Yet another great article from Preston Lee over at GraphicDesignBlender.com. Stop by his site and take a look around!

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photo credit: Project GreenBag

Some of the best logos in existence are captivating because they convey two meanings at once, accomplish the task from a unique angle, or are somehow otherwise “creative”. The best way to tell a creative logo from a less successful one is if you find yourself, as a designer, thinking, “Man, I wish I would have come up with that idea.”

In our zeal to design a unique and highly creative logo, however, many times we create unintended meanings, cause misconceptions, or complicate an idea more than we need to. This generally occurs when we do any combination of the following:

Read the full original article here

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photo credit: E. Bartholomew

The traditional New Year Resolution: some dread it and some embrace it. Of course, it’s not always easy to sit down and decide what we hope to accomplish over the next year. Below you will find a few ideas that I hope will be helpful in making you a more successful graphic or web designer next year and for the rest of your career. Read the full original article here

photo credit: DioMakr

It’s that time again to refresh my main website for SD Designs. Looking back on my last design, I really do not understand what kind of look I was going for. Simplistic? Too simple, too much text.

I don’t really think I was convincing my potential clients of my “creative” abilities. I’m looking for a more pleasing outcome this time around and hope I can put my good skills into the design and focus on my content as well.

Right now it is in it’s early stages, but go ahead and give it a look; Let me know what you think about it.

http://rivermarketart.com/sdtest_web2009/sd2009

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photo credit: rauchdickson

skills in the world. It’s nearly impossible to be hired as a new graphic designer these days without having some sort of background in…….

read the full article here

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The Skin Project

I love TYPE. Typography in print, typography on the web.. i love it all. Typography is one of my favorite parts of design and it is one of those things you can find in unlikely places. Sometimes on an old store sign, or a business card, the back of a food package or even on someones body. I recently read about the “Skin Project,” short story being published in a single edition – its 2,095 words tattooed randomly on the skin of 2,095 participants – the words are scattered all over the planet on various body parts, all black and in classic book fonts. “Skin Project”, written by Shelly Jackson and is still in the production process. If you would like to be involved with the project – visit the Skin Project website to learn more.

Read the full article here

photo credit: timparkinson

Ah yes, the ever so popular “list” of favorite websites bug has struck here at Insomniac Drivel. Everyday I spend at least 2 hours reading and viewing my favorite design websites for inspiration and encouragement. Most every design blog has a few of these lists today, if not, they are seriously lagging behind. (like us!)

So I figured it was time I put one of my lists together, some may have already seen these sites, or they may be new to you. Hopefully you can find something within this list that helps or inspires you along your design journey.

If you like any of these sites, be sure to comment and let us know!

Design Blogs

Just Creative Design – A very popular design blog covering many topics of design and business relations ran by Jacob Cass

justcreativedesign.com

Outlaw Design Blog – Design blog with many resource file downloads and a great interface ran by Danny Outlaw

outlawdesignblog.com

Graphic Design Blender – Great blog ran by Preston Lee, covering many topics of graphic & web design.

graphicdesignblender.com

Digital Telepathy – Blog covering mainly web design and CSS topics.

dtelepathy.com

Free Resources

Free vectors – Quality, free vectors for personal use.

freevectors.net

Vecteezy – Free vectors from some of the best designers.

vecteezy.com

And of course last but not least, my favorite:

photo credit: bigmick

Deviant Art – Online community to showcase work and receive feedback. Also a great resource for PSD and Illustrator files.

deviantart.com You can find me at Deviant Art here.

Thanks for viewing my list, if you found anything helpful, please comment!

This is one of my favorite tutorials from PSDtuts+. The original post did not include a PSD file to work with. So, I have added my own.

You can get it here

Step 1

Create a new document with 1000×750px. Double click on the backgrounds layer and in Color Overlay and choose a dark brown.

Read the ful article at http://psdtuts.com/designing-tutorials/creating-a-cool-3d-web-design-effect/

Back again today with another simple wedding website.

Again, these files are intended to help a beginning designer pick apart a design and change various elements.

Download the PSD file here

If you like this download, you might also like my first wedding template

There are some popular sketchy fonts available that are great for grungy and hand-drawn designs and illustrations. My problem is, I want to be able to use this sketchy style in any font. Turn’s out, it is actually really easy to do in Illustrator. Moreover, you can create a Graphic Style and easily apply the style to other editable fonts!

Read the full article here

Notes

This tutorial was created with Illustrator CS4, but you should be able to create the tutorial in other Illustrator CS versions

Download the PSD here

Hello there! Brandon here from SD Designs with a free template.

I design web templates all day and ones that are rejected by the client will be put in this blog as a free resource for all who want to use it.

This template is intended to help a beginning designer create a unique wedding website. Feel free to use this resource in anyway you like.

The PSD file is organized into layers for easy editing.

Download the PSD here

Fonts used:

Dream Orphans (download it for free here)

Verdana (stock web font)

Please leave any comments below