Resources and tutorials for Webmasters
Resources and tutorials for Webmasters

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Vector4free.com - Download Free Vectors

Vector4free.com is a web site dedicated to free vector graphics: Adobe Illustrator AI, EPS, PDF, SVG, Corel Draw CDR files free to download - that's what you can find here. To facilitate your work all items are classified by tags. We hope that you find vector4free.com handy and friendly. Enjoy!

You can also submit your vector graphic on vector4free.com. All the vectors on this site are free for personal use, many of them are also free for commercial purpose. Still, always remember to check terms of use before using.

Over 250 free vector graphics free to download right now! This number keeps growing fast. Last month we had more than 3 million pageviews. Almost 2 thousand people subscribed our RSS so far.


Wednesday, April 8, 2009

15 Excellent Logo Design Tutorials Using Illustrator

When creating a logo design, it’s good practice to use a vector-based application to construct it so that you’ll have a flexible logo design that can be used in numerous print and web-based mediums. Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard when it comes to creating vector-based logo designs.

In this collection, you will find 15 hand-picked tutorials from a variety of talented graphic designers and illustrators that discuss the logo creation process using Illustrator.

1. Logo Design Project Step by Step

In this tutorial, UK-based graphic and web designer Chris Spooner walks learners through the process of creating a logo design for a company called myNiteLife. He discusses his process of sketching, typeface selection, all the way to digital illustration and production in Adobe Illustrator.

2. Create a Fly Logo Design Part 1 and Part 2

In this two-part series, Sean Hodge takes us through the construction of a logo design for Webfly, a company that develops .NET applications for businesses. Part 1 of his tutorial discusses visual research, sketching, and illustrating the initial mockup in Illustrator. Part 2 goes over the revision process based on the client’s feedback, typical of graphic design gigs.

3. Silhouette Logo for a Steak House Restaurant in Adobe Illustrator

This tutorial goes through the methods behind producing a logo for a steak house restaurant. It discusses some common mistakes when designing a logo, and then goes through the preliminary sketching process, setting up your Illustrator document with a stock photo reference, all the way through the completion of the logo.

4. 3D logo Tutorial

You’ll read step-by-step instructions on how to create a three-dimensional iconic logo for the web in this tutorial. It goes over the initial construction of the shapes in Illustrator, and then finishing and refining the logo in Photoshop.

5. Web 2.0 Logo Reflection in Vector format with Illustrator

Talented designer and blogger Jay Hilgert teaches readers how to create a vector-based logo design. Since most "Web 2.0"-styled logos are created for the web and thus usually constructed in a raster-based application like Photoshop, companies that want to translate the logo onto print mediums (such as business cards or billboards) often run into trouble when scaling the dimensions of their logo. This tutorial shows designers how to create a more flexible vector-based logo.

6. Creating a crazy cool logo

This logo design tutorial by Brazilian graphic/web designer and blogger, Fabio Sasso, shows us how he designed the logo for a company called Zagora. The technique involves creative use of the Ellipse tool, the Direct Selection tool to merge and delete anchor points, and using effects and the Gradient tool to add the finishing touches.

7. Roundtrip Logo from Illustrator to Photoshop

You’ll see the process of utilizing both Illustrator and Photoshop to create a grungy logo design in this video tutorial by Dave Cross (well-known Photoshop expert and author).

8. How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion

In this tutorial, you’ll read about creating a simple logotype from scratch. You’ll also read about some general rules when designing a logo, including the number one rule for logos: creating them in vector applications for flexibility.

9. 3D Logo

Nick La, a Toronto-based freelance illustrator and web designer, shows us a technique for creating a three-dimensional logo that involves a couple of Illustrator effects, the Pathfinder tool for merging shapes, and the Gradient tool.

10. Design a Grungy Circular Logo

In this logo design tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a circular logo with the company name wrapped around the outer perimeter (a popular logo design style).

11. Glossy Vector Web 2.0 Logo Text in 5 Easy Steps

In this tutorial, you’ll discover a very simple technique for creating a vector-based, glossy logo style popularized by Web 2.0 startups.

12. How to Create a Trendy Retro Type Treatment

Illustrator and designer Ryan Putnam shows us the techniques involved in creating a retro-styled logotype design in this thorough step-by-step Illustrator tutorial. The tutorial uses the very popular (and free) fontface called Museo.

