freebie Archives - Page 14 of 22

Holiday, Illustrator, Patterns, Tutorials, vector

Create Custom Holiday Gift Wrap in Adobe Illustrator

Welcome to the first holiday tutorial of the season! To kick things off, I thought it would be fun to create custom holiday gift wrap in Adobe Illustrator. Since gift wrap is essentially a repeating pattern, we’ll be walking through all of the steps of a seamless pattern using the pattern tool. Be sure to pick up last week’s free holiday vectors to follow along exactly! This pattern tutorial is a little different; not only will we create a seamless swatch, I’ll also share how to apply any background color to your pattern quickly (without re-entering the pattern tool)! Once our pattern is complete, we’ll export it and use an online service to upload and customize our gift wrap. By the end of the video, you’ll have everything you need to create your pattern and also get your custom holiday gift wrap printed for real! Everything you need included below!

November 8, 2016

5 Comments

Freebies, Hand Drawn, Holiday, vector

Freebie: Holiday Vector Pack

Happy November! This year is seriously cruising by. Before we know it, we’ll need to start sending out holiday cards, and if you’re feeling ambitious, diy’ing some printable design work. I’ve got a bunch of holiday design tutorials planned, so I want to make things super easy on you this year. This holiday vector pack includes all the vectors you’ll need to create every upcoming tutorial! These come as vector-only since we’ll be working mostly in Adobe Illustrator. Working in Illustrator will allow us to use our artwork at any size we please, without ever losing quality or resolution. Get a head start with any projects you have in progress and grab all 33 unique vectors below!

November 3, 2016

25 Comments

Desktop Wallpapers, Freebies, Hand Lettering, Personal

Freebie: November 2016 Desktop Wallpapers

Today’s the last Thursday in October, so it’s time for your free November 2016 desktop wallpapers! This month’s wallpaper was hand lettered on an iPad Pro using an Apple pencil. Here are a few more details: the glitter texture is from the Procreate Metallic Texture Kit. The brushes used were a slightly modified (default) studio pen and brush pen in Procreate. This download includes the wallpapers in two common resolutions: 1280x1024px and 1920x1080px, with and without dates. I’ve left the year off of the ‘no-dates’ versions, so you can use it for any November in the future, too!

October 27, 2016

12 Comments

Freebies, Tutorials, Typography

A Colorful Crash Course in Type Anatomy

With the launch week of Brush Lettering with Watercolor coming to a close, I thought it would be fun to tie colorful letters into a quick tip design tutorial. And what better way to talk about type anatomy than getting colorful with it? 🙂 This is actually kind of perfect for hand letterers and graphic designers alike. For hand letterers, an intimate understanding of letterforms is essential, keeping qualities consistent for balanced, harmonious styles. For graphic designers, understanding style pairings and their character traits creates more strategic, thoughtful designs.

Over my (almost) 10 year career as a graphic designer, there’s definitely a short list of type characteristics that serve as an excellent base if you’re just starting. In this week’s video, I walk you through those base type anatomy qualities, with full descriptions throughout the video. Download the free cheat sheet below to reference later!

October 18, 2016

6 Comments

Desktop Wallpapers, Freebies, Hand Lettering, Personal

Freebie: October 2016 Desktop Wallpapers

Today’s the last Thursday in September, so it’s time for your free October 2016 desktop wallpapers! This month’s wallpaper was hand lettered with the super-fun-to-play-with FineTec metallic watercolors. The paper is Neenah Astrobrights Eclipse Black, which actually holds up perfectly with the metallics. FineTecs are naturally on the thicker side, so they sit right on top of cardstock like they were meant to be together 🙂 . This download includes the wallpapers in two common resolutions: 1280x1024px and 1920x1080px, with and without dates. I’ve left ‘2016’ off of the ‘no-dates’ jpgs, so you can use this for any October in the future, too!

September 29, 2016

10 Comments

Crafts, Freebies, Hand Lettering, Resources, Typography

Brush Lettering with Watercolor Supply List

If you’re an Every-Tuesday subscriber, then you already received this brush lettering with watercolor supply list in your inboxes yesterday 🙂 It’s too useful of a resource not to share, so I wanted to also bring it into the blog this week. Having the right supplies can be a serious road block when you’re just getting started, and a costly one at that. After going through my fair share of supply testing (and cash), I’ve compiled a list of my absolute favorites. For those on a budget, or if you’re not sure if this is for you, I’ve also included a separate list of comparable, lower priced items 😉 My newest master course, Brush Lettering with Watercolor is now open if you’d like to put these supplies to use!

