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Difference Between Artists and Designers When it Comes to Creation

19
Feb 2011

Creating as an Artists or a Designer? Do you follow paths or make your own ones. Is either of the choices here better than the other?We will try to take a look into the designing process from different standpoints and ask various people about their opinions on the subject.

Our goal will be to find the pros and cons of these approaches and find their respective target audiences and finally, to find you in it all.

Definition

Lets begin with defining what the words artist and designer for the length of this article.
From http://dictionary.reference.com definitions are as follows:

Artist – a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.

Designer – a person who devises or executes designs, especially one who creates forms, structures, and patterns, as for works of art or machines.

Those dont put any clear difference in the meaning. So we will have to create one ourselves for now:

Designer – we will view designers as trained people with vast knowledge in rules of the design process, how to use different elements to ones benefit, meaning of colors etc.

Artist - artists will be those guys out there, who probably are self-taught, they have a basic understanding of the rules out there and saw their use in multiple occasions, but in their work they tend to go their own ways.

With that we can move on.

Finding your way

People who are very good at something usually enjoy whatever it is they are doing. That gives them the drive to constantly improve their skills, learn new tricks and improve the old ones.Thats why its important that you make an aware decision when choosing your path.

Try to remember what made you interested in becoming a Computer Graphic. The reasons can vary quite a lot. Maybe you were just looking at all those pretty pictures and designs and decided – hey, I want to have a go (thats my story), maybe one of your friends got you hooked up with the idea, or you just thought its going to be an easy way to make money, why not?

Were only looking for the reason to find out where to go from here really. For instance – if you got into design just to make a quick buck you probably want to stick with our designers, nothing absolutely wrong with that. On the other hand if you’re driven by the passion to create pretty and original things, then working for corporate, big companies will probably be the definition of torture for you.

We dont really want to see you suffer (no, really). So think hard on where you came from and where you want to go to.
Don’t jump toconclusionsthat designers do their job only for cash or other non-sense like that. Just trying to make a point here.

My own strength

So now that you know where your path lies, weve got to think on how to get there.

Know your own strength

Every person is different on many levels. No real discovery made there. But that means, that everyone will have a different approach on design. In a field where you are expected to create things by yourself, your personality makes a huge difference. Its hard to compete with others in everything, so how about challenging them in what your best at instead?

Make your best assets the core of your design and build around them.You may exceed at creating colours and mixing them, or you a have keen eye for details, creating unique navigation methods. Whatever it is, try to use it to your advantage.

There will be times though where you just cant, then what? Just do the best job you can. The fact that your skills in other fields may be inferior doesn’t mean they are useless. To some extend you’re a one man army out there, especially as a freelancer. Any knowledge is to your advantage.

So find out what are you most comfortable with and build around it. Here comes the difference though – our designers will probably want to get a lot of knowledge from every direction where our artists would mainly focus on their strong sides and figure out how other fields can improve them. Again, neither way is wrong, its just taking a path that suits better your personality.

Focus on your own area of expertise

While the above may sound at first familiar to the above section, the concept I will try to grasp here is a bit different.

With programs getting more simplified by the year there is a growing number of human-factories, folks that can create Graphics, Code, Music, Video, etc., all done by one person. Adobe with every presentation of its new Creative Suite makes us want to believe, that now you will be able to easily operate any of the programs with no problem nor knowledge.Truth to the matter is though, regardless of the improvements made, were still far from being able to do a perfect job in all fields.

If you’re looking to do work for small companies and not very demanding clients, then you probably can get away with multitasking across different programs, but at some point you will want to evolve further at which point you’re going to find out, that you simply just wont have the time to do so.

So at some point you’re going to have to narrow down your area of expertise, whether you want it or not. When you begin working with others, would you prefer that they’re very good at their thing or mediocre in many? Thats how others will view you as well.

Knowing standards will be to your benefit

For designers thats a given. Artists may scream here about ripping the bounds, going into new worlds and so on.
The truth is though – you need to know how things are done. In school they will teach you that until you are so bored of it you’re ready to burn the place down. If you are self-taught though, you need not only to learn this stuff yourself, you have to find out it exists in the first place.

You may create the most original an ingenious projects known to humanity, but if there is no way to make them work, its just junk.

Where to start? The old-fashioned books are a great way to get you out the door, or a Video Course (not to mistake with a Video Tutorial). You are basically looking for something, that will give you all the essential knowledge, technique, issues etc. of the field. Otherwise you’re in danger of running into those problems by yourself and that may hurt. Nobody wants to have the project done and ready to take payment, when suddenly you realize youve done it all wrong. It does happen more times than you think, so be sure it does not happen to you.

