Welcome to the 23rd volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational! Remember, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group and sumbit your work there.

Until next time, have a  nice day!

Welcome to the 21st volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational! Remember, if you have some cool designs and would like to be featured here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group and sumbit your work there.

Until next time, have a  nice day!

In this tutorial, Iwill show you the steps I took to create this (delicious?!) “Contact Me” button in Photoshop. This is really simple tutorial, great for beginner to learn a few tricks. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

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Ok let ’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stock:

Font

Step 1

Create a document sized 200px * 20opx with white background and 72 dpi (web graphic) – please note that this is the actual size of the button we will be making.

Here I will show you a little trick: hit Ctrl + R to make the rule visible on the top and left edge, click on the ruler and drag a guide to the edges of our canvas, as shown below:

Hit Ctrl + Alt + C and bring up the Resize Canvas window, then apply the following settings:

You will have the following effect (I set the background colour to grey for demonstration purpose):

You can see by doing so, we have the perfect guides setup for a 200px * 200px button, without the need to add and remove guides afterwards:

Step 2

Now let’s perpare a simple background to work on. I perferred  a nice light grey gradient fill. So grab a the Gradient Tool and fill the background layer as shown below:

Create a new layer called “backlight” and grab a big and a small soft round brush, do two single clicks to the position as shown below: (top and centre)

Resize and position this layer as shown below:

Now we have a nice background to work on our button :)

Step 3

Now grab the Rounded Rectangular Tool from the toolbox (press the U key) and apply a 10px feather to it, draw the following according to the guides:

Name this layer as “button bg”, and apply the following blending effect to this layer:

Drop shadow

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

Here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Now let’s add some highlights and shadows to the button background. Create a new layer under the button bg layer, use the rectangular marquee tool to create a shape like this:

Name this layer as “shadow” and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings to it. Make sure you deselect the layer first:

Resize it from the top (Ctrl + T) and reduce the opacity to around 30%, you will have the following effect:

Create a new layer called “Highlight” on top of the button bg layer, set its blending mode to “Overlay”, grab a white soft brush, do a single click as shown below:

Duplicate this layer once and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Normal”, resize it to a very thin level, position it just above the top edge of the button bg layer, as shown below:

You will have the following effect so far:

Step 5

Now let’s draw a simple envelope onto this button. Create a new layer on top of all previous layer, grab the Rectanglar tool and draw a rectangule as shown below:

Call this layer “envelope” and apply the following layer blending options to it:

Drop Shadow

Outer Glow

Stroke

and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Now let’s add a few more stuff onto the envelope to make it look more realistic. Create a new layer called “envelope top” and grab the Polygon Tool from the toolbox:

Apply the following settings: (3 sides)

and draw a triangle as shown below, use the Free Transform tool to fit it onto the envelope:

apply the following layer blending option to it:

Drop shadow

Inner Shadow

Gradient overlay

Stroke

and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate this layer once and rename the new duplicated layer to “envelope bottom”, flip it vertically by Ctrl + T and right-click:

Retain all the layer blending option except the stroke option, position this layer as shown below:

Create a layer in between the top and bottom envelope layers, grab a soft round black brush and do a single click in the centre:

here is the effect so far:

Step 7

Now we’re almost done. Finally we can type some texts onto the button – “Contact Me” with font we downloaded, as shown below:

You can here I used a dark red color – the reason I did it is that I’d like to use a bit embossing/sink-in effect here. The trick is to use a slightly darker colour for the font than the background color, so that when we apply the blending effect later on, we will achieve better looking result.

So let’s add the following layer blending options to it:

Inner Shadow

Gradient overlay

Stroke

Also here is a trick – when adding stroke effect to the text, make sure to select a color slightly lighter then the background colour, for the embossing effect.

Here is the final effect I have: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hopefully you learnt something new and find it useful! Till next time, have a great day!

Recently I bumped into a great graphic desginer Tadeo Alexander Martinez Anguiano on Flickr and I personally think he has an amazing set of design works and great talent. I sought to have an interview with him, which he kindly agreed :)

In this post, I will share with you Tadeo’s answers to my interview questions, along with some of his fantastic works. Hopefully you will enjoy them and find them useful.

Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. Would you mind giving a little personal background information about yourself?

Amm well, personally I’m a little crazy I think that’s the first thing to start taking Photoshop. I have been handling Photoshop for 3 years.

I am 17 years old and currently living in Monterrey, Mexico. And my general style but I try to edit is much the specifics about rap music, rock, graffiti, most models are women, galactic, light, 3d’s, and urban cultures.

