blogfreakz.com » Inspiration

30+ Creative Heart Logos

Keith@Blogfreakz — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:28:43 +0000

Valentine’s Day is slowly creeping closer and for graphic designers, visual artists and the like, this is the time to incorporate the season’s theme into their designs.

Just as pumpkins are to Halloween and a gifts are to Christmas, a heart is to Valentine’s Day. And on that note, here are 36 cleverly designed heart logos to inspire all artists and designers! Hope these samples will help you come up with more ideas this Happy Hearts’ day.

Beat Love

Beloved

Cloud of Love

Heart Break

Heart Beats

Love Clicks

Love Biites

Love Heart

Love heart is a brand symbol wherein the letters LOVE form a heart and is ideal for any company wishing to have a heart in its logo. Available in 3 color schemes.

Love Idea

Love Licks

NaturaLove

Think Love

What Is Love?

Datetender

Match

Love Hook

Love Link

Pen Pals

LoveGeek

Available in 3 color schemes.

Heart Bomb

Bee Heart

Beeheart is ideal for a blog site or any other business site. Available in 3 design schemes.

Bird Lover

Bugluv

Butterfly Hearts

Pig Love

Cloved

Love Clip

Love Clip comes from the concept of bending two clips to form a heart.

Love Clip (2)

Cardiologic

Love Systems

Write Lover

ILove2write

Love Sushi

Game Lover

Sex Lovers

Bitter Love

A brand symbol ideal for a food and beverages industry, games and retail. Available in 3 color schemes.

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Create a Glassy Text Effect with Photoshop

Marvin@Blogfreakz — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:41:55 +0000

There are numerous online Photoshop tutorials about text effects but if you want that sleek and glassy effect, chances are you’ll find only a few of them. So I’m going to share with you a very cool glass text effect tutorial by the guys at 2ExpertDesign that would only take around 30 minutes to make.

Click on the above image to see the tutorial.

This is fast, easy, and well worth the effort. Get ready to be creative with your text — grab the PSD file now!

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10 Sweet Mobile Apps For Valentine’s Day

Keith@Blogfreakz — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:44:56 +0000

The day that lovers await is just a few days away. If you’re one of them, have you thought about what unique gift you can give your beloved this season? Maybe these 10 mobile apps might be able to help in preparation for Valentine’s Day.

Apps For Android

Valentine’s Photo Heart / Photo Heart Locket – This app lets you display pictures of you, your friends, and/or family in a cute heart-shaped frame on your desktop. Have fun customizing your pictures in this live wallpaper simply by touching the screen to add kiss marks or dragging your fingers to draw hearts. Sounds cheesy? Well, this is the perfect time to get cheesy with your loved ones!

LuvCam – OK, so this pretty much looks like the one above but there’s nothing wrong with having more than one option for you to choose from, right?

Touchnote Postcards - Create stunning and sweet postcards using a picture of you and your loved one with this nifty app. This one’s been featured in TechCrunch and The Wall Street Journal so it’s likely to be a keeper on your phone’s list of apps.

Sincerely Ink Cards – Send beautiful greeting cards directly to your loved ones from your Android phone. Letting them know you remember them on a special day through greeting cards has never been this easy. This one’s such a hit that it got featured on Mashable, TechCrunch, and lots of other newsprints.

Love Poems – With this app, you can find and share the best love poems. Read thousands of love quotes or contribute your own! Directly send the love poems as text, tmail or tweets. You can share the best love sayings through multiple social networks, so you can spread the poetry. Also it’s easy to directly SMS for instance to a date, and this app is free!

Apps For iPhone

iWrite: Love Poems – Nothing makes a person’s heart skip a beat like a romantic poem especially for them. Create poetry from your heart and your words will soar. This poetry program offers step-by-step instructions on how to do that. And if you’re looking for something a little steamier, you might want to try out iWrite: Erotic Poems.

Sincerely Ink Cards – Send beautiful greeting cards directly to your loved ones from your iPhone or iPad. Sending valentines, birthday cards, thank you’s & thoughtful notes has never been easier.

someecards – From the acclaimed humor site, someecards.com, comes the brand new someecards iPhone app! Everything you love about the site is now at your fingertips! If you can’t spare the buck, you can always opt for the free version; someecards free.

The Questions – The Questions: is an app for insight into your relationships, your partner, or dating in general. The app contains the full set of 76 interactive cards and companion book, which will provide you with a comprehensive, elevated version of your average ‘love quiz’.

A+ Signature Lite – The Photo Annotator – This app allows you to make your mark on any photo.

Add a signature or a watermark to create a fun photocard.
Annotate pictures of friends’ reunions, family parties, weddings, classmates or meetings.
Add any autograph to your photos.

A+ Signature Lite comes with a short video tutorial. See more demonstration videos at A+ Signature Lite Support.

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How to Improve as a Graphic Designer

Marvin@Blogfreakz — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:33:59 +0000

Stagnation is one thing that stifles most artists and designers when they’ve reached their plateau. It happens when they rely too much on their comfort zone that it simply stops them from improving, learning, and exploring new techniques and styles. Obviously this causes them to lag behind current changes especially in the fast-paced world of graphic and web design.

