A ton of great tutorials from august some useful design tutorials to teach you some new useful tip and tricks. Alongside Creative Nerds launching an new design blog, we have featured a few freebies within the roundup of our new site.

Photoshop Tutorials

How To Create The Expendables Winged Skull Poster Art

When I saw the bad-ass poster design for the upcoming movie The Expendables, I just had to open up Photoshop and have a go at recreating it. Follow this step by step guide on how to create the menacing winged skull design for yourself, complete with an overkill of weaponry surrounding a sinister looking skull face.

Create a Cosmic-Inspired Dreamy Scene in Photoshop

In today’s tutorial we will demonstrate how to use stock photography, 3d elements, and various techniques to create a cosmic-inspired dreamy scene in Photoshop.

Combining Custom Brushes for Wild Effects in Photoshop

Custom brushes can be an incredibly powerful way to add a touch of originality to your work.  By photographing or otherwise capturing given effects such as splatters, drips and watercolor textures, you can easily create your own custom brushes in Photoshop, and apply them to your own work right away to make it stand out.

Create Gold Ornamental Text in Photoshop

Ornamental text can be created in several ways. Today we will demonstrate how to combine several stock images to create some nice gold ornamental typography.

Illustrator Tutorials

How To Create A Very Scary But Cute Monster In Illustrator

Monsters, they can be bad and ugly or they can be nice and cute. How is this monster you decide by yourself. This is a tutorial on how to draw a complex monster illustration, I tried to make it as easy as possible but knowledge of basing drawing tools is advised anyway.

How To Create a Detailed Vector Sugar Skull Illustration

Follow this Illustrator design tutorial to create a super detailed sugar skull illustration made from lots of sweet vector elements. We’ll use a mix of basic and advanced Illustrator tools to build various decorative objects to slowly build up the features until we have an awesome looking skull design that pays homage to the Mexican Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Illustrator Tutorial: Give personality to character art

What’s tastier than an iced doughnut with sprinkles? A whole plate of yummy cakes, that’s what. If you’re looking to create a series of characters based on a theme, what better one to sample than one of Aaron Miller’s delightful confections?

How To Create a Fun Cartoon Style Poster Design

Follow this step by step guide to creating a fun cartoon style poster design. We’ll combine a quick character doodle with some bold and blocky text, then bring it to life with a muted colour palette and a mix of textures to give the poster an old and retro feel.

Web and design  Articles

7 Reasons Why I Choose Fireworks Over Photoshop

My name is Russell McGovern and I use Fireworks to design websites. There, I said it. I could be wrong, but it feels like I’m in a small minority; among web designers, the application of choice seems to be Photoshop.

Some Reasons You Might Not Want To Become A Web Designer

Web design is often an appealing career choice for artistic and creative people. It’s seen as a potentially lucrative opportunity to be creative on a daily basis. But there are drawbacks that many people don’t realize going into the field.

A 6-Step General Process for Producing a Website

When it comes to building a website, it helps to have a process to follow, especially if you are just getting started as a web designer. Good guidelines can help you work better by keeping forgetfulness to a minimum.

15 Great Ways to Secure Your Website

Since there are no point and click software, like an Anti Virus solution, available to secure a website, people just consider the job is done once the website is up. It definitely is not. Protecting a website or webserver is possible only by continued efforts. Unlike a poorly protected desktop in your place of business, a hacked website will reflect poorly on you, your business or brand.

An Effective Marketing Plan: Getting Started

A well-conceived and properly implemented marketing plan is the foundation for your business’ success. You might be the best at what you do, but if nobody knows about you and your offerings, and why they’re of value, then that shingle you hung up is going to come tumbling down

Back to Basics: Keyword/Landing Page Combinations

Starting today, we’re reinstating the Back To Basics series. Each Wednesday, we’ll share a Google Analytics tip, usually something that you can try right away with your own data to gain new insights. This week, we’ll illustrate a quick way to see how many visits you get from different keyword/landing page combinations.

25 Incredibly Useful CSS Snippets for Developers

CSS is no doubt up there with the most important web languages that we use. While html provides the structure it can be inconsistent and unpredictable across different new and old browsers. Css is where the html is styled though, and where we get creative as well as addressing those inconsistencies. Below is a fantastic list of 25 Css snippets that I am sure you will find extremely useful. Whether you are a veteran web developer, or are just getting your foot in the door of css, they are all well worth checking out.

Freebies

Exclusive Freebie Pack – 25 Ink Brushes

Ink droplets are probably one of the coolest types of Photoshop brushes. Mostly because of how intricate they look in use. They are created when you drop ink into water and then photograph them. Today, we have a set of 25 ink brushes to give away for free. Feel free to use them in your designs.

Ornament

A vintage old ornament seamless vector pattern created using illustrator, this pattern can be used when creating a  vintage design to give this design a more authentic look. This pattern is free to be used commercial design projects as well as non commercial design projects, hope you enjoy and fee free to leave a comment to share your feedback.

Cute Folk Seamless Vector Pattern

A vintage old ornament seamless vector pattern created using illustrator, this pattern can be used when creating a  vintage design to give this design a more authentic look. This pattern is free to be used commercial design projects as well as non commercial design projects, hope you enjoy and fee free to leave a comment to share your feedback.

Simple But Sophisticated App Icon Set

A nice simple but at the same time well designed sophisticated icon set which can be used in the interface of an app. This beautiful icon set is available to be used in commercial design project an non commercial design projects

A collection of a range of different tutorials for learning how to master various types of lighting effects using Photoshop. There are a range of tutorials featured within the compilation which the end result can be achieved by a novice to Photoshop or even teach a guru of Photoshop a few new tips. A must bookmark resources for future reference hope you enjoy.

1. Create a Glowing Effect Scene in Photoshop

This tutorial will teach you how to come up a cool glowing effects on your artworks.

2. Electrifying Energy Beams

Here’s a great effect that will bring some energy to your subject. We’ll be wrapping this singer’s arm with a glowing beam of light, adding sparkles, and adjusting the colors to make it all seem magical.

3. Space Lighting Effects in 10 Steps – Photoshop Tutorial

Here’s a great effect that will bring some energy to your subject. We’ll be wrapping this singer’s arm with a glowing beam of light, adding sparkles, and adjusting the colors to make it all seem magical.

4. Drawing an Abstract Lightbulb

in this tutorial It will cover a couple of different photoshop techniques.

5. Creating Energy Spheres in Photoshop

For this tutorial you’ll need a photo that you want to manipulate and some special brush sets.

