Vote for design Shard: VOTE HERE ( scroll down to the voting poll )

Its really exciting to be on the list so if you want to vote for design shard please head over to the voting page at wpwebhost, to make it to the top 3 would be a great achievement, i would really appreciate any votes, Thank you all.

Join Design Shards Flickr group: Join Here

The 9 most recent flickr entries will be shown in the footer of this blog and from time to time there shall be showcases of excellent work from the group as i know a few other design blogs also do this including My Ink Blog and Fuel Your Creativity.

I also just want to highlight a few of the design blogs in the community that have a flickr group that you may want to join, if ive missed some please let me know and i will add them to the list.

Design Shard | Go To Flickr Group

About: This group is to showcase any images that you have created or found around the web, the 9 most recent submissions will be shown on Design Shard Design Blog in the footer area of the site ( Yes thats me ).

Arbenting | Go To Flickr Group

About: A place for the readers at Arbenting to showcase their creations. I’d love to see anything you’ve done with the Arbenting Freebies but feel free to submit anything.

High Resolution Textures | Go To Flickr Group

About: This group is about sharing high resolution textures of any kind. Wood, metal, rust, plants, fabric or anything else that can be considered a texture. Feel free to post your pictures and let the group discuss them.

Colorburned | Go To Flickr Group

About: This is the Colorburned Flickr Community. Feel free to add the designs that you created using Colorburned textures, vector resources and tutorials.

Fudgegraphics | Go To Flickr Group

About: This group is meant for all the designs created with fudgegraphics freebies such as photoshop brushes, textures or vectors. Feel free to post other designs as well. It’s always nice to have see creative artworks in one single group.

My Ink Blog | Go To Flickr Group

About: This group was created for the readers of My Ink Blog. So they can show off their work, or the results of stepping through one of the tutorials.

Fuel Your Creativity | Go To Flickr Group

About: What fuel’s your creativity? Design, Photography, Art…post what inspires you to create your next masterpiece. Anything is welcome, just keep it clean. Your work or the work that inspires you may be featured on my blog from time to time. Cheers!

Online-Photoshop Tutorials | Go To Flickr Group

About: An archive of pictures for the website www.online-photoshoptutorials.com including uploads from it’s users.

Loon Design | Go To Flickr Group

About: “It is all about design”

Gomedia | Go To Flickr Group

About: Post your art or designs created using stuff from Go Media’s Arsenal. Periodically, designs we like will be highlighted on our blog at www.gomediazine.com - so make sure it’s something you are proud of!

Inspiredology | Go To Flickr Group

About: Inspiredology is about the blog inspiredology.com. The blog showcases inspirational designs in different fields of inspiration. This group is created to have a compilation of images that might not be listed on inspiredology.

Bittbox | Go To Flickr Group

About: Anyone and everyone who would like to share their designs and what they have learned or used from BittBox Freebies/Tutorials. Heck, just show us what you got, doesn’t matter where you got it!

Booooooom | Go To Flickr Group

About: All you loyal readers of Booooooom.com out there can now upload your own photos here and they will be displayed on the site

Outlaw | Go To Flickr Group

About: A place for freelance designers, photographers, graphic artists, web designers, illustrators, and any other creative freelancer can share thier work.

Vector Tuts | Go To Flickr Group

About: Like vector graphics? Join the Vectortuts Community! Vectortuts is a vector Tutorial site with thousands of daily readers and a really cool group of active community members.

PSD Tuts | Go To Flickr Group

About: Like Photoshop? Join the PSDTUTS Community! PSDTUTS is a Photoshop Tutorial site with thousands of daily readers and a really cool group of active community members.

Abduzeedo | Go To Flickr Group

10 Random textures included in the pack

( See all 35 textures here )

Download (11.4mb Zip File)

1. http://rapidshare.com/files/162518776/Design_Shard_-_Fire_Texture_Pack.zip

Additional info:

• Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ 18
• DPI: 72
• Resolution: 1600 x 1064
• Original Resolution: 3264 x 2448
• Contains: Flames, Fire, Motion Streaks, Fireworks

Usage Terms

( There are None )

• Please do not host these textures on you own servers for download, please link to this page or files if you want others to know about them.
• You are free to use these textures for what ever purpose you intend, commercial and personal, show me the work if you want id be interested to see what you make.