This can threaten one’s career. Why? Because the field changes so rapidly that today’s design can be obsolete tomorrow, literally. So if you’re a graphic designer, you always have to be open to changes and embrace the latest trends. Don’t limit yourself with what you already know, and if you’ve found your comfort zone, then strive to learn new designs and techniques, improve your style continuously and push yourself out of that zone.

This is what web designer Tom Ross argues against popular belief, that designers should never find their style. It could backfire later on in their careers. So to prevent it, here are useful tips on how to improve and become a better designer and could save them for a major professional and creative setback.

30 Free Beautiful Seamless Pattern Sets

Marvin@Blogfreakz — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:38:30 +0000

Supplement your website with seamless background patterns and transform it into a work of art! I’ve collected 30 different types of equally beautiful patterns for you to try, and each set includes formats such as .jpg, .eps, .png, .ai and .pat.

Click on the images below to view and grab them for free.

Vector Patterns Set 12 Patterns

Grunge Stripes Patterns

Spring Pattern

Floral Vector Pattern

Geometric Pattern Set

Renaissance Spring

Abstract Patterns

Paper Flowers Pattern

Diamonds and Gears Pattern

Abstract Patterns

Blue Patterns

Seamless Camouflage Background Pattern

Pattern Kit One

Seamless Flower Patterns

Hand-Drawn Floral

Grey Seamless Pattern Set for Web Designers

TipClique Patterns

Four Seamless Vector Patterns

Vintage Floral

Vector Flower Set 02

Branches

Zebra Print Vector Pattern

Free Vector Guilloche Pattern

Baby Pink Pastel Tileable Pattern

Photoshop Pattern Pack

Vintage Retro Grunge Patterns

Micro Patterns

New Seamless Pattern Background

Colour Pattern Pack

Mandala Madness Vector

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10 Creative And Uniquely Designed Navigation Menus

Keith@Blogfreakz — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:47:48 +0000

A well-designed navigation bar leaves a good impression on first-time visitors. Here’s a list of navigation menu designs that would make you go “why didn’t I think of that?”

Small Stone Recordings – Here’s a perfect example of incorporating your site’s theme with the design. This immediately gives your site’s visitors an idea of what your site and business is all about.

Loodo – Now here’s a design that would appeal to anyone who enjoys playing traditional board games.

Fantasy Cartography – Talk about creating a site map! Here’s a very original approach in navigation menu design by Robin C. Kuprella. The areas of the site are linked directly on the home page map. Clicking on a link will change the content in the central content box.

Genes Sausage Shop – Here’s another good example of incorporating the site’s theme into the navigation menu design.

NickAd – This one may seem against every design principle of an effective navigation menu but it gets points for creativity and innovation. As one review site puts it, it’s “probably not the most practical menu available but certainly one of the coolest.” I agree; a first-time visitor may be caught off-guard by the seemingly unintuitive design but trust me, it will wow you.

CL Designz – The main navigation menu at the top of the page may not look like much but you will surely love and appreciate its secondary menu located on the right side. It is unique, fun and definitely practical.

Manic Design – This one’s definitely one of my favorites on this list. It is nicely positioned on the left and all of the options are always visible, animated, and best of all, responsive!

C & C Coffee – There’s just something visually pleasing and amusing about its fun Flash-based menu as it playfully dangles links from the top of the page.

Alexarts – True to its nature, this graphic arts site uses menu items that appeal to modern aesthetics that are also fun to interact with.

Tennessee Trains & Byways – Don’t let the discreet menu at the top of the page fool you — Tennessee Trains & Byways is in contention for the largest dropdown menu in the world. It manages to combine old-world elements with modern design, resulting in a charming and highly interactive menu and page layout.

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creative navigation bar

25 Professional High-Quality Free Fonts

Marvin@Blogfreakz — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:07:51 +0000

Finding high-quality fonts is quite hard since there are tons out there that are mostly ‘fillers’. But the following list of free professional fonts is excellent for graphic art and web design use, and I hope you find it helpful.

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How to Create Polaroid Images with CSS3

Marvin@Blogfreakz — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:23:40 +0000

Create a Polaroid effect with your images using CSS3! Mark of Zurb.com teaches us how to do it in this uber-cool tutorial.

Click on the above image to view the demo.

This is done with only CSS and no Javascript, with no actual text used on the images. It works on a grid of linked images that can randomly switch, just like flipping through a stack of photos. You can use any images you want to set the groundwork.

