5 Steps to a Stronger Social Media Presence
Published September 29th, 2010 in Business, Social Media - 21 Comments
Social media and social networking sites present tremendous opportunities to all kinds of business, including web design. If you’re not currently active with social media you are missing out on one of the best methods for networking and for free or low-cost marketing.
Many designers who are using social media are not getting the most out of it. In this post we’ll look at 5 simple steps that you can take to improve your effectiveness with social media, regardless of whether you are already a user or if you have not yet gotten started with social media.
Step 1: Identify Your Goals and Priorities
It’s important to set a solid foundation for your efforts with social media by first defining what you hope to get out of it. This is a critical step that many designers and freelancers overlook. Yes, social media can have a significant impact on your business, but you need to have some direction or else you will be wasting your time.
Some common goals or priorities for designers who are using social media include finding new clients, networking with other designers, increasing traffic to their website or blog, improving name recognition and branding, finding a new job, and simply enjoying activity with the community of users. It’s possible to improve your business or career in any number of ways with social media, but you need to be aware of what is important to you because it should shape the way in which you use social media.
Personal Websites: 25 Examples for Your Design Inspiration
Published September 27th, 2010 in Galleries - 35 Comments
Personal websites are becoming increasingly popular and they are often provide an excellent source of design inspiration. In this post we’ll feature 25 examples of well-designed personal websites. This showcase presents a variety of different styles. You’ll see mostly blogs and/or social streaming sites, but there are a lot of different approaches and design styles.
10 Extremely Useful Time Management Tools
Published September 22nd, 2010 in Business, Tools - 49 Comments
Web designers, especially freelancers, face the challenge of effectively managing their time while juggling a lot of different responsibilities. There are a number of online apps and tools that can help you to take control and make the most of your time. In this post we’ll look at 10 that may be able to help you. This includes calendars, to-do lists, time tracking, and project management tools. If you have a favorite please feel free to share in the comments.
1. Remember the Milk
Remember the Milk is a free to-do list manager. You can add tasks that you need to get done, prioritize them, and check them off when they are done. Remember the Milk apps are available for the iPhone and for Android.
25 jQuery Drop Down Menu Scripts
Published September 20th, 2010 in Web Development - 30 Comments
Navigation is a critical aspect of any website. Many larger sites use drop down menus in effort to make it easier for visitors to find what they are looking for. In this post we will feature 25 scripts that you can use on your own sites for jQuery drop down menus.
Sexy Drop Down Menu with jQuery and CSS
35 Amazing Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials
Published September 16th, 2010 in Design, Photoshop Tutorials - 31 Comments
Creating amazing text effects in Photoshop can help to take your work to the next level. Fortunately, there are a lot of great tutorials out there that show a wide variety of techniques for working with text in Photoshop. In this post we’ll feature 35 Photoshop text effect tutorials. You may also be interested in a post from a few years ago, 50 Essential Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials. We also have a post that is great for anyone just getting started with Photoshop, Learn Photoshop: All the Basics for Beginners.
Clash of the Titans Text Effect in Photoshop
Win a Free Professional Account from BeFunky!
Published September 14th, 2010 in Site News - 59 Comments
BeFunky has offered to give a free professional account for one year to 2 readers of Vandelay Design! BeFunky offers super easy photo editing online through both free and premium accounts. With the professional account you will be able to use it for commercial purposes, have no advertising, priority processing, priority support, and more. The normal cost of the professional account is $99.95 per year or $14.95 per month.
Tutorial: How to Create an Adobe Illustrator Brush
Published September 13th, 2010 in Design - 19 Comments
Both Illustrator brushes and Photoshop brushes can be extremely valuable resources for graphic designers, whether you are creating your own or using those created by someone else. There are several good tutorials out there for creating various types of Photoshop brushes (see How to Make a Photoshop Brush Set), but unfortunately there are not very many tutorials for creating Illustrator brushes.
If you’re more familiar with using brushes in Photoshop as compared to Illustrator the first thing to understand is that there are a few different types of brushes in Illustrator. For this tutorial we will be creating “art brushes”. In Illustrator you can apply the brush to a path that has been created. It could be a straight line, the outline of a shape, or some other type of path. This makes Illustrator’s brushes very versatile.
In addition to art brushes there are also calligraphic brushes, scatter brushes, bristle brushes and pattern brushes. We’ll really only be looking at art brushes in this tutorial, but for more on the various types you can see An Overview of Brushes in Illustrator.
Here is a look at the brush that we will be creating in this tutorial:
Showcase of Amazing Vector Art
Published September 8th, 2010 in Galleries - 30 Comments
Seeing what are designers are doing can be a great source of inspiration and motivation. Today we’re featuring vector designs, and this post includes more than 30 for your own inspiration. This showcase includes vectors of people, cars, and other objects.
Design Inspiration: Brochure Design Showcase
Published September 6th, 2010 in Galleries - 35 Comments
Brochures are an important marketing material for many companies. A well-designed and professional-looking brochure can go along way towards an effective marketing campaign. In this post we’ll showcase 45 brochures from various designers. If you see something you like, click on the image and you will be led to the source. At the source, in many cases, you will see multiple images of the brochure.
25 E-Commerce Websites for Your Design Inspiration
Published September 2nd, 2010 in Galleries - 21 Comments
The success of an e-commerce website is defined by sales, not by design. However, that doesn’t mean that design does not matter. In this post we’ll showcase 25 well-designed e-commerce sites from a wide variety of industries. For more on e-commerce sites please see these posts from the archives:
- 50 Inspirational E-Commerce Website Designs
- 25 Inspirational E-Commerce Website Designs – Part Two
- 35 Excellent E-Commerce User Interface Designs
- 25 Creative E-Commerce Website Designs
- WordPress E-Commerce: 30+ Resources
- 37 Shopping Cart Options for Developers
- 9 Characteristics of Well-Designed E-Commerce Websites
