The best PS Text Effect Tutorials I have seen

There are thousands of Photoshop tutorials out there, but few that are top-notch in terms of instructions, presentation - and of course - outcome. In this post, you’ll find 30 beautiful, high-quality Adobe Photoshop tutorials from top tutorial sites and designers like PSDTUTS, PSHERO, and Abduzeedo. 30 Beautiful Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials - Six Revisions

e-INK is here

It looks like e-ink is finally cheap enough to be considered for real work application. I remember working on a digital handheld project back in 2005 or so, and during our research phase, we came across the e-Ink technology in its early stages of development. The display material wasn’t (and still isn’t) of the calibre required to be a substitute for an LCD display, but at the time, the price warranted further investigation. As we spoke to the sales folks for e-Ink, they promised a litany of mouth-watering bulletpoints. Things like: ”you’ll be seeing this technology in the breakfast aisle on every cereal box,” and “Microsoft has ordered a gross of these things for the cover of all the new XBox 360 titles,” and “this stuff is so cheap, you could theoretically wallpaper your house with it.” Of course, the material was supposed to be available for order and use about three months after I first started investigating it as a display alternative. Three years later, we finally see it in mass use on what is typically thought of as a throw-a-way item, an Old Media magazine. Read more on Mashable

93 Feet East

I thought this was a great idea, London viral firm Unruly media are holding a screening night in a local bar for top virals. We've decided we need to let our hair down, so we're going across the road to 93 Feet East tomorrow evening for the first in our season of Unruly Screenings. These are going to be a regular thing each month, where we're going to be showing a selection of viral videos based around a particular theme or meme. The theme for tomorrow's screening is EXPLODE! and we'll be playing highlights from the Coke and Mentos meme, a selection of Slow Mo water balloons, and a grand finale called 'Boom There Goes the Dynamite! Come join us if you're in the area! 93 Feet East

Smart viral for geeks

A nice play on geeky unboxing videos by samsung:

Northern Ireland meets Scotland

Two pretty high profile agencies one in scotland and one in Northern Ireland are launching a deliberatly vague joint venture to service Northern Ireland.. I will watch with interest. Family - the Edinburgh-based advertising agency - has announced a second joint-venture, following the initial success of Perfect Storm, the agency launched in conjunction with digital firm Storm ID. The joint-venture - yet to be named - will see Family team up with Creative Media Northern Ireland to launch a "communications agency" servicing both Northern Ireland and Ireland. Creative Media currently operates from two offices in Belfast and Omaha. Read more on creativemediani Read more on THE DRUM

I am a web designer

Sad but true.. sniff sniff

Killer Photoshop Combo Moves

Merge All Layers (even those hidden). Quick way to flatten a file.

• Alt . | Select Top Layer
• Shift Alt , | Select all layers between currently selected and bottom layer
• Ctrl E | Merge the selected layers

View more Killer Photoshop Combo Moves on Smashing Magazine

Who are you designing for?

The eternal battle of the designer and client. On almost every project there will be that moment where the client will want to fill some whitespace, make the logo bigger, squeeze in an advert for an unrelated product, you name it. This is a nice short article on the subject. Now ask yourself, “Who are you designing for?” By definition, your job is to communicate a message via images and text. But, as a businessperson your goal must be to meet the requests of the client. If you go against the client’s explicit requests and produce a user-centric design, oddly enough you’ll have an unhappy client. Now the flip side of the coin. If you cooperate, lay down your sword, turn off the grids and produce what the client has demanded, the design will fail and in turn you will fail. The bad design will always come back like Rocky and smash you right in the face. I still feel there is no right answer, but all I can do is plead my case. This is the very definition of a catch-22 and this 800 pound gorilla shows no signs of going away. I get down on all fours and beg the client not to demand drop shadows and convince them that whitespace is a beautiful thing and is not to be confused with wasted space. Read more on Smashing Magazine

why apple window controls are on the left

Essentially, the famous Fitts’ Law says that users are more productive with the mouse when they have less distance to travel and a larger target to click on to do their tasks. Mac’s design engineers have incorporated this rule in their design: almost all application menus are attached to the top of the screen, rather than to the applications’ windows. It improves the usability and reduces screen clutter. Compared to other user interfaces, regarding Fitts’ Law Mac performs better. Read more of apples usability highlight in Smashing Magazine Apple HCI interface guidelines

Layout design inspiration

A cracking library of page layout designs, worth a look when searching for inspiration click here to visit Pattern Tap

Fancy a snog?

