Entries Posted Under 'Graphics'

Well, I was supposed to be on my way home from Michigan today, but a snowstorm moved in and I’m stuck here. So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for me to share how to make the colorful watercolor-textured background used in my last desktop wallpaper. This tutorial is a quick and easy one; it primarily makes use of Photoshop brushes and layer blend modes, and requires that you have a nice selection of watercolor brushes at hand.

Read more: Creating a Colorful Watercolor-Textured Background »

I’ve got a new desktop wallpaper for you! I have a personal project that I’ve been working on on and off for the past couple months, and it features watercolor-textured splatters in a wash of rainbow colors. I loved the effects I was coming up with so much that I decided to play with them on a wallpaper canvas, and here’s the result.

Read more: Colorful Splatter Grunge Wallpaper »

I needed a camouflage background for a web project I was working on recently, and after playing around in Photoshop a bit, I came up with a quick and easy way to make a tileable digital camouflage pattern ideal for use as a website background. First I did some Googling to see what different real-life digital camouflage patterns look like, so I could get a feel for colors and arrangement and I kept these in mind as I worked on my own background.

Read more: Create Digital Camouflage in Photoshop »

Just a short post to show-off the latest from my Moleskine. I got out my Prismacolor pencils the other day and had some fun drawing and coloring at Starbucks. Here’s the what I came up with.

Read more: My Moleskine and Prismacolors »

I project I’m currently working on for a client called for some hand-drawn images of vintage cameras and typewriters, so I got out my Moleskine and had fun doing some sketching. Getting off the computer and taking pencil and paper in hand felt really good, and I realized that I don’t do that enough anymore. I used to fill entire sketchbooks full of drawings and illustrations to the point where I was going through two full-sized sketchbooks in a year.

Read more: Vintage Modes of Creation »

In part 1 of Creating a Winter Night in Photoshop, we completed a starry night sky with northern lights and snowy hills. Now we’re going to finish the scene up with some snowy pine trees, and some soft light reflections from the Aurora Borealis!

Read more: Creating a Winter Night in Photoshop - Pt 2 »

My December desktop wallpaper features a snowy winter scene against a starry night sky created using Photoshop. In this post, I’ll give a step-by-step tutorial of how I did it. This tutorial assumes you have a general knowledge of how to use Photoshop gradients, the polygon tool, and the pen tool. Ready? Let’s get started!

Read more: Creating a Winter Night in Photoshop - Pt 1 »

I love deep winter nights, when the earth lies still and silent beneath a blanket of pristine white snow, and the stars shine brightly in the clear night sky. And if you live in northern climes, you might even catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights dancing across the sky. It was a picture of these things in my mind that inspired me to create this wallpaper, which you can download here for free. If you’re a DIY kind of person, stay tuned: I’ll have a tutorial up of how I created this wallpaper in a day or two!

Read more: Free December Wallpaper »

Web design isn’t all colorful graphics and fun mouse-over effects; it requires a lot of forethought and strategic planning. I decided to write about the process involved in my recent site redesign, to give an idea of the way I work, as well as some useful tips to consider when planning for your own website design or redesign. In this post, I take a look at the initial planning I did before I even opened up my graphics programs or wrote the first line of code.

Read more: Case Study: Lilac Creative Redesign - Pt 1 »

I love to customize and personlize everything; I always have (and it’s a big reason I got into web design in the first place). If it’s paper, I doodle on it. If it’s wood, I paint it. If it’s electronics, I look for unique skins or cases. When I got my very first Mac earlier this year, I Googled skins for Macs, which brought up and endless array of skins and decals. But one of the things I loved about my MacBook Pro was it’s simple, sleek silver case, and I was reluctant to cover that up entirely (as most of the skins I found would have done)...

Read more: Designing My Mac »