We stand on the threshold of yet another week waiting to wash over us, which means it must be time for Arbenting’s Weekly Inspiration and Best of the Web! Once more we have poured through post after post, seeking those that stood out from the rest, pulling together the content that made this week the amazing one it was. AWIBotW #6 comes at you with a fine collection of the posts we just couldn’t let you miss, so here is a rundown in case some of these slipped by you this week. As always, enjoy!
Review: On the Social Media Scene - Sizing Up Seesmic - Arbenting's review of our new favorite twitter client.
Article: 50 Free Social Media Icon Sets for Your Blog - A good set of social media icons can make or break the look of a blog, by either blending and feeding the overall tone and feel of the design or by contradicting the look of the site and distracting from it. So we have compiled a list of 50 free social media icon sets for you to choose from, so that you are sure to find the perfect match for your blog’s design.
Quickly Moving Beyond The Web Browser - Over the past few years a lot of the talk about the development of the Internet has been around wi-fi access everywhere. While we still seem to be a ways away from that, what we are seeing is a quicker shift towards Internet driven applications that are being used without the need of a browser.
Help Your Website Achieve Google Sitelinks for Better Navigation - Information, benefits and how to achieve sitelink status in Google.
44 More Resource-Providing Creatives to Follow on Twitter
50 Creative Green Organic Eco Logos - Some of these logos are viable identities for many companies, some are purely fictional waiting to be snapped up by an enterpreneur whereas some are defunct ideas or unapproved drafts. A few of them aren’t pushing an environmental cause at all, but still deserved a mention because of all the fantastic eco and organic themed inspiration they provide.
The One Freelancing Mistake You DO NOT Want to Make - Possibly the biggest mistake a freelancer can make, one that particularly damages the client/freelancer relationship, is that of publicly griping about a client by name.
6 “REAL” Reasons Why Followers Follow - With all the “Gain 20 Trillion Followers” or “Twitter Follower Secrets Revealed” ads or tweets themselves all over the net these days I think its only fair to bring light to a more humorous, but true side of how most Twitter users gain followers.
10 Forums Web Designers Must Know About - There are loads of forums on the internet today, ranging from about every kind of niche you can think of. Many forums of which are to do with web design / graphic design. Some stand out, and others don’t stand out. I have compiled a list of 10 top forums that all web designers must know about.
30 Untypical WordPress Sites - With WordPress, plus some plugins, you can build almost any type of websites. To show you what I mean, I have collected 30 websites that use WordPress for different purposes — from general websites to portfolios, ecommerce and corporate sites.
How to Land a Design Job - Part 1: Choose your Path - As a design instructor, I get asked for advice about one thing more than anything else: how to get a job in design. So, I’ve decided to put together a series of posts for all of my past students, and for all of you other graduates out there, to help in your quest for a job in graphic or web design.
Logo Trends 2009: Should we follow Logo Designing trends? - Every year some specified styles are introduced in all fields of designing…thanks to Graphic Designing, I must say. Talking about the field of logo designing in particular, every designer tries coming up with exceptional designs and new ideas, giving birth to new logo designing trends.
Logo Design Trends Come and Go - It’s an Oxymoron - If you focus on a trend then you are at risk of creating a logo that is not lasting. The ultimate quest for a logo designer, in most cases, is to create a timeless logo.
Banishing Spammers and Trolls With .htaccess Files - Are you plagued by spammers and trolls inside of the comments section of your blog? If you are, I want to give you a simple little trick to kick them off your blog and keep them out by blocking their IP address.
Can Anybody Be A Freelancer? - Naturally, there are some practical prerequisites to starting a freelance business. Without these practical prerequisites, I don’t believe that a person could freelance successfully.
20 Useful Websites for Graphic Design Textures and Patterns - Patterns and textures, when applied correctly, can produce amazing and truly unique designs. Typically, they are used for site backgrounds, but can also be used as repeating patterns on site components such as the header and the footer. If you use right type of patterns it can really improve your site visually for the viewer.
9 Fresh Twitter Apps Out This Week - A new week, a new Twitter applications breakdown. This time we have 9 fresh apps for your Twitter rage
11 ways to increase your RSS feed subscribers count - As a blogger or freelancer, you can have different goals and ways to measure your success. My goal as a freelancer has always been to have dedicated clients, not to change all the time. As a blogger, I value feed subscribers more than visitors or page views. Following are some tips to make people subscribe to your feed more.
