Illustrator Magic: Part One

Illustrator has an absolute plethora of tricks that it can perform, provided the user knows some of the basics about using the Appearance Palette and Effects menu. Today, I’m going to illustrate one of the many magic tricks you can pull off using some very simple techniques in tandem.

The Complete Guide to Using the Tilde Key…

Okay, so I thought that if you’re anything like me, you probably pay hardly any attention (if any at all) to that weird little squiggly key on the far upper left corner of your keyboard. Then I thought to myself, “Self, there MUST be something that this stupid button is good for!” Since I’m not very fluent in Spanish, I figured that my next option was to find some uses for the tilde within my favorite trio of programs: Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign…

Well, I did some research, and dug through some of my mountains of books to come up with as many functions as I possibly could for that previously-useless little plastic cube. Here’s what I found:

Carbonmade Portfolios

I just recently (and by ‘recently’ I mean ‘about a year ago’) learned about a fantastic site that does free hosting for designers’ portfolios called Carbonmade.com. The UI is super-simple, but also highly-intuitive. They allow up to five projects and/or 35 images to be posted for free (after that, you pay to upgrade), and have a host of stylish tweaks you can apply to your portfolio, text, and thumbnails.

A Handful of Super-useful Websites for Designers – Part 1

I’ve come across many, many amazing websites and blogs in the time since I began my interest in graphic design. Some of them are long lost to the murky mire of Google’s archives, some are hidden away in the catastrophic cacophony of clutter that is my bookmarks collection, and some are just plain gone. Of the ones that I DO still have, I’d like to share them in bite-sized chunks here and there, in order that the list doesn’t become too overwhelming, and so that you can start cluttering up YOUR bookmarks, too 😉