How to Create a Set of Hand-Drawn Design Elements
Published May 25th, 2011 in Design - 15 Comments
Some of the more popular resource packs at Vandelay Premier have been those that are created to be used with hand-drawn or doodled designs. While we aim to provide resources that are as useful as possible, there may be times when you need a specific design element that you can’t find anywhere. In that case, you can create your own, and in this tutorial we’ll show you how.
We’ll be creating a small set of hand-drawn resources, but using the techniques covered in this post you’ll be able to create as much or as little as you need. While stock resources can be great for saving time in your design process, creating your own resources can often be a lot of fun, and with hand-drawn design this is definitely the case.
Win a Free Copy of the Freelance Starter Kit
Published May 23rd, 2011 in Site News - 237 Comments
We’re happy to announce the launch of our most recent bundle of resources at Vandelay Premier, the Freelance Starter Kit! This is a bundle of 20 resources that have been released to Vandelay Premier members, and it’s now available in one convenient bundle to those who are not members. Its purpose is to help new freelancers to build their business on a solid foundation. The resources will also be helpful for those who have been freelancing for a while but are looking for better results.
30 Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Tips and Tutorials
Published in Design - 11 Comments
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is one of the top choices for photo editing software among amateur and professional photographers. In addition to editing photos, Lightroom also helps with organizing and managing your photos. You can also create slideshows and galleries to present your images.
In this post we’ll showcase 30 tutorials and articles from a variety of different sources that will help you to learn more about Lightroom.
Customizing the Background Color
Free Set of Brush Strokes Vectors and Ai Brushes
Published May 20th, 2011 in Site News - 7 Comments
Our premium design resource site, Vandelay Premier, just crossed 5,000 total resources available (over 270 resource packs) and to celebrate we’ve got a free resource for all designers out there! We’re giving away a free set of 89 vectors and Illustrator brushes.
18 Options to Sell Photos Online
Published May 19th, 2011 in Make Money - 28 Comments
Photographers have a growing number of options when it comes to selling photos. Stock photography sites aren’t the only option. Many different companies have developed ways to help photographers sell their work online through their own website, and many of these options allow for the sale of both digital (downloadable) files as well as prints. Some of them even handle the printing and fulfillment for you, if that is what you’re looking for.
In this post we’ll take a look at 18 companies that exist to help photographers with selling their work. Some of these options will provide the photographer with a website to display and sell the products, others can integrate with existing portfolio sites, and a few are marketplaces where photographers can upload their work to be sold.
If you’re a photographer you have probably thought about how you can make more sales online, so maybe one of these options would be a good fit for you. If you’re a designer you may have clients who are photographers. Some of these options allow designers to create customized sites for their clients, so if you work with a lot of photographers it can be worth exploring.
SmugMug gives you a customizable website to host your photos. You can choose from their selection of templates, customize it without any coding, or make changes to the CSS to fully customize the look of your site. SmugMug includes a wide variety of features for displaying and promoting your photos, including the ability to publish photos to Facebook and Twitter or embed in blogs. You can sell your photos as prints or as digital downloads. The prints can be fulfilled and shipped directly to your customers. Prices range from $5 per month to $20 per month (or $40 per year to $150 per year).
Design Inspiration: Showcase of Community Websites
Published May 17th, 2011 in Galleries - 12 Comments
We frequently showcase examples of well-designed websites in various industries, and we had a reader request a collection of community-oriented websites for inspiration. In this post we’ve gathered 25 community websites to showcase some examples of outstanding design. The sites come from a wide variety of different industries, but they all share the common focus of bringing together like-minded people in some way.
15 Photoshop Tutorials for Designing Advertisements
Published May 16th, 2011 in Design, Photoshop Tutorials - 9 Comments
The design of an advertisement can have a huge impact on the level of success of the ad campaign. Being able to design attractive and effective advertisements will lead to better results for you and your clients.
In this post we’ll showcase 15 tutorials that will lead you through the process of designing an ad in Photoshop. Most of the tutorials are for designing poster/flyer type ads.
Design a Sleek Diamond Poster Advert
11 Tips for Getting More Out of Personal Projects
Published May 12th, 2011 in Business - 14 Comments
Many designers choose to work on some projects of their own in addition to work that they do for clients. There are a lot of reasons to dedicate time to personal projects: they can add some diversity to your work, they can allow you to explore your creativity, they give you the chance to be in charge and to make the decisions that you think are best, you can learn new things, you can make some extra money, etc.
Some types of personal projects that are popular with designers/developers are blogs, managing social networking sites, membership sites, e-commerce sites, and designing stock items. In this article we’ll take a look at 11 things you can do to get more out of these personal projects. Hopefully this post will help to illustrate why personal projects can be excellent for your career.
Here are some tips that will help you to get the most out of your time spent on personal projects.
33 Tutorials to Design Your Own Business Cards
Published May 10th, 2011 in Design - 18 Comments
Business cards are an important marketing tool for many designers, and a lot of web designers also design business cards for their clients. If you’re interested in learning more about business card design take a look at the tutorials presented here. Some of the tutorials cover the process of designing the card in Photoshop and others use Illustrator.
For some examples of excellent business card designs please see:
- Letterpress Business Cards
- Double Sided Business Cards
- Embossed Business Cards
- Die Cut Business Cards
- Creative Business Cards
Creating a Colorful Vibrant Business Card
Showcase of Silhouette Photography
Published May 9th, 2011 in Galleries - 9 Comments
When the lighting conditions are right, silhouette photography can lead to some impressive shots. In this post we’ll showcase more than 25 examples of beautiful silhouette photography for your inspiration. If you see something you like, click through to see a larger image and more work from the photographer.
Photo credit: selmakoparan