September 22, 2016

2 Comments

Branding, Freebies, vector

Freebie: Clothing Tag Vector Shapes

On Tuesday, we walked step by step, creating our own hipster-style clothing tag vector shapes and designs from scratch in Illustrator. Knowing which shape you’d like your tag to be when you begin informs all of the design decisions you make afterwards. The cool thing about tags is that there are soooo many options when it comes to shapes! I’ve found having a few ideas in mind of which shape I’d like helps me to sketch out a bunch of ideas quickly, which makes my final shape decision a confident one.

September 8, 2016

5 Comments

Freebies, Resources, Textures

Freebie: Mini Ink Splatter Textures

In many of the ventures I’ve taken into the depths of Instagram eye candy-land, adding some splatter to finished artwork is totally a thing. Here’s another thing though – splattering those babies is messy. Those little splatter dots actually go everywhere – I still have some on my keyboard from when I made this freebie 😁. If you’re taking your artwork digital, or editing things a little further, there’s a way to avoid those little keyboard/desk/everywhere ink freckles: pre-made splatters! This week’s freebie is a set of 3 varied mini ink splatter textures you can use at will. Grab them below, plus check out a few ideas + inspiration for using em!

September 1, 2016

11 Comments

Desktop Wallpapers, Freebies, Personal

Freebie: September 2016 Desktop Wallpapers

Today’s the last Thursday in August, so it’s time for your free September 2016 desktop wallpapers! This month’s wallpaper is another doodle explosion (hopefully in a good way!) brought to you via an iPad Pro + Apple Pencil + Procreate app. This download includes the wallpapers in two common resolutions: 1280x1024px and 1920x1080px, with and without dates. I’ve left ‘2016’ off of the ‘no-dates’ jpgs, so you can use this for any September in the future, too!

August 25, 2016

4 Comments

Freebies, Hand Lettering, Resources, Typography

Freebie: Hand Lettering Style Inspiration Guide

I am truly so flattered by the response to Lettering Layouts this week (it’s the #1 trending class on Skillshare as I type this!). I have loved, LOVED seeing everyone’s experiments they’ve shared either by tagging me on instagram or posting in the class. So much talent! To say a giant thank you, I wanted to share a little something extra to inspire any new layouts you may have up your sleeves: a hand lettering style inspiration guide!

August 18, 2016

7 Comments

Branding, Freebies, Resources

Freebie: Brand Style Guide Template

A brand style guide template… When I worked at a design studio, we called this the ‘systems page’ for each brand’s identity standards. We also called all of the graphic elements the brand’s VIS, or visual identity system. I’ve seen (online, anyway), it’s commonly referred to as a brand style guide, so we’re using that for this post. (Feel free to use your favorite term, they’re all relevant. 🙂 )

A brand style guide is basically this: a brand board template of all visual elements (including primary logo/ secondary logo) that comprise a brand’s unique presence and aesthetic to the public. It’s what makes a brand get noticed, helps them to stand apart from their competitors, and creates the feeling(s) they wish to communicate visually. If/when you’re tasked with creating a brand’s identity, this page will be handed as branding template to all other designers to use that ever work on the brand. It’s a series of branding templates & guide to keep a brand’s look – colors, fonts, patterns, etc. consistent across all applications.

So yep, pretty handy little template to have 🙂

August 4, 2016

13 Comments

Freebies, Illustrator, Textures, Tutorials, Typography

How to Create Watercolor Typography in Illustrator

There’s no doubt you’ve encountered it before: typography with a watercolor texture built in. A while back, I shared how to replicate this cool effect in Photoshop. Today, I want to share how easy it is to create watercolor typography in Illustrator using 3 different methods. If you saw last week’s tutorial, then you’ve already gotten a peek at one of them. 😉 But! If you don’t have a seamless watercolor pattern on hand, it’s still cake to create the same effect. I’ll even help you out by giving you a free texture from Watercolor Texture Kit Vol. 3 so you can follow along and start experimenting asap! Read on for everything you need to know to get started!

August 2, 2016

11 Comments

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