CSS

ul.polaroids a:after {

content: attr(title);

}

CSS to randomly rotate the images

/* By default, we tilt all our images -2 degrees */

ul.polaroids a {

-webkit-transform: rotate(-2deg);

-moz-transform: rotate(-2deg);

}

/* Rotate all even images 2 degrees */

ul.polaroids li:nth-child(even) a {

-webkit-transform: rotate(2deg);

-moz-transform: rotate(2deg);

}

/* Don’t rotate every third image, but offset its position */

ul.polaroids li:nth-child(3n) a {

-webkit-transform: none;

-moz-transform: none;

position: relative;

top: -5px;

}

/* Rotate every fifth image by 5 degrees and offset it */

ul.polaroids li:nth-child(5n) a {

-webkit-transform: rotate(5deg);

-moz-transform: rotate(5deg);

position: relative;

right: 5px;

}

/* Keep default rotate for every eighth, but offset it */

ul.polaroids li:nth-child(8n) a {

position: relative;

top: 8px;

right: 5px;

}

/* Keep default rotate for every eleventh, but offset it */

ul.polaroids li:nth-child(11n) a {

position: relative;

top: 3px;

left: -5px;

}

For the hover effect

/* Scale the images on hover, add transitions for smoothing things out, and ensure the hover appears on top */

ul.polaroids a:hover {

-webkit-transform: scale(1.25);

-moz-transform: scale(1.25);

position: relative;

z-index: 5;

}

Final details

/* Add drop shadows and smooth out the transition (Safari only) */

ul.polaroids a {

-webkit-transition: -webkit-transform .15s linear;

-webkit-box-shadow: 0 3px 6px rgba(0,0,0,.25);

-moz-box-shadow: 0 3px 6px rgba(0,0,0,.25);

}

/* On hover, darken the shadows a bit */

ul.polaroids a {

-webkit-box-shadow: 0 3px 6px rgba(0,0,0,.5);

-moz-box-shadow: 0 3px 6px rgba(0,0,0,.5);

}

Note: This requires Safari 4.x and Chrome 5 for you to see the full effect. If you use Firefox, the enlarging transition can’t be viewed.

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6 Useful CSS Color Tools

Marvin@Blogfreakz — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:57:11 +0000

If you wish to design your WordPress blog’s appearance by yourself, you can rely on CSS. Here are 6 useful CSS color tools that could help get you started.

Color Scheme Designer

Color Scheme Designer provides colors in color wheel form. It has different color variations in percentage ratio like mono, tetrad, triad, analogic, accented analogic and complementary. This is especially useful in creating color combinations that work.

Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator

This gradient editor and generator tool allows you to make CSS gradients with cross-browser support. It has a Photoshop-like interface, opacity support with opacity stops, import from image and existing CSS, flexible preview panel, over 135 gradient presets and more!

CSS ColorCodes

With this tool, you can select any color from the color picker then copy its hexadecimal value from the bottom field. It also has 2 options which you can provide the RGB and hexadecimal color codes.

Colors Palette Generator

Colors Palette Generator allows you to upload any image you want for generating and using a color palette based on the image’s primary colors.

CSS Colors

This tool offers over 16 million colors with both RGB and hexadecimal color modes.

Gradient Image Maker

Gradient Image Maker creates gradient images that you can use in your website’s template design. It lets you generate 3 types of gradient images with instant previewing.

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10 Nifty Image Slideshow Effects with jQuery

Keith@Blogfreakz — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:17:27 +0000

Here’s a list of 10 innovative plugins to create breathtaking slideshows for your image gallery or portfolio.

How to Create a Slideshow Plugin with jQuery – This slideshow makes use of a jQuery plugin called Powerslide.

Elastic Image Slideshow with Thumbnail Preview – Here’s a really cool slideshow that automatically adjusts according to the size of the browser window (read: responsive web pages) with the little help of JavaScript and CSS.

Bubble Slideshow Effect with jQuery – This very easy-to-use and customizable slideshow will give your site visitors a unique and interesting way of viewing your image gallery.

Fullscreen Slideshow with HTML5 Audio and jQuery – This particular slideshow uses the Vegas jQuery plugin, the jQuery easing plugin, and the jScrollPane. The tutorial also includes the addition of sound to add a little bit of atmosphere with the help of the HTML5 audio element and a JavaScript audio library called Buzz.

Photoflip slideshow effect with jQuery – Here’s a slideshow that uses both jQuery and CSS3 to flip through a stack of images. It’s set on automatic but if you’d like the images to flip only with mouse clicks, the tutorial also provides you a way to be able to do that too.

Flickr-powered Slideshow – This particular slideshow plugin uses Flickr’s APIs and YQL to fetch photosets from your Flickr account.

Flickrgallery – You just got to hand it to the guys at Flickr for developing its own slideshow gallery plugins, which is why it’s such a huge hit among hobbyists and professional photographers alike. (Click here for demo).

Gallerific – Here’s an awesome plugin that can handle high volumes of photos while conserving bandwidth. It will showcase the images with minor modifications or design adjustments (Click here for demo).

s3Slider jQuery Plugin – If you want to place one of your images in the header section of your page or you want your images to include text that will link to internal pages then you might want to check out this plugin. (Click here for demo).

Supersized – If you want to immediately showcase your photo gallery by making it fill out almost the whole screen then you might want to try out this plugin (click here for demo). One cool aspect of this plugin is that it maintains the images’ dimension ratio.