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All posts filed under "Design"

RSS icons as custom shapes for Photoshop

RSS icons as custom shapes for Photoshop

Over at feedicons.com, you can download the well-established icon for RSS feeds in different sizes, colours and formats. Unfortunately, their PSD files are just rendered images, so I created a custom shape set for you to play with. You can download it here.

Also, I recreated the orange version of the icon just by using these shapes and a few layer styles. Download the PSD file here.

RSS Feed icon 128 x 128 pixels


Creative Commons icons as custom shapes for Photoshop

Creative Commons icons as custom shapes for Photoshop

If you want to mark your design work as licenced under a Creative Commons licence and include the respective icons, you can download them as SVG, EPS and PNG files and even as true type font at creativecommons.org/about/downloads/. Since I often work with custom shapes in Photoshop, I created a custom shape set featuring all Creative Commons icons, which I wanted to share with you. Download it here.

What are Creative Commons licences?

Creative Commons licences are the right choice if you want to share your work with others. For instance: the contents of this website are generally licenced under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence, which means that you can use the texts and images I created for non-commercial purposes without asking me, provided that you don’t change them and credit me, ideally with a link to this website.

Creating this set was only possible, because the icons themselves are licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which allows me to adapt and share them.

To learn more, watch the videos below and visit creativecommons.org/about/.


(via helge.at)

The Art of Barack Obama

One thing I love about the Internet is that it encourages and facilitates creativity because of the quick and easy way to create, publish and assimilate ideas. In the last weeks, there was one source of inspiration like few others: the presidential election in the United States. Especially the almost perfect campaign of Barack Obama, who convinced more than 60 million people to vote for him and therefore made history.

Many designers and artists helped him to achieve his goal by creating tons of images, wallpapers and posters, which spread like wildfire on the Web. And even though the whole hoopla verges on a personality cult, its richness and diversity is really impressive.

Here are just a few examples:

Obama United States of America
via c3o’s soup

Obama collage
via fubiz.net

Obama portrait "Hope"
via notcot.com

Obama as Superman
via robotwalrus.com

Obama mosaic
by tsevis via flickr


Creative business card design

This one has been around for a while now, I just rediscovered it today. So simple, so nice.

The agency responsible for this design is john st. Unfortunately, their website is a perfect example of how not to build a website.

Divorce lawyer business card
(via yeahyoureright.com)


Makeup á la Photoshop

Photoshop: Bester Freund der Werbewirtschaft und Feind aller Menschen mit schwachem Selbstbewusstsein. Warum? Weil die Art Directors dieser Welt mittels Photoshop aus normalen Menschen „perfekte” Kunstwesen schaffen. Feuer frei zum Wettlauf zum Ziel eines nie zu erreichenden Schönheitsideals.

Wir alle wissen, dass 99,9% aller Bilder, die wir zum Beispiel in Werbungen sehen, gründlich nachbearbeitet wurden. Und ich meine jetzt nicht nur Belichtung und Farbsättigung, sondern die übertriebene Retuschierung von menschlicher Imperfektion. Ich behaupte jetzt auch einfach mal, dass in einer Ausgabe eines typischen Frauenmagazins mehr Stunden an Photoshop-Arbeit drin stecken, als für Redaktion, Satz und Layout. Ich gebe mich aber auch nicht der Illusion hin, dass es bei Männer- oder überhaupt anderen Magazinen anders sei. Bedenklich, meint Ihr? Ganz und gar, sage ich.

Möchte man nun dennoch bei den eigenen Familienportraits den Haaransatz korrigieren, oder die Augenringe als Zeugen der letzten Party hinter Pixel-Makeup verstecken, dem sei Folgendes empfohlen:

Das Smashing Magazine hat vor einigen Tagen eine nette Kollektion von Tutorials veröffentlicht, die -mal oberflächlicher, mal genauer- Schritt für Schritt erklären, wie man soetwas macht.

Perfekte Lüge

Aber Vorsicht: Übertreibt man es dann ein wenig mit dem Retuschieren, landet man mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit bei den Photoshop Disasters, ein wunderbares Blog, das die besten Stücke an designerischer Selbstüberschätzung und Dilettantismus präsentiert.

Dieses Beispiel mit einem aalglatten Clive Owen zeigt schön, wie man schnell den Charakter eines Menschen aus dem Gesicht wegzaubern kann.

Clive Owen (Photoshop Disasters)

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