Each book will be provided to the winner in both paperback and digital eBook versions. Topics range from how to design web forms to prototyping to performing remote user research.

You can view their entire book collection on their Products page.

How to Enter this Twitter Giveaway

Step 1: Find your favorite Rosenfeld Media Book

Browse the entire collection of Rosenfeld Media and choose a book you’re mosted excited about. Find a book that you would read first if you won their entire collection.

Step 2: Send a tweet

Tweet the following message, replacing [book] with the book you chose in Step 1 (the first word of the book is enough if it exceeds 140 characters):

Hey @sixrevisions if I win the entire @rosenfeldmedia book collection, I’ll read [book] first http://bit.ly/Rbooks

Step 3: Follow @sixrevisions

We will send you the information on how to claim your prize via Twitter’s Direct Messaging (DM) system. In order for us to send you a direct message, you must be following us on Twitter.

Giveaway Details

This giveaway lasts until March 17, 2010. We will select the winner at random and announce it here and on Twitter. You should follow us on Twitter so that we can notify you if you have won via Twitter’s Direct Messaging system.

About Rosenfeld Media

Rosenfeld Media is a publisher of short, practical books on user experience design. They have published books such as Web Form Design and Mental Models.

View their entire collection to find great books on user experience design and sign up to be notified of their new publications.

You can follow Rosenfeld Media on Twitter as @RosenfeldMedia.

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About the Author

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Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and PHP development, and a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

The internet has opened up a range of exciting possibilities for gaining value through mutually beneficial arrangements or simply interacting with others in promoting your work effectively and ultimately landing more clients.

Here are eight ways you can do this:

1. Joint Blogs/Sites

Getting a blog or simple website out there that you can use to showcase your work, build credibility in your field, promote yourself, and simply express your interests, is an important element in one’s online self-promotional strategy.

A successful blog requires regular and outstanding content to be in for a chance of attracting many visitors. Particularly for those lacking in time, it is worth considering setting up a site with one or more suitable other people. With others working on the same platform, it is now possible to build up posts quicker, combine skills and resources, and promote everyone’s work through a single site.

Some freelancers might even want to consider using a joint site as a platform to promote the combined skills of several people as a business, as opposed to promoting individual freelancers.

2. Contacts on Social Media Sites

Social media allows people to build up substantial networks of people who we’d want to know about our work. With sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, it has become possible to link up with potential clients, fans, as well as key influencers and even celebrities in your industry. It’s best to add new people to these networks with appropriate personal messages.

What is extremely powerful with being connected to people who are well connected themselves, is that you are effectively ‘piggybacking’ on their networks whenever they are linked to something of yours. For example, on Facebook, if someone with connections joins your page, all their contacts will be aware of this in their newsfeeds. Linked up with key people, you can keep them in the loop with whatever you are working on, which will benefit your online visibility.

3. Content Exchanging

Getting material on someone else’s website can be a great way of having fresh new people seeing your name on the internet. You can agree to put an article or a guest post on another site in return for content for your own, or even agree to swap decent comments with someone else with a site or blog relating to yours.

One underused method of enhancing your validity online as a freelancer is to request a review/testimonial swap with someone. These can be placed visibly on your site, is mutually beneficial, and adds real value to the services etc you offer.

4. Joint Interviews

Find someone in your industry to interview in return for them interviewing yourself. Interview each other, either in written, audio or video format and upload to each other’s blogs or elsewhere. Include each other’s links at the bottom of and incorporated into interviews.

Appearing as an interviewee on another, ideally popular website, is an excellent self promotional method because, apart from appearing a separate site, an interview is a great endorsement of you and will add value to you as a professional.

5. List Promotion

If you send out a newsletter to a mailing list that you’ve built up, you can use this to promote other people and get your name on other lists. Having a feature, link, article about you on someone else’s newsletter is possible through polite asking. However, it’s even more possible through agreeing with relevant people who have mailing lists to swap content like articles or even simply a link in a newsletter so that you and your work get seen by a new and targeted audience.

6. Joint Products

By ‘products’ I mean both physical products such as giclee prints, and non-physical, like information products or audio downloads. Creating products like ebooks are one way of gaining exposure, especially if it is something that will spread through people are sharing it with others.

Obviously, sharing the knowledge, skills and work load with one or more partners is an excellent way of getting a high quality product together faster and to each collaborator’s already established contacts. You might also consider making products to give away for free for the promotional value within them.

7. Exchanging Links

A straightforward but useful promotional tactic is in agreeing to place a link on your site to someone’s work who has done the same for you on their site. People do click on links featured on or recommended by sites and by having many of your web links on key sites around the web, this will benefit your exposure.

8. Working with Others on Collaborated Projects

These can be paid projects, but it is also an option to create an interesting, self initiated project with others that you can add to your portfolio. Pooling skill and talent in this way will lead to high quality projects that will greatly boost the value of your personal portfolio and support your self-marketing efforts.

Really aim for a piece of work that is remarkable as you make use of the benefit of combining talents with others. The ideal partner to collaborate with is obviously someone who is well known in the first place, so that you can ‘piggy-back’ on their success and promote via the contacts they have as well.

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Buy Alex Mathers’ Book!

If you enjoyed this article, read more of Alex Mathers work by purchasing ‘10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives’, which is an in depth guide to marketing oneself online, making more sales and getting more clients, is available now.

• Buy the book

About the Author

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Alex Mathers is an illustrator, designer and writer for his site, Red Lemon Club, which focuses on online self promotion methods for creative professionals. He also runs a blog, Ape on the Moon, which showcases the best in contemporary illustration styles and techniques. Connect with him via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

 

 

By Obaid ul Rehman

Traditional art has always been the source of inspiration for many artists and designers. With its conventional look and feel, it appeals your visitors and let them amaze on your creativity and artistic skills. In this post, we have piled up an inspiring list of some great Traditional art and paintings for you.

I would suggest you all to take a close look at these master pieces; as when you browse them in detail, you will notice that they are the marvel conceptions of the artist who use his skill and creativity at his best to get this amazing result! Let’s take a look and see yourself.

Beautiful Traditional Art Paintings

Eagle Tribe

Mindscape

Harry Potter–Marauders

Traditional Piece 1

Below the Rust

Bengal

Traditional Art

Music is My Love :sketch:

Arum

Fly With Us

Detail Frozen

I Fill Desert with Uselessness

Path of Enlightenment

Save. Our. Souls

Forbidden Love

Weather The storm

“Turn Me”- Twilight prom

Spirit Rising

The Guitarist

Allegory of Hope

Freed or Condemned

The Construct

Solace

Sea of Monsters

The Earls

3rd painting

The cherry tree

DOLPHIN family

Simon Portrait

Shot Glass

Apaisement

Luminous

Boy Thinker

Holding Up

Only You

List Your Website Here!

Sprdword – This website indexes documentary videos that offer alternative perspectives and worldviews. You will find a collection of best controversial documentaries that you wouldn’t normally find in traditional media. Read more: Sprdword: Aggregates Best Controversial Documentaries Online.

