Simply PSD – Discussing Photoshop, Illustration, Computers and the Web.

Design 101: Rudiments of the Graphic Design Industry

admin–Uncategorized–May 22, 2019

The craft of making visual designs and using it to communicate the ideas, concepts, and relevant information. In other words, graphic design is the amalgamation of texts and images to create a communication design. Graphic design is the art with an objective. It is an artistic expression of ideas and messages which includes a creative and systematic plan to achieve certain design objectives. Graphic design is the intersection of the discipline of communication and the philosophy of art. The functionality of graphic design is interpreted by making the visual part the main focus of the whole concept. The designing process … Continue reading →

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from InstantShift http://www.instantshift.com/2019/05/22/graphic-design-rudiments/…

6 Popular Page Builders for WordPress in 2019

admin–Uncategorized–May 22, 2019

WordPress is without a doubt one of the easiest and yet most customizable site-building platforms available. It brings the difficulty of creating a website down for beginners, while also not chaining down expert designers and developers.

But what if you want to customize your website with your own special touch? Making a theme isn’t exactly easy. Thanks to WordPress page builders, anyone can easily customize their website with tons of design options and functionality.

Both individuals creating a personal site and new designers breaking into WordPress site building should try out these six great page builders.

Semplice

Built by designers for designers, Semplice is a feature-rich portfolio page builder optimized for the needs of professional artists. Everyone from agencies down to individual designers can use this platform; the Single, Studio, and Business plans are priced just right. And you only need to pay once!

Semplace uses a dynamic layout builder rather than sticking you with repetitive templates. Drag and drop to create your responsive website, use the blocks feature on Studio+ plans, and create stunning full screen designs for your work.

If you need a designer-focused tool, Semplice is the way to go.

Elementor

With two million users, Elementor is one of the most popular page builders, and you can see why. Built just for professionals, Elementor offers a simple yet powerful page builder that integrates seamlessly with almost any theme.

With 80+ design elements from simple image widgets to buttons and forms, everything you need is there. You can also use it for free! But pay a per-year fee for the advanced plans, and you’ll get more widgets, WooCommerce integration, and a theme builder just for designers.

Divi Builder

Do you feel overwhelmed with most page builders? Divi is made for simplicity. It’s super easy to learn its drag-and-drop system. But as you grow, you’ll find that this builder is more powerful than it seems.

46 content modules let you easily insert sliders, menus, forms, portfolios, and other helpful widgets. Pay per-year or a one-time fee; no crucial features locked behind pricey paywalls. And designers can use Elegant Themes and Divi to build client websites!

Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder was made for both users and professionals, with some special features for WordPress designers. The front-end editor is easy to use and allows you to build column-based pages or position elements with precision.

Editor Mode allows designers to give their clients the freedom of editing their site, while removing features that might allow them to break it. Beaver Builder is simple enough for clients to learn, too!

The builder uses three plans on per-year pricing, but later plans only unlocks …

10 T-Shirt Design Tips (For Shirts People Will Wear)

admin–Uncategorized–May 22, 2019

Designing a t-shirt that people will actually wear can be a design challenge of epic proportions. Let’s take a look at some tips for creating a t-shirt that won’t just get left in a drawer!

You have to create something that people connect with and want to wear. You have to deal with issues such as color and sizing (which aren’t really a concern for many other design projects). And even the style of apparel or brand can impact someone’s desire to wear your design.

Today, we’re breaking it all down with tips for creating a shirt design that people will want to wear (and maybe even buy in your e-commerce store!)

1. Keep it Simple

No one wants to be stared at while someone is trying to figure out what a shirt says, right?

Whether you’re creating a t-shirt design for marketing or to sell in your shop, many of the concepts are the same. And this is the golden rule: keep it simple.

We are constantly talking about reasons to simplify designs, but when it comes to shirts, this is vital. Overly busy shirt designs can get cluttered, have issues in printing, and be awkward to wear in a hurry.

An overly complicated shirt design can also be difficult to read. (No one wants to be stared at while someone is trying to figure out what a shirt says, right?)

Figure out a single message or piece of imagery that you want to create, and focus on that for a shirt design. Strip out any design elements that don’t need to be there. Even try designing it in black and white to help create even more simplicity. (You can always add color later.)

