Tips and Tricks

I my first post in this series, I tackled the basics of what the pen tool was, and how to use it. In part two, I’d like to discuss Adobe Illustrator’s complementary pen tools.

The Pen tool is a very important piece of several different design programs. It is probably most integral, though, to Adobe Illustrator. It’s also a complicated tool to master. This is the first in a multi-part series designed to break down the tool and make it more approachable.

As a web designer, one of the biggest issues I have is finding the right typography for my sites. Using Cascading Style Sheets, we can plan out every facet of the type design on our sites, but you have to get a handle on each setting. That’s why CSS Typeset is one of my favorite sites.

I purchased slide:ology recently to help me in presenting information to my classes. After reading through it, though, I found a number of things that help with more than just presentation design.

In an earlier post, I described the idea of Signal vs. Noise as a metaphor for your Inbox; today, I’d like to use it to address presentation design. By focusing as much as possible on the signal (your message), and cutting away the noise (everything else), we can make truly effective, attractive, interesting presentations.

Patterns help our brains determine relationships between things. You can use patterns to help all parts of your design. Today we’ll focus on typography.

Adobe Photoshop’s Adjustment Layers – the new Best Practice in photo adjustment.

The website Kuler from Adobe is a very powerful tool for the forces of beauty and useability. It’s perfect for people like me – people who freeze up when someone asks them ‘which shade of purple is better for this?’