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Illustrator, Textures, Tutorials, Typography, vector

How to Create Illustrator Texture Brushes

I’ve only recently started incorporating Illustrator texture brushes into my work, and I regret not doing it sooner! Illustrator texture brushes offer so much hand made feel with such little effort, you almost feel like a magician 😉 To get started, all you need is any kind of vector texture like this set of inky brush strokes or these mini grit textures (both free!). From there, we convert them into Illustrator art brushes with specific settings and we’re done! This will be such a great addition to your regular workflow if you love including extra texture into your work. For the tutorial, we’ll create some inky and gritty typographic drop shadows in just a few quick minutes. Read on to see it all!

September 20, 2016

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Crafts, Roundups, Textures

5 Simple (but impressive!) DIY Embossing Ideas

On Tuesday, we got crafty with mixing watercolors with diy embossing. In my opinion, this is one the most self-satisfying diy design/craft activities out there. There’s something about watching that embossing powder come to life with heat, and it’s literally eye candy every time. Today I’m sharing 5 simple, (but impressive!) DIY embossing ideas that will give your greeting cards, gift tags, stationery and artwork an extra level of cool. 😉 Read on for step by steps, exact supplies used and photos for each!

September 15, 2016

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Crafts, Hand Lettering, Textures, Tutorials, Typography

Create Watercolor Lettering with DIY Embossing 3 Ways

I think it’s pretty fair to say that diy embossing is reallllly popular right now. It’s easy to see why; First, there’s watching colorful powder stick magically to invisible ink. Next, there’s witnessing it look completely different (especially metallics) once heat is applied. The results look like they came from a pro print shop! I haven’t come across many videos of a watercolor/embossing combo, so it was time for that to change 🙂 I recently started applying embossing designs to my watercolor lettering and it makes for some really tactile + impressive outcomes. This week I wanted to have some fun by sharing watercolor lettering with DIY embossing 3 ways. Everything used in the video listed with links below!

September 13, 2016

5 Comments

Illustrator, Tutorials, Typography

Create a Hipster Clothing Tag in Illustrator

I’ve somehow always been drawn to really beautiful design on smaller items. It might just be the cuteness factor, but serious planning goes into hierarchy and layout in such a small space, and that has always been really impressive to me. Do you ever check what the clothing tags look like when you’re shopping? I remember the first time I ever obsessed over a clothing tag. It was when I was in high school and at the mall with friends (I probably should have known a career in design was imminent at that moment). Anyway, I wasn’t in love with whatever article of clothing it was (see? I can’t even remember that part!) but I loved that tag, so I bought it anyway (in my defense, I’ll also note this was before cell phones with cameras). Roll your eyes if you must. 😉

If you love thoughtful graphic design on smaller things too, this tutorial’s for you! In this week’s video, we’ll create a hipster style clothing tag from scratch using just Adobe Illustrator. Get started below!

September 6, 2016

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Hand Lettering, Tutorials, Typography

iPad Lettering: Recreate the Stranger Things Logo

This week is really fun. I was brainstorming some iPad lettering tutorials where I could share quick tips without being overwhelming, and recreating the Stranger Things logo came to mind. Spence and I finished binging on Stranger Things a couple months ago, but even now, I still can’t wait for the next season! It’s also extra cool that it was filmed in Georgia (gotta find that lake!) *and* I’m a child of the 80’s. Perfect match you could say.. But! I digress 😉

August 30, 2016

2 Comments

Business, InDesign, Tutorials

How to Create a Clickable PDF with InDesign

Last week, I gave away a few freebie pdfs and this one was fully clickable. Being able to offer readers a clickable pdf has been a great way for me to share some of my favorite tools all in one place, and in a simple doc you can tuck into your favorite folder(s).

Creating clickable pdfs is also a nice option for sharing resources with clients (and also look like a badass designer at the same time 😉 ). If you sell digital printables on Etsy for example, adding your url at the bottom that is also clickable is a simple opportunity to gain more visitors to your site or store!

