Best Of The Web July For Web/Graphic Design
- July 30th, 2009
- News
The best of the web features a range of different types of articles including some great illustrator and Photoshop tutorials. Creative Nerds also managed capture the best aspects from web design, SEO, JavaScript and also a great compilation of freebies released in July.
Photoshop Tutorials
How to Create a Surreal Scene of Flying Bombs on Fire
In this tutorial, you will make a scene with flaming bombs pouring from the sky. This tut is made to show some down and dirty Photoshop tricks that beginners can quickly pick up. It also includes some relatively advanced techniques to help budding designers enhance their workflow
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.
Design a Golden Flame Text Effect in Photoshop
In this tutorial, It will show you the process involved in creating this golden flame text effect with soft smoke texture in Photoshop.
How to Create a Flying Land Illustration On Fire
This tutorial is about creating a fantasy illustration using some dragon images and a few cliffs for creating the land. We also add lava and fiery effects. So, let’s get fired-up for this one!
Glue Stick
A tutorial by hv-designs, in this tutorial you will be making a glue stick from scratch. It will be demonstrating just how easy it is to create simple objects. You can also download the PSD file for freee.!
Super Easy and Cool Flower Text Effect in Photoshop
In this tutorial It will show you how to create a very simple but at the same time really cool effect in Photoshop. We will use some stock photos and just play around with them, also we will pay with some Layer Styles and brushes.
Illustrator Tutorials
Create a Character Mascot with Adobe Illustrator CS4
Mascots are becoming increasingly popular in web design. In this intermediate Illustrator tutorial we will show you how to create a vector character mascot from a sketch in Adobe Illustrator CS4. The techniques in this tutorial can easily be applied to other illustrations, icons, and design elements; as well as legacy versions of Illustrator. 
Create a Stylized GPS Icon
Location based software and peripherals are very popular these days. So, In this beginner/intermediate Illustrator tutorial, It will show you how to create a stylized GPS icon using simple shapes and gradients. Using these basic techniques, you can easily create other icons, logos, and illustrations.
Illustrator Tutorial: Realistic Orange
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to make a photo realistic orange using Adobe Illustrator CS3.
How to Draw a Cartoon Duck , Character illustration
This tutorial will take you through basic shapes , using basic tools ie pathfinder , knife and eyedropper tools to create a cute duck character.
Create an easy landscape scene in Illustrator
In this tutorial it will take a look at how to create a really easy landscape scene in Adobe Illustrator. This can be used in a number of different ways, from a desktop wallpaper to a website header. The best part is that since it is in illustrator after we are done you can size is however size you would like. Lets get started.
Make an Awesome Military Themed Vector Package
Discover how to create a shiny military themed ration package. This Adobe Illustrator tutorial is ideal for advanced users. We’ll use an interesting combination of techniques to create this themed package design. Let’s get started!
Designing Websites (Photoshop Tutorials)
How to Make a Green & Sleek Web Layout in Photoshop
In this web design tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a beautiful, green, and sleek layout in Photoshop. You’ll learn popular design techniques such as creating a 3D ribbon and professional-looking color gradient effects.
How to Design a Space Futuristic Gallery Layout in Photoshop
In this web design tutorial, you’ll find a way to create a 3D space/futuristic gallery layout with Photoshop. We cover several methods such as drawing with the Rectangular Marquee Tool and using the Perspective Transform Tool.
Create a webdesign company
In this article, It will shown you how to create a modern looking Photoshop design for your web design company.
In this tutorial you will be creating a wordpress mockup layout with some 3D elements to it.
Web design
The Web Designer Declaration of Independence
The truths to be self-evident, that creativity exists in all designers, and they are endowed by Common Sense and the W3C certain rights, that among those are Web Standards, Sanity, and Creative License.
7 Steps Before You Begin Any Web Site
Before you begin any Web site, you must first have a good understanding of the project as a whole, as well as all the different steps or phases that you will move through during the Web-development process. 
Using Wireframes to Streamline Your Development Process
Creating a wireframe is one of the first steps you should take before designing a website.
50 New CSS Techniques For Your Next Web Design
CSS is almost certainly one of the best developments in web design since the first graphical web browsers were adopted on a wide scale.
Horizontal Subnav with CSS
This tutorial goes over how to create a simple navigation with a horizontal subnav.
10 Ways to Beat the Hell Out of Creative Block
We have all experienced it, those times we feel completely void of all creativity. Those times when you don’t think you could even muster up the creativity to draw a stick man. While these times may feel a bit overwhelming and impossible to escape, there are a few things you can do to help git rid of that creative block. So grab your phone because as soon as you do a few of these suggestions your muse is going to be calling.
SEO
10 Steps to Advanced Keyword Research
Some keyword research is surface-level, fire and forget type stuff. If you just need to see relative volume levels, then a basic keyword research tool is all you need. If, however, you want to really dive deep and get the full skinny on your keywords, I’d recommend having each of these data points.
Whiteboard Friday – Crawling & Indexing
Crawling and Indexing. Without them you can’t rank. If you can’t rank, you can’t get search traffic. If you can’t get search traffic, your online marketing efforts are going to suffer; and in our industry that is a colossal FAIL.
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Crawling & Indexing from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.
JavaScript
Glow is a JavaScript library which gives you…
- Simplified DOM manipulation, event handling, animations, etc
- A versatile set of user interface widgets
- Clear and comprehensive documentation
- BBC Browser Support Standards compliance
60+ Must Have jQuery Toolbox
An amazing list of 60 must have jquery toolbox.
Freebies
Vector Freebies: Tropical Jungle Pack
Jessica from Vector Jungle has created this exclusive free jungle vectors for Vector Diary. It is a great design element to include for your adventure or tropical island themes. Still not enough? Visit Vector Jungle for more great jungle vector art.
Exclusive Freebie : Drips and splatters Vector Symbols Library
Ok here is another freebie , exclusive to readers of aivault.com This is a symblo library of 24 drips and sprays!. When i started using illustrator i released a small set of drips at deviantart which was downloaded around 6,808 times!! and believe me that is nothing compared to this one!.
An awesome free skin texture worth checking out.
Freebies (Icons)
Decorative Seasonal RSS Icon Pack
Each icon is in .png format sized at 256×256px with transparent backgrounds. Pretty much everyone’s using RSS now. Wouldn’t it be cool to use a different seasonal themed icon for each season? With these Seasonal RSS Icons, representing Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter it’s possible!
50 Free and Exclusive Twitter Icons
The icons are provided in both raster and vector formats: The transparent PNG versions are 256×256, and we have also included Illustrator files so that you can resize the icons as needed.
Tabbed Social Media Icon Set 50+ Icons
A Beautiful icon pack exclusively to Creative Nerds readers designed by chethstudios. A huge collection of icons including over 50 simple but elegant icons which are perfect for minimalistic websites.
CS Social Icons – Elegancy speaks!
This Icon set is designed by chethstudios especially for the Webmasterpeers forum. Farrhad a really good friend of mine who is the brainchild behind this website asked me If I could design this set.
