absolutely crucial for you to stay up to date with your skill set. With web design moving along at a rate so fast that even the best quickly fall behind, it’s helpful to have a solid lifeline to quality educational resources.
Today we’re going to look at ten awesome premium design memberships and sources for training courses that will help you learn a plethora of new skills and help you stay current on the topics that you’re already versed in.
Business / 22 Jun 2011
Using the Black Box Model to Design Better Websites
Today we’re going to introduce you to a popular model used in marketing to understand consumer behavior. We’ll then discuss how you as a designer can use this model to structure your designs to encourage action from users.
By becoming more equipped to analyze your visitors, you’ll be able to make informed decisions about how to design more persuasive websites.
Graphics / 16 Jun 2011
Awesome and Unusual Places to Steal Color Palettes From
A good color palette can make or break a design. It sets the tone, conveys emotion and can even drastically affect usability. With all this pressure, choosing a color palette is tricky business.
Today we’re going to think outside the box and explore some fresh and interesting ways to select the colors for your project by pointing out some great sources of inspiration. Let’s get started.
Software / 15 Jun 2011
Adobe Illustrator 101: 10 Things You Should Know About Ai
Adobe Illustrator is one of my absolute favorite applications. For vector work, Illustrator simply can’t be beat and you should really set your reservations aside and give it a shot. Even if you’re commonly creating raster graphics for the web, there are a number of things that Illustrator simply does better than Photoshop so getting to know both apps and their strengths/weaknesses is a must.
Today’s article is for the extreme Illustrator newbies. You have the Adobe Creative Suite installed on your computer and have seen Illustrator sitting there quietly begging to be played with but you’ve never jumped in. We’ll go over ten basic things you should know before starting.