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February 03 2014
40 Twitter Tools, Resources & Creative Backgrounds
There are so many popular social networking websites are available in the internet and Twitter is one of them. If you are bore with your default blue twitter background or you want an exciting change in your twitter page then check out this collection where you will find outstanding tools for your Twitter background. Social networking profile should be update and trendy because it show your taste and give your impression to other. So its time to make your Twitter profile more interesting and happening.
In this assortment, we are presenting 40 superb tools and resources to spice up your twitter background. Scroll through our wonderful collection and make your Twitter page more attractive and eye-catching through this collection. We hope you will like this assortment. Please give us your feeds back about this wonderful assortment because your feeds back are very precious and important for us. You can also download these awesome tools without paying any money.
Put your Twitter followers on your background.
Now you can personalize your Twitter background like never before. The tool below will help you create free Twitter backgrounds that have the same look and feel as those done by professional graphic designers. It’s easy to use, and best of all, it’s Free!
Check if your twitter profile looks like poo-poo in smaller or higher resolutions.
Want to know how to change the Twitter background or profile icon automatically? It’s never been this easy — with our professionally designed, simple user interface you can change your Twitter background or profile icon automatically! Just try it!
Are you hip to twitter? Well, peekr is kinda like a Twitter Widget (a “twidget”) because it’s a tiny little Twitter helper. Some tweeple might call it a bookmarklet, but we know it’s so much more! Is this making any sense yet? Maybe you’ll have to try it and see it in action to get a good feel for how useful peekr can be… Go ahead, click the button above that says, sneak a peek! to see what peekr does. Go on, you know you want to!
In less than 2 minutes… Brand yourself on Twitter by creating your very own Twitter background and Twitter header.
Put your latest Flickr image in your Twitter background We check for new photos and sync every hour.
Free Twitter Backgrounds PSD Layered files.
An online community where hundreds of Twitter layouts & backgrounds can be downloaded FREE.
We are your source for Free Twitter Backgrounds. Every day we update twitrounds with new Twitter Backgrounds for you to use on your profile. Getting a background is very easy. Simply look through all the backgrounds we have to offer, click on the background thumbnail, then use our auto-install tool to easily post the background to your Twitter profile.
Create A Twitter Background using PowerPoint
Who would’ve thought that the presentation app used to lull audiences to sleep could also be used to create an appealing Twitter background? The process is fairly simple and only limited by your imagination and Twitter’s 800Kb upload limit.
Upload your own pictures and customize the Layout. You can change the color and add text to the background. Select colors for your profile and preview it in real time. Save all these to your Twitter account with a single click.
The themes and images on these pages are free for use as twitter backgrounds. Click on a thumbnail of the backround you would like to get and then download the file to your hard drive or use an auto install feature which will post the selected background to your twitter profile.
Ever wanted to see the background image while in a Twitter page? Now it’s just matter of clicking on it and voila, everything else goes away so you can appreciate the background. Click on the page again to restore it.
Make your twitter beautiful!
Need a professionally designed custom Twitter background or Facebook landing page?
Here’s a set of grungy Twitter backgrounds that you can customize and use for free. They’re all hi-res PNG files. Just load them into your favourite image editor, add an image and some text and you’re good to go.
Every background is free, lightweight and optimized for mostly used 1024 resolution but we were thinking about all of you with big screens so have no fear our Twitter layouts are going to look the same on 1280px or wide screen.
TweetHawk Custom Background Designs are free to use for personal use under the Creative Commons 3.0 Licence.
1000′s of unique free Twitter backgrounds. Click “Get Twitter Background” beneath any image you want to put on your Twitter. The new page will show the image as a background and give step-by-step instructions on how to add it as your Twitter background.
Here you will find everything for your twittering needs! We have everything from twitter backgrounds to twitter buttons and we’ll even show you how to use twitter too!
Design a Unique Twitter Background
Spreading word about your business or services via a Twitter account can be a useful addition to a marketing strategy. There are many resources with advice on what, when, and how to tweet. But since we’re creative professionals, we should also pay attention to what our Twitter pages look like
Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices
Let’s take a look at some of the best practices around Twitter background design and get to work creating our own.
Creative Twitter Backgrounds:
January 30 2014
40 Amazingly Creative Square Patterns For Free Download
In this round up, we have gathered 40 surprisingly creative square patterns for you that you can use in your design work. Square is one of the basic shapes that we all were taught in our childhood. Using this basic shape in your design process can bring a big change in the overall appearance of your design and make it look even more appealing and attractive. Though, it is a very and simple shape yet it can create beautiful design patterns and hence can be an important element is your design project.
Check them out and pick the ones you like the best. We hope that you will like this collection and find these amazing and creative square patterns useful for you. Feel free to share your opinions with us via comment section below. Your comments are always more than welcome. Let us have a look. Enjoy!
Free Repeat Pattern in a Retro Style
Grungy Abstract Squares Photoshop Patterns
Perfect Match: Adaptive Backgrounds for jQuery Colors Your Website Automagically
This plugin for jQuery is gas. Adaptive Backgrounds by Brian Gonzalez analyzes the colors of the images in your website, determines which ones are dominant and colors the background of the element containing the image accordingly. As Adaptive Backgrounds works with the nearest parent by default, you can have multiple different backgrounds on the same page. The effect is impressive.
January 27 2014
20 Cool Snowy Website Designs for the Winter Season
It’s that time of year when the snow starts falling (unless you’re in the southern hemisphere) and the ski season is in full swing, so I thought it would be fitting for this week’s web design showcase to appreciate some designs that are based on snowy Winter scenes. Many of these sites actually look the same all year round, but now is the time their themes are most relevant, especially those from the Winter sports industry. Grab your thermals and enjoy browsing this collection of 20 snowy website designs all featuring seasonal photography and interfaces.
Protest Boardwear
Fischer Sports
Mariusz Cieśla
Hello Monday
Moment Skis
Ines Papert
The Three Bees
Merican Made
What You Are
Travel Alberta Tripplanner
Yan Odnoralov
Leve Hytter
Snowbird
Snowpixel Fight
Yeti Spotter
Sidewalk
Stephan Siegrist
Combadi
October 02 2013
15 Useful Tissue Textures For Your Designs
In our daily life we use so many things on a daily basis and tissue papers is one of them. The usage of tissue paper increases specially in the summer season. Did you ever see a tissue textured design? No, then have a look at this wonderful compilation. In this creative compilation you will see 15 awesome and appealing tissue textures for your designs. Yes, with these tissue textures you can make you designs more innovative and eye-catching if you use them in right or creative way. Most of the experienced and talented designers are using tissue textures in their designs. You can also download your best tissue textures which suit your up-coming projects free of cost.
Browse through our collection and get inspired. Do share with us what you feel about this compilation. Enjoy this amazing compilation everyone!!!
White Tissue Paper Red Plastic
September 20 2013
40 Free And Useful Abstract Mosaic Textures
With this collection, we want to share something very creative with you guys. This time it is abstract mosaic textures. Basically, mosaic is a form of art where different colored tiles or stones or papers or other mediums of different shapes and sizes are placed together in an artistic manner to create different patterns and images. One can see such type of art in old-aged structures such as churches, temples, and mansions.
In this post, we have put together a collection of some free as well as useful abstract mosaic textures for you. So take a look at this collection and choose which texture will be useful for you. Moreover, all of these textures are free to use so go ahead and download as many as you like. Please chime in with other recommendations! Your comments are always more than welcome! Enjoy!
Gold Mosaic Tile Texture Stock
Crack_Mosaic_Filigree_BlackWhite_Texture
Mosaic tile texture of an old bathroom
August 30 2013
45 Amazing HD Wallpapers To Spice Up Your Desktop
Knowing how much of a hot commodity wallpapers are to the design and development community, and to anyone in general who tends to spend a large amount of time basking in the glow of a computer screen, we decided to collect some more screen art for our readers so that they can decorate their desktop with these wallpapers. With a huge variety of wallpapers available on the internet, now you can choose a wallpaper that represents your mood or inspire you. Furthermore, one can also switch between his favorite collections of wallpapers.
