50+ Useful Photoshop Plugins

One of the great things about Photoshop (and others from the Adobe Creative Suite) is the ability to extend the possibilities with 3rd party plugins. In this post we’ll feature more than 50 plugins/extensions/add-ons for Photoshop, some are free and others are premium.

Premium Photoshop Plugins:

Bokeh – $199

14 Options for Managing Membership Websites

Membership websites have increased in popularity in recent years. They present an excellent income opportunity for the site owner and a great value (depending on the content) for users. If you have thought about setting up a membership site but weren’t sure where to get started, here is a look at 14 options that will allow you to get started with your own membership site.

AMember
AMember is probably the most popular choice for managing a membership site. It is ideally suited for sites that sell digital downloads. A built in two-tier affiliate program is included, as well as many other features including free installation, easy web-based administration, automated signups and expirations and more. The price of AMember is $179.95.

Free Portfolio Icon Set Designed by IconShock

Our friends at IconShock have designed a set of 5 icons with portfolio sites in mind. The set includes PNG files of 512 pixels and 256 pixels, plus the source files (Illustrator). The icons are free for use in both personal and commercial projects.

If you have suggestions for future icon sets, please leave a comment.

30 Tutorials for Designing Fun and Creative Characters

This post features tutorials for designing various characters and cartoons in Illustrator and Photoshop. Characters are often used for branding websites or companies, so it is certainly a useful skill. For other tutorials, you may be interested in:

• 40 Photoshop Illustration Tutorials
• 27 New and Fresh Illustrator Tutorials
• 30 Text Effect Tutorials for Adobe Illustrator

Create a Super Happy Octopus Character

Design Inspiration: Splatter Effects

Splatters can be used in web and graphic design to create interesting effects that grab your attention. In this post we’ll showcase many examples from a variety of different types of design. One of the easiest ways to use this type of effect in your work is to take advantage of the photoshop brushes that are readily available. See 500+ Splatter Brushes for Photoshop.

Nike

Showcase of Social Networking Websites

Social networking and social media sites have been popping up everywhere over the past few years. The design of a networking site is important for a few reasons. First, it needs to appeal to the those users who are in the target audience of the site so that they can relate to it and feel at home. Second, usability is very important for these sites because their success hinges on the ability to get first-time visitors to become regular users and repeat visitors. If a site is poorly designed and makes it difficult to interact, chances are the visitors will not continue to use the site.

In this post we’ll feature a number of well-designed social networking sites.

Cork’d

Different Methods for Choosing Color Schemes in Web Design

One of the most challenging aspects of design for many web designers is color selection. The color scheme of a site can have a huge impact on the overall look of the site, and it will have an impact on visitors as well. There are a number of different methods that can be used for finding the right color scheme for a particular project, and in this post we will look at several of those methods. Throughout the post you will find links to helpful resources that you may appreciate.

Win 1,000 Free Business Cards from PrintRunner

PrintRunner has offered to give 1,000 business cards each to 5 readers of Vandelay Design! PrintRunner offers a wide variety of printing services including business cards, brochures, flyers, posters.

Best of September 2009 from Our Network of Sites

Since we have a number of different websites that publish on web design-related topics, I thought it would be beneficial to do a monthly roundup to showcase the best of the month. In this post you’ll find links to a few posts from Vandelay Design and from DesignM.ag, as well as a selection of some of the best items that were published in September at our gallery sites.

From DesignM.ag in September:

There have been 15 posts published at DesignM.ag in September. Here are four of the most popular.

15 Tips for Breaking in as a Part-Time Freelancer

Approaches to Showcasing Work in Your Portfolio Site

The examples in the post show a variety of different ways to show off your best work. Many are using JavaScript, jQuery sliders are especially popular right now. Others will make use of Flash, and some will use only CSS and HTML.

Electricurrent

Electricurrent’s portfolio includes a list of clients. Click on one of them and you will see some images from the project, along with a brief description and a link to the live site. The list of clients remains so you can quickly move through several clients without going back and forth.