SpyreStudios

Web Design and Development Magazine

Archives for November 2010

The Daft Punk Guide to Bold and Memorable Designs

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Want to create bold and memorable designs? Find unlikely inspiration from one of the most iconic electronic artists of our time: Daft Punk. This article is a 3-step Daft Punk guide to bold and memorable designs.

Daft Punk is a very popular and influential music duo, especially when you consider they come from the relatively underground genre of electronic music. But this humans-turned-robots duo who create irresistible and inventive dance music didn’t become that way by accident. They had key ingredients to their success as bold and memorable music artists.

MOJO Themes Cyber Bundle Giveaway

by 42 Comments

The MOJO Themes Cyber Bundle will take place for 10 days only between November 29th (Cyber Monday) and December 9th. We have partnered with MOJO Themes to give away Cyber Bundles to 3 lucky readers of SpyreStudios.

The Bundle will include some of MOJO Themes’s most popular items. Read more to learn how to enter this giveaway!

Creating a Cartoony Print-Ready Business Card in Photoshop

by 16 Comments

Business cards are your little marketing companions. They’re small enough to carry anywhere, yet big enough to contain all essential details a prospective client has to know about you.

In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to create a print-ready business card in Photoshop. Designs made for printing have to be prepared in a special manner. Before sending to the printer, it’s best to make sure that your file is ready so you can avoid all the hassle of redesigning, or better yet, the anguish brought by a printing disaster.

Showcase Of 30 Amazing Business Card Designs

by 14 Comments

You rarely have a second chance at making a good first impression. This is true with web-design and it’s just as true when it comes to business card design.

Giving away your business card is often the only option you have when you meet someone at a conference or even at the coffee shop, thus the need to grab the person’s attention right away and make sure they remember you when they look at your card later on.

The Power Of The New Crowdsource? The Evolution Of Online Help

by 19 Comments

Crowdsourcing as we know it today is a terrible thing. It basically boils down to clients asking several, even hundreds of freelancers, to provide spec work in the hopes of getting their product chosen and getting paid.

No other industry I can think of does this, and is something that plagues the professional freelancers, as their work becomes devalued, especially if they participate. But I’ve discovered something new…

How To Create a Cute Popup Bar With HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery

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Today we’ll be creating a bar that pops up at the top of a page, and stays above the content (similar to ‘hellobar’). The popup bar was only tested in Chrome and Safari and may not work in other browsers. The bar can be used to display information, for example your latest blog post, to the user.

The way the bar pops out at the top makes sure it’ll be seen. And after the visitor has seen the information, he/she has the option to hide the bar.

Simple Ways To Make More Creative Designs

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Almost every designer wants to be more creative. To make more creative designs. But as you’re well aware of, creativity is a finicky thing – you can’t just be creative at will. Yet some designers just seem to be more creative, more consistently, than others.

How de they do it? Well, one way to easily make more creative designs is to set creative limits on yourself. Doing so can really help you be creative more consistently.

How To Design A Detailed Mini Cooper Icon In Photoshop

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In this tutorial we’re going to learn how to create a large 512×512 car icon, based on a lovely BMW Mini Cooper. We will be using Photoshop to create the icon, using a handful of different techniques.

Open up Photoshop and create a new document by 512x512px. Search the web for an image of a car that you want to create an icon for. In my case, I’m using a front on photo of a Mini Cooper that can be found here.

BrushLovers Giveaway – Comment To Win Some Premium Photoshop Brushes

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BrushLovers is a brand new site dedicated to providing amazing free and premium Photoshop brushes. We’ve partnered up with them to offer 10 downloads (a $30 value) to 5 lucky readers of SpyreStudios.

BrushLovers is owned and run by the cool folks at WebDesignerDepot. The brushes are organized by categories like fractal, texture, vintage, light, nature and a lot more.