One cannot express how important it is to design for the web. The web has become an instant phenomenon that is being quickly taken over by the big dogs of the media world. Methods of content consumption based on the Internet are multiplying faster than any other form of media in the past.

First there was the Amazon Kindle, and now we have the Android-based Nook eBook reader. Rumors about Apple releasing a Tablet of their own are flying around like aimless torpedoes. If you were to ask me, Apple is definitely planning something, and it’ll probably be a huge hit.

To put it simply, the world is changing very quickly. If we fail to keep up to date with what’s happening, our jobs will leave us for someone else. Stay open minded and read a lot of design blogs. See what people are raving about so that you can contribute in your own way. Don’t forget to collect inspiration along your journey.

PS.  Print is not dead. As long as creativity isn’t lost, it will continue to be a dominant form of media, regardless of the changes it goes through.

Related posts:

1. Design Tip of the Day 02: Learn the techniques
2. Design Tip of the Day 03: Collect Inspiration
3. Theme Based Web Design

Whether you’re into web design, print design, or both, collecting and storing inspirational pieces of work are essential. Browser bookmarks can be used to save website links for future gazing, while print samples can be stored inside a folder/drawer for easy access.

Some may look at this as cheating and being unoriginal, but design it is all about forming new ideas from the things we like and the things that inspire us. Some of the most creative works out in the wild have clear representations of where the concept and visual execution ideas came from.

Bonus Tip: If you have a camera phone, use it to capture inspiration. It’s fast, and easier to store than having a physical sample. Have a digital folder for storing all the snapshots.

Related posts:

1. Design Tip of the Day 02: Learn the techniques
2. Design Tip of the Day 01: Visit the book store!
3. Design Tip of the Day 04: Work in a new medium

I pay a visit to my local Barnes & Noble store every week, spending a minimum of 1 hour on reading, learning, and broadening my creative outlook. There are magazines for Web Designers and Developers, Advanced Photoshop Users, and Photographers, all of which contain tutorials, interviews, tips, and so forth.

One may think “why visit a book store when I can browse the entire internet for creative inspiration?” Well, to put it simply, there is a lot of garbage out there on the internet. When you’re reading trusted publications that have been in the business for years, you’re more likely to gain valuable knowledge.

Helpful links: (continue reading…)

• Barnes & Noble: Graphic Design
• Borders: Logo Design
• Best Web Gallery
• FAVEUP – Design Inspiration Gallery
• Smashing Magazine: Amazing Package Design

I hope you enjoy checking out (and bookmarking) these websites. This post is supposed to be about books, but digital sources are inevitable. Stay creative, stay inspired, keep designing.

I am interested to know what sources motivate and inspire you, so please share in the comments below! Thank you.

Related posts:

1. Design Tip of the Day 03: Collect Inspiration
2. Book Review: Humble Masterpieces, Everyday Marvels of Design
3. Design Tip of the Day 04: Work in a new medium

