Abduzeedo | Graphic Design Inspiration and Photoshop Tutorials

Daily Inspiration #366

This post is part of our daily series of posts showing the most inspiring images selected by some of the Abduzeedo's writers and users. If you want to participate and share your graphic design inspiration, just send us, via email, the image with the link from where you found it, also use "Daily Inspiration" in the subject, and don't forget to send your Abduzeedo username; or via Twitter sending to http://twitter.com/abduzeedo

If possible use the HTML code:

Do you want to see all the images from all the Daily Inspirations? Check out http://daily.abduzeedo.com

abdellusher

al b sure

Aloa

Time-Lapse Favs from Chad Richard on Vimeo.

Bart Welt

B. Romain

Brakelazy

Chris Dovi

Daniel Dominguez

David7a

Eldora

Elena Karpenko

Eugene Kim

Fabio

Dvein Showreel 2009 from Designcollector on Vimeo.

Gaba11

Gary A. Holmes

Gisele

GolfPunk

hazim

John ONeill

julia

Khyzyl Saleem

Livia

Luis Afonso

MunSu

Shahar S.

slayyou

SpEEdyRoBy

Wrong-Code

Via Twitter

Send your suggestions via Twitter to http://twitter.com/abduzeedo using #abdz in the end of the tweet.

@ILVOR

@HugoColombini

About the author

My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through Abduzeedo. Also you can follow me on Twitter or my personal site at http://fabiosasso.com.

Sponsored Links:

Creating a Colorful Light Effect with Pixelmator

We have already published tutorials on how to create a really cool light effect in Photoshop and GIMP, now In this tutorial, I will show you how to create this super, simple light effect inspired by a design that I saw recently in a Sony advert.

Step 1

Open Pixelmator and create a new document. Select 1440×900 pixels and then fill the layer with #121212.

Step 2

Next, add another layer and select Filter>Generator>Clouds. Set the colors to black and white.

Step 3

Choose options Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to 40.

Step 4

Use the Eraser Tool (E) to delete most of the layer, leaving just a little of the middle. In Blending, select Color Dodge and set the Opacity to 60%.

Step 5

Create a third layer and fill it with black. Then, use the Rectangle Marquee Tool (M), to create a rectangular selection. Fill this with white.

Step 6

Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and change the Radius to 25 . Then resize the rectangle by reducing its height in Edit>Free Transform. This should make it thinner along its vertical access (as shown). Change the Blending choice to Color Dodge.

Step 7

Add a new layer and fill it with black. Change the Blending to Color Dodge. Now select a very soft brush with 30-50% Opacity from the Brush Tool (B) options and paint some areas around the length of the rectangle as shown in the image below.

Step 8

Create a new layer on the top of the others and use the Gradient Tool (G) to create a gradient in purple, red, yellow, and green. Fill the layer with this gradient. Change Blending to Multiply, and then set Opacity to 90%.

Step 9

Add a further layer and select Filter>Generator>Stripes. Set the Width to 3 and the Sharpness to 55 . Then change the Opacity to 3% and the Blending to Screen.

Step 10

Select the stripped layer and choose Filter> Distortion> Twirl. Set the Radius at 340 and the Angle at 100 . Then, position the controller over the line as shown in the image below.

Step 11

Repeat the same filter but change both the position of the controller and the Angle to -100.

Conclusion

This is a wonderfully simple technique that creates a beautiful light effect with a very unique texture. It can be achieved in less than 20 minutes with a professional looking outcome. You may wish to experiment with different colors or more than one streak.

Download Pixelmator File

Pixelmator file

About the author

My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through Abduzeedo. Also you can follow me on Twitter or my personal site at http://fabiosasso.com.

Sponsored Links:

Wallpaper of the Week #76 - Matt Venhuizen

The wallpaper of this week is a very cool design created by Matt Venhuizen, a graphic and web designer from Ontario, Canada. Matt runs a design studio called Venhuizen Studios. Matt sent the wallpaper suggestion via email and you can do the same ;)

For more information visit Matt's profile on Behance and stay tunned because the new Venhuizen Studios website will be up very soon.

