Doing eye-catching designs in Illustrator

Eye-catching-swirl-spiral

I’m always on the look out for simple eye-catching ways to communicate a message. I think this is a great example of a visually appealing background that could be used when there are no images, graphics or other ways to improve the typography. This is especially useful in direct marketing (email or mail shot). How [...]

Turn your client’s photos into beautiful images

A-client's-portrait-as-a-beautiful-photoshop-image-example-1

The problem Err, sorry, the challenge. How many times does this happen? You have an otherwise beautiful design and your client insists on including pictures of people who’s images weren’t taken by one of the world’s best photographers. This is a reoccurring hitch; we have to include pictures of the CEO, the MD, the whoever, [...]

American flag inside country map outline

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 [...]

How to distress or shatter type in Illustrator

shattered-type

This is a good tip if you ever want to change type to invoke a mood. I wanted to give a bit of text a feeling of electricity and this is what I did. First of all, in Illustrator, you must convert your type to outlines. Remember, after you have done this you can’t edit [...]

Design stylized images with Photoshop and Illustrator

stylized-model-face-(1)

The image above has been stylised in Photoshop and Illustrator. To trace a photo in Adobe Illustrator, go File > Place and select the photo you want to trace. I find it useful to then lock this picture layer in the Layers palette and click on the New Layer icon to make sure your trace [...]

How to make CDs and DVDs in Illustrator

cd-dvd-illustration

This took me a while to figure out! The object is to get the gradient mesh to radiate out of the centre of a circle and that’s not as straightforward as you might expect. Anyway, this is a good one. To start with something easy – draw a circle. Select the circle tool and drag [...]

How to design a 3D crystal ball in Illustrator

crystal-ball-illustrator-square

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 diagonally across the circle. Make [...]

How to design sound waves in Illustrator

sound-waves

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 you’ll get a [...]

How to make PowerPoint presentations and Word documents look beautiful

word-pp-cs2

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 creative! Here are a few tips [...]

Creating a country’s flag inside its map outline

australia-map-flag

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 tracing the [...]

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