		Fill That Form – Many web services still ask you to fill out boring forms before you can do anything else. If you are one of those people who hate filling out the same information again and again, check out FillThatForm. It is a cool app that provides you with an automated way to fill in forms online with a single click. Read more: FillThatForm: Automatically Fill In Forms Online.
		ABCya – Learning from a book is so old-fashioned. Kids today are so much into technology that it has to be the medium for their education. ABCya is one such site that allows children to learn through thousands of interactive browser based games for kids. Read more: ABCya: Thousands Of Educational & Browser Based Games For Kids.
		Meetifyr – Finding out when everybody is available for a meeting can be a real hassle, specially if the group is large. Meetifyr is a free availability calendar that helps you with this by providing a dead simple way to check everybody’s availability. Simply go to Meetifyr and launch a new calendar. Read more: Meetifyr: Dead Simple & Free Availablity Calendar.
		ColorIQ – How good your eyes are doesn’t entirely revolve around clarity: some people are better at judging colors than others. If you’d like to know how you see colors compared to others in your age the ColorIQ offers you a way to find out. Simply arrange four rows of similar colors in hue order. Read more: ColorIQ: Test How You See Colors.

List Your Website Here!

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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Once in a while a new design resource arrives that looks so good you simply have to shout about it from the rooftops and make sure everybody knows about it. And today such a resource has launched, it is called Media Loot

– a lowly priced subscription-based online toolbox of premium design resources. It is your one-stop resource for the coolest icons, the highest quality Photoshop brushes, the perfect textures, the best vectors, professional print templates, and much much more.

And the coolest thing of all? We have 5 free one-year licenses up for grabs

(valued at $168 each!).
All you have to do to win a subscription is leave a comment below and tell us what resources you would like to see on MediaLoot

.

About MediaLoot

Media Loot

has been founded with one basic idea — to somehow provide better design resources for a lot less money. The best way to do that, they have found out, was to offer a subscription membership where designers could band together in a larger community. They can then buy tons of awesome designs together, distribute the cost, and everyone gets more for less. Now, how cool an idea is that?

The goal of the site has been to eliminate the need for pay-per-use sites by offering a subscription-based service and offer royalty-free resources designers that you could use on your own or commercial projects.

What cool resources does Media Loot offer?

Have a look a below at some of the cool resources that MediaLoot offer, and remember this is only the tip of the iceberg, and more much will be available soon.

You can browse more resources here: MediaLoot Resources

.

How to win this competition

To win one of the 5 free one-year licenses all you have to do is leave a comment below telling us what you kind of resources you would like to see on MediaLoot.
The competition will end on the 9th of April 2010, so get your comments in as quickly as you can. Good luck!
Even if you don’t win this competition, you can join MediaLoot for only $14 per month (Join Medialoot

), it would be money well spent.

Freelancers and people in creative professions, are often very good at the work they do, but, because they have little insight into how to promote their work, find themselves with little recognition, few sales and very few decent clients.

With ‘10 Steps’ you will be introduced to a simple yet extensive step by step system that will allow regular targeted exposure to become a reality.

You will be shown how getting regular clients and making consistent sales works according to a specific cycle that is addressed throughout the ten steps.

The book reveals how to set yourself apart amongst the competition, become a credible, recognized authority in your field and establish and promote an effective personal online presence.

Please take a moment to visit Alex’s eBook website and check it out for yourself.

Some Reviews

“Alex Mathers has mastered the methods for effective self promotion in the creative world.” – Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance, The 99%

“Mathers’ book is all you’ll ever need to become an expert yourself. I’ve never encountered a more valuable or thorough guide to promotion.” – Jerelle Kraus, Former New York Times Art Director

“Most marketing books say the same thing as everyone else, so it was a happy surprise to find out that the book did not have the usual marketing tips. I literally couldn’t put the book down!” – Amber Weinberg, Established Blogger and Web Developer

“…This will prove an invaluable guide to a novice in the game and shed new light for the rest of us. An essential read.” – Radim Malinic, Art Director and Designer for MTV and Marie Claire

Video Tutorial

Screenshot

The design we’ll be building calls upon some random ideas for the topic of your doodles. How about a stick-man battle or a cow abducting UFO for the focal point of your business card?

Start work by opening up Adobe Illustrator. Version CS4 took a step forward with its ability to easily create print documents, with new In-Design esque features for setting up bleed automatically. The business card size I’m familiar with is 88×55mm, but this may vary depending on your printer of choice. Enter 3mm into the Bleed options to allow Illustrator to set up your document. Also remember to ensure you’re using the CMYK colour mode for print. It’s also worth noting that folks from the USA will more than likely want to switch to the more common metrics of inches, as opposed to Millimeters.

Illustrator has kindly positioned a red guide to let you know where your bleed boundaries are, as well as the black outline showing where the final card boundaries will be. You’ll also want to add your own ’safe margin’, so that none of the important elements of your design appear too close to the edge. Drag four guides onto the artboard and line them up with the document boundaries.

Right click and unlock the guides. Select the left and bottom guides and hit enter. Input 5mm into the Horizontal and Vertical options then press OK. This will move the guides 5mm into the document, leaving a margin to work towards.

Repeat the process for the top and right guides, but this time enter -5mm so they are moved negatively. Right click and lock the guides to avoid accidentally adjusting them

A typical background you might find behind a doodle would be the ruled pattern from a notepad. We’ll recreate that pattern recreate a similar lined background to our business card. Draw a square with a white fill, then select the upper most edge with the Direct Selection tool. Press CMD+C to copy and CMD+F to paste in place, then move the path downwards towards the center of the square. Add a blue stroke at 0.5pt with the colour c35,m20,y0,k0.

Select the two objects and group together, then drag them into the swatches palette to create a new pattern swatch. This swatch will repeat when it’s added as a fill.

Draw a rectangle onto the artboard and align it exactly with the bleed margins. Add the pattern swatch as its fill colour.

No business card would be complete without contact details, so we’ll add these first. Type out your name in your favourite font (mine is DIN). Align the text up with both the ruled background pattern and the left guide that identifies the safe-area.

Finish off entering your contact details and adjust the line-height to match the height of the ruled lines. You might want to use a variation of type sizes, but remember to avoid point sizes less than 6 to maintain legibility on the printed card.

Now let’s get creative and decorate this boring business card! Use the Paintbrush tool and select a small round brush from the Brushes palette. Choose a typical ink-like colour such as c45,m35,y0,k0 for the stroke colour and begin doodling on your card design. Make sure any sketch lines that extend beyond the edges of the card also span across the bleed area.

There are no rules when it comes to doodling. Draw whatever comes to mind, for me it was a stick-man battle scene.

Don’t worry if your lines aren’t overly accurate, it’s only a quick and fun doodle after all. Just remember to extend your lines beyond the bleed edges.

Fill up any empty space with a random doodle, soon you’ll be left with the coolest business card design on the planet.

Press CMD+A to select all your objects, then go to Object > Expand Appearance. This will convert all those strokes into solid shapes.

