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 with, given the circumstances allow for it. I have to sometimes force myself to do this, but it’s a really nice way to add a little extra if done right. Typography, especially scaled way up, can be a powerful addition to your design, and even a texture layer at times. I will use the font Sidewalk from a previous post as an example.

Read the rest of this entry »

These are 5 of the (in my opinion) best free “grunge” or “eroded” typefaces of late. Three of which are from the same artist/typographer Gyom S?guin. I hope you didn’t miss these, but if you did, you can download them right away. They’re free. I wish I had more opportunities to take advantage of these fonts in a real situation, but I find that it’s always a good idea to keep these fonts around to save time having to look for them later.

Read the rest of this entry »

Finding High Quality free files on the internet is every designers daily dilemma. Sometimes you don’t have the time to make your own swooshes, or seamless paisley background image. This is why we search, and from my experience, the search can be brutal. There is a lot of crap out there, and sifting through all of the 1990’s “clip art” makes me want to blow chunks sometimes. I have, however, found a way to bypass a lot of the “junk” and get right to the good stuff, relatively speaking. At the very least, call it a freebie search tip.

As you all probably know, adding the word “free” to a Google search can increase your crappy results exponentially. This sucks when all you want to find is a free button, badge, pattern, or anything else that you’re looking for. Nothing out of the ordinary, just quick and free. It doesn’t need to be this hard, and it shouldn’t be because there are plenty of sites out there willing to share free designs but don’t necessarily rank well on Google. This is where we take advantage of both Google, and the social media sites in order to get instant highly relevant results, and quick access to freebies. It’s like using every social bookmarking site at once. Here’s how it works. . .

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m starting a new series today: Random Free Vectors. I started this blog to share things that I like to design, without having to have a client that needs it. So, I’m going to start posting some random vector designs that I like making in my spare time/research. These are obviously going to be more on the decorative/artsy side instead of web design, but they might come in useful as background elements, patterns, etc. I think it’s wrong for these to just sit collecting dust on my hard drive. I’m hoping that some of you can find uses for this series of freebies.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a small set of of Photoshop buttons I made for a site I was working on a while back. It’s not a huge set, but I thought they were some nice buttons, and wanted to share them. They have an “inset” style to them with a silky glass effect, and will work well on almost any background. If you download the PSD, you will notice that here is not a highlight, but a shadow that creates the effect. Don’t forget to check the effects on the layers to see exactly how they are made, if you want to customize. For those of you who see no need to customize these buttons, a PNG with a transparent background is included.

Read the rest of this entry »