This time we are presenting an amazing and inspiring collection of HD wallpapers for you. All the wallpapers in this collection are handpicked and will surely provide you soothing and comforting visuals to relax your tired eyes. So, don’t miss the opportunity to liven up your wide screens. Check this out and get as much as you like!
Microsoft Windows HD Wallpapers
Mercedes-Benz BRABUS SLR Roadster
Branch Leafs Autumn Fall Colors Macro
Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras 2
August 23 2013
44 Beautiful Abstract Backgrounds For Free Download
In this collection, we are presented a fabulous compilation of some great and pleasing abstract backgrounds that can be downloaded for free. we know very well that by using pleasing and attention grabbing backgrounds, one can create an absolute attraction in its designs for its viewers. This is the main reason why designers spend so much of their time in creating backgrounds for the web designs in a creative manner. Adding good looking backgrounds to any graphics, banners or ads are relatively important and one cannot overlook the importance of having pleasing backgrounds.
By using backgrounds in a creative manner, your entire artwork can look more interesting and attractive. Here we have put together a very nice collection of freebie backgrounds so that you can download them for free of cost. So, let us add some life to your art work and web design and refresh them with these amazing backgrounds. We wish that this assortment will not only inspire you but it will also stand out from the rest of the collections that you will see in the next few days. Please chime in with other recommendations!
Abstract Vector Abstract Blue Background
Futuristic Abstract Glowing Light Curves Background Vector Illustration
Abstract Blue Smooth Twist Vector Graphic
Abstract Lighting Vector Background
Abstract Blue Light Background Vector Graphic
Abstract Texture Blue Background Vector
Christmas background with clock and patterns
Abstract Background Vector Art
062-Abstract Background Vector
Background Vector Abstract Colorful Illustration
Abstract Green Wavy Lines Design Vector Graphic
Candle on decorative background
Green Abstract Design Background Vector
Abstract Color Vector Background
Abstract Leaves-Bokeh On Dark Blue Background
Octagon Abstract Vector Background
Abstract Light Dots Background Vector Graphic
Abstract Valentines Day Colorful Heart Background
Abstract Wave Color Light Background Vector
Abstract Floral Background with Place for Your Text
Vector of Abstract Colorful Flower Background
Abstract Background with Colorful Wave Vector Graphic
Abstract Music Design Background Vector Illustration
June 28 2013
16 Free Vintage Paper Texture Packs
Today, we are presenting another fresh collection of some free and appealing vintage paper texture packs for you. Using the right texture in any type of design is very crucial as it can have a great impact on the overall design. This is the reason that designers pay special attention to the selection of texture for their designs. Majority of the designers keep a huge collection of different type of texture that they use in their projects. This time, we are showcasing some vintage paper texture for you.
We hope that you will like this collection and find these vintage paper texture packs useful for your projects. Though all of them are free to use but we will encourage you to read the terms and conditions before using them for commercial purpose.
March 13 2013
19 Useful And Realistic Wood Textures
Are you looking for some realistic and fine looking wood textures for your designs? If your answer is yes and you have been looking for such textures for such a long time then look no further. Here, we are presenting a collection of some truly amazing and unique wood textures for you. So, now you do not have to search dozens of web pages to find out high quality and unique textures that you can use in your designs.
At times, designers need something unique, something extraordinary to put in their designs in order to make them look visually appealing and attention grabbing. And, there are time when designers are not able to decide ways by which they can accomplish such awesome and amazing wood texture. Here is the full list for you. Let us have a look at this collection. Feel free to download as many as you like. Enjoy!
High resolution old wood textures
Wood Texture and Laminate Texture Pack 02
Graffiti on Old Particle Board
February 02 2012
20 Free Peeling Paint Textures For Your Designs
Today we have come up with an interesting assortment of Peeling Paint Textures for you that you can download for free. Peeling Paint Textures can also be considered a part of Grunge Textures. Textures are recognized for their flexibility and their outstanding effects to a desired output.
In this collection, we present Peeling Paint Textures that will make a good place in your collections of textures. In this Peeling Paint Textures Collection, we aim to share with you cool and refreshing stocks for the world of creativity and design for free! So browse through and splash!
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January 04 2012
Coolest Apps From 2011 You Would Never Want To Miss In 2012
The year 2011 has ended. We have explored and reviewed so many useful tools and resources for you all the year. Today, we are going to take a look on few of the web apps we have featured that we think you would like bookmark for 2012. I hope designers, developers and programmers will like this list, but you can also use them and will love them whether you are an office worker, a manager, a supervisor, a student, a home user, etc. They are really amazing in respect to their features. This is the list of Coolest Apps Of 2011 You Would Never Want To Miss In 2012. We have categorized them as Web Apps, Desktop Apps and Smartphone/Tablet PC Apps. Just take a look at them and share your thought’s here.
You are welcome if you want to share more cool apps that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well.
Web Apps
Screenfly
Screenfly allows you to view your website on a variety of device screens and resolutions. It makes testing your online content, mobile designs, and responsive layouts a cinch. Choose common browsers, screen resolutions, and even mimic mobile phone and tablet devices.
Read More : 7 Excellent Online Tools For Designers And Alike
Really Simple System
It has all the features and functionality you need to keep track of your customers and prospects – their names, when to call them back, what you said to them last, what they bought, what they might buy. And as the name implies, Free Edition is a completely free CRM system. You can also upload documents such as letters, faxes, spreadsheets and keep them on the system. In CRM jargon, it is a complete Sales Force Automation system: Account Management, Contact Management and Opportunity Management with Sales Forecasting.
Read More : Seven Excellent Business Tools You Might Not Know About (But Should)
IdentyMe
IdentyMe is a service for making of virtual business cards. You can collect all your contacts in one place and create a portfolio. It will helps you share information with new people, find new friends and business partners.
Read More : 7 Best Tools For Your Visually Attractive Online Presence
LiveGO
LiveGO is an all-in-one solution enabling Internet users to stay connected to their social networks as Facebook and Twitter accounts, InstantMessengers as MSN Messenger, Yahoo and Gtalk, and email accounts as Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo!.
Read More : 5 Online Tools That Are Worth Checking Out
Wix
You can create your own free website that looks and functions the way you want. Wix is an online editor with a drag and drop interface that lets you learn how to make a website without the need to bother with any code or web programming. To build your site, use the free design elements found inside the Wix website builder. Add pictures, text, contact forms, Google maps, social network icons and links, music, video files and more, in just a few simple clicks. You can also upload your own content, to add your own photos, animation files, text and more.
Read More : 7 Best (Yet Free) Online Website Builders
moneytrackin
moneytrackin‘ is a free online webapp that allows you to track all your expenses and incomes easily and without effort, thus allowing you to have a clear view of your financial situation. It intends to be a simple yet powerful online budget management tool.
Read More : Five Absolutely Simple (Yet Powerful) Finance Management Tools
Logotype Maker
This is a dead simple yet free logo maker web tool which can helps you create a logo in just few easy steps.
Read More : Five Online Graphic Makers To Create Simple Design Elements
CrocoDoc
CrocoDoc is an excellent online tool to share and annotate PDF files. If your friends do not have PDF file reader, you can upload the file to CrocoDoc and it will become viewable in the site’s HTML5 interface. The PDF file can also be annotated. The original and annotated versions can be downloaded separately by visitors to the PDF’s URL.
Read More : 10 Excellent Yet Free To Use Web Tools Worth Checking Out
Dialawg
The astonishingly simple way to share, track, protect, and control your files, messages…and relationships. Dialawg is a secure conversation, accessible from anywhere, where parties may exchange messages, share files and collaborate on documents.
Read More : 3 Cool Web Apps To Help You In Your Daily Life
vintageJS
vintageJS is a tool where you can upload your images and apply a custom retro, vintage look to them for free. Just try it out: upload your photo, apply the vintage effect and share the retro image it with your friends via twitter or different social networks.
Read More : Eight Cool Apps That Show The Power Of HTML5
TitanPad
TitanPad lets people work on one document simultaneously. While working on this app, you may do infinite undo and everyone gets their own color.
Read More : 7 Coolest Real-time Collaboration Web Apps You Might Not Know About (But Should)
TagCrowd
TagCrowd is a web application for visualizing word frequencies in any text by creating what is popularly known as a word cloud, text cloud or tag cloud. It specializes in making word clouds easy to read, analyze and compare, for a variety of useful purposes.
