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What's a good way to represent "My" or ownership in a logo? Specifically own ideas. [Edit:] The logo is for a web app called Mypothesis, it's for people to put their own personal theories out there, it's meant to be scientific in context. [Edit 2:] The reason why I want to represent "My" is because it's what separates ...
A lot of the fonts I see are pretty darn expensive. Of course you can find some awesome ones for free, but do freelance designers usually buy fonts? Or is buying fonts a practice reserved mostly for studios?
I'm thinking of printing a informational project in magazine size, however I have a hard time finding what the standard size for magazines is? There is no default size for this in InDesign and from what I've read there is no specific standard size, but I wanna ask anyway. If there is some default template out there or...
Is there a way to automatically create frames from layers in a Photoshop document? Bridge lets you open several images into one Photoshop document as layers, now I would like to get these layers loaded into the animation window (one frame per layer) without having to create frames one by one. If you know of a better ...
What should I do to establish rights on my work? Does it depend on the country where it was created?
If you were interviewing for your first graphic design position, what kind of questions should you expect? The posting is fairly vague, aside from the assumption of basic design skills.
I have created a Flash banner to be used on a site that is localised across Asia-Pacific region, and according to provided brand guidelines I need to use Trebuchet as the base font and theres 3 different fonts specified for Traditional and Simplified Chinese. Given Trebuchet is web safe I dont feel there is a need to e...
I was wondering if it was possible to create a non-raster inner/outer glow? If so, could you please tell me how to do so. Thanks.
Simply wondering what your favorite or most used tools are when you are (web)designing in photoshop. This way we maybe get new insights on the tools and how to use them. Never hurts to learn right? I will kick off: Favorite 1: gradient tool Why: Basically to create subtle differences in color shades to give elements m...
I recently sat down with a friend, and we hypothesized that Phi (the irrational number) and that it could be used to determine colors using an algorithm of a sort. So, I came back home, and googled it. Lo and behold, apparently there is some validity to that claim. I was wondering the application of such thought, as I ...
I'd like to create a new document from a group of layers. It should be the same size as the largest layer in the group, even if the current document is a lot bigger. For example, I have a web page layout and I just want to isolate a button image that's made of several layers (which are grouped in this case, but I gues...
I have an image which I would like to label certain areas with some sort of a text label. I'm trying to figure out what the best way is to make the text clear. The image is color, and objects may have multiple colors to them. A typical example might be the picture below. I would like to label the sky, the peak, perhaps...
You can see the traditional cross platform system fonts like Arial and these , but in 2011 with Leopard/Lion and Vista/7, surely there are a load more fonts we can use reliably? Thanks!
Sometimes i work with JPEG files for my web designs. There are occasions where the PNG format is not suitable.. There are several optimization techniques for the PNG format, but I noticed that for the JPEG format, the possibilities are limited, especially if you work on a Mac. Probably the most elegant solution so far ...
What are the recommended design guidelines for gutters when a column (or box, or any layout module) has its shape clearly visible because it has its own background or border? Typically one would put some space in between the box's edge and its text. But where to conjure this space from? By expanding the box, or shrinki...
Any ideas of how to create such looking logo like this: This logo in site. I like this roundness feel around letters. Dribble logo is also with similar effect. I do not think that it is only shadow (if its shadow at all).
When I draw lines or borders in Photoshop for my web design work, they are usually not beautiful and seem to me to not be aesthetically appealing. I don't know why, as drawing a line seems to be a very easy concept. I mean it shouldn't matter who how draws a line. A line or a border is a simple thing. But I really see ...
I am a web developer who now needs to create a brochure, so excuse me if fumble some terms. It is a gatefold brochure and the requirement is that the central piece is as close to square as possible. I found a pretty good match - the US Legal size, but it is in imperial units. But i live in Europe, and we have this stra...
I like the fonts available at Google Fonts but I've noted some sans-serif choices render markedly different when comparing Win XP (IE) to browser on a Mac (Saf, Cr, FF). An example is Open Sans, which is a very nice (Lucida Grande-like) font on the Mac, but renders pretty bad on Win XP (IE). Does anyone have experience...
I have an image and its source in photoshop and Adobe illustrator format. I know some programing, PHP, HTML. But I have never created a simple webpage using an image or adobe products. I'm also overwhelmed by the amount to blogs, websites and video available there. I want you guys to give me pointers where I can find t...
How do I accomplish light painting like in Photoshop? Is there a font I can use? I couldn't find any great tutorials on it. Also, note that I don't own a wacom. Any help to accomplish this effect in Photoshop is much appreciated!