Some look pretty cool, use them for desktop wallpapers, use parts of them, use them as overlay textures use them for whatever your brain can muster.

Hello web designers, developers, and graphic artists of all sorts!

Greetings from the semi-arcane world of print design! Your concern over things like white space, usability, and sweet signature icon sets is strange to us, as our ways must be to you…

Okay, maybe it’s not that bad, but print is a different world. From my perspective working at a printing house, I see more and more web-based companies beginning to invest in print collateral.

The challenge for those with a background in web business is to figure out how to create compelling, effective print design to advertise their online presence.

Print Design Philosophy

One of the great things about designing for print is that you can create the most bold, colorful designs you can imagine. The crucial bit is to recognize the difference between creating a busy design, and a complex design.

A print design can have a lot of color and depth and interesting stuff for the eye to absorb, but it has to focus on one central message.

Print designs can’t be laid out like a web page, with a bunch of different elements to look at, because viewers simply aren’t going to browse around your printed piece. The goal in print is to suck the viewer in for five seconds, get your point across, then release.

Choosing Your Weapons

Print design often begins with choosing what type of print collateral you’re going to develop. Obviously, some forms of print advertising are going to work better for web companies than others. Lucky for those with small budgets, web business can generate a lot of traffic using inexpensive forms of printing like business cards, flyers, and postcards.

These smaller items work because you want people to actually have something they can carry with them, get your URL from, and check it out, without having to write it down themselves off a poster or billboard.

A perfect example of this is direct mail. Call it ‘junk,’ but mail that advertises a website can turn over an unbelievably strong ROI because it asks almost nothing from a recipient but that they sit at their computer, like they always do, and check out a new site.

How The Environment Affects A Print Job

One of the major differences between web design and print design is that your finished print job is going to be out there working and competing for attention in the great outdoors. Before you begin designing, think about:

1. Where you printing is going to be displayed, and,
2. How it’s going to be perceived by your target audience.

Location Factor #1 - Weather

By now, you’ve heard about choosing paper and coating that best fits your design. Maybe you’re thinking of choosing a matte finish because it traps ink differently than a high gloss. But wait! A high gloss also stands up to adverse weather conditions better than a matte.

Will your print design be in direct sunlight? Will it be exposed to rain? Choosing UV and water-resistant materials will help to weatherproof your printing, but it will also change the way your design looks. Be aware of the variables that comes when working with diverse materials.

Location Factor #2 - Lighting and Landscapes

Also think about how your print designs will look under different types of lighting, and in different landscapes. Don’t choose colors that will fade into a concrete urban background, even if they do look great online or in Photoshop. Also remember that most reds look brilliant during the day, but they fade into shades of grey at night or in low lighting situations. This is called The Purkinje Effect.

Perception Factor #1 – Limited Access To The Viewer

Print is almost the web’s opposite when it comes to how is viewed. Online, viewers seek you out, and you offer an interactive viewing and listening experience that will hopefully engage people for an extended period of time.

In print, your goal is to grab attention away from whatever else someone is focusing on, and control their experience so that they almost helplessly absorb your message before moving on.

When it comes to large pieces displayed in public areas, you have approximately 2-4 seconds to grab attention and deliver your message. And in general – take a poster, for example – they will be standing about 3 feet away from your work.

If they have to move in closer to read, they’ll walk away. If design elements are too big and overwhelming, they’ll also walk away, because the eye simply won’t register what’s right in front of it as significant.

Perception Factor #2 - Functionality

Although the impulse with print can be to really let that think-outside-the-box-i-ness run wild, the trick is to always combine visual and tactile appeal with functionality. Most printing is a particular size and shape for a reason.