Desktop Version

iPhone Version

Resolutions:

• 1920x1200px


• 1680x1050px


• 1440x900px


• 1280x1024px


• 1280x800px


• 1024x768px


• iPhone

About the author

My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through Abduzeedo. Also you can follow me on Twitter or my personal site at http://fabiosasso.com.

Sponsored Links:

Best of the Week #93

It's time for our best news of this week. We have a lot of graphic and web design, a bit of architecture, ads, tech news, awesome reads and other crazy stuff! So take a look at the links we've selected for your inspiration and to keep you updated about what's going on out there!

We want to give a big thanks to our sponsors:
Wix, ShutterStock, Reflex Stock, Taste of Ink Studios, W3-Markup, P2H.COM, Harvest, VectorStock™, 2large2email, Billings, Carbonmade, Chorus and SiteGrinder. A special mention to Media Temple for the excellent service and support with Abduzeedo!

You can send me your suggestions via Twitter twitter.com/FabianoMe or twitter.com/abduzeedo, and include #abdz_best in the message.

Friday 11/27

The Google Wave Invitation Donation Thread Is Open [Google Wave]

Designing Websites for Kids: Trends and Best Practices

UK radio station becomes the first European station to use iTunes tagging service

Let’s vote on it: Will Europeans use Gowalla, FourSquare or what?

Showcase of popular blogs from France

Adam Szary – Templar +

Twitter Japan To Introduce Paid Premium Accounts Next January

Chevrolet Volt gets driver-activated warning system for the blind

Thursday 11/26

10 Non-English Design Blogs You Should Check Out For Visual Inspiration

hofstede: type tablet

Case Study: The Real-Time Web at the New York Times & EnjoysThings

Koikoikoi interviews Guy Mc Kinley

Amazing Architecture in Black&White – CCO1 House From Levenbetts

What I'm Thankful For on Thanksgiving

61 Free Apps We're Most Thankful For [Downloads]

What If Steve Jobs Hadn’t Returned To Apple In 1997?

MVRDV: china hills - a vision of future cities

Mind Blowing 3D Rendering Artworks

30+ Behind the Scenes, Magical Movie Moments

Nothing New Under the Sun

Wednesday 11/25

“House Wife” Photo Series by Julia Galdo

The Mega-Mousepad Office [Featured Workspace]

To Grid or Not to Grid: Advantages and Disadvantages

Why the Tim Burton MoMA Exhibit Rocks

40 Top Ranked Flash Websites Showcase

Netmag article on Icon Design

Screenr Shares Screencasts on Twitter, YouTube, and More

Create Classic Ivy Running Up a Building – Psd Plus Tutorial

Biz Stone Talks Future of Twitter

Poster Series of TV Shows

Lego People Skeletons

Feedly – Your favourite feeds now on Chrome

Blogging Vs. Microblogging: Twitter’s Global Growth Flattens, While WordPress’ Picks Up

The Most Influential Websites in the World: Wikipedia #1, Twitter #4 With a Bullet

Tuesday 11/24

Fresh Web Development Goodies Bag

Ten from 25: Emerging Artists Using Photography Exhibition

Fring adds Skype video support on S60, threatens to make front cams useful

What Apps Should Twitter Acquire?

Rebranding Playboy

The Electric Bunnies Album Art by Ronnie Rivera

The Lightsaber and LEDs Workspace [Featured Workspace]

Jorge Tabanera Sketches

Using Small Birds to Keep the Clothes on the Washing Lines

User Reviews: Increased Sales, Traffic, and Transparency

Peter Campofiori – Creepy Cousins Dance Hall Trio

Google says sorry for racist Michelle Obama image

74 Mesmerizing Slow Shutter Shots

Monday 11/23

Showcase of Beautiful Typography in Web Design

Love 22… Interesting graphic work by Ryan Atkinson featuring the amazing Joanna Kustra’s photography

Unclutter Your Workdays to Free Up Your Weekends [Clutter]

oscar niemeyer: 101 year old brazilian architect back at work

The History and Controversies of Digg

AOL muda identidade e vira Aol.

