Best of the web and design in July 2014

• July 31st, 2014
• News

Rounding up the highlights of July the best design tutorials and web articles posted throughout July.The roundup features a mixture of Photoshop and illustrator design tutorials. A Photoshop tutorial, which stands out for me is a great tutorial included in the post about how to create Photoshop animations.

I hope you enjoy this blog post. Please feel free to share any articles or blog posts of your own, which you have created this month or have came across throughout July.

Photoshop

Paint an 80s airbrush portrait

You’ll learn how to improve your brush skills, working with a variety of different brush heads for varying effects and you’ll learn how to get the most out of colouring, masking and layer blending modes.

Create a Wonderfully Colorful “Everlasting Dream” Fantasy Manipulation

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a fantasy, heavenly scene with a beautiful dreamer. You’ll learn how to play with color, blend using adjustment layers and brush, add texture, work with lighting effect and more.

Paint a beautiful animal portrait with these elegant brush techniques

Here she takes you through the process of how she creates her work, first roughly comping the arrangement of elements using reference photos and then applying layers of brushwork above them to produce the final piece.

Create a Run Cycle Animation From Scratch in Adobe Photoshop

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create an animation of a running cheetah, using a simple frame editor in Adobe Photoshop.

Illustrator

How To Create an Origami Style Logomark in Illustrator

We’ll use Adobe Illustrator to tackle this design for its advanced shape editing abilities and make particular use of Smart Guides to perfectly align our vector paths. Once the outline of our origami inspired design is complete we’ll then bring it to life with vibrant colours, resulting in a modern graphic that would look great as part of a logo design.

How To Create an Origami Style Logomark in Illustrator

You will learn how to create a freshly cooked lobster on a plate using adobe illustrator. We’ll start with the base, using the basic tools (Pen, Direct Selection, Rectangle Tool) and vector shape building techniques (Offset Path, Scale, Reflect), along with some complex gradients to create the starting shapes. Then using the Appearance, Transparency Palettes and some effects (Grain, Diffuse Glow, Gaussian Blur, Roughen), we’ll add the details, shadings and highlights.

Celebrate With Your Own Martini Glass Vector

In this shining Martini Glass Vector tutorial you will learn how to work effectively with simple geometric shapes, and then learn how to create amazing lighting effects, using different blending modes and gradient fills. Symbols and Symbol Sprayer Tool will help you to create splashes quickly for your festive martini glass vector. With just a little bit of effort you can create an awesome martini glass vector illustration on your own.

Illustrator Tutorial: Reel with Needle

In this tutorial, it will explain how to illustrate a reel with thread and needle step by step. You can do this illustration using any color of thread. Also, you can put some needles on the ground too. In this tutorial you will learn several cool techniques to create this simple illustration.

Web and design articles

Should You Use Bootstrap or Foundation?

Bootstrap (currently at v3.2) and Foundation (currently v5.3) are the two most popular front-end frameworks right now, so it’s certainly a sensible question to ask. Choosing between Bootstrap or Foundation is like choosing between red or white wine; one isn’t necessarily better than the other, they just pair well with different things, and people tend to develop personal preferences.

Prioritizing Devices: Testing And Responsive Web Design

Have you seen how many browsers and devices we have to test now? I remember when Internet Explorer (IE) 8 came out and we were annoyed that we had to start testing six browsers. Now, we’re testing at least 15! Back then, when every home had broadband and before anyone had a smartphone, we were living in the Golden Age of web development. We never knew how easy our jobs were.

10 WordPress Ah-Ha Moments

I have been teaching WordPress to beginners for a few years now. And no matter how many time WordPress is labeled as easy to learn, I see people constantly struggle with even the small things.

Are You Making These 14 Common HTML5 Mistakes

HTML5, the latest standard for HTML and a candidate recommendation of the W3C, was definitely a blessing for web developers. It has not only allowed them to make their markup more search engine friendly, but also helped them get cut off on HTTP requests and create a better user experience.

How Do I Successfully Run SEO Tests On My Website?

By now, most of us have gotten around to doing testing of some sort on our websites, but testing specifically for SEO can be extremely difficult and requires extra vigilance. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains three major things we need to think about when performing these tests, and offers up several ideas for experiments we all can run!

8 Tips to Help You Get the Best out of Sass

When used effectively, Sass helps to build scalable and DRY CSS. When used incorrectly however, Sass can actually increase file size and add unnecessary or duplicate code.