Creative Bookmarks: Best of December 2009
So many great links this month! It was such a great month to research and read in the creative community. So without further ado, here’s Creative Bookmarks December.
Quick Nav:
Photoshop Tutorials
How to create amazing light effects in Photoshop
Sebastiano from the new wegraphics.net has quite a few useful techniques up his sleeves. In this photoshop tutorial he shows us how to create very stylish smoke effects that envelop their surroundings.
Light effect wallpaper in Photoshop
Lighting effect tutorials are pratically a dime a dozen now, but this article bears some great resemblance to the famed work from Scott Hansen of ISO50, and deserved some sharing.
Monitor Icon Design
Richard Carpenter shares a simple method for putting together a monitor icon in Photoshop using basic shapes and essential lighting tips.
Blend a Planet Transparently into a Photo Manipulation
A great tutorial on PSDTuts+ that teaches you how to use blending modes effectively to create an excellent photo manipulation.
How to Create an Envelope Icon in Photoshop
For those of you wanting to get into icon design, this is a great tutorial for you. Using some fairly simple techniques, the tutorial walks you through making a slick envelope icon.
Creating a Modern, Glossy Mouse Icon in Photoshop
The new Magic Mouse design is just sexy. This tutorial on PSDTuts+ helps you create an icon out of it.
How to Design a Print-Ready Flier with Photoshop and Illustrator
A great hybrid tutorial that teaches you how to integrate 3D text, made in Illustrator, into a great looking print-ready flier.
Create a Watercolor-Themed Website Design with Photoshop
Although I’m personally not a fan of “Watercolor Themed” things, this is a great tutorial that helps you create a website mock-up that keeps in mind the code that will follow.
Unveiling Photoshop Masks
Having trouble wrapping your head around masks? This article from Smashing Magazine puts you behind the mask and shows you everything you need to know to begin your training as a non-destructive editing master.
How to Create Cityscape Concept Art
This tutorial, on PSDTuts+, helps you make an urban scene using 3D scene as the foundation. Then, polishing it up in Photoshop.
How To Design a 3D Wooden Box in Photoshop
A great tutorial by Asher Abbasi that teaches you how to create a realistic wooden box icon in photoshop.
How To Create a Sleek Audio Player Interface in Photoshop
Personally, I love interface design tutorials. This one is an excellent example of one, teaching you how to create an audio player interface with some cool Photoshop tricks.
Digital Bokeh in Photoshop
A great video tutorial that will teach you how to create an amazing bokeh effect in a matter of minutes.
Minimalistic Poster Design in Photoshop
This great tutorial on Abduzeedo teaches you how to make a minimalistic poster using some stock photos, blending modes and filters.
Illustrator Tutorials
Turn a sketch into a Crazy Santa illustration
This tutorial will show you how to create a Crazy Santa illustration from sketch using Adobe Illustrator. Great tutorial to keep as reference for the Holidays in 2010.
Draw a funny snowman in Illustrator
We’re pretty thrilled with the recent tutorials from aiMonkey.com. Their tutorial on designing a snowman in Illustrator is a great Illustrator Tutorial for starters, and produces fantastic results.
Create a Code-Style T-Shirt Design for Website Promotion
A great tutorial on VECTuts+ that walk you through making a promotional T-Shirt for PHP enthusiasts in Illustrator.
Use Illustrator to Create a Fun, 3D, Character Logo
In this tutorial, David Laplante, shows you how to integrate 3D text and a custom illustration into a fun looking logo.
Create Colorful, Layered Paper Type in Illustrator
Is winter getting you down? Do this tutorial! It’ll walk you through making some very pretty, custom type with a variety of vivid colors and illustrator effects.
How to Create a Curious Owl in Illustrator CS4
Awesome icon designer, Andrea Austoni, teaches you how to create an owl using mostly basic shapes and effects in Illustrator.
Geometric Flower Effect Logo in Illustrator
This tutorial, based on an actual logo design, shows you how to create a flower effect in illustrator to make a logo that’s full of color.
Web Tutorials
Creating Your First PHP Application
This three part tutorial is intended for readers who know the very basics of PHP and Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and would like to create a basic web application.
How to Brainstorm
Brilliant Ideas for Your Blog
Brainstorming is one of the most powerful creative techniques ever devised. When used properly, it can produce more and better ideas than any other process. It’s based on the concept that two heads (or three, or four, or more) are better than one.
The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Design and Converting it to HTML and CSS
This is the last entry in the series of posts that have taught you how to take your mockup design in Photoshop, to a fully coded website.
Use Sprites to Create an Awesomeness-Filled Navigation Menu
This tutorial by NETTuts will teach you how to use CSS sprites and JQuery to not only increase your website’s performance, it’ll also show you how to make your navigation menu look good in the process.
How to Build a Shopping Cart using CodeIgniter and jQuery
Most big blogs have this feature to showcase the picture, bio and homepage of their writers. This tutorial on Line25 teaches you how to implement the same feature on your blog.
How To Display Your Twitter Status in a Unique Design
An excellent tutorial on Line25 that shows you how to display your latest tweet with the use of some Javascript and CSS.