Black BusinessCards “Famepix”

In Progress: Aquatic Center / Zaha Hadid

TechCrunch Homepage Design Gets Deconstructed By ZURB

Dolce&Gabana Headquarters in Milano

About the author

I'm from Brazil, co-founder of Zee with Fabio. Nowadays I like to play with Fireworks, Photoshop and improve my skills in CSS. If you wanna request some posts, please feel free to contact me or follow on Twitter.

Sponsored Links:

Daily Inspiration #365 - 1 Year of Inspiration + iPhone app

Stop what you're doing and come celebrate 365 days of inspiration with us! You might want to close all other tabs because this one will meltdown computers worldwide. We decided to get a little diabolical and go all out today. Oh, and just kidding about the computer meltdown thing… we hope.

Originally, the Daily Inspiration started as a way for us to share images we liked since we were constantly finding good stuff on the web and wanted to bookmark them. People really enjoyed it and slowly the Daily became quite popular. You guys started sharing your inspirations and work with us, and that really made what the Daily Inspiration is today, and for that, we thank you.

As a better way to thank you all for joining us on this one year of inspiration, we have some news that we're really excited to share. Coming soon to an iPhone near you is an app that will inspire you on the go, whether you're on the train to work, the bus to school, stuck in friday 4 o'clock traffic, or maybe just feeling a little blue. Yup, you guessed it, folks, the Daily Inspiration is going mobile- and free! You'll not only have full access to every image on the Daily, but you'll also be able to share your favorite images on Twitter and save them to your iPhone! Never go without your daily dose of inspiration again!

Once again, a warm thanks from the Abduzeedo team for making the Daily Inspiration what it is today. And here's to another year of inspiration and many more to come!

Do you want to see all the images from all the Daily Inspirations? Check out http://daily.abduzeedo.com

ALackOfColor

al b sure

Alberto Caio

AlexanderSpencer

Amanda

Caio

Digitalism - Jupiter Room from scottaltman on Vimeo.

Carlos Humberto Rodríguez Arias

Cgod

Conrado

Deb

eDsanca

Eliot Williams

Fabiano

Fabio

MTV Plugs into Dreamworld from Johan Polhem on Vimeo.

Florian Nicole

Gaba11

Gisele

grafi-ray

JANIToR

Joe

Mischa Koop

Paul0v2

Paulo

Postreman

Rafael

Sébastien Lavoie

Virginia Moura

Willem Klerk

Zezé Medeiros

Via Twitter

Send your suggestions via Twitter to http://twitter.com/abduzeedo using #abdz in the end of the tweet.

@kikizing3

@AbsolutelyFresh

@DanielApt

About the author

My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through Abduzeedo. Also you can follow me on Twitter or my personal site at http://fabiosasso.com.

Sponsored Links:

Black Friday Fresh Free Fonts #25

I will be posting some fresh free fonts every Friday, yes I know it's awesome. I will look forward to bring a lot of great fonts that will sure help you improve your typography work. Check out what I selected for you on the FFFF#25 and make sure to comeback for more next week.

Click here to view all Friday Fresh Free Fonts

LT Oksana

by Nymphont

Download LT Oksana

Campanero

by Oliver Gonzalez

Download Campanero

Tertre

by Jan Schmoeger

Download Tertre

A Bit Empty

by Martin Leskow

Download A Bit Empty

About the author

Hi! I'm Paulo Canabarro and I'm here to post some really cool stuff for you, if you have any ideas or any requests please get @ me - pvpcanabarro@gmail.com you can also Follow me on twitter!

Sponsored Links:

Sites of the Week #79

For this Sites of the Week we have selected some great sites such as the Wiser Pregnancy and Soda. Also we're featuring a our new site for Zee, and much, much more! As usual we would love to hear from you, keep sending your suggestions to us and we will be more than happy to feature your site.

You can send me your suggestions via Twitter twitter.com/FabianoMe or twitter.com/abduzeedo, and include #abdz_sites in the message.

