Easy and Awesome Text and Bevel Effects Tutorial for Illustrator CS6 and CS5

Simple Tips and Techniques to Make Cool Looking, Sexy, Professional Text Effects and Bevels in Adobe Illustrator CS6 that Pop and Wow. Learn why illustrator is better than Photoshop for text layout for packaging, posters, banners, and brochures and indispensable for logo design. It’s time to beat your addiction to Photoshop and make the switch […]

How to Make a Faux Finish Stone Wall Dungeon Backdrop

Make a Faux Finish Hanging Dungeon Wall Backdrop Using a Painters Drop Cloth, House Paint, Brushes, Paint Rollers, and Painters Masking Tape…In Just One Day! In January of 2010, a new client approached me with a nearly impossible task – to completely brand an entire company in time for a trade show in two months. […]

Break Creative Block – How to Unleash Your Best Design Ideas

Digging Yourself Out of a Creative Black Hole and Getting Back on Track (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?) Sometimes you just freeze up. No matter how much you try you keep recycling the same failed idea over and over again as if somehow you’ll find the magical tweak that will save it. I say […]

Why I Love Adobe Illustrator Editable PDF Files and Why I’ll Never Go Back to AI or EPS

Good-bye AI…Hello PDF For most of my career, when I started a new Illustrator project and went to save the file, I choose AI for the file type and only used EPS if there was a special request. However, now that Illustrator can save layered PDFs as editable Illustrator files I’ve made the switch to […]

Worst Postcard Design Ever – How I Got a Spammer to Design a Really Bad Postcard

Nigerian 419 Scam Turns into Comical Lesson on How to Prepare a File for Print Sometimes opportunities just fall into your lap. In this case, a spammer using a classic Nigerian 419 scam ends up providing the perfect example of how NOT to prepare a design for professional printing. The first email arrives with a […]

How Designers Really Work – The Down and Dirty Logo Design

This Ain’t Art School and You Can Toss Your Graphic Artists Guild Handbook Right Out the Window. This is the Real World. Sure, it would be nice to have three months and a $75,000 budget to design a logo but the majority of us will never be in that situation. Most of the time the […]