Gimp Tutorial Review
If you haven’t already figured it out, I love Gimp! When I first found out about the application and downloaded it I kept thinking, “all this for free?” And when I say ALL THIS , I mean there’s a lot to this Open Source image editor. In fact the only thing I think Gimp lacks is (more…)
Quick and Easy E-book Covers in 3D
Are digital E-book readers the wave of the future? Apple has an app for reading e-books on your iPhone, Sony’s got a line of new portable digital readers, and apparently there is a device called the Kindle2 that you can read your e-books with. Honestly I didn’t know there was a Kindle1. If I didn’t know better I’d say these mega companies are betting on the increased sales of e-books and we need to take notice. For anyone interested in writing a book now may be the best time to make it happen.
I recently did a video tutorial showing how to layout a e-book cover design in Microsoft Expression. As a follow up, I want to take you through the steps of turning that 2D art into a 3D book using Gimp. After watching this video you’ll (more…)
Quick and Easy E-Book cover in Expression
If you’ve been surfing the web for any length of time, no doubt you’ve come across a e-book. Back when I was a 9-to-5er I was sent to a book publishers convention where one of the workshops was introducing the idea of e-books to the attendees. Now mind you, this was 1999 and there where quite a few of us scratching our heads over the concept of a digital book you didn’t flip the pages of. Fast forward to the present and e-books have spread throughout the world wide web like some kind of digital STD. E-books are growing in popularity, and along with that growth is the need for digital cover art to display the wares.
I recently came across a program someone was charging good money for, that claimed to create your e-book covers auto-magically. Being a artist, this was laughable to me, but for those of you who don’t know how or don’t have the time to create a cover, this might be of interest. So I thought I’d save you some money and show you how to easily create e-book covers for yourself. Once you know how, you’ll be a (more…)
How to Make Your Twitter Avatar
I did a search using the keyword Avatar, at search.twitter.com and found that it is a highly used word to say the least. Here are the types of statements I found the word used in:
I never follow someone without a avatar.
Trying to figure out what avatar to use on my account.
How old is your avatar?
….p.s., GET AN AVATAR!
And what about putting up your own avatar? you lazy little…
The conclusion I gathered from my little bit of research was that avatars are very important in this new era of social media technology.
For those who are new to the game, I thought I’d show you how to create your own avatar using MS Paint. Some may ask, of all the programs in this great wide world to use, why would you choose MS Paint to do a avatar tutorial!?! The answer is simple, not everyone has Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or Gimp. But if you’re running Windows you have MS Paint, and probably don’t even know it.
Before you watch the tutorial, the first thing you need to do is decide on an image for your avatar. Choose carefully because as the above statements allude to, people are watching you. I like the article “6 types of avatars used on Twitter“, by Rob Enslin. Me personally, I don’t care what your avatar looks like, or in some cases, if you even have one. If you contribute to the social networking cause in some meaningful way, why should it matter to me if you have a picture up or not? (more…)
Basic Drawing For Design
Hey everybody, here’s another video how-to.
Many non-designers assume that you have to really know how to draw to design good business cards, brochures or newsletters, and that’s not the case at all. When I got my first paying gig as a production artist I became frustrated over time because I didn’t get to draw anything. After all, that’s why I got into the business in the first place. I loved to draw. And even after making Lead Designer years later, I still didn’t do much drawing or illustrative work. The fact is, illustrations are only incorporated into a few projects that pass through a studio. A lot of time photos and graphical images are used. So you see, drawing is only a part of graphic design. Now it doesn’t hurt to be able to sketch a anatomically correct figure from memory, but it’s not a deal breaker if you can’t. In this video I’ll show you that if you can draw basic shapes you can design.