1. Hitting the right water temperature: Things like taking a shower, brushing your teeth, washing dishes, and so forth require a lot of water. Of course, we all love the soothing hot water as we bathe, but a nice warm temperature does just fine. Avoiding hot temperatures takes it easy on the boiler, which results in a smaller oil bill. This may not be the case for apartment dwellers, but taking it easy on the building’s boiler can help on overall energy consumption (tell the neighbors!).
   Sub-Tip: You jump in the shower and turn the hot and cold water knobs to steady flow. The temperature is too cold, so what do you do? Instead of ADDING more hot water, try lessening the amount of cool water flow. This will save water, and the amount of heat generated by the boiler.
2. Shut off and unplug: Done charging something? Unplug it. Not using computer speakers? Shut them off. Putting the computer to sleep? Shut it down. Don’t charge something unless it needs charging. On top of that, keep chargers unplugged since they use up energy even though nothing is charging. Easy solution to most problems: A power strip/surge protect, something you should already have. Sleep/Stand-by mode still wastes energy, don’t do it!
3. Saving those plastic bags! Whenever you get plastic bags, save them! You never know what you can use them for. Yes, they make great garbage bags but they’re terrible for the environment. Instead, try BioBags! For things like groceries and general carry-around stuff, cloth bags work best. They can be found everywhere for cheap prices so don’t go saying they’re too much or they’re hard to find.
4. Appliance Etiquette: Avoid paper towels for drying/cleaning things – Instead, use a cloth towel. Make sure you’re using Energy Star compliant appliances; dishwasher, microwave, refrigerator, air conditioner, etc. If not, ensure future purchases to be efficient as possible. Saving the planet AND your energy bill is a great feeling! Specifics: 1) Shut off A/C when no one is home. 2) Lower fridge cooling levels by a notch or two when possible. 3) Replace all filters as directed by the manufacturer – dirty filters decrease efficiency and increase energy consumption.
5. Great Resources: Visit these websites for all the information about being green and environmentally friendly: Some of these are great blogs, organizations, retailers, and people who want to make a difference. Join in and have a blast!
   • WeCanSolveIt.org
   • Earth911.org
   • GreenHomeGuide.com
   • AutoBlogGreen.com
   • Inhabitat.com
   • GreenDaily.com
   • EcoGeek.org
   • Evo.com (Eco-friendly products, services, and information)
   • MethodHome.com (Eco-friendly online store)

I hope you enjoy these websites as much as I do. Learning about all the different things that are being done is great! Dare I say it? Yes. Help fight the destruction of our planet!

Related posts:

1. The Art of Sustainable Living
2. Teaching Our Kids to be Green!
3. Apple hits the green spot, again

View the tutorial after the jump!

Before beginning, I should mention to you that you don’t have to follow the directions exactly as written. The power of Photoshop is unveiled through experimenting and trying out different ways of doing things.

1) First I open a blank document with the following dimensions: Height of 175px and Width of 275px. You can name it whatever you want. In my case, it’s fox5logo.psd.

2) I started by creating 3 different box shapes to set the foundation of the logo. Using the Rectangle Tool (Key: U), draw a light colored vertical rectangle in the middle (the biggest one). Once that’s done, draw two more boxes in a darker color on top and on the bottom of the main rectangle.

Note: Make the box on the top a little bigger than the one on the bottom. We will fix larger text inside the box on the top.

3) Now select the layer for the top box. Go to the Blending Options of this layer by right clicking the layer and selecting Blending Options. Select the Gradient Overlay in the window that pops up and enter the following settings:

Colors used for gradient: The darker red is #a00404 and the lighter red in the middle is #e60000.

4) In this step, we will decorate the middle box with a gradient and an inner shadow. Go to the Blending Options menu of this layer and apply the following settings:

So far, you should have something like this: (If you don’t, contact me for help!)

5) Now we will create the base which the big number “5″ will rest on. Create a new blank layer on top of the middle box and name it “base”. Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool (Key: L) and draw a shape that looks like this:

Fill the selection with a solid color (Edit > Fill… > Press OK). Then deselect the slection (Select > Deselect). Access the Blending Options of this layer and create a Gradient Overlay with the following options:

6) Now that we have the base of “5″ completed, we can create the light beams in the background. To do so, create a new blank layer on top of the base layer and name is “light beams.” Use the Polygonal Lasso tool (Key: L) to draw the two light beams on the left side of the logo, like this:

Note: Once you make the selections for the beams, fill them with white color.
Hint: In order to draw two separate shapes after another, hold down the SHIFT key after completing the first shape selection and you will see the Polygonal Lasso with a + sign to make additional selections.

Use a fairly large soft eraser (125px with 0 Hardness) to erase the upper portions of the beams in order to make it look like a fade. For intermediate users: If you’re familiar with masking, apply a Quick Mask to this layer and use a large black soft brush (125px with 0 Hardness) to hide away the upper portion of the beams with a fade. Then drop the Opacity of the layer to around 25% or whatever looks right to you. This is what you should have so far:

Once you complete the beams on one side, duplicate the “light beams” layer and flip it horizontally (Edit > Transform  > Flip Horizontally). Then move the layer to the right side as if they were reflected, like this:

7) Now here comes the easy part; The text. You’re going to need a very thick font for this. I used Verdana set in Bold and it worked like a charm. Use your visual judgment to create the text proportionate to what you see in the final result. NOTE: Make sure these text layers are created above all the other layers.