13. Environmentally Friendly Green Type Treatment

This text treatment Illustrator tutorial shares a technique for achieving a nature-inspired logotype design. You’ll observe a variety of techniques employed in the tutorial, including using the Pen tool to illustrate the leaves to be used in the text treatment.

14. Simple Logo Vector Tutorial

This tutorial goes over how to create an iconic logo design that uses folders. You’ll learn an assortment of illustration techniques such as using the Shape tool and direct selection to create simple objects.

15. Make a Logo Flow in Illustrator

This tutorial goes over how Innosanto Nagara (of Design Action) met the onslaught of requirements in creating a flexible logo design for a conference in Thailand using Adobe Illustrator. The piece was constructed in two components.


Friday, April 3, 2009

Complete List of Best SEO-Tools

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Popular Color Scheme and Palette Generators

This is another roundup for online color scheme and palette generators. I categorize these useful tools by scheme, palette and miscellaneous. Choosing a suitable color at a suitable place is extremely important when you design web sites.

Here is a list of several tools for color management that can be useful for applications in printed display, on paper and on their websites or blogs.

Sunday Morning : jQuery + Google Translation

Sunday Morning is a jQuery plugin which allow site-owners to offer their visitors some easy and fancy ways to translate their content in more than 30 languages. It uses the Google translate API. You can have Inline translation with menu, Word translation or Translation with remote trigger. It is available as a Bookmarklet as well.

Using various triggers -like double-click, submitting forms, hovers..- the content can be translated instantly & optionally displayed in an integrated tooltip. Also, you can present a chic menu that asks the user "to which language the content will be translated".

You can visit Sunday Morning Here


Wednesday, March 25, 2009

BoxMaker Classic is a simple free software intended to design three-dimensional images


BoxMaker Classic is a simple free software intended to design three-dimensional images of six-faces figures, mainly typical boxes. It allows you to visualize how your boxes or books designs will look if you use this or that image, as simple as that. Despite of how simple it may seem, BoxMaker offers to you a wealth of options about how you can design and display your box, such as:

Top vertical box, vertical box Side view, Front view box vertical, vertical image Rotated, Horizontal Rotated image, CD jewel box, Pizza box, shoes box and even soft and hard cover book, and it can change each dimension on an individual basis. You can also select the images that make up the front or rear, top or bottom and sides of your box, with the only requirement that the files are in a jpg or bmp file format.

You can also set the background color for your design, allowing you to select from a wide color palette and even customize your own color. You can change the box viewing angles from zero to sixty degrees, turn your design around its own axis, zoom it in , zoom it out and move it to right or left side, as you prefer. In addition, you can experiment with the lighting levels around your design. Once your design is finished, you can save it as a jpg image.

It is a program with just two menus, whose operation is very easy and totally intuitive. It is a great program to illustrate the package images that correspond to intangible products that are delivered online. Simply, the ideal for software developers/sellers/sites.

Visit BoxMaker Classic Here


Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Linkvendor.com: Multiple free online SEO tools

Markus Tober made LinkVendor and all the SEO tools in context of his diploma thesis. The fundamental idea was to build lots of useful tools that can be used by everybody to learn, understand and improve. All the LinkVendor tools are for free.

  • Link Value
    This special LinkVendor Tool calculates the link value per month.
  • Analysis Linkpop
    The Analysis Linkpopularity Tool generates a complete site analysis. Shows backlinks, indexed sites, Google PageRank™ and also if your domain is listed in DMOZ and Yahoo directory.
  • Domain Popularity
    The Domain Pop Tool shows you all backlinks for the given domain, including up to 10 subpages per backlinking domain, host IP and Google PageRank™. You also get anchor texts from the backlinking domains.
  • PageRank Authenticity Check
    The LinkVendor PageRank™ Check Tool shows you the PageRank™. Also the PageRank™ will be checked of authenticity.
  • SEO Challenge
    The SEO Challenge Tool compares two domains and calculates a score, based on a self-made algorithm from LinkVendor.
  • SERPs Position
    LinkVendors SERPs Position Tool shows the position your domain is ranked for the given keyword and compare the results by Google, MSN and Yahoo. (Only 100 results)
  • Outbound Links
    The Outbound Links Tool shows every outgoing link from the given domain. It also shows internal links.
  • Keyword Density
    The Keyword Density Tool shows you how often appears which word in content.
  • Cloaking Detector
    The User Agent Cloaking Detector Tool simulates the Googlebot to detect cloaked content.
Visit LinkVendor HERE