I have several layer comps in my document. I also have a smart object (to apply smart filters) which have those same layer comps. The problem is: when I want to change the layer comp of the image, I have to set the layer comp of my main, edit the smart object source and change its comp too. Question: is there a way to ...
I'm trying to copy a particular layer out of a Photoshop document into its own new document and export it for use on the web. I'm doing this by right-clicking the layer in the layers palette, choosing 'Select pixels', copying to the clipboard, creating a new document with the default size (based on clipboard contents)...
Can you give me some hints for recreate these two buttons? Which effects are applied? Thanks!
I am going to make a design for a smartphone game, now I have seen that there are MANY resolutions around. Luckily iPhone has only a few, but Android contains already more, not to speak about upcoming tablets.. Is it just a matter of designing for the right resolution or do I have to look at the DPI aswell? If you had...
I'd like to produce my own double-sided mini post cards/business cards from my photos at 3x4" on 80 pound coated stock. I used to send them to a print shop with odd-number front page, even number back page, and then just ask for 5 copies of the file; but it seems quality had diminished, and I can print small runs on my...
I've never done a storyboard/visual user story for a new app/software program before, so how would I do that? Or what are the key elements? Basically, I need to create a storyboard of how it would affect the user's daily life.
Ok, that title might seem a little strange, but I will try to explain. And I will say, I do know this is more of a discussion type question, and not a technical question. Hopefully I wont get down-voted... Just a little background first: I work for, let's just call it MyCompanyCo., which is a division of MyCompanyLLC...
I guess the title says it all. I've been successfully working with @font-face (with near-perfect cross-browser support, if you use all the hacks). However, a client really wants to use Helvetica, and for that you need to use Montype's solution from fonts.com. Has anyone come across a comprehensive comparison, or have f...
I am working in InDesign and I need to create a PDF file. The problem is that if I have a 200x200px box in InDesign and when I save it as PDF the box appears larger. I am a bit confused about InDesign because it has no resolution settings, I am saving the PDF with 96ppi and my Adobe Reader has the same view settings (9...
Say you have an image of a wall or an old, creased piece of paper and you want to add text on that background. How can you make the texture of the background come through the new text in Photoshop so it will look like the text is actually on the background rather than above it?
When opening this PDF in Photoshop(CS3) all colors are automatically inverted. How can I change this behaviour? The file has correct colors when opening it with Adobe Acrobat. The file is generated by ImageMagick 6.5.6-8 2009-10-20 Q16 Open MP. Opening a 'regular' PDF file in Photoshop does not give me any problems. Pl...
I'm trying to do text outline, however I'm having trouble making the outline exactly the same shape as the text itself. When you do an outline stroke, the edges appear soft which I don't want. Any ideas? Thanks
Can anyone define why something might not look "professional"? What differentiates between professional/unprofessional designs? I have clients who have said my design does not look very professional. I followed all the things to make it professional - maybe I don't know enough about design? I have seen lots of "pro...
Is there a way to quickly define a baseline grid on photoshop using the guides tool? For example, if I want to create a 24px vertical rhythm, can I do this quickly on PS?
I draw pencil sketches on paper and "ink" them using a variety of pens. (I'm using the term "inking" very loosely here to describe the process of drawing the final lines over a pencil sketch, no matter whether actual ink is used - in my case, I use a variety of felt-tip pens and Indian Ink.) Of course, the final ink ...
I am in the process of colouring a series of hand-drawn illustrations in Photoshop using a graphics tablet. The colouring process takes place mostly using Photoshop's native drawing tools - the pencil, airbrush, etc. The final goal for these illustrations is printing on a digital offset printing machine. My plan was t...
Pretty straightforward, as in the title. Our University paper's staff sometimes doesn't have the manpower to even Search for Lorem Ipsums, and often times other basic omissions occur, like updating the Issue number, changing contributor's names copy-pasted from past documents, et cetera. Obviously I'm able to fix these...
Since some of the newer cs versions of PS I got the problem that the Ctrl + left click stopped selecting layers directly when they're grouped in a folder. Instead PS simply selects the folder. If I right click inside the actual working space/viewport/image I get a somehow structured "tree" view with the folder name and...
I see that many designers create beautiful web design works in Photoshop, but now with the arrival of CSS3, when they want to change that to HTML & CSS, they simply start from scratch and create something around 80% of the final design using CSS3. For example, they use border-radius, opacity, background gradient, box ...