Draw a temporary rectangle that fits into the bleed area. Leave the rectangle without a fill or stroke. Select all the doodle lines that extend beyond the edges of the bleed area along with the temporary rectangle. Click the Crop option from within the Pathfinder palette.

All the elements should now have been clipped down to size and fit neatly within the business card bleed dimensions.

Select all your text elements then go to Type > Create Outlines. Just like the Expand Appearance menu converted strokes to shapes, Create Outlines converts text to solid shapes, this will prevent any font related issues with your print file.

Go to File > Print to bring up the print options. Select Adobe PDF from the Print drop down, select Custom for the Media Size, then select the Marks and Bleed option and add all printer’s marks.

Illustrator will then export a print ready PDF file that’s ready to send off to your printer of choice.

Before sending off your file, you might want to double check your ink coverage and number of plates your design will use. In Adobe Acrobat Pro, go to Advanced > Print Production > Output Preview. In the following options panel you can toggle each of the CMYK plates to ensure your colours have exported as expected. Your text and linework will look their best with just one or two colour plates being used. The more plates a colour swatch uses, the higher the risk of mis-registration and blurred lines. In the screenshot notice how all the doodles use the Cyan plate, but the text is invisible, this is because the text only uses the Black (K) plate.

A few days later your freshly printed cards will be in your hands and you’ll be the coolest designer on the planet.

• Top Places to Find Quality Illustrator Tutorials Online

• How to Create a Crafts Inspired Vector Kids Illustration

• Create a Rolling Stones Inspired Tongue Illustration

• Create a Cute Furry Vector Monster in Illustrator

• How to Create an Abstract Vector Design in Illustrator

The trouble with Photoshop Tutorials
is that there are a lot of them



out there, but you only want the very best, most creative ones.

In this post, we’ve collected 40 of the very best and most extravagant tutorials for working with type. After working through a few of the most appealing looking ones to you, you should have more than a few ideas for creating your own, unique effects!

Tutorials:

How to Create a Stereoscopic Image for Crossed Eye Image Viewing

This tutorial will teach you how to create a stereoscopic image for cross eye viewing and you will be able to view the final image in 3D and full color without any other objects.

Lost in Space Typography in Photoshop

Learn how to create an easy and super quick text effect in Photoshop. You will play with different Brushes, Blend Modes and basic filters like Blur and Liquify.

3D explosion using Photoshop Tools

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a 3d explosion with the Brush Tool and Smudge Tool using Photoshop and its default settings. This tutorial also features a few steps guiding on how to create and implement your own 3d text.

Design an Awesome Splashing Ocean Text Effect with Lightning Background in Photoshop

A step by step tutorial on creating a really cool-looking, Splashing Ocean Text Effect with Lightning Background in Photoshop.

Maddening Text Effect in Photoshop – Unlimited Variations

Create a breathtaking maddening text effect and composition that can be used for advertising.

Photoshop Tutorial: Metallic Text

Learn how to create a simple metallic effect for a text.

How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop

This tutorial will teach you on how to create an eroded metal text effect. You will also get to learn various drawing techniques, channels, and patterns.

How to Create an Elegant Text Effect

Know how to create an elegant text effect in only 13 steps.

Create realistic type on wood

This tutorial will show you how to make a regular text look like it has been painted or printed on wood using different text effects. This is a great way to give your text that natural look. This can be applied to any solid shape, text, images, logos, etc.

Create Simple Candy Cane Text in Photoshop

In this quick tutorial will how you how to make some simple candy cane text.

Create A Beautiful 3D Text Composition

This tutorial is jam-packed with techniques, tips and tricks to improve your work flow and design skills. You will find a ton of useful information in this tutorial.

Create a Transparent Text Effect with Fresh Grass

Create a cool looking Trasparent Text Effect, mixing with Fresh Grass Texture and Cloud Brush set. You can use the text effect in a wide range of occasions – such as website header background, part of a natural themed design, etc.

Jelly Fish Delight – Photoshop Tutorial

An inspiring tutorial created using different techniques to create a soft background with glowing jellyfish.

The 1 Layer Bubbly Text Effect!

A interesting tutorial on creating a Bubbly Text Effect with just One Layer.

Subtle Reflection Tutorial

Know how to create a “Subtle Reflection” text effect. You can experiment with different settings than you will learn and might be a mandatory if you are working in a different sizes.

AVIAN Studios Logo

Recreate a col AVIAN Studios Logo using Photoshop.

Tutorial: Killer 3D Poster Design with 3DS Max & Photoshop

Learn how to create a killer 3D Poster Design with 3DS Max & Photoshop.

3D Jungle Text Effect

This Photoshop tutorial will explain how to realize a 3D jungle text effect. You will create the text in Xara3d and use Photoshop to texturize the letters.

Extinction Text Effect

In this tutorial you will know how to create a good 3D type explosion with Adobe Illustrator, Cinema 4D and Adobe Photoshop using basic tools to make this artwork.

Striking Text Effect Using Glows and Blends

This tutorial will show you how to create striking text using a combination of glows and blends in 7 steps.

Basic Candy Cane Text Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a candy cane like text effect with the help of some simple Photoshop techniques.

Create a gel text effect photoshop – Gelatinous Text

This tutorial will teach you how to make a Gel text in photoshop, you can make it within a few steps, using photoshop layer style and character menu, this is a very beautiful and easy tutorial.

Create a RENU Typography Effect

Create some really cool-looking effects to decorate a Typography. You will be using a combination of layer styles, color blending, lens flare and images. The end effect is quite stunning and hopefully you’ll pick up some tips you didn’t know before.

Create a New Retro Text Effect in Photoshop

This effect is good for all sorts of projects, flyers, websites, posters. It works particularly well with music based projects. It will take you through the motions for type.

Create Pillowed Text Using Various Effects

Learn how to create that pillowed effect on text.

3D Typography in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will go over various techniques you may haven’t seen before, as well as a bulk of techniques that may be new to you. After you have completed this intense walk though, you will be able to explore even more new ways of creating typefaces as well as other types of ideas.

Create a Unique Burning Text Effect

Learn how to create a superb, unique burning text effect, whereby areas of flaming text actually peel off to expose an under layer.

Create Gloomy Text Effect

Know ow to create a stunning Gloomy Text Effect by Utilizing the Amazing Cloud Filter in Photoshop.

Glorious Starburst Photoshop Tutorial

This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to create a cool background swirl effect for websites, twitter pages, etc. Learn how to make text pop out of the background, add dust particles and more.

Ultra Glossy Liquid Metal Text Effect

In this tutorial you will learn techniques mostly based on Layer style settings and a combination of a lot of Curves. When combined together, they give a rich, deep and glossy look to the text.

Create a Shiny Text & Effect in Photoshop

Learn how to create a shiny text effect in photoshop.

Create a Glass Text effect in Photoshop and Shatter it

This tutorial with respect to the Blending modes and Layer styles. Infact, to achieve the glass text effect, we will experiment with a lot of layer styles which are very much required to get the realistic effect.

