Best Of The Web And Design In December 2014

• December 29th, 2014
• News

The last monthly round up of year with our tradition continued featuring the very best design tutorials, for Photoshop and Illustrator users. Alongside some amazing quality web design articles certainly worth reading through.

Illustrator

Transform Your Website’s Menu Bars Into a Winter Wonderland in Adobe Illustrator

Follow this tutorial and learn how to transform a website into a winter wonderland. You can create the menu bars and buttons from scratch, or you can take these techniques and decorate your own items. At the beginning you will create a basic menu bar, and then you will learn how to add the snow and the icicles, snowflakes, sparkles and more winter-themed decorations. At the end, we’ll experiment with more colors and designs, so let’s get started!

Create a Seamless Pattern of Flat Desk Icons in Adobe Illustrator

Look around you. There, all that stuff on your desk. Let’s create a pattern of it! In this tutorial you’ll create various desk and office icons and compile them into a quick and easy seamless pattern using the Pattern Options panel. Using combinations of basic shapes (circles, rectangles, and triangles), you’ll create objects often found within a digital artist’s work space, ready for use as a pattern, illustration, or infographics.

Create a Detailed Cheese Text Effect in Adobe Illustrator

In the following steps you will learn how to create a detailed cheese text effect and a cheese wedge illustration. For starters you will need a simple piece of text, the 3D Extrude & Bevel effect, and a simple Rounded Corners effect. You’ll learn how to easily name and organize your shapes, how to create compound paths, how to cleverly use blending, masking and vector shape building techniques, and how to take full advantage of the Appearance panel. Lastly, you will learn how create a simple blend and how to use the Live Corners feature.

Create Your Own Folded Prize Tag Vectors!

In this tag vectors tutorial you’ll skew objects with the Shear Tool, create custom brushes, use radial gradients in the place of drop shadows, and alter an object’s Blending Mode to render objects and strokes within the image.

Photoshop

Glossy Candy Cane Text Effect

This tutorial will show you a super easy way to create a glossy candy cane inspired text effect using a bunch of Layer Styles.

Glam Gold Text Effect

Classic, simple and elegant text effects don’t go out of style. This tutorial will show you a very easy way to create a fully editable, glam gold text effect using layer styles, and create a nice shadow using a couple of blur filters.

HOW TO CREATE A SNOWY ATMOSPHERE & AURA EFFECT WITH PHOTOSHOP

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a snowy atmosphere with an aura effect. In addition, you’ll also learn how to color-correct using adjustment layers, and add movement using the Radial Blur filter.

HOW TO CREATE AN ILLUSTRATIVE WINTER SEASONAL GREETING CARD

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a snowy atmosphere with an aura effect. In addition, you’ll also learn how to color-correct using adjustment layers, and add movement using the Radial Blur filter

Web Design Articles

10 CSS Preprocessors Worth Considering

If you have had anything to do with CSS, you must already be fully aware of the importance of a preprocessor. In simple words, a preprocessor brings peace of mind and ease of use to the coder’s table. It lets you write code that is both future-ready and easily maintainable, thereby saving both your time and energy.

THE WORLD’S SMARTEST EMAIL MARKETERS

This tutorial will show you a super easy way to create a glossy candy cane inspired text effect using a bunch of Layer Styles.

Automating CSS Regression Testing

This is made more difficult with responsive designs. Garris built a tool for doing this as he embarked upon a new responsive design for a large scale site. Here, he’ll walk you through the whole thing.

The 8 biggest responsive web design problems (and how to avoid them

I created a survey asking fellow designers about the problems they faced when creating fully responsive sites. This article will list the most common problems they reported and offer possible solutions, along with suggestions to consider on your next projects.