I installed these calligraphy brushes last week. I’ve only used them to draw arrows, really (like the ones here and here). Though I’m obviously not a calligrapher, I enjoy using these brushes anyway. I love how the angled nibs create natural-looking lines of varying width and taper. Very nice. If you like these brushes and you have Adobe Photoshop, you will find them in the presets folder.
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I’ve mentioned Subtle Patterns in a Links Loved post before, but since I’ve been visiting the site a lot more lately, I feel that it deserves a post of its very own. The patterns are all on the quiet end of the spectrum, surely, but that’s what’s really nice about them. That, and they’re free. You can download the pattern images individually. You can even download all the Photoshop .pat files all in one zip file at Github. I like to think of these patterns as virtual stationery — they make great backgrounds that don’t overwhelm. They can also serve as small patches of texture that can add interest to a graphic image. You can find a variety of textures at Subtle Patterns including fabric and woodgrain. You’ll even find a subtle Lauren Harrison floral pattern over there.
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Last week I finished a blog revamp for Gal Meets Glam. I realize I’ve said that I don’t do blog design and instead refer all potential design work to my Blog Design Directory. But when Julia asked me to migrate her blog from Blogger to WordPress, and do a redesign in the process, I hesitated. And then I said yes. What swayed me was that Julia had a clear vision for her blog — Gal Meets Glam was already in good shape and all I had to do was to streamline the columns to a proper grid while keeping a decidedly feminine look.
In the before and after screenshots below you can see some of the most prominent changes I made. One of them was the banner. The original banner used a block font for Glam and a script font for Gal Meets. I thought it would be best to flip the font types, so I used a script font for Glam to give the sense of a black marker “autograph” on an 8×11 glamour head shot photo.
I chose the color scheme from Julia’s pin boards and selected pinks, yellows, and blues to create the resulting palette. You’ll see touches of these colors in the little polka dots at the top of each post, in the link colors, and in some of the sidebar blocks. You might be wondering where the yellow lives — you’ll only see it when your mouse hovers over the sidebar social links.
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In my previous post about box outlines in Photoshop, I mentioned that I would show you how to create them with CSS. The CSS term for a box outline is border (as opposed to stroke in Photoshop). CSS borders can be of any thickness and color. There are even dotted and dashed borders, not to mention the classic “groove” and “ridge” borders that just shout out, Hey, it’s 1997 again! In today’s tutorial (inspired by Book of Love’s I Touch Roses), I used a few extra CSS properties to make the example prettier and more interesting. So in addition to borders, I’m also going to touch briefly on fonts and positioning. I know this tutorial is pretty simple, but I wanted to show what you can do with just a little CSS.
BTW, if you’re new to HTML, you might want to get started by checking out my HTML screencast. And, if you want to learn more about CSS, I show you all that I know here.
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I love thick borders, so much so that I’m using them in almost every post, kind of the way I abused drop shadows when I first learned about them. I’m sure my self-restraint will kick in at some point, but in the meantime, I’m just gonna enjoy the moment. :) In the previous post, I used thick borders to outline some text, and I promised a quick tutorial to show how easy it is to add box outlines in Photoshop. Outlines are versatile — thick or thin — and you can use them to create many things, including vintage-inspired photo labels, just like this one. You can even layer multiple box outlines on top of each other to create elaborate borders and frames.
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I love Mother Nature, and I’m always snapping photos of a beautiful sky full of clouds, or a garden of flowers. When I’m in the moment, I’m convinced that my photos will be awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, once I get home and load them all into iPhoto and put them into perspective, they seem so, so… average. I have thousands of pictures that I can’t seem to part with. When I go through them, they seem so trivial that I wonder why I bothered to take them. Then I remember that the day was beautiful, and the company joyful, and taking a picture to memorialize the day was the right thing to do. But the pictures themselves are often simply boring!
Today I was thinking, perhaps I could find a real use for them, even though they’re not front page material. Here are 6 practical uses for boring nature photos, where being ho hum might actually be a good thing.
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When I was at Trader Joe’s today, I heard a mom tell her active and vocal kid, “Quietly does it…” I don’t think her son took her seriously, but I thought “Quietly does it” was rather catchy and would fit well into my tutorial showing how to do a letter-insert-thingy that I’ve noticed in some waiting room magazines. I don’t know what this effect or style would be called in the world of graphic design. All I know is that it can be done easily with brushes and masks in Photoshop. :)
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Fly ass manicures, words of wisdom, my fave style posts, some accessories I added to my wish list, new DIYs I wanna try, new blogs I visited, and other fun stuff!
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