Create a spectacular SF looking wallpaper

In this tutorial we are going to create the mosaic background and a cool radioactive looking text, combine this two elements and you will get an amazing desktop wallpaper.

Aurora Borealis Typopgraphy Wallpaper

A great tutorial on creating Aurora Borealis typopgraphy wallpaper

Design a Brilliant Product Advertisement

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the steps and techniques involved in creating a brilliant product advertisement. You’ll start with a stock image of an Adidas shoe, extract it from the background, then combine it with various photo stocks to create a liquifying product advertisement.

Old style typography tutorial

Create a old style typography tutorial.

How to create an impressive-looking text effect

This tutorial will show you on how to create a strong and eye-catching text effect using gradient overlay, pattern overlay styles and combination of different techniques.

Photoshop Grungy metal effect

This tutorial you will be learning how to create a text effect using textures from stock images. The final image is a grungy picture with text being illuminated in the dark.

3D Valentine’s Day Typography (Exclusive Tutorial)

In this tutorial you will walk through different steps in creating this illustration. This technique can be used in a variety of ways and also for different themes besides Valentine’s Day.

Create a Psd Geek Wallpaper From Scratch

In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a high quality wallpaper for your desktop from scratch.

Some More Photoshop Resources

• http://www.problogdesign.com/inspiration/31-outstanding-logo-tutorial/” target=”_blank”>31 Outstanding Logo Tutorial
  
• 26 Complete WordPress Blog Design Tutorials
  
• 35 Awesome User Interface Design Tutorials
  
• 25 Ways to Spice Up Blog Post Photos
  

If you know of any other awesome text tutorials, share the link in the comments!

 

 

By Melinda Rainsberger

More and more, designers, illustrators and coders are being asked to animate. Animation adds energy to a brand and heightens a customer’s emotional response. The software to do it is reasonably priced, and Internet connections can now deliver high-quality video. For these two reasons, animation-based advertising is booming on the Web. The makers of a small phone application might even devote a great deal of their budget to a Web animation that explains how the application works. However, animation adds a level of complexity that not everyone is equipped to immediately take on.

Animation is a time-based medium. It has the elements of not only height, width and depth, but also time. In this way, it is more like a website or catalog: it can change from moment to moment. But the difference with animation is that the time element is entirely under the designer’s control, and the viewer is just along for the ride.

Of course, organization is important. But audience profile, screen size and delivery method can greatly influence the visuals and your workflow. In this article, we’ll go over a few guidelines on how to start organizing your animation projects, as well as some tips and tricks to create a leaner and cleaner workflow.

1. Storyboards

Storyboards provide the best means of planning an animated project. They allow you to plan your composition and timing quickly before jumping into the final animation. They let you quickly determine all of the key elements before creating the final renders. This is also the best stage to trim down and make edits. Animation is a time-consuming medium, and you don’t want to give yourself any extra work. Try to define the 10 most important images of you piece, and then add and subtract boards to find the right level of detail to convey the scope of your project.

The first 10 boards are highlighted. The other boards are there to clarify or smooth the transition from one moment to the next.

Sound is another element to consider at this stage. It can give your project a backbone for timing. If you are able to purchase commercially-produced music, do this before you start animating, and then make your images follow the beat of the music. You could also use a song with the right mood and timing as a temp track and then have a musician create the final sound based on your animation.

2. Folders, Naming, Sequencing

Folders

Everything for the project should be kept in one folder. Most animation programs do not paste files into the animation, but simply point to the media. If a file is moved, the program will have a hard time locating the original file and might not display it. Different production houses have different systems, but generally they will sort their files into these folder and sub-folder categories:

• AEP or Flash project files
• Graphics/illustrations
  • Hi-res (screen size or larger)
  • Lo-res (screen size or smaller)
  • Storyboards
• Photos
  • Hi-res (screen size or larger)
  • Lo-res (screen size or smaller)
• Sound
• Text docs

• (Scripts and documents that you may have received from or given to the client.)

This folder structure is very detailed. But not only will you be able to find something easily, but anyone else who comes into the project will also be able to navigate the file structure easily. At ad firms and commercial animation studios, other people may enter the project in process. They have to be able to help you, not fight to learn an unconventional organizational system.

Names

If you can, use some sort of coding system to indicate which project a file belongs to. This way, if it does get separated, you can locate it easily. You might use similar graphics for several projects. For instance, a globe is a common image that I use a lot because I do animations for GPS Web apps. They all look different, so the generic label “globe” would not tell me what the globe in a particular file looks like. Here is an example of a coded naming system:

• ADV_globe_all.ai

or

• Goloco_globe_NE.psd

The code will depend on whether your client’s name is long or short. Short names can be used in their entirety, but abbreviating long names into an easy-to-remember code helps.

Sequencing

If you plan to display one image after another, numbered file names can speed up your workflow. Most animation programs recognize numbers and will line them up one after another if you number them properly. Examples are:

Traditional frame-by-frame animation:

Carousel of images:

Photo slideshow:

Mouths for lip syncing:

Title sequences:

Because of the high volume of frames in animation, use a three- or even four-digit naming system. Spacing, underscores and dashes do affect how programs understand the files. Below are examples of correct and incorrect numbering:

Correct:

• face_001.jpg
• face_002.jpg
• face_003.jpg

Incorrect:

• image1.jpg
• Image_02.jpg
• image__003.jpg

Lower numbers should have zeros placed before them (so that number 1, for example, appears before number 10). Programs like Photoshop and Adobe Bridge can help with the batch renaming process.

3. Vector And Bitmap Graphics

Vectors have an infinite resolution, which is great for animation. Whether you use bitmap or vector, the images should be 72 DPI and RGB.

Computer and television screens both use these specifications. 72 DPI is the only DPI for video, and higher and lower quality videos will differ only in aspect ratio. Adobe programs have been constructed for a cooperative workflow; the names you give layers in Illustrator and Photoshop will carry over to AfterEffects and Flash.

In Illustrator, put elements that you want to animate separately onto separate layers and not paths.

4. Photos

For best results, resize your photos and bitmap images. If you will be zooming into your pictures, make them bigger than your overall frame size. If you will zoom in by 50%, then the dimensions need to be only 150% bigger than your overall frame.

If we want to zoom in on this character, we will need to make him bigger than the overall screen size, otherwise he will look pixelated.

If the images will be smaller than your screen, shrink them. Because all of the images are dynamically loaded, this will reduce the rendering time. Small images load faster than large images, so re-scaling before animation is a best practice.

Our thumbnails here will never be more than 50% of the screen size. Scaling elements to the appropriate size in Photoshop saves time later when rendering.

This may be a little confusing, but it is important; because rendering can take hours, and a bit of resizing can save an hour or two of rendering time and make a lot of media more manageable. Digital cameras all take pictures at 3000 pixels wide or more, but the largest video frame is only 1920 pixels wide.

5. Composition And Color

This is where knowing your delivery method and audience comes in handy. Images intended for a theatrical release won’t necessarily work on a smaller screen, and vice versa.