Now to make the text look fancy, we will apply a simple Drop Shadow and Gradient Overlay in the Blending Options with the follow settings:

Note: You’re not limited to what settings you can apply to the text. Use your imagination and go crazy! (not too crazy, though.) Here’s the result after playing around with the Blending Options. Nice and simple:

That’s it! Simple as that.

If you have any questions or trouble with the tutorial, I invite you ask away in the comments section below. Chance are, you’re not the only one with the problem. I’ll be glad to help anyone! Thank you!

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Fox News and the Fox News logo is copyright to the respective owner(s). This tutorial was written solely for educational purposes and the enhancement of people’s Photoshop skills.

Related posts:

1. Photoshop Tutorial: Reflective Metallic Text
2. Photoshop Tutorial: Fancy Text Shadow & Reflection
3. Photoshop Tips & Tutorials – On its way!

Wouldn’t it be nice if the people that hired you actually let you do your job most of the time, and paid on time? Yes, it would.

Head on over and check out the article.

Related posts:

1. Happy Thankgiving to you all!
2. Design Tip of the Day 01: Visit the book store!
3. Good design causes interest in customers

Chances are, if you’re looking to become a full time public speaker, you would be taking a few courses over at the local University. For those of you that want to learn to speak publicly for self improvement and to boost confidence in your speech, these tips may be for you… Continue reading after the jump.

First, the basics: Keeping track of time, making eye contact, having a backup plan for equipment failure, research and preparation, and rest. I’ll cover these briefly as they are self-explanatory.

1) Of course, you want to keep track of time so that you don’t go over your given time, or have to rush things because you spent too much time covering another topic.

2) Having a backup plan is always mandatory because you just can’t ever trust technology to be 100% reliable. Things can go wrong and not function at the least expected and most inconvenient times.

3) Preparing your speech means doing research, organizing your ideas and thoughts appropriately, and knowing how to seamlessly flow from one topic to another. Having a structured presentation helps your audience stay on par with your ideas and what you are talking about.

4) Rest and proper nourishment are both very important for sustaining a functional self state. Making sure that you get enough rest and food before and on the day of the presentation is vital. All the preparing and rehearsing that goes on before the presentation, and the energy that’s exerted on the day you present puts a toll on your body. Stay away from greasy food and the likes that may make you drowsy, as well as “quick energy” snacks as they’re not exactly the most reliable source of nutriment

Now that we have these covered, on to the juicy stuff:

When giving a speech, emotional expression is one of the most important things to keep in mind. Nobody wants to sound like a monotone robot delivering a speech, and nobody wants to hear it either. When you take advantage of how things can be expressed, they can act as queues for your audience to know what’s important, serious, or not so serious. People, a lot of times, get stuck during their speech because of the way they expressed something. This can either result in unexpected reactions from the audience, or the lack of. For this reason, it’s a good idea to practice how you will be expressing specific points, rather than having to memorize everything word for word.

Having said that, my next point is speech memorization and how you rehearse. Practice being able to word ideas differently rather than having to memorize specific terms. This is a good general skill as it could come in handy in every-day conversations, as well as important presentations, etc. You may also want to consider adding and/or replacing words in a sentence for dramatization of some sort (ie. exaggeration, degradation, making things sound simple, dangerous, serious, etc…). When you aim to make your speech flexible, not only will you be comfortable, but you can easily get out of situations where you forget what you were supposed to say.

This also means that if your vocabulary isn’t as robust as you’d like it to be, you should bring out that thesaurus and start memorizing. The key with memorizing new terms is to learn them and use them – something people don’t do. Write practice letters, use them in conversations with family and friends, have words written down on a post-it note, etc. The best part about bettering your speech skills is picking your own brain and figuring out what methods of practice and learning work for you.