Styling an Individual Article
“Art Directing” or designing a custom page for each article, is a very popular trend that I hope is here to stay. Although the great, Jason Santa Maria pioneered the idea, Chris Coyier from CSS Tricks teaches how to “Art Direct” in this video tutorial.
Is Your Content Lagging?
Has your blogging effort decreased? Do you noticed you’re not as enthusiastic to write? This article gives some helpful tips on how to change that feeling.
Writing User Friendly Content
The content is of upmost importance on a site. If it can’t be understood and interpreted, it really doesn’t matter how UX friendly your site is. This article, by Matthew Kammerer, gives some helpful tips on how to create user friendly content.
Please Create a Unique Site and Avoid the Same Old Crap
72nd Ave. makes the point that the internet is flooded with people that follow trends and don’t create new and unique things. Check out this article and their site and you’ll notice, they practice what they preach.
Freebies, Inspiration & Resources
330 Free Letter Pressed Icons
A freebie from the Creative Nerds that comes with over 100 letterpressed icons in three different Photoshop files. Available for your personal or commercial projects.
Rust Textures Pack
Another great freebie from Media Militia! 21 images are included in the new Rust Textures Pack and all of them are high quality for your personal and commercial projects.
Drips and Spray Paint Pack
The Drips and Spray Paint Pack from Media Militia is a perfect addition to your resources folder. You can download them as Photoshop Brushes or high resolution PNG’s for your personal and commercial use.
108 Mono Icons: Huge Set of Minimal Icons
Jason Cho created these beautiful and easily customizable icons. The pack comes with 108 different icons that are available for your commercial and personal use.
An Awesome Caravan of Winter Themed Artwork
Winter is here and with it many designers come up with stunning artwork. This showcase, by Callum Chapman is an excellent collection of winter themed ads that are sure to inspire.
Go Bananas with 50+ Vector Illustrations that Monkey Around
“Monkeys, chimps, apes, or any kind of knuckle dragging animal, as a group, are a fun illustration subject.” I started to laugh when I read that. Check out this excellent showcase of monkey inspired illustrations.
40+ Vintage Posters to Inspire Your Next Designs Color Palette
Brian Hoff from The Design Cubicle rounded-up some retro colored posters that are sure to give you some great ideas for your next project.
Ask the Expert – Typography Talk with Brian Hoff
I’ve recently become a big fan of Brian Hoff and his work. This is a great interview on The Design Observer where he talks about how to use typography effectively in print and web design.
Get Featured in Creative Bookmarks
If you’d like to be featured in the next volume of Creative Bookmarks, simply send us you’re tutorial, resource, or article link before the end of the month. If we think it’s a top notch link, we’ll be sure to share it with all of our readers!
28 Comments
great article cant wait for the next
Flag as inappropriateDownload60s.com is a graphic designing website. photoshop tutorials.
Flag as inappropriatehttp://download60s.com
thanks for sharing. So mush117
Flag as inappropriatethanks for sharing. So mush112
Flag as inappropriateGreat article
The CSS Sprite tutorials were particularly useful.
Flag as inappropriateA lot of good links here, thank you!
Flag as inappropriatenooo (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Flag as inappropriateno_? omaygut
Flag as inappropriateGreat round up of resources with plenty I can use for my web designs and to learn new skills. I always like to see these roundups because there are so many resources that I use from them. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Flag as inappropriateWow! A lot of fun resource listed here. Sensory overload! I can’t wait to check them all out. Thanks!
Flag as inappropriateDavid, i have been following a geat new digital art website that is great for digital artists… digitalartsecrets.com – i think many will find it useful.. other than that Great bookmarks :)
Flag as inappropriateawesome groups
Flag as inappropriateAlso, most of your other included links are to Envato’s TutsPlus network. I encourage you to branch out in the sites you search so that (for once) your roundups actually contain something obscure that we haven’t seen yet. As they are, these roundups are far from useful since most people have already seen most of the tutorials included.
Flag as inappropriateTruthfully, I find it wrong to include you own tutorials and articles in your roundups. Especially when you include so many…
There are so many other good tutorials out there that could be included – without selfish self-promotion.
Flag as inappropriateNice round up can’t wait to test drive some of the tutorials.
bring on the client work I have some ideas to try!
–
Thanks and Regards
Noel for Nopun.com
Flag as inappropriatea graphic design studio
wow is the only word that come from my mouth,second thing I like the site design
Flag as inappropriateYEA!!! I love seeing post like this where i can go and download free things that can help along the lines of me designing something
thank you!
Flag as inappropriateThank you for including the Ask the Expert article on typography. Can you please change the article to say “Design Informer” and not “Design Observer?” :)
Flag as inappropriateOH HEY JUNE ARTS ;)
Flag as inappropriategood to see your still with us this afternooon.
have a splendid day :)
Some of them are very useful. Great collection Tim! :)
Flag as inappropriatePD: the first link is wrong ¿?
Flag as inappropriatethis is the correct link
http://wegraphics.net/tutorials/how-to-create-amazing-light-effects-in-photoshop/
Oops! Thanks Daniel :)
Flag as inappropriateAwesome bookmarks tank you :)
Flag as inappropriateyour spelcome :)
Flag as inappropriateGlad to see two of my tuts there :)
Flag as inappropriate