6. Amazing Photoshop light effect in 10 Steps

A great tutorial on how to create magical sparkles using  Photoshop brushes.

7. Seriously Cool Photoshop Explosion Effect

A great tutorial on how to create magical sparkles using  Photoshop brushes.Explosions are cool. Seriously cool. So when I received some e-mails asking about how to create a break-apart, explosion effect, I knew it’d be worth making a tutorial on. Read on to find out how to break apart a body, then add some awesome lighting and glow, and nopattern style, to finish the image o

8. Adding Flames and Effects to Make an Image with Impact

Instead of riding snow, this boarder is flying through flames. In this tutorial, we’ll create fire and smoke without using any photos. You’ll learn how to combine both to create a flaming, dynamic image that jumps right at you.

9. Creating Colorful Disco Lines Effect

This simple tutorial will show how we can create professional-looking colored lines with the usage of Photoshop Brushes and Blend Modes. It’s an interesting find for me when I was doing random experiments with Photoshop.

10. Digital Bokeh Effect

It will show you how to create a digital bokeh effect, but this time in Photoshop. The process is very easy and we will be using the super powerful Brush Engine, one of the coolest things in Photoshop.

11. Advanced Glow Effects

In this tutorial, we’re going to create some really sharp-looking glow effects using a combination of layer styles, the Pen Tool and Color Blending. The end effect is quite stunning and hopefully you’ll pick up some tips you didn’t know before.

12. Design a Coldplay/Apple Inspired Portrait in Photoshop

This tutorial will show you how to create a portrait based on the style of the latest Coldplay / Apple Ad featuring “Viva la Vida” from Coldplay.

13. Create a Space Explosion From Scratch in Photoshop

If you’ve ever wanted to create a space explosion in Photoshop, then we have the tutorial for you. With the techniques learned in this tutorial, you can create explosions as seen in a Sci-Fi television series. Let’s learn how to make this effect from scratch.

14. How to create 3D abstract circles in Photoshop CS4

You will create abstract circles in real 3D. To complete this tutorial you need Photoshop CS4 (…), a good graphic card and 5 minutes.

15. Create a Layered Glowing Text Effect

In this tutorial, you will create this effect using very basic Photoshop tools and layering effects. This tutorial is simple enough for a beginner to understand, but I should warn you that in this tutorial there ends up being over 60 active text layers, which will require a heavy use of your computer’s memory. Let’s jump into this tutorial and layer some glowing text.

16. Design a Vibrant Blackberry Inspired Ad in Photoshop

The Blackberry Loves U2 TV promo features some awesome, bright and vibrant lighting effects. Let’s take a look at recreating the style to produce a Blackberry inspired design of our own.

17. Design a Vista Styled Wallpaper

Today you’ll create a wallpaper in Vista style. A black background will be filled with stylish gradients decorated with blue and green abstract curved shapes. The techniques used in this tutorial are scalable. It’s easy to turn the final design into different sizes to fit various monitors.

18. Beijing 2008 Logo Light Painting in Photoshop

In this tutorial It will show you how to create a nice light painiting effect for texts and logos. You will be able to design nice wallpapers and images using this technique and even different light effects. Also, celebrating the Olympic Games we will use its logo for the example.

19. Energize Your Graphics with Abstract Energy Lines

This tutorial, will show you how to create some energetic lines you can use to create more lively digital creations. Effects such as this are great for enhancing abstract compositions!

20. Luminescent Lines

This tutorial will mainly explore the brush engine and you will also learn how to create custom brushes and use them effectively, combined with some interesting layer styles.

21. Create a Glowing Light Painting Effect

A few weeks ago a friend of mine had published an article on my blog about Light painting. I was really impressed by all the effects these guys can create taking photos with long exposures. Then I thought it would be a nice idea to do that in Photoshop. So in this tutorial I will show you an easy, and very fast way, to create a light painting in Photoshop.

22. Fire tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to create creative and stylish fire lines in 10 easy steps!

23. Really cool Eclipse Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial It will show you how to create the Abduzeedo’s footer. Some of the techniques I used here I took from other tutorials and also from another tutorial I wrote some time ago for PSDtuts Mix Cool Retro Curves Into Your Photographs. Besides, the design is inspired by the amazing work of James White, so I highly recommend you to check his work out.

24. How to Make a Stylish Glowing Box in Photoshop

In this Adobe Photoshop graphic design tutorial, we are going to create a magical glow effect coming from a box in Photoshop. This is a pretty simple effect that looks great and can easily be adapted for use in other ways.

25. Colorful Glowing Text Effect in Photoshop

After seeing some recent Type work by Vicenç Fontanet (or, Drasik), in his recent project for “Miniblack“, I just had to give the effect a shot myself in Photoshop. It’s a wondeful little style that could easily be integrated into any dark graphic design where some upbeat text is needed.

26. Expressive lighting effects

Lighting effects are an effective way to add a detailed illustrative touch to a photo. Justin Maller demonstrates how to go about combining several lighting techniques.

27. Lighting Shutter Text Effect Tutorial

Web Design Blog teaches you how to create this beautiful slow shutter text effect.

28. Super Fast – Speed Lighting Effect

Take an image of a fireworks display and turn it into an intense sensation of speed. Manipulate natural lighting to fill a motion filled scene. Use masks to blend the effect over a car image to make the car appear to be in motion. This tutorial shows you exactly what to do. Let’s get moving.

29. How to Create Intense Light Streaks in Photoshop

A great lighting tutorial useing the pen tool.

30. End of the World Photo Manipulation

A great photo manipulation tutorial which you use some amazing lighting effects.

31. Electrifying Glow Album Art

In this tutorial we will use the pen tool, paths brushes and brush dynamics along with a neat little trick using thresholds to create a cool album cover look.

32. Flying Girl in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will use some stock photos and mix them together to create a nice effect. It was inspired by a chapter of the depthCORE collective called NOIR.

33. Make an Apple Coldplay Style Ad in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a very similar effect to that used in the Apple Coldplay Video Ad. If you have done the Sparkling Hot Girl tutorial in Photoshop, you will find it similar in some steps of this tutorial.

34. Striking Text Effect Using Glows and Blends

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to create the image above using a combination of glows and blends in 7 steps. All the files for this tutorial are at the bottom of this post.

35. NoPattern “Jumper” Effect

One of the coolest digital artists around is Chuck Anderson, a.k.a. NoPattern. After seeing a recent Psdtuts+ reader request, I decided to show you how to create a light effect similar to NoPattern’s Jumper Poster.

