Pingable :: Everything Wordpress » Graphics

The Power of WordPress Infographic

Dusty — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:00:11 +0000

Found this nice infographic over at Mostash.com. It outlines the true impact of WordPress on the content-driven WWW. The market share of WordPress is amazing, especially when you add both self-hosted and WordPress.org sites. There’s also some very interesting history of WordPress represented here.

100 Amazing, Creative and Simple Logo Designs

Dusty — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:11:16 +0000

The above logos can be found at LogoFaves.com

The above logos can be found at: Graphic Design Blog

The above logos can be found at Behance.net

The above logos can be found at Attitude Design

The above logos can be found at Webmaster Source

The above logos can be found at LogoBlog

The above logos can be found at DelimitedDesign

Mini-tutorial: Creating awesome screenshots

Dusty — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:31:11 +0000

The golden rule of blogging is offer valuable content. This tip trumps a good design, flashy graphics, twitter integration, powerful links, even advertisements.

However, quality content can be improved with an applicable and eye-catching screenshot. Here are some tips and tools for creating awesome screenshots for your WordPress posts.

Choosing the format

All screenshots should be the same format and size. Pick a size that goes well with your theme and stick with it.
If your screenshot will not be of the entire page, pick a section of the site that is applicable to the topic of your post.

Choosing the screenshot

Pick a section of the site to screenshot that is descriptive of the topic and has something to look at. For example, don’t choose blank space or a generic graphic to focus on. Rather, choose a piece of the site that is unique and shows something about what the website is about.

Here’s and example of a good and bad screenshot of Mashable.com – one of our favorite blogs. For this example, we chose a 200px square image in JPEG format.

A bad screenshot

A good screenshot

Notice the differences? The bad screenshot doesn’t indicate the website or anything about it. What is that blog about?

The good screenshot indicates the name of the blog, several categories, even the overall color scheme. It doesn’t matter that the entire logo isn’t shown, people will get the idea.

Formatting your screenshot

There are a few things you can do to improve the quality of your screenshot after you’ve chosen how and what to snapshot. You can add effects like an angle, dropshadow or even the famous “shiny table effect”. Here are some examples:

The original screenshot without effects

A screenshot with a -25 degree arbitrary rotation.

With an added dropshadow

These effects were all done in the GIMP, a free graphics editor. If you want to add the shiny table effect, check out this tutorial.

Choose the right tools

There are lots of options out there for taking and manipulating screenshots. Here are some of our favorites:

Firefox addons

Lightshot - a simple version without useless stuff
Fireshot – comes with built-in editing tools
Screenshot Pimp – a few more options, still simple though
Check out all the Firefox screenshot addons here.

The other option

If you don’t want another addon, just use the Print Screen button on your Windows machine which will add a screenshot to your clipboard. Simply paste it into your selected graphics editor into a file of your preferred size. Drag it until you’ve got a nice focus and you’re all set!

Graphics editors

Photoshop - the cadillac of image editing with virtually limitless options.
The GIMP – a free option that comes with many of Photoshop’s features.
Grabit - a handy screenshot tool but limited advanced options. Built purely for screenshots.

A few more tips when taking screenshots

Choose color – bright, vibrant colors add energy to your blog post.
Keep them small – screenshots are just a taste of a site and shouldn’t encompass the whole thing.
Keep them natural – don’t resize if you can avoid it.
Keep them applicable – if you’re creating a showcase post, or list of multiple sites, choose the first list item as your screenshot.
Have your own tips for a screenshot? Leave a comment below.

25 Brilliant Vector Tutorials

Simon Ward — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:24:58 +0000

I like to play around with vector art from time to time. I have made a few sets of icons and I have a site where I share vectors that I and other people have created. Check it out: Free Vector Art. Here are some great tutorials that will help you on your way if you are interested in vector design, and Adobe Illustrator.