Read More : Nine Excellent (Yet Free) Online Word Cloud Generators
Virustotal
Virustotal is a service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, trojans, and all kinds of malware detected by antivirus engines.
Read More : 5 Really Useful Web Apps You Might Not Know About
CSS Pivot
This is a great website that can allow you to add CSS styles to any website, and share the result with a short link. You can also invite others to submit
improvements for your website.
Read More : Nine Excellent Online Apps For Web Designers And Developers
AgileWrap
AgileWrap is a simple, elegant, agile lean product lifecycle management solution to enhance product development, and realize faster time to market. It helps organizations optimize the product development process by enabling effective planning, providing visibility in real-time, incorporating customers feedback sooner, and facilitating collaboration easily in distributed teams.
Read More : Five Excellent Business Management Web Apps
MeetMe
Business partners and friends want to meet with you. Show them when you’re busy and available and let them submit meeting requests to get on your calendar. MeetMe is your central hub for scheduling.
Read More : 11 Great Websites To Plan And Organize Your Group Events Easier Than Ever
Webplanner
Webplanner is an online collaborative project management tool. You can use the power of the cloud to brainstorm project goals, phases, tasks, and multiple levels of subtasks with your team. Assign responsibility for tasks to team members, who will be notified automatically, and then work out task details through comments. Upload and share project-related files. Print reports. Schedule your project using a dynamic Gantt chart with dependencies and a critical path view. It will help you track the progress of your project using the Overscreen screen (at left), which includes a project status pie chart, a list of approaching tasks for the whole project and individual team members, a project activity feed,
and a team status list.
Read More : 7 Excellent Collaboration Tools You Might Now Know About But Should
Moably
You can create your free mobile website in minutes with Moably. It works seamlessly on the iPhone, Android, BalckBerry, and the majority of other major mobile operating systems.
Read More : 7 Cool Web Apps You Might Not Know About (But Should)
SnatchCode
SnatchCode is a one click website backup solution. They help webmaster’s get rid of complicated backup solutions by replacing with their robust service.
Read More : Five Tools For Webmasters That Are Worth Checking Out
EmailTheWeb
EmailTheWeb is the only web-based service that allows you to email any web page to any one. The entire web page is emailed in a flash and is captured as it is now. Your recipient will see the same exact page as you.
Read More : 7 Excellent Web Apps You Might Not Know About (But Should)
LayerStyles
LayerStyles v 0.1 is just like your favorite graphics editor but in your browser. You can use it to create css code of the special effect you would like to give on your web design.
Read More : Five Great Web Applications For Designers And Alike
SlideBomb
This is absolutely not your typical slideshow. With SlideBomb, You can add Youtube videos, Google Maps, images, links to images, text, and more to your slides for sharing and embedding anywhere.
Read More : Five Web Apps That Are Worth Checking Out
Twileshare
Twileshare assists you in uploading and sharing PNG, GIF, JPG, DOC or PDF files on Twitter.
Read More : 50 Power Tools And Applications To Make Your Life Easier With Twitter
Lubith
You can now drag, drop, a few clicks and you can have the WordPress theme you wanted with Lubith. It has very intuitive interface that helps you move and resize the theme elements just by dragging the two knobs.
Read More : Four Promising (Yet Free) Online WordPress Theme Generators
Otipo
Otipo is a web-based application which provides a new and fun way for scheduling shifts. With Otipo, all the required information is in one place, and all the team members can access it from anywhere, anytime. It’s time to say goodbye to the pen and paper and let Otipo schedule like a pro.
Read More : 6 Web Apps To Manage Team Collaboration More Effectively
Heartcode CanvasLoader Creator
The Heartcode CanvasLoader Creator is a free online tool which you can use to generate scripted preloaders (spinners or throbblers) for your HTML projects. The Creator is using the CanvasLoader UI Library.
Read More : 7 Excellent HTML5 Tools And Resources
Rapid Searchmetrics: Website Speed Test
The website speedtester shows the duration of a given website. This value can be used for showing how long a website take to load and if it is better to optimize the website or change a (slow) ISP.
Read More : 10 Robust Services To Determine How Fast Your Web Page Loads
Doocuments
Doocuments is about people exchanging VIP documents. Doocuments technology is perfect for sending VIP files through the Internet without being afraid of the final destination or usage of the VIP information. This is designed both for individual use or company-wide deployments, Doocuments is a Cloud Computing tool that integrates seamlessly into user and corporations workflows with a suite of plug-ins for the main office software suites.
Read More : 12 Truly Helpful (Yet Free) Web Tools For Effective Business Management
YAML Builder
The Builder is designed for rapid development of CSS layouts, that are based on YAML.
Read More : 40 Excellent (Yet Free) CSS Tools And Generators For Developers
FindFiles
FindFiles.net is a rapidly developing search engine for files of all types, operating its own crawler. FindFiles database currently contains links to 732,941,672 files. FindFiles supports all existing Mime Types (apart from standard html text-pages) like jpeg, gif, png and tiff images, Microsoft doc and Excel documents and exe executables, pdf and plain text documents, dwg AutoCAD and wrl virtual reality data files, archives like zip, gzip and jar, apps for smartphones like apk for Android and sis for Symbian etc.
Read More : Five Unique Search Engines That Can Help You More Effectively
Manifested
Manifested is a new utility for getting a jump start on converting your existing web site to work offline using HTML5′s cache manifest. Manifested scrapes a website for images, stylesheets, and JavaScripts that you may want to cache. Manifested then gives you a custom cache manifest file as a starting point for upgrading your website to support offline functionality.
Read More : 7 Must-Have Web Apps For Designers And Developers Toolbox
Flowchart
You can collaborate with your colleagues in real-time. All collaborating parties can chat and design flow charts at the same time. Flowchart.com does not require any software download, it works with your favorite browser such as: Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, Google Chrome.
Read More : 45+ Free Online Tools To Create Charts, Diagrams And Flowcharts
PDF to Word Online Converter
You will find numerous Word-to-PDF converters online but something that does the reverse is not that abundant. This is why many people will find PDF to Word Online Converter valuable – because it converts PDF files into Word documents.
Read More : 10 Best Online Tools For Converting Documents
Free online file converter
This free online file converter lets you convert media easy and fast from one format to another. They support a lot of different source formats, just try. If you can’t find the conversion you need, you can contact them. They will try to help you.
Read More : 11 Excellent Online Converters That Can Help You Convert Files And Formats
PrivNote
PrivNote is a free online note taking applications which you can use to jot down ideas or for any other reason. The best thing about PrivNote is that it generates a specific link for the Notes you create so that you can share them with your friends and family. Once the recipient read the note, it will be deleted automatically. It even notifies you once the recipient has read the note.
Read More : 10 Online Note Taking Web Services Every Internet User Should Know About
CSS3 Generator
With this tool, you can choose CSS properties from the list and fill in your required parameters and get the code with a live preview.
Read More : 45+ Handy CSS3 Tools, Tutorials and Resources
QuickForget
Uploading and saving files online is commonplace today. However, most online storage services require lengthy signup procedures and configurations before you can actually save a file. If you are in need of a quick way to store files online temporarily, QuickForget is the place to go. It lets users to upload files quickly and set the limit (time or views) after which the file will be removed from storage. A great website to store those important files securely.
Read More : Seven Promising Websites That Offer Great Yet Free Services
WorldCat
WorldCat.org lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands more around the world. WorldCat is one of the largest network of library content and services which students can use to complete their projects, essays and other school/university related work.
Read More : 7 Library Tools Students Would Find Handy
Join.me
Join.me is an impromptu meeting space that happens wherever, whenever. It’s getting a second or third pair of eyes on your presentation from across the hall or across the continent. It’s sharing your screen instantly with anyone or everyone to get stuff done, quickly.
Read More : Ten Brilliant Web Tools To Make Your Life Easier
GplusTo
GplusTo is a free to use web tool that lets you easily create a Google+ nickname. Based on your nickname it gives you a shortened URL that redirects to your original Google+ profile. Your shortened URL appears as a subdomain of GplusTo with your nickname added.