I'm drawing a bus line map. On some streets several bus lines pass together, so parts of the lines should be parallel and on a uniform distance from each other. Ideally, I would like that when I draw a second line along the same street, it would snap automatically at a distance of X pixels away from the first line. Is ...
I promised my friend I'd design a book for him he's releasing for free and I could use the help of you guys. I'm going to use the latest InDesign. The book should be in .pdf format and is intended for printing. I googled as much as I could and this is what I found out: the project size should be 6'' by 9'' the best fo...
I'm new to this community. I wouldn't describe myself so much as a designer but rather someone who has a need to create presentations as part of my job and would like to improve the design of those presentations. I've recently discovered grids and would like to begin experimenting with them. All my work is done in Powe...
I don't anything about graphic design so please bear with me. I bought an icon set and it included the psd for the icons. I change the color of the icons and now need to export all the icons to PNGs. That is, a PNG for each icon. All the icons are in the same PSD. How can I do this? Do I have to select one icon at a t...
I am creating a PDF file from InDesign and sometimes(90% of the times) when I export my work from InDesign into a PDF file a strange annoying 1px line appears(view immage) at the edge of the document... Did you ever had this problem? Why does it appear ?
I have just started to play around with Adobe Illustrator. How can I make sure distance between path are the same in all of the points. Please see this image for example: http://awesomescreenshot.com/03bjt5iec Any suggestion much appreciated.
I know that this question might be tossed out, and I apologies for that, but here goes nothing: I work at a small call center in Sweden as a IT-technician. Since we´re so small we cant afford to hire any designer, and so it´s up to my department to design something good looking. The website we have at the moment is.. ...
I have a logo and i want to place it on a graphic but on certain graphics the logo is bigger than the "flat" surface so i want to "bend" the logo appropriately to make it look real. For example, on this image below: the 7-up logo bends around the can. When i put a logo on this type of 3 dimensional surface, it looks ...
I have a chunk of text I need to paste into Illustrator. No matter what I do, I can't resize the text area without scaling the text. I want to resize the area and have the text wrap (font size to remain the same). How can I do this? I'm using CS5.1
This might not be the right place to ask, but I was wondering why newspapers use multiple columns? Does it take up less space, or is there a visual reason?
I'm looking at a document both in InDesign and, after exporting to PDF, in Acrobat, and the strangest thing is happening to my font; some letters are looking different than they should when shown at 100% but look normal at 200%. Look at the example below on some select words from the document: the m, n, i and l all lo...
I would like to know how to create this effect which is on this logo: I am talking about changing smooth color of the Scribd blue dot. Thanks!
I'm designing an online music player application, and in top bar of the application, we need a "Top Tracks" button. The application is skinned with a Mac OSX theme as of now, so ideally it should be monochrome. I've been unable to think of an icon that would properly portray the top Tracks button to the user. I've bee...
This is my first try designing a logo. Firstly, I do not like the geometry, it seems like it's out of shape a little bit. Also, whenever I try to scale, everything just collapses. Can anybody inspect my logo and give advice on how should I design it properly?
The following scenario is a bit simplified, but it does explain what I need to do. What I want to do is select points 1 and 2 on the purple path in order to move them. If I use the Direct Selection Tool, draw a rectangle around the points and then drag them, then points 3 and 4 get moved too. I don't want to touch poi...
How can I recreate this Photoshop effect: Let's say that I have a heart image and inside of the heart I want to implement this effect. How can this be done? Thanks in advance.
I was recently asked to design all the print design paraphernalia for a tapas restaurant of a great friend of mine. That would include a menu listing all the tapas and wines, a glass pad, a place mat, a promo flyer and all the things my friend could use to engage his customers in a funny, creative experience. This incl...
Sharing icons/buttons are a big thing these days: (From here) Are all/most of the icons you see around the web created without explicit permission? If there is permission granted for the logo, where can I find the terms of use for the popular sites? (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Dribbble, Vimeo, etc.) Is there any re...
Is it possible to restore multiple windows of the same document between sessions? In other words: Open a document. Select Window > Arrange > New Window for …document's name ( ^ ⌥ ⌘ N on Mac ) Close the document. Re-open the document. (… multiple windows state gone.)
I am looking for a typeface for use with children's signage (don't say Comic sans). I'm looking for something playful yet legible. By children, I mean elementary school age (and younger). What a re properties in typefaces I should look for to find such a typface? Actual typeface suggestions are welcome, too.
