Category: Software

iOS7 icons vector
Design, Photoshop, Software, Vector

Free iOS 7 Icons Vector & Android 4.3 UI Design Kits


Designers and developers for iOS & Android App might looking for these free download graphic sources and UI kits. The iOS 7 vector icon sets created by www.freepik.com inclusive of 48 vector icons.

iOS 7 Icons Vector

iOS7 vector icons

  • Format: Adobe Illustrator (zip file)
  • Size: 0.56 mb
  • Download page: iOS7 Vector Icons
    Read the Term of usage

Android 4.3 UI Design Kit

This is the latest released to date for Android OS User Interface Design Kit for Apps designers and developers (if you’re one). Say thanks to Taylor Ling for his passion creating this as free download.

Android 4.3 UI Design Kit for Photoshop & GIMP

  • Format: Adobe Photoshop & GIMP
  • Size: 30 mb (PSD) & 20 mb (GIMP)
  • For: Google Nexus 7 & 4 – basic design kits
  • Download page: Android 4.3 UI Design Kit
    Read the Term of usage



Will looking for Win 8 vector source later, hopefully..

ECommerce Systems Comparison
Software, Web

ECommerce Systems Comparison


 
This Infographic explained the differences among top 3 ECommerce Platforms for you to decide. So you might choose the right one for your Ecommerce or Shopping Cart website. Either it PrestaShop, Magento or OpenCart, lets see..

PrestaShop vs Magento vs OpenCart

PrestaShop vs Magento vs OpenCart

via www.webnethosting.net

Vector Graphic Apps for Android
Design, Software, Vector

Free Vector Graphic Apps for Android


Designers who owned tablets or phablets may have tried several categories of graphic apps in their android gadgets to fully utilize the capability of their big screen devices. But there are not many good vector graphic applications can be found for Android just like iOS vector apps, especially for free versions. Here are some names we can found for Free Vector Graphic Apps for android collections that you can try.

 

Infinite Design

Infinite Design is a professional vector graphics app which lets you create complex and beautiful designs effortlessly on your mobile device. With path editing and a unique pen tool feature, infinite undo & redo, import images from your gallery, camera, or the web. Save as JPEG, PNG (without background), PSD and export path data to SVG for editing in your favorite graphics editor.

Simplector

Simplector is a simple vector SVG editor for your android tabs and normal size smart phones that supports simple figures (rectangles, ellipses) as well as Bézier curve, path, text and raster images. Provides basic operations such as copy & paste, scaling, rotation, undo/redo. Images created in Simplector can be loaded in other SVG enabled tools such as Inkscape.

ScribMaster draw & paint

ScribMaster

ScribMaster is a powerful painting and drawing app specifically designed for large screens phones & tablets. The paint engine works with scalable vectors instead of pixels, so you can zoom in and work on fine details without pixelation (the filling tool is an exception, it works with bitmaps). For vectoring ScribMaster use the SVG format, you can export your images to your pc for professional editing in this format.


Vector Artist

Create arts with shapes and curves with this app the way professionals do. Use standard shapes or “bezier” curves. Load SVG graphics to edit and modify. Create graphics, icons or designs and save as SVG or PNG to your gallery or share them on Tumblr, DropBox, email and other places.

Write

Write is a word processor for handwriting. In addition to all the usual features of a vector drawing application, it provides a unique set of tools for editing and navigating handwritten documents. Write is perfect for note-taking, brainstorming, and drawing. Write is also available for Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

If you have some recommendation for free vector graphic apps for android, please suggest us, we will update the list.

Software, Web

Brand Guideline


The Brand Guideline which are normally produced by the company itself or their appointed agency, explains on how to show or labels their brand’s mark – the logo, typeface, tagline and their color schemes in a proper way according to their corporate standard. Usually the Brand Guidelines explains their brand’s logo in brief with some important specifications for users to follow:

    • The logo sets are normally provided with soft-copy in full colors, 1 color, positive & negative (inverted color)

 

 

    • The fonts used are normally supplied and shown as sample

 

    • The arrangement of the logo, position, circumference margins & the proportionate

 

  • The Do’s & Don’ts on how to apply it

We will see here some of the internet social media brands since many of us using these brands in exposing our contact labels that we might use to show on our site or printed materials, if any..