36. How to create neon glow

In our Photoshop Tutorial, you will create a Glowing Neon Girl from scratch. Throughout this tutorial, you will simply learn how to make some cool Glowing Effects in Photoshop.

37. Ahhh alien Invastion

Time again to talk about aliens! No, not the illegal kind. The green kind! What better way to kickoff the summer spirit than with explosions, death rays, and a little stormy weather – thanks to our friend, Photoshop.

38. A Cool Lighting Effect In Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create that effect we saw on the screen at the Macworld San Francisco. It’s basically some lighting effects with blurs and blend modes, but the effect is awesome.

39. Iron Man View Interface Effect in Photoshop

So in this tutorial It will show you how to create the Iron Man screen interface, I don’t even know if I can call it that way . We will use Illustrator to create some vectors and Photoshop to put everything together.

40. Create a Dramatic Car Speeding Scene

An awesome Photoshop tutorial on how to create a speeding car design.

41. Give a Photo a Complete Glamour Makeover With Stunning Light and 3D Effects

Have you ever wanted to see what you would look like after a complete makeover? Today, I’m going to show you how to transform a regular, every day photo into a real glamour shot. In this tutorial, you will learn how to retouch a model’s face and subtly manipulate her hair. In addition, we will enhance the canvas by adding attractive lighting and 3D effects.

42. Displacement effects

In this tutorial you will learn how to use a variety of filters and techniques to produce an image in an experimental style. It’s a flowing work technique, and things will always change and blend into the image in different ways, so don’t expect to recreate the exact image I have created here.

43. Colorful Light Effect in Photoshop

So in this tutorial It will show you how to create a super easy but at the same time beautiful light effect.

44. Splattered Photoshop

It’s a little long at 25 mins but theres a lot of good little tips and tricks in it.
The tutorial is a follow on from my learn how to make a custom brush tutorial where you will now learn how to effectively use your custom brushes and create this stunning design. You can also use the same work flow on different images with similar effects.

45. Super Easy Neon Style in Photoshop

In this tutorial I will show you how to create a nice light effect in Photoshop. We will use Layer Styles and Blend Modes to simulate a neon text effect.

46. Design a Space Inspired Iphone Advert

Learn how to create amazing space age lighting effects as part of a sleek, professional Iphone advert.

47. Dodge Blend Mode for Light Effects

Color Dodge is one of the Blend Modes I use the most. It’s in my opinion the easiest and best way to create light effects, and, even though I have already written quite a few tutorials showing how to use it, I decided to write a quick tips all about this very useful blend mode.

48. Abstract Dust And Spray Effect

this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to create colorful abstract spray effect for use in your graphics. This has become quite a trendy technique recently, and can be accomplished fairly easily.

49. Easy Star Light in Photoshop

So in this tutorial you will create a composition from scratch first in Illustrator where we will play with shapes and the Blend Tool. After that in Photoshop we will add the light effects and the pattern overlay.

50. Create a Fiery Face Explosion

Learn how to manipulate images of flame and smoke to create a glowing, intense facial explosion effect.

51. Lost in Space Typography in Photoshop

So in this tutorial It will show you how to create an easy and super quick text effect in Photoshop. you will play with Brushes, Blend Modes, basic filters like Blur and Liquify, and also text.

52. Create a Refreshing Beer Themed Poster Design in Photoshop

When you create a print advertisement, it’s important that all the elements of your composition are geared towards selling a product and promoting a brand. Today, we will demonstrate how to create a refreshing beer-themed poster design in Photoshop.

53. Create A Retro Cosmic Design in Photoshop

This tutorial will teach you how to recreate the Retro Cosmic designs made popular by James White of Signalnoise. All you need is a copy of Photoshop and some time on your hands. In this particular example we’re going to create a retro cosmic rainbow but the techniques explained can be used in combination with any shape and colour.

54. 3D Text On Fire

This tutorial is going to be a little more advanced than the other ones I have done. It shouldn’t be a problem if you have been following along with our other tutorials or have a grasp of Photoshop. So lets begin.

55. Fantastic Disintegration Effect inspired by Watchmen in Photoshop

In this tutorial I will show you how to create the disintegration effect using brushes and the blur filter. It’s really simple and you will be able to create nice designs using this sort of trendy style of effect.

56. How to Create a Hellacious Flaming Skull in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we’ll go through all the steps of creating a flaming skull in Photoshop. We’ll be using some images we shot ourself of flames, and a stock Designious vector skull to get us started. This tutorial covers some relatively simple steps and some clever photo manipulation techniques.

57. Amazing Video-Game Text Style in Photoshop

It will show you how to create a text effect in Photoshop based on the DVNO clip by Justice and of course some 8 and 16 bits video game opening screens. We will play basically with some basic filters like Gaussian Blur, also with Blend Modes to the light effects.

58. Give a Car Photo Super Slick Lighting Effects

Learn how to combine photos and brush strokes to give a car photo slick dusky lighting effects.

59. Abduzeedo 2010 Light Effects in Photoshop

So in this tutorial It will show you how to create that effect. It’s a sort of monitor/halftone effect mixed with glows and other light effects. We will play with Blend Modes and Blurs. The whole process is quite simple and it won’t take more than 20 minutes to achieve the same result.

60. How to Create a Retro Sci-Fi Computer Game Poster

Combine stock photos and design resources to create an awesome retro sci-fi themed game poster that takes inspiration from Atari games of the 80s. By mixing up bright and vibrant cosmic designs with old, distressed and grungey textures we’ll create a retro futuristic poster design for ‘Galactic Attack’.

61. Tutorial: Killer 3D Poster Design with 3DS Max & Photoshop

Last week I posted some articles about typography and received quite a few emails asking me to create a tutorial on text effects. So I decided to play a bit with Photoshop to create a nice sort of 3D effect using a calligraphy font and a lot of Layer Styles. The effect is really simple and we will take a look at how to create patterns and light effects with Blend Modes.

62. Shiny Calligraphy Text Effect in Photoshop

Last week I posted some articles about typography and received quite a few emails asking me to create a tutorial on text effects. So I decided to play a bit with Photoshop to create a nice sort of 3D effect using a calligraphy font and a lot of Layer Styles. The effect is really simple and we will take a look at how to create patterns and light effects with Blend Modes.