Have you done any formal graphic design training before or you simply learn everything yourself?

I think this question is that if I took a course or diploma. Not really, I’ve been learning from good designers and artists through the web. I incorporate my ideas and forging some types of styles.

What’s your major source of inspiration? Do you follow any design blogs online?

No, I don’t really follow any design blogs. Primarily I take inspiration from many sources. Lyrics, experiences, fantasies, some design ideas but find it difficult, and not seen many blogs. but a good idea. ;)

If you like to offer some words of advice to beginner who just starting out in this graphic design field, what would you say to them?

Well first of all do not t be carried away by copying all of any artist, I have seen and also lived in what is certain Pharmacopoeia all artists. Try to forge a personal style ideas from the mind itself, try that work will gradually be cleaner and believe me it will be well accepted by the world because the design is of the few things that attract much interest worldwide.

That’s it for this interview! Hopefully you find it useful and inspirational. You can find Tadeo on his Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29076453@N03/

Also if you got some great work and would like to be featured here, simply contact me :)

Personally speaking, I love vintage textures – although we’re living in a high-tech society where everything is shining and glossy, sometimes we need a bit of old, ancient feeling to get a balance and taste the history. Not to mention if you’re working on a design project requiring the vintage touches, you will find those textures and Photoshop brushes extremely useful.

In this post, I will share my collection of 100+ Great Vintage Textures and Photoshop Brushsets to Decorate Your Design. Hopefully they will be of use to you and expand your own vintage collection.

Here goes the list, enjoy!

Textures

Pretty Things – icon texture 1 by ~manila-craze

Vintage III Texture Pack by =cloaks

vintage texture 1 by ~H-D-STOCK

15 textures: art + vintage by =jocosity

vintage diamonds by *DyingBeautyStock

Textures02 – Vintage Floral by ~crazymegan

Vintage Textures Pk1 by =inspyretash-stock

Cracked Wallpaper by ~AboveVintage

Vintage Grunge Texture Pack by =powerpuffjazz

Vintage Musk by ~AsunderStock

Photoshop Brushes

Old Postage Stamp Brushes

vintage grunge brushes by ~alex16

Vintage Images + Ephmera by ~akw04

11 brushes of vintage Harley-Davidson’s

1940 Cosmopolitan Brushes

Vintage Fractal Grunge Brushes by ~WebTreatsETC

Vintage Paper Brushes by ~fiftyfivepixels

Vintage Toys Photoshop Brushes by ~FidgetResources

Vintage Clocks-PS Brushes by ~fiftyfivepixels

Wanted Poster

Old Paper Brushes V by ~lailomeiel

That’s it for this post! Hopefully you will find those textures and brushes useful for your vintage design.

Until next time, have a great day!

Welcome to the 19th volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to share them here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it inspirational!

Until next time, have a  nice day!

If you have been following PSD Vault for a while, you will find a lot of my tuts and inspirational contents are grungy or abstract. As a result, I have collected tons of resources based on those two styles in my resource library and I thought I would share some of those with you :)

In this post, I included 25 Excellent Grunge Style Fonts Perfect for Abstract Design out of my collections of fonts, hope you like them and find them useful.

Inked God

28 Days Later

Rough Linen

Pulse Sans Virgin

Trashco

Broken Ghost

Gridlock’d

Times New Yorker

Soul Mission

Neo print

Laundromat

Jamai Stevie

Karabine

Grutch Shaded

Everyday Ghost

Desperado

Extravaganza

F-Rotten

Killed DJ

Rusted Plastic

That’s it for this post! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful!

Till next time, have a nice day!

Welcome to the 17th volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to share them here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

Oh by the way, just to like to let you know there are now over 10,000 amazing artworks in PSD Vault Flickr Group :) and For those who sumbitted their work or accepted my invitation, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

That’s it for the 17th volume of Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group! Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational. I would love to hear your thoughts of those works, just drop a comment below :)

Till next time,  have a nice day!

Welcome to the 16th volume of “Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group”, which is a showcase I run regularly here on psdvault.com featuring some fantastic, highly-creative design works in the PSD Vault Flickr Group.

Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational! Meanwhile, if you have some cool designs and would like to share them here, you can simply join the PSD Vault Flickr group.

If you like those works, then show those awesome designers some support! Click on the image to visit the author’s flickr page and drop them a comment :)

Here goes the list, enjoy!