Screen-Size Comparison

Small objects can be too tiny in a Web video and become unreadable. Most Web videos use a smaller range of sizes so that the audience can properly view the elements. Elements that are too small on the Web can cease to be recognizable. A hairline turns into a line of pixels and a pupil becomes a black hole.

Web Scale

In any medium, color is important, but especially on the Web, where it is essential for creating contrast and guiding the viewer’s eye. Think of your composition as a set of shapes rather than characters and scenes, and you’ll be able to more easily produce effective graphic compositions that can be read at a variety of scales.

Using Color to Emphasize Elements

The area of greatest contrast is between the light-yellow shirt and dark-green bushes. The eye is naturally drawn there. However, consider those with color-blindness. Colors that “pop” for most people might not someone with impaired color perception. Throwing a quick desaturation filter over the project will highlight the weak areas of your color scheme.

Incorrect Use of Color Contrast

Though the orange and blue are complements and do attract the eye, they are the same value on the grayscale. By desaturating the image, we see the grayscale value of the colors. Someone with color-vision issues would not see this area as being the most distinctive.

6. Aspect Ratio And The Web

Most Web videos have a 16:9 aspect ratio (i.e. widescreen). Services like YouTube or Vimeo encourage this format. There are many “standard” sizes, but the most useful two are HDV/HDTV 720 and HDV 1080.

Both formats are widescreen, and both have square pixels. Computer monitors have square pixels, which means viewers will see a true representation of your final image. Programs like AfterEffects can simulate other screen types, but if your project is for the Web, make it work with square pixels.

If you are doing a project for broadcasting, consult your client, the venue or the broadcaster that will be presenting it. They all have different sizes and specifications to adhere to.

7. Where To Type

Animation programs have their own typography tools, or you can create your own in a program such as Illustrator or Photoshop. With Illustrator, you don’t have to worry about your text being too small or large because it will be a vector image. You can infinitely scale the type without losing quality or increasing rendering time.

For ornate titles or long scrolling credits, laying these out in a program designed for text is best. AfterEffects and Flash can do pretty much anything Illustrator can do, but in them you will not be able to see when text runs off the canvas, which makes it difficult to plan scrolling or zooming credits without constantly moving the text or rescaling to get a better view. Illustrator and Photoshop allow have more sophisticated tools for outlining and customizing the style of your type.

In addition, designing in Illustrator or Photoshop lets you focus on the design of the type. You can more fully concentrate on making your typographic design cohesive and interesting.

For small bits of text, though, you can type directly in the animation program.

8. Pre-Rendering

Creating “Proxies” is a great way to reuse elements and cut down on rendering time. They allow you to render a single layer or many layers. If the elements are finalized and you don’t need to change them, you can render them as a single video file with an alpha channel. You can even render animation with an alpha channel.

A field of twinkling stars becomes much simpler with pre-rendering. The field of stars can then be combined and pre-rendered again, thus making one video file of a starry sky that is easy to use again and again.

Most animation programs can handle video, as well as Photoshop and Illustrator files.

Programs such as AfterEffects easily handle alpha channels without any rasterization or dithering. This is especially useful if the elements have a lot of rendering-intensive filters. Effects such as layers are dynamically loaded into each frame. Video is usually 30 frames per second, so a simple blur filter will render hundreds of times in just 10 seconds. If you think about how long it takes to put a filter on a layer in Photoshop, you have some idea of how long it takes for the same filter to be applied to many frames in Photoshop.

1 second to render an effect x 30 frames / second x 10 second = 5 minutes of rendering.

You can also duplicate any animation or layer and use it over and over again. This makes kaleidoscopic animation much easier, and pre-rendering cuts down on rendering time. Programs such as Flash are good at nesting and handling “instances” of the same animation, but the equivalent in AfterEffects is pre-rendering and using a new video layer.

Flash and AfterEffects both have features that allow you to take complex animations and reduce them to a single layer.

Complexity can be built from a few simple elements with spectacular results.

9. Organize For Your Future Self

First, create a group in your project with the “Timelines,” “Scenes” or “Compositions” that are the final renders. This way you, or anyone, will be able to easily locate and render them again. Most video and animation programs have a bin or library and allow for easy internal folder creation.

Second, have a good incremental naming system for renders. Very often, the “final” render is not really final. Using numbers or letters, the computer will automatically order the files for you; and again, anyone will be able to figure out what was the last render. Your_project_final_Final_FINAL_v4.mov won’t clarify anything for anyone. In AfterEffects, movie files are named after their Compositions. I put a “v” at the end of each one so that I can easily insert the right number just before I render. When making Web versions, I change the “v” to a “w” to indicate that this is the Web version. A list of renders would look something like this:

• CI_TCfIH_edit_v1.mov
• CI_TCfIH_edit_w1.mov
• CI_TCfIH_edit_v2.mov
• CI_TCfIH_edit_w2.mov

Computers like numbers, letters and order. Exploiting this proclivity frees you up for more creative endeavors. Because animation can take up thousands of files, organization is critical.

10. Incorporating Live Action

If you need to incorporate a green screen or other live action footage, shoot in an HD format if possible. These tend to have larger aspect ratios than standard television sets, which leaves room for some cinematic tricks later when you’re working in the animation program.

We won’t get into lighting, editing or shooting in this article. But once you’ve mastered this considerable set of skills, you can bring those elements into your animation and make your live action elements interact with the animated ones.

Web videos, like the ones on YouTube, are 640×360: well below standard video HD sizes. This means you will have “extra” video. By filming your live-action with a locked-down (i.e. non-moving) camera, you will get the best of both a steady shot and a perfect pan. Simply insert your footage into a slightly smaller composition and animate its position. Motion also guides the viewer’s eye and highlights certain parts of the screen. But panning the camera can make it hard to line up live-action and animated elements.

These images are shown to the correct scale. We could shrink the large video even more for better framing.

11. Have Fun And Experiment

Animation programs are a combination of two to three smaller graphic design programs plus a video editor. They have a wide range of effects, tools and capabilities. Only by playing around with it will you really learn what the program can do. However, only by trying something you’ve never done before will you find out what you’re truly capable of (i.e. turn it up to 11).

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Photo manipulation is an art that requires lots of patience along with the expertise in Photoshop and other photo editing tools. With your creativity and imagination, you can manipulate any photograph the way you want! Now it’s all about your imagination and using Photoshop’s effects and other tools cleverly.

You simply have to experiment with different effects to see what feeling they give you as having expertise in Photoshop can help you greatly in producing amazing results. Here we’ve compiled a list of 40 great photo manipulation tutorials that would astonish you!

Photo Manipulation Tutorials

How to Create Glass Transparency in a Cute Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to incorporate glass into your work. We’ll learn a good technique for incorporating glass transparency into photo manipulations, while placing a cute, pirate hamster on the high seas. Let’s start!

