Who Doesn’t Like Contests?

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:26:15 +0000

If you’re a graphic designer in Canada looking for some high-end gear, Memory Express is holding a logo design contest! The winner will receive their choice of either a WACOM Cintiq 21UX, an Asus G73JH-A1 laptop, or a Canon EOS Rebel T2i Digital SLR camera kit, in addition to having their work displayed all over the country! Crazy deal if you have the skills. You can find more details about it here.

You don’t want to miss this!

How To Make A Graffiti Text Effect With Photoshop

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:45:50 +0000

Let’s face it, as illegal as graffiti is, it looks pretty cool in most respects. Graphically, it’s awesome if you’re trying to achieve a grungy, urban kind of feel. In light of this, I’ve put together a tutorial on a few ways you can make this effect for text. (On an additional note, I apologize for the rather small image sizes. Please right-click and select “View Image” for a larger size.)

Once you’ve got Photoshop open, find a good rough texture. I’d suggest something along the lines of brick or concrete. Or you can use this one which I’ve decided to work with for this tutorial. You can load it into any size document. The size I went with is 1000 x 700. Load your texture and we can get started.

Get a cool font and type your desired text. The font I’ve used here is called PT Banana Split.

Double click on your text layer to open up the Layer Styles panel and select “Gradient Overlay”. You can honestly play around as much as you want with the settings – this just decides on the color scheme of your text. I decided to go with a reddish-orange gradient (#FF7800 for the bottom and #FF2A00 for the top).

Now, this clashes pretty badly with the wall texture, so let’s fix that with a Stroke effect. With the Layer Styles panel still open on your text layer, select “Stroke”. Again, you can play around with the settings until you find what works.

To get a good, convincing effect, I like to add a few paint drips. After all, graffiti isn’t supposed to look clean. Create a new, blank layer below your text layer and merge your text layer down. This makes it easier to do the detail work without having the layer styles getting in the way. Select your brush tool on a hard, round brush and find a size that works. Select the color of your Stroke effect and draw in a few drips.

Using the Eyedropper tool, select a color inside of the Stroke effect on the edge of a letter and draw a drip. If you’re going to draw multiple, you’ll need to use the Eyedropper tool each time because of the gradient effect. This step is optional, but I think it adds a bit more flavor to the image.

Now we get into the Blend Modes. Depending on how intense you want your text, you can either go for Overlay or Soft Light. I went with Overlay, just because I like the contrast of the image.

As a finishing touch on your image, add a light Gaussian Blur. By checking and unchecking the “Preview” box, you can see the image with and without the blur applied. It can be difficult to tell the difference when you’re only using a very small measure. This just helps get a good sense of how much you need.

And there you have it! A rather convincing graffiti effect for your text. These steps can also be applied to images, although I would generally suggest skipping the Gradient Overlay and Stroke and just messing around with the Threshold adjustment. It makes for a more convincing effect. Enjoy!

15 Must-Have Free Fonts

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:56:42 +0000

Free fonts are pretty hit-and-miss. Some are fantastic while others… really aren’t. So, to save you time and effort, I’ve compiled a list of 15 of the best free fonts out there.

If you’re going to say something, you might as well make it pretty.

Hello World!

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:24:00 +0000

Welcome to the PulseStudio blog!
This is a brand new addition to the website. Here’s where you can find updates, reviews, and resources. We’re still working through a couple bugs with the site, but it should be up and running properly very soon. In the meantime, keep checking back here!