Best of the web for Design and Web Development April 2016

• May 2nd, 2016
• News

Wrapping up the end of April in our usually fashion, by looking back at some of the best web and design articles published from all across the web from Illustrator tutorials to tips on how to improve your Photoshop file size. There’s some really good articles as always in the monthly round-up certainly worth reading through.

Photoshop

Simple Break-Apart Rock Text Effect Creation In Photoshop

In this tutorial, you will be creating a simple break-apart rock text effect in Photoshop. We will use a number of basic selection techniques and texture manipulation techniques to achieve this effect.

How to Create a Fiery, Molten Text Effect in Adobe Photoshop

This tutorial it will show you a very quick and easy way of creating a bright, vivid, fiery text effect using a couple of layer styles and a texture.

How To Create a Double Color Exposure Effect

My most popular Photoshop video tutorial on the Spoon Graphics YouTube channel is my guide to creating the trendy Double Exposure effect, where two photographs are blended into one image to create a surreal picture. I’ve since noticed that a new style of double exposure photography is becoming pretty popular, where two different coloured images are overlaid to create Double Color Exposure effect. Follow along with this tutorial as I show you how to create this effect using two model poses with the Channels in Photoshop.

How To Create a Grungy Star Wars Propaganda Poster in Photoshop

I’ve been wanting to have some fun with the low-fi poster style that’s usually associated with punk rock gigs and revolution propaganda, but I couldn’t decide what to base my fictional design on. Then I saw the trailer for the new Rogue One movie and I knew I had to produce a Star Wars themed design for this tutorial! Follow along to see how to create a grungy propaganda poster for the Rebel Alliance in Adobe Photoshop with dirty textures, spray paint effects and a low-cost, hand made feel.

Illustrator

How to Create Delicious Cupcake Icons in Adobe Illustrator

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a cupcake icon in Adobe Illustrator, and starting from the first one, you’ll create other delicious variations just by making a few changes.

Illustrator Tutorial: Create a Flat Style Work Space

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a cupcake icon in Adobe Illustrator, and starting from the first one, you’ll create other delicious variations just by making a few changes.

Create a Rusty Metal Background

This short tutorial will show you how to create a rustic metal finish that can be used for a variety of purposes.We’ll examine how to create a unique look that can be used in backgrounds and detailed vector illustrations using only Adobe Illustrator. This is a great way to give the appearance of a metallic texture to a surface.

How to Create Vintage Badge Vectors

Vintage badge vectors are wonderfully useful within various branding projects and typography design sets. In this tutorial, we’ll make a vintage badge vector quite suitable for the DIY maker, crafter, and any designer who wants their consumer base to know the products are handmade with the utmost care and love!

Web and Design articles

Photoshop best practices reduce file size

Have you ever tried sending a PSD file as an attachment but alas, failed? Most likely it’s because you have exceeded the preset file size limit. Huge file sizes take up equally large storage spaces and creates delivery issues. If you’re looking at posting the image file on a website, you will need to compress it to the right dimensions without affecting the quality of the finished work.

Creating a great portfolio

A design portfolio is more than just a collection of images—it tells your story. Tell a compelling story, and you can get almost any potential employer or client to pay attention to you.

How to Speed Up WordPress with a CDN

There are easy and cost effective ways to speed up WordPress without much work. One of them is to implement a CDN (Content Delivery Network). Check out the steps below to get a CDN up and running in only 2 steps!

What is the Definition of a “CSS Hack”?

In this post, it explains what exactly the term CSS hack means and how a CSS hack is used.

What’s New in WordPress 4.5

WordPress 4.5 named “Coleman” was released just a few minutes ago. It is the first major WordPress release of 2016, and comes with some exciting new features. In this article, we will show you what’s new in WordPress 4.5, and which features you should try after updating your websites.