Design a Surreal Desert Scene in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist is going to show you how to create a surreal time-themed photomanipulation using Photoshop. The name of this photomanipulation is “Time Guardian” and it was originally created by Mariusz Karasiewicz

How to Make a Melting Camera Scene

In this tutorial, we’ll use the Layer Mask Tool and Liquify filter to “melt” the camera. Artist recommends you work with a tablet for this one (it makes your work easier), but if you don’t have one it is also possible to go through this tutorial. Let’s start!

Blend a Planet Transparently into a Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial Artist will show you how to use different blending modes to blend flying hairs easily and to make semi-transparent planet. He will also show you different techniques of adjustment to get the most realistic results in your photo manipulations!

Making of the Imaginary Paint Dancers

Artist came across the amazing set of Paint Tossing freebies from Media Militia the other day and thought that he must create some artwork with them. So he visited my favorite Mjranum’s stock gallery again and done up this tutorial. Hope you will like it.

Robot Woman Photo Manipulation

If you want to take your photo manipulation skills to the next level, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. Learn more at the jump!

Alien Invasion

A step by step and detailed tutorial, you will find it very useful and interesting.

How to Create a Steampunk Style Illustration in Photoshop

Go simultaneously backward and forward in time with this Steampunk tutorial. The main focus, aside from the style of course, is fusing elements from different sources together to create a cohesive whole. There are many tricks to this end and we shall be looking at light sources, shadows, and image grading.

Create a Cyborg With Photoshop

In this tutorial you’ll discover how to incorporate mundane, everyday objects into a photoshop cyborg manipulation. Combining household objects with 3D renders is a technique that can and does have interesting results.

How to Create a Mythical Creature Photo Manipulation

If you want to take your photo manipulation skills to the next level, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. Learn more at the jump!

How to Create a Chilling Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will show you how he created a fantasy photo manipulation called “You Can Not Frost The Time” with using several Photoshop tools such as Color Range, different blending modes, and more. Let’s get started!

How to Create a Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a fantasy landscape using some simple and easy techniques. Everyone with basic Photoshop skills can succeed to recreate this simple image using the most important thing in this kind of photo manipulation – the right stock. So let’s go!

How to Create a Fallen Angel on Fire Photo Manipulation

If you want to take your photo manipulation work to the next level, then we have an exciting tutorial for you. We’ll work with fire and other images to create this fantasy scene. Learn more at the jump!

How to Create a Dark Emotional Photo Manipulation

This is a tutorial with a simple idea: to create an emotional photo manipulation. Following this tutorial, you will learn how to blend different images to make a dark atmospheric background, modify the dress of the model, apply makeup, paint hair, blend different objects in the background, and more – all to create a moody illustration. So, let’s start!

How to Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation with Twisting Water

In this tutorial, we’re going to create a fantasy photo manipulation mixing different images and learning to use and modify the stock images in a creative way. The idea is to get a compact image that looks absolutely real, and at the same time, absolutely impossible!

Photo Manipulate a Falling Angel

Learn how to combine several photos to create a dramatic ‘fallen angel’ scene.

Animal King Photo Manipulation

In this photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to mash up a series of photos in a highly creative poster based on a famous painting from the 1800’s. Let’s get started!

Design an Epic Fantasy Scene with Photoshop

In this tutorial we are going to create a photo manipulation inspired by Valhalla.

Create an Explosive Cover with Precise Photo Manipulation Techniques

In this tutorial, we’re going to make a creative illustration in a style meant for a video game cover or sci-fi book cover. We’ll create this with mostly photo manipulation techniques. With some cool Photoshop options you can turn all the photos you chose, into one stunning looking explosive cover.

Design a Dramatic and Surreal Rainy Scene with Photoshop

Learn all about how to manipulate images and combine them to create surreal scenes, in this case a rainy scene. Also, numerous details are covered in this tutorial such as adding highlights, shading, excellent photo-manipulation techniques, and more. Learn all about it at the jump!

The Making of Mystic

In this tutorial Nik Ainley walks us through the process of making a spectacular image. This tutorial focuses on the big picture steps taken to create this image. You’ll learn some incredible techniques in this tutorial, and get a view into how Nik creates beautiful photo-manipulation based images. Let’s check it out.

Fantastic Disintegration Effect inspired by Watchmen in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create the disintegration effect using brushes and the blur filter. It’s really simple and you will be able to create nice designs using this sort of trendy style of effect.

Making of the Magical Heroes

In this tutorial We will be creating a game poster with magical theme. This tutorial shows how to draw a sword from scratch and also introducing some of the latest high quality brushes on the internet.

Create amazing water-drenched photomontages

Nik Ainley shows you how to make a splash, blending two very different images to create this amazing underwater effect, complete with a dissolving figure of a man.

Torture a Man and Stitch himup

Transform a man into a torture victim with a couple tricks and some basic tools.

Creating a Glowing Sphere in An Inverted Image

Learn how you can create an interesting image by adding in some simple Photoshop effects and by inverting its colors! Inverting an image can sometimes produce unexpected results, and in this tutorial, you’ll learn and practice Filters – Liquify, Blur and Lens Flare tools to create additional effects and elements to make it more stunning.

How to Create a Mystery Photo Manipulation in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create a mystery photo manipulation using Photoshop brushes, different blend modes, and more. Let’s get started!

How To Create A Ripping And Tearing Poster Effect

In this tutorial we are going to turn a flat, artificial poster into something that looks as if it’s been hanging around on the wall for a long time.The initial poster was created using techniques that we have covered in previews tutorials. As you can see, it’s a brash image that looks nothing like a real poster.

Mysterious Hollow Dark landscape

A step by step and detailed tutorial, you will find it very useful and interesting.

How to Create a Photo Manipulation of a Flooded City Scene

In this tutorial, we will learn how to manipulate a simple photo into a flooding torrent of a scene. We’ll use some relatively simple techniques to give this image a semi-realistic, stylized feel. Let’s get started!

Scared Photomanipulation Tutorial

This tutorial will be a little different than all the other tutorials. Here artist will teach you some basic things about Photomanipulation.

How to Create a Slice of Nature Photo Manipulation

Today artist is going to show you how to put together a complex tree illustration. The idea for this tutorial is to show a workflow from concept to finish, not just so you can copy this illustration, but so that you can take the ideas behind it and use them for any design you have. It’s not just the finished design but the process we are after.

Self-initiated abstract art

In this tutorial artist will show you how – with a little time on your side – you can overcome the common myth of low budget work, creating an impressive piece of abstract work using Photoshop.

Dreamy photo effect

In this tutorial we will take a photo and use different color adjustments and something like pattern floral brushes to make it better or to make a different mood to our picture. So let’s go.

Dazzling Dance Photo Manipulation

In this detailed and lengthy Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to combine photos and add special effects to turn a normal photograph into a stunning artwork. You will also learn several tricks to reduce your Photoshop document file size and number of layers and layer styles.

How to Create a Fantasy Scene with Death

In this detailed tutorial you will learn how to create a fantasy scene with death.