Read More : Top 5 Tools To Shorten Your Google Plus Profile URLs
Eightbit.Me
Do you remember the Atari days when the graphics came in eight bit? well Eightbit.Me is a website on which you will be able to create an eight bit avatar of yourself. You just need to sign-in with your twitter account and visit the website on your iPhone and the website will walk you through easy steps to make a cool eight bit avatar of your choice. It’s for FREE.
Read More : 7 Excellent (And Fun) Ways To Create Avatars That Represent You
QuickMaps
With QuickMaps, users can easily create a map of places they are planning to visits and put different markers on specific places, draw lines, mention details and work they are going for and much more. After creating the map, users can easily post it on their websites or save it so that they can carry it while travelling.
Read More : Five Excellent Free Tools To Create Your Own Map
flickrSLiDR
FlickrSLiDR allows you to easily embed the classic flickr slideshows on your website or blog. All you need to do is enter the flickr URL address of the user, photo set or group you would like to embed along with some options.
Read More : 40 Amazing Tools To Enhance Your Flickr Experience
Chop
Chop is a quick and easy way to let the offending engineer know the error of their ways. Just copy and paste the lines in question, add your notes and share
them with a unique URL.
Read More : Ten Best Collaborative Sites For Quick Code Sharing
Billable
Billable is much like the first entry on this list. This web app lets you create an invoice by editing the fields on a template loaded up when you visit the site. Your finished invoice can be downloaded as a PDF file.
Read More : 6 Free Ways You Can Create And Manage Invoices Online
X-Icon Editor
X-Icon Editor is an HTML5 application (based on <Canvas>) that allows you to create high resolution icons that lets your sites shine with IE9. With X-Icon Editor you can quickly get your site ready with a large icon which will be available for pinned sites and the new tab page.
Read More : Ten Excellent Web Apps To Simplify Designer’s Work Life
About.com Find By Error Message
A service provided by the popular website About.com, this Find By Error Message page lets users browse common error messages seen on PCs. The list is pretty huge and if you face a problem while using your PC, there is a very likely chance that you can find the error details on this webpage.
Read More : 7 Tools To Find What Error Codes Mean
Meetin.gs
Meetin.gs can organize meetings easily without participants having to remember passwords or fill out registration forms.
Read More : Five Simply Effortless Tools For Meetings And Scheduling
FotoFuze
FotoFuze lets you make professional product photography out of ordinary photographs from ordinary cameras at absolutely no cost.
Read More : 7 Coolest Apps To Do Amazing Things With Your Photos
Cacoo
Cocoo is a user friendly online drawing tool that allows you to create a variety of diagrams such as site maps, wire frames, UML and network charts. Cacoo can be used free of charge.
Read More : 21 Free UI Design Tools, Toolkits and Resources (Part 1)
HideMyAss
With HidemyAss, you can surf the web anonymously, hide your IP address, secure your internet connection, hide your internet history, and protect your online identity. All you have to do is paste the URL of the website you want to visit and click on HideMyAss button.
Read More : 10 Privacy Tools To Browse The Web Anonymously
Enloop
Enloop lets you autowrite your business plans in which Enloop helps you easily develop a bank and investor ready business plan, complete with all text and financial forecasts, for free. Then you can measure the success of your business (on a scale of 0-1,000) before or after you start the business. You also get automated financial forecasts with this service that is based on your input. The service automatically generates a 3-year bank and investor ready financial forecast for sales, profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet forecasts and financial ratios. The forecasts are bank and investor ready to help loan underwriters evaluate your business for risk. This amazing service does all the technical stuff for you.
Read More : Ten Great Online Apps To Help You Manage Business Tasks Efficiently
i2type
This website gives you access to a virtual keyboard that can adapt into 67 different languages. So if you are looking to type in a different language this is the best solution for you. It also lets you directly use famous search engines and websites to put your text in. You can also save your file in a word document.
Read More : 10 Newly Discovered Websites You Should Try Out
tempalias
tempalias helps you out by providing temporary, anonymous email addresses, also called “aliases”. Any message sent to the tempalias address will be forwarded anonymously to your real email address. You can set a maximum number of days or messages for which the tempalias will be valid. When either limit has been reached, your temporary address will automatically be deleted.
Read More : Ten Great Tools To Help You Secure From Spam Emails
Page Speed from Google Labs
This new experimental tool from Google Labs examines your website or personal blog and then gives you a deep insight into what can be done to improve the loading performance of your page. It is a very useful tool for all web masters as it gives users actions to perform based on a priority list. A must try free tool for use for all who want to improve their website performance.
Read More : 10 Free Web Services You Should Definitely Be Checking Out Right Now
Sketchpad
Another robust example of html5 based application where you can paint any color in any shade or opacity. You can even play with patterns and “Spirographs,”.
Read More : Eight Absolutely Interesting HTML5-based Apps
Desktop Apps
Instant WordPress
Instant WordPress is a complete standalone, portable WordPress development environment. It turns any Windows machine into a WordPress development server. It will even run from a USB key.
Read More : 3 Free To Use Great Tools For Web Designers
Remind Me Later
Remind Me Later adds events to iCal in two clicks. Type “Buy groceries at 4pm tomorrow”, and it will add “Buy groceries” to iCal at 4pm tomorrow.
Read More : Nine Excellent Yet Free To Use Apps For Mac OSX
Recovery Toolbox File Undelete Free
Recovery Toolbox File Undelete Free is an efficient recovery tool for the NTFS file system. The program can be used free of charge, but it’s not limited in any way – it provides all the recovery features usually found in popular commercial products. The software has a very clear, straightforward and easy to use wizard-based interface that turns the entire recovery process into a chain of interconnected steps. In fact, the program is so easy to understand that anyone can use it, even if they have no recovery experience and possess a bare minimum of computer skills. All you need to do to get from point A to point B is to follow on-screen instructions and make your choices.
Read More : Five Simple Yet Useful Windows Tools Worth Checking Out
Advanced SystemCare Free
Advanced SystemCare Free (formerly Advanced WindowsCare Personal) has a one-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC. This free PC repair software is a “must-have” tool for your computer.
Read More : 5 Free Internet Security Tools That Are Absolutely Useful
SiteSucker
SiteSucker is an Macintosh application that automatically downloads Web sites from the Internet. It does this by copying the site’s Web pages, images, backgrounds, movies, and other files to your local hard drive. SiteSucker can be used to make local copies of Web sites. It can download files unmodified or “localize” the files it downloads, allowing you to browse a site offline.
Read More : 7 Absolutely Helpful Tools For Your Macintosh
ScreenSh00ter
ScreenSh00ter creates a screenshot of what is visible on the entire screen, inside ScreenSh00ters frame or a rectangular area you draw on your screen by clicking and dragging your mouse.
Read More : 21 Excellent Google Chrome Applications Worth Checking Out
VirtuaWin
VirtuaWin is a virtual desktop manager for the Windows operating system (Win9x/ME/NT/Win2K/XP/Win2003/Vista/Win7). A virtual desktop manager lets you organize applications over several virtual desktops (also called ‘workspaces’). Virtual desktops are very common in Unix/Linux, and once you get accustomed to using them, they become an essential part of a productive workflow.
Read More : 7 Excellent Windows-Based Tools To Help You Manage Your Routine Activities
iConify
Are tired of exporting different sizes for different iOS devices? Fear not, iConify is a quick and easy app to generate assets for your iOS app. With iConify, you can generate all these images straight from your PSD files.
Read More : 10 Lesser-Known But Absolutely Useful Mac OS X Apps
Disk Defrag
Disk Defrag will speed up your computer by optimizing file system. It can defragment files, consolidate free space and move system files to the faster part of the disk. With AML Free Disk Defrag you’ll get the maximum out of your hard drive performance. It is supplied with a powerful engine and smart algorithms which allow Disk Defrag to run much faster than similar tools.
Read More : Eight Great Tools Windows Users Would Never Want To Miss
Safecopy
Safecopy is another file recovery tool that is best suited to extracting data from external sources such as floppies, CDs, etc. The app “includes a low level IO layer to read CDROM disks in raw mode.”