I'm using the CS5 suite of Adobe applications. I'm familiar with the method of copying an object in Illustrator and pasting into Photoshop, thus making a Smart Object that opens in Illustrator. Is there any way to create these "vector" Smart Objects directly from within Photoshop so that I don't have to create dummy sh...
When I worked in small design studios, I was always trained to keep my work files on an external hard drive, and never store them on the computer hard drive. One of my design friends asked why I worked that way the other day, and I replied that was just how I've always done it. Is there an inherent flaw with this wor...
I have a layer that contains a brushed metal texture. The layer has an inner shadow effect. I'd like to extract just that shadow with transparency, so I can later superpose the pure background and that shadow to insert some elements between them into a software. I tried that method : How to create alpha mask from an...
I have a company logo i would like to photoshop on a building for a promotional ad. The problem is that when i put the logo on the building it doesn't look very real, it should look like its painted on the building and then a photo was taken but for the moment i just looks like a picture of the building with a logo pho...
I need good web/cloud (paid/free) storage for my graphic work. It's lots of data with photos and videos too. Any ideas?
I created an additive graphic style that includes a few effects, and applied this style to a few objects. Now I'd like to make a change to this style and apply the change to all objects. For example, instead of an outer glow of 1px (which was in the original graphic style) I would like to change it to 5px and apply to ...
I would like to create a horizontal image sprite for use in a jQuery animation, how would i create a sprite from 190 images in a folder (around 220kb each file) into a single horizontal sprite?
I am creating a A4 Print PDF file from InDesign. From the InDesign file I am doing the following: File > Adobe PDF presets > High Quality Print Following this process exports a PDF file from InDesign which is pretty good for printing. However, the problem is that I have images in my InDesign file which are only 72 DPI,...
I have a mixed object (a group of either stroked or filled paths) in black and white, and I want all of the blacks to be blue. I know I can go into the group and select each black path and change it to blue, but there are a lot of paths, and I'm wondering if there is a quicker way to do it. In Photoshop, I could just...
What font is found here in the following image?
Let's say I want to make a mark representing the shape of a rotor in a rotary engine: (image source) This shape is similar to a Reuleaux triangle: (image source) I know how to create equilateral polygons in Photoshop, but I do not know how to create curves that have the same curve handle (is that the right term?) on ...
I use illustrator with multiple artboards to design website layouts. Often I start at the beginning (what I think is the beginning at the time) and get 15 pages deep. Then I realize that I need to add another page at the beginning. I want this page to be page 1. Is this possible to do without physically moving all the ...
I'd like to surround a path with a border (see the third illustration below). However, I cannot get it done without using Path -> Outline stroke. This is very inconvenient, as Outline stroke replaces the original path with a new, much more complicated one, and it becomes much harder to edit the path later. I thought th...
Is there any benefit to saving as an .ai file? I know that .eps files can be opened in many programs, but .ai files, I think, would only be opened in Illustrator. Should I bother saving in an .ai format?
Something weird occurred, in which the opacity mask (the texture) doesn't scale when resizing the motif. I can't recall what setting affects the behavior for opacity masks. All is Ok; as in, the opacity mask is there allright, and I can move it, etc. It just won't follow the vector paths when scaling them up. The opaci...
I'm trying to create a "set" of buttons. Actually I can make the buttons somewhat easily. In GIMP I have a template (It's a rectangle… soooo complicated). Take template, add text to text box for button one and save it. Change text color for button one, save it. (Different colors for mouse-over). Take template, add dif...
If one was designing a website where they laid out each page mock as a separate photoshop file but each one had the common elements of the site such as the header and footer, but also could have common elements like buttons—is it possible to design the button in one photoshop file in its own and then include it inside ...
I'm trying to convert a icon from .psd format to vector. Here is my .psd file snapshot. This is my converted(Vector) file snapshot after live trace. I mean it has lot of blurs. I need pixel perfect result. How can i achieve that. Illustrator live trace allows only upto 256 colors?. What should i do if my source file...
In headings, I am getting rid of spaces between two-word phrases and using color to differentiate between the words instead. EXAMPLE: I would like this... <h1>Two Words</h1> to render like this... TWOWORDS How can I achieve this style while maintaining accessibility? The issue is that I don't want to simply remove the...
I'm creating a 4 x 6 meter (~13 x 20 feet) outdoor billboard advertisement that includes an image and vector logo (rasterized) in Photoshop. I was working using a smaller size for design purposes, but now the client has approved a final design and wants to go to print. I need to know what DPI/PPI I should export it as....