Ive found my Path

So you are finally good to go. But are you sure? Lets try to think about what you’re getting and what you’ve missed out on.

Impact of your choice

Your works style will differ dependant on your path choice. Ive had companies tell me in the past, that they love my portfolio, but my style is different to theirs.You rarely will have the option of second impression, even if you could change your style to match theirs. Why would they revisit you though? If they can find someone else, whos style is originally more compatible to them.Often advertisement agencies focus on a particular type of clients, hence develop a style, which will suite their clients.

Your path will have an impact on who you work for. Once you land a client which wants a flashy website, you are going to have a portfolio with a flashy website in it. With that you can advertise to another client, then you have two designs, which are the opposite of toned-down and clean and so the wheel starts turning.

To further dwell on the subject, Ive went ahead and asked a few company owners the following question:

In designs for your company do you put more emphasis on the fact that they should be in compliance with various standards or do you prefer to see more originality, even if the usability may suffer because of it.

The answers are as follows:

Well, depends on a purpose of use I guess. General recipe for the design would be to make it compliant with various standards, original and usable. Company web site’s should be as easy to use and as clean as humanly possible. Another story are games’ layouts, like the one for Werdelion – major point for game’s layout is its connection to the game; of course usability also matters a lot and the design shouldn’t “suck the big one” in neither of those points as long as it’s both clean and relatively original in relation to common standards of usability.
Konrad Jurkowski, Werdelion.net

I try to make a compromise between keeping the standards, usability and to make it look original.. but if this can`t be done I’d go with standards and usability since this makes more sense from marketing side, after we get the website popular then we can try to do something different… and at the end people can choose the way they like it more
Patryk Kita, Dating Site

First I was thinking about originality, not usability. I thought “I’m going to make something original and simple”, so I did. Although when it comes to usability it’s kind of bad, because people don’t know what is what. They see the website and have no idea what to click.
So I did not think about usability, therefore my portfolio is down in the dumbs.
Piot Bozetka, piotr.bozetka.net

For us it is more important that the clients will not have any problems with using it.
Roberto Tariello, tour2iceland.com

Definitely I expect originality, that may be in compliance with various standards
Ma?gorzata Suknarowska,agro-relax.pl

School vs. Self-Taught

Im not trying to make a statement here that you should not go to school. But is there some backside to beginning your education there, compared to trying to learn things by yourself?Lets make a statement – School kills creativity and think about it.While you may enter the school with eagerness to learn and visions of a great, artistic future ahead of you. The story will probably be different by the time you finish.
It really depends on the school and their approach to teaching, we shall not discuss that vast topic here though. Lets just say that there is a good possibility, that by the time you get your degree, your mind will be programmed to think more in design terms then the artistic ones. On the other hand, when you learn by yourself, you are probably doing so for a certain purpose, to gain necessary knowledge and skills. Only to be expected then, that after having learned those you will want to play around with them and by so, give an outlet to your artistic side.
Of course all depends on a person and the results will vary, but the above does in fact happen more often than not. I did ask around with some people I know and the majority of them have the opinion, that apart of getting a paper, design school was a waste of time.Then again, its your own responsibility and in your best interest to check the school you’re applying to and make sure you will be getting your times worth.

Learn from others, bring it to the next level

You wont come up with all the ideas by ourselves. If you are one of our artists then you probably really want to thought.Other people have good ideas, thats an undeniable truth and its your choice if you want to fight it or make it work for you.There is nothing wrong with looking at how others tackled the same problems you’re facing. See what they came up with and think if its good for you and can you make it better, bring it up a notch. That helps as well unify the ideas out there. Remember that your clients may not necessarily want to learn a new navigation or others things, just to visit your website. There is a place for everything, dont try to put everything, everywhere though.

Conclusion

Everything I said may be my own opinion, but I tried to present it in such a way, where opinion does not really come into place.Whether I’ve succeed or not is really up to you. Either way I hope you’ve found this articlehelpfulin some way. The choices you make today will make a differencetomorrow, so choose wisely.

Category: Graphic Design Tags: Artists, Between, Comes, Creation, Designers, Difference Leave a Comment

Capture Visitors’ Attention Through Your Home Page

22
Jan 2011

admin

What made me decide to share with you this articleis the experienceI had when I was working as a part-time freelancer. I remember that whenever I planned the design for websites, I always made it a point that the home page is the most attractive page on the site. I made sure that the home page can capture each viewer that visitsthe site, not only to scan the home page but to enjoy exploring the whole site.