Read More : 5 Must Have File Recovery Tools For Linux Users
Zip2Fix
Zip2Fix is a free portable tool to extract undamaged data from damaged Zip archive. The undamaged files are extracted into a new zip file.
Read More : 10 Excellent Tools Many Users Don’t Know About
File Repair
File Repair software is a powerful tool to repair your corrupted files. It scans the damaged file and extracts maximum data from it to a new usable file. You can repair word documents, excel spreadsheets, zip, rar, selected video formats, pdf, etc.
Read More : Five Desktop Tools To Create Excellent Windows Environment
FocusWriter
FocusWriter is a desktop application that comes in different versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This desktop app lets you setup a black background and green text combination much like Darkcopy. Additionally it can set a transparent writing screen with a custom background. You can start using whichever writing canvas you prefer.
Read More : Six Useful Tools To Create Distraction Free Writing Environment
Apture Highlights
Apture Highlights is a free tool, built from the ground up to let you take the power of Google search, and the richness YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and Wikipedia with you to any site. Just highlight a phrase on any site to reveal the web’s best content without ever leaving the page. It’s fast, powerful, and fun to use.
Read More : Top Ten Of The Best Add-ons That Can (REALLY) Rock Your Firefox
ZenKEY
ZenKEY allows you to control all aspects of your computer via keystrokes. Using the configuration utility of the ZenKEY Wizard, you can create menus, each containing items which perform “actions”.
Read More : The 8 Free To Use Windows Tools Worth Checking Out
Synalyze It
Synalyze It! is a free and simple to use Mac OS X app which lets you easily edit and analyze binary files of any size. Synalyze It! features enhanced support for many character encodings and it will allow you to interactively define grammars for various file formats.
Read More : 6 Simple But Really Useful Mac OSX Apps
Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer
It will help you automatically previews pdfs, powerpoint presentations, and other documents in Google Docs Viewer.
Read More : 14 Great Extensions Provided By Google To Supercharge Your Chrome Browser
Image Tricks Lite
Image Tricks Lite is a freeware photo editing application that utilizes Mac OS X Core Image filters and Quartz Compositions to transform your favorite photos. Image Tricks Lite also contains a powerful image generator for creating unique images at random.
Read More : 5 Totally Awesome (Yet Free) Photography Apps For Your Mac
Smartphone And Tablet PC Apps
Salesforce Mobile
Salesforce Mobile gives you instant access to your Salesforce information on your iPhone.
Read More : 28 Excellent iPhone Apps To Make Your Life Easier
HTMLeditor
A simple HTML,ASP,JS and CSS editor for your coding on the road, use menu to >”save and view file” to preview.
Read More : 10 Free Android Apps To Boost Your Productivity With
Ice Cream Maker
Ice cream Maker is here! where you can whip up any kind of Ice Cream for any occasion.
Read More : 8 (More) Free iPhone Games To Kill Your Boredom
Maverick
Maverick is an off road GPS navigation application with offline maps support, compass and track recording. With Maverick app, users can automatically use Bing, Google and many other Maps, and they are cached so that they can be used offline, share your current position, navigate to different places easily and much more.
Read More : 10 Android Apps Every Traveler Should Use
DocScan
DocScan lets you instantly scan multi-pages document and send out when there is no scanner nearby. By having it, you can scan not only documents in sight, but also whiteboards, receipts, business cards, posters, coupons, books …etc.
Read More : Top 10 Evergreen (Yet Free) iPhone Apps To Make Your Life Easier
Free Data Vault
Free Data Vault is an excellent free android app which can help users hide any data type including photos and other media files. This application is different from other applications which allow users to set a password on different folders as it allow users to hide one photo in another and store the fake image on the sd card.
Read More : 7 Applications To Help You Hide Images And Videos On Android Phones
USB Disk
USB Disk lets you store and view documents on your iPhone and iPod. It has an amazing built in document viewer and is very easy to use, with a simple and intuitive interface, yet it contains many powerful features. Drag and drop files in iTunes to transfer them to your iPhone / iPod, then view them anywhere.
Read More : 11 Totally Awesome Time-Saving Apps For Your iPhone
Dolphin Browser HD
Dolphin Browser HD, most popular and powerful browser on Android Market, is built on Android 2.0+ platform. Beside some basic features, like gesture commands, multi-touch zooming, bookmarking (that syncs to Google bookmarks), Dolphin HD supports more powerful features such as versatile add-ons, better HTML5 support, customizable bookmarks sorting, innovative UI, Download Directory changing, and etc.
Read More : Six Browsers For Most Intuitive Web Surfing Experience On Your Android Phone
Fuze Messenger
Fuze Messengers supports messaging across various networks with added feature of SSL encryption to secure your conversations.
Read More : Five Free iPhone Apps For Instant And Text Messaging
Planets
A 3D guide to the solar system for aspiring astronomers. You can discover when you can see your favorite planet, and where to look in the sky in relation to the stars and so much more.
Read More : 10 Evergreen (Yet Free) iPad Apps To Kill Your Boredom
Dictionary & Thesaurus
The free Dictionary.com app delivers trusted reference content from Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com. No internet internet connection is needed to search words. The app includes nearly 2,000,000 words, definitions, synonyms and antonyms. It also features audio pronunciation, voice-to-text search and Dictionary.com’s popular Word of the Day and Hot Word blog.
Read More : Nine Powerful Apps That Convert Your iPhone Into A Knowledge Hub
Memory Trainer
Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things. No matter how many books you study, if you don’t have a sharp memory its as good as its in drain. Memory Trainer is an app to exercise your nerve muscles and train them to remember intense amount of data. It works out your spatial and working memory, focus, chunking and concentration skills.
Read More : 7 Best Android Apps Students Can Really Make Use Of
Mirror in your pocket
We all need to check our hair or makeup sometimes and this application is here to help. Just tilt the mirror properly so that you can get a good light from behind, you will then be able to perfectly see your reflection in the black background of the mirror.
Read More : 8 Totally Awesome Apps That Can Turn Your iPhone Into What It’s Not
Tic Tac Toe Free
Now you can play Tic Tac Toe on your iPhone or iPod Touch for free. Tic Tac Toe Free is the first full-featured, free Tic-Tac-Toe game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Read More : Top 10 Evergreen (Yet Free) iPhone Apps To Kill Your Boredom
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December 20 2011
Best Of 2011: 70 Beautiful And High Quality Free Textures
For the designing fraternity, premium quality texture, backgrounds and patterns are the most necessitated freebies on the internet. Use of texture in web designs is tremendously frequent. As a result every designer is in search of good quality textures, although they do not get all at one place. Therefore, in this collection we have gathered different types of textures like grunge, rust, watercolor, fabric, metal, natural, wall, stone, flower, paper, graffiti and more.
Designers are in love with all of those freely available textures that can help their designs to become more fine-looking and attractive. In this round-up we have collected 70 awesome free textures from 2011 to freshen up your designs. Enjoy and stay creative!
High Resolution Graffiti Textures
High Resolution Grungy Surface Textures
High Resolution Brick & Tile Textures
Colored Vintage Paper Texture 05 (Deep Blue)
High Resolution Metal Surface Textures
High-Res Subtle Grunge Painting Textures
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December 17 2011
30 Beautiful Templates, Greeting Cards, Graphics To Get Ready for Christmas
Winter is finally here and Christmas isn’t that far away now. Christmas is the time of giving and the time when we give gifts to the ones we love and spend time with our families. We all love to receive Christmas greeting cards. Plus it’s a great solution if you have lots of relatives living far away. This article presents 30 Christmas and winter related items from Envato marketplaces to create the Christmas mood, put on greeting cards or simply touch up your email templates.
Raster Graphics
1. Jingle Jam Christmas Party Flyer ($6)
Use this design for any Christmas advertisement or Christmas party at a nightclub, at work or use as a holiday party invitation. 4×6 inches, CMYK, 300 DPI.
2. 20 seamless christmas backgrounds ($5)
This set comes with 10 patterned papers and 10 textured papers – that all look and feel like original Christmas wrapping paper. Patterns come as 500×500 jpegs.
3. Christmas Backgrounds ($5)
Pack with six artificial Christmas textures and decoration patterns. 3000x3000px, 300 dpi.