For example, designing a crazy business card that stands out from the pack is great, but if it’s too large, fat, or heavily textured to fit in a wallet, it probably won’t get included in to that special place people go for important names and numbers.

The same applies to club cards, brochures, and other printing that can be displayed in shops and restaurants and the like. If printing doesn’t fit into display fixtures, it will frustrate the middle-person who’s supposed to be putting it into the appropriate slot.

Much as is the case with a graphic artist handing off web designs to a programmer - frustrate that middle-person, and waste your investment.

Common Ground

In print design, as in web design, the functionality of a printed piece, or an entire campaign, rules the day. If it disintegrates in the rain, disappears in low light, baffles with its complexity, or annoys your waitress, it’s dead in the water.

Create print designs with an awareness of the environmental and human factors that come into play, and you’ll be amazed at the power of print to drive web traffic.

Skulls

T-Shirts with skull designs are arguably the most popular theme on the internet and in retail. Something about death just gets designers and t-shirt lovers united.

Skull T-Shirts

Trees

Trees are one of the most symbolic pieces of design and probably the reason for their popularity. They can equate to life, growth, green living, reunion, and much more.

Tree T-Shirts

Birds

Birds definitely win the versatility award for having the ability to range from cute to scary and from large to small. They can be the focal point and make the whole design or just be an accessory and play a small part in the big picture.

Bird T-Shirts

Splatter

Splatter is a pretty simple effect that can be useful for the majority of t-shirt design concepts. There are many resources on the internet for photoshop brushes and vectored image packs with splatter to add to a t-shirt designer’s toolbox.

Splatter T-Shirts

Floral

Floral artwork is another wildy popular component of t-shirt design because of its all-purpose usability. It usually sits in the background and can act as polish for the featured portion of the artwork.

Floral T-Shirts

As with anything else, what is hot today can be cold tomorrow but these 5 design elements and concepts have been in high demand for some time now. Our guess is that with the increasing amount of platforms for t-shirt design, these design elements will reach saturation at a faster rate than ever before.

Id like to thank Blake for taking the time to post on design shard and id also like to say the Arbent team made a great guest post about designer tees

The Prize List

1. 1st Prize Winner: $500 Cash (via PayPal) + The Unlimited Video Theme Pack from Press75.com worth $295 + 6 Months WooThemes Club Single User Subscription for from WooThemes worth $250 + WP Freedom Plan Life Time Hosting Sponsorship worth $100/year.
   
2. 2nd Prize Winner: $250 Cash (via PayPal) + Developer License for Content Press WordPress Premium Template from WTM worth $249 + Personal License for Themes of Your Choice from Zidalgo worth $75 + WP Freedom Plan Life Time Hosting Sponsorship worth $100/year.
   
3. 3rd and 4th Prize Winners: $125 Cash (via PayPal) + 1 Year WP Freedom Plan worth $100

Picking the winners

The WP WebHost team will select 20 entries from the submissions and post it here after the deadline. And, the public will vote for the winners.

Join the competition?

Here’s how to enter: Enter Here

Deadline:

The deadline is 15th November 2008.

What to do Now!

Post a few comments below, i need at least 5 comments to qualify and wish me luck, hopefully well get in to the top 20 and then we can vote.

Are you joining the competition? or have you already joined let us know in the comments below.

It’s so much more than just a t-shirt, or a flyer, or whatever else the belittling label of choice that’s applied wants to call it. It’s art. And it’s a design field that restricts it’s artists in many ways. Size being one, that again, may get the piece a less than respectable branding, is another way that the print designers have been limited. They must capture their idea and encapsulate all their meaning in a much more compact piece. In a lot of graphic design, the large scale of the creation itself allows for all the intricacies that are weaved throughout the work to shine and convey their part. However, print designs must be able to work fully on a smaller scale that would cause most graphic designs to lose too much of their subtly for their piece to still be effective. So that’s a limitation that print designers deal with regularly and brilliantly.