Errors are inevitable (for the most part) when you’re delivering a speech. If you think that you’ve heard a perfect speech with no mistakes, you’re probably wrong. The person who delivered the speech most likely had amazing cover-up skills and was able to mold his words in a way where it didn’t seem likes an error.

Here’s a thought. When you’re hearing a speech and that person makes a little mistake, do you really get upset and angry at that person, or think negatively of their validity? I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t. After having talked to quite a few people about this matter, I’ve come to the conclusion that audiences are more forgiving than you might think. When the person delivering the speech messes up, the more uncomfortable the audience gets. This is why you should never worry about making a fool of yourself.

Here are some quick ideas on how to stay relaxed and pick up your speech after making some type of an error. When you’re in the middle of saying something and you realize you lost your train of thought, you can pause for a second and restate your thought again. This is more respectable than forcing yourself to continue rambling after its occurrence. Also, after stretching your last sentence and pulling through, you can reserve a few seconds by clearing your throat or sipping your water.

So that’s pretty much all of it. I didn’t plan to get into too much detail with the obvious aspects since it’s basic knowledge, and because it has been said a million times before by other publications. I hope these tips come in handy at least a little bit. Remember, the audience are nothing but flesh and blood, just like yourself. Being afraid of making a fool of ourselves is a characteristic that has been embedded into our brains due to pop-culture and the standards of society where every one has to be a certain way. Ask yourself, are you victim?

Related posts:

1. Why Business Cards Don’t Suck
2. Playing the Mind Reading Game
3. 5 Easy Steps to be Green at Home

Here is a tutorial that shows how to get a nice looking shadow behind the text, and a simple reflection below it. Albeit being a very simple tutorial, this skill can be applied to many advanced techniques for a very impressive outcome. Apple is notorious for their reflections on pretty much everything, but it’s no secret how they do it!

If you have any questions on how to do something, a suggestion, or a general comment, don’t hesitate to post in the comments section or contact me directly.

View the tutorial after the jump!

1) Create a new document and call it whatever you want. Set the dimensions to the 656px wide, and 265px height. Make sure the Background type is set to “white.”

2) Create some text that preferably doesn’t have a descender below the baseline like “MacBook Pro.” It can be done just as well with something like “Money Boy” with the “y” characters going below but some extra steps would be required. Here’s what I have so far:

3) Duplicate the “MacBook Pro” layer and rename the bottom layer to “shadow” + hide the top text later so we’re only looking at the shadow layer.

4) In order to make this look like a shadow, we have to add a blur to the text. FIRST: Have the “shadow” layer selected and go in the menu go to LAYER > RASTERIZE… > TYPE. After this, go to FILTER > BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR… and set the Radius to 4.0 pixels. This will make it soft enough to replicate a shadow. You should have something like this:

5) Now reveal the “MacBook Pro” layer so that it overlaps the shadow layer. With the “shadow” layer still selected, go to EDIT > TRANSFORM > SCALE. Now drag down and shrink from the top edge so you get something like this:

6) Nudge the shadow layer up by a few pixel to make it fit on the base of the MacBook Pro text, like this:

7) Now, on the shadow layer, we must add a layer mask by hitting the “vector mask” button like this:

8 ) Now, grab the Gradient tool (shortcut key: G) with the default colors going from black to white. Point your cursor on the top edge of the shadow, and slightly drag DOWNWARD. You should get a fading effect where the top is faded away. You might have to try this a few times until you get it right. You should have something like this:

Note: Our shadow is pretty much done. Now we must create the soft reflection below the MacBook Pro text.

9) Now duplicate the MacBook Pro layer and rename the copy to “reflection.” Now we must flip the text vertically: EDIT > TRANSFORM > FLIP VERTICAL. Now select the Move Tool (shortcut key: V) and use the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge it below the MacBook Pro text. Set the Opacity of this layer to 20%. Your layers panel should look like this:

And your artwork should look like this (if doesn’t, make sure you didn’t skip a step):

10) Now add a layer mask to this layer just like we did in step 7. With the same Gradient Tool settings, this time drag UPWARD from the bottom of the layer to fade away the bottom edge. After a few tries, you should have something like this:

YOU’RE DONE!