4. Christmas & New Years Eve Party Flyer ($7)
A clean, crisp, wintery, cold, exciting 6×10” PSD flyer template, perfect for any nightclub or party event. 3 variations, CMYK, 300 DPI.
5. Christmas Bash Party Flyer Pack ($7)
Modern and shining design to spotlight your event. 5 PSD files, CMYK, 300 DPI.
6. Santa and Christmas Reindeer ($2)
Illustration of flying Santa and Christmas reindeer
7. Typo Christmas Flyer Template ($4)
8. Wonderful Christmas Flyer & Postcard ($6)
This item includes a uniquely and carefully designed flyer & postcard. 8.5×11’’ + 8.5×5.5”, editable layers.
Vector Graphics
1. Santa Into the Winter Christmas Night ($3)
Christmas winter landscape with Santa in the sky.
2. Red and golden christmas background ($4)
3. Set Of Christmas Icons ($5)
4. Christmas Banners ($4)
5. Set vector christmas greeting card ($3)
Editable and scalable vector Christmas greeting card
6. Christmas Background with Sparkles ($4)
7. Santa Holding Wooden Banner ($4)
Email Templates landing pages
1. FeastMail ($14)
Feast Mail is an exclusive Christmas email template with business style. Snowy style with exclusively designed Christmas collages is a great way to share the warmth of the season your clients by sending them a beautiful Christmas email. 3 styles, 5 layouts and 6 color variations.
2. Simple Christmas ($15)
Simple Christmas is a user-friendly and flexible festive template. There are three designs with many possible variations and layered 3 Photoshop files included. 3 different layouts, commented code, layered PSD files.
3. Holiday Mail ($9)
Holiday Mail is a highly customizable email template. It comes with multiple modules which can be stacked over each other to get different layouts.
4. FeastMail 2 ($18)
Feast Mail 2 is a Christmas email template with twelve exclusively designed Christmas collages. great way to share the warmth of the season your clients by sending them a beautiful Christmas email. Inline CSS, commented code, layered PSD.
5. Christmas Season Landing Page Template ($10)
Included in this template package is one HTML page – the main landing page is perfectly formatted using good practices for landing page design including strong, obvious CTA areas (Call To Action) to help convert visitors into clients / customers.
6. XMAS Season ($6)
XMAS Season is a Christmas special deal promotion webpage for any kind of product you want to sell. HTML and CSS3 markup, responsive layout, Javascript slider, layered PSD.
Photographs
All prices apply to medium size download.
1. Christmas ball($3)
2. Christmas gift sitting on a table ($3)
3. Christmas Present ($3)
4. Brightly lit Christmas tree ($3)
5. Beautiful xmas tree at dusk ($3)
6. Door opening into a living room ($3)
7. christmas($3)
8. Christmas($3)
9. Two candles with decoration ($3)
October 10 2011
How To Create Repeating Texture & Pattern Images
Repeating background images are safest method of styling up your website background other than a plain old CSS background color. Websites are viewed in all types and sizes of browser these days, so a repeating background ensures the whole of the user’s screen will be filled with your design, unlike a static image that can often end up being cropped off or lost in a sea of flat colour. Let’s take a look at how seamless or repeating textures and patterns can be created in Photoshop.
Creating seamless textures
Anyone who’s followed any of my tutorials or seen my work before will know how much I love using textures in my design work. Textures really help add a tactile feel to an otherwise flat and digital design. Open up a texture file and crop it in Photoshop to exclude any marks that would stand out when repeated.
Go to Filter > Other > Offset then enter a figure in the Horizontal and Vertical fields that’s half the dimensions of your image. My texture file is 800x800px, so I enter 400px in the fields.
The offset filter will show obvious lines where the file is repeated, but these can be blended in using the Healing Brush. Hold ALT while selecting a sample area, then draw over the lines with a soft brush. Photoshop will disguise the hard lines to blend the four corners together.
Give the new file a test in a new document by duplicating and butting up the copies against each other. You should be left with a seamless file that doesn’t leave any obvious gaps.
Creating repeating patterns
Repeating pattern files are also a popular choice for website backgrounds. Patterns come in all shapes and designs, from vintage wallpaper to simple stripes like these. Whatever pattern you’re creating the same simple steps apply.
Zoom in and pick a focal point on the design, in this case it’s a point in the design where the pink line changes to yellow. Drag out a marquee until you reach the same point elsewhere on the design.
Crop the image to size then make duplicates to check whether the file tessellates and creates a seamless pattern.
Creating pixel patterns
Pixel patterns have been popular in web design since the early days of Photoshop designed table layouts. They really help add subtle detail to your website background or page elements. Create a new document at 3x3px.
Zoom as far into the document as possible, then use the Pencil tool to fill three pixels to create a diagonal line.
When this pattern file is applied to an element at normal zoom it creates an intricate diagonal line pattern. Check out my pack of free pixel patterns, containing similar diagonal lines amongst other pattern swatches.
April 29 2011
Useful Photoshop Tutorials for Designing Abstract Backgrounds
An attractive and compelling background adds depth to your graphics, banners or ads; and for this reason is of great importance. Sure there are some people who might not notice backgrounds, but the role they play in making the entire artwork look more interesting and visually alluring is paramount. They really do help to tie the entire piece together, no matter how simply or aggressively they are employed.
Here, we are showcasing some of the web’s truly amazing Abstract Background Design Photoshop Tutorials for our readers. Be you a PS enthusiast or junkie, you will surely want to take a look at the offerings we have compiled. Feel free to share your opinion with us.
Abstract Backgrounds Tutorials
Abstract Kaleidoscope Poster – Photoshop CS5
This tutorial lets you learn how to create an attention-grabbing kaleidoscope type poster in Photoshop CS5 by combining basic colors, shapes and brushes. A layered PSD file is included.
Abstract Starfield Background – Photoshop CS5
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a tremendous space scene in Photoshop CS5 by mixing different shapes, brushes and blending modes. A layered PSD file is included to help you get started!
Create Abstract Valentine’s Day Card
In this tutorial you will learn how to craft a vibrant Valentine’s Day card befitting of the day, by means of basic shapes and gradients in Adobe Photoshop CS5.
Create Awesome Abstract Nebula Circle Shape in Photoshop
Here the artist will take you through the steps he took to create this stunning abstract design. This is an intermediate level tutorial so proceed with care and be prepared.
Create Artistic Abstract Shapes via the Powerful Warp Tool in Photoshop
This tutorial shows you how to bring warp tool plus into play to generate great looking abstract shapes to beautify your design. The steps are truly simple and the effect can be used in a wide range of occasions.
Easily create planetary ring via cloud and twirl filter in photoshop.
In this tutorial, using the cloud and twirl tools you will be able to easily create a planetary ring no galaxy would be complete without.
Create Simple Abstract Shining Wave Line
Want to get trained on how to recreate this simple yet alluring abstract background? Simply follow this helpful tut.
Create a Detailed Meteorite and Surrounding Space Environment in Photoshop
In this intermediate level tutorial, the artist will show you the steps he took to create this detailed meteorite and surrounding space environment in photoshop. Some steps can be bit trickey, but the payoff is worthwhile.
Chroma Wallpapers
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a great abstract work of art combining a 3D-looking base with some various added effects.
Create a Wavy Blackberry Style Wallpaper Design
Here, Fabio Sasso teaches you how to create an abstract background image using Photoshop alone to give a cool wavy pattern with some eye-catching lighting effects to your work.
Abstract Lines Background
This tutorial guides you step by step on how to create an abstract lines background in Photoshop. This one is a must!
Calculations And Colorization
This Photoshop tutorial shows the creation of an Alpha Channel by means of the calculations dialog that will create a truly amazing abstract colorized photo effect.
Creating the new retro
Learn to give retro-style graphics your individual modern-day spin with this tutorial shared by Graphic designer, James White.
Drawing an Abstract Lightbulb
In this tutorial, you will learn a couple of techniques that include glows using layer styles, stroking path, particles using brush dynamics, and bokeh effects.
Abstract lighting effects
This tutorial guides you through creating some lighting effects with colorful wave elements by using Photoshop CS4. You can achieve the same results even if you have other versions of the program.
