Like them or not, flowers are a huge part of current design trends. Open any mainstream design magazine and you’ll surely find them plastered everywhere, not to mention the web, as well as TV commercials and the advertising industry. I’ve put together a few detailed vector flowers for you to use in your designs and experiment with. Because of the detail in these vectors, it allows you to pick them apart and make more complex designs, from just a few simple vectors. The example below is made from only 3 flowers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many times in the past I had found that I wanted to take a vector path from Photoshop (CS) and somehow get it to Illustrator for further use. There are lots of great and free Photoshop custom shapes out there, many of which might be more useful to you in Illustrator, if that’s what you prefer. That’s what Illustrator is for, right? Vectors.

Photoshop custom shapes come in vector format, just like drawing with the rectangle tool. Unfortunately, there aren’t as many custom shapes available for Illustrator, in the form of symbols. (at least not that I have encountered) I want to show you an easy way to get a vector path from Photoshop into Illustrator so you can take advantage of all those free custom shapes available out there, and possibly save you some time drawing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hi all, I just got back from 4 days away from home, so here is something to chew on while I get back into the swing of things. If you have ever downloaded (or not) one of my free sets of buttons or webpage elements, you might notice that I use a lot of opacity masks in my Illustrator files. I do this for a number of reasons, some of which may be obvious, but I would like to clarify a little better on how to use these (opacity masks), and why.

Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post I gave away some seamless vector patterns, and one in this post. Many of you have questioned how to put these to use, and the answer is: Lots of ways. I’m going to illuminate a few different ways to take a seamless vector pattern and put it to use. And believe me, these are not the only ways. Hopefully you can take these tips and find some unique uses for your own personal designs.

Read the rest of this entry »

I will elaborate on multiple ways to use these patterns in upcoming posts with both Illustrator and Photoshop, but for now, here are 5 seamless vector patterns for your designs. Formats: AI, EPS, SVG, PNG. Tip: instantly turn these 5 patterns into 10 by reversing the fill into a stroke. For those of you without a vector graphics editor, check out InkScape (free) or you can use the PNG provided with a transparent background.

Read the rest of this entry »