Google +

Google plus is actively updating their social media lately to cope up among top 3 social networks on the net. They also do provide sign-in features via G+

The Guideline:

The arrangement, the color, font used & size, padding are clearly shown here.

The Do’s & Don’ts

The use of other logo than Google plus logo is not wise. People or your visitors will confused on the wrong logo being used.

See Google + Branding Guidelines

Twitter

 

Recently Twitter update their new logo design replacing the old bird. As one of the top influence social networks on the net especially in feeding live news all around the globe. It was said the Arab Spring is the ‘twitter revolution’.. Anyway, here are their brand guidelines.

The Do’s & Don’ts

modifying the original logo always being a bad attitude..

keep on update with the latest logo..

The Use

how about you wearing @yourname or #yourtag on your Tee Shirt design and get free followers ;)

See more Twitter Logo & Brand Display Policy


Facebook

 

As the most used social media for individuals or products, you might find out how ‘to branding’ your contact with the f label..

Check out Using Facebook Brand Assets

YouTube

There are many top performers born via YouTube.. oh yeah the Gangnam (should we say more?). Anyway if you’re promoting your own musics videos offline, read their Brand Guidelines, you can download the official YouTube vector files in ai, eps, pdf format for your project there.

So these are the standard practice on how to use registered trade mark logo or brands in our project, adverts, etc. Normally your clients will provide you with their official Brand Assets to be use, just make sure they provide it.. unless you’re the designer of their assets.

Ramadan Kareem vector
Vector

Free Ramadan Vector To Download

Free vectors of Ramadan Kareem & Ramadan Mubarak designs to download, where designers usually looking for the Ramadan Calligraphy vector to download and to be used in their designs. Here are some familiar vector for Ramadan we can get online free to use, read the license or terms if any.

 

Ramadan Vector with Background

 

Ramadan Kareem 3 camels

Ramadan Kareem – 3 camels

 

Ramadan Kareem sihouette

Ramadan Kareem Card – Silhouette

 

Ramadan Kareem purple

Ramadan Kareem vector – Silhouette purple


Ramadan Vector Calligraphy

 

Ramadan Calligraphy

Ramadan Calligraphy 2011 (PDF)

 

Ramadan Calligraphy old paper

Ramadan vector brown

 

Ramadan Khat

Ramadan 4 vectors

 

Ramadan Khat

Ramadan EPS

 

Ramadan Kareem vector

Ramadan Vector kufi

 

Ramadan vectors

Ramadan Collections

some vectors seem familiar right..

 

Ramadan in Photoshop Brush

 

Ramadan Photoshop Brush

Ramadan Brushes in ABR format for Photoshop Brush

 

Get the new fresh Beautiful Ramadan Calligraphy Vectors Free To Download

 

Credits to their respective owners for all the Free Ramadan Vector To Download.

Google Products
Design, Software, Web

Visual Design for Google

Google Products

Google’s visual redesign identity project was inspired by the CEO Larry Page in 2011 to enhance the company’s main products identity including search, maps, mail and software suite especially app icons and the UI elements. The project was then started in January 2012 leads by their senior graphic designer Roger Oddone, art director Christopher Bettig and with their designers team.

Gmail icon design

The are simple, modern, friendly and sometimes quirky. Product icons are highly simplified, exaggerated and caricatured in nature so that they are appropriate for use at small size.

Let’s see how the design dept of Creative Lab behind this internet giant develop and redesign the User Interface (UI) of Google’s visual assets for their products and become guidelines for their product’s UI designers, app developers and their vendors. The style then being trendy all over the net.