I need to raster files 1m x 0,70m to 1-bit TIFF. Pretty much home RIPing. AI CS 5.5 only goes until aprox. 500dpi and PS renders vector-PDFs or AIs in 406 dpi max. Then you have to resize x5 to get 2.030dpi, but you of course loose details. Don't ask me why I need so big file, I just need it. It is only a simple B/W ar...
I have a pdf file of size 266KB which I open with Photoshop, crop out the boundaries and save it back again. The new file size is 7.96MB! Since all I did was a crop, I did not expect the file size to increase. How can I save the pdf file so that the file size does not blow up like this?
It seems that mustaches is a recurring meme amongst creative people in areas of graphic design, typography etc. I am referring to things like these t-shirts [1] or these posters [1], [2], [3], [4] blog posts like these [1] as they directly mention typography for some reason. Apparently there is some connection to char...
So when you export an Adobe Illustrator file to SVG format, paths are encoded using the SVG path syntax. If you look at the <path data> element, it's possible to have moveto commands embedded into a path. In other words, you draw a few lines in the path, pick up the pen and move it somewhere else, and continue the same...
I want to add the border on this picture: to this picture: How do I accomplish this?
I want to split this image in several layers, one for each square. Is there a way to do that?
I'm developing an application for iOS and Android and I love the style of the Wunderlist icon, so I want to know if there is any tutorial about how to create this "rounded wooden drawer" effect in Photoshop.
I just thought about the this: We have dozens of well known icons for nearly each and every thing. All those icons normally are inside some sort of "navigation" (bar/menu/etc.). But what's the icon for Navigation itself? The idea behind such an icon comes from small screen devices. If you need to hide your navigation ...
I need large set (20 and more) of contrasted and easily visually-distinguishable colors for coloring different datasets on a scientific plot (the set of colors should not include white or black, and colors should be as bright as possible). The plot is generated programmatically and intended to be included in a present...
I'm trying to find tutorials for certain types of photoshop image modifications, but I don't know what words to search for. Things like "touching up" and "photo manipulation" aren't specific enough. Searching for "applying textures" results in a lot of subtle stuff that's not really what I'm after. I'm not asking for r...
What I want to achieve: I want to copy an image in Illustrator and paste it into Photoshop. The image is just a grey circle with a #d1d1d1 fill and no stroke. The problem: Bottom line, the color of what I'm pasting changes.The pasted image is a different shade of grey: #d5d6d8. What I've tried: I've checked my color se...
What font is used in this logo? Here is logo in the footer of this page. Looks a little like URW Linear Ultra Bold, but the 'A' is slightly different. It's a very basic typeface, but I love how wide and solid it is. Also, similar fonts work too.
Pressing D will switch to the default Fill/Stroke colors (which is White Fill / Black Stroke in Illustrator). I remember having read about a way to define your own default Fill/Stroke colors, but I forgot how – e.g. say I want Transparent Fill and Black Stroke.
In the brainstorming to give a visual identity to the French Language & Usage StackExchange, one of the proposals is to base the design on vintage posters such as this one: But I am afraid that we are a strongly biased audience and would like to ask you whether this kind of graphics feels “Frenchy” to you. Do you asso...
See how the image background fades with the black menu bar? I see this effect very often and I like it a lot. I would love a tutorial (either Photoshop or Illustrator) or how-to article but I don´t even know how to search for it.
I have recently started with web developement and changed my Photoshops Color Profile to sRGB, in addtion I set the Proof Setup to Monitor RGB to make the colors look more like the end result will be and it works fine. The problem I have is that the Color Picker inside Photoshop CS5 seems not to use the proofing and di...
Our team just had a rather strong argument over an issue. The issue: Some team members want to "update" one of our websites by changing the colors of the left navigation bar, and maybe also the colors of links. They feel this will indicate change and freshness. In response some of us said no, let's not do this. We shou...
I am attempting to resize an image from 480x800 to 320x240. Below are the results. The original image has an oval shaped circle whereas the re-sized image has a more spherical shape. Is it possible to re-size the original image so that the circle and rectangle are in their original proportions but smaller? Is there (ho...
I am creating a background in photoshop with a gradient overlay. Everything works fine. its just that the background has this rigid look to it where the colors start to blend with the next color.. is there a way to go about making this have a smoother feel?
Hi i have the following queries: Are there any websites that offers free icons for mobile design? As in totally free for commercial use and does not need to link back to website? Alternatively, are there any website that offer nice mobile icons for purchase?