2. Understand Borders or Edges

How will the design print on the shirt itself? Did you create something that looks like a photo that has a design with a border? Or is it more of a free-flowing design without edges?

Most shirt designs fall into the latter category. Border styles are a bit outdated.

There’s a technical aspect to this as well. When you submit artwork for printing, be aware of “invisible” borders or edges that can sabotage the job. (Turning in the artwork on a background can cause some confusion here, so have a clear conversation with the shirt printer about expectations for the final product.)

3. Consider Shirt Color and Imprint Color

Before you get too far into a t-shirt design, make sure you know what color the actual shirt will be.

The next question to ask is how many ink colors are available for the imprint?

Not only can things such as …

30+ Best Science & Technology PowerPoint Templates

admin–Uncategorized–May 21, 2019

Today, we’re bringing you a collection of science and technology PowerPoint templates for making more compelling arguments in your tech and science related presentations.

Every science presentation needs charts and graphs to engage and entertain the audience. Same goes for tech-related presentations. A presentation at a tech conference or startup meeting won’t be complete without infographics and attractive timelines.

Of course, we know that not everyone has the time to design unique charts, graphs, and infographics for each and every PowerPoint slideshow they create. That’s why we handpicked these PowerPoint templates, which include all the slide designs you’ll need to design a professional presentation slideshow. Have a look.

React – Technology PowerPoint Template

Create more attractive and engaging presentations using this modern PowerPoint template. It comes with 30 unique slides featuring designs made for technology related presentations. The template also includes icons and editable vector shapes as well.

Squidbod – Technology PowerPoint Template

This minimalist PowerPoint template is perfect for making a technology presentation, especially for presentations related to artificial intelligence and bots. The template includes a total of 150 slides and the template is available in 5 different color schemes.

Biotech – Science & Technology PowerPoint Template

Even though this template is designed for biotechnology-related presentations, you can easily customize the slides to make presentations for other types of science and technology projects as well. It features 30 slides with editable designs.

Tech Evangelist – Technology PowerPoint Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to create a slideshow for tech startups and agencies. It comes with multipurpose slide layouts you can easily customize to your preference and includes lots of editable charts and diagrams for visualizing data.

Everglow – Gradient PowerPoint Template

Filled with stunning gradient colors this PowerPoint template comes with 3 premade color schemes you can choose from to make all kinds of technology and science presentations. The template is available in dark and light color themes as well.

Nabula – Scientific PowerPoint Template

Nabula is a modern PowerPoint template featuring a total of 360 slides, including 30 unique slides in 3 premade color schemes. The template is most suitable for making slideshows for educational and scientific presentations.

Technology – Modern PowerPoint Template

Another clean and minimal PowerPoint template featuring modern slide designs. You can use this template to create effective presentations for startups and technology brands. The template is available in 3 color schemes.

Tech Corp – Startup PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with stylish slide designs made specifically for startup and technology presentations. The template includes 30 customizable slides featuring vector icons and image placeholders.

Tech – Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation

A massive PowerPoint template …

20+ Best Background Templates

admin–Uncategorized–May 21, 2019

Designing the header section of a website is one of the most difficult parts of the entire website design process. You have to think about your content arrangement, the font size of the headline, product image placements, menu design, and much more to get it just right. But, background templates can help to give you a great head start!

Background templates are customizable background designs crafted by professional designers with the proper content layouts for you to use with your own projects.

The templates are available in vector format to let you easily edit the text, colors, and everything else to make a unique design for your own website or print design.

Creative Landing Page Background Template

Creativity is a big part of website design. This colorful and attractive background template will help you design a creative and modern landing page header or a banner. The template is available in AI and EPS file formats featuring organized layers and customizable elements.

Modern Abstract Background Template

Whether you’re working on a website design for a creative agency or a business website, this background template will allow you to create a stylish banner filled with unique shapes, texture, and colors. This template is also customizable with Illustrator and includes editable colors and text as well.

Furniture Website Banner Background

Using a minimal and clean design is important when you’re making banners and websites for furniture and interior design businesses. This background template features a stylish design made specifically for such websites. It comes in AI and EPS file formats with fully editable vector elements.