How To Create a Futuristic Sci-Fi Scene

In this tutorial, artist will guide you through the steps to create a futuristic sci-fi scene. We will transform original pictures using Photoshop tools that will help to give the image a more spectacular look.

Create a Colorful Woodpecker and Tree Scenery

This tutorial is intended for everyone who is beginning at digital drawing/painting, if you like drawing and Photoshop then you are the perfect candidate to follow this tutorial.

Create a Beautiful Lonely Fantasy Fairy

This tutorial will explain how to make a beautiful fairy from a single source image. We’ll go over each step on how to make the feathers, the hat, the background, the grass and the mountains.

How to Create a Severed Arm in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will be learning how to create a severed arm with fleshy stumps and strings of sinew. This will be created by using some basic Brushes and Layer Masks. Let’s get started!

Other Useful Resources

• Photo-manipulation Tutorials

• 30+ Most Wanted Photo Manipulation Tutorials in Photoshop

• 18 Fresh Photoshop Photo Manipulation Tutorials

• 60 Elegant Photo Manipulation Tutorials

The Winners

• Nejo – (ebook)
• Trevor – (paperback)
• priyadarshi kunal – (ebook)
• Jennifer – (paperback)
• Dave – (ebook)

Congratulations to the winners! You should have already received an email about your prize (or will receive one soon, shortly).

MySQL Query Screenshot

Buy a copy of the book!

If you’re interested in having a copy of MooTools 1.2 Beginner’s Guide but didn’t win one, I would like to encourage you to purchase it on Packt Publishing or Amazon.com. Read more about it here.

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Related Content

• MooTools 1.2 Beginner’s Guide Book
• Win a MooTools 1.2 Beginner’s Guide Book from Packt Publishing
• How to Auto Caption Images Using MooTools
• Related categories: JavaScript and Web Development

About the Author

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Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and PHP development, and a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

The definition of "success" is different to everyone. To me, I define success as having a large audience that consists of readers from all over the globe that love and enjoy your work as much as you do.

In this article, I would like to reflect and share with you the things I consider to be the ingredients of our recipe for success and growth.

This article is part of Design Instruct Week, a weeklong celebration of our newly launched site, Design Instruct. This week on Six Revisions covers topics that deal with running websites and design, written by the founders/editors of Design Instruct and Six Revisions. Be sure to check out the Design Instruct Week Twitter Giveaway, which gives out different prizes every day of Design Instruct Week.

Unyielding passion for your work

Growing a web project takes time and dedication. It involves many days with little or no sleep. It has an abundance of minutia tasks that need to be done when you’d rather be doing something else. Building a website necessitates a schedule that would make anyone but those who are truly passionate and dedicated to their idea, give up. Do you have it in you?

A strong knowledge about your subject

Whether you’re building an email app that will revolutionize the way people do emails or a web publication about baking cookies, you have to know your subject inside and out. When you’re not well informed, it clearly shows through to your audience. Being knowledgeable about your subject is about creating trust: Internet users are wary about the things they consume on the Web. If you can’t prove to them that you can be trusted, they have thousands of other sites to choose from.

Talented people

The foundation of any web startup is the people that have built it. It’s no secret that the largest component that drives the continual growth of Six Revisions and Design Instruct are their brilliant writers. Without them, our two sites wouldn’t be where they are now.

Discovering people with the same passion and belief is rare. Thankfully, we’ve found a few of them that have decided to join our family (you can see just some of them on the About page). I spend a lot of my time working with our writers, as well as helping them grow their own websites.

Partners that compliment your skills

In the first article of Six Revisions, I said that you should avoid going solo for your web project. When things start to build up, in order to carry forward your growth and keep up with demands, you need to collaborate with someone.

For Design Instruct, I knew I needed someone who would be better than I am with visual art and design. I was a graphic designer back in the days when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, but have now since moved onto web development and web design. I also knew that I couldn’t run two sites on my own, yet I was fearful to put my fate in the hands of just anyone.

This is when I approached my brother (Isaac) to team up with me. He’s an illustrator and photographer by trade, and someone who—regardless of our relationship—is vastly dissimilar from me. He has brought his knowledge, skills, fresh ideas, and passion to the table.

Design Instruct and Six Revisions wouldn’t be able to advance without a solid partner, and I’m almost certain that your web project won’t be able to either.

An open ear to your audience

Your users have a lot to say. They have a vested interest in your growth and have entrusted you with the responsibility of constantly improving yourself to meet their needs. Oftentimes, when we believe in something so steadfastly, we tend to shut these voices of alternative thoughts out.

Critics are a penny a dozen on the Web—the Internet gives people a cloak of anonymity that make it a piece of cake for raffish individuals to say negative things about your web project just for kicks.

However, there are also many people with ideas and suggestions that can make your site better. Take advantage of the collective nature of the Internet by listening to your users’ opinions, suggestions, and ideas. They have taken the time to share these ideas at no cost to you but your time to listen to them.

Relationships with people in your industry

The Web has the ability to connect us with people that we might not be in close proximity to. It’s important to foster and create relationships with people in your industry, regardless of whether you consider them competition or not. When we are working together rather than against each other, we can drive innovation and grow together instead of creating a counterproductive environment.

Make it a habit to reach out and contact the people in your industry. Participate on discussions in their website (you can, for example, frequently find me in the trenches of Smashing Magazine and Envato comment sections), see if there are opportunities to team up and build something together, trade war stories, and just get yourself on their radar.

Staying informed about the happenings in your industry

Keeping up with the events happening around you is critical. It’s part of being knowledgeable about your subject and is something your audience expects you to be doing. Especially on the Web, when things change so rapidly and interests are fickle, it’s imperative to maintain your information current.

Effective time management skills

Having a good time and task management habit ensures that you can keep up with the growth of your web project. Time is the primary limiting factor to your growth, and thus, you have to treat it as a resource, just like your budget and your technology infrastructure.

Taking risks

What stuns advancement of any project is the fear of change. Fear of change leads to fewer or no innovations. On the Web, being risk-adverse is not a good trait to have. In a realm where things move very quickly, being a stick in the mud will only make sure that the people around you that are taking all the risks will be reaping the rewards instead of you.

Looking out for opportunities to grow

The reason I personally respond to every email (I get hundreds a week) and carve out blocks of my time to partake in interviews, participate in discussions, write on other web publications, join panels, write books, and other activities that may not have a direct impact on Six Revisions or Design Instruct is because I never want to end up saying, "I wish I’d done that."

Being receptive to possibilities outside of the websites that I run, without a doubt, has contributed to the growth of my own web projects.

What are your own ingredients for success? Let’s talk about them in the comments below.

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• How to Design for Your Worst Client: You.
• How to Stay Ahead of the Curve as a Designer
• 6 Things You Need for Your Web Project to Succeed
• Related categories: Project Management and Web Development

About the Author

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Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and PHP development, and a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

 

 

By Paul Viluda

The word “calligraphy” is derived from two Greek words, denoting “beautiful writing”. Calligraphy or the art of writing has thousands of years in its history and development, and indeed calligraphy fonts, which we often use these days on our PCs to create a postcard or a wedding invitation card, are absolutely about aesthetics, refinement, creativity, and pure beauty.

