The month of July 2010 included some exceptional content for our readers. This month’s articles, freebies, and tutorials covered a wide variety of topics including logo design and typography. Let’s take a look!
Tutorial Wrap
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Creating a Recycle Bin Icon
Our first tutorial of the month is for the icon lovers. This is a fairly simple tutorial that will show the reader how to create a semi-realistic looking 3D recycling bin. The tutorial uses very basic techniques to get the main shape of the bin down and then from there its just using transform tools, as well as layer styles. So check out this simple tutorial if you are interested in making an icon.
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Make a Fake Studio Shoot
This is one of the more interesting tutorials we've seen in a while. This tutorial shows us how to create a realistic looking photo shoot from scratch in Photoshop. The tutorial shows how to combine various stocks to make it look like there is actually a photo shoot going on, I recommend everyone check this great tutorial out because it teaches a bunch of valuable techniques and the result looks very interesting as well as realistic.
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Cosmic Scene Tutorial
This tutorial focuses on the basic aspects of space imagery. This is a very popular type of style to create among designers so the author of this tutorial illustrates the basics of creating one of these scenes. The result isn’t the best space scene you will ever see but it is good for a starter tutorial, once you have this mastered you could move on to something more complex and realistic.
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Eat With Caution Tutorial
Properly blending stocks is something every designer should know how to do and this tutorial helps Photoshop first timers deal with this essential technique. The result isn’t amazing but the basics are definitely covered in this tutorial and this is another great one for the people who like to experiment with new styles.
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Simple Fruit In Photoshop
One of the wonders of Photoshop is that you can use its tools to create almost anything from completely nothing; and this tutorial demonstrates just that. The author explains how to create 3 types of fruit from nothing and using basic Photoshop tools, if you decide to follow this tutorial you will be creating an Orange, Banana, and Grapes.
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Creating Abstract Portrait
We wrap up the tutorials with another interesting one and something for the more advance Photoshop users out there. This tutorial focuses on creating abstract portraits from simple sketches. The reason this tutorial is more on the advanced side is because of its Illustrator use but if you are up to it then go ahead and sketch something out, then bring it to illustrator and finish up in Photoshop. This is a definitely a unique tutorial that is worth a look.
(FREE!) Download Picks
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Jacob Bain Wallpaper
Our first freebie is a nice wallpaper for those in need of a change on their desktop. This wallpaper was made by designer Jacob Bain and it features some very cool futuristic 3D imagery. So check it out and download it in any resolution you can dream of including the iPad and new iPhone resolutions.
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Huge Collection Of Twitter Icons
This is a great freebie for all the twitter'ers out there. This collection gathers up 40+ high class twitter icon sets which range from many different styles that make for great icons. So if check some out if you are in need of them.
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Blue Metal Textures
Here we have another set of Bittbox's great texture Tuesday features. This week we have a pack of some great blue metal grunge textures. As always they are high quality, so make sure to add them to your texture collection if you have one.
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Paint Blobs Brush Pack
This freebie is a great high quality brush pack, this pack features 9 great blob brushes that you can use in any of your illustrations. These brushes come in fairly large sizes so quality shouldn’t be an issue. So download these brushes and add them to your next piece.
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Free Fresh Fonts
We can’t have a freebie's post without showing the readers some great fonts. Abduzeedo has featured 4 very unique fonts that should definitely be added to your font folder. There isn’t much else to say but check them out now because you are bound to love at least one of them.
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32 Sets of Paint Brushes
Our last freebie of the month is a big one. The author of this post rounded up 31 packs of different Photoshop brush sets. These brushes come in many different styles like simple small strokes to splatters and abstract grunge. So run through this roundup and download the ones that interest you.
Article Wrap
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The Basics of Copyright
We will start off our article roundup by showing the readers an article on the basics of Copyright. This 2-part article goes into some detail on the basics on what the copyright law is and how it applies to designers. This is a great read for all people who don’t quite understand how it works.
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Biome, The Making of a Typeface
This article is for all the font fans out there. Biome is a typeface that was created by Carl Crossgrove and he featured an article on its creation from start to finish. This is definitely an interesting read into the mind of someone who creates fonts, it is also interesting in seeing the process of creating a typeface. So if you find this interesting then give it a read.
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Super Mario Artwork
If this next article doesn’t bring some bit of nostalgia to you then you either grew up in a different era or have just been sleeping your whole life. This roundup shows some of the best and most creative Super Mario illustrations out there in the design world. This bit of inspiration should definitely get some ideas flowing in the heads of the readers so make sure to check it out.
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State of the Union: Grunge Design
The Grunge style has definitely been overused in the design community and this article gives us some insight into the history of this style and how it has developed into what we see in today’s illustrations. The author gives some classic examples of the evolution of grunge artwork commenting on the changes. This is a great history lesson for designers so make sure to read all of this one.
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FIFA World Cup Logo
4 years from now this logo will be plastered everywhere in preparation for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. This article talks about how this specific design was chosen to be main logo of the World Cup that will be held in Brazil in 4 years. Another interesting read if you are into logo design so be sure to read this one.
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40 Web Designs That Use Textures Masterfully
And to wrap it up we have a last bit of inspiration for the readers. This roundup focuses on web designs that utilize textures the best, 40 websites are featured which the author claims to use textures "masterfully". You guys can check them all out and be the judge of that.
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