Graphic Identity: 2009

Friday, December 4, 2009

December’s Free File of the Month on Envato Network

The Envato Network is a great marketplace known by huge numbers of people. This December you can grab the December’s Free File of the Month which is designed by DeltaForce. The free file includes a stylish and clean set of modern backgrounds. There are 20 super amazing nice abstract backgrounds with high resolution (4000×3000 pixels).

Enjoy and find it useful for your commercial or non-commercial but you may not use the file in multiple projects unless you purchase licenses.

Download the Envato-December's Free File

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Be sure to check this design set also
Coffee Latte Card

Fantasy Floral Vectors

Related Post:

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Design Process of Danielku Logo

A month ago, I was working on a brand identity project together with Daniel Keller. He is a music producer, blogger & audiogadget lover from Switzerland, who is also the owner of this project :D. I'm so happy that after long brainstorming process, the re-brand of Danielku logo is finally here.

I just want to share the design process with you and I would love to read your feedbacks too :)

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The Design Concept

The idea was to bring a simple logo that correlates to Danielku slogan: "Music in Colors". As a start we think of a colorful music note. There were some facts to develop the basic concept into raw sketches: Daniel loves house/electro/dance musics and he produces music with drumpads.

Visual Concept Throughout the Sketches

We tried to deliver the design concept with different arrangement of type, slogan text and the illustration part of the logo. Nevertheless, the music note could be very much closer to the basic idea compared to all which had been brought on using raw sketches. So we were focusing more to it.

The First Digital Stage

We made some alternatives for the head, stem and the flag of the music note. Some questions noted, such as: how the color would be shown on the music note's head? Should the music note be better appearing in Y axis or arranged diagonally? Where is to put the music note? The right proportion of it? We were also experimenting with the current logo trends: 'varidots', sequential layer of shapes, and also mosaic technique.

Simplifying the Alternatives

In the next stage, we went back to the main root, and start thinking about another possibility to combine the colored music note idea with the electro music vibes concept. It could be colorful, and playful at the same time. "Tetris" game was the great inspiration as it represents the digital lifestyle. Daniel gave a helpful feedback at this stage, that a colorful pixelated music is a great descriptive concept to develop, simple illustration and we've been hoping this concept can also be flexible to deliver its visual message behind the brand attributes.

Choosing the Font for the Logo Text

This stage was a bit tricky. We tried to use several fonts and the colors for the texts as well. I designed a set of custom vector font for this logo by the way. But for technical reason, we have dropped the design and we decided to use Advent Bold for the main text and Advent Regular for the slogan text.

Final Logo Design

The refining process didn't take too much time. Because the logo stays simple from the beginning. The important part is to make this logo works good in all kinds of media (web & print) and in black/white version.
The music note pixels are colored based on this color scheme:

Color by COLOURlovers
In the final process, the flag of the music note was altered so it resembles the "f" character, as the slogan changed to: "Media in Colors". Daniel wants to keep his brand in good flexibility for his various creative works in music and also Flash animations. The pixel boxes make this logo becomes modular in each pixel unit. The avatar is using the head part of the music note, and it slightly shows "d" character. The ideas are mixed together and the result is a colorful monogrammed music note with consistent flexibility :)

If you want to see some more details about the Danielku logo, and with better presentation graphics of course. You can visit my Behance portfolio page.

UPDATE

Recently we've made another version to fit the 'ActiveDen' marketplace environment. We selected two font characters that can symbolized Flash ActionScript, which are 'd' and '<' ~ so both characters create Daniel's initial.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

COLOURlovers: It's Coffee Time!

It's Coffee Time
Originally uploaded by pninaN

To be honest, I'm not a real coffee addict. You know, even many people believe that drinking coffee is unhealthy, still there is the goodness of coffee if you consume it in a decent way :P

But we are here not only to talk about how energizing to have few cups of coffee in your daily creative activities, because I also wanna share 10 color palettes from COLOURlovers ... and it's Coffee Time!

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These could be another goodness of coffee. The Coffee Theme color palettes collection could be useful for your design inspiration. Add me to your COLOURlovers circle and tell me which one is your favorite color palette ;)

Brown Water

Color by COLOURlovers

Coffee With Love

Color by COLOURlovers

Coffee Lovers

Color by COLOURlovers

My Morning Frapp

Color by COLOURlovers

Nice hot Capo

Color by COLOURlovers

Coffee Ma'

Color by COLOURlovers

Coffee Break

Color by COLOURlovers

Coffee and Merlot

Color by COLOURlovers

Coffee Cream & Mint

Color by COLOURlovers

Coffee Mocha

Color by COLOURlovers

Be sure to check this design set also
Coffee Latte Card

Related Post:

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Free Folder Menu Tabs

Hello! I come back again with another Free Design Box files. A set of Folder Menu Tabs in PSD file format.

The set includes 10 different sizes and 10 gradient variations menu tabs. They are sleek, and there's a shading effect layer for each tab.
You will have multi-layered and well arranged menu tab vector shapes based on color choices.

