Every year I send Christmas cards to all my wonderful clients with a calendar of the next year on the back. You never know, somebody may pick one up and think of putting some design business my way, that's the idea anyway! I'm a bit late this year but I'll be artworking it up this weekend and … [Read more...]
American flag inside country map outline
A while ago I did an article explaining how to create a country,s flag inside its map outline and I used as an example the Australian map and flag. I've since had a lot of interest from Australians who wanted to use the image so I thought I'd do one for Americans as I get a lot of visitors from the … [Read more...]
How to design a 3D crystal ball in Illustrator
This starts, as most tutorials start, with something very easy: draw a circle. So, select your circle tool and drag diagonally to preferred size, not forgetting to hold down the shift key. Fill the circle white, with no stroke. Next, select the Gradient Mesh Tool (U) and click four points … [Read more...]
How to design sound waves in Illustrator
This is a nice little trick using Illustrator's Blend option. To create perfect sine-waves – or something very close – first of all, draw a line. Then go Filter > Distort > Zig Zag... and choose the number and height of waves you want (remembering to click the smooth radio button, otherwise … [Read more...]
How to make PowerPoint presentations and Word documents look beautiful
If your client hands you a .PPT from MS PowerPoint or and .DOC Word and says: "The presentation/print deadline is tomorrow, make this look nice", what are you going to do? The answer is to use other programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark, Premiere or Keynote and get … [Read more...]
Creating a country’s flag inside its map outline
Quite often I'm looking for a simple iconic device to represent a country without having to just reproduce the flag alone. So, as you can see above, why not put the flag inside the country's shape. Also, it's free! It's relatively easy to find a country's flag and shape on the internet and … [Read more...]
How to turn a photo into an illustration
Remember Adobe Streamline? Adobe stopped upgrading its vector conversion application some time ago. But with the advent of CS2, Illustrator's old Trace Tool became the new super Live Trace and opened up a new world of possibilities! As soon as you place or paste a photo into Illustrator a button … [Read more...]
Choosing colours while designing
Choosing a group of colours can be a daunting exercise. OK, so there's some golden rules to follow, like "always choose from the same third of the colour wheel". Golden rules are made to be broken. Adobe has a colourful website to make this a bit easier. If you sign in you can download the … [Read more...]
Designing waves and wavey lines in Illustrator
You can use this tutorial to make weeds or grasses swaying in the wind as above. Or colour them orange, yellow and red and you've got flames. They are also a useful decorative feature that seems to be quite common these days. Start with a line... Go Filter > Distort > Zig Zag, or Effect … [Read more...]
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