That’s it for the 16th volume of Creativity Fine-Tuning: Best of PSD Vault Flickr Group! Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and find them inspirational. I would love to hear your thoughts of those works, just drop a comment below :)

Till next time,  have a nice day!

Welcome to another interview here on PSD Vault! This time we have Mhark De Guzman, an awesome graphic designer I came arcoss while browsing on Flickr. I was really amazed about the design of the works and the creativity behind them, not to mention the awesome effects in those works.

Hence I sought to have a chat with him about a series of questions I have in mind and sent him a Flickr mail – and thought I would share his answers to my questions with the reader of PSD Vault.

Hope you enjoy this interview and if you like to check out more of Mhark’s work, visist him on his Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32188606@N03/!

Thanks for taking the time to be interviewed on PSD Vault. Could you please introduce yourself to our readers ?

Hi there :D…im Mhark De Guzman a.k.a Aboynamedmhark, 23 y/o and im a Graphic designer from Philippines.

Is graphic design something that you’ve always been interested in? Can you give us a bit of idea of how did you get into this field?

My mentor(Shufflepath) encourage me to go into this kind of art, I liked photo manipulation very much..for me its very simple and easy…you just need right stocks for your piece and thats it.. just play on photoshop and explore everything…put something that comes from your mind and … enjoy it :D

Your works seem to be a mixture of C4D and Photoshop, what’s your experience with these two software?

c4ds are not mine, some of c4d renders i used are from Deviantart. I’m a pure Photoshop user, mixtures of c4ds and light FX + nice stock are pretty cool for me..eye catching also :D..

Inspiration is something designers constantly seek, what would you do to find inspiration for your design work if it happens to dry out?

Browsing net, looking for eyecatching creation designed by the other great artist, plus music too :D…if im not into mood to make a design..i dont force myself :D.

Do you follow any design blogs? Any favourite artist?

I’m not into blog…more on forums…GFX forums…my fave artist is also my mentor…Shufflepath…also a Filipino Designer…he put me into this GFX world…i admire his artwork much…and he is the one who always helped me with all my questions about graphics…specially in FX..I also Admire PoisonVectors for his unique pieces…mixtures of C4Ds and light FX..always caught my attention…and gave me inspirations also :D

Are you a freelancer? If yes, what’s your experience in terms of attracting clients?

Nope, I worked as Graphic designer at the advertising company.

You have quite an extensive gallery here on flickr. Out of those work, what’s your most favourite one? Could you give us a bit of idea of the design process of it?

My greatest manipulation ever …”Curse of Nature”..took me 3 days to finished that piece..also won in Large Art of the Month themed “Supernatural” in a Filipino forum..inspired in “trapped and submerge” artwork of my mentor.

My first plan for that piece is to make just a fairy..but word “curse” comes to my mind, then i decided to make a manipulation which involving the fairy + curse effect + nature concept. Thanks to the owner of the stocks i used in that art.

That concludes this post! Hope you enjoy those works as much as I did and this interview. If you like to check out more of Mhark’s work, visist him on his Flickr page at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32188606@N03/!

If you would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, simply contact me :)

In this tutorial, I will show you how simple it is to create effective, clean and fresh call-to-action button that will surely attract visitor’s attention, plus a super quick way to create this trendy Embossing text effect in Photoshop. Very easy tutorial, have a try!

For those who haven’t yet came across the idea of “Call-to-Action” button – basically they’re buttons that you would want all your users to click on when they land on your page. Usually they’ll be a link to a download, signup or sale. By making those buttons easy to easy and click on, you increase the likelyhood that user will notice the button, then follow up with relevant actions.

As for embossing text, they’re everywhere now on the web, and I personally quite like this particular effect :)

Here is a preview of the final effect for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive :) Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a new document size 750px * 400px (size doesn’t really matter here) and fill this background layer with White. Create a new layer on top of the background layer called “gradient”, grab the Gradient Tool from the toolbox and fill it as shown below:

I decide to use this light gradient because it’s easier to demonstrate several important points in the next few steps. You can of course try out darker ones.

Step 2

Let’s type some text on the canvas. I used this font because I personally feel it’s a very clean and bold font, which you can use for a wide range of headings, or descriptive text.

So type some sample text on the canvas as shown below: (use a slightly darker colour for font colour)

Appy the following layer blending option to the text layer:

Inner Shadow

Stroke

And you will have the following effect to the text layer:

See, that’s our embossing text effect done. Very simple, yet effective.

