Best Of Web And Design April 2014

• May 1st, 2014
• News

Photoshop Tutorials

How To Create a Realistic Money Effect in Photoshop

The classic illustration style used on money is something I’ve always wanted to figure out how to replicate in Photoshop. There’s plenty of Photoshop tutorials that show how to create a basic halftone line effect, but they never quite capture that authentic engraved look with plenty of shading and tone. After lots of trial and error I finally managed to figure it out, so here’s an in depth tutorial on how to create a realistic money illustration effect in Photoshop (with some help from Illustrator!).

Create a 3D, Fruit-Textured, Text Effect

3D text is very popular in the advertising industry. 3D text effects are often used in print or television campaigns, and are popular because they literally stand out on the page or screen. Creating a realistic 3D text effect can be quite challenging to create, and often make use of several applications. In this tutorial, we will use a combination of Modo, Photoshop, and Illustrator to create a fruit textured text effect that resembles an orange.

Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop tutorial: Create a low-poly portrait

The secret to creating works in this style is working from the best reference photos – and first off Breno reveals how to capture these (using himself as a model). He then reveals how to work these up in Photoshop, then create a vector version in Illustrator.

Create a Fantasy Underwater Scene with Photoshop

Today’s tutorial will show you how to photo manipulate a fantasy woman, floating in an underwater setting. There’s tons of great techniques in this tutorial, including lighting, colouring, blending, detailing and much more. By the time you’ve completed this lesson you’ll be able to create a realistic underwater effect.

Illustrator Tutorials

Create the Captain America Shield Icon in Adobe Illustrator

For starters you will learn how to set-up a simple grid, how to create the main, four circles and how to easily place them in the center of your artboard. Using basic blending and vector shape building techniques you will learn how to add subtle shading and a simple star shape. Next, you will learn how to create a pretty simple gradient mesh. Taking full advantage of the Appearance panel and using some simple Blur effects you will add the extra highlights and textures. Finally, you will learn how to create a simple background, some Drop Shadow effects and a fading long shadow.

How to Create a Tasty Cupcake in Adobe Illustrator

Learn how to create a tasty cupcake icon in Adobe Illustrator. We will start with basic shapes and then add color, texture, and shading to create an icon that looks good enough to eat.

2 Ways To Create a Long Shadow Effect In 5 Steps or Less

In today’s tutorial, you will take a closer look at the techniques used to create a long shadow design with the help of some live effects and Appearance panel in Adobe Illustrator. Taking long shadow effects as a basis, we’ll create two graphic styles which can be applied to single paths and to groups of objects.

Create a Drum Kit Illustration in Adobe Illustrator

For starters you will learn how to setup a simple grid and how to create a set of pixel perfect shapes that will be used a simple guide. Next, you will learn how to create the first drum using basic blending and vector shape building techniques along with some basic Transform effects. Moving on you will learn how to create the drum stands and the cymbals and how to speed your work using graphic styles. Taking full advantage of the Appearance panel and using one of your saved graphic styles you will create the bass drum. Finally, you will learn how to add a simple background and some subtle shading.

Web and design articles

Involving Clients In Your Mobile Workflow

A lot of mobile-minded talented folks across the globe produce great work, but yet sometimes you still hear many of them complain about their relationships with their clients. They often mention feeling isolated and not truly understanding what the client really needed.

5 Predictions of Modern Web Design

The web and graphic design industry is expanding in leaps and bounds. However, each year brings its own unique surprises. We foresee many trends emerging in the web design realm with more focus being given on creating less complicated and more sophisticated designs.

How to Evaluate Front-End Code for Inefficiencies

There’s more to writing good front-end code than knowing every HTML tag, CSS selector, or the latest front-end features and techniques. And as I mentioned in a recent blog post, writing good code takes a lot of patience and practice. But how do you know if you’re writing good code, especially if you’re just learning how to code?

Starting Over, Part 1: A Pre-Launch Checklist

This is a story of beginning again. This will not be a polished, Photoshopped portrait of best practices – it’s going to an honest account of choices and mistakes. Welcome to part 1: pre-launch.

Create a SASS grid system

In this post I’ll be showing you how to create a responsive grid system where you simply define a few variables and let SASS worry about the rest. This tutorial assumes you have some knowledge of both CSS grids and SASS, so if you’re unsure about either I would definitely recommend reading up before continuing.

10 Mistakes That JavaScript Beginners Often Make

JavaScript is an easy language to get started with, but to achieve mastery takes a lot of effort. Beginners often make a few well-known mistakes that come back and bite them when they least expect.