Best Of The Web May For Web/Graphic Design

Another great month within the graphic and design community with new illustrator tutorials, Photoshop tutorials, blogging articles, web design articles and a wide selection of the best freebies released on the web in May.

New Illustrator Tutorials

Illustrator swatches gradient background effect

The Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 packages have this interesting gradient style effect. It looks like a grid of swatches going from one colour to another in subtle gradient effect. If you have ever wondered how you create this effect, then I invite you to take the jump and check out this tutorial.

How to Create an Hourglass Icon in About an Hour

With simple shapes, gradients, and vector textures, this simple tutorial will show beginning illustrators how to create an hourglass icon.

How to Create an Abstract Vector Design in Illustrator

With simple shapes, gradients, and vector textures, this simple tutorial will show beginning illustrators how to create an hourglass icon.

How to Create a Cute Hippo Character!

This tutorial will show you how to create cute Hippo Character using simple shapes and a really simple effective drawing technique.

Create a Bright Retro Grunge Vector Illustration

Follow this tutorial in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to create a range of vector shapes and graphics that can be combined into a great looking vector collage illustration.

New Photoshop Tutorials

Graphic Design Week Wrap-up

After 7 days of hectic posting we’ve come to the end of our special Graphic Design Week event! During the week we featured 12 Tutorials, 9 Articles, 5 GraphicRiver Roundups, and 2 Competitions. So there’s a pretty good chance that some of you might have missed a couple of posts. Before we resume our regular Tuts schedules tomorrow, we thought we’d take a breather for a day and just roundup all the posts from our big week and say thank you to the authors who helped make it possible and our two sponsors – GraphicRiver and UPrinting!

How to Create a Richly Ornate Typographic Illustration

When looking for top quality content, you’re usually forced to pay for your resources. They’re generally better and easier to work with, and offer a wider range of use. Sometimes though, you can find the same level of quality at zero cost, and it’s exactly what happens within this tutorial We’re going to create a detailed illustration with free gifts and self made goodies.

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.

Photoshop Quick Tips #6: Cloudy Text

in this tutorial it will show you how to create a text with clouds, using brushes and other few interesting light effects.

How to Create a Sparkling Fantasy Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial, you create a photo manipulation using different techniques. You will be adjusting each layer and element to make a compact final image. You will be using multiple photos and a handful of effects to create this work. Let’s get started!

Awesome Milk Typography Effect in Photoshop

A great tutorial worth checking out if you haven’t already, the image pretty much speaks for it self.

New Website Photoshop Tutorials

Awesome Tutorial Portfolio Design

new awesome tutorial! I think this is most detailed and long web design tutorial on the web  with 175 screenshots!!! This tutorial include lots of  trendy Photoshop effects also.

Design Studio Layout

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a clean layout for your design company.

Design a Clean Blog Theme in Photoshop

The process and steps are very simple and should be easy to follow for anyone who has a little bit of experience with Photoshop.

How to create a worn paper layout

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a textured “worn paper” web design theme using some basic Photoshop techniques. The design incorporates some free stock images to let you create a beautiful layout in a jiffy.

Blogging Articles

10 Ways to Launch a New Blog with a ‘Bang’

10 great simple tips which will help you when launching a new blog.

15 Ways to Rework Your Next Blog Post Title

Great tips on how to rework your next blog post to attract more user to your post just because of the blog post title.

Web Design

Build an Auto-Scrolling Slideshow That Works With and Without JavaScript

Create a jQuery slideshow that enables you to click through each slide when JavaScript is disabled, without having to display all slides one under the other.

CSS3 Exciting Functions and Features: 30+ Useful Tutorials

In this post we will take a look at some interesting properties of CSS3 that you can put into practice in your website designs today.

Web Design Industry Jargon: Glossary and Resources

There are specialized terms referring to all sorts of aspects of web design. For someone just getting started in web design, or someone looking to have a site designed, all the technical jargon can be overwhelming. Especially the acronyms.

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. I will try to make such toolbox for you too. I have collected 25 such tools, and if you know more feel free to add in the comments.

10 Best CSS Practices to Improve Your Code

Here are 11 tips for speeding up the process, writing CSS that is slimmer, faster and less likely to give you a headache.

SEO Articles

Google Analytics Mega-Post: 23 Google Analytics Tips and Tweaks

You may have noticed that I love SEO tools, and one of my most favourite ones is Google Analytics because it allows for a huge number of setting and configurations.

41 Ultimate Tips from SMX London 2009

For those who couldn’t make it to SMX London there’s some written up notes from the last 2 days spent at the event.

Freebies

Gallery Word Press Theme

Gallery is a beautiful, free, gallery-style Thematic child theme for Word Press, designed by Christopher Wallace especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Social Icons -knobs

Chethstudios is back with what its famous of "FREEBIES"! yep here is one more into that list! It was in the shape of a knob or a dial call it as you like. Download it and feel free to use it anywhere! But please you are not allowed to redistribute it. Please link to this page if you blog about it.

20 Drip and Splatter Brushes for Photoshop

I don’t know about you, but I love drips and splatters. Drips and Splatters can add an organic feeling to your design, or add interest to an area where there would otherwise be none. Drips and Splatters can be used to simulate blood, goo, and of course, paint.

Free Vectors: Engraved Ornaments

Description: These are engravings from currency and old documents. Most of them came from the previous generation of American paper money. I’ve always liked engraving, so I decided to make a set. I hope you can find a good use for them.

250+ Free Seamless Vector Patterns Ideal for Print and Web Design

I don’t know about you, but I love drips and splatters. Drips and Splatters can add an organic feeling to your design, or add interest to an area where there would otherwise be none. Drips and Splatters can be used to simulate blood, goo, and of course, paint.

Freebie: 14 Exclusive Floral Stamps Vectors

Asmaa Murad, from Aivault, has created an awesome set of floral stamps for Vectips! I quickly got lost in creating scatter brushes, patterns, and more with the 14 Floral Stamps. Download the set and see what you can come up with! Post links in the comments to your creations!