Designisms

There is a typography tutorial over at The Font Feed that I have visited numerous times because I always forget one step in the process. I have found the tutorial very effective when trying to give a flat typographic element a bit more character and photographic appearance. The author, Yves Peters, is a regular writer over at Typographer.org and for Font Shop’s blog, Unzipped. All of his articles and tutorials are of very high quality so be sure to check them out.

Tutorial: Photorealistic Perspective

The tutorial assumes some application knowledge, so beginner’s may need to read through it a few times, but the results are a great effect that can be useful for both print and web designs. One quick tip I have is to keep the background in a separate layer so that you can add more effects once inside of Photoshop if wanted.

Once through the tutorial, a final step that I like to add to the process is adjusting the Shadow/Highlights of the image to help correct the realism of the background image (Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight…). Under Shadows, adjust the Tonal Width to change the lighting contrast and under Adjustments, adjust the Color Correction to find a more realistic finish for the background color.

You can find more helpful Type Tips over at The Font Feed.

Artist collective PES have created some of the most simple, yet amazingly creative stop motion videos over the last several years. And by simple I certainly do not mean “simple to create” as most of us know, stop motion animation is extremely time-consuming and detail-oriented.

“Western Spaghetti” is one of their latest short films and one of my favorites from 2008. It is clever, fun and so well-crafted that at times you forget that it is stop motion animation.

You can see more from PES after the jump. (more…)

With Christmas just a few short days away, I thought I would share some great vintage Christmas card and advertisement designs that I found while browsing on Flickr. Most of the below images can be found in the Vintage Christmas: 1945-1970 group.

[via froggyboggler]

[via Woof Nanny]

[via froggyboggler]

[via foxmusic]

[via liits]

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If you are a fan of either Star Wars or Saul Bass or both, as I am, you will enjoy this great film title mashup by Brian Hilmers.

Besides Vectorstock.com never seeming to work, despite a fairly fast internet connection, their vector graphics are fairly generic and not worth your time or money, but at least they offer some free vectors, right? I took a few minutes to browse through them all to see if anything was worth downloading and sharing with you.

What I found were extremely generic and overused vector graphics that are practically unusable by most designers’ standards. At least 80% of the free vectors could be described by our favorite design buzz words: grunge, silhouette, floral and vintage (as you can see by the keywords below).

I was able to salvage some of my time when a few of the vector images stood out to me compared to the rest. They may not be the most unique graphics or avoid the “silhouette” tag, but they certainly could be of some use and worth a free download. I’ve included them below so that you do not have to waste your time on vectorstock.com. You can download all of the free vector graphics (.eps) after the jump.

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Have you recently created a work that you are especially proud of–perhaps a new illustration or website that you really want to show off? If so, you should submit your work now for a chance to be featured on Designisms.

How do you submit?

1. You need a Flickr account. If you do not have one, you can sign up for a Flickr account in just a few minutes.

2. Click on the “Submit your designs” link in the sidebar of Designisms.

3. Join the “Designisms User Showcase” group on Flickr.

4. Add a Photo or Video to the group pool.

That’s it! The best part is that even if your design is not chosen, the last nine submissions will be visible in the “User Showcase Submissions” box in the sidebar of Designisms.

If your submission is chosen, you will be contacted and your work will be featured in a design of the month post with links to your website and your design. How’s that for free promotion?

Submit your design now.