Redesign Process

Google Earth
Google Earth
Design on White background
Design on Dark background

 

Corporate color
Simplified from 3D to Flat Design
Simplified from 3D to Flat Design

 

The Design Principles

The designs should be simple, straight forward and user friendly, so they are several rules to be made clear.

Good Geometric Shape – the more geometrical shapes used, the better and make it as precise as possible.

Design Principle - Geometric
Geometric

.

Front Facing – front view and symmetrical shapes always communicate better for user compared to isometric 3D style.

Design Principle - Front Facing
Front Facing

.

Flat & Shadow – flat design looks clean & beautiful, light and fast loading.

Flat & Shadow
Flat & Shadow

.

Pixel Perfect – as these designs are tiny and for screen devices, always make sure the pixels are in their grid to keep them perfect for HD or retina screen.

Design Principle - Pixel Perfect
Pixel Perfect

 

Source: Google Visual Assets Guidelines P1 | Google Visual Assets Guidelines P2
a

Visual Design for Google seems getting smatter and lighter. We might probably see Google start transforming their visual assets into SVG near future..

cmyk
Photoshop, Software, Vector

Printing Guide – ID, PS, Ai, PDF


cmyk

The latest Adobe Printing Guide version CS6 for designers, advertising agency, printing and creative industries is a must have printing guide book especially for Adobe design apps users. This free 149 pages ebook by Adobe Design Center focus on mostly used Adobe apps for design and printing production which are:

  • PDF Creation – in Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop & Acrobat
  • InDesign CS6 – New Features, Preparing InDesign Documents for Output, Working With a Book File, etc.
  • Photoshop CS6 – New Features, Color Mode, Image Format, Printing from Photoshop
  • Illustrator CS6 – New Features, Live Effects, Complex File, Examining Customer Files, Forensic Tools, Printing from illustrator, etc.
  • Acrobat X Pro – Improved Features, Overprint Preview, Print Production Tools, Editing PDF Files, many more.
Adobe Printing Guide

 

“While this document is focused on the needs and requirements of printers, it is also useful for production artists who are preparing files for print” – Adobe

What This Guide Is Intended to Do

This guide serves as both a detailed technical reference for handling Creative Suite 6 files from your customers, and as a training tool for your staff. For example, this guide will introduce you to forensic tools, such as the Overprint Preview option in Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat X Pro, as well as the Output Preview function in Acrobat, all of which are invaluable in highlighting potential problems. The earlier you can pinpoint problems in a job, the less expensive and complicated they are to rectify.

Go get the Adobe Creative Suite Printing Guide

Adobe CC Apps
Software

Adobe CS To Adobe CC

Adobe CC
The New Adobe Creative Cloud Apps

Adobe recently (early May) announced the end of Creative Suite (Adobe CS) and they will replaced with the new rebranded Adobe Creative Cloud (Adobe CC). Expect no more Illustrator CS7 or Photoshop CS7 for the next version, but the new Illustrator CC, Photoshop CC instead, and other Adobe apps. So what does this means to users.. well, there will no more Adobe products will be sold in a box in the future as right now. Adobe introduced Creative Cloud paid subscription service for users and this is the only way we will get the new versions of all their products.

Adobe CC Apps
Adobe CC Apps

Adobe Creative Cloud will be available in 17 June 2013, is not actually a cloud service that we might imagine, since the software or the apps itself will be installed locally (in user’s pc), and will not run in the browser. Users will need to verify their subscription once a month and they will get access to the cloud platform for few services provided by Adobe including 20GB storage. You can find out more on Adobe CC FAQ.

Reviews

Following some reviews from top site covering Adobe news, we found many users, designers to be specific, all over the world express their negative feed back to this Adobe’s transition. Many designers said they will stick with the last version of the apps they used, such as Illustrator CS6 and refuse to subscribe (upgrade). Here are some negative reviews:


Pricing

The main concern of haters is the pricing and fees for using Adobe CC apps for long term commitments, but CNet was make comparison among those CS versions vs CC versions, and bear in mind that with Adobe CC you get various apps in the cloud plus other services. See the pricing chart below..