For whatever your purpose(s) might be, in this week’s tutorial, I’m sharing exactly how I make mine from start to finish using Adobe InDesign. Read on to see how easy it is!

August 23, 2016

8 Comments

Illustrator, Resources, Tutorials, Typography

How to Perfectly Type on a Path in Illustrator

Let’s talk about something that’s massively important, but often gets overlooked: type on a path in Illustrator. You’re probably already familiar with the ability to select any text and go effect > warp, but that makes editing your text later on pretty difficult. The truth is, most of graphic design is experimenting, altering and adjusting. Because of this, the need to go back and adjust previously warped text quickly is a big deal. Luckily, Illustrator makes it super easy to customize text appearance along a path with a few handy tools. Prepare to take your layouts to a whole new level with these options in this week’s tutorial! Oh, and just in case you need to reference these tips later, I made you a free cheat sheet, too 😉

August 9, 2016

18 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

Illustrator, Patterns, Photoshop, Textures, Tutorials

How to Convert a Photoshop Pattern into an Illustrator Pattern

I’ve been creating more patterns in the last year than I ever have before. Patterns are such a wonderful tool to add personality quickly to designs without a ton of effort, or overthinking. One of the best parts: they can be added to backgrounds, text and design elements with just a click of a button in both Photoshop and Illustrator. Say you have a Photoshop pattern, maybe a watercolor texture pattern, like we created in this tutorial. If you’d like to use it as a pattern swatch in Illustrator, how do you convert that Photoshop pattern file? In this tutorial, we go step by step on how to convert any Photoshop pattern into an Illustrator pattern swatch in a few quick steps. Read on for everything you need to know!

July 26, 2016

9 Comments

Illustrator, Tutorials

how to create a custom to do list in illustrator

How to Create a To Do List in Illustrator

There’s something that feels soooo good about crossing off items on a to do list. Having a written list keeps me on track every day of the week. Most times, I grab a scrap sheet of paper and bullet my to-do’s out, but it’s never quite as satisfying as when they’re written on a custom design. In this week’s video tutorial, we’ll create our own designed to do list from scratch, perfectly prepared for printing in a few quick and easy steps, so you can start crossing items off to your heart’s desire 😉 All of the steps below!

July 19, 2016

20 Comments

Courses, Photoshop, Tutorials

Mastering Mockups Class Trailer + Bonus!

Happy Tuesday! I’m so excited I get to bring my newest online class to you this week, Mastering Mockups! In the class, we take original artwork, apply a little photoshop trickery, and put that artwork on products which look convincingly real. This is the perfect sales tool if you’re a seller on Etsy and need better product photography, if you’re a freelancer who wants to impress and convince your client to approve the artwork you created for them, or if you’d like to level up your design portfolio making fictitious projects come to life. You can also use the class’s techniques to create social media posts, blog images, digital product sales pages and more. Your enrollment in the class gets you all 4 base photos used in the class for free. With those photos, you’ll be able to follow along, completing every step as we go 😉

Keeping with tradition, I’m sharing the class trailer today, along with a bonus lesson from the class. In this lesson, we’ll create a single use, social media mockup. Are you ready to mock?! Everything below!

July 12, 2016

0 Comments

Color, Photoshop, Textures, Tutorials

How to Create a Paper Cut Out Layered Letter

I’ve had a few requests on how to replicate the look of the incredible artwork by Eiko Ojala and I’m so excited to share my interpretation of it this week. This week’s tutorial is a little more advanced, but I have tutorials for every part I speed through and I’ve linked to all of them under the video if you’d like a more thorough explanation. This technique can be used for so many cool applications – logos, greeting cards, branding, web graphics, etc. We’ll start out in Illustrator creating our organic shapes and finish everything up in Photoshop, adding in shadows and textures to complete the layered letter look. See how it all comes together below!

July 5, 2016

7 Comments

Courses

Messy Watercolors in Procreate

Gouache Botanicals in Procreate

Learn Font Making

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