Free Damaged Wood Textures

Published May 19th, 2012 in Free Resources, Textures - 0 Comments

Wood textures are some of the most commonly used types of textures by graphic designers. You can never have too many different types of wood textures, and this set will help to add to your collection. Here you’ll get 5 free high resolution textures from damaged and worn wood. They’re great when you need a wood texture with a grungy or edgy feel.

9 Tips for Staying Focused

Published May 18th, 2012 in Business - 4 Comments

Many designers and developers love their work in part because they can work from home or anywhere else that they choose. While not working in a typical office setting can be a nice perk, it also brings its own set of challenges. Possibly the most significant challenge is that there are all kinds of distractions and no one is there to help keep you focused.

In this article we’ll take a quick look at 9 things you can do to stay focused and productive.

Simple Non-Profit WordPress Theme

Published May 17th, 2012 in WordPress Themes - 6 Comments

With this free WordPress theme any non-profit organization can have an effective website. It includes features to showcase your programs and events, and several elements are easily customizable. Organizations with limited budgets can present a professional image with this WordPress theme.

Theme features include:

• 7 color schemes from which to choose (screenshots of each are shown lower on this page)
• Customizable homepage slider
• Events calendar
• Organization news publication
• Upload your logo, or just use the site name in text

17 Tools For Making Awesome Client Presentations

Published May 16th, 2012 in Design Process - 5 Comments

Ask five designers how they handle client design presentations and you’ll get five different answers. Some like to do their presentations in person, accompanying their designs with printouts detailing specific highlights. Others prefer utilizing an online screen sharing experience and talking their clients through their design in real time. And then there are those who simply ship off the jpgs in an email outlining the design’s main points. No matter what your method is for revealing your design, it is important to use tools and resources that can make your presentation successful. Without further ado, here’s a list of some of the best apps and tools for delivering the perfect client presentation.

Calls and Screen Sharing

Join.me
It’s simple, easy, and free. Either join someone’s screen share or share your own. You can invite up to 250 viewers into your screen share and can even let them take control of your computer. Join.me has a great list of features, such as internet calling, chat, and file sharing, which makes it a great all-in-one solution for screen sharing presentations.

21 Awesome Bright and Colorful Websites

Published May 15th, 2012 in Galleries - 4 Comments

Finding the right color scheme for a website design can often be a real challenge. Bright colors are sometimes not favored by designers, but in the right situation they can be very effective.

In this post we’ll showcase examples of 21 different bright and colorful websites. Hopfully, seeing these examples will give you some inspiration when you’re considering color schemes in your own work. By seeing what other designers are doing and how they are able to make colorful web designs work, you may get some ideas of your own.

Brooks Shoe Advisor

Comment to Win PSD to HTML Services from Markup-Service!

Published in Site News - 48 Comments

Many designers prefer to outsource some of their coding work in order to free up more of their own time, or maybe to get a higher quality of coding than they can produce on their own. Outsourcing PSD to HTML conversion can be done on a regular basis with the majority of your web design clients, or it can be done only in special situations when you are really pressed for time.

Design an iPhone Icon for Notes Application in Photoshop

Published May 14th, 2012 in Tutorials - 4 Comments

In this tutorial, I will show you how to draw a notes icon for an iPhone app using Photoshop. We will combine the power of Layer Styles and traditional drawing to achieve a realistic result.

Preview

Here’s a preview of icon we are going to make.

Simple Style Photography WordPress Theme

Published May 11th, 2012 in WordPress Themes - 2 Comments

With the free Simple Style WordPress theme you can showcase your photos on a clean, professional website. The theme was designed in a minimalist style to allow for your amazing photos to take center stage. With either color scheme (light or dark) you can have a site that shows your photos in a stylish way.

Theme features include:

• 2 color schemes (light and dark)
• Customizable slideshow on homepage
• Customizable photo galleries
• Upload your own logo, or display site name in text
• Widget-ready sidebar

7 Practical Ways to Gain Exposure as a Designer

Published in Business - 5 Comments

New freelancers and students who are just coming out of school are often faced with the challenge of gaining exposure for their work. The exposure is often needed for securing new client projects, but it can also be needed to help with landing a job or just building name recognition within the industry.

With so many talented designers out there already it can seem like a daunting task to grab any exposure for yourself. In this article we’ll look at some practical ways that any designer can improve their exposure. Implement a few of these ideas and you will be well on your way to reaching your goals of landing new clients and building name recognition. Several of the suggestions involve social media and/or blogging, so if you don’t already participate in those activities now is the time to start.

1. Design Galleries

One of the best ways to gain exposure and to build a name for yourself is to let your work do the speaking. Your portfolio site is not only a place to show off your work from client projects, the design of your portfolio site itself can lead to loads of exposure. Web design galleries like CSS Mania, Best Web Gallery, and hundreds of others showcase top quality work of designers from all over the world. Being showcased on a few of the leading galleries can provide exposure to thousands of people.

Likewise, design blogs like our own often publish posts for inspiration that showcase brilliant design examples. Being showcased on a few popular blogs can bring an equal amount of exposure, if not more. Many times blogs find sites to showcase by browsing web design galleries, so having your portfolio site approved to the major design galleries can lead to even more exposure through blogs.

In addition, gallery/portfolio sites like Behance, deviantART, and Carbonmade allow you to set up a portfolio and display all kinds of work, not just web designs.

Free Stained Paper Textures

Published May 10th, 2012 in Free Resources, Textures - 3 Comments

This set of textures was created by staining brown paper multiple times with ink and bleach. They combine the always-popular paper texture with splatters and stains to create interesting results. The set includes 4 free textures that we hope can be put to good use in your own projects.