Designers Predict Design Trends for 2010 - Part I - Relatively new to the design scene, I have been asking a few creative personalities to share their take on what they predict to be the more prominent design trends for 2010. These designers/developers are all from different spectrums of the design pool and bring their own unique theories to the discussion.
How to manage a small web project: a simple approach - Some times ago I wrote a post about a structured process you must know to develop a web application and many readers asked to me to write something simpler about how to manage a small web project.
25 Important Web Design Tools - There are lots of web design tools available on internet, which will help you accomplish your tasks easily and quickly, and still more are coming. Every designer now has his/her own toolbox.
Going Freelance: The Pros & Cons With “Top Web Designers”
- Many of us are big fans of top web designers and their work. Throughout the years these guys published many tutorials, websites, and scripts to help designers and developers improve their skills. Today, we will sit down with them and get to know their experience about going freelance.
Grid Style In Modern Web Design: Showcase and Resources - A Grid is an invisible structure used to guide the placement of elements on your page. Now days using a grid are one of those basic design principles.
9 Things to Understand About a Client When Starting a Design Project - As a designer, each of your clients and projects is unique. However, there are certain things that you will need to know or understand about all of your clients in order to produce your best work for them.
Top 35 Sites and Blogs Where You Can Download Quality Free Photoshop Brushes - This roundup attempts to index a number of websites that offer free Photoshop brushes of good quality. The second part lists down several design blogs who also give away free Photoshop brushes from time to time.
15 Free Original Hi-Res Concrete Textures - In total there are 15 high resolution Concrete textures in this pack, with the extra details such as oil stains, dirt and grime, Ideal for adding some fine detail to a piece of work.
- A fantastic set of grungy sheet music textures
Hundreds of Free web page elements collection - Sometimes I really want to same time in the process of prototyping so I collected hundreds of well designed web page elements. With little change on color these elements could easily fit into your design.
10 Awesome Free Handwritten Fonts - It’s no secret in the MyInkBlog community that hand drawn websites are a growing trend, and one that I rather enjoy. This post will showcase ten such free handwritten style fonts that are sure to add a touch of personality to you next design. In no particular order, my ten faves are as follows…
Texture Thursday: Cracks - This week’s Texture Thursday offers 4 super high-res cracks textures, free to use in your own designs.
Keep It Together - 6 High Resolution Tape Textures - A lot of the textures I make here on Lost and Taken spawn from my own personal needs. For instance, I'm working on a new pattern website and needed a good tape texture for the navigation...which got me to thinking "If I utilize tape textures, then surely others must too." And voila, here they are for you to download and enjoy!
Use jQuery to "turn off the lights" while watching videos - Some videos on YouTube have a cool feature called "Turn the lights down". Basically, when you turn lights down, the entire page darkens and let you watch video as if you are in the cinema. This tutorial will show you how to implement this simple effect.
Getting Started with Ruby on Rails: Installation - This article will guide you through the process of installing Ruby on Rails, and any other software that is required to begin using it.
How to Create an Abstract Vector Design in Illustrator - A great looking abstract design can be created from the simplest of shapes. Let’s take a look at compiling various geometric shapes and objects to form a dynamic composition in Illustrator, then polishing it all up with some transparency effects to create a trendy vector illustration.
Coding Calendars For The Web - Calendars are such an everyday object for most people - they are literally everywhere, in print, on our cell phones, computers and on the web. I recently had to design and code a calendar at work and learned a few things along the way. I thought I would show you guys my work process and share some code with you.
Steps to becoming a front-end web developer - There are a few things you have to know in order to be a front-end web developer. Where to start and what to learn. This guide will take you through the steps of becoming a front-end web developer.
Design a Stylish Mail Icon in Photoshop - In this tutorial you will learn how to create a glossy mail icon that can be used for your apps or websites.
How To Make Your Next Website Design Pop - Web design is one of those areas that when done right, you know it. It looks polished, refined and generally, just well done - it pops! There are a number of ways that you can achieve this and that is by ‘polishing’ off your design. Here we look at some of the ways to do just that.
