10 Tips for Creative Professionals : How to Survive a Job Interview

Are you the kind of person that — no matter how many job interviews you attend — you’re a ball of nervous energy? You’re not alone! In the following article I will share a few tips on how to be prepared and sail though your interview like a professional.

Do Your Research

Before you even apply for a job, you should do some research into the company or business advertising. A few years ago this would have been a time consuming task, but now, with the popularity of "online marketing", all the information you need is just a few mouse clicks away. Before your interview, you should have a clear idea about the size of the company/business, the kind of work or clients they have and what role they would expect you to work in. Knowing a bit about the company or business that is interviewing you will always come in handy. There’s nothing worse than being asked "so… do you know much about our business" when the answer is no!

If you find out that the job you have an interview for isn’t really what you’re looking for, there’s no harm in attending the interview anyway… practice makes perfect.

Read More : http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-survive-a-job-interview-10-tips-for-creative-professionals/

iPhone Interface Design

Without a doubt the iPhone has revolutionized the mobile phone industry. This piece of technology has pushed the boundaries of creativity, offering developers a new environment. The appearance of the first iPhone model not only changed the way we use a cell phone, but has forced developers to focus on design and usability.

Below you can see 30 hand picked examples of interface design.

Golfscape GPS Rangefinder

Augmented Reality Rangefinder – An Exciting New Way To View Distances On 35,000+ Golf Courses

Fotopedia Heritage

This app was recently selected as one of the top 50 apps of all time in Apple’s new Hall of Fame. With 25,000 awe-inspiring photos, this much loved app has been called the world’s largest photo book, an inspiring travel guide, an entertaining teaching device and even a bed-time relaxation tool.

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Tips : How to Create an Attractive 404 Error Page?

Often it looks awful showing the default design of 404 error page. Here are some points to do when designing an attractive and useful 404 error page for your site.

Tell Them That it`s ok

It’s obvious that you need to impart this message to the visitors so they will understand that the information/content they’re searching for is not available at the moment. You can say it briefly, like “Oh no! how could this happen? It’s embarrassing, don’t worry we’ll fix it soon”. Try other interesting words that you believe suit your visitors taste/style. And remember; don’t use sentences that put the blame on the visitors.

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Useful Google Apps You Need To Know

Writers have to manage a lot of things to manage like note pads, sticky notes, brainstorming lists, correspondence with their clients and editors. A part from that there is always lots of material and personal documents on the desk of writers which took a lot of space and time at their home or at work place. Google keep on making things easier in order to manage all such stuff by introducing its new tools and applications in market. So for writers below some top picks for the most useful Google apps are mentioned.

For Home Office and Organization

1. Desktop: With your desktop you can search your computer. You can retrieve email, files and much more very easily and more efficiently.

2. Toolbar: The toolbar of Fire fox find suggestions for your searches, you can add buttons which provide you quick access to different web sites. You can also share web pages.

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Redesigning Amazon

I think we can all agree Amazon.com is a pretty uninspiring website, no revelation there. They were once known for pioneering much of what is now referred to as ‘standards’ in ecommerce. These days, the online giant is looking a little worse for wear. Personally, I’ve been avoiding the website for years because of how unappealing I find it, so when I recently went to buy a Kindle I was not surprised to learn of some major fragmentation and usability problems.

Brief History

Let me back up a bit, back in the 90′s US websites were notorious for providing very limited or no shipping options to international customers. Even today, American websites that do offer international shipping generally have bloated or unreasonable pricing. Take one look at eBay and you’ll see what I mean. I’m a massive eBay user, and if you live outside of America you may have noticed other countries (especially the UK) are offering very cheap or even free shipping. Given America’s current economic climate, I think it’s extremely important that large corporations like Amazon don’t shaft their international buyers by treating them like second class citizens. If they keep doing an average job, someone will come along with an above average solution and Amazon will be the next Yahoo… There, I said it!

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Photoshop Tutorials : 20 Best Mind Blowing Tutorials

This is the best compilation for finding the best high quality design tutorials with the end outcome simply spectacular which most certainly will blow your mind. I hope you enjoy the end of year Photoshop Wrap let us know which is your favourite tutorial from the compilation.

Create a Fantastic Abstract Fan Poster

In this tutorial, you are going to get creative with layering, lighting, and texture to build fantastic abstract piece. More specifically, we’re going to employ some unusual techniques to make a fan poster for the band Omega Code, but you’ll quickly see many different applications for what is taught here.