PSD file example (demo) to use the folder-like menu tabs is also available. Therefore you can set a box under the default state of it, along with the shading shape for each tab. I use Arial font for the demo file.

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You can resize or rotate these tabs to fit your design needs. Choose a typical size of tabs or even combine any different tabs to put together on your website with just easiest way to do it

All of Graphic Identity's 'Free Design Box' files are FREE (for personal or commercial use). But please read: Legal Usage to employ Graphic Identity's 'Free Design Box' files before you decide to download the files.

Leave your comment as I always love to hear more feedbacks from you

Graphic Identity - Tabs in Colors.zip (9.3 MB)

Graphic Identity - Tabs Examples.zip (5.17 MB)

Be sure to check this design set also
Fantasy Floral Vectors

Related Post:

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Photoshop Pen Tool Resources

Pen Tool is a powerful tool in Photoshop that every designer should master. It is not difficult to understand how this tool work, but it would challenge most of us in its practical uses. Here are some resources links that may help you to figure out some Pen Tool tricks and its best practices for your creative design.
Feel free to drop another links in my comment box if you have another favorite Pen Tool resources to share. Thank you ;)

Pen Tool graphic is designed by Markus Nielsen

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Creative Tip: Adobe Pen Tool Cheatsheet by CreativeTechs.com
A simple PDF file cheatsheet that shows how easy Adobe’s Pen Tool to be used across Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign (CS2/CS3) .

Photoshop Pathing: How To Use Photoshop Pen Tool by MakeUseOf.com
A very quick tutorial for pathing out a simple object from its background.

Making Selections With The Pen Tool by PhotoshopEssentials.com
It is a very good tutorial especially if you are a Photoshop beginners. Because it has lots of informative visual & textual explanations to create selection and therefore very easy to follow. The points of explanations covered:

Pen Tool & Path introduction
Turning A Path Into A Selection
Handle Directions Control
Drawing A Curve
Moving An Anchor Point
Combining Straight Paths With Curves
Practical example of how to select an object with curves

Photoshop’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide by PSD.tutsplus.com
A very comprehensive tutorial that has many visual examples, tips, best practices and instructions about Pen Tool. You'll find explanations of functions, keyboard shortcuts, cursors, mouse & keyboard controls and option to use Pen Tool. The tutorial also provides you the downloadable Pen Tool Exercise file so you can follow the guides to create precise paths, using the hints and shortcuts covered in this article.

Photoshop Pen Tool Guide by Tutorial9.net
It is a well explained basic Peen Tool tutorial. The tutorial shows you how to create simple shapes with the help of Grid and snapping in your work canvas.

How to use Photoshop's Pen Tool by MelissaClifton.com
In the end you'll learn how to cut out an image with the pen tool and then creating custom shapes from the work path.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

5 Fresh Free Typefaces

I just wanna share you what I found recently. 5 Free Typefaces that are relatively new to have a look.

FILE™
fontfabric.com always produce typefaces with contemporary looks. Introducing the brand new FILE™ as a new released typeface by fontfabric.com. This typeface is applicable for any type of graphic design.

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Nata rounded 0.1
Nata rounded 0.1 is a Beta version of David Botella' first Typeface. Bulky and round, and also absolutely perfect to use for any typographic designs.

Big Boned
Big Boned is the Alpha version typeface that has bold shapes and it is a result of a playful experimental typeface by networkosaka.com.

Titillium
Titillium is a high quality sans serif typeface, which has professional looks and suitable for display or text purpose. It comes with various font-weight in a set. There is also available Titillium extra-black version to download for free.

Museo Sans
Museo Sans is a derivative typeface of the well-known Museo. Just note its geometric glyphs which is designed with very precise proportion. This typeface has a great ultra balance of structure.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Rolet: A Typeface Design by Simon Page

It's been a tough week with many ideas on my mind for the next tutorial. Then I suddenly landed on a great spot of Flickr group: Vectortuts Group Pool. My eyes scanned down on some new submissions and this typographic poster design has caught my attention. The typeface poster was designed by a graphic designer from the UK, Simon Page. What's so special about this poster is that, Simon Page has used his own typeface creation, called Rolet. It will be available soon in vector form. Vector typeface has became widely used by many designers recently to present designs that has POP feel and contemporary or maybe even to create an extreme design look. Rolet is an interesting typeface design which has some kind of 2D layered shapes that are twisted, and the twist produced a smart 3D typeface in overall look. Just interesting! Take a sneak peep on this Rolet Typeface Design.

Have your say if you like ;)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Pencil Sketch Effect in Photoshop Action

This morning I surfed down the net to find pencil sketch effect tutorials. There are obviously lots of different techniques to produce this kind of effect into a photo. I followed several tuts, to compare the results and I felt like I needed to find the very quick one, yet it should have great result too. So, I came across this (relatively old) tutorial post at Jeff Flowers's.com. Written by Jeff Flowers himself :). He wrote a smart tutorial which is very easy to follow about "How To Turn A Photo Into A Sketch".