The home page is the page that loads when the Home button is clicked andusually the first page you see when a website loads.Therefore, it is one of the most important pages on your site. Do you agree?

Look at the image below. If a person wants to be loved,the first thinghe or she will do isto be attractive toget theattention oftheopposite sex. Then, they will find a way to search and know that person well. We know that the first thing a person looks for is the physical appearance, that’s why we are doing almost everything just to look attractive. Haven’t you thought thatthis canalso be applied to web design? If a website wants to get the viewers’ attention, then the physical appearance must also be attractive.

Girl boy

Image by: Camille Joyce Pascual

A home page is also like a teaser

A teaser is one way to advertise, and a homepage advertises too (even a website). A teaser teases viewers that drives them to be curious. A homepage should have this characteristic too. Viewers must be curious the first time they see the homepage and make them explore the whole website.

Image by: trolf

In this article, I will be sharing some of my ideas on how can you let your viewers love your site and tease their eyes by making your home page capture viewers’ attention. But let us know first on what should be the characteristics ahome page must have.

Must-Have Characteristics ofaHomepage

1. Attractive

Every pages of a site must attract viewers. This way, they won’t get bored while visiting each page of your site. But the home page must be more attractive than the other pages of the site because this is the first page your viewers will see. In creating your homepage, you may ask the question, How can I make the home page attractive? The answer to this question is good designing.

Appropriate and Attractive Color Scheme

Colors capture viewers’ attention, especially if they are used in an appropriate manner. If your expected viewers are children, the best colors you can use are the bright ones but make it pleasing to the eyes. If you are designing for a company, then you should choose colors that can give a professional look.

Image by: Elissa Merola

rapid xhtml is one of the websites with very attractive color scheme and still remains to be appropriate for the website. The dominating color, which isWhite plus the nice shade of Bluethey used blended well on theother elements of the sitesuch ash the header, the orange mascot and navigations of the site. It’s very appropriate, clean and professional in look.

Rapidmyxhtml

Creatively Designed Header

Headers also attract people.With modern designing, headers are now becoming very dynamic and really creative. Take a look at the example below.There aredifferent kinds of tools gathered together and on the monitor part, there’s a video clip playing. This is a good concept of telling the audience that the website is related to media such as photography, video, audio, etc.

Easy-to-Understand Navigation

To capture lots of viewers, you need to have a well-designed navigation. Viewers want everything to be spoon fed on your site, so when they see your navigation they should already understand how it works and so.

Carbonica is one good example that has a well-designed navigation. The designer made a nice concept where the buttons are labeled so that people know on what to expect when they clicked a certain button. Like when clicking the motorcycle button, the page that loads is a calculation ofa motorcycle’s emission.

Carbonica

2. Focused

Home page must focus on its purpose. For instance, if the website advertises a company’s services then the viewers must instantly know what the website’s purpose is. And that is to advertise the company and its services.

Viewers do not want to waste their time thinking on what could be thesite is all about. Instantly, they want to get the informationas soon as the page loads.Like when you are searching for a specific book in a library. If you are looking for a PHP for Dummies book, you don’t want to waste your time going around each section, rather you will justgo to the Computer section of books to find what you are looking for. That’s what viewers expect on each site, and you can already give them an idea on what your website is with your home page.

Shopify did a great job on putting focus on what they do. From the domain name up to the home page, you can already grasp what services the website advertise.

Shopify

3. User-friendly.

One thing that viewers expect on a website is how friendly it can be used. It should provide a comfort and fulfilling time when they explore the site. Many people will say that a home page is just a single page, so it is not important if it is easy to use. I tell you, if the viewer finds it hard to explore the home page then they will just press Alt + F4 or Ctrl + T.

What are the criteria of a user-friendly home page?

Speed

Your home page and other pages must be fast in loading. Or else, your viewers will get disappointed on your site.

Content

There are two things to focus on the content: language and grammar.

In terms of language, English isthe widely usedall over the world. It is veryannoying for viewers when they cannot understand the language you use. If I were to ask, I prefer English to be the language to be used on a website.

There are some people who tend to get annoyed of wrong grammar and leave. So before posting, be sure that the grammar is correct.

Buttons

It should be easy to use and understood by your viewers. Especially in the home page, for this is the starting place of your viewers. So if your buttons are not user-friendly, then they might just leave your page and search for a related one.

Custom Toronto is one of the best examples of site that I find very convenient when exploring. The content is well-written and some information teases you to know more of it, whileits buttons are not complicated to use.