Agency & Freelancer Background Template

This stylish website homepage banner is perfect for making an attractive design for a freelancer or a creative agency website. The template features a split layout with space for including an illustration with text and button placements for adding a call to action.

Product Landing Page Background Template

When designing a landing page or a sales page to promote a product, it’s important to create a background that highlights the product. This background template will allow you to create such a design to make a more effective product website. It’s available in AI and EPS file formats.

Dark Background Template

The dark and elegant color design of this background template makes it a great choice for designing a website or a banner for a luxury brand or business website. The template features fully editable colors and a layout you can customize with Adobe Illustrator.

Digital Analysis Background Template

Looking for a minimalist background design for a modern startup or business website? This background template is the perfect choice for you. It features a …

The Black Hole Becomes Visible With Half A Ton Of Hard Drives

admin–Uncategorized–May 20, 2019May 20, 2019

Brace yourself. You can finally see how a black hole looks like. Up until today, no one really knew how a black hole looked like.

Finally, the day has come but it was no easy task.

The newly released image of a black hole (below) is a watershed moment for physics. Finally, we can put some of Einstein’s most famous predictions from a century ago to the test, but it was not as easy as pointing a big lens at the M87 galaxy and pressing a button. It took years of work and the collaboration of more than 200 scientists to make it happen. It also required about half a ton of hard drives.

(Via: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/289423-it-took-half-a-ton-of-hard-drives-to-store-eht-black-hole-image-data_)

What’s interesting about how the snapshot of the black hole was the length of time it took to put it together. It took years and a network of telescopes from around the world to capture the first real image of the black hole.

Data collection for the historic black hole image began in 2017 with a coordinated effort called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). That isn’t a single instrument but rather a collection of seven radio telescopes from around the world. The EHT used a principle called interferometry to combine the capacity of all those telescopes, creating a “virtual” telescope the size of the Earth.

The EHT had to collect a huge volume of data to deliver us this one image. Dan Marrone, Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona says the EHT team had to install specialized super-fast data recorders on the various radio telescopes to handle the influx of measurements.

The now-famous image of a black hole comes from data collected over a period of seven days. At the end of that observation, the EHT didn’t have an image — it had a mountain of data.

(Via: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/289423-it-took-half-a-ton-of-hard-drives-to-store-eht-black-hole-image-data_)

The data collected was just too massive for the internet to handle. The hard drives had to be flown by plane.

According to Marrone, 5 petabytes is equal to 5,000 years of MP3 audio. There’s simply no way to send that much data efficiently over the internet. It’s faster to actually ship the hard drives to collaborators around the world. That’s why MIT has 1,000 pounds of hard drives sitting in its Haystack Observatory labs.

(Via: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/289423-it-took-half-a-ton-of-hard-drives-to-store-eht-black-hole-image-data_)

Thanks to the EHT project, black holes are no longer just illustrations on text books. They are real.

The historic black hole snapshot not only puts to test Einstein’s predictions. It also sheds a new light on the general relativity of black holes.

Another interesting thing about the historic snapshot of the …

Getting Clients to Work Your Way

admin–Uncategorized–May 1, 2019

They say that “the customer is always right”. And while that may be true (most of the time), it certainly doesn’t mean that we have to bend over backwards for them in every instance. I should know, as I spent years attempting to contort myself to fit whatever clients wanted.

One area that is particularly tough to manage is when it comes to our process for getting things done. If you deal with multiple clients, each one of them has their own distinct way of working. Some are night owls and feel the need to send email when the moon is out. Others expect a lot of in-person meetings – something difficult for a busy web designer to fit into their schedule.

Trying to accommodate each and every client’s way of working often leads to chaos. It makes getting things done more difficult and will leave you scrambling to find some level of consistency in your workflow.

Sound terrible? Sound familiar? If you’re banging your head against the wall, know that change is possible! Let’s take a look at some ideas for getting clients to work in a way that benefits you.

Create Processes That Work for You

During the early part of my career as a freelancer, I really had no process for getting things done. That is, unless you count waking up and walking over to the home office. There wasn’t any real organization to speak of and I haphazardly went back-and-forth between tasks. Sort of like a single-player game of table tennis.

