Let’s refuel our inspiration for another month and start working on our New Year’s resolution list. Observe closely at the following techniques used, and how the colors have been applied to add contrast and character. As always, there is a lot to learn. Today, we hope that these illustrations and photographs will inspire you to get creative and get ideas which you can apply in your own projects. Go ahead, don’t let anything come in your way, and let your artistic juices flow! Let’s begin.
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What’s going on in the industry? What new techniques have emerged recently? What insights, tools, tips and tricks is the web design community talking about? Anselm Hannemann is collecting everything that popped up over the last week in his web development reading list so that you don’t miss out on anything. The result is a carefully curated list of articles and resources that are worth taking a closer look at.
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Are you a designer wanting to dive in the art of drawing letters but feel overwhelmed with the options on where to start? In this article, Alma Hoffmann shares her journey as a learner and helps you to get started by sharing tips, practical advice, how-to videos and freebies. A little spoiler alert: Practice makes progress.
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In this article, you will find icons designed and created by Manuela Langella and are free to be used in private as well as commercial projects. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms isn’t cool. Please note that this icon set is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. If you decide to use some or all of the icons from this set, then feel free to modify the size, color or shape of the icons. A big Thank You to Manuela Langella for designing this wonderful icon set — we sincerely appreciate your time and efforts! Keep up the brilliant work!
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In this post, Vitaly Friedman features desktop artwork for December 2016. Each Christmas wallpaper comes in versions with and without a calendar and can be downloaded for free. Now you only need to decide on your favorite! This monthly wallpapers mission has been going on for eight years now, so we added a little Christmas wallpaper best-of at the bottom of this post with some of the most cheerful, merry and Christmassy designs from previous years. We are very thankful to everyone who challenges their artistic skills and contributes to it each month anew.
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In this article, Cameron McEfee will give you a taste of how GuideGuide can change the way you use guides in Photoshop and Illustrator. If you’re one of the many people who already use GuideGuide, you may discover some unconventional uses that are not immediately apparent. Cameron will provide an overview of the major features, and then give some examples of advanced and unusual ways it can be used to make you a more efficient designer.
While he’s going to focus this post on Illustrator, nearly everything is applicable to Photoshop as well.
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In this three-part series, Marc Vandehey will explore the basics of SpriteKit. He will touch on SKPhysics, collisions, texture management, interactions, sound effects, music, buttons and SKScenes. The aim of this series is to get a good understanding of what goes into making a simple game. You can check in with us later on and use the code as a reference for future projects. I will keep updating the code base with interesting additions and refactoring. To get a taste of what you will be creating, check out the completed project.
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What’s going on in the industry? What new techniques have emerged recently? What insights, tools, tips and tricks is the web design community talking about? Anselm Hannemann is collecting everything that popped up over the last week in his web development reading list so that you don’t miss out on anything. The result is a carefully curated list of articles and resources that are worth taking a closer look at.
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Hand lettering, calligraphy, and really anything that is graphic and handmade is in increasingly resurgence. In this article, Alma Hoffmann will discuss brush lettering, its definition, its context, and the supplies you will need to get started. This is the first part of two articles which aim to provide you with a good foundation of why lettering is more than just drawing pretty letters and explains the principles behind the practice. Alma believes that knowing why we do things is important because it helps us create a mindful practice.
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Is chatting actually good for bots? Early user reviews of chatbots suggest not. How “chatty” your chatbot should be will depend on your users’ mental models of chatbots and the goals and needs your chatbot fulfills for them. Problems occur when designers do not decide up front who their audience is, how the chatbot fits into their business or brand strategy, what domains the chatbot will and will not cover, and what a successful experience should look like. Gizmodo writer Darren Orf describes Facebook’s chatbot user experiences as “frustrating and useless” and compares using them to “trying to talk politics with a toddler.” His criticisms are not unfair.
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