The Design Project

Stage Curtains

d.e. — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 03:42:33 +0000

I’m not entirely sure what’s happened since my last post, but my Photoshop project seems to have escaped me. This summer is going by in a blur and I feel rather scatterbrained and unproductive. Not to worry, however. I have another tutorial to post today. This one is from Designious Times: it’s a simple method for creating some wonderful stage curtains.

Stage curtains can only be useful in so many ways, so this is exciting for me. Now I have to go and come up with a project that needs some good curtains.

- d.e.

3D Type with Repoussé in Photoshop CS5

d.e. — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:31:36 +0000

Today’s tutorial is another one that I found on Abuzeedo. As I have CS5, I’ve been meaning to learn more about what exactly it’s capable of, and this tutorial is a wonderful introduction to the Repoussé feature. Having previously done all my 3D text in Illustrator, this is especially exciting (and convenient!) for me.

The only real difference between my end result and the one on Abuzeedo is the textures that I used for the 3D text and the clouds. The bricks I used are from Wikimedia Commons, the concrete texture is from Texturezine, and the absolutely gorgeous sky that I used, I found at this link. You don’t need Shutterstock or Photoshop superpowers to find these – you just need Google.

- d.e.

A Poster of Words

d.e. — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 05:57:34 +0000

(Pun intended)

The theme for the week seems to be typography. Today’s tutorial I found on PhotoshopStar – it’s incredibly simple (the most time-consuming part of the whole tutorial is probably making the selection), but it’s a great idea for a musical poster or for any kind of poster.

And it looks fabulous, of course.

- d.e.

Lost in Space

d.e. — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 05:56:09 +0000

It’s (still, I promise) Tuesday and today I’m posting a quite wonderful tutorial from Abduzeedo. It’s a tutorial about typography! Which is one of my favorite things, really. I love the tutorial, I love the font from Fontfabric, and I love how really simple things and ideas in Photoshop can be so powerful and so useful.

The end result of the tutorial on Abduzeedo is better than mine (I had some minor issues), but I think it came out pretty well in the end.

- d.e.

Advanced Glow Effects

d.e. — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:57:01 +0000

Today I’m posting a tutorial about lighting effects from Psdtuts+. I actually found this tutorial when I was looking for inspiration for the Crystal Ball that I posted on Sunday. Using the clouds as an overlay is superb and the chrome filter is great too, although it only works if your Photoshop document is small enough.

As usual, it’s a pretty simple tutorial, but it has some great applications – and in fact I’ve already explored one of these with the aforementioned crystal ball. I love how these tutorials start to come together and allow you to create fun new things.

- d.e.

(Another) Crystal Ball

d.e. — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:04:03 +0000

I had so much fun creating a super glossy orb for my last tutorial, that I had to make my very own crystal ball – which I kind of love. I followed almost exactly the same tutorial from PsAwesome, but I changed the environment picture and a couple of the colors for lighting and such. The environment picture that I used can be found here. I figured out that using a darker picture for the orb sacrifices most of the glossiness, but to make up for that, you get to use lots of fun lighting effects.

Just in case anybody was dying to know, I used a (pinkish) radial gradient for the light coming from the crystal ball and then I rendered clouds as an overlay on top of it.

- d.e.

Oh Crystal Ball, Crystal Ball, Save Us All…

d.e. — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:19:38 +0000

Another Thursday, another fun and not-too-terribly-difficult tutorial. This one is from PsAwesome and it’s called ‘How to Create a Super Glossy Orb Using CS4 Extended’. Which is a long title, admittedly, but the tutorial really is fun if you have CS4, or if you have CS5 like I do. And I can see all kind of fabulous possibilities for creating crystal balls. I might even have to make one and post it (not that anybody reads this blog anyway).

For now, here is the final result:

Pretty, right? A+ if you got the Keane reference.

- d.e.

Wordle!

d.e. — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:33:17 +0000

Today I have a double post because last Thursday I failed in my duties and did not finish a tutorial. I try not to do that but then I get distracted with other things.

Today I discovered Wordle. Wordle is awesome. The tutorial is from PSAwesome and it’s incredibly simple and fun, mostly relying on Wordle to do the heavy lifting. Wordle generates “word clouds” from any text that you want. I used La Vie Boheme, from Rent, one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite musicals.

Besides the wonderful introduction to Wordle, this tutorial also has a couple other fun tricks – I love the idea of using rainbow lens flares for a text overlay. The effect is just very fun.

- d.e.

Vintage Beach Ad

d.e. — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:40:59 +0000

It’s Tuesday again already. This week I did a tutorial from Design Instruct called How to Make a Worn Vintage Beach Ad in Photoshop.

It’s a great tutorial and a wonderful end result, although figuring out some of the colors ended up being a little tricky. I also wish I had moved the surfer a little bit further down on the poster, but such is life. It was very nice practice for my Photoshop skills.

- d.e.

More Patterns

d.e. — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 06:10:14 +0000

I’ve been having so much fun with patterns that I decided to do another tutorial on them this week. This one is very short and simple, but it gives you some great ideas on how to create your own patterns.

The link is from Psdtuts+. I followed the tutorial almost exactly but added some vertical stripes at the end to give it more of a cool wallpaper effect (I hope).

- d.e.