Space Lighting Effects in 10 Steps
Here, the artist is showing you how to quickly give life to a space scene with some pleasant lighting effects.
How to Create Brilliant Light Streaks in Photoshop
This tutorial will teach you some simple techniques for creating dazzling light streaks which can be utilized in different manners to add movement and brightness to your designs.
Create Abstract Colorful Balls illustration in Photoshop CS5
This drawing tutorial takes you through the formation of this abstract multicolored illustration with the use of simple tools and techniques like the Ellipse Tool, Brush Tool, Gradient Tool, Layer Style, etc. in CS5.
Create Abstract Background with Bokeh effect
Generate an abstract and vibrantly rich background with bokeh effects via Photoshop’s drawing tools, blending modes, and lighting techniques.
Luminescent Lines
A simple yet very powerful technique to create an abstract wallpaper or image that looks simply stunning and stylish.
Abstract Background of Colored Bars
An easy to follow and understand tutorial on how to design abstract backgrounds, wallpapers, greeting cards, designs, and all that other good stuff.
Abstract Image
Craft a fine-looking and amazing effect with just a few simple steps.
Cool abstract background
Here, the artist takes you through the steps employed to design abstract backgrounds from bubbles and waves using Photoshop.
Easy Abstract Photoshop Tutorial
Use a few brushes and effects to create a very simple abstract shape via the guiding hands of this tutorial.
Intense Solar Flare (Filter) Effect
In this tutorial you will learn how to create an outstanding abstract background using this intense solar flare effect.
Create a fantastic background texture
This tutorial lets you learn how to produce a fantastic background texture that you can customize for your own projects and purposes.
Abstract Airbrushing
In this tutorial you will learn how to create attractive abstract bursts of light for your renders.
Windows Vista Aurora Effect
A Photoshop tutorial which covers creating a Vista like background with aurora type effects.
Wallpaper Effect
This tutorial walks you through creating a warped effect that you can use to create artistic and profressional backgrounds and wallpapers.
TRENDY BACKGROUND
Simple technique by brush strokes for the creation of some fashionable backgrounds.
Digital Star Effect
In this tutorial you will learn how to give your work an effect reminiscent of shimmering sequins.
Mac-type background
This tutorial is focused on the subject of making a “mac” style background.
Signature Backgrounds
In this tutorial you will be taught how to create a nice abstract background that you are sure to become known for using.
Colourful Swirl
In this tutorial you will learn how to create a colorful swirl by using Adobe Photoshop.
Colorful Tornado
In this tutorial, you are being shown how to build a fine-looking vibrant tornado or pinwheel styled design in Photoshop.
Abstract Artsy Background
Here, you will learn how to create amazing abstract artsy backgrounds for any of your design works.
How to create abstract colorful rainbow background
Learn how to use Photoshop’s simple shapes, layer styles and gradients to generate a pleasant abstract rainbow background.
Aurora Borealis – North-South Polar Lights
In this tutorial, the artist is showing how you can recreate an Aurora Borealis type background by using Photoshop only.
Design Eye-catching Laser Particle Abstract Effect in Photoshop
Learn how easy it is in Photoshop to create these attention-grabbing laser particle effects. This is a beginner guide with simple and easy steps to follow.
Hexagon Bokeh Effect in Photoshop
In this tutorial, you will learn how to craft a digital bokeh effect using hexagons. Brush engine, patterns, blend modes and basic filters are used to accomplish this effect.
Creating Smoke
Learn to create a beautiful smoky effect for your designs by using Photoshop with the help of this tutorial.
Create a Rather Interesting, Wavy and Curving Abstract Shape Effect in Photoshop
This tutorial walks you through the formation of this somewhat appealing and colorful shape. A very detailed tutorial with large numbers of helpful screenshots.
Create beautiful hair-like abstract lines to decorate your design in photoshop.
Create stunning hair like line work and beautify your design with this easy to follow tutorial. This is novice level tutorial with the intention of teaching how to utilize the pen tool and dynamic brush setting.
Create Simple, Yet Elegant Abstract Spectrum Lines
Learn step by step how the artist has created this simple yet appealing abstract spectrum of lines that can be used for a wide range of purposes.
Create a Futuristic Abstract Wallpaper
Learn how to use various filters in PS to generate a wallpaper with a futuristic feel.
Creating a Stunning Digital Smoke Effect
This tutorial teaches you how to effortlessly create digital abstract smoke by means of both Illustrator and Photoshop. This technique is incredibly customizable and you can do it pretty swiftly.
How to Create an Interplay of Abstract Light Streaks
A detailed tutorial that will guide you through generating an series of abstract light streaks.
(rb)
March 07 2011
30 Examples of Big Backgrounds in Web Design – Round 2
Four months ago, we showcased 30 Examples of Big Backgrounds in Web Design, and we can say that the trend surrounding big images as backgrounds is still hot. As we noticed that a number of new websites were using big backgrounds, we decided to do a fresh round of examples to inspire you. Here you will see websites using big images as the focal point and you’ll also see sites using big images to enhance the content in creative ways. Keep in mind that using only a huge image as a background is a bit risky, since you might be driving attention away from content. So try to have something “in between those lines”.
blitz
Moods of Norway
Art of Kinetik
Michael Korstick
Handle With Love
Brandon Knaster Jewelry
Te Haku Lake House
blitz
Weight Shift
Frank Chimero
Viventy
Nike Skateboarding
Image the Music
Capturee
Nike Better World
Ben Thomson Photography
YYoga
Cat Rabbit
Nordkapp
Tower
Grandpeople
Gauged2
NFB Interactive
Mies van der Rohe Society
Design Made in Germany
Intercity
Valerio Berruti
German Craft
Treme
Jooji
Source:
December 31 2010
The Ultimate ‘Best Of 2010′ Resources For People Who Create Designs
Today, we are going to take a look on few of the best of 2010 collection for designers and developers that we think you would really like to bookmark for 2011. We hope you guys will like this stunning collection of inspiration, resources, tutorials and showcases of design related stuffs. Just take a look at them and share your thought’s here.
You are welcome if you want to share more cool best of 2010 collection that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at SmashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well.
33 Creative Movie Posters of 2010
The 69 Coolest Apps Of 2010
Best of 2010: Sites of the Week
The best of the best tools and resources for web design of 2010
Top 50 Free Fonts Created in 2010
Best Free Textures and Patterns of 2010
40 High Quality Free PSD Files Released In 201040 High Quality Free PSD Files Released In 2010
Best of Best WordPress Tutorials of 2010
The Best Premium-Like Free WordPress Themes Of 2010
Our Favorite Photoshop Tutorials of 2010 on Psdtuts
A Review of Web Design Trends from 2010
Absolutely Amazing Techniques To Create Eye-Catching Websites With JQuery (Best Of 2010)
Best of the Best Photoshop Tutorials from 2010
The Top 50 Best Digital and CG Artworks from 2010
21 Best Tutorials for Creating Icons in Photoshop from 2010
Awesome Tutorials That Will Make You Acquainted With What Photoshop Can Do (Best of 2010)
Best Illustrator Tutorials from 2010
The Top 100 Best Business Cards from 2010
50 of the Best Photoshop Tutorials of 2010
Best Icon Sets Of 2010 You Would Not Want To Miss
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December 30 2010
53 Creatively Designed YouTube Backgrounds to Inspire You
If you will be googling articles with collections of backgrounds for MySpace, Twitter, Friendster, etc., you will find many. But, seldom that you will find YouTube layouts in the research. So, we have decided to compile some of the best, creatively designed YouTube background layouts for you to download. For the steps on how to customize your YouTube channel, scroll down to the bottom part of the article. Enjoy making your YouTube channel beautiful!
1. Digital Abstract
A white layout with colorful objects on the background. The white layout stands out because of the colorful background used.
2. Royal Fantasy
A layout in a shade of Blue. The circles make the design look like a fantasy.
3. Snowboard
If you are looking for a really simple and clean layout, then this one dedicated for you. A white with snowboard-shaped figure on the background and a Green font color to make it more clean.
4. Music Doodles
A very clean school-themed layout with music doodles on the background.