DESIGN / CSS

Zee - zee.com.br

We work with the internet, develop web projects emphasizing design and technology exploring creativity, user satisfaction and an honest and open relationship with our customers.

Weheart - weheart.co.uk

Since November 2007, We Heart Stuff has been one of the UK’s most popular blogs, delivering high quality, original content, keeping those with an eye for quality, innovation and desirability up-to-date with the very latest in fashion, design, music, travel, lifestyle, architecture, interiors, nightlife…. The list goes on, as does our desire to bring our readers the most vital new trends, the hottest launches and the most desirable new products.

APP / WEB APP

GoSquared - gosquared.com

GoSquared makes owning a Site fun. We make web apps that are fun to use. Web apps that get the job done so you can carry on with your life. You don't run a site to chase advertisers. You don't run a site to spend every day analysing bar graphs of your traffic stats.

Nirvana - nirvanahq.com

Less time managing. More time doing. Nirvana is all about getting things out of your head and into a trusted system, then effortlessly drilling down to the thing you should be doing right now.

COMMUNITY / STORE

Wiser Pregnancy - pregnancy.wisertogether.com

WiserTogether was born out of the simple idea that technology can help people facing challenging situations to make informed decisions that give them peace of mind. Making decisions without adequate information is stressful – especially when the health of you or your baby is at stake.

Bak Magazine - bakmagazine.com

International Visual Arts E-Magazine

FLASH SITE

Electrolux Infinity - electrolux.com.br/infinity/

Electrolux Infinity

Nerdfilms - nerdfilms.tv

Nerdfilms in a nutshell. Born in 2007. Mother, embassy of dreams, one of Germany?s biggest advertising film-production companies.

BLOG / PORTFOLIO

Soda - sodavirtual.com

Sodavirtual is a Web Agency that shares the great Brazilian spirit. We're part of the so-called "cultural cocktail" of these friendly and happy people. Our seasoning has generous heaps of creativity, innovation and quality. For we know there's a lot to be done and we are capable of doing it.

Exergian - exergian.com

EXERGIAN: ART DIRECTION FOR PRINT AND RGB MEDIA

TEMPLATES

Screenplay - themeforest.com

This theme can be used for a business, company, blog, portfolio, or freelancer portfolio website. It is dark and elegant.

Bueno - woothemes.com

Bueno is a clean, minimalistic design which just oozes sophistication in both it’s typography & structure. Stripped of all fancy design elements; the reader’s focus should be on the great content that you produce. Bueno is perfect for the regular (and not-so-regular) blogger. Get it for free now!

About the author

I'm from Brazil, co-founder of Zee with Fabio. Nowadays I like to play with Fireworks, Photoshop and improve my skills in CSS. If you wanna request some posts, please feel free to contact me or follow on Twitter.

Sponsored Links:

Stylish Illustrations by Zhuzhu

I bumped into Zhuzhu's work while browsing around deviantART and his pieces got my attention. Zhuzhu is an artist living in Shanghai, China, with a background in watercolor and traditional art techniques. He has specialized in digital painting since 2002, using Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop. He is currently teaching at the China Academy of Art, Shanghai Institute of Design Training Centre and he also wrote two books on digital painting techniques, and several tutorials.

Zhu is my last name, Hai Bo is my first name, but in Chinese you should call me Zhu Hai Bo.

As you will be able to see here, Zhuzhu has pieces from different styles, some of them are classic, innocent and beautiful, other are controversial and intriguing. It's always nice to see different points of view of a same artist! Anyway, I made this selection from some of his work and you can also check out his DA page for further images. Enjoy the images! :)

About the author

Someone with a bachelor degree in Foreign Trade that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. A person ‘digging’ a new way as a ‘geek apprentice’, blogger 'wanna be' and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil

Twitter user: gismullr

Sponsored Links:

Colorful Character Designs by Crazy Enough

Crazy Enough is the brand name of Sam, a Hong Kong based artist and illustrator with a very colorful portfolio. We were surfing on the web when we found some of Sam's character designs and we simply loved them. So in this post we will show you a little bit more of his super cool character designs.