Custom

4. Drives curiosity.

Awhile ago, I have mentioned that the homepage is like a teaser that drives curiosity on your user. I will give you another analogy.The flyers people distribute inside shopping malls offer 70% off on all or certain items. The offer might suit your needs either be it a boutique or a restaurant. If it suits you, you might go.That’s how a home page must work, it should drive the curiosity of your viewers to visit your site andlet themget backnext time.

Curiosity

Image by: Maya Alameddine

Some Tips to Ponder

I have here some tips that can help you create a captivating home page. To give you comfort in reading, I have categorized each tips based on the elements to be found on a home page.

1. Do not be a spoiler

Home pages are intended to tease viewers,and will have the move to explore. Do not spoil them by puttingall information they needon the homepage.

2. Attract

Attract to get their attention by:

Choosing a good background. You can use an image, or a graphic for your background or you can also leave it plain and simple.See the websites below as an example.

Viget

Viget inspire

Free People Clothing Boutique

Free people

Twelve Restaurant

Twelve

Electricurrent

IL FRUTTETO

Il frutteto

Putting an appropriate color. Choose a color that represents what you advertise. Justmakesurethe shade of the color you chooselooks professional and pleasing to the eye.

I’ve searched for the meanings of each colors and found these on the internet:

Red: action, confidence, courage, vitality

Pink: love, beauty

Brown: earth, order, convention

Orange: vitality with endurance

Gold: Wealth, prosperity, wisdom

Yellow: wisdom, joy, happiness, intellectual energy

Green: life, nature, fertility, well-being

Blue: youth, spirituality, truth, peace

Purple: Royalty, magic, mystery

Indigo: intuition, meditation, deep contemplation

White: Purity, Cleanliness

Black: Death, earth, stability

Gray: Sorrow, security, maturity

Source: Crystal-Cure

You can use the color that represents you or what you promote on your site, so viewers would know what to expect on the site.

Using call-to-action buttons. Usually, call-to-action buttons are seen on the home page. Call-to-action buttons are a great way to force your viewers to click that button. Take a look at the image below, Wufoo has a great call-to-action buttons by making them noticeable and forceful.

Wufoo

Adding appropriate images and graphics. Images can give your viewers an idea or information regarding your content. You can place images for them to better understand what you wish to convey. Graphics can also represent your content and attracts the eyes of your viewers especially when they are colorful.

Mc Donalds

Mc donalds

Fender

Designing your navigations as easy to understand. Navigations are viewers’ way to search on your website. Make sure from the home page up to the last site page your navigation is similar, very easy to use and

Sohtanaka

Fall in Tennessee

Fall in tennessee

MaAllan Ridge

MacAllan

Writing a relevant information. Information is very important for viewers, even if this is the last thing they notice. Puta relevant information about what you would like your viewers want to know regarding your site. Makeyour contentas brief and precise as possible for viewers hate to read very long paragraphs.

When creating a content, make sure the following are met:

Your headline is very catchy.
Use words that are pleasing to the ears.
Be creative in choosing words, and make surepeople understand the terms you use.
Your words are spelled correctly.
The content is grammatically correct.
Your content is relevant to what you want to express.

Focus on your subject.

These questions can help you to decide on what to put on your home page:

What isyour purpose?
Whoyou are?
What are your goals?
What doyou want to convey?

Just focus on what you intend to show and convey on your home page.

WrappingUp

There you go. Creating a catchy home page is not that difficult. You just need to:

Know the basic of designing.
Be appropriate.
Be creative to be attractive yet remains to look professional.
Focus on what your website is.
Do not spoil them through your home page. Tease.

I hope this article can help you a lot in creating your home page to attract your viewers. Feel free to put some comments below

Category: Graphic Design Tags: Attention, Capture, Home, Page, Through, Visitors’ Leave a Comment

5 Things At Work That Makes A Freelancer Sad

25
Dec 2010

admin

Fun and work can mix for some but for most people it simply just can’t. And when you have an employee or a colleague who only works for the sake of paying the bills, someone who works for hours without having fun in everything he/she does, that’s a problem.

Of course there is a big difference between working in an office and working at home. I bet most will agree that freelancers became freelancers because they want to earn while doing the thing that they love most.

Why Freelancers Get Sad

Hate

Image by: Felix Atsoram

It is normal nowadays that people work all day and go home (or bed) and curse everything about their job only to wake up next day to face it again. Why do so many people get involved in jobs that they hate? Of course it does not happen in an instant, it is gradual. People start to feel unproductive and they fee like living the rest of their lives for other people.

Working alone can be very mentally exhausting, not only do you spend a day alone, you may also work for weeks without really any social interaction.

