I’ve got a great freebie for everyone today. A new stock vector site, TheVectorLab.com would like to spread some love to the design community with a sample vector pack. Vectorlab is a great new site with a growing collection of high quality stock vectors for designers. Even better, you can apply as a contributor and earn a 60% commission on the vector art you sell. Yet another great way to put your creativity to good use during a recession. Even Even Better: TheVectorLab donates 5% of their proceeds to St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital. :)

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In the wake of Shepard Fairey’s debacle with the AP over the rights to the image he used as reference/inspiration for his wildy popular Obama poster, I wanted to share a list of Public Domain Licensed images, in this case, astronomy. Fairey’s situation should hit home with all pixel junkies out there and remind us that we have to pay close attention to the licenses associated with the images we use in our design work. I’ve compiled a list of beautiful, inspiring astronomy images that all have a Public Domain License.

Astronomy intrigues me. I’m a regular APOD surfer. I love reading about space, and the images of the universe, I find inspiring. Here’s a list of “Public Domain” astronomy images that I put together, all of which I found on Wikimedia. If you aren’t familiar with Wikimedia, it doesn’t have a stellar (pun intended) selection, but it’s a very good source of Public Domain and GNU licensed images. So here we go, let’s start off the list with none other than our very own blue marble.

Earth

Full resolution: 3,000 × 3,075 pixels

Full resolution: 2,048 × 2,048 pixels

Full resolution: 2,048 × 2,048 pixels

Full resolution: 3,000 × 3,002 pixels

Full resolution: 1,696 × 2,074 pixels

.

Full resolution: 2,458 × 2,458 pixels

Full resolution: 2,400 × 2,400 pixels

Full resolution: 3,097 × 3,000 pixels

The Moon

Full resolution: 1,280 × 978 pixels

Full resolution: 2,560 × 1,920 pixels

Full resolution: 1,986 × 1,986 pixels

Mars

Full resolution: 2,000 × 2,000 pixels

Full resolution: 1,552 × 1,552 pixels

Mars’ moon Phobos

Full resolution: 3,374 × 3,300 pixels

Saturn

Full resolution: 2,766 × 1,364 pixels

Full resolution: 4,000 × 2,527 pixels

Full resolution: 8,888 × 4,544 pixels

Saturn’s moon Rhea

Full resolution: 4,920 × 4,820 pixels

Venus

Full resolution: 4,096 × 4,096 pixels

Jupiter

Full resolution: 2,260 × 3,207 pixels

Galaxies

Full resolution: 6,200 × 6,200 pixels

Full resolution: 1,730 × 1,428 pixels

Full resolution: 5,302 × 3,805 pixels

Full resolution: 4,014 × 3,865 pixels

Full resolution: 3,000 × 2,016 pixels

Full resolution: 6,637 × 3,787 pixels

Full resolution: 6,000 × 4,690 pixels

Full resolution: 3,915 × 3,885 pixels

Full resolution: 11,472 × 6,429 pixels

Full resolution: 8,952 × 6,213 pixels

Nebulae

Full resolution: 6,000 × 2,906 pixels

Full resolution: 3,601 × 4,004 pixels

Full resolution: 4,806 × 3,364 pixels

Full resolution: 3,182 × 1,282 pixels

Full resolution: 18,000 × 18,000 pixels

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What could possibly be more useful than a good wrinkled paper texture? Not much. Paper textures seem to be used consistently across most forms of digital art, from graphic design to photography to web design. If you make something awesome with these textures, why not share it with us in the comments or Flickr pool? We’d love to see them.

Preview

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I’d like to show you a very quick time-saving search tip that I use to find freeware on the Apple site. We all love freeware, so let get our grubby hands on it even quicker, shall we? Have a watch.

Super Fast Freeware Searching on Apple Downloads Site from Jay Hilgert on Vimeo.

Alternatively, you can search by keyword (type in “freeware”) using a Custom Google Search Engine. I created one below for the Imaging and 3D category on the Apple downloads site. Here is the homepage for the search engine if you’d like to bookmark it. You can create a search engine for any category, or the entire downloads section if your heart so desires.

