Entries Tagged as 'Benn'

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Copy now, innovate later

Hey.  I’m going to take this opportunity to let you in on the process I use to teach myself how to do complicated graphics related tasks.  I find something I like, try to copy it, then use those techniques in my own original works.
So what we are going to do with this tutorial is to [...]

Monday, August 18th, 2008

The Best of “Inkscape on youtube”

Hey, here’s the deal.  I was going to show off my brand new mic and make an inkscape tutorial for making buttons that are just a touch more advanced than what I featured two weeks ago.  However, after watching rfquerin’s youtube video about making buttons, I figured that I couldn’t make a better one myself [...]

Monday, August 11th, 2008

OSS and Me

It’s no lie.  OSS and me are tight.  We’re like this [fingers crossed].  To use a relatively overlooked trendy superlative from a few years ago, OSS is BOSS.

Monday, August 4th, 2008

Web 2.0 Button Crash Course

Hi, as promised, here I explain how to create zippy web 2.0 buttons. This tutorial uses the open-source (free!) program, Inkscape, to create and edit shapes. Get your copy at Inkscape.org.

Monday, July 28th, 2008

Cultivating that Web 2.0 shimmer

What do all the big guys have that you don’t. Millions of clicks, millions of dollars, untold brand equity. Okay, that might all be true, but what else? I’ll bet you all the money I don’t have, that your buttons are one shiny difference.
Let me take you on a quick guided tour, [...]

Monday, July 21st, 2008

What’s cooler than Kuler?

I just wanted to take a minute and share with you all a great little site, for testing color schemes. It’s very important that you have a distinctive color theme for your site. It will provide brand recognition and augment your consistency which will both lead to a feeling of trust and solidarity, [...]

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Photo Essentials #3: Equipment

The final key to taking great pictures is making the right choices in equipment.  Let’s start at the floor and work up.  The first step is pretty easy.  You absolutely need a tripod.  To fully control the situation, there’s nothing better than a tripod.  It doesn’t need to be anything fancy, but holding the camera [...]

Monday, July 7th, 2008

Photo Essential #2: Backdrop

Photo essential #2 for great pictures (specifically pictures that are going to be edited), is a proper backdrop.  A backdrop does achieves two major goals for us in product shots.  First, it provides a nice consistent background color which will make it easier for the computer to pick up and single out.  Second, it give [...]

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Photo Essential #1: Lighting

In my blog post last week (Product Pictures Part Deux), I dropped a quick suggestion that really deserved more time than I gave it, so I am dedicating an entire series to the cause.  Before I linked to my second GIMP tutorial, I said that the most important tip for making your product pictures look [...]

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Product Pictures Part Deux

This week I have put together another video tutorial for the GIMP concerning product pictures. Fortunately (or unfortunately), this week’s video has audio commentary by yours truly. Kadeera had asked me to be more clear about how to cut out a product picture for a website like you see on most e-commerce sites, and [...]