It can be problematic for clients if their service provider is not happy.

We are now living in a fast-paced world where there should always be enough happenings to excite us, promotions, raise, new assignments, just anything quite different from the previous. I can’t imagine my self doing the same thing for 10 years!

In order to hate the job you have you should have one or two of the items listed below:

1. Boss/Clients

Boss

Image by: Svilen Milev

You can’t say no, you have a brilliant suggestion but you won’t sound it out because the last time you did you got swatted like a fly. Let’s face it, some boss/clients can make youwant to smack them on the face every time you have a conversation with them. But you can’t because you need the job to support your family just like everybody else.

Bosses can be pricks most of the time, and you willreally start hating your job when every move you do they’re there to monitor you. People also hate it when the boss always add ASAP at every request, making it look like everything is top priority.

Freelancers hate clients who:

Has trust issues
Does notlisten
Makes you work like a slave

2. No Praise

Thumbsup

Image by: Magicmarie

For obvious reasons we all need to be praised for the things we think we do best. Does it not motivate you when your boss or client praises your work, and genuinely likes it? Sorry to say but many clients and boss would just say a coldthanks. Clients who would ask for modifications are better than those who’d take anything you give them.

Just remember the saying that kind words can warm 3 winter months. I know several people who can earn more than they are doing now but prefers to stay on their current jobs. I understand why, being an Information Technology graduate I should be somewhere out there not writing for 1stwebdesigner. I should be helping people analyze and build systems but my first love is writing and I love this website, that itself is an achievement.

Freelancers hate clients who:

Can’t appreciate good work
Accepts anything you give

3. Poor Management

Messy

Image by: Teak Sato

Refer to number 1 and below.

Many professionals want a workplace (or a job) that isorganized. It is comfortable to know that the work you have entered has standards laid out for you to follow. If it doesn’t have rules or standards set itmay breed confusion and the feeling of not being professional.

Constant communication between both parties is important, but not to the point where the boss checks every move you do. A little assurance too.

Freelancers hate clients who:

are not organized, giving freelancers the feeling that he/she’s not reliable
can’t be contacted, one who appears once in a long while
says “do what you think is great because I don’t know anything about that” then when you provide output he/she will not like it and rant like there’s no tomorrow

4. Health Hazard

Hazard

Image by: Resignent

The work you have destroys your health gradually. Sitting in front of the computer for more than 8 hours having only short breaks will surely lead you toa badhealth. Now for the reasons, either you do not finish a job on time and pose as a workaholic or the demand is just really high that it even takes your time away from work. Recently I updated my Facebook status, I posted:

“Companies that often require, or plead, their employees to work for a straight 24-hour shift just to meet a crazy deadline offers one best benefit: the longer you stay with them, the closer you get to Immortality.”

5. Can’t Choose

Freedom

Image by: Svilen Milev

Many have finished their tasks without really having the option to say no. This is a case of mismatched interests. People who are more affected by this are designers. A designer should be free to fly and explore things to deliver quality materials. But when the boss says no to everything you want to say, hell breaks loose like this comics from The Oatmeal: Why you don’t like changes to your design.

I know that many of you have experienced things at work that are too gruesome to think. Sharing it here will help readers understand better. You may also offer words of advice for people who are suffering from the above items. Cheer one person and receive a free cookie! Yayy! (Someday)

Category: Graphic Design Tags: Freelancer, Makes, Things, Work Leave a Comment

60 Free High Quality Icon Sets for Your Next Project

27
Nov 2010

admin

Using icons in designs is a hot trend these days. Most of the websites now a days uses icons for their logos, navigation, bookmarksor use to represent their website.

I’ll be featuring 60 high quality icons set that are free to download but be sure to read the terms of the owner’s icon.

1. Free Cupcake Icon

Cupcake icon designed by ArtDesigner for sweet tooth websites. It is available in variety of sizes.

2. Moleskine Icon

Moleskine Icon is a beautifully crafted design with pixel perfection by Michael Stezycki. The icon comes in 7 different sizes ranging from 16×16 all the way up to 512×512. The download also includes a wide variety of file formats to meet all your needs.

3. Paradise Cherry Icon

Cute sweet cherry icon. It is available in sizes between 6464 px and 512512 px.

4. Ktax K-7 Icon

Two highly detailed replacement icons for Apples Quicktime player. Though drastically different from traditional quicktime icons, it blends in nicely with the rest of your dock or desktop.

5. Starflash Brownie

Kodaks instant camera Starflash Brownie icon based. It is available 512512px .png, .icns and .ico. Free for private and commercial projects.

