Monday, April 25, 2011

Tutorials and my favorite blog

Posting on time this week it seems. I am going to go a different direction this week. Instead of me stating what I am discovering, I would like to talk about the tutorials that I find helpful for some things. As I am new to this blogging thing (that is an understatement) I will be doing my best to ensure that the links work.

One of the blogs that I read regularly is the Vandelay Design Blog. Not only are there great tips, but the tutorials there are easy to understand, listed down the right side of the page, and they give you the files to work them through. The directions are step by step, which makes me a happy geek. And the best part is you don't have to be a member to do them. I am using their tutorials to relearn (as it were) photoshop. It's been a while since I had done anything in that program.

The next one I find interesting is the DesignM.AG website. This page shows 40 InDesign tutorials including a brochure (which looks amazing), an interactive portfolio and a cool typography grid set up. From using Quark and InDesign, I have to say I am more familiar with Quark. However, with InDesign coming in a package with Photoshop and Illustrator. With this program being more easily obtained (and a little less in cost) this set of tutorials might just be the ticket to becoming more familiar with the product.

For Adobe Illustrator (which lets just admit is my FAVORITE of the Adobe products thanks to a teacher I had in college) I would like to direct you to the Noupe website. The tutorials range from bling text (which I don't use) to the realistic images you can create using the gradient mesh tool. The tutorials appear to be really clear and concise on direction and let's admit the site is pretty neat too. Full of information that is wonderful to look at.

Typography, being as important in my mind as any image you put anywhere, even has some good tutorials. One that I like (could be due to the mention of my favorite type guy out there, David Carson) is the webmonkey type tutorial mostly because it gives an intro to typography (showing it is important!) and that it goes into some of the specifics on using type in a web page. Which, let's face it, is where most of us spend our time now.

What are your favorite tutorials? Anyone want to share their favorite blogs?

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