For more information visit Crazy Enough's website at http://www.crazy-enough.com/

My name is San, born in 1980 and based in Hong Kong. As an Artist/Illustrator, I make efforts of all kinds of graphic business. Provide Graphic designs, Illustrations, Character designs, Game graphic designs etc. Crazy Enough is the individual brand name of my works. I hope people who see my works can experience joy, fun and excitement. Keep smile, crazy, optimistic and energetic. Are you crazy enough?

Animation

About the author

My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through Abduzeedo. Also you can follow me on Twitter or my personal site at http://fabiosasso.com.

Sponsored Links:

GIMP Quick Tips: Abstract Background Effect

I was thinking a few days ago, what I should do, what I could create. I entered in some sort of a minor art block, when I took a look at my old design. One of them caught my eye. It was one of my old GIMP experiments. I couldn't remember anything about how I made it, but it looked awsome, so i saw in this a challenge. Finally, I managed to remember and put back together a quick step-by-step tutorial.

This is what I hope to achieve. A simple spiral fiery background. Nothing complicated, everything kept to the minimum, and simplicity has laid its word here. I hope you will enjoy my tutorial as i did creating it. And of course, i would like to thank Abduzeedo for this occasion. So, let's get to work :

Step 1

Open GIMP, and create a new project, let's say 1920 x 1200 px with about 300 ppi resolution. This should do the trick.

Step 2

Grab the Gradient Tool (L), and then drag a gradient like i indicated below.

The Shape must be Spiral (cw). As for gradient itslf, use Incandescent. Leave any other setting default.

Step 3

Duplicate this layer, and then Flip it Vertically and Horizontally.

Set the resulting layer to Multiply.

Step 4

After that, Merge the two layers, and then apply a Gaussian Blur (Filters ⇒ Blur ⇒ Gaussian Blur ...) of about 25 pixels.

Apply a Lava Render (Filters ⇒ Render ⇒ Lava ... ). Set this layer to Overlay.

Eventually, duplicate the Lava layer and set its Opacity to 50%.

Step 5

Nice. But still not ready. Create a new layer directly above the background layer, and fill it with the "Walnut" texture (drag it to your project from the Patterns pallete). Set the layer to Overlay.

If it seems a little bit dull, then create a new layer above the texture layer, fill it with white and set it on Overlay.

Step 6

It looks really nice even now, but let's add a little bit of dynamism to it. You can see that the Lava texture, and the Walnut texture are getting along perfectly. And as an extra, that Gaussian Blur we applied a while back makes it look more fluffy. But enough talking, and more working. Moving on ...

Create a new layer, above the Texture Layer, and pull your Gradient Tool (L) again. This time we are going to use the Cyan Neon Gradient, and as a Shape, we'll use the Spiral (CCW). Drag like i did below, ... basicly from the center to the top, and bottom. (twice, one from center to top, and one from center to bottom).

Set the resulting layer to Overlay.

Step 7

Great, looks good. But it's still a little bit too obvious. how about we change that?

Apply a Gaussian Blur of about 50 pixels, and we should be done.

Conclusion

Excelent. we're all set right now.

Seven simple steps, to achieve a pretty remarcably simple effect. I must admit, i stumbled by accident about 6 months ago on this amasing fit of the Lava and the Walnut textures. Everything else was just filling. Feel free to experiment with other colors, shapes, anything your heart pleases. You can add some sort of logo to it, or anything like this.

Click on the image for full preview

Download the Photoshop File

Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial

About the Author

My name is Marcu Sabin. I'm a 15 years old enthousiast from Romania, and i've "stuck my nose" up most of the big design tools. I'm quite adept of GIMP, Photoshop and Pixelmator. I really enjoy working with all of them, and got a few great ideeas. I also enjoy your site, the tutorials are great, and i would like to contribute as much as i can. I have a few GIMP tutorials at the ready, and it would be an honor if you would allow me to post it on your site. It is fully detailed, easy to follow, and all in all pretty nice.

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