The Brainchild Design Studio
On the following pages are images of inspiration and the tools to realize your creative potential.
Below are the fundamentals of a Fashion Design Journal, Portfolio, Fashion Resume styles, Interview Tips, and much more.
Below are the fundamentals of a Fashion Design Journal, Portfolio, Fashion Resume styles, Interview Tips, and much more.
Inspiration Presentation Resources
As a Designer, whether it be fashion, photography, Interior Decorating, Landscape or Architectural Design, one needs to convey the mood and theme effectively to the client or company. Photoshop skills are necessary as you proceed into a techno-savvy and artistic field, and listed below are tips, tricks, techniques and more to add to your repertoire.
Photoshop Tools & Techniques
15 Fresh and Useful Photoshop Tutorials
"Part of being a designer is keeping your skills sharp and up-to-date. Skills may span a broad range of tools, but probably the most used tool of all designers is Photoshop. In this post, we’ve collected 15 fresh and useful Photoshop tutorials to help you brush up on your skills and learn new techniques. The types of tutorials in this collection include text effects, photo manipulation, interface design, and more."
20 Sets of Photoshop Brushes for Vintage Style Design
"Vintage style design is all about making things look old. This can be achieved by using using elements in your designs that appear to be from decades ago, and when done well can create a mood for your web design that will leave a lasting impressions on visitors. In this article, we’ve rounded up a bunch of Photoshop brushes that will be very useful to you when trying to achieve that vintage look."
40+ Vintage & Retro Photoshop Actions
"Photoshop actions can be a huge time saver when trying to add a specific effect to a photo. Since WDL is all about helping you save time and be more productive, we’ve rounded up some Photoshop actions that should come in very useful. This particular collection is for adding a vintage or retro look to your images. There are 49 actions here, so you should be able to find several to help you achieve that perfect vintage or retro look."
80+ Colour Altering Photoshop Actions
"Color plays a major role in photography. It helps set the mood and tone of an image, but it is determined by the type of light present during a shoot. Photographers don’t always have control over this. This is one of many areas where Photoshop can be a valuable tool for photographers. It offers plenty of settings to alter the color of an image, but there are also actions that you can apply with the click of a button. They can be a huge time saver if you find the right one. Here we’ve rounded up over eighty Photoshop actions that you can use to alter the color of your photos."
80+ Photoshop Actions for Giving Your Pictures a Vintage Look
"Photoshop actions are great. If you’re not familiar with actions, they are simply prerecorded adjustments made to a Photoshop file that can be saved and applied to other projects. The concept is simple, but the process to create some actions can be very complicated. That’s why using actions can be a huge time saver. With just a click of a button you can apply a complicated effect to a Photoshop file instantly. In this article, I’ve rounded up over eighty Photoshop actions that will add very cool vintage or retro effects to your photos."
100+ Photography Enhancing Photoshop Actions
"Photoshop actions can be a big time saver, especially when you’re trying to add a specific effect to a photo and you’re not sure how to do it. Thanks to talented and generous Photoshop users, we can simply click a button and our photography can take on a whole new look. For this post we’ve rounded up over 100 Photoshop actions for enhancing your photos. In this collection you’ll notice a wide variety of actions, from vintage effects to amazing color alterations."
100+ Photoshop Actions for Amazing Colour Enhancements
"Color plays a major role in the story that a photograph has to tell, but sometimes the color that the camera captures isn’t exactly what we have in mind. This is where Photoshop can be a big help, and more specifically Photoshop actions. With the click of a button an action can help us achieve time consuming effects in no time. Here are over 100 Photoshop actions that will add amazing color enhancements to your photos."
The Best Free Texture Packs of 2009
"There are a few things that a designer can not have enough of in his or her design arsenal, and one of them is textures. So to continue our “Best of 2009″ series, we’ve selected the best free textures from this past year. Since there were so many textures released in 2009 by so many generous people, it is difficult to choose the best. However, we feel the ones here stand out in quality and usefulness, and will be valuable additions to your texture library."
Brush King - Free Photoshop Brushes
"Brush King is a collection of high quality Photoshop Brushes. You can download them for free and you can use them for your website design or other graphic creations."
* Also includes tutorials Design Tutorials - starting at $3
"Our mission is to help people to earn and to learn, online. We operate marketplaces where hundreds of thousands of people buy and sell digital goods every day, and a network of educational blogs where millions learn creative skills."