Great looking site for a frozen jogurt chain Visit snog

Current Viral Marketing trends

Great article on viral marketing, looking at some of the trends at the moment There are exactly one hundred million billion new viral marketing campaigns seeded every 10 minutes - the vast majority are completely dire and destined to fail. So what separates success from failure? Well, the best appear to exhibit similar patterns and by using these patterns in your own campaigns you could be on your way to a free buffet and a drunken snog at next Summer’s Revolution Awards. If you’re smart you’re probably thinking this is all very formulaic and un-creative. Well, consider the following. The drumming gorilla is just a remake of an ad for a shop called West49 in the US. The director Juan Cabral simply used a pattern where he recognised potential and executed it beautifully. The true genius of this idea is his audacity in linking it to something utterly random like a cheap chocolate brand. Juan got a black D&AD pencil for his efforts. View more on Ship’s Biscuit

Background patterns

Simple online tool to create background patterns. Tiled backgrounds designer

Bebo to send messages to space

Social network Bebo has teamed up with RDF Digital to create a digital time capsule to send personal messages and pictures to the nearest planet that could hold life. The information will be beamed 120 trillion miles into space to Gliese 581C, considered to be the nearest planet that could potentially contain life similar to our own. As part of the 'A Message From Earth' project, Bebo users can create their own images or text via an application and vie for a spot in the final 500. The messages to be sent will be chosen via a web vote, which runs until 30 September 2008. "A Message From Earth presents an opportunity for the digital natives of today, for whom the internet is both a fact of life and an integral part of their lives, to reconnect with science and the wider universe in a simple, fun and immersive way," said Mark Charkin, vice president of Sales at Bebo. Read more at vnunet.com

Online Shop design example

This post showcases 45 examples of creative and unusual designs of online-stores. Being creative doesn’t necessarily mean that the designs are successful as well since unconventional approaches often increase the time users need to climb the learning curve and figure out how they can achieve their goals. Still, how can you present your products in a distinctive way and how to design a truly unique online-store? Let’s find out. Trendy design elements such as wood background, textures, handwriting, collage and grunge are quite popular. Reflections, shadows and similar elements from the times of vivid Web 2.0 are used rarely; however, designers of t-shirt- and children’s cloth-stores seem to have a different opinion on that matter for some reason. Disclaimer: we are not related to any of the stores presented below. View them on Smashing Magazine

30 top Photoshop Shortcuts

It is proven that by using software shortcuts can boost up productivity. Here are 30 secret Photoshop shortcuts that I’ve learned from years of experience. Well, what I mean by "secret" is that these shortcuts are not documented in the menus. Keep reading and you will find how these shortcuts can speed up your productivity. I bet you don’t know all of them Photoshop Secret Shortcuts

Affordable usablity testing

Spontaneous, unobtrusive usability testing software for designers and developers.

• Capture screen activity
• Video the participant’s reactions
• Record the participant’s voice
• Add chapter markers on the fly
• Control recording with the remote
• Export to Quicktime

Check out Silverback

Internet access in china is up 56% in one year

According to the latest government data, China now has 253 million internet users, due to recent sharp growth - 56 percent from last year. The inevitable has happened: China now has more internet users than the USA, which is at 223.1 million with 71% online penetration. The fact that the Chinese government is exercising very strict control and censorship over internet use has immensely slowed down the growth of internet use in this country, but when you’ve got a population of over 1.3 billion, even a relatively small fraction of it is enough to become a global leader. Yes, the really amazing thing is the fact that the online penetration is China is mere 19.1 percent, way, way lower than the USA and most European countries. Financial facts are even more revealing: total revenues for all of China’s internet companies was $5.9 billion in 2007 while in the U.S. online advertising revenues alone in that same year were $21.2 billion. For companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other giants, this means two words: untapped potential. read more on mashable

How to Letterpress

The letterpress printing process is one of the oldest ways of getting the printed word on to a page. It relies on a physical representation of each letter being inked and then pressed against the paper—and this is why it’s both interesting and expensive. Thinking a little further about it for each page the printer needs a piece of metal to represent every single character; a way of applying ink to each character and a machine to force the metal and paper together. It follows that changing from bold to italic, for example, will need a totally new set of metal characters rather than a few clicks of a mouse. Other printing processes like lithography or digital printing are more flexible, quick and less expensive. But while commercial letterpress is in decline there are many who are starting from scratch with this wonderful process. Learn more at i love typography

A laptop by Bentley

This one is a little hilarious, I doubt even the most egomanical millionaire business man would dare walk into a meeting with one of these. Can you see Alan Sugar or Peter Jones with one, do they need to make themselves look like more of an arse? The newly announced Bentley laptop from Ego. Its innards are industry level, but the outsides make this laptop unique. Each is hand built with the same leather as the luxury car’s seats, including the famous cross-over stitching and logo, and the interior is finished in the iconic metallic blue paint job. What's being described as "satisfyingly chunky" certainly doesn't feel the pressure to follow the trend set by the ultra thin laptop. But it does have a built in handle! When the upscale brand enters the tech market, realize that it’s not for you or me, but that niche consumer market that sits on a Louis Vuitton appointed couch and wonders when the industry is going to get around to making a PC with some flair. For £10,000 ($19,943), you can pick it up at Selfridges early next year. Read more on Josh Spear