6. Fjernsyn

Set of cool icons from young Danish designer Rasmus Nielsen, is a nice option.

7. USB Prober

USB Prober application for Mac icon based. Available in512512px.

8. Leica M7

6 Leica set icons in the resolutions 512512px. Available as .PNG, .ICNS and .iContainter.

9. Apple Icons

Mac logo like icons. It contains 8 icons of different colored apples all in the rsrc format for use with Mac OS.

10. Iconlicious

A cute milk carton icon from Iconlicious.

11. Latte: 48px Icon Set

Latte contains 25 different icons in the resolutions 4848px.

12. Notes and Evernote

An icon pack of Notes & Evernote. Available resolutions: 512512px.

13. IsoIcons Workspace

Workspace like icons that ar available in 128px128px resolution.

14. Mira Works

A calm office environment inspired icons from Mira Works. It is available in three different sizes: 6464px, 128128px and 256256px.

15. iCandies Icon Set: 60 Free Icons

iCandies Icon Set, a set with 60 high quality icons in 6464px, 4848px and 3232px, available in .EPS, .AI and .PNG. The set is designed by the talented folks from IconEden on a sole purpose of giving your projects a sleek and geeky style or provide crisp, attractive icons for your modern and fashionable-looking interfaces.

16. Designer Icons Professionally Hand-Crafted Free Icon Set

This set of icons was professionally crafted by professional icon artist, Parthiban Mohanraj. This set has all the values of stock icons.

17. Blue Vinyl Fonts

Mac OS X icons collection. Colorful vinyl records and vintage style record cases. 16 icons in all.

18. This is ART 2

A collection of 12 icons all with maximal dimensions 512512px. Creative renditions of various application related subjects as icons. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.

19. The Graphs 2 One graph collection to rule them all

This icon collection is ready for the future. With the power of Scalable Vector Graphics you can use these icons directly into your web pages.

20. High-res Browser Logos

High-resolution browser logos for your presentation or a blog post; these icons are available in the resolutions up to 256256px, .PNG, each with their own official shadow treatment, and no background matte color. Presented by Paul Irish.

21. Various Smartphones Icons

This icon pack contains 14 icons for assorted smartphones, ranging from the Blackberry Storm to Motorola Droid. Maximum size available is 256256 px.

22. Free PNG Credit Card, Debit Card and Payment Icons

Payment Icon Set, a set with 18 payment icons in PNG format, in the resolutions 3232px 128128px. This set was designed by Phil Matthews.

23. Icon Pack: 256256 Business Icons

This icon set contains 26 Business themed icons. Each icon is available in 256256 .png format. Included in this set are User icons, Warning & Alert icons, Chat & Email icons, Maps & World Icons, and several other icons that are appropriate in business settings.

24. Upojenie

This collection includes 40 icons for iPhone and iPod Touch.

25. Construction

Construction is a free icon set with a total of 25 icons, designed uniformly with any of our current premium icon sets. As illustrated for building and construction tools and equipments, this icon set is aimed for use in your projects related to construction or infrastructure.

26. Iconfactory by David Lanham

This collection contains 42 square icons with large resources for Vista & Leopard.

27. Iconfactory Freeware by Dave Brasgalla

This collection contains 4icons with large resources for Vista & Leopard.

28. Plush Icons Set

Plush toys icon based.This set includes 6 different cute plush icons in the resolutions 128128px and 256256px. Format: ICO and PNG.

29. E-Commerce Icon Set

E-Commerce Icon Set includes Products on Sale, New products, Checkout, Secure Payment, Credit Cards, Delivery, Shopping Bag, Empty Shopping Bag, Shopping Cart, Empty Shopping Cart.
Usage: Free for Personal and Commercial Projects (Size: 128, 64, 48, 32px)

30. MobileMe Icons by Prathyush

Six MobileMe icons with the resource PSD.

31. Flip Clock by Maxdicapua

This is a fully editable and scalable (except for the noise layers) and well-organized flip clock icon.

32. Boolean

Enter Boolean, a thriving city inhabited by tiny icons

33. 32px Mantra v2

Includes 36 free icons in PNG. It is available in the resolution 3232px.

34. Solar System Icons

Solar system icons inspired. It contains the Sun, Moon, 8 planets, and 3 dwarf planets.

35. Littlear Icon Package

Unusual and funny set of icons givinglife to different kinds of application, folder and file icons.

36. Compass

iPhone icon inspired by the Compass application. It is available in resolutions fit for iPhone, iPad, iPhone 4 and iTunes, from 5757 px to 512512 px.