This is pretty much as basic as it can get. With advanced knowledge of Photoshop’s features and skills, you can modify all of the text and the layers to have something really cool like this:

If you would like to see a second part for this tutorial on how to achieve this final effect, please comment and let me know! I will be more than glad to put it together.

UPDATE: REFLETION & SHADOW WITH A DESCENDER

1) First, duplicate your text layer and flip it vertically so it looks like this:

2) Rasterize the reflected text layer. Take the Rectangular Marquee tool (keyboard shortcut: M) and nudge the “y” and the “g” down so it looks something like this:

3) Now you can apply the layer mask on to it to make it look like a reflection. You can also apply the same effect for the shadow by repeating steps 1 through 8. You should have something like this after rasterizing the text reflection layer, and creating a shadow layer just like I did above. Note: You might have to play with the shadow a bit so that you get a desirable result. Here’s how I did it

Note: Once the shadow the layer is properly aligned, you can use the smudge tool to shift the lower shadow regions of the “y” and “g.” Remember, always make sure you’re working on the right layer.

Hope you enjoyed this update! If there are any more requests, feel free to ask!

If you liked this tutorial, you might also like this one:

Photoshop Tutorial: Fancy Text Shadow & Reflection

Related posts:

1. Photoshop Tutorial: Reflective Metallic Text
2. Photoshop Tutorial: Fox News Logo
3. Photoshop Tips & Tutorials – On its way!

If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments in general, don’t hesitate to post in the comments.

View the tutorial after the jump!

Part 1: Creating the Base and Background for the Reflective Text

1) Create a new document and call it whatever you want.

2) Make the proportions 700px wide, and 500px high.

3) On the background layer, make a black to white gradient from bottom to top, like this:

4) Create a new layer and call it “bg wall”

5) Make a selection using the “Marquee Tool” of roughly the top 60% of the document and create a gradient going from a grayish tone to nearly black, like this:

6) Deselect the selection (CMD+D on Mac, CTRL+D on Windows).

7) Now to give the stage base and background wall a sense of separation, create a light gray 1px line on the upper portion of the base, using the “Line Tool,” like this:

Note: Now we have set up the base foundation for our reflective metallic text.

Part 2: Creating the Reflective Text with Effects

8 ) Take the “Text Tool” (T) and write out some sample text using your font of choice.

Note: The color of the text doesn’t matter at this point since we will be applying blending options to it. In my case, I made it gray since the reflection will be grayish from the metallic look of the text.

9) Duplicate the text layer you made (CMD+J on Mac, CTRL+J on PC) and vertically flip the layer (Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical) to make it look mirrored, and call the layer “text reflection,” like this:

Note: Don’t forget to adjust the text appropriately in terms of location in order to make it look like an actual mirroring. After you have done this, hide the layer by clicking the little eye on the left side of the layer. Make sure this layer is below the actual text.

10) Duplicate the original text layer again and place it above the reflective text layer. Name this layer “text shadow.” Now hide the original text layer so we can work on the text shadow.

11) First, make the color of the text black. Now we need to rasterize the type to make it editable (Layer > Rasterize > Type).

12) Now we have to shrink the text to turn it into a shadow. CMD+T on Mac or CTRL+T on Windows to Transform the layer. Take the top center bullet and drag it down to make the transformation look like this:

Note: After doing so, hit “Return” or “Enter” to accept the transformation.

13) Now apply a Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur…) with the following settings:

14) Now apply a Motion Blur (Filter> Blue > Motion Blur…) with the following settings:

15) Reveal (unhide) the original text layer to see it show up on top of the new shadow we just created. You might have to bump the text layer up by one pixel to make it fit right into the shadow, but it’s more an option for you.