Step 3

Ok let’s get on with creating the call-to-action button. Use the Rounded Rectangular Tool with a 7px radius, draw a button on the canvas as shown below: (Make shape you select “shape layers” on top option bar)

Apply the following layer blending effect to this button:

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

With the Gradient Colour, apply the following settings:

Location 0% – Color: #0083be

Location 99% – Color: #31c8fa

Location 100% – Color: #FFFFFF

Stroke

And you will have the following effect:

Step 4

Now we have a button background, let’s add some symbol onto it so it provides some kinds of graphical meaning. In this case, I decided to make this button a download button. So naturally I thought of a down arrow would mean something to the user.

So grab the Custom shape tool from the toolbox:

and choose the bold arrow from the library as shown below:

Draw an arrow on the position as shown below, rotate it clockwise 90 degree when you done the drawing:

Apply the following layer blending options to the arrow layer:

Drop Shadow

Gradient Overlay

Location 0% – Color: #09c228

Location 100% – Color: #b4ff97

Stroke

You will have the following effect so far:

Step 5

Now we can type some text onto the button:

Apply the following layer blending options to the text layer:

Inner Glow

Gradient Overlay

Stroke

and you will have the following effect:

Step 6

Ok we’re almost done. To spice up the final effect, we can add some light and shadow to the button and text to increase their depth. To do this, create a new layer underneath the button background layer, grab a big soft brush with a dark colour, do a single click on the centre of the canvas:

Use free transform tool to resize it and position it as shown below:

To create a light divider between the text and the button, simply create a new layer on top of the shadow layer, use a big soft brush with white colour, do a single click to the position as shown below:

Again we resize it and fit it to the postion under the text:

and here is the final effect for this tutorial:

Final Thoughts

There are several things I think we need to pay attention to when it comes to making call-to-action buttons:

1. Always try to use fresh, vibrant colour as button background, and make sure the color differs significantly from the rest.
2. Apply gradient to the background creating more depth and make the button stand out
3. Use graphic element and symbol on the button to make it more meaningful to visitors
4. Use Light and shadows to draw user attentions.

Further Readings

1. Web Design Trends: Call To Action Buttons

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it!

In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to create a stylish, clean and shining button for your website in Photoshop. This method is extremely simple with no more than five steps, yet it’s very effective since you can use the button for a wide range of occasions.

Along the way, the tools we will be using include the shape tool, layer blending options, brush and eraser tool. This tutorial is suitable for beginners as the steps are quite easy to follow in my opinion. As for advance Photoshoppers, I would love to hear you the methods you use to achieve such effect, just drop me a comment below.

Have a try, let me know if you have any problem, I will try my best to help you out :)

Here is a preview of the final effect for this tutorial:

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Let’s create a new document sized 640 x 480px and fill the background layer with Black.

The reason I chose not to create a document with the size same as the button we’re creating, is because ultimately we will be placing this button somewhere on a web page. Therefore, I think it would be better if we start on a bigger canvas so we will have a better overview of the button design.

Now add a new layer on top of the background layer and name it “background lighting”, grab a big, soft and round brush with a dark grey colour, do a single-click in the position shown below:

Step 2

Grab the Round Rectangular Tool (U) and apply the settings to it:

Draw a rectangular shape in the centre of the canvas, as shown below: (Don’t worry too much about the dimension, just a rectangular shape will do)

On this shape layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Inner Shadow

Gradient Overlay

and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now let’s load the selection of the shape layer by holding down the Ctrl key and left-click the thumbnail image of the shape layer on the layer palette.

Create a new layer called “Lighting”, on this layer, grab a soft round brush with white colour, do a single click in the position as shown below:

and you will have the following effect:

On this “lighting” layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

and you will have the following effect:

Optionally, you can duplicate this “lighting” layer once for more depth. You will notice on the top we created a shining edge line, which add a bit of extra flavour to the button design.

Step 4

Duplicate the “lighting” layer one more time and put this layer on top of all other layers. On this duplicated layer, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical and flip this layer vertically once.

You will now see on the bottom we now have a shining edge line as well, this makes the button more stylish.

In order to reveal the top shining edge line created in the previous step, we can simple grab an eraser tool with a soft round brush, and do a single click on the position shown below:

and you will now have this effect:

Step 5

Now we can simply type some text onto the button. Font choice is quite important here because we want to the button to be as eye-catching as possible. Personally I think those Bold, Clean Font always work wonders. There is a pretty nice article here containing a list of bold fonts free for download, simply grab one of those and type some text onto it:

And on this text layer, apply the following layer blending options:

Drop Shadow

Bevel and Emboss

Gradient Overlay

And you will have the following effect:

To make the text stronger, simply duplicate the text layer once and you have made a very stylish, clean and shining button:

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

Hello and Welcome to the new Interview section I set up here on PSD Vault! In the section, I will publish a series of interviews I had with some turly amazing web and graphic designers around the world, and share their experiences and stories with the readers here. It’s also my wish to help promote those fine designers at international level, based on the decent amount of traffic PSD Vault generates on a daily basis.