Below is the selection of a dozen of calligraphy free fonts, you can easily download from the Internet and use for your own uniquely beautiful projects.

Young Love ES

Fine, tender, and delicate, this Young Love ES calligraphy free font is the demonstration of calligraphy in its traditional meaning. The font has vivid features of a handwriting script, so it will suit perfectly for personal messages, invitations, or greetings. Besides, it can be used for some art logo designs. The font is supplied with the impressive set of character maps supported, thus making this free font a very flexible tool, allowing the use of multiple specific language characters and symbols.

The King & Queen

The King & Queen is another Calligraphy font, available for free download online. This font has some traces of gothic or alternative style due to its grungy background. Besides, font designer used different line widths, which makes the font look more “manual” or “hand-written”. Some thorny lines and edges add specific chic to this free Calligraphy font; so, it is definitely recommended for designers, who like to experiment with fonts and are not afraid of mixing classic design with alternative shades.

Cygnet

Clear, reserved, and appropriate – I would use those adjectives to describe Cygnet calligraphy font, which is also available for free download. The font looks pretty rounded but without those fancy curls, as we can see in other calligraphy fonts. Both lowercase and upper Roman characters are included in the Cygnet character map. Besides, it also contains a vast variety of additional characters, allowing the use of this font in alphabets with accented letters.

Liberate Wide Normal

Designed by Bay Animation Inc., this script font features medium weight and expanded proportion. The font is supplied with different character maps to suit the needs of the most exacting designers, who want to use some peculiar characters and signs. Along with the Basic Latin character map, you will also receive Latin Supplement, Latin Extended, General Punctuation, and even Letterlike Symbols in one box.

ChopinScript

Chopin font is one of the most favorite free fonts in calligraphy category. It has already become a number one choice for many millions of designers, searching for a nice-looking, appealing, and neat calligraphy font. Uppercase letters look pretty fancy; however, this never prevents easy reading of a text; besides, the lowercase characters are designed in a traditional calligraphy manner. The font consists of 129 characters, including special symbols.

CalligraphyFLF

With 227 characters included in the character map, Calligraphy FLF free font is a very good option for those creative applications, where strict and reserved calligraphy is expected. No fancy curls, all the attention is paid to content rather than to form. I would say this free font has a definite English scent of punctuality, demureness, and reliability. Calligraphy FLF was designed by Richard A. Ware, one of the representatives of the old school of font designers.

NK39pc_D

Peculiarity of this free calligraphy font is that along with basic Latin characters, it also contains Cyrillic and Greek symbols, which makes it a great choice when working with the alphabets other than Roman A-Z alphabet. Besides, the font contains mathematical operators and punctuation marks. The font has a classic calligraphy look with Roman alphabet, though with Cyrillic letters it is really curly, which makes it resemble some hand-writing art. The only thing I noted is that this font looks pretty small in regard to the font size chosen, however this can hardly be a drawback of this very nice and professional calligraphy font, friendly to Cyrillic and Greek letters.

Champignon

There are two variants of this free font as shown on the samples above. The classic Champignon looks very pretty and appropriate in terms of classic calligraphy principles. Champignon Alt Swash looks differently and creates the feeling of sprawling handwriting.

Windsong

Windsong is another free calligraphy font, featuring clear and light design. Light as the wind and smooth as a classic song, this font by Bright Ideas represents a traditional handwriting calligraphy. Both uppercase and lowercase letters look very close to the letters from school books. Numbers, as well as punctuation marks, are also present in the character map (247 characters in total). The font is characterized as semi-light in weight and medium (normal) in width. Windsong will be a good choice for projects, where classic calligraphy with handwriting look is expected.

Lainie Day

Lainie Day with its delicate shapes of characters (Roman alphabet only), classic, but not boring lines, is definitely a must have calligraphy font for every designer. It looks like a golden middle between strict and reserved traditional calligraphy and modern fancy handwriting with many twirlings. Again, using this font you will stay focused on the message expressed by letters, and not on the form of those letters. Anyway, Lainie Day just like any other calligraphy font is the combination of content and pure aesthetics.

Submit Your Web App

Chatab – How would you like to browse the web while chat with your friends at the same time without having to leave the chatroom or change webpages? Fortunately, Chatab is an all in one online messenger with a built-in browser that lets you chat and browse at the same time. Read more: Chatab: All in One Online Messenger With A Built-In Browser.

		TVARK – We live in a visual world, although most of us don’t know how we got there. TVARK seeks to archive the visual history of television programs and shows, making it an excellent resource for anyone with a passing interest in the history of visual rhetoric. Read more: TVARK: Visual History of Television Programs & Shows.
		Dental Plans – If you’re really lucky, your job covers all the dental work you need. Most people aren’t really that lucky. If you yourself aren’t that lucky, and you’re not sure dental insurance is an option financially, it’s worth checking out DentalPlans.com. Read more: DentalPlans: Find Discount Dental Programs In Your Area (US Only).
		Goformat – Microsoft Word and Open Office both lack one key ability – changing entire sentences or paragraphs typed in capital letters to lower case en masse. Goformat.com, on the other hand, does have this online text formatting ability. Read more: Goformat: Quick Online Text Formatting Tool.
		CSS Color Editor – Re-designing a website can be a hassle if you have a large and messy CSS file. CSSColorEditor makes it easy for you by allowing you to change CSS colors without writing any lines of code. Simply upload a CSS file from your computer and load it into the tool. Read more: CSSColorEditor: Easily Change CSS Colors Online.

Submit Your Web App

These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed.

em>Got Tech Questions? Ask Them on MakeUseOf Answers!

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Design Instruct

This unique tutorial from the freshly launched Design Instruct

covers some great tips on how to recreate a great looking watercolour and hand-drawn marker effect from a base photo. Definitely worth checking out!

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Build Internet

Using CSS image sprites is a popular technique for menus in web design. This tutorial from Build Internet

does an excellent job of introducing the concept of sprites, and takes you through the steps of building a sprite powered menu yourself.

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CSS Tricks

CSS attribute selectors are often left collecting dust at the back of our CSS toolbox, but they’re actually one of the most useful resources when it comes to styling up our websites. CSS Tricks

goes back to basics and gives a complete and thorough overview of how attribute selectors can be used.

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Vectips

Ryan from Vectips

seems to have a never-ending stream of amazing Illustrator tutorials. One of his most recent takes you through the steps of creating a mouthwatering strawberry graphic, complete with bright colours and crisp vector shapes.

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CSS Wizardry

This well presented post from CSS Wizardry

documents some best practices and common mistakes when it comes to setting type on the web. The post includes some super handy tips and is one every designer should check out, I picked out a few good pointers myself.

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• This Week’s Favourites – February 19th 2010

• This Week’s Favourites – February 5th 2010

• This Week’s Favourites – January 22nd 2010

• This Week’s Favourites – Janurary 8th 2010

• This Week’s Favourites – December 25th 2009