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Create a Fancy Rope Brush in Adobe Illustrator

AWESOME, REALISTIC CUSTOM PATTERN ROPE BRUSH!

I have tried other rope brush tutorials, and haven't found one that produces realistic curves and corners until now! Create a Fancy Rope Brush in Adobe Illustrator walks you though the process of creating a shadowed rope brush, creating depth and authenticity. German graphic artist David Bakan authors the tutorial, using helpful visuals and clear descriptions of the process. You will make heavy use of the pathfinder tool and you will learn to create a pattern brush that you can modify and use over and over.

How to Create a Rustic Wood Texture in Adobe Illustrator

GREAT TUTORIAL PRODUCING VECTOR WOOD GRAIN

I love finding new methods for creating vector textures! This tutorial, How to Create a Vector Rustic Wood Texture with Illustrator is brought to you by medialoot.com., and provides easy, step by step instructions to create a cool wood grain effect. This was helpful for me recently as I designed several western themed t-shirts. Through the tutorial, I was introduced to news ways to use certain tools and effects that I hadn't thought of before, giving me more ideas for future projects as well!

The Design Blog (TDB)

A BLOG SITE FULL OF INSPIRATION

I came across a great source of daily inspiration called The Design Blog. It was designed by a 23 year old Croatian designer, Ena Baćanović. I really should include her in my list of inspirations, because she is an amazing designer and creater of all things simple and clean. The Design Blog website was developed by New York based developer, Jen Yuan. The site features a designer of the week, quote of the week, and 26 alphabetized categories from Advertising, App Design and Animation, to Typography, UI/UX and Web Design. Young designers and students are often highlighted. There is also an opportunity to submit your own work. Every day of the week features different types of updates and artwork to look forward to. Enough of my opinion, check it out for yourself!

100 Illustrator Tutorials

COVERS EVERYTHING FROM RETRO GRAPHICS TO LOGO DESIGN

Illustrator is my best friend by far when it comes to design. The versatility of vector artwork is a wonderful thing, allowing for all types of reproduction, from website graphics to large scale printing. I found a great tutorial page that caters to all levels of interest, from beginners to pros. 100 Amazing Adobe Illustrator Tutorials, on creativebloq.com, lists tutorials on the selection tools, pen and pencil, shape tools, column grids, color groups with live color, warp tools, fluorescent transparencies, and a plethera of other valuable lessons. I am headed straignt for the vector sponge texture tutorial right now!

Font Awesome Provides Scalable Vector Icons

ONE FONT, 479 ICONS FOR WEB RELATED ACTIONS

Looking for a way to obtain slick, smooth icons no matter what size they scale to? Font Awesome gives you scalable vector icons that can be instantly customized - size, color, drop shadow, and anything that can be done with the power of CSS. This website provides a download of the font and css toolkit, as well as a cheatsheet with the CSS class and unicode for each icon. The toolkit is perfect for retina displays, as it scales just like a font (because it is a font!) and looks great on high res displays. The icing on the cake with this one, is it is FREE! Check it out, it is highly recommended.

99 Sites All Designers Must Know About

JUST LIKE IT SAYS... INFINITE KNOWLEDGE!

Wow! Online resources galore for every designer! 99 Sites All Designers Must Know About, brought to you by justcreative.com, provides seemilgly infinite knowledge for all designers. Sorted by categories such as General Design, Web Design, Typography, and Personal Design Blogs, the website lists a gagillion fun and valuable websites to visit and gather knowledge from. I have my next month planned now!