63. Design a Beautiful Cosmic Space Scene in Photoshop

Ever since I saw the recent Star Trek movie I’ve been itching to create a gorgeous sci-fi inspired cosmic space scene. I eventually found the time to do so and created a piece of artwork named ‘First Light’. Follow this step by step walkthrough of its creation in Photoshop, from the making of the planets, to the vibrant nebula and bright lens flares.

64. How to Create an Interplay of Abstract Light Streaks

This tutorial is inspired by the work of the Lichfaktor collective. You should really take a look at their pictures, which are pure urban poetry. I basically wanted a simple way to create similar light effects without freezing my bones outside at night.

65. Create a Trendy Galactic Poster Design in Photoshop

Galactic space scenes are a popular theme for digital art, they’re packed full of texture and vibrant colour, which are two ingredients of an awesome design! Using Photoshop’s blending modes along with a mix of textures and brushes, let’s get lost in space and create an abstract cosmos poster design.

66. Super Slick Dusky Lighting Effects in Photoshop

One of the best sites around for desktops has to be Desktopography. I’ve been inspired by their amazing work, so today we are going to put together a sunset image mixing some vector shapes and dusky lighting effects to produce a slick image that would make a nice album cover for a chillout mix!

67. How to make a Typographic, Retro, Space Face

n this tutorial, It will show you how to make a typographic face by using simple techniques. Using the Brush Tool and experimenting with light, you will get this amazing Typographic Space Face that looks like it’s created by letters and an amazing explosion.

68. Christmas wallpaper design in photoshop

another year is ending and nothing better than creating a Christmas desktop wallpaper using Photoshop to celebrate that right? Well, maybe not.

69. Create a Magical Golden Winged Boot

This is the final image that we’ll be creating in this tutorial. This tutorial was inspired by the awesome work of Barton Damer, whose work I suggest you check out.

70. Epic

It’s funny how trends reappear through the years. The bright and shiny chrome text effect could be found everywhere in the 80s, then it disappeared altogether when people realised how hideous and gaudy it was. Recently though, this text styling seems to be making a comeback in the world of digital art as the 80s generation are implementing inspirations from their childhood into their designs and artworks. Follow this tutorial to recreate the epic metal text effect for yourself, making use of modern day digital design techniques in Photoshop.

We’ve all got great clients we love to work with. You know the ones that you look forward to seeing and you get excited when they mention a new project on the horizon? Well a few months ago I was thinking about adding to my client list and obviously I wanted to attract more of these types of clients.

So I gave it some thought… what makes my great clients so fantastic to work with? Are there commonalities between them and if so, are they things that can be spotted before taking them on? The answer is yes there are several traits that all my best clients have and below are my top three. So next time you’re thinking of taking on a new client, try running this checklist and see how they measure up – it may save you some headaches!

1. They’re experts in their field

This is a key one; someone who has achieved expert status is established and knows their subject. They have a proven background and tend to have one specialism. This person will be focussed on what they do and will respect your expertise and experience, that’s why they’ve hired you. They want results and you’re the one to tell them how to achieve it online. Basically, they’ll want you to explain your strategy and ideas but they’ll have no interest in what programming language you plan to use.

In my experience it’s best to avoid like the plague anyone with a little bit of web design/SEO/programming knowledge who says things like “I want you to build my web site with [fill in the blanks] because I’ve read a book about it so I can tinker with it myself” or “What can I do myself to save money” or “My [Friend/Sister/Boyfriend] has done an evening class in web design so they’ll be helping out”. Just politely excuse yourself and run for the hills at this point.

These clients are difficult, energy draining and time-consuming to work with. First they want to learn from you, nothing wrong with that, but they usually expect you to provide expert 1-to-1 tutoring at no additional cost. They’ll bombard you with emails starting with; “Can you just tell me how to…” and you end up spending more time providing tech support than doing what you were hired to do i.e. fire-fighting rather than designing fab web sites!

If you do choose to work with a client like this, because we can’t always be so choosy, then just make it clear from the outset what’s included in your fees and what’s an additional extra at what price. Of course that’s always easier once you’ve identified them!

2. They know their product/service offering and audience

This sounds truly bizarre I know; why wouldn’t someone know this about their business? But if you meet a new client for the first time and they can’t explain to you what they do concisely i.e. they don’t have an elevator pitch; then the alarm bells should be ringing.

I’ve been caught out by this a couple of times recently, where a potential client hasn’t been able to explain clearly what it is they’re trying to sell and to whom. Essentially what happens is you try to extract this information, you think you’ve got it and then throughout the project they just keep changing their mind. Basically it boils down to the fact that they are not yet an expert in their field and so they make it up as they go along.

Of course you can charge them extra every time they re-brief you but that’s a fast way to erode the relationship leaving you and they frustrated. The best thing is to avoid the situation in the first place, so either always take a comprehensive brief and get the client to approve it before you start work, or don’t take the project on.

3. They own the business or at least have decision making control

It might seem obvious to say that a web site project will run more smoothly if you’re dealing with the decision maker. That doesn’t make it any less true. What’s more likely is that you won’t end up being the victim of Chinese Whispers – you can get instruction from the horse’s mouth so to speak.

By decision maker, it boils down to someone who has authority to sign off your invoices for payment. If that person is happy with the job then you’re home and dry. I’ve recently had a job where I was working with a marketing executive who’d been assigned to run the web site project, unfortunately she didn’t know much about web sites or anything related to them. What happened was that we went round and round in circles for quite some months; she briefed me, I carried out the work, her boss said it wasn’t right… that we hadn’t understood. I did my utmost to help her to learn but it turns out that her boss didn’t know that much about web sites either so she was hung out to dry really. The client ended up paying additional money to cover the re-works and the girl got moved off the project. It was hard work and unnecessarily stressful.

At the end of the day, if you’re dealing direct, you can question and suggest ideas and the whole process is just much more gratifying for everyone.

Some other things to look out for…

Of course there are other things that can indicate whether someone is going to be good to work with; positive, enthusiastic and upbeat people are always going to be a joy to be around, they create a buzz and inspire you to come up with great ideas for them. Entrepreneurs and innovators are very exciting to work with but they’re often strategists and not so hot on the detail – make sure you are!

Busy people are usually very precious of their time and so will be less inclined to waste yours. Organised people plan and prepare – again they make great clients because they’ll have done their leg-work and you can hit the ground running with the project. Always rejoice in the client that takes time to prepare and send you a well-thought out brief before you meet them – they’re like hen’s teeth.