Another problem they face, is the restricted use of colors. Large scale graphic designers love their gradients as they breathe such life and depth into an image, furthering the transmission of it’s message. But print designers have to step it up to tell everything in a much more succinct manner. The shading and depth must be crafted with a three color palette, on average, and that’s an accomplishment in my book. So why all the dismissal of designs made for tees and other print outlets? It doesn’t seem right that work that takes more skill and preparation than most, gets more ridicule than participation. Perhaps it’s a bit of jealousy rearing it’s ugly head from those who can’t, so they just critique!

Some examples of great t-shirt designs! Respect!

Irate Monkey

Artist: Dave who is really into whales and their bones a full time graphic designer and illustrator

Prom Night

Artist: Jeff Finley a graphic designer and part owner of Go Media

Smile

Artist: Filter017 was created by Enzo, Wen, and Nick since 2004. you can see there Flickr and blog

Ape Vs Monkey

Artist: Illustrator Nik Holmes has been in the picture making business since 2004 and in that time has racked up clients including Virgin, Microsoft, Orange and Mastercard. visit his blog and portfolio

Royal Blood

Chris Rushing graphic designer see his flickr for more cool designs.

Refraction Retraction

Artist: FullBleed, Since 2004 fullbleed has been a one man t-shirt army, printing over 70 tees.

Poetry Of Demise

Artist: Herman Lee, a 22 year old guy who just relocated back to Hong Kong from Toronto, Canada.

Oddica Octopus

Artist: Ray Frenden an illustrator from Greater Chicago “I Draw things” you can see his flickr

Scott Hansen:

Jonathan Haggard:

mrgraphicsguy:

Kasper Soeholt:

Joseph Wharton:

Rafael Bessa:

More:

Get More Typography Inspiration:

• 25 Examples of Amazingly Creative Typography Art
• 40+ Killer Typographic Posters, Photoshop Effects and Tutorials
• 21 Inspirational Typography Artworks from DeviantArt
• Breathtaking Typographic Posters
• Sexy, Bold And Experimental Typography
• 35 Photoshop Tutorials for Designing Your Own Posters

Hopefully now you have plenty of posters for inspirations… So, here is a link to collection of grunge tutorials and resources. Create you own and share the results!
I wish to see more from this style…

Gamut (GAM-ut):

Gamut is the range of available color on an output device. Each device has its own gamut capabilities. If the gamut fall out of that particular devices range, it is shown inaccurately on the display or cannot be printed. We then say a color is “out of gamut”.

Hue:

The basis of a color and usually refers to the name of the color (red, purple, yellow, etc.)

Saturation:

Saturation is the color intensity of an image. A color with high saturation will appear brighter and more vibrant than the same color with low saturation. Colors in gray scale images have no saturation.

Value:

The lightness or darkness of a gray or a color. The darkest level or value of gray is black and the lightest level of gray is white.

Tint:

A variation of a color obtained by adding white

Shade:

A variation of a color obtained by adding black.

Know More?

I know there are many more terms when it comes to color, but I like to keep these short. If you have more please add them in your comments.

To kick things off on this inaugural list: Typography Terms!

Kern:

to squeeze together characters, for a better fit of strokes and white space. In display type, characters almost need to be kerned because the white space between characters at large sizes is more noticeable.

Pica (PIE-ka):

A measurement used in typography for column widths and other space specifications in a page layout. There are 12 points in a pica, and approximately 6 picas to an inch.

Point:

A measurement used in typography for type size, leading, and other space specifications in a page layout. There are 12 points in a pica, and approximately 70 points to an inch.

Leading (LED-ing):

The space between lines of type, traditionally measured

baseline-to-baseline, in points. Text type is generally set with one or two points of leading; for example, 10-point type with 2 points of leading. This is described as 10/12, read “Ten on Twelve” or “Ten over Twelve”.

x-height:

The height of the lowercase “x.” More generally, the height of the lowercase letters.

If you dug this, please hit me with some comment love, I will make more :D