37. 20 Free Marker-Style Icons

This icon set is originally inspired by the iPhones Notes.app and designed for Notepad (WordPress theme). Icons are designed in a simple marker stroke and can be applied on any color. You can use them in sketchy or modern design as seen on the iPhone and iPad apps.

38. Social Media Icons

Set of Vector Social Media Icons with the Google Buzz, Microsoft Bing, Picasa, Meetup, Feedburner, Ebay, Drupal, Gowalla, ICQ, Metacafe, Yelp, Xing, Paypal, Podcast, and various color buttons.

39. Project Icons

A pack of 182 3232px icons. It is available in .PNG, .ICO, .ICNS, .iContainer.

40. PixeloPhilia2

This icon set contains 44 icons for web sites and web apps by Creative Commons.

41. iPad Icon

Simple icon set of Apples iPad.

42. Free Font Symbol Signs

This free collection includes common used symbol signs for public services such as Toilets, Telephone, First Aid, Smoking, Baby, Recycle Icon, Arrows collection and much, much more. The signs can be used for restaurant signage, hotel signage, office way-finding, airport signage and more.

43. Free Font Dingbests

The original dingbat font was designed in the sixties. This is a collection of dingbat fonts for the nineties, commissioned by FontShop. Over 700 pictograms including fax, laser printer, diskette, computer and mouse, as well as all the classic images. A special selection of them has been put together in the single font FF Dingbests.

44. 48 Free 1616 pictograms by Miro Keller

A set of 48 tiny 1616px pictograms to use in your projects. They are shared under a Creative Commons.

45. Weather Icons by Gavion Elliott

This is a set of 16px weather icons in PNG, JPG and PSD format.

46. 120 Free New Icons

A set of 120 simple icons, in 6868px and 4848px resolutions. You can either grab and freely use various elements or crop them for your resolution.

47. gCons: Free All-Purpose Icons for Designers and Developers (100 icons PSD)

The icons come in 12 different colors and are available in PSD, PNG, JPG and GIF formats. This set was designed by Sarfraz Shoukat.

48. Free Country Flag Icons

37 country flag icons rendered at 256256, 128128, 6464, 4848, 3232, 1616 pixels. Formats available are png, ico and icns. All the icons contained in this set are free for non-commercial use.

49. Flag Favicons

These world flag favicons were created from the standard 16 color palette in IconEdit32. The favicons are original work and free to download, use and modify in any way you like. Available in .ico format.

50. Icons at Artcore Skizzenblog

A set of unique, creative icons available for non-commercial use. Released under Creative Commons license.

51. Somatic Rebirth Extras 2 by David Lanham

This collection contains 16 illustrated icons with large resources for Win and Mac.

52. Desktop Icons by Greg Barnes

This desktop icon set includes Evil Dead 2, Vintage Kitchen icon set, Terrariums icon set as well as Vampire Hunter Kit. Coming up soon: Christmas Ornaments and Army of Darkness icon set. Available for Mac, PC and iContainer.

53. PaperPlanet Icon Pack

The pack consists of the icons for various applications, music and video players, standard Mac icons as well as a couple of extras.

54. tickfiguredancer

Four custom icons based on the super hero team the Avengers, available for Mac OS X and Windows.

55. A Live Spell Check

In this freebie icon set, you will find 16 free social media icons for sites that designers appreciate (such as deviantART, Flickr, Twitter, and more). This free icon set is called A Life in Pixels and is inspired by Minimalist design philosophies.The set includes 16 32px x 32px PNG files.

56. Free Glossy E-Commerce Icons

Presenting 32 free icons to use or remix in your eCommerce projects complete with master SVG file.

57. Shopping Cart Icon

Shopping cart full of items icon based.

58. Chalkwork Payment Icons

Chalkwork Payments is a free set of online payments icons, designed to perfectly complement all other sets in the Chalkwork Family. Featuring 21 original icons and 105 variations, these graphical representations of common payment services and payment-related imagery are a completely free icon set available for personal and commercial projects

59. Credit Card Icon Set

A set of six icons for showing your visitors that you accept credit card payment.

60. Weby Icons

eby Icon Set brings to you 100 icons at 6464 pixels ready to be used in your application or website.The icons are available in PNG, ICO and ICNS format. They are free to use for both personal and commercial projects, including websites, templates & software.

High_quality_icon_set60

Hope this icons can help you in your next project. If there are icons that I miss, please do suggest it and I’ll be happy to update it.