Wegraphics
"WeGraphics is the definitive solution for designers who need high-quality resources but don’t want to be obliged to spend hundreds of dollars for them. We daily create vectors, brushes, textures, icons and other amazing stuffs that can be downloaded at a very low price.
One of the feature that distinguish our site from the others that operate in the same market, is that every resources set is provided with a free sample. You can test our creations and touch their quality (and use them into your works!) before decide to subscribe." * Purchase unlimited membership or purchase sets individually * Azigos - Royalty Free Photoshop Brushes
"Azigos is a project launched by Thomas Béal to provide Premium Photoshop Brushes to the design community. With our unique royalty free Brushes, we try to help you to enhance your personal and commercial creations."
* Requires an annual club membership for unlimited access or $4.95 for each brush set* |
Design Resources
8 Cheat Sheet Wallpapers for Designers and Developers
"Web designers and developers have a lot to remember, from keyboard shortcuts to function names. That’s why it’s handy to have cheat sheets near by for a quick reference. Most people like to print out there cheat sheets on paper and have them sitting on their desk, but another convenient place for a cheat sheet is right on your computers desktop in the form of a wallpaper. Here we’ve rounded up a few very useful cheat sheets for web designers and developers that can be used as desktop wallpapers."
The Process of Planning a Perfect Website
"As web designers it is very easy to get lost in our own heads. The process of a web design can be broken into many flavors and styles across the globe. Graphics artists and digital animators are just some of the people getting into building applications for the web."
Mastering Font Combinations
"Remember the days of the Commodore computer? Your word processor had one font family, with an italic and a boldface, if you were lucky. Designing a contrasting header to a computer-generated document required scissors and tape.
Though the output of your dot matrix printer was unmistakable and monotonous, at least you never had to sweat the aesthetics of combining type. Matching heading fonts with body fonts, accent fonts and footnote fonts can be a touchy pursuit. Even perfectly balanced fonts can look ungainly and ugly next to the wrong neighbors. If type is the most important aspect of web design, then combining type is a critical skill." 10 Tech Blogs Web Designers should be Reading
"In the past, we’ve recommended various design blogs for you to read. From learning new techniques to free resources and tools, design blogs can be a great asset. But there’s more to a web designer’s job than just designing. Web designers work in a field that is immersed in technology, and since technology is ever changing, it’s important to stay up-to-date on what’s going on.
For this post, we’re recommending 10 Tech Blogs Web Designers Should Be Reading. From emerging technologies that will change the web, to the best hardware for getting your work done, these blogs will keep you informed." 20 Design Blogs Worth Reading
"With so many web design blogs available on the Internet it can be hard to know which ones are worth checking out, so we have compiled a list of 20 web design/development blogs we think you should try and read. Some of the websites in this list you will have heard of but some are small blogs with fantastic content that we hope you will check out."
Design Business
How to find Local Clients for your Freelance Business
"Finding clients is one of the toughest things for most small businesses. Many people are looking for projects online these days with the widespread use of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites that allow you to connect and chat about business opportunities. These are great ways to find new business across the country and even in different countries, however finding business locally is equally important. Staying local is becoming a big thing today with “being green” becoming increasingly popular."
How to Promote your Design Business on the Cheap
"Ah … the life of a freelancer. It’s not enough that you’re creative and technically savvy. No, you have to be a clever businessperson as well. No matter how talented you are, when starting out you probably won’t get clients unless you pound the pavement for them. But you likely don’t have the time or money to engage in any sophisticated advertising campaign. Fortunately, these days there are plenty of ways to market your business for little to no cash."
Hardware Tools
13 Super Easy Photography Cheat Sheets
"There’s a lot involved in photography, and so many things to remember it can be overwhelming, especially for beginners. Cameras can seem complicated, and photo editing software is packed with features. Then there are concepts like lighting and composition that must be mastered in order to achieve those perfect shots. With so many things to learn, sometimes a little help is welcomed. So for this post, we’ve rounded up a collection of photography cheat sheets and quick references that should come in very handy."
10 Blogs that Help You Become a Photography Expert
"Photography often plays a major role in [fashion] design. So It’s no surprise that many web designers have an interest in it. However, there are so many aspects to photography such as lighting, composition, and equipment features that can make it difficult to master. In this article I’ve rounded up 10 of the best blogs that consistently produce valuable tips and resources to help you with your photography."
