I just realized that theres more than a year since I started learning web design. I didn’t even celebrate

I’ve started with the “Total Learning” DVD and continued with the tutsplus network. Mostly psd.tutsplus and vector.tutsplus.com. I did a lot of tutorials and learned a lot from the community. I have to say that smashingmagazine.com and psd.tutsplus.com are the most valuable resources in my development as a web designer.

When I bought the smashing book it was like injecting nanites full of information into my bloodstream. I still use it as a guide whenever I start a new project.
It thought me  about user interface, color schemes, typography, project management and a lot more.

I’d like to think that I’ve passed the beginner stage and I’m going towards medium-advanced web design.

I have a few projects that I’m looking forward to release. In the span of a few months I’ve been: web designer, UI desiner, UX designer, concept designer, software UI and UX designer and finally Project Manager.

I think I will be able to release design related content on the project that I’ve done concept design for. But that will probably happen in about a month or so.

In the meanwhile I’m doing UI/UX design and Project management.

Will update more info next week.

Design mock-up for a scrapped project.

Most people ask me why did I switch to linux? I tell them: no spyware, malware, viruses (they are theoretically possible) and it’s a lot more secure.
One of the other main reasons I’ve switched to linux is because I might get a promotion in terms of project management and I wanted an environment that protected me.
To tell you the truth, if photoshop ran, I’d say goodbye to windows.

The projects are going well and most of the work flow is done. I will update in about a weak, maybe with screenshots.

Creativity is the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

This quote belongs to Sir Ken Robinson. At first sight it’s pretty abstract and that’s because it is taken out of context.
I recently saw a couple of short, 20 minutes each, videos where Sir Ken Robinson talks about a revolution in the education system, creativity and intelligence. He says that in order to be creative, first, you have to allow yourself to make mistakes.

If you are not prepared to be wrong then you will not be creative.

I am 100% with his point of view. Lately I’ve been pretty busy creating 2 different brands at work and one for a personal client.
In all of these 3 projects I trashed so many drafts and sketches. Ideas come when you stop thinking strictly at the project at hand. I thought: “man, I have to think at this project and do all this research in order to finish it” and I was wrong.

Creativity hit me when I was looking at totally non related things.

For one of the projects I had to design a shopping registration form. While I was browsing for what other people did, I stopped to take a brake. I looked at the things I had on my desk and the stuff my co-workers had lying around and it finally hit me. I used graphic content that had nothing to do with the project at hand. But when I put the idea in photoshop, it took perfect shape for my project.

The same thing happened with all 3 of my projects.

Here are the links I talked about above:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

Today I’m about to finish work for a personal client. It was quick work that brought in some much needed cash. Both me and the client were happy with the work done and how it turned out.
This is the second time the client asked work from me. In both cases I finished the work quickly and solved his problems. I am proud to say that I even made him save money with one of my ideas. Saved him a few hundred bucks.

In a few weeks I think I will finally be able to show what I’ve been working on these past few months.
To surprise you I even designed an application. This is a first and I am happy with how it looks.

I’ll post back soon.

Today, I experimented with the Dodge and Burn tool. The point was to create shades and ripples.
In the end I figured out a new technique that shows interesting effects:

I started with this:

Then I selected the burned tool and played around a little with the brush settings. I created some deep shadows and then added a little light with the dodge tool.

After a few tens of minutes the result was this:

First thing that comes into mind is muscles, tendons, organic material. After a few retouches I called it a finished experiment:

Maybe I’ll make a tutorial named “How to create organic material in Photoshop CS5″

Step1:

Create a new document:

Step2:

Create a rectangle with the width of 953 px and a hight of 196 px.

Add a stroke using the settings below:

Now Create a gradient that ranges from #eff1f8 to #ffffff.

Step 3:

Create another shape (white colored) with the width of: 325 px and the height of 217px.
Add a gradient with the setting below:

Step 4:

Now create en ellipse  (color: black) with the width of 57 and height of 198 px. Then go to filter – blur – Gaussian blur, hit ok and set to 18px. To dim the shape a little, set the opacity to 55%

Now our shape is rasterized and we can cut the part that we don’t want in order to create a cool shadow effect.

Using the rectangular marquee tool (M) cut the excess part like in the picture below:

Step5:

Now all we need to do is to add some effect to the shape. In order to achieve this draw a black line, from the top to the bottom of the shape, clone it and make the it (the clone) white.

Select both of the lines and press CTRL + E. By doing this we have joined the 2 shapes into a rasterized object.

Select the eraser tool with the size of 50px and the hardness set to 0%. Just erase the top and bottom. You should have something like this:

Now clone it and nudge it to the left side.

Since we’re done with the main shape lets start adding text and a buy button.

Step 6:

Create a round cornered shape with a 5 px radius, width of 136 and height of 36px and set the gradient detailed in the picture below:

Add the text “Buy Now” using #86ce00 and set this this shadow:

All you need to do now is add some text, depending on the site.

My dummy text looks like this:

Here is the psd for it.

I’ts a really simple tutorial with a really cool effect.
I think it will have no more than 10 steps and will take about 10-15 minutes to create and polish it.

Stay tuned and check back tomorrow.

Adrian.

One issue I noticed is that, under Linux, the CSS rules do not match those under OS X and Windows. I’ve installed the latest version of Firefox 3.6 and Google Chrome. While under Chrome the CSS shows correctly, Firefox breaks it. More than this, CSS3 seems to not work at all. I tried to do a search about why this happens but I cannot seem to find an answer. I will research further, maybe I will find a pertinent answer.

If anybody reads this and has insight, please drop a line.

I usually use the tablet for fine touching on my web sites. Seem now I can do more faster.

Also june is proving to be a busy month, as i got myself 2 new clients and 3 sites to build.

More for me to showcase on my portfolio.