Category: Graphic Design Tags: Free, High, Icon, Next, Project, Quality, Sets Leave a Comment

Feeling Uninspired? 6 Best Ways To Find Inspiration

30
Oct 2010

admin

Creating a list, writing a tutorial, discussing things, designing a logo, painting, or sculpting, no matter what form of art you wish to create it is, often, difficult to begin. Writers and designers may sit for several hours waiting for inspiration to kick in but unfortunately it does not come. Fortunately we are built to continue on learning, inherently we are beings capable of finding our own ways to survive in the trade we are into.

Below are easy steps that you can do to find or boost your morale towards anything you wish to do in life. Easy, yet takes courage to deal with; mind you that what is to follow are things of longterm effect. Get out of your comfort zone and start finding out where that shy inspiration went to.

What Every Writer and Designer Fear

Image by: Vivek Chugh

Great talent is common but great inspiration is not. There comes a time when you just can’t seem to figure out what to do next, you know you have to do something but what? Contrary to popular belief it is not that your mind is “empty” of things to think of but full of unnecessary thoughts. Ironically you can’t force these unnecessarythoughts out, they can only be dealt with calmness and..the tips below.

Where to Find Inspiration

Inspiration is everywhere, except inside your room. Go out once in a while and breathe fresh air, see new faces, marvel at the sight of a building, go to the shopping mall, or find a place where you can be alone and contemplate (no, your room is not included).

1. Cultivate Your Imagination

Image by: Dimitris Kritsotakis

Let your imagination run wild, do not suppress the things that enter your mind. Remember when you were still a child you say things that may sound stupid, you doodle on your note, sing a lyric-less song, and believe you have super powers? Your mind is a private thing, do not be ashamed to imagine yourself flying and shooting laser beams using your eyes. This refreshes the mind and gives enough avenue to be inspired by the simple, and foolish, things you may think of. Do not be intimidated by contradictions.Interpret bizarre stuffs through your words or designs, let it flow naturally.

2. Be Guided by Nature

Image by: Martyn E. Jones

Art is an attempt to mimic nature’s beauty, but we can only get as closer as we want and never achieve perfection. As such, look into nature’s wealth and be inspired by how magnificently the mountains are carved, how poetic a hundred year old tree stands, in every stream flowing with life, and many things both cold and warm. There is a magic in nature that is hard to define, right?

3. Weekend (Window) Shopping

Image by: Maciek PELC

T-shirt designs, the mall’s floor, the way people talk, signages, and anything that may seem new to the eye will give a jolt to the Inspiration part of your brain. Although a lot of people around you entails incessant buzzing, for sure it will help. Don’t let yourself suffer from staying inside your home two straight weeks, you are killing both your social life and things that may inspire you.

4. Learn to Share

Image by: arte_ram

George Bernard Shaw said “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” You can merge two related ideas to form a new, and better, idea.

Share online and offline. Call your friends and talk about things, share your experiences and hear theirs. Aren’t you inspired yet to share?

5. Solitude Bears Fruit

Image by: Angela Granger

Be in a place where you can be alone to think of nothing at all and relax your mind. As opposed to finding inspiration, offer your self a break and just sit still or walk slowly. Consider your mind as a celebrity who, once in a while, needs to retreat from his legion of fans just to relax and think of nothing.

6. Try New Things

Image by: Beniamin Pop

Doing the same things over and over again will make you proficient with them, but change is little with it, you are then limiting your self to what is only at hand. Thus, new ideas and the drive to go on and give your best shot dies out with your unchanging life. As time moves forward, so should your learning be.

Try seeking places you’ve never been to and experience things you’ve seen only on the television. Sing with friends in a KTV even if you’re not good at it, dance, eat at a newly opened restaurant, challenge a chess grandmaster to a duel and feel despair, go to the park and play with kids, feed the birds, and feed your life with things out of your daily routine. I find playing RPG video games dramatically increase not only my vocabulary, but ideas to fuse with my work too. I was once a ninja and I decided to try writing, and I liked it.

Try many things and find what fits you and from there on you venture. Always seek higher mountains for a brand new perspective of the world at large.

Extra: Bring a Notebook or a Sketchpad

Image by: skyro

Bring a small notebook or a sketchpad to jot down your thoughts wherever you are. Funny thing is you can’t write or sketch while showering which, ironically, is the time when all great ideas pop inside your head. And by the time you’ve wiped your hands dry and get to your computer or note, great ideas are already miles away, erased suddenly by a mysterious force. Who disagrees?

Feel free to share your ways of finding inspiration. Best of luck!

Category: Graphic Design Tags: Best, Feeling, Find, Inspiration, Uninspired, Ways Leave a Comment