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Digital Portfolio Feature:
How to turn your Portfolio or Line Book into an interactive flash player document (.swf) using Adobe InDesign
Working your way up the ladder to success in the fashion industry can mean digital warfare: keeping up to speed with the latest products and programs, social medias, and generally being techno-savvy. Numerous fashion design programs include training on Adobe Creative Suite programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. InDesign is a software that lets you design and pre-flight engaging page layouts for print or digital distribution with built-in creative tools and precise control over typography. It also allows for integrating interactivity, video, and audio for playback on tablets, smartphones, and computers.
Open the program and your file, then click Layout > Pages > Page Transitions > Choose . . .
Open the program and your file, then click Layout > Pages > Page Transitions > Choose . . .
Pick the 'Page Turn (only swf file)'. An .swf file is a vector-based graphics file format, making it compact graphics for the web;
Then go to export InDesign doc. to swf file, it's ready for playback in Flash Player. Make sure you are saving the file in the desire location and feel free to rename it if that's your prerogative.
In the Export Box you have one of two options:
a) Keep the Page turn chosen
b) choose another page transition
If you're choosing to keep the Page turn you also have two choices:
a) Interactive Page Curl (click and drag the corner of the page with the mouse's left button)
b) Buttons (click the corner of the page to flip through without clicking and dragging)
* If you chose option a) be sure that you click the box for the Option of including the Interactive Page Curl
Also in the advanced tab, you have the option to change the image format from jpeg (lossy) to png (lossless) or automatic; Image quality, etc.
a) Keep the Page turn chosen
b) choose another page transition
If you're choosing to keep the Page turn you also have two choices:
a) Interactive Page Curl (click and drag the corner of the page with the mouse's left button)
b) Buttons (click the corner of the page to flip through without clicking and dragging)
* If you chose option a) be sure that you click the box for the Option of including the Interactive Page Curl
Also in the advanced tab, you have the option to change the image format from jpeg (lossy) to png (lossless) or automatic; Image quality, etc.
Specifics to chose from in the Export Dialog Box:
Size (pixels): scaled as percentage, fit monitor, or size you specify (width & height);
Pages: whether all pages to be included, page range;
Spreads:
a) clicked - each spread treated as single clip in .swf file, regardeless of how many pages appear in each spread
b) not clicked - each page acts as separate clip like a slideshow
Rasterize Pages: option converts all InDesign page items to bitmap = larger .swf file and page items may appear jagged when zoomed in on.
Generated html file: option useful for quickly previewing .swf file on web browser
View SWF after exporting: play file on default web browser ( Only applicable if 'General html file' clicked
Text:
a) flash text - searchable text = smallest file size
b) Vector Paths - smooth straight lines (text outlines)
c) Raster Image - text > bitmap image = appearance of turning pages in real book
Interactivity: which to include in export
a) buttons;
b) hyperlinks;
c) page transitions;
d) interactive page curls = Manually OR Buttons / Navigation Guides
Image Compression: *automatic chooses best*
a) JPEG - suitable for colour, grayscale; compression is lossy = removes image data and possibly reduces quality;
* Choosing Lossless exports JPEG without lossy compression, as JPEG is higher quality = amount of detail to be exported higher quality, but also larger file size *
b) PNG - though reduced file size with minimal loss of info
Size (pixels): scaled as percentage, fit monitor, or size you specify (width & height);
Pages: whether all pages to be included, page range;
Spreads:
a) clicked - each spread treated as single clip in .swf file, regardeless of how many pages appear in each spread
b) not clicked - each page acts as separate clip like a slideshow
Rasterize Pages: option converts all InDesign page items to bitmap = larger .swf file and page items may appear jagged when zoomed in on.
Generated html file: option useful for quickly previewing .swf file on web browser
View SWF after exporting: play file on default web browser ( Only applicable if 'General html file' clicked
Text:
a) flash text - searchable text = smallest file size
b) Vector Paths - smooth straight lines (text outlines)
c) Raster Image - text > bitmap image = appearance of turning pages in real book
Interactivity: which to include in export
a) buttons;
b) hyperlinks;
c) page transitions;
d) interactive page curls = Manually OR Buttons / Navigation Guides
Image Compression: *automatic chooses best*
a) JPEG - suitable for colour, grayscale; compression is lossy = removes image data and possibly reduces quality;
* Choosing Lossless exports JPEG without lossy compression, as JPEG is higher quality = amount of detail to be exported higher quality, but also larger file size *
b) PNG - though reduced file size with minimal loss of info