- – So far, we have this:

16) Now let’s decorate the text to make it look metallic. Go to the Blending Options of the main text layer (Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options…). Make the settings according to the following screenshots:

Note: Now that we have the text styling done, we work on the reflection…

17) Now reveal (unhide) the text reflection layer. Add a Layer Mask to this layer by pressing the button on the bottom of the Layers Pallet, like this:

18) While having the layer mask selected, make sure your colors are set to default (by hitting “D” on the keyboard). Use the Gradient Tool (G) to hide the bottom portion of the reflection by drawing from bottom to the top, like this:

Note: You can play with the Opacity of the layer to make the reflection more suitable to your needs. In my case, I dropped it 60% after I took the screenshot above.

-Alright! Good job! This tutorial is complete, but you can go back and make some modifications for whatever reason.

-Here’s my final piece after playing around with the darkness of the base, text size, and the background wall:

Note: To make the shading effects on the background wall and on the base, I simply used the Burn Tool with different exposure settings.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write! Stay tuned for more tutorials very soon!

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:

Photoshop Tutorial: Fancy Text Shadow & Reflection

Related posts:

1. Photoshop Tutorial: Fancy Text Shadow & Reflection
2. Photoshop Tutorial: Fox News Logo
3. May is Here, Where are You?

When 2008 hit, I did something I’ve never done before; a long hand written list of tasks and goals to be achieved and accomplished all throughout the magnificent year. I have over 30 items on my list, mixed of both long term goals like improving my photography portfolio and my gadgets loot, and short term goals like obtaining my driver’s license and purchasing a new computer. I stuck this list on the wall right above my 24 inch iMac, and I look at it every time I am on the computer, wake up, and go to bed just to remind me that I have work to do, and I better be on it!

I can happily say that I have slowly but progressively been checking off things as I go along, one of which was me launching this very blog, One Fused Life, once and for all! Staying on track is not an easy task – we humans aren’t exactly built to be working machines right off the back. Here are a few tips on how to plan for things and not forget by periodically reminding yourself. More after the jump…

1. Keep a plan book in print, and make sure you check it and update it frequently. Electronic planners on PDAs and such work as well, but I believe that having a planner dedicated to the things you need to do will motivate you more.
2. Give yourself milestone deadlines where you progress through your tasks step by step, if necessary, and you’ll eventually have very little left to do on the deadline, if anything.
3. Waking up is a huge(!) issue with many people, including me! Solutions: Keep multiple alarms (physically) located in different parts of the room. If you live with people and they wake up early too, ask them to pour a cup of water on your or something!
4. Neatly write or type a full year’s plan just so you’re reminded of the little things you don’t always think of every day. Take time to write this – it’s a lot more useful and helpful than you may think. Be realistic as to what you plan to achieve. Observe your skills and potential events that could benefit your progress (or do quite the opposite).
5. Tell your friends your plans and and say how you plan to achieve some things. That’ll put a bit more positive pressure on you – I mean, who likes making a fool of themselves in front of friends?
6. Plan things chronologically, if you can. It’ll help you progress through things in steps so you don’t hit a road bump and not know what to do. In life, we never know what’s gonna happen that’ll amend our plans, if not, completely alter, so pay attention and take subtle caution.
7. Make decisions of things you generally wouldn’t think of until it happens; Do you want/need a girlfriend this year? Do you want to quit your current job and find a new one? Are you thinking of making some large purchases this year (technology, furniture, real estate, car, boat, well…you get the idea)? Thinking through these sorts of things will leave you prepared if and when something happens that’ll require thought and thinking. Of course, things never really go the way we plan, so better prepare as best as you can, and be ready to make accommodations.

These are just a few things that I could think of that could help someone become more organized, or start being organized for that matter. Every person is different, thus different techniques will be required to make a change in yourself. You must find sources of motivation that’ll keep you moving. Maybe it’s Money? Friends/Family? Happiness? Success? I don’t know, that’s up to you to decide. It took me forever and a half to do it, but I did, and so can you!

Next up: Procrastination getting the best and worst of us, and how to destroy it!

Related posts:

1. Creating a New Year’s Resolution List
2. Procrastination Be Gone!
3. Getting back on track, some updates