Free 2011 Calendars to download in PDF, InDesign and Illustrator formats!

Download Free 2011 Calendars!

Here’s a present for my visitors and subscribers as a BIG “thank you” for all the support and encouragement I’ve received over the year! Every year I send Christmas cards to all my clients with a calendar of the next year on the back. Putting something useful like a calendar on the back of a [...]

Creating icons and illustrations using custom brushes in Illustrator

simple bike icon thumbnail

If you ever need to create a simple but effective illustration or icon and are bored of the effect you are getting with just an outline, it may be an idea to use custom brushes in Illustrator to give your lines a bit of character. Here is a simple trace of a motorbike that was [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

How to design shiny interface buttons in Illustrator

go-icon-button

These little buttons take a few seconds to make in Illustrator and give a nice polished, “web 2.0″ feel to a website or interactive environment. Firstly, when creating this shiny effect in Illustrator remember to make the document RGB. Go File > Document Color Mode > RGB. It won’t work otherwise. Many thanks to Simon [...]

How to turn a photo into an illustration

sunflower

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 on the Control Palette offers [...]

Graphic design an eye

eye-450

This is one way of reproducing a striking image without having to pay for it! The logical way of doing an image made of dots would be like this: Make sure that your image’s width and height are divisible by 10 pixels (the above is 450 by 300 pixels). Nice round numbers make the following [...]

Download the free e-books "How to Market Yourself Online" & "Starting An Online Business"

How to get clients online and advice on starting up online!

  • Creating websites
  • Setting up WordPress
  • Writing blog posts
  • Getting links
  • Driving traffic to your site
  • Using social media
  • Getting clients
  • Getting found on Google
download icon
download button