Browsing the Category Tutorials

Shakespeare Text Illustration Tutorial

Posted 31 Dec 2009 - 18 Gratefully received comments

I created this text illustration of the ‘Bard’ as an ironic play on the idea of making pictures out of words. Something Shakespeare is one of the best at.

Tutorial Details:
Programme: Illustrator CS2
Difficulty: Beginner – Intermediate
Time to completion: 4-6 hours

Files that might help:
Shakespeare reference picture – istockphoto
Ink Blot Vectors – I have provided these for download in an earlier post.
Il Shake Fest Font – DaFont
Shakespeare Quotes – Available from many sources on the internet.

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How to insert posts / tweets from your Twitter account onto your website.

Posted 25 Sep 2009 - No Comments - leave yours now!

Every time you post a new tweet to your Twitter account it will automatically appear on your website, allowing you to make minor updates to your website on the move or post messages to your audience which are too small for a regular blog post (aka micro blogging). The process is very simple but a basic understanding of html and css is very helpful especially in controlling the look of your post.

View the example | download the demo html & screenshots

The really, really easy bit.

First off log into your twitter account.
Click on the “Settings” tab in the navigation at the top of the page, then, just below the “More info URL” click on “(You can also add Twitter to your site here)”.

twitter tut - screenshot 1

Next page… here you will see the options for adding twitter to various apps in this case I will ignore any option that isn’t relevant

click on “other” then click “continue”.

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Do Designers Sketch Anymore?

Posted 11 Sep 2009 - 14 Gratefully received comments

pencils

I realised something alarming this week. The last few projects I’ve undertaken have been extremely tight deadlines, giving me less time to explore all the creative possibilities. That old saying goes: “When a customer asks for quality, speed and affordability tell them they can have any two out of the three.” In this case I found that I had skipped a usual part of my design process, sketching. Because of the stringent deadlines I had to run straight to the computer and worked up the first ideas that came to me.

In the end I was more than pleased with the results, as were the customers. I had managed to meet my briefs and satisfy the needs of my customers without making a single pencil stroke.
In the past I’ve even missed out on sketching my comic strip because of time restraints, (which takes a little bit of the enjoyment out of it for me), but it’s come out fine.

This poses an unusual question. Do I need to sketch anymore? If not, why do I feel so bad for missing out something that has always been an integral part of my creative processes?

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Who's Ken?

Picture of Ken I'm a freelance graphic designer living and working in Suffolk. I've been using Illustrator, Photoshop & InDesign since 1999 but I've been using pens, pencils, paper and most importantly my imagination for a lot longer. I'm always looking for new clients to work with and interesting projects to work on.