Archive for December, 2008

24/12/2008 - susana

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Generate HTML previews of your Designs

Codedpreview is a very useful website that allows you to display a preview of your design in an HTML website. This is very useful when you’re developing a website since you won’t have to present your designs through an image, but you can actually see how they will display in a browser.

This is an example of how an image can be turned into an HTML preview. As you can see it’s not only useful to preview your templates but to easily share them with customers in a more professional way, and get feedback.

Source: WWWhatsNew

18/12/2008 - susana

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Quotes

“Design is directed toward human beings. To design is to solve human problems by identifying them and executing the best solution.”

Ivan Chermayeff

17/12/2008 - susana
1
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AETUTS released!

PSDTuts, NETTuts, VECTORTuts and AUDIOTuts are some pages that, if you enjoy design and want to easily learn, have to be in your bookmarks. Today I found out that AETuts was just released. This page, as its name implies, collects a variety of tutorials in order to get the best out of After Effects, one of the greatest software for video post-production.

Right now just the first tutorial has been published, but around 2 or 3 tutorials will be released each week. If you’re familiar with this software and want to contribute, or if you just want to learn, don’t miss this amazing site.

16/12/2008 - susana
2
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Improving User Interfaces

I ran into a very interesting article where 10 techniques are given in order to improve Graphic User Interface Design.

Here are the 10 most important techniques you should use when designing an interface:

1. Padded block links
2. Typesetting buttons
3. Using contrast to manage focus
4. Using color to manage attention
5. White space indicates relationships
6. Letter spacing
7. Auto-focus on input
8. Custom input focus
9. Hover controls
10. Verbs in labels

Remember to always use what suits your project the best :)

Source: Smashing Magazine

15/12/2008 - susana
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Edit images video and audio easily with FreeVimager

There are lots of software that allows you to edit different files, however I wanted to share with you FreeVimager, a freeware software that doesn’t even need to be installed in your computer and allows you to make the most common changes and improvements in your files.

This software works with all Windows versions and supports several file formats such as jpeg, bmp, gif, tiff (multi-page), png and pcx. It can come really handy when we need some quick editing to do and don’t have any software handy.

Source: Blog Informatico

10/12/2008 - susana
3
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Easy Web Design with Rombla

Rombla is a very useful online tool that allows you to create a professional looking website even if you don’t have any knowledge.

With Rombla you can pick between many different designs and easily add photos, videos and all kind of multimedia. This page was specially created for people with small business that have no technical knowledge and can’t afford professional web design but still understand that having a website is a must, specially a high quality one.

Source: Wwwhat’s New

05/12/2008 - susana
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The Clash of the Titans and Fruits available in our vista icons community site

In order to make our vista icons community site a more active place, and give our members the possibility to choose between the many free stocks we have to offer, we gave them the chance to vote for the next published stock. Since it was almost a tie we decided to publish the two stocks with the most votes which were “The Clash of the Titans – Sigma Style” and “Fruits – Vista Style”.

The Clash of the Titans is a movie based on the myth of Perseus, released on 1981. Right now a remake is being done and will be out in theaters on 2010, so for all the fans of this great movie, here’s a really nice stock for you to check while the new movie is out :) Some of the icons available in this stock are Perseus, the Robot Owl, Medusa and Kraken.

The second place in our voting competition was Fruits. This stock is perfect for applications and interfaces related to cooking, harvesting and basically anything food related. It contains a banana, a tangerine, a plum, a strawberry and a pear.

I really hope you like them, vectors will be released too soon, so you can play around with this graphics and adjust them to look how you want them to look!

02/12/2008 - susana

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Paint.NET, an alternative for image edition

Paint.NET is a graphic editor first designed as project in order to replace Microsoft’s Paint. It has evolved so much so fast that it’s now compared to professional software such as Adobe Photoshop and The GIMP.

This is a great tool for all those who want to try different options. Paint.NET is free and supports the most commons tools from the graphic editors, such as layers and special effects. Right now, this tool is being maintained by the alumni who first created and keep giving support through the forum with a very active community and releasing updates every one or two months. Although it just work properly on Windows, it’s sure worth to give it a try :)

01/12/2008 - susana
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Metallica Lumina Icons

Metallica is a very popular heavy metal band formed in LA in 1981. In this stock you can find some of the band members such as Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield, the Metallica logo and a guitar. This Lumina Style Icons are perfect for all the music lovers out there. The lights and brights enhance each one of the designs showing high quality and detail in each icon.