Thug Bunny Vector Tutorial

Ninjas Vector Tutorial

Cow Vector Tutorial

Killer Bunny with chainsaw Vector Tutorial

Sports Car Vector Tutorial

Fish Cartoon Vector Tutorial

Fox Drawing Vector Tutorial

Graffiti Text Vector Tutorial

Groovy Vector Tutorial

Master Painting Vector Tutorial

Torn Wallpaper Vector Tutorial

Mini Vector Tutorial

Product Ad Vector Tutorial

Wood Grain Vector Tutorial

Vintage Shirt Vector Tutorial

Bitmap to Vector Tutorial

Simple Banners Vector Tutorial

Character Shading Vector Tutorial

Snowboarding Vector Tutorial

Bar of Soap Vector Tutorial

Stamp Vector Tutorial

Swirls Vector Tutorial

Creating Characters Vector Tutorial

Tree Vector Tutorial

Retro Emblem Vector Tutorial

15 Stunning Photoshop Tutorials

Simon Ward — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:25:35 +0000

Deviant Art is an amazing resource for digital artists and designers. There is a wealth of free tutorials and resources available, here is just a few of them.

hair drawing tutorial by Abuze

Digital Painting Tutorial by Dianae

Photoshop Inking Tutorial by Spirallin

Mini Painting Tutorial by jdillon82

Blending Tutorial by acidlullaby

Bubbles Tutorial by B1nd1

Wonder Woman Painting Tutorial by UdonCrew

+ How to do the LineArt + by Arehandora

Tutorial: Painting Sky in PS by Foxbane

Magic Swirl tutorial by danzr4ever

Blumen walkthrough by janaschi

Tutorial: Painting Embroidery by kay-ness

tree tutorial part 2 by calisto-lynn

Apple tutorial by michan

Masking Tutorial by One-Vox

For more Photoshop stuff check out my new Photoshop Brushes site.

25 Amazing Free Photoshop Graphics

Simon Ward — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:31:01 +0000

I have put together a list of Photoshop resources for you guys. All of the resources link to PSD files that are free to download. Please check the authors’ sites for licences. Some are free for personal use others are free for whatever. Have fun.

Vista Flare Orb
Party Crowd
Film Frame
Grunge City
Dj Design
iPhone GUI PSD
Plastic DVD Cover
Old School Retro Cassette Tape
Glossy Icon Pack
Shiny little icons
Web 2.0 peeling sticker
Buttons PSD
Aero Avatar and Sig
Star Sticker
Cool Junk for Web Designers
Green Leaf Icon Pack
Precious Heart
Icey Styles
Batman
Lots of Badges
Ipod Touch
Zune

order-right-width: 0p
x" height=
"350" alt="Zune" src="http://173.199.141.152/~pingabl/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/zune11.jpg" width="275" border="0">
Playstation 3
Slurpee
Orb

20 + Sets of Free Royalty Free Icons

Simon Ward — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:40:37 +0000

I have gathered a list of 20 + Free Sets of Royalty Free Icons for you to use on your projects. Check for different licences on the sites. But all of the icons are either GPL or CC. I hope you find them useful.

20 Cool Vector Wallpaper Designs

Simon Ward — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:20:10 +0000

There are some pretty cool designs out there which are both great for design inspiration, and sweet to use on your desktop. I have put together a list of 20 Vector Wallpaper designs for you to download. The files are raster graphics rather than the original scalable vector files. Visit the authors’ sites for more Vector Wallpaper designs and illustrations.

Biker Vectorized
The Alliance Attack
Its Ice Cream Time
Abstract Red
Headed to Destination Happiness
Vector Island
Li’l Truk Winter
Core
Author: Stephen Klise (no link)

Widescreen
Rossi Forever
DJ Vector
False Alarm
Imperialism
Love Birds
Ketchup Factory
Coda Monday

Iphone
Limeade
Monster Mash
="http://
www.j3concepts.deviantart.com/">Daft Endirekt
Acid Jack
Minty Milk

Related links:
Iphone Winterboard Themes

15 Amazing Logos From Blogspot Blogs

Simon Ward — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:56:44 +0000

Looking for design inspiration? Following on from my post: 12 Well Designed BlogSpot Blogs I have made a list of cool logo designs from different Blogspot blogs. Check them out, and have a read while your there if you have time.

Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Design Muse

Another Free Web 2.0 Services Icon Vector Package

Simon Ward — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:03:25 +0000

I have put a new Social Media Services Icon Vector Package up on my Vector download site. The icons in the package are: Digg, Reddit, Blinklist, Myspace and Ma.gnolia.

Download
This package is a follow up to the vector package I released last year – which you can download here: Free Vector Services Icon Package

This site has no affiliation to any of these sites, original images’ copyright is property of their original owners.