First Photoshop Tutorial is Live!!

I'm totally stoked! My first tutorial has been written and is now live! Make sure to check it out on my PS Tutorial Collective blog, or on my site here.

Tutorials

I've had a lot of questions about how I create my wallpapers. I decided that I should write tutorials and post them on my website. I'm going to start with this new wallpaper I made.



The tutorial hasn't been written yet, but I'll re-post as soon as it's done.

The KitchenAid Transformation

One of the sites I work on is KitchenAidCookware.com. The person who originally designed it did a terrible job on everything from the structure to the overall aesthetics of the site.

A couple of months ago I had to change the image on the main page. I went a little overboard and changed it quite a bit. I just couldn't stand to look at it the way it was. So, while not having permission to redesign the site, I worked within the constructs of what I had. I think it turned out pretty good for what it was.

Recently I had to make some more changes to it and ended up with a whole new design. Unfortunately, I may not get to implement the design as I would have to redo the whole site to match the new look. That will be done, but probably not for awhile.

I'm posting the three versions of the home page so you can see the different phases the site went through. (Although the 2nd version is more like a version2.1 as I modified it again to incorporate some of the new look.)

You can click on each image to view it live. The first one is the original, second one is live now, third one is the new design.

3rd Place Entry on W1K

Just wanted to share my recent 3rd place entry on worth1000.com. I really feel that it deserved at least second, but I'll take it.

Portraits

In this section I'm going to start posting my Photoshopped portrait layouts. My goal is to come up with several print worthy layouts to frame and hang on the wall. Of course the version I post here will be much smaller than the original file.

I started tonight with a layout for Avery

Icon Design

Recently I had a phone interview for a position designing icons and logos. The person who interviewed me is now on vacation and will get back to me in two weeks to let me know if I get an in-person interview. In the meantime I decided to do what I seem to be good at. Learn the job!

Icon design is different than web design and things of that nature and there are rules that need to be followed. I researched the topic and found a lot of information on how to correctly design icons (as well as how not to!).

The biggest things I took out of it all were:

-Do not use text. Text has a few problems. One is that when the icon is scaled down the text is usually impossible to read. The other is that you need to consider the language barrier. If your icon is going to be seen by people that do not speak English, the text won't make any sense.

-Do not use too many images in the icon. I think a big part of icon design is to keep it simple. Too many objects in the icon will confuse the user.

-Keep a theme amongst your entire set. For continuity purposes you need to have some theme that ties your icons together. This could be color, style, angle, etc.

-Do not use unnecessary objects. If every icon in your set has the same picture in it, then you don't need it. For instance, if every icon in your set is dealing with a database, you don't need to have a database image in it.

-Don't use puns or plays on words. These won't make sense to people of other languages, or maybe even your own language. Some of them could be offensive to other cultures.

-Don't use hand gestures to point at items. Some of them could be offensive to other cultures.

There are more things to consider, but those I think are the main ones. At the top of this blog are some that I created for the company I currently work for. These icons will never be used anywhere but this company so they are very specific and wouldn't make sense to a larger audience.

That is all the time I have for now.