I had this idea a while back to try and designing something fun and for myself everyday for at least 30 days. That idea lasted for about three days! Work, family, and personal projects are a hard thing to put on hold, even if only for a hour. Im sure the idea is one that I will revisit once some of my personal projects get to a more self sustaining nature.

In the meantime, I decided to give away the files that I did create. This weeks is a slick looking video player. I haven’t the first clue on how to code these sorts of things, so if you end up coding this, drop me a line, a I would love to see it!

Feel free to do whatever you want with this except resell it as is.

Graphic River

Tired of paying $30+ for icon sets an vector files? Check out the Graphic RIver market place where you can get quality icon sets, textures, and more starting at just $2!

Visit the Website

DOWNLOAD HERE

I don’t know about you, but I can never get enough pf watercolor and paint textures. They come in handy for so many designs and styles. I have been playing around with some various painting techniques so that I can create some cool resources for you guys. This is one of my first attempts at doing just that. This set includes two large images of some red, yellow, and blue paint textures.

These are free to use for anything you want. If you want to link back to the blog, that’s cool. I’d also love to see what you do with it, but that’s not required.

Download for Free

Unless otherwise noted in the downloaded files, you can use this set for any of your projects for free and without any restrictions. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

Contribute a Free Resource

We love seeing what designers come up with. We are always on the look out for creative and quality resources to feature on the site.

If you would like to contribute a free resource such as a font, WordPress theme, Photoshop brushes, Icon set, etc; please let us know. Aside from being your best friend forever, we will also promote you and your business within the release post of your free resource if you would like.

Let me say right off the bat that this is a 100% unsponsored review for Go Media. I recently decided to give some of their products a try and was so impressed with the quality of them that I decided to do a little promotion on their behalf. I have however added my own affiliate links, so if you find this post useful, please help me out by using them.

About Go Media Arsenal
If you have happened to miss the slew of affiliate ads for the Go Media Arsenal you must have some serious ad blindness. But, for those of you who have never heard of, or at least checked out, Go Media’s Arsenal, let me give you a quick run down of what they offer.

The Go Media Arsenal consists of super high quality Photoshop Brushes, Vector Packs, Textures, and a few Fonts.

What Products I Used
I have been working on a redesign for Outlaw Design Blog for a while now in my spare time. The current layout and design just isn’t doing it for me anymore. Anyways, I decided I wanted a combination of the hand drawn look, a nice bit of grunge, and some bold color and textures. Because this is right up Go Medias alley, I decided to see what they had going on.

After browsing the site for a bit I came away with the following products:

Watercolor Set 2 $34

Tattered Scrolls Photoshop Brush $9.80

Blood Drips Photoshop Brush $9.80

Edges Photoshop Brush $9.80

Brush Strokes Photoshop Brush $9.80

Final Thoughts
All and all Im really impressed with everything I bought. I liked knowing that what I was getting was quality. With free brushes and textures you never really know how good they will be. Withe the Go Media Arsenal though, you can rest assured that everything you buy is top of the line. I will definitely be going back for more in the future.

Your Thoughts
Have any of you guys used anything from the Go Media Arsenal? If so, what did you think? If not, how come?

Wow….I didnt realize how long it had been since I visited BittBox. I went there looking for some grunge brushes and found whole slew of new things. If you have never checked out BittBox, I highly suggest you do. He regularly puts out some great free resources. From photoshop brushes to high quality vectors, this guy does it all. He even has a handfull of basic tutorials and other cool things.

Go check it out his site, BittBox

Here are some of my favorite resources from there:

Free High Res Photoshop Brushes: Grungy Texture

Free Hi-Res Watercolor Photoshop Brushes

Free Hi-Res Photoshop Brushes: Messy Spraypaint

I have been obsessed with the movie Fight Club ever since it hit the big screen. During a late night viewing of the movie the other night, it hit me that the basic rules of Fight Club can teach us a lot about the business of freelancing. Think I’m joking? Check out the rules:

1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.
This rule can be interpreted any number of ways. However, I like to think of this rule as meaning you shouldn’t talk about you bad clients to other clients. While some will be OK with it and may even swap stories with you, there are other clients might not feel comfortable with your badmouthing. Keep it professional and only bring up past clients if it is in your best interest to do so.

2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.
Again, keep it professional and don’t talk bad about your clients to other clients.