In this first interview, we have Elena Savitskaya – an Amazing and Aspiring Graphic and Web Designer from London, UK. I came across her work from flickr and was immediately impressed by the skill and talent displayed in those works, not to mention that her work has been featured on Advanced Photoshop Magazine!

Here goes Elena’s story, hope you enjoy this interview and if you wish, check out Elena’s website for more!

Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. Would you mind giving a little personal background information about yourself and your websites for our readers?

Well, first of all thank you James for asking me to do an interview for one of my favourite blogs.  My personal background is a bit mad to be honest.  I was born in south of Russia, in a place that none of you probably ever heard of, a small city called Orenburg. I’m actually really proud of myself, being born in a small place people don’t get much choices and motivation to make it big carrier-wise.

But i was odd one out i guess. As my favourite painter Salvador Dali said: “At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.” I grew up in a family of two big business people and i guess that’s where ambition comes from. At some point i was told “you are going to England to study and we’re afraid you don’t have a choice to say “no”. So i ended up in UK, i am still in London and i’m hugely grateful for all the experience that I’m gaining here.

Jumping back a little, first time I’ve produced some sort of artwork happened ages ago when i was 5. Me and my family went for some sort of safari in woods in south Russia and i’ve seen an awesome butterfly, once we got back home my grandmother equipped me with paint and brushes and i did my first little “masterpiece” of that butterfly. I think my granny still has that picture somewhere.  But on a serious side, i come from Marketing and Business Management background; all of my studies were based around those two subjects.  Currently i’m continuing my Business Management studies in London , writing for my design/marketing Designwithathought.com and freelancing. You can also visit my portfolio at www.elenasavitskaya.com.

Is graphic design something that you’ve always been interested in? Can you give us a bit of idea of how did you get into this field?

At one point in life when i was a teenager i had to find a job and pretty urgently, being a teenager applying for a marketing job would be pretty much pointless. Being a waitress wasn’t a choice either, as i knew I’m capable of much more than that.

So i started looking at options to work from home, designing little things in Photoshop and Illustrator was a small hobby of mine, but then the light bulb moment came and i realised that i could turn this into a job.  From there i started doing some free projects for friends to build up my portfolio, reading (a lot of reading) blogs about design and books, loads of them. In fact all the background knowledge i was looking for to become a decent designer came from books. You can find a lot of tutorials online, but to get serious with it, you have to read books.

Bit by bit, I’ve build up my portfolio, skills and experience.  And at some point Advanced Photoshop magazine contacted me saying that they found my work on deviantart.com and asked me to do a 5 page tutorial which then turned into a cover artwork as well. I was so incredibly proud of myself. From being nobody to getting featured in a magazine that i was learning off was a massive personal achievement.

Are you a freelancer? If yes, what’s your best methods in terms of finding/attracting clients?

Yes, i am a freelancer.  And this is a hard question :).  To be honest the strategy turned out like this: I started by just advertising on local websites like gumtree.com etc, and once i had a small client base i turned mainly to entertainment industry as it’s the best one for my type of work and most fun to work with to be honest. And as a lot of people know each other in that industry, being reliable and thoughtful with your clients gave my clients a reason to spread the word about me.

It grew from there. Right now my main tool for finding clients is probably online exposure, websites such as deviantart.com, behance.net, redbubble.com and my portfolio and blog of course. The more you expose your work, the more attention/clients you are going to get. Pitching works sometimes too, if you are an expert in one particular niche, doing some e-mail pitching can work, just be prepared that clients can be very cheeky and if you’re the one contacting them they will drive a hard bargain.

Inspiration is something designers constantly seek, what would you do to find inspiration for your design work if it happens to dry out?

CHOCOLATE! Just joking :), but it actually works sometimes too. Design books, new knowledge, are always a massive source of motivation and inspiration for me. My family, my boyfriend – best man on the planet and a massive support. I visit a lot of galleries and exhibitions too, i get a lot of inspiration from Salvador Dali paintings,  and classic art, Da Vinci, Raphael , those guys really knew what they were doing, imagine, no TV’s, no internet, no distractions from what you’re doing. Those were the proper geeks, guys! So much to learn from them, if you just dig a tiny bit deeper, rather than just looking at the picture.