CS cost vs CC cost for 3 years commitment | CNet

Interested to try..? You can start with the cheapest individual fee for only one app, or if your’e student / teacher at $19.99 per month. If you want to try first for free 30 days with limited service, see the pricing options.

Piracy

Some thought that Adobe’s moved to fight piracy as the main concern but ironically the company itself said they could see an increase in piracy since the Creative Cloud apps are running offline and no guarantee the apps could not be cracked. Unless Adobe CC is running live online via browser might reduce this issue.. though it’s not a good idea.

Opinion

Adobe has made a right move along the way and with the popular demand of cloud services especially the continues supports from mobile industry, they’ve moved one step ahead to keep their product brands lead. We could expect more designer’s apps ‘in the pocket’ sooner or later. Did you know Adobe Touch Apps for Android & iOS..?

Photoshop, Software

Photoshop.com To Adobe Revel

Have you been using Photoshop.com free online storage for your photo album..? If you’re using it probably you’ve received their email reminder asking you to move all your photos in your Photoshop.com account to the new Adobe Revel before 18 June 2013, the last date given to users to save (download) all our photos in there. Unless you have your backup offline, you can just ignore it.

Photoshop.com

photoshop.com logo

Previously one of the main feature available in Photoshop.com is free up to 2GB online storage for users to upload photos and the integration with Photoshop Express Editor to edit our uploaded photos in the library (since 2007 if I’m not mistaken).

Photosho.com to Adobe Revel
Photosho.com to Adobe Revel

Seems like Photoshop.com just removes the online storage features from it and remain (or they upgrade) the site as a one-stop Photoshop related stuffs and news.

Adobe Revel

Adobe Revel logo

On the other site, the Adobe Revel (it’s the upgrade version of previously paid apps Adobe Carousel), developed as a new cloud storage for users to synchronize photos (jpeg only for now) from any devices just like dropbox, and has the features to share the photos to anywhere with our friends just like instagram (ok no need to explain). Surely (and hopefully) Adobe (will always) consider your photos are your photos, not like Instagram controversial policy previously mentioned – ‘your image belong to us’.

Adobe Cloud

Anyway the move made by Adobe itself considered a good start from the giant design’s software (they should start earlier) as free service besides the paid version, just like Google established their Google Drive, Microsoft with Skydrive, Apple with iCloud and some more familiar brands of free & paid cloud storage.

Comparison of Free vs Paid Adobe Revel

Revel (Free)

  • Unlimited Importing – Free for First 30 days
  • Monthly Import – 50 Photos / month
  • Cost – Free

Revel Premium (Paid)

  • Unlimited Importing – Always
  • Monthly Import – Unlimited
  • Cost – US$5.99 /month
Adobe Revel features
Adobe Revel features

While briefly test the features of Adobe Revel by uploading some photos of mine (I’m bit particular of my personal photos), I’m looking for the ‘private setting’ button on the dashboard – ‘Library’ to be exact. But the interface looks too minimal and I can’t find any setting for the album created or for a single photo to set as private. The answer was actually mentioned in the ‘Features‘..

Every photo you upload and every album you create is private by default.

So no worry for your personal photos every time you sync from your mobile or other devices. Only photos that are save to be shared can manually be share, click button Albums and click on one of your created Albums then menu Share (with icon) will appear, simply click to Share. Well you may try it yourself if you not using it yet.

Pro

Adobe Revel should be the choice of designers especially for Adobe users to use cloud photo sharing and apps.

Con

But for the time being, Adobe still (since Adobe Carousel in 2011) support only for Mac & iPad users, not yet fully support for Windows & Android devices, and perhaps this kind of limitation make it hard to compete with others top Free Cloud Storage available. Sometimes I wonder, ‘does Apple deal with Adobe to keep Revel stick with iOS only’..? Another bad point, it’s only for Jpeg image..!!

Android users still can use it using Adobe Revel Importer, though its not a full version.