5. Sketches
Different kinds of sketches on the background with some grunge-style effect.
6. Paper Clouds
A clean layout with clouds that are made into paper.
7. Glowing Paint
One cool YouTube layout with nice background in gradient and spilled paints as the border that makes it more look creative.
8. Color Dots
Very cute background with circles and a transparent layout that make the design looks professional.
9. Skyline
Do you like designs with silhouettes? Then, you may also like this layout. It has a skyline silhouette on the background and a transparent layout to emphasize more the contents of the page.
10. Retro Lines
A simple layout with a five way-like lane on the background.
11. Love
Feeling romantic? Then, you may use this layout to reflect your feelings. A pinkish-red layout with hearts drawn on it.
12. Blackboard
A layout where the YouTube videos and other contents are placed on a chalkboard. Cool, right? For those who hates chalkboard because of school will now probably like it.
13. Paint House
Paint House is a sleekish layout with some drops or spills of paints on the background. The Blue background makes it look very attractive.
14. Notes
A cool design where one page of a notebook is put as the main layout of the whole channel background.
15. Paper Galaxy
A plain background with a color of pink and violet well-blended together. Also, the paper that is hung emphasizes the contents of the page.
16. Spring
A layout that is designed for Spring season. The colors gives a refreshing look onto the layout, as well as the cute flowers on the background.
17. Retro Glass
Want to go simple and retro? This layout can be your choice. Retro style with a glass effect on the content layout.
18. Abstract Background
Be abstract and feminine with this background. Very chic and stylish.
19. Apple Fan
Are you a fan of Apple? You may like this Apple-themed layout.
20. City-side
A perfect layout to brighten up your channel with this inspired city-themed in Blue.
Are you a fan of abstract, graffiti or grunge styles? Therefore, you may like these YouTube layouts.
21. Future Abstract
A blue inspired abstract background layout with a glowing effect that makes the contents stand out.
22. Green/Orange Abstract
Nice swirls! Very captivating layout indeed.
23. Big Graffiti Wall #1
Graffiti is stylish. This layout is one good example.
24. Retroffiti
A good graffiti-retro-themed layout. The colors are nice and attractive.
25. Big Graffiti Shiney #2
I find this one cool, aren’t you? Nicely done graffiti indeed.
26. Document #5
This is how can dirty look creative. Make this one as your choice!
27. Stay With Me
Let your viewers stay on your channel with this nicely designed layout.
28. Grungy Abstract Star
Nice swirls and choice of colors. A good layout to make your YouTube go grungy yet creative.
29. Grunge Destruction
Let YouTube users be distracted with this grunge background layout.
30. Grunge Abstract
A nice texture drawn on the background with a grunge style look.
How about layouts that are related to technology? Here are they…
TECHNOLOGY LAYOUTS
31. Computer Network
Different kinds of technology on the background with a transparent white content layout.
32. Tech Master
If you want to go techy and abstract, this tech inspired layout you may use.
33. MacOSX
Make your channel like how MacOSX look with this layout.
CELEBRITY LAYOUTS
34. Lil Wayne Vector #10
For the fans of Lil Wayne, here is a black and pink layout and Lil Wayne in a vector-like style. Very cute.
35. Wayne #16 (2.0)
Another Lil Wayne layout, but in a white, grungy look. The 3D text is nice, it gives life to the design.
36. Katy Perry #11 (2.0)
Very Katy Perry! If you are an avid fan of Katy Perry who also likes girly thing, then this layout is for you.
37. Miley Cyrus #3 (2.0)
A youthful look of layout for the fans of Miley Cyrus. The concept of the layout is great.
38. R.I.P. Michael Jackson
Clean and professional look of YouTube layout of the king of pop, Michael Jackson. May he rest in peace.
For those who are fan of movies, I have here some movie layouts for your YouTube channel.
MOVIE LAYOUTS
39. The Hangover
Loved the movie, The Hangover? Tell other YouTube subscribers by customizing your channel with this one?
40. Toy Story 3
Make your YouTube channel cute like how the story of Toy Story 3 is.
41. The Hulk
This The Hulk YouTube layout can be your choice of you want to go dark but creative. The shade of Green is nice and the background is so scary.
42. Avatar
Avatar is a great movie! Feel free to use this Avatar-inspired layout in Blue green color scheme.
43. Twilight
If you love Twilight, you may also love this YouTube layout.
44. Pirates of the Carribean 4
Make your channel into a pirate-themed layout with some grunge style.
45. Harry Potter
Are you a Harry Potter fan? Try this layout for your channel.
46. Kungfu Panda
I love Kungfu Panda! The story is nice as how beautiful this layout is.
47. Prison Break
I like the way the story is created as how I like this layout is done.
48. The Book of Eli
Liked the movie, The Book of Eli? You may want to put this as your YouTube layout.
CAR LAYOUTS
49. MG XPOWER 5V #5
Greatly done layout with a grunge-style effect on the background. Nice blending of colors.
50. Ford Police Interceptor
The building and the police car blended well on the background. A great layout to use.
51. Lambo # 6
Be grungy with a Lamborghini on the background with this layout. So cool!
52. RX7 Veilside #3
For guys who love cars, this cool orange themed layout can be your choice.
53. Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 #2
Love Ford Mustang Shelby? Try this nice layout with awesome brushes put on the background.
Resources: Best Websites To Download YouTube Layouts
1. BackgroundTube
BackgroundTube.com has the purpose to serve one very small purpose, to give you free, professional looking backgrounds to use on your YouTube channel. Backgrounds you find here will always be free and awesome.
2. MYTUBEDESIGN
MyTubeDesign provides a collection of top quality YouTube Channel Layouts, as well as a platform for talented YouTubers to showcase their channels.
MyTubeDesign is dedicated to the YouTube Community. One of the goals of MTD is to be an open channel to the community and provide the best channel designs out there. Not only are the excellent layouts designed with passion, but also are free for everyone to use.
3. YTLayouts
YTLayouts is also one good website that offers YouTube layouts for your channel for free. You can find different layouts that are grouped into categories.
4. Free YouTube Layouts
Free YouTube Layouts is a website that offers YouTube channel layouts all for free.
Before you go, I will be teaching you on how to customize your YouTube channel layout. Make sure that you downloaded first your chosen theme. Do not worry, even little ones can do this.
How To Customize YouTube Channel Layout
1. Log in on YouTube. Click your channel name located on the upper right corner of your screen and click My Channel, then you will be prompted on your channel page.
2. Once you are already on your channel, click the Themes and Colors button.
3. Download your chosen YouTube channel layout. In my case, I used Lovely Graffiti that can be found on YTLayouts. You may find the image below and copy each colors on your YouTube channel.
4. Click Save Changes.
And that’s it! You have just customized your YouTube channel layout.
To stand out from the rest of the YouTube users, customize your channel layout. Hoping you enjoyed and learned something on this article.
December 27 2010
To Resolve Project – Phenomenal New Years Resolution Inspiration
RESOLVE: verb, to come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something)
Resolutions come and go and some rarely make it past the first week of February. Chris Streger decided to change that by asking several of his designer friends to make their own ‘resolution’ in the form of an iPhone Background. He started the To Resolve project that stemmed from a conversation with his girlfriend. He sent out as many ‘call to arms’ as he could think of to designers he knew or those he didn’t. There’s been some pretty great work come in so far and it’s almost double in the last few days. If you need some inspiration, a new iPhone background or you want to design your own, check out the To Resolve Project.
Mads Burcharth | His Submission
Tyler Galpin | His Submission
Dan Cassaro | His Submission
Bobby McKenna | His Submission
Matt Payson | His Submission
Stefanie Pepping | Her Submission
Cassie Stegman | Her Submission
Sean Ball | His Submission
Michael Spitz | His Submission
Travis Fleck | His Submission
Rich Arnold | His Submission
Paul Wilkes | His Submission
Scott Hill | His Submission
Joseph Hughes | His Submission
Matt Stevens | His Submission
Jason Hines | His Submission
Curtis Jenkins | His Submission
Jenn Lew | Her Submission
Chris Streger | His Submission
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To Resolve Project – Phenomenal New Years Resolution Inspiration
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