Sometimes when you’re out of inspiration simply switching on a random radio station works too. And a very important thing to do in order not to run out of inspiration – give yourself a break every now and then, don’t work 24/7, you will start to hate it then.

Do you follow any design blog? If yes, what’s your favourite ones?

Hell yeah! A lot of them, this psdvault included. My RSS reader is seriously overcrowded. Among favourites:  Smashing Magazine, Abduzeedo, PSDTuts, Tutorial9, Freelance Folder.

And lastly, thank you once again for the interview. Before we go, could you give the readers a bit of intro of your current project and future plans?

My biggest current project is my blog, I’m in the process of writing up a lot of content for it. Tutorials, articles, book reviews and some very interesting things that no one was writing about yet,  i will also concentrate a lot how design and marketing should work together,  which is the main point in my blog.

I am also currently working on a few exciting projects with my clients which will surely end up in my portfolio, I’m also opened for artwork commissions, it’s very interesting to do.  And the top secret project of mine involves video, but I’m not going to give it away just yet. I hope you will hear about it once it’s out :). Thank you once again for a great opportunity and keep up your amazing work on this blog, i will surely stay tuned.

That concludes this interview with Elena Savitskaya, a London based Aspiring web and graphic designer. For more info and get in touch with her, please log on to http://elenasavitskaya.com/.

And lastly, if you would like to be featured here on PSD Vault, simply contact me and send me some sample of your work, and I will be in touch with you.

Cheers and have a great day!

In this post, I will introduce 7 Highly Practical Photoshop Site Mockups I have came aross on the net from a variety of sources, plus 1 Amazingly Detailed Tutorial About Converting Them into Working Web Pages.

For the 7 mockup tutorials I have selected, although they all aim towards the same objective, the techniques used during the process can be seen differently, mainly because the difference in genre (e.g. corporate design v.s watercolour design). Interesting to see the methods the authors use to achive the end result :)

As for the convertion tutorial I included here, I personally think it’s the best and most detailed one on the net! I’m sure you will find it useful, too. Enjoy :)

Here goes the 7 Highly Practical Photoshop Site Mockups, hope you enjoy them and if you like them and find them useful as I did, give the authors/writers some applause!

Awesome Tutorial Portfolio Design

Hi dudes, our 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.

- By PSD Themes

Create a Clean and Colorful Web Layout in Photoshop

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to create a clean corporate layout in Photoshop. The original layout was created by kuntiz from ThemeForest and I want to thank him for allowing me to write this tutorial.

- By Tutorial9

Corporate WordPress Style Layout

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a corporate wordpress styled layout. If you have any questions about this tutorial be sure to ask in the comments. Also, remember with all the tutorials, the psd is available for download.

- By PSDVibe

Create a Vibrant Modern Blog Design in Photoshop

Taking a closer look into the world of web design this tutorial will cover the process of designing a vibrant and colourful modern blog layout in Adobe Photoshop. Beginning with a blank canvas we’ll go through the process of creating the entire structure and effects from scratch.

- By Blog.Spoongraphics

Creating a Dark Layout Mockup in Photoshop

Welcome to tutorial 209, in this tutorial we’ll be creating a dark layout with some nice unique styling. We’ll also be making our very own custom patterns to go with the layout.

- By HV Designs

Create a Nice Web Portfolio Design with a Watercolored Background in Photoshop

In this step by step tutorial I explain how to realize a nice Web Portfolio Design with a Watercolored Background using two brush sets, a icon pack and some basic techniques.

- By pvmgarage.com

Graphic Design Studio Web Layout

In this tutorial i will show you how easy is to create a layout with transparent buttons. This type of layout was used lately a lot because it is the latest trend in website design.

- By Grafpedia

And here is the one amazingly detailed tutorial about how to convert your design into working page. I personally found it very useful, especially for beginners who have limited knowledge about HTML/CSS.

Converting a Photoshop Mockup

In this first-ever video podcast, I start the conversion process of an Adobe Photoshop mockup of a website, into a real live CSS based website.

- By Chris Coyier from css-tricks.com

That’s it for this post! I hope you find those links/articles useful, and good luck with the mockups :)

Till next time, have a great day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the method I use to design a simple, yet elegant abstract spectrum lines in Photoshop. You will see how easy it is to achieve this nice effect and you can use it a wide range of occasions including perhaps site header backgrounds, logos, or add extra flavor to your photo manipulations.