20+ Tutorials to Convert PSD to XHTML / CSS - If you’re new to web design, or just want to increase your overall experience on web design, you should learn more tips and tricks on how to convert your Photoshop designs into XHTML / CSS websites.
Create A Vector Art Twitter Bird Character Icon In Adobe Illustrator - This tutorial will walk you through the steps from sketch to vector in creating an original cartoon-style character vector illustration.
Preparing and Talking About Your Graphic Design Portfolio - Putting together and showing this kind of portfolio of your graphic design work is quite a skill, and the best way to do it gets debated constantly by designers around the world.
Top 20 Colour Application Photoshop Tutorials - Picking the right colours for your design is crucial. Some colours work really well together, whistle others dont. Using the right colours to apply to your designs can go a long way. Here is my compilation of 20 top colour application photoshop tutorials.
Blend and Mask Yourself a Great Poster - In this tutorial, we'll be creating a poster with a strong geometric central design, which utilizes flowing blends, masks shapes, and subtle gradients, to create a sophisticated final work.
How to Create a Realistic 3D “Stone” Text Effect - In this tutorial we will be learning how to create a realistic “Stone” text effect. There are plenty of stone text effects out on the Internet but what I miss is the details in them. Wouldn’t it be cool of you could some how create a realistically detailed stone text with just a few steps of Photoshop wonder?
New Screencast: On Screencasting - This is somewhat of a behind the scenes look at how I create and distribute the screencast. I go over the hardware and software I use, how it gets stiched together, and the sizes/formats it gets put into and why. Then I talk a little bit about the distribution and how it gets out there to you all.
Display your categories in two columns - The stadard wp_list_categories() functions echoes a list of all your categories. Let’s see how we can easily force the display of categories on two columns.
Teach Yourself Graphic Design: A Self-Study Course Outline - Fortunately, it isn't required to go to design school in order to be a graphic designer. A good foundation in graphic design history, theory, and practical application will help you hit the ground running.
Fuel Your Creativity: Japanese - Along with a new language site, a first for the Fuel Network comes an amazing new addition to the team!
Bright and Colorful Vectors
It’s no secret that the Arbenting duo are a couple of hippies, and if it was, well it sure isn’t now. So when we came across these gorgeous bright and colorful vector illustrations we knew we had to feature them in an inspirational post. There is truly some amazing artistry showcased below, and you don’t even have to be a hippie to appreciate it.
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Thanks for the mention! The Japanese launch is very exciting for us and more languages coming shortly! :)
Adelles last blog post..Free wanderingspace.net ipod/iphone Wallpapers
No problem Adelle. I’ll feature every fuel launch I know about :).
Again, awesome roundup, it will took me a whole week to read all of these! And thanks for the inclusion :)
Jankos last blog post..ASP.NET for web designers: Data controls
Looks like these “best of the web” articles keep on getting longer and longer. Seems like the quality of the web is kicking in and more and more great inspirational articles are written.
Keep up the great work Angie — absolutely love your style.
Greetings„,
Marcos last blog post..Giveaway contest — FlashMint.com WordPress Themes
Thank you so much for including my post in your amazing list! There are so many great resources here, I’ve bookmarked this page so I can return to finish looking at all of them :)
Manda Szewczyks last blog post..Design FAQ’s: Bring ‘em!
@Janko — Thanks! It takes me a week to get through them all too. I read and collect all week so that Sunday the post is ready to go.
@Marco — Thanks so much! I’ve noticed that they keep getting longer too. And this week there were so many articles and tutorials I had to cut a few that were on my list. I love seeing so much great content popping up everywhere!
@Manda — No problem, thank you for writing such a great article. It’s not often that self taught designers like myself get access to this kind of advice. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the series!
Thanks a bunch Angie for including my post “Logo Trends 2009″ in your list. It’s an honour to be here, honestly.
Well,I must say all the other listed articles are too good. I have checked most of them but still couple of them left to be enjoyed.
Hopefully, some other post of my blog inspires you soon to be on your list.
Thanks
(plz omit my earlier comment)
Graphic Design Blogs last blog post..Logo Trends 2009: Should we follow Logo Designing trends?
@Graphic Design Blog — No problem, it was a great post that sparked a really good conversation! I’m glad you found some new reading material here :)