Not only that, I was often running out to meetings and taking a seemingly endless number of phone calls. This led to a lot of stress, and a pile of work that I couldn’t seem to get through. Eventually, I realized that a change was needed.

So, I started putting some processes in place. Each one acts as a bit of a boundary for both my clients and myself. They’re not perfect, but have produced some positive results. Among them:

Limit Meetings

I now avoid going out to meetings when possible, and they are usually reserved for higher-revenue clients. As most of my clients are based at least a half hour from my office, I found that, when accounting for travel, even a short meeting tended to take up several hours of work time. Replacing meetings with phone calls or video chats (which I limit to specific hours) has saved a ton of time, while keeping the lines of communication open.

Reserve Time for Each Task

Understandably, clients tend to want things done “as soon as possible”. At the same time, it’s not always …

7 Amazing New CSS Techniques For 2019

admin–Uncategorized–May 1, 2019

This is the right time to choose web development as a career option. Just like web designers, web developers also fascinated with ways to try new CSS techniques and push the limits of what CSS can do. Here, we will take a look at some of the new CSS techniques and entire specifications that are making their way into creative designs. You can control almost any aspect of a design by a well-described CSS. Also, it can enhance a better overall user experiences—with cleaner and more consistent code. 1. Initial Letter Initial letter is a CSS property, property that selects … Continue reading →

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How to Insert a GIF Into PowerPoint

admin–Uncategorized–May 1, 2019

GIFs are more popular than ever right now and they can be a great way to add a touch of personality, character, or humor to your PowerPoint presentation. We’re going to quickly cover how to insert a GIF into PowerPoint in a few quick, easy steps!

Of course, you have to find the right image to use in a presentation. If you’re going for humor, aim for something short, punchy, and easy to read from a distance as well! If you’re using a GIF to explain a workflow in your app or product, try zooming in on the areas you’re getting people to look at.

Once you have your GIF sorted, here are the steps you need to focus on in order to insert your GIF into PowerPoint.

Choose the Slide to Add the GIF To

First up, choose the slide you’d like to add your GIF to. Make some space for it to fit in with your design, and think about the type of background and style you’ll use to ensure that it stands out.

You should consider the option of a full-screen GIF as well, creating a slide dedicated to it. Nothing creates a big, bold impact like a full-screen GIF!

Download Your GIF + Open File Picker

It’s best to download your GIF to your computer (by right-clicking the image and selecting “Save Image As…”). This means you’re not relying on the computer you present on having an internet connection, which is never a guarantee!

Browse the menu in PowerPoint to find the “Insert” tab. Choose “Pictures”, and then PowerPoint will ask you to choose the GIF that you’ve just downloaded.

Choose Your GIF

Now you will need to navigate to the location of your animated GIF and then click Insert or Open. This will drop it into the current slide. You can make some minor enhancements to the GIF if you’d like (things like adding a frame or border to make it stand out). Or, you can resize it to cover the full slide if that’s the look you’re going for.

How to Play the Animation

You can test out the animation by choosing “Slide Show” from the menu, then “From Current Slide”. This will show you a preview of how your presentation will look when you reach the slide that contains your GIF.

You should find that the animation plays automatically when you get to the slide. Simple!

Thankfully, adding and playing a GIF file in PowerPoint is really quite simple, and can work splendidly as a way to add some life and interest to your slide deck.

That said, deploy tactically… No-one wants a …

How to Insert a GIF Into PowerPoint

admin–Uncategorized–May 1, 2019

Once you have your GIF sorted, here are the steps you need to focus on in order to insert your GIF into PowerPoint.

Choose the Slide to Add the GIF To

You should consider the option of a full-screen GIF as well, creating a slide dedicated to it. Nothing creates a big, bold impact like a full-screen GIF!

Download Your GIF + Open File Picker

Browse the menu in PowerPoint to find the “Insert” tab. Choose “Pictures”, and then PowerPoint will ask you to choose the GIF that you’ve just downloaded.

Choose Your GIF

How to Play the Animation

You should find that the animation plays automatically when you get to the slide. Simple!

Thankfully, adding and playing a GIF file in PowerPoint is really quite simple, and can work splendidly as a way to add some life and interest to your slide deck.

That said, deploy tactically… No-one wants a …