This tutorial is suitable for beginners and I included the ways of creating new brush presets and also the use of Pen Tool. You will ample opportunities to practive layer blending, filters and Free Transform Tools. Have a try!

Here is a preview of the final effect: (click to enlarge)

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive! Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create  a new document with black background, for size I chose 980px * 400px however you can change this according to your own preference. Use 72 pixel/inch for resolution since we’re creating an image used for website.

Now let’s make a new brush preset. To do this, firstly select the brush tool with the following brush:

Then apply the following brush dynamics to it:

Shape Dynamics

Scattering

Other Dynamics

Make sure you also select the Airbrush and Smoothing option.

After finishing making this brush, let’s save it as a new brush preset so that we can use it in the future too. To do this, left-click the down tri-angle on the top right and click “new brush preset”:

And Enter the following into the window popup:

Then you will see the brush preset appear in the brush selection window:

Step 2

Create a new layer call “lines”, grab the Pen Tool and draw the following working path:

Hint: hold down Shift key and drag your mouse upwards approximately 45 degree for both archor points.

Then right-click and select the option “Stroke Path”:

Then choose the option “brush” and tick the “Simulate Pressure”:

And you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Still on this “lines” layer, go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and apply the following settings:

Then hit Ctrl + F and apply the motion blur filter again, and you will have the following effect:

Apply the following Gradient Overlay blending option to this layer:

Then duplicate this layer 4 times and merge the duplicated layer together, you will have the following effect:

Rename this layer as “lines” after the merge.

Step 4

Again we duplicate the “lines” layers 3 times, and you will see the colour of the the spectrum become clearer:

Then we merge those duplicated layer together, then use the Free Transform tool to resize it into the following:

Then we can use the Warp Tool (Ctrl + T and right-click select “Warp”), transform it into the following shape:

And here is the effect after warping:

Step 5

Now we can really just use our imagination and simply duplicate this “lines” layer a few times, rotate and resize each duplicated layer until the outcome is desirable:

Here is my effect so far:

Merge the duplicate layer together.

We can also add a bit of glowing effect to the spectrum lines. To do this, simple duplicate the merged layer and apply the following Gaussian Blur settings: (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur)

Change the blending mode the duplicated layer to “Linear light” and you will have the following effect:

To add some final touches, remember we created a new brush preset in Step 1? We can use it to add some nice dots on the abstract line.

Create a new layer called “dots” on top of all other layers, grab that brush preset and simply paint over the lines:

Then Change the layer blending mode to “Overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Duplicate this “dots” layer and change the blending mode of the duplicated layer back to “normal”, then reduce its opacity to 15% and erase some excessive parts.

You will have the following final effect:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance this image by adding some more effect, textures and filters.

Here is my final version for this tutorial: (Added a bit of cloudy effect and sharpen the image )

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to design this really cool, abstract style site header image in Photoshop, similar to the one I currently have on psdvault.com.

Personally I can see an increasing trend of having a big and eye-catching header image for website/blogs, especially since broadband has become a commodity amongst the majority of the population.

Along the way, we will practice the use of Pen Tool, various image adjustment options, free transformation tool,  layer blending styles and filter effects. Hope you enjoy it!

Here is a preview of my final results:

PSD File Download

You can download the PSD File for this tutorial via the VIP Members Area for only $4.95/Month (or less)! You will not only get this PSD File, but also 40+ other PSD Files + Extra Goodies + Exclusive Photoshop tutorial there. Signup now and get exclusive! Find out more about the VIP Members Areas

Ok let’s get started!

Step 1

Create a document sized 1200 x 600 px (Please note that you may specify any size that you think suitable for your site design, this size can only be used for practice purpose only). Fill the background layer with Black.

Create a new layer called “Radial Gradient Fill” and grab the Gradient Tool (G), select the Radial Fill option and  fill the newly created layer as shown below: (you can specifiy any colour you like)

Then Create a new layer call “Angle Gradient Fill” on top of the “Radial Gradient Fill” layer, set its blending option to “overlay”

use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select the centre portion of the layer, again use the Gradient Tool (Set the foreground colour to white, with transparent background), this time we select the Angle Gradient option, fill the selection as shown below:

Step 2

Duplicate the “Angle Gradient Fill” layer once and keep the blending option of the duplicated layer as “overlay”, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal and flip the layer horizontally. Merge the twol layer together. Keep the blending mode as “overlay” after the merge.