And last but by no means least; it seems that if you consciously think about and associate with the positive types of clients you want to work with, then mysteriously they seem to turn up.

Reputation is our most valuable asset and it’s much easier to provide a top-notch service when you’re working with people who value you and respect you. These clients will reward you by recommending you to everyone and anyone who’ll listen and your business will soon be flying.

1.Vector Patterns

Vector patterns is design blog which was launched two weeks ago and i blog which the Creative Nerds team also run. Vector Patterns offers designers free vector patterns, Photoshop patterns, and seamless patterns which can be used in web design projects.

2.Design Chair

Design chair is the perfect website for designers offering daily Photoshop and illustrator tutorials also high quality design resources such as brushes and vector files. Once again this another blog which is ran by the Creative Nerds team.

3. Blog.SpoonGraphics

On this site you’ll find design tutorials covering various techniques and effects in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as a look into various other creative topics. There’s also a range of design related articles, links and free giveaways to help you along with your future design projects.

4. PSD Tuts

Psdtuts+ is a blog/Photoshop site made to house and showcase some of the best Photoshop tutorials around. We publish tutorials that not only produce great graphics and effects, but explain the techniques behind them in a friendly, approachable manner.

5. Think Design Blog

This is a graphic design blog, aiming to bring you freebies, resources, inspiration and much more. This site was created by me, Nick Pagano, the (only) designer for Think Four Graphic Design.

6. Onextrapixel

Onextrapixel, or more commonly known as OXP is a weblog dedicated to delivering useful, comprehensive and innovative information for designers and web developers. OXP was started by two very enthusiastic Singapore web developers and designers. OXP endeavors to present noteworthy tips, excellent tutorials, and web resources that any modern web follower will appreciate. You’ll find a vast variety of ingredients from tools that can enhance your workflow management to showcases of incredible web designs and inspiration.

7. Graphic Design Blender

8. Design Informer

Design Informer is a web design and graphic design blog. Which features freelance articles, tutorials, freebies, resources, and inspiration posts. This blog will also be my digital playground as well, as I will be posting the most recent graphic design techniques that I have discovered in the form of tutorials.

9. Design Creative Fan

Design.CreativeFan is for graphic designers. It features regularly posted tutorials designed at teaching professional techniques at no cost to the community.

10. Spyre Studios

We offer web-design services and also collaborate with other designers, bloggers and social media strategist on various projects.

11. Wegraphics

Summer is time for vacation: sea, beach, picnic and so on; however the WeGraphics team has a strange idea of vacation. We, me and Sebastiano, have enjoyed the sea, the beach, a fantastic day in mountain with a good company in front of the Ionian Sea.

12. abduzeedo

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. Of course there are other softwares conteplated like Pixelmator, Fireworks, and web design tutorials.

13. Web Designer Depot

Webdesigner Depot is an exciting new platform designed to explore different web and graphic design techniques, great examples and best practices.

14. Arbenting

The Arbenting Design Blog was created by Angie Bowen & Rob Bowen to give back to the design community with freebies, how-tos and helpful advice. All of the freebies offered here are available for both commercial & personal use, no attribution required.

15. Speckyboo

The Speckyboy Design Magazine launched in October 2007, as a personal web design homepage. Which is now a useful design related blog offering useful content for all designers to enjoy.

16. Design Instruct

Design Instruct is a regularly updated web magazine for designers and digital artists where you can find and learn design tips and tricks. We feature high-quality tutorials from some of the top designers and digital artists from around the world, as well as articles that cover an array of topics to keep you informed and inspired. We also share free and downloadable resources (see our Freebies section).

17. Noupe

Noupe passionately delivers stylish and dynamic news for designers and web-developers on all subjects of design, ranging from; CSS, Ajax, Javascript, web design, graphics, typography, advertising & much more. Our goal is to help you communicate effectively on the web with an engaging website or functional interface. Founded in 2007 by Noura Yehia from Egypt the site is now property of Smashing Media GmbH.

18. Colorburned

Colorburned is a design blog featuring some of the best design news, resources, and tutorials from around the web. On this website you will find free vectors, textures, patterns, Illustrator and Photoshop brushes as well as tutorials and interviews with some of the biggest players in the design industry. Our focus here is to arm you with the tools and knowledge that you need to create better designs in less time.

19. Pro Blog Design

Pro Blog Design writes about web design (blog design in particular!), coding, and WordPress. We cover all the technical bits that bloggers should know, so they can get the most out of their blogs.

20. Fudge Graphics

Fudgegraphics was born in April 2008. With exams coming up I thought it would be a perfect time to start my own blog. Fudgegraphics can be described as a design inspirational blog. It is a source of freebies such as photoshop brushes, textures and vectors.

21. Tuttoaster

Tuttoaster is a growing community where enthusiasts and professionals alike can find free tutorials on a wide variety of web-based subjects

22. Vandelaydesign

Vandelay Website Design exists to help businesses and organizations build a stronger presence online. Most of our clients have struggled to find a reliable designer who is commited to their success and offers affordable services. By working directly with our clients to identify and address areas of need we are able to provide a customized experience and an end product that will produce results and lead to increased profitability.

23. Design Reviver

The goal of Design Reviver is to provide Web Designers with valuable information. Here you will find useful tutorials, free downloads, sources of inspiration, and articles covering a wide range of web design related topics.

24. Web Design Ledger

The Web Design Ledger is a publication written by web designers for web designers. The primary purpose of this site is to act as a platform for sharing web design related knowledge and resources. Topics range from design inspiration to tips and tutorials and everything in between.

25. Vectips

Vectips is a site dedicated to Adobe Illustrator® tips, tricks, and tutorials. Whether you are a seasoned Illustrator user or just starting out, Vectips can help.

26. Smashing Share

Smashing Share is a blog dedicated to design community where we share useful free web resources, design inspiration, freebies and tutorials.

27. PVM Garage

PV.M Garage is a Web Design Blog/Community that spreads information for web designers and developers. The website includes a Community News Section, a Web Design News Aggregator and it weekly delivers useful resources, freebies and awesome stuff for your inspiration.

28. Aext

AEXT – An Extension of the Net – is a design magazine that publishes all things web design. Articles here are published by web professionals for web professionals featuring tutorials, collections, industry insights, and other resources.

29. Media Militia

They are a the place for free resources, tutorials, and inspiration. When you need to jump start a project, they are there to help you out

30. Design Shack

Design Shack showcases inspiring web design, alongside resources and tutorials for you to succeed in the same way. We only offer the cream of great design, filtering through lots of the redesigns that occur every day across the Internet, and cataloguing the greatest projects out there – perfect for getting that spark of creativity going again.