Source Photo: Danny North on Flickr

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I decided to create a set of photoshop action based on this step by step tutorial. In Step 3, Jeff Flowers set the radius blur into 6px (Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur), but in this photoshop action, I set it into 15px. Jeff has also noted that: this all depends on your image.

Even you will have instant graphic effect using this photoshop action set in a blink of an eye, I think you would still need to understand how this effect is produced. Because your image contrast will take part on delivering a great result of pencil sketch effect. Sometimes you will have to create this graphic effect from scratch, instead of using automatic photoshop action.

Just hit the play button on two different file of images, and see the result within few seconds. If you don't know what photoshop action is and how to install it, you can read the details at: Graphic Identity Photoshop Action tutorial before you start.

There will be two different photoshop actions in a set:

Pencil Sketch B/W:black and white pencil sketch effect
Pencil Sketch Color: colored pencil sketch effect

Pencil Sketch Action.atn (1.43 KB)

Download Pencil Sketch Effect in Photoshop Action

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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Random Gradients vol. 1

Hello I’m here again. Sorry for leaving you for the past couple of months. I was terribly busy and hardly find any chance to update Graphic Identity blog. I wish you guys still be here for more. I really appreciate your visits somehow, and will love to hear any comments or questions on my post.

I finally managed to create a set of gradient freebie. There are 100 gradients included and they're free to download for personal and commercial uses. I've created random solid colors (no particular style or whatsoever). Because I'd like to experimet a bit, and perhaps next time I could come out with more spesific gradient styles. You can read: How to install Photoshop Gradients Tutorial, If you don't know how to install a .GRD file to your system.

Thank you for my facebook friends (Permana, Yuyun, Jojo, and Snuf or @snufsnuf) who have suggested me with brilliant color schemes and hexa codes for a start ;) You guys are ROCK! :D

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Have your say and don't hesitate to drop me your idea for the next Gradient freebies. Either you like dark gradients, noise gradients, pastel color gradients, or anything. I also actually plan to write tutorial about "Techniques in Creating Photoshop Gradients". Lets hope for it, shall we :)

I would like to remind you that all of my 'Free Design Box' files are FREE (for personal or commercial use). But after I found that my previous Photoshop brushes set was hijacked before, please read: Legal Usage to employ Graphic Identity's 'Free Design Box' files.

If you like my Free Design Box post series please give comment before you download them because I will appreciate any feedback from you.

Graphic Identity - Random Gradients vol 1.grd (80.54 KB)

Graphic Identity - Random Gradients vol 1.rar (5.13 KB)

Graphic Identity - Random Gradients vol 1.zip (6.51 KB)

Related Post:

Thursday, April 2, 2009

40 Unique Designs with Photoshop Action Scripts

How many of you have learned hard from tons of Photoshop tutorial resources just to know the trick to create an awesome graphic effect? If you are a newbie to Photoshop, sometimes it will take time to understand the whole tutorials. But do you know that Photoshop Actions can do the trick for you? or even the magic :)For you who don't know about Photoshop Action, it is actually a series of commands that you play back on a single .ATN file, and it works on menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on that is automatically done in few clicks.

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We introduce you a time saver but also a very powerful Photoshop Action pack from PhotoshopActionScripts.com. It is an easy software that allows you create amazing realistic 3 Dimensional cover graphics in minutes, such as E-Covers, Book Covers, Music Box, MP3 Player, Gift Bag or CD Covers, and much more.

There are 40 different professional designs that should be very useful for you.
All you have to do is to transform your 2D graphic into HIGH resolution 3D graphic (300 DPI) in just few clicks.

The result of each executed action is incredibly brought to you in high detailed graphic. Have a closer look to this CD-Cover design. Precision matters to your design and you're definitely won't miss a chance to give a try!

What makes this PhotoshopActionScripts different than any other products are:

the compatibility with Photoshop® 7.0 all the way to Photoshop® CS4®
works beautifully in Windows and Mac

You can just visit www.PhotoshopActionScripts.com to watch the demo video and find out how easy it is! Simply the best deal for every professional who puts weight on exclusive design output.

Monday, March 2, 2009

50 Modern & Minimalist Patterns

Pattern makes beautiful your design, and as I came by to COLOURlovers.com, I just couldn't stop to see tons of colorful patterns that I wanted to search from the beginning.

Finally, I decided to collect patterns that related to Modern and Minimalistic Design and make some groups for easy find. I hope these cool patterns from COLOURlovers.com will help you designing graphic or web project that echoes modernity and simplicity in the visual look.

Give the "love" vote to your favorite patterns, make comment or love Graphic Identity at COLOURlovers.com if you already there ;).

If you want to share your favorite pattern, feel free to drop a link on the comment section guys, and shall we begin the Pattern Parade!

DOTS

Color by COLOURlovers

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