I hope these two quick tips saves you some time. Happy searching :)

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There are lots of background image generator sites out there, but this one is just so easy and simple, I felt compelled to say something about it. I’m not sure how long it’s been around, but BgPatterns.com makes it super easy to make a seamless tiled background image. There are plenty of elegant controls for the user including rotation, texture, color, opacity and more. So if you’re in the market for a seamless tile, or just want to save a little time, I recommend this site to anyone.

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We all love textures, right? I was recently emailed by a BittBox reader about a new texture site, LostAndTaken.com. It’s a blog style site and definitely worth bookmarking. All of the textures I downloaded for testing were a massive 3072 x 2048px, so I’m guessing the author has a pretty darn kick-ass camera. Oh yeah, and all of the textures are copyright-free and can be used for personal as well as commercial purposes.

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Compfight, the very handy Flickr search tool I posted about previously, has just added a new Creative Commons “Commercial” filter to their search. Previously, you had the option to turn the Creative Commons filter On or Off. Now you can search ‘all’ Creative Commons licensed images, or images for ‘commercial’ use. Compfight is not only a fast way to find flickr images, but with this new feature, no more scrolling to the bottom to see that Non-Commercial icon. Talk about a time saver, thanks Compfight :)

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If you’re like me, you always want to learn more. Many of you have probably heard of Lynda.com, a great site with thousands of video tutorials on a variety of subjects, but you have to pay for the good stuff. Adobe has recently launched a very slick video site called Adobe TV where you can learn from the pros by watching videos and following along. It’s not quite as structured and comprehensive as Lynda, but it’s free. If you’re between projects, or just need some time to waste, you might just find a diamond in the rough somewhere in the videos.

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I stumbled onto a ‘Design Resources Search Engine‘ the other day somehow, and wanted to tell everyone about it. It’s basically a Custom Google Search Engine that only searches the best design blogs and sites out there, but it is quite handy if you like to find freebies, as I know a lot of you all do. Jump on over and give it a try. you might just find what you’re looking for. Also, if you look at the complete list of sites and you know of a good site to add to the list, you can suggest a site. Just click on the blog link at the bottom of the page and use the contact form in the footer.

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I don’t know about you, but I’m a huge fan of Flickr. I’m no photographer but with the immense number of images on the site, you can spend hours browsing for inspiration. Compfight is a service that allows you to quickly search Flickr and browse hundreds of results instantaneously. There’s also an option to search only the Creative Commons images, saving you a couple clicks compared to Flickr’s own “Advanced Search.” One other thing that makes Compfight useful is the fact that when you roll over each thumbnail, it tells you the pixel dimensions of the ‘original’ size image.

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Have you ever been frustrated when you ask a client for a high-res logo and they keep sending you thumbnails? A lot of you have probably been in a situation where you could really use a vector logo, and your client can’t deliver.

Best Brands of the World (brandsoftheworld.com) is an online treasure trove of vector logos. There you’ll find thousands of logos for big name companies and small ones alike. There are even logo variations for the big brands. In other words, you might even be able to find event-specific logos, and specialty logos.

All of the logos you find at brandsoftheworld.com are free and come in EPS format. So, the next time your doing an event poster sponsored by Pepsi, you don’t have to rely on the client for the Pepsi logo, however, it’s always wise to get the logo approved before using it.

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Dock Dividers is a freeware (set) of apps for Mac OS X that allows you to place dividers between groups of applications in your dock. And don’t worry, there are both vertical and horizontal dividers, (for side-mounted docks). This can be helpful for productivity if you use the dock alone to launch your apps, and also provides a visual separation between your groups for quick reference. It might not save you a click, but milliseconds rather. There is a similar, previously released freeware that offers a couple of different styles to choose from.

You might notice once you download the Dock Dividers that it contains a group of files with an “.app” file extention. Well, in order to get an icon into the dock, it needs to be an application icon. The reason there are more than one in the download is because you can’t place an application in the dock more than once. Right about now you might be asking yourself about memory. Well, I tried that and not only are these apps tiny, you can’t even launch them. If you click on one of the dividers, Finder will attempt to launch the app, quickly learns that it isn’t really a launchable application, and does nothing. (self quits).

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There is a great set of Photoshop tutorials over at dennisplucinik.com that is probably worth a bookmark. I stumbled onto this little gem of a collection somehow and found a lot of the information very useful, if not now, maybe in the future. The tutorials are categories and include movie effects, photo manipulation, vector effects, digital coloring, and more. If you aren’t very advanced at Photoshop at this point, all the more reason to bookmark it and come back later.