31. Tutorial 9

Tutorial9 – a collection of teachers, experts, and caring folk from around the world, all gathered in one place to pass along our knowledge to absolutely anyone interested in learning.

32. Naldzgraphics

Founded in February 2008, Naldz Graphics is a fast growing Design Blog for designers and design lovers. We are showcasing the best tutorials, freebies, inspirations and other useful and informative resources to help and give love to design community.

33. 10 Steps

This blog was started in August 2008, where the purpose is to share  random experiments with Adobe Photoshop and some interesting design articles.

34. Bitbox

Bitbox likes to give away only the best quality stuff to help designers everywhere. It also likes to post workflow tips to help people work faster. These are the posts where everyone can chime in until they find the best way to do a certain task.

35. Echo During

Echo Enduring Media is the online presence of , Matt Ward a digital artist – by which I simply mean that he is an artist who works primarly through digital means.

36. Go Media

Go Media is a group of guys and girls who are passionate about art and graphic design. Now you’re reading a blog basically filled with lots of helpful tutorials and advice about business and design. But that’s not all Go Media does. In fact, we spend most of our time designing for clients or cranking out design resources for the Arsenal.

37. Just Creative Design

On this website you will find a personal graphic design portfolio (My design services are currently available for hire), as well as a blog on the main subject of graphic design which provides free graphic design tips, articles & resources on all subjects of design, ranging from, but not limited to; print design, logo design, web design, branding, typography, advertising & more.

38. 1stwebdesigner

1stwebdesigner is a design blog dedicated to bloggers, freelancers, web-developers and designers. Topics focus on web design,graphic design, tutorials and inspirational articles.

39. Hongkiat

Hongkiat.com is a design weblog dedicated to designers and bloggers. We constantly publish useful tricks, tools, tutorials and inspirational artworks.

40. The Design Cubicle

Brian Hoff, a graphic designer from the always-sunny Philadelphia. he collaborate mostly on web design and brand identity, but is experienced in building all kinds of quality, strategic design, both on the web and in print.

41. Designm.ag

DesignM.ag is a community-based website for web designers and developers. The site includes a popular blog, a user-submitted news section, a design gallery, and a design job board.

42. smashingmagazine

Founded in September 2006, Smashing Magazine delivers useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers. Our aim is to inform our readers about the latest trends and techniques in Web development. We try to convince you not with the quantity but with the quality of the information we present. We hope that makes us different. Smashing Magazine is, and always has been, independent.

43. Inspiration Monkey

InspireMonkey is the creation of Aidan Huang and is an exciting new grotto full of web resources and news, inspirational visuals, great examples and best practices for your browsing pleasure.

44. Dzineblog

Founded in December 2007, Dzine blog Is all about designs, here u can find inspirational designs and some good tips in logo, graphics and web designing. My aim is to share  quality graphic design resources, graphic design tips and much more good inspirational designs and useful information in designing, precisely and regularly.

45. Vector.tutsplus

Vectortuts+ is a blog of tutorials, articles, freebies and more on all things vector! We publish tutorials on techniques and effects to make awesome vector graphics in programs like Adobe Illustrator and Inkscape.

46. PSD Fan

As you may have guessed from our name PSDFAN will be providing Photoshop tutorials. However, we want to stress that this won’t simply be ‘just another tutorial website’.

47. Six Revisons

Six Revisions is a website that publishes practical and useful articles for designers and web developers. We seek to present exceptional, noteworthy tips, tutorials, and resources that the modern web professional will appreciate.

48. Richworks

A daily source for inspiration from the world of design. Excellent roundups from the design community, Quality tutorials in Photoshop.

49. Instant Shift

InstantShift is leading design and inspiration related community for web designers and developers daily resources and premium web design and development.

50. Cheth Studios

chethstudios Design Magazine – More than a Design Blog.

8 logo design mistakes which as a professional logo designer you should not be making as well, as a useful check list for aspects of which a good logo design should consist of.

1. Typography

When designing a logo typography plays an important role these are a few aspects of typography to consider when choosing typography for a logo.

• Using calligraphy fonts which are hard to read makes it difficult for people to be capable of reading the logo.
• Only use two different fonts maximum, too many fonts within a logo can become a design overkill.
• Don’t use ultra thin fonts they are perfect for web logos but not so well when it comes to printing the logo design.

2. Using clipart

Using clip art is the short cut which lazy designers take to producing a logo design. Clipart graphics been used within a logo design project usually makes the end result of the logo design look cheap and look as if the logo was created by a child for a school project.

3. Not Creating the logo in greyscale

The logo should look just as good as it does in black and white as it does in colour, always design a logo so it looks good and works well in grey scale as well as colour.

4. Creating Rasterized logo designs

Rasterized logo designs work well for web but don’t work as well for print for example it’s impossible to scale up a logo to the same size as a football pitch without the logo looking distorted or pixelated, therefore the logo design should always be created so therefore that it is a scalable vector so it can be made bigger without damaging pixels or the overall quality of the logo.

5. Plagiarism

Never copy another brands logo, for example when Pepsi copied coca cola’s logo in the early days when Pepsi was first established. Copying someone else brands logo people will never remember your logo but only rember the original logo which you copied.

6. Don’t design a logo which fits in with the crowd

You don’t need to create a good logo design by following logo design trends. A good logo design is different and unique, this makes a logo design memorable as well as stand out from millions of other logos from all around the world.

7. Not choosing a good colour combination

Choose a good colour combination colours which are neutral and which will worked well with any colour background. A bad choice of colours can be a strain on people’s eyes as well being very difficult to read the logo and not making it very memorable.

8. Too complicated

The key to a good logo design is simplicity, when new logo designers starts out designing logos they always make the their logos complex by doing the following, adding to much detail i.e. shadows, glossy effects, bevel emboss, gradients, too much text long tag lines, etc. Simplicity is key to a good logo design.

There are so many free fonts all around the web these days and sometimes it makes me think is their any really point purchasing fonts. I’ve decide to collect 50 fonts which are suitable for web, print, etc just overall high fonts which can be used in design projects.

This is just personal collection of our free fonts to date, i hope you enjoy and free to leave a comment to tell us which is your favourite font.

