25 Excellent Photoshop Texture Tutorials

Adding texture to a design can create drastic changes and powerful results. Photoshop provides a number of different possibilities for working with textures, which allows designers to use their creativity. In this post we’ll features 25 tutorials that will help you to learn more about working with textures in Photoshop and how to create impressive results.

How to Use Texture and Lighting to Create Rounded Artwork

Learn Adobe Illustrator: All the Basics for Beginners

A few weeks ago we published a post, Learn Photoshop, that included links to well over 100 resources for mastering the basics of Photoshop and the use of the various tools. In response to reader request, we’re publishing this post to help designers who want to get started with Adobe Illustrator, or maybe just sharpen their existing skills.

Illustrator is a powerful program, but it can be overwhelming or confusing at times, simply because of everything that is possible. If you’re new to Illustrator, taking the time to understand the basics and how to use the specific tools will go a long way towards setting you up for success. In this post we’ve categorized more than 100 resources that will teach you everything you need to learn.

Basic Intro to Illustrator and the User Interface:

What is Illustrator?

33 Letterpress Business Cards for Inspiration

Business cards are a necessity for designers who want to market themselves and their services to people that the come across. They also provide an opportunity for the designer to make an impression with a stylish, memorable card. Letterpress business cards are a popular choice for designers, and in this post we’ll showcase 33 high-quality letterpress cards. Hopefully these examples will provide some inspiration if you are considering designing some new business cards.

Jason McGrew

Guide to Using Social Networking to Promote Your Services

With so many freelancers and design agencies out there, finding work can often be a major struggle, especially for those who are just getting started. A growing number of designers are using social media as a means of marketing their services, in addition to simply using it for interacting with friends. While social media marketing can be extremely effective, it can also be a big waste of time. In this post we’ll look at some tips that should help you to ensure that your time with social media is well spent.

1. Know What You Want to Accomplish

One of the most common mistakes that is made in social media marketing is not having a purpose or a goal. Many businesses and entrepreneurs recognize the power and potential of social media and social networking, so they feel that they need to be involved. However, simply having a Facebook fan page or a Twitter profile is not going to make a real difference.

Developing a social media marketing plan requires having a specific purpose or goal (if you’re using social networking only for fun or personal reasons then, of course, this does not apply). Web designers may want to use social media to find more clients, network with other professionals, or maybe to build links to their blog or portfolio site. The first step to using social media effectively is to have a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish. This will shape the approach that you take and the way you use the social media sites. Without having a goal or something that you want to accomplish, there is really no way to know if it is working for you and your business.

Learn Photoshop: All of the Basics for Beginners

We frequently publish posts on this blog that feature  tutorials for learning how to do various things with Photoshop, but we have rarely focused on just the basics. This post is intended for designers or aspiring designers who either want to get started with Photoshop or have limited experience and are looking to improve.

While there are plenty of great learning resources available online, it’s often difficult for beginners to know where to get started because everything seems to be scattered. With this post you’ll find links to plenty of resources to teach you all the basics and fundamentals of Photoshop.

Most of the resources and tutorials listed in this post will focus on teaching one particular aspect of Photoshop, such as how to use a specific tool. Everything is broken down into sections so you can find exactly what you are looking for.

Intro to Photoshop’s Tools and UI:

The resources in this section will serve as an introduction for those who are new to Photoshop. They will help you to learn your way around the interface and with some of the basics of Photoshop.

Getting Started with Photoshop

Showcase of 30 Beautiful Blog Designs

It’s been a while since we did our last blog design showcase, so this post is a collection of 30 beautiful blogs for your design inspiration. You’ll see some that use a minimalist design approach, others that use a grunge-style design, some that are magazine-style, and more. For more blog design inspiration, please see our gallery site Blog Design Heroes.

Internet Gentleman

Comment to Win a One-Year Membership to MediaLoot!

Earlier today a new membership-based site, MediaLoot was launched. It is an online toolbox of premium design resources, and they have kindly offered to give five readers of the Vandelay Design blog a one-year membership to the site for free!

21 Resources Especially for Lovers of Minimalism

Minimalism a popular style of design because it keeps things simple and user-friendly. In this post we’ll look at more than 20 websites, blogs and books dedicated to minimalism. Not all of them are related to web design – minimalism can also be applied to other aspects of business and life.

Minimal Design Showcases:

If you want to find great and inspiring examples of minimalist design, these sites will be excellent sources.

Minimal Exhibit

jQuery Resources for One-Page Portfolios

A few weeks ago we published a showcase of one-page portfolios and pointed out some trends among them. Many of those sites are using jQuery to accomplish specific things. In this post we’ll feature some plugins and tutorials that are ideal for one-page portfolios. Of course, they can be used on other types of sites as well, but they are well-suited to match up with the trends among one-page portfolios.

Contact Forms:

All portfolio sites need to allow visitors to contact the designer, whether it is through an email address or a contact form. One-page sites face the challenge of including a usable contact form without using a separate page for it. These two resources can help for creating contact forms that will not take up too much space on the page.

Using Form Labels as Text Fields
CSS Globe provides a tutorial that is ideal for contact forms in limited spaces, which is often the case with one-page portfolios. The script can also be downloaded for use in your own work.

Showcase of Light Texture in Web Design

Texture is obviously a common design element that is being used on a lot of modern websites. However, texture doesn’t always have to be a part of the design that stands out immediately to visitors. Light textures can also be used to subtly improve the design of the site. In this post we’ll feature 25 sites that use texture without it dominating the design.

Odosketch