It’s often a challenge to really play with typography as a design element itself. It’s no secret that type plays a significant role in a lot of the design world, both print, web, and beyond. But typography itself is a nice easy way to experiment with your design to see what you can come up [...]

After my “50 Free Vector Grunge Corners” post, I got a lot of responses asking how to make vector grunge. Well, I’m going to show you exactly how, and trust me, anyone can do it. It’s not as hard as you might think, thanks to InkScape (free).

If you aren’t familiar with Illustrator’s extremely handy “Pathfinder” palette, you might sit down for a few moments to play with it, because it is a true time saver, and an excellent tool for manipulating paths. First, of all let me say that “Pathfinder” is a horrible name for this palette. It doesn’t actually “find” [...]

Believe it or not, Illustrator is capable of some amazing effects similar to those in Photoshop, all waiting at the tip of your finger in the Tools palette. These are NOT filters, but some lesser known Basic Illustrator Tools that , if harnessed right, can transform a single path into a work of art. I’ll [...]

You will probably find dozens, if not hundreds of tutorials on how to do this in Photoshop, but I’m going to show you how to do it in Illustrator (vector). The advantage? You can scale it up for a roadside billboard if you like. That’s the power of vector graphics. All you have to do [...]