1. VAL

2. Toris

3. Cold Bold

4. FREE FONT 21

5. Oblik Serif

6. Mekon Gradient

7. Arcus

8. ST Marie

9. BENNUDISEÑO

10. Sketch

12. Kilogram

13. Deibi

14. Days typeface

15. DAN Free Font

16. Cubica

17. Oh! Mai Mai!

18. Brandon Grotesque

19. MOD Gothic

20. Paranoid / a free font projec

21. Groteska

22. Glide® Font

23. LOT™ Free font

24. Duplex

25. Solomon text

26. Hattori Hanzo typeface

27. CODE free font

28. MOD

29. Sonrisa Thin Font (FREE)

30. FILE™ Free Typeface

31. Advent Font

32. Sunday Morning Garage Sale

33. Rounded

34. Font – Shark HandWritten ABC

35. Balham – Free Elegant Font

36. Springsteel

37. Neu-Eichmass

38. Gabo Drive

39. Sif is Fat

40. Real oragomi

41. BS Konstata

42. Mister

43. Rocket Script

43. Frozen Panda

44. Frozen Panda

45. Funky&Bould (free)

46. High Five font

47. Amputa Bangiz Standard TTF

48. Kaboom pseudo-font

49. QUB font

50. le Grand Saut

Cookies, also known as biscuits, are probably the most popular bakery product around the world, and due to the variety of their flavours and aromas, it is extremely hard to resist the temptation of trying them. In this simple tutorial, I will show you how to create a super detailed cookie illustration inside Adobe Illustrator.

Final Result

Step 1

Open Adobe Illustrator and set up a new document, 600 by 600 pixels.

Step 2

Press “L” to select the Ellipse Tool and draw a circle with default settings applied (hold down the Shift key to create a perfect circle) mine is about 300 by 300px.

Go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Roughen and enter these  settings:

(10px for the Size, 3in for the Detail, Absolute and Smooth checked).

Go to Object > Expand Appearance.

Step 3

Once you’ve expanded this path, give it a 1pt #83320A stroke and fill with a vertical (Angle: -90 degrees) gradient from #FFC77D to #F8B15E.

Set #D87A3A as your stroke color and “none” for the fill, press “B” to select the PaintBrush Tool and start drawing some little cracks on the cookie. That’s easy to do even using mouse.

Click on the Brush Libraries Menu > Artistic > Artistic_Ink (you can select any other artistic brush) and select “Calligraphy 1” brush.

Make #EA9C49 your stroke color and start painting shadow paths on the cookie.

Select the Pen Tool (P) and draw some random shapes filled with any color (for now).

Now fill all these paths with gradient from #D6526 to #F8B15E. Make sure that they all have different Angle setting to create a illusion that they have different depth.

Select every element on the artboard but the main cookie path and reduce their opacity to 80%.

Step 4

Good, now it’s time to draw some little chocolate crumbs. For this, somewhere on your art board draw a 12 by 12px ellipse filled with #7F3221.

Apply the Roughen effect once again with these settings:

Expand the appearance of this path and drag it into the Brushes panel to create a brush from it. Check the Scatter Brush and click ok, then enter these settings:

Once you’ve created this brush select the Paintbrush Tool and start drawing on the cookie to fill it with chocolate crumbs.

Select them all and go to Object > Expand Appearance to create multiple paths.

Fill them all with gradient from #9B6E68 to #7F3221 (Angle -90).

Go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow and enter these settings (Color: #7F4025) :

Select one chocolate crumb, make a much bigger copy of it and place it somewhere on the cookie.

Now make multiple copies of this path, rotate them change their sizes and width and place them all over the cookie.

Select the main cookie path, press “Ctrl + C” and then “Ctrl + F” twice to create two copies of that path. Select the top copy and move it up by 20px.

With this copy selected, hold down the “Shift” key and click on the second copy to select them both.

Click on the Minus Front button in the Pathfinder panel.

With the resulting path selected press “Shift + Ctrl + [ “ to make this path the top one. Fill it with #603913 and remove any stroke.

Reduce the opacity of this sublayer to 20% and set the Blendidng Mode to Multiply (inside the Transparency panel).

Step 7

Select the whole cookie; grab the top, middle handle of the bounding box, and squash the cookie just a little.

Select the basic path of the cookie, go to Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow and enter these settings: (color: 442D27)

Step 8

For the last step we have to bring this illustration to Photoshop.

Once you files is opened and rasterized. Import the paper texture from the source files.

Hold down the Alt key and click between the “Paper” and te “Cookie” layer to create a clipping mask.

Set the Blending of the “Paper” layer to Overlay and reduce the opacity to 50%.

End Result

We’re done!

We launched an new website on Friday morning called Vector Patterns. If you have been following us on twitter you will be aware of the fact that we where currently in the process of putting together a new design blog. Finally we can reveal our new website Vector Patterns a design blog offering free high quality patterns, articles, inspiration, and tutorials.

Preview Of Our New Blog

The domain name was purchased months back and nothing had been done with it for simple fact that we had other projects we working on such as the redesign of Creative Nerds and Design Chair.

Once all redesigns had been completed for our network of other design blogs we thought that it would be a sensible decision to start brain storming some ideas for content which we will be publishing on Vector Patterns.

Once we had an idea of what content we want to be placed on Vector Patterns the next steps was to start considering how we wanted the overall design of blog to look. The original concept design for Vector Patterns was a colourful design which incorporated the use of vector patterns and textures within the design, for some reason I just was not keen on the design and instead decided to go with a more minimalistic design. The design is clean and with a lot of more white space also a design that be easy to modify and change to add new features to the blog.

Once all the designs have been mocked using Photoshop we coded up design into html and CSS then into wordpress. Once the site was completed we could of easily chose to launch the blog right then but instead chose to build up a serious amount of good content which could be published over first few weeks of blog been launched. Once we had enough content ready to published on website we then started a soft launch we launched to site but never promoted all made people aware of the fact that we had just launched a new blog we did so we could test the site is working smoothly and so that we are indexed within Google’s search engine.

I don’t want to ramble on for too long that’s just brief rundown of the development process behind creating vector patterns, I hope i never bored you too much. Here are few posts which have been already published on Vector Patterns we would love for you guys to check out the articles and share thoughts within a short comment.

How To Create A Very Scary But Cute Monster In Illustrator

Hand Drawn Ornate Ornaments Free Vector Patterns

A hand drawn vector ornate ornament pattern set the beauty of this pattern set is that it has an awesome sketch effect, which makes the end result of overall pattern look amazing as well the pattern set includes two hand sketched patterns.

