Nippon Katana Illustration

Is very hot in Turin in these days and I try to spend all my spare time in places where you can brethe a little of freshness.
In addition the DSL connection in the new home is completely absent. That's why I only posted just a couple of things this month.
By the way, during the Final of the World Cup in South Africa, I've found time for creating this illustration: "Ni-hon" (Japan) kanji + katana blade.
I want to share it with you and I hope you can enjoy.
Bye!

Nippon Katana Illustration (4 Mb)

Using the Rectangular Grid Tool to Create a Fancy Cover

Today we are going to use some nice tools available in Illustrator that can be useful in several occasions. I’ll create a Folder but the important thing is the technique more than the final result. I say this because the use of different options of the same tool can bring different results. After you have learned the technique it’s all up to your creativity.

Create a New Artboard A3 size and fill it with black.
Create a rectangle that takes all the artboard and fill it with blue.
Double click on the Rectangular grid tool. The option tool window opens and you can mange some options.

Use the following parameters:

Create the grid holding and releasing the left mouse button.
Set up the color and thickness of the stroke. I chose a light blue as color and 8 as thickness.

This is what you get
Select the object than go to Object>Ungroup.

Every single line is now independent from the others.
Select again and go to Object>Transform>Transform each.

Check the Reset Box and the Preview box and play with the options till you reach a good-looking result. This are the setting that I've used and the result.
Than you can make some adjustment to suite your needs. For example I added some company information and selected the logo place.

Best Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, QuarkXPress Cheatsheet for Designers

Keyboard shortcuts to invoke a command are something essential for everyone who use professionally a computer.
Shortcuts improve your efficiency, make you easy working with the pen tablet because you don't have continuously run to click the right tool, zooming, selecting etc.

Particularly, Adobe family software do an extensive use of shortcuts.
There are myriad of commands and they are slightly different whether you use a Mac or a Pc. Obviously the best way to improve their use is USING them as well. By the way is not easy to learn them without practicing because they involve even four buttons combination. You have to be able to move your hands on the keyboard like a pianist.

Although you are able to change the keywords settings from the Preferences menu, I suggest to keep the default ones. In this way you already have the habit with the standard shortcuts even if you change computer, at home, at work or in other place.

Now then a list of useful links where you can download useful cheatsheets for Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator and QuarkXPress.

Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator from Computer Arts




Photoshop only from Trevor Morris Photographics

Complete graphic software shortcuts collection for Mac or Pc thanks to Noble Desktop, even QuarkXPress!

Devcheatsheet, a complete repository for many different software cheatsheets with the dedicated pages:

Indesign

Photoshop



Illustrator




Other references:
Sixrevisions.com - Cheat Sheets for Web Designers
Sixrevisions.com - 40 Useful Cheat Sheets for Designers

Free 2010 Illustrator Calendar

In this period, the New Year is coming and I like to create 2010 calendars with Illustrator.
I found this script from Kelsos's Corner useful to automatic create dates and months. The script final product is not really creative but can help to avoid annoying clicks.
The use is easy and, just to test it, I created this small calendar that now I want to share with you all.
You can free download it in .ai format to easily mange it or in pdf ones for a direct printing and use.

 .ai version
.pdf version