Best of the Web And Design In September 2015

October 1st, 2015
News

The pace of web can be like a whirl wind at times, and is so easy to get lost amongst all the great tutorials and articles across the web. The monthly roundup is composed of new photoshop and illustrator tutorials. We have included in the roundup some great web articles about branding guidelines, and the rebirth of web design which seems to be a hot topic among the web design community.

I hope you enjoy the monthly roundup. Please feel free to share any cool articles or tutorials you have came across this month on the web in the comments section below.

Illustrator

Create a Colorful Cartoon Hot-Dog Van in Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial we’ll be creating a colorful cartoon hot-dog van, going down the road and bringing yummy snacks! We’ll be using basic shapes and playing around with Blending Modes, adding semi-realistic shadows and highlights to our van to make it more glossy and three-dimensional.

Create a Colorful Cartoon Hot-Dog Van in Adobe Illustrator

How To Create a Fun Vector Illustration

In today’s Adobe Illustrator video tutorial I’ll take you through the process of creating vector artwork with just a handful of basic tools, simple shapes and flat colours to build up a fun composition. Abstract vector illustrations like this can be applied to anything, it could be printed on the back of a business card, applied as a skateboard deck or even made into a vehicle wrap! That’s the power of vector graphics, their infinite scalability and crisp lines makes them really versatile and ideal for printing.

ABDZ 07 – Strokes and Paths

The tutorial inspired by Instagram from the Street League, it’s the league of street skateboarders. I loved the logo and decided to try to create something with the same style in Illustrator to learn how to do that. After that I just went to Photoshop to add some flare.

Photoshop

Playing with Fire in Photoshop

The new version of Photoshop we can now apply multiple layer styles, like multiple gradients, shadows, and inner shadows. That is something I always wanted to have and it’s finally here. It saves so much time and also adds so much more power to one of my favorite features in Photoshop.

Create a Shiny, White and Gold, 3D Text Effect in Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop’s 3D environment has multiple tools and settings to create great 3D effects. This tutorial will show you how to use those tools and play around with the settings to create a shiny, elegant, white and gold, 3D text effect.

How to Create a Surreal Underwater Scene With Adobe Photoshop

In this tutorial It will show you how to create a surreal underwater scene featuring a cat sitting in a shoe. You’ll learn how to create an underwater scene using several stock images, as well as how to put an adorable kitty in a shoe and make her first adventure! During this tutorial you’ll also learn how to work with group, create lighting, apply bubble brushes in an underwater environment, enhance the depth of field, and more.

Web and design articles

How to survive a career as web designer

f you’re like me, then your butt is in a chair for eight to twelve hours a day, easily. Sometimes longer. We all know that’s not what the human body is designed to do. It’s been mentioned to us… a lot.

Branding Guidelines – Great Examples and Why You Need Them

l the large companies and organisations have clear branding guidelines. You may think this is not a necessary step for your own brand, but as we will discuss in this article, there are reasons why you should have them – if you are building a brand that is likely to be featured on other sites, it is important to get your branding guidelines in place and make them as clear and precise as possible. One of the most important aspects of branding guidelines is the things you don’t want people to do to or with your logo or brand name. Here we are bringing to your attention the branding guidelines of some of the bigger internet brands who make it perfectly clear how theydon’t want their logo and/or name to be used on other sites.

The Death and Rebirth of Traditional Web Design

Stating that web design is “dead” feels like quite the misnomer. After all, more people are using the web now than ever before. Web standards have improved dramatically and continue to advance year-over-year. So is the web really dying?

Mobile Navigation For Smashing Magazine: A Case Study

Since we started plodding around on this rock in space, human beings have always been dissatisfied with their environment — which is (mostly) a good thing. Otherwise we might still live in caves, fearful of the weather and worshipping the sun. It’s dissatisfaction and curiosity which drive us to fix things that ain’t broken.

Managing Your Content Management System

The first rule of content management systems is that you’re using the wrong one. Using WordPress? You’re a fifth-grader running a coloring-contest blog. Drupal? You should be using WordPress. An enterprise solution? You’re an open-source Judas.

How To Do Knockout Text

There are a couple of ways to do knockout text(text that appears cut out, such that you can see a background behind it) on the web. There is one fairly new way that has pretty decent browser support that is pretty interesting. But let’s cover all the ground.