Crazy Circles Free Seamless Premium Vector Pattern

Wow really enjoyed creating this seamless vector pattern set and the final outcome turned out very well. An amazing circle pattern constructed using simply just circles available to be used within commercial and non commercial design projects.

Help Support Our New Blog

If you want to be kept up to date with Vector Patterns your more than to subscribe to the RSS feed, follow on twitter, join mailing list and as well join Facebook group. It would be great if our readers could support Vector Patterns as the way the support Creative Nerds over the past year and a half.

A nice simple but at the same time well designed sophisticated icon set which can be used in the interface of an app. This beautiful icon set is available to be used in commercial design project an non commercial design projects.

Licenses Details

These icons can be used in commercial and non commercial design projects. You may NOT modify and redistribute or sell this icon set.

July was a great month in terms on new design tutorials being published, lucky enough where capable of capturing all the best tuts published all over the design community into one post. Next month should be a very exciting month as the Creative Nerds team are launching an new blog.

Photoshop Tutorials

How to create a melancholy model photo manipulation

This tutorial was born with a specific aim. I was playing with the image of a beautiful model, with the intention to realize a simple photo retouch tutorial, thought for all those who are approaching to photography and need simple Photoshop skills to embellish their models shots. As always, I finished with something totally different, with a pinch of “dark”. Today we will use several simple techniques to realize a beautiful melancholy photo manipulation starting from the image of a model. We will deal in particular with masks, brushes and lots of adjustment layers to have full color control.

Create Beautiful Abstract Female Art in Photoshop

Sometimes, all it takes to create a stunning piece of art is a stock photo, a bit of creativity, a great idea, and some time. Today, I will demonstrate how to create a piece of art that I created titled, “Beauty of Gold.” Let’s get started!

Make a Meteoric Composition with Stellar Light Effects

In this tutorial, you will create an out-of-this-world composition of a computer mouse that is streaking down like a meteor. You will focus on creating unique light effects and leveraging layer adjustment techniques for coloring and enhancing our scene. We will use Cinema 4D to create a simple backdrop for our stars, however, the important parts, we’ll do in Photoshop.

Make a Meteoric Composition with Stellar Light Effects

The design depicts the first light of morning in a distant solar system. The bright light from a nearby star illuminates the planet and its moons, while the surrounding nebula gives off vibrant pink, blue and green lights.

Create Astonishing Nightclub Themed 3D Typography

3D graphics are often created using several applications. Today, we will use Photoshop, Illustrator, and Cinema 4D to create a stunning nightclub themed 3D composite.

Illustrator Tutorials

Create a Detailed Vector Emblem Badge in Illustrator

Use a range of vector shapes in Adobe Illustrator to create a detailed black and white emblem badge. We’ll use a mix of basic tools to align the various shapes together, then add some cool detail using the more advanced Pathfinder and Blend tools.

How To Create a Trendy Seamless Pattern in Illustrator

The great thing about seamless repeating patterns is that once created, they can be used as a base for all kinds of awesome designs. Skateboard decks, custom apparel, package designs and website backgrounds are just some of the uses for the good old pattern swatch. Follow this tutorial to build a vector based repeating pattern of your own, featuring trendy graphics of skulls, stars, lightning bolts and other cool pop imagery.

Quick Tip: How to Create an Abstract Desktop Wallpaper

Looking for an abstract wallpaper but can’t find a color or shape that your like? In this tutorial you will learn how to create desktop wallpapers using simple geometric figures, the Blending Mode, and Gaussian Blur. Let’s get started!

How to Draw a Funny Bee Illustration

Although they can be very dangerous, bees are loved around the world for honey they are producing, and just like everyone else, I have a great respect for these little hard-working creatures.  From this tutorial you will learn how to create a funny illustration of a bee inside Adobe Illustrator.

Webdesign Articles

Drawing the Line: 6 Things You Shouldn’t Tolerate in Projects

I was pretty proud when I netted my first clients as a freelancer. Wow! Someone is actually willing to give me their money and have me design their site? I was ecstatic that someone had picked me out of all the talented designers out there.

Smart Logos with Hidden Symbolism

Try to figure what the hidden messages are before reading the explanations. Have the designers manage to convey the right messages for these logos? Please let us know in the comments’ area.

How to Resolve a Fluid Header/Footer Problem When the Window is Resized

The problem happens under the following circumstances: (1) The header and footer of the page have no specified width; (2) The content area has a specified width, and is centered using margin: auto; (3) The window is resized below the content area’s width, or the window starts out below the set width of the content area.

Colortip – a jQuery Tooltip Plugin

In this tutorial we are going to write a simple jQuery tooltip plugin. It is going to convert the title attributes of elements withing your page, into a series of colorful tooltips. Six color themes are available, so you can easily match it with the rest of your design.

Occam’s Razor: A Great Principle for Designers

Lex parsimoniae is the Latin expression of what is known in English as Occam’s Razor, a philosophical rule of thumb that has guided some of the world’s best and brightest minds (including Isaac Newton).

20+ Required Windows Apps: Web Designer’s Choice

In April, Jeffrey Way provided us with a list of the “20 Mac Apps You’ll Use Every Day.” Not one to be biased, if you prefer Windows, this article rounds up the best programs available for boosting your productivity as a web designer.

20 Steps to a Flexible and Secure WordPress Installation

A comprehensive WordPress installation, albeit simple to produce, often requires multiple steps — many of which can easily be omitted accidentally. How many times have you forgotten to customize your permalink structure? How about adding in a sitemap plugin? What about changing your timezone? If you’ve installed WordPress more than once, chances are you’ve missed something. Take the following steps and you’ll never miss anything again.

12 kickass SEO infographics

At Econsultancy HQ, we’re loving infographics in a big way. After all, what’s not to like? They’re great visual breakdowns of complex information,  far better than standard data charting, and are often extremely creative in their representations.

Freebies

Freestyle and Square, Two Free Social Media Icon Sets

The two beautiful social media icon sets we have on offer today have been designed by the talented Helen Gizi, from pinkmoustache.com, exclusively for the readers of Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Icon Pack: 256×256 Business Icons

This icon set contains 26 Business themed icons. Each icon is available in 256×256 .png format. Included in this set are User icons, Warning & Alert icons, Chat & Email icons, Maps & World Icons, and several other icons that are appropriate in business settings.

200+ Exclusive Free Icons: “Reflection”

Icons are a great and quick way to enhance your projects. They add a certain personality to your designs and make things pop when they need to.