Do you have a sketch lying around and want to bring it to life? If you’re inspired by mid-century art as much as Manuela Langella, you’ll love the process and end result of this tutorial. Dig out your sketch and fire up Illustrator to get started!
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Over the summer, Adobe XD released two great prototyping features: fixed elements and overlays. When you work with prototypes and want them to be more interactive, functions like these will be very helpful.
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Have you tried drawing animals from circles? It can be quite a challenge, especially if you can only use a particular amount of circles. Dorota explains how she created 13 animals with only 13 circles.
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Almost five years ago, I had the honor of
writing a post on Smashing Magazine
about my Photoshop panel
GuideGuide
. Since then it has seen wild success as the most installed third-party Photoshop extension, an achievement I’m quite proud. In that time, I’ve added some powerful features and, most recently, expanded it to Illustrator. This post 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, please read on. You may discover some unconventional uses that are not immediately apparent. I’ll provide a 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.
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I have been drawing desktop wallpapers for Smashing Magazine’s monthly collections for over a year now, and every time it’s a very fun and challenging mission. In this article, I would like to share
how I approach all stages of the process
and provide general techniques for creating vector illustrations in Adobe Illustrator. Hopefully, you will find these techniques useful. While referring to a particular drawing — the illustration for the “Understand Yourself” desktop wallpaper, which was featured in
May’s wallpaper collection this year
— I’ll also highlight key takeaways from my experience as an illustrator and designer.
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Whether or not you celebrate Halloween, there is something magical about that
special spooky day
, surrounded by mystery, horror, scare and trick-or-treat candies for kids and adults alike. In this post, we celebrate the
creative side of Halloween
with those of you who are also planning to celebrate with friends. The post features artists around the world who have been creating wonderful illustrations dedicated to Halloween.
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Drawing a cartoon is no trivial pursuit. It turns us into a director, writer, narrator. Through a cartoon or comic, you
tell a story
that takes place in a certain time, a certain environment, with certain characters. This is why you will learn here not just how to draw a cartoon in Adobe Illustrator, but how to decide on character, place and situation. Before grabbing your pencil or software tool, ask yourself, “What will be my topic?” How many characters you will use, and who will they be? What background will they move against? What era will they live in? In what scene will you put them? Through the steps in this tutorial, I will explain to you my own choices. Let’s begin.
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In this tutorial, I will teach you how to
work digitally on an image you draw by hand
. You will learn two completely different ways to approach the image: through the Live Trace Tool and the Pen Tool. Two ways, two results. Learn how to take the best from both. Along the way, I will give you some Photoshop tips, too. The first thing you’ll need to know is how to manage your drawing in Photoshop and which are the best ways to prepare it for Illustrator. If you are not comfortable drawing in Photoshop, don’t worry! You can download my drawing in high-resolution, skip the Photoshop step and go straight to step 2 to begin with Illustrator.
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If you’re a graphic designer, you will often have to work with off-the-shelf material created by others — for instance, combining ready-to-use fonts with images from a photographer or stock website. Also, you’ll often have to follow the branding already developed by someone else.
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Have you ever submitted design files to a development team for production and a few weeks later gotten something back that looks nothing like your original work? Many designers and design teams make the mistake of thinking that their work is done once they’ve completed the visual design stage.
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