3rd RULE: If someone says “stop” or goes limp, taps out the fight is over.
Know when to say enough is enough. Freelancers early into their career tend to have a problem telling clients no. Some clients will walk all over you asking for “extras” and “small changes” all day long unless you put your foot down. Create an invoice that shows everything that is included in your original price quote. If the client starts to ask for more than whats included, refer back to the invoice. Let them know that you will be happy to do it, but it will cost extra.

4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight.
Build a tight team of co-workers. Create a support team and build up a close relationship with them. Having a core team of other writers, developers, designers, etc is an invaluable tool to have in your arsenal. Don’t just exchange contact information with others, but really connect with them. Offer to do some small work for them for free so that they can get an idea of what its like to work with you. This will help to build a reliable network of peers that you can count on.

5th RULE: One fight at a time.
Don’t take on more than you can handle. This is a problem of many freelancers. Freelancing is a famine or feast occupation and as such we don’t like to turn away work. While steady work is great, having too much is not. Know how much you can handle at once and don’t be afraid to pass work on to others. Odds are who ever you pass work on to will likely return the favor one day.

6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.
Don’t forget why you love freelancing. Sometimes the cons of freelancing can outweigh the pros. Usually this is just a temporary thing, so keep your head up. When things get rough, just remember where you would be if you weren’t freelancing. You can go to work in your underwear if you want, drink beer while you work, and take a quick Wii break. Could you do that before you started freelancing?

7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.
All nighters will happen. Its just the way it is in freelancing. Be ready to commit to a project so that you can meet your deadline, even if it means pulling an all nighter. Meeting deadlines and putting in extra hours on a project pays off in the run. Clients will appreciate your ability to stick to a schedule and will tell others about it.

8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight.
Just start freelancing. If you have been sitting on the fence a while about whether you should start freelancing or not, just do it. Decide right now to start freelancing and make it happen. Start reading up on what steps to take from here and just do it.

Image By: Spade13th

It seems glowing things are all the rage these days. As such, I thought I’d share with you a simple Photoshop tutorial that shows you how to create glowing lines. The end result is a cool effect perfect for backgrounds, wallpapers, rave flyer’s, and other design projects.

Check out the tutorial here.

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I have always hated the majority of Photoshop tutorial sites out there. The majority of them simply share half ass tutorials of lame designs. So its always nice to see well made tutorials that are actually useful.

My buddy over at PS Hero has continually shelled out awesome tutorials that teach you skills you can actually use with end results that are worth showing off. In efforts to help promote him, I wanted to show off 10 of my favorite tutorials that he has put together.

If you like these tutorials, be sure to visit his site and let him know you found it via Outlaw Design Blog.

By: Verne Ho

Photoshop Tutorial – Notepad Sketches

I always like finding new photoshop tutorials that you dont see everyday. So many of the tutorials floating around the internet are the same concepts, but just rehashed over and over. That why I particularly like this notepad sketch tutorial. It shows you some simply complex photoshop skills in a very thought out way. Al in all its a nice and easy tutorial with a sweet outcome.

“It should be noted that much of the work in this tutorial can be replaced by simply purchasing stock photos of notepads. However, if you’re not into spending money or aren’t able to find a stock photo that suits your needs, then this tutorial is for you.”

Creative Briefing – Notepad Sketches

Grunge Set 1 – By Outlaw Design

We finally got around to making our first Photoshop Brush Set. This set of Photoshop brushes contains 5 grunge style brushes made from 5 different grunge style textures. Feel free to download these grunge style Photoshop brushes and do as you please. The only thing we ask is that you share your work with us in our Flickr Group.

We will be creating more Photoshop brushes as time goes on. If there are any styles or types of Photoshop brushes you would like to see, please drop us a line or leave a comment.

We are also interested in seeing any Photoshop brushes you have created. Please leave a comment with a link to your brushes. If we like them, we might feature them on Outlaw Design Blog.

More Grunge Resources on Outlaw Design Blog

• Free Photoshop Brush – Grunge Set 1
• 63 Must Have Grunge Fonts
• Free Grunge Style Resources
• 10 Awesome Grunge Fonts
• Free Grunge Style Brushes

Graphic designers, are you looking for some cool wallpaper for your computer? Tired of all the crappy wallpaper websites out there with nothing but pictures of Britney Spears before she got fat? Well I have spent a few hours gathering some cool wallpapers especially for designers.

Check out the stuff below for some really cool wallpapers for designers and other cool people.

Feel free to share a link to your favorite wallpapers and wallpaper sites. Add your links to the comments and share the love!