Apply the “Drop Shadow” blending option to the merge layer as shown below:

Then reduce the previous “Radial Gradient Fill” layer opacity to 60% and you will have the following effect:

Then create a new layer in between the previous two layers, name it as “centre light”. Grab a big soft round brush (600px in my case), set the foreground colour to white, and paint a single dot in the centre of the layer:

Set the layer blending mode to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

I decided to give this image a bit more depth and a bit 3D feeling. So on the “Angle gradient fill” layer, hit Ctrl + T and bring up the free transformation tool, choose the “perspective” option and transform this layer as shown below: (reduce the top width)

Here is the result after perspective the layer:

Step 4

Create a new layer called “shineline”, use the Pen Tool to create the a work path as shown below: (For those who are yet to be familiar with pen tool, I have a post here with some useful links to pen tool tutorials)

Then right-click and choose “stroke path” and select “brush” (make sure you select a small soft round brush). Make sure you have “simulate pressure” option enabled as well.

Here is effect so far:

Step 5

Duplicate the “Shineline” layer a few times, use the Free Transformation Tool to rotate, distort, resize the duplicated layer and mixing those lines together:

Merge those dupcliated layers together and duplicate the merged layer a few more times, again use the free transformation tool to add a few more lines on the image:

Duplicate the merged layer, apply Gaussian Blur with the following setting on the duplicated layer:

You should have the following effect so far:

Step 6

Create a new layer called “shining dots”, load the selection of the “shineline” layer, then right-click and select “Make Work Path”:

Select 0.5 pixel tolerance for the work path. Now let’s grab a 3px soft round brush with the following dynamic brush settings:

Also make sure you tick the “Smoothing” option.

On the “shining dots” layer, stroke the path with this brush and you will see the following effect:

Step 7

Now we can add a bit of cloud/smoke at the bottom of those lines. To do this, we simply create a new layer and use the Lasso Tool with 40px feather to select the bottom portion of those shining lines, and go to Filter > Render > Cloud and render some cloud: (set foreground colour as white, background layer as black)

You may notice I also use the Len Flare with following settings to highlight the centre portion of the cloud:

Change the layer blending option to “overlay” and you will have the following effect:

Lastly we place the site name and the navigation on the image:

Ok that’s it for this tutorial! Of course you can further enhance it by adding some other filter effects, change the colour scheme, etc.

Here are my final image for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

Alternative versions:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial, drop me a comment if you have any question, I will try my best to help you out.

Cheers and have a nice day!

In this tutorial, I will show you how to design a Modern Glossy Navigation Bar in Photoshop. This is a beginner tutorial with a just few simple steps, aiming to help beginner web designer for making their first-ever web page.

Skills involved in this tutorials are selection tools, layer blending options, and some simple gradiant filling techniques.  Have a go!

Here is a preview of the final result of this tutorial:

OK let’s get started!

Step 1

Firstly let’s create some background to work with.

Create a new document sized 1000*600px, use the Gradient Tool (with Foreground colour #333333 and Black ground colour #000000) to fill the background layer.

Step 2

Create a new layer and grab a big round brush (I used a 700px brush) with white color, set its opacity and flow to 50%, do several left-clicks (see image below for details):

Step 3

Create a new layer named “Navi Bar”. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to make a selection and fill the selection with Black Colour.

Apply Drop Shadow layer blending option to this layer:

Here is the effect so far:

Step 4

Hold down the Ctrl key and left click on the “Navi Bar” layer to load the selection.

After the selection is loaded, hold down the Alt key and use the Rectangular Marquee tool to make another selection over the existing selection. This will subtract our existing selection.

Step 5

Maintain the selection from the previous step, create a new layer called “glossy” and fill it with White colour. Set the layer opacity and fill opacity to around 30%.

Type some page texts onto the “glossy” layer:

Step 6

Now we can add some mouseover effect! To do this, create a new layer in between the text layer and the “glossy” layer and name it “mouseover”.

Then use the Rectangular Marquee tool to make a selection outside a page text, fill it with White colour and set the layer opacity and fill opacity to around 30% (in layer blending options).

Apply a colour overlay of your choice. I used the following settings:

That’s it for this tutorial! You can add some final touches using preset brushes and apply some texture effects in the background.

Here is my final result of this tutorial:

Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find is useful when you design your own website! If you would like to find how to translater the design into working web pages, study some XHMTL and CSS~ There are plenty of tutorials available on the net about this topic.

If you have any question, just drop me a line below. Thanks and have a nice day :)