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This article was big in the social-media scene, but in-case you missed it, it’s one of the best Photoshop articles I’ve come across in a long while. Let’s face it. Time is money. If you’re constantly looking for ways to improve your Photoshop workflow, the folks over at the brilliantly-designed WebDesignerWall.com have a fantastic must-read post on hidden, or undocumented Photoshop shortcuts. If you want to learn, or even to test your Photoshop knowledge head on over for a good read, and you might want to sift through the comments for even more shortcut goodness.

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I don’t even know where to start. Clicky is a new web analytics service (free, or pro for a small fee) that is so feature-rich it’s hard to imagine everything that Clicky can do. Not only do they offer the normal set of analytics features, they have tons more that leave competitors in the dust. Some cool new features include a Wordpress plugin, A live Spying feature (like Digg), Access to the API, File Download Tracker, Stats Via RSS, Integration with iGoogle, the list goes on and on. The only dissapointment I’ve found so far is the fact that Clicky isn’t offering their (killer) service to websites with more than 20,000 page views per day : ( They claim to be adding hardware to make this possible soon. One more thing. . . If you sign up for their affiliate program, it’s possible to get the premium service for free. And I hope they hurry. Move over Google Analytics, Clicky is where it’s at!

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I found this little gem on Digg.com other day and, sadly enough, it’s only received 5 Diggs in 48hrs, so I felt obligated to inform. It’s always nice to find a cheat sheet, and even better when it includes both Mac and PC versions, But I was truly amazed to find Photoshop Shortcut Cheat Sheets for every version back to Photoshop 5! For Both Platforms (PDF). If you like to improve your workflow or just learn more in general about Photoshop, you should download the cheat sheet for your version, or at least bookmark the site. www.morris-photographics.com Thanks Morris! Designers are always looking to save time.

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Designfruit is a great little website with some very high quality (hi-res) Photoshop brushes and vector art available. The brushes are free and the vectors are 12.99 US. If you haven’t had the pleasure of stumbling upon this site before, It’s definitely worth a stopping by. You’ve probably seen some of these brushes before, and might not even know it yet.

Example: Tasty Tattoo Brushes

Example: Japanese Foliage Brushes

There’s plenty more to check out over at Designfruit.com >

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Photoshoppers, this little freebie can save you hours if you create buttons or bars for web layouts on a regular basis. Dezinerfolio.com has done all the hard work for us already. All you have to do is download and install the file, and start making Web 2.0 buttons in seconds using the layer styles in Photoshop.

Gimp Users:

The kind folks over at Gimp-Tutorials.net have converted 30 of the styles for Gimp users to enjoy.

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What is the “eezy” Trifecta? Three. Awesome. Resources. Bookmark gold for a most any designer. The sites are simple and it goes like this: Vecteezy.com is a free vector site, Brusheezy.com is a free Photoshop Brush site, and Fresheezy.com is a free Wordpress theme site. And these aren’t search engines or databases. All of the content has to be submitted by the owner, and is subject to “make the cut.” Only the good stuff makes it into the mix. You’ll see some of my vectors and Photoshop brushes as you snoop around.

Not only are these three sites great resources for freebies, but if YOU are the author of a good freebie, you can submit your files, and if you make the cut, It’s a great way to get more traffic. I’ve been aquainted with the mind behind the magic of these three sites (nice guy) and I’ve witness their popularity grow exponentially in only a few short months. In fact, Vecteezy is one of my top referrers, day in and day out.

Screenshots:

Vecteezy – Free Vectors updated daily.

Brusheezy – Free Photoshop brushes updated daily.

Fresheezy – Free Wordpress themes.

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**This post marks the birth of a new BittBox category: Resources**

In case you might have missed this in the social-media scene, I wanted to make sure everyone knew about IconFinder.net, an essential bookmark for every web designer (in my opinion). Iconfinder is a simple, elegant icon search engine that’s easy to use, and has tons of icons in its database. All icons are licensed with either Creative Commons, GPL, or LGPL. Below is a quick screenshot tour, and If you are a Mac OS X user, they have a Dashboard Search Widget you can download as well.

Screenshots:

Search Results for “Folder.”

Search Results for “Home.”

Iconfinder Dashboard Search Widget for OS X.

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