Tutorial

Make a Soft Grunge Product Ad Design in Photoshop

In this graphic design tutorial, you’ll create a poster with light grunge features centered around a Nike shoe. Graphics designers are often asked to work on advertisement campaigns. Great projects are realized in collaboration with several creative minds specialized in different matters, all under the direction of an art director. Small firms, on the other hand, generally contract out a single graphic designer and give them detailed instructions on how create their ad poster design.

Tutorial

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Poster Designing : Useful Tips and Tricks

Like brochures, flyers, postcards and business cards, posters are one of the highly efficient communication tools being used nowadays. Owing to their ability to be accessible to greater masses of people, posters are part of the street semiotics since their inception. Although, the world is pacing towards new and more advanced mediums of communication, however the importance of posters cannot be undermined.

Posters are designed to communicate a message and to cause great impact on the onlooker, however, this too is a fact that neither a passersby nor a driver will stop to read them and consume the message being conveyed. So in order to make the posters more communicating, they should be precise regarding the message, colors and the elements being used to convey it. Much like designing printed business cards, once you learn the tricks of the trade you’ll be designing posters with ease.

Following are some tips to design a call-to-action and well-balanced poster that will work as a key marketing element conveying an unforgettable message immediately.

Tips and Tricks for Poster Designing

Read More : http://www.tutoriallounge.com/2010/12/tips-and-tricks-for-poster-designing/

Tron: Poster trilogy

In anticipation of the upcoming Tron Legacy film, I decided last year to create my own Tron Legacy film poster, in the way I would prefer to see films portrayed. The iconic disc and light cycle trails were the most direct and recognizable method of showing a Tron film on a poster, without the need of actors head shots or giant credits. The Tron franchise was built on showing dazzling new effects on screen and I wanted my poster to resonate that idea.

After the success of my first poster design, I decided to pursue 2 more Tron poster designs exploring the updated style of the new film, and finally a poster to represent the original 1982 film. Presented here is the Signalnoise Tron poster trilogy.

Tron: Poster trilogy

By : James White

Dev & Design Resources for Building Better Sites and Apps

Whether you want to improve your existing skills or learn new ones, we’ve provided plenty of web design and development resources in the past year.

Here we recap the best posts that fell into this creative category. These include a wealth of tutorials, resources, galleries, interviews and more.

Have a read below for a look back at Mashable (Mashable)’s Dev and Design resources from 2010, and be sure to keep coming back next year for more.

Dev & Design Resources for Building Better Sites and Apps

Photoshop is one of the primary tools in the digital designer’s belt. We got you up and running with the imaging software in 2010.

• 8 Photoshop Tutorials for Retouching Your Profile Pic
• 9 Free Resources for Learning Photoshop
• 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started With Photoshop
• 10 Fantastic Photoshop Tutorials on YouTube

Read More Here : http://mashable.com/2010/12/30/dev-design-resources/

Creative Calendar Designs for 2011 : 30 Examples

The New Year is the day that marks the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which all calendars are replaced. In many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner. The New Year of the Gregorian calendar, which is used worldwide, falls on January 1st. continuing the practice of the Roman calendar. There are numerous calendars systems still used regionally that calculate the New Year differently.

2011 is just around the corner now when we have celebrated Christmas. This means its time for finding a new Calendar right now and why not look at some creative options? In this post I have compiled a bunch of functional yet creatively designed calendars for the year 2011 that I believe will truly inspire you and give you a head up in search for your next calendar. Enjoy!

30 Awesome and Creative Calendar Designs for 2011

Source : http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2010/12/30-awesome-and-creative-calendar-designs-for-2011.html

Dark and Futuristic Photoshop Effect : 40 Useful Tutorials

Do you like exploding planets, energy spheres, ruined cities, telepathic warriors, gloomy nebulas, and light-rays? Well, you’ve come to the right place. In today’s round up we’ve put together a list of some of the coolest dark and futuristic Photoshop effects that we could find. Please take a moment to review some of our favorites.

Aurora eclipse effect

Tutorial

Create a “Bionic Diver” using photo manipulation

Tutorial

Read More Here : http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/web/dark-futuristic-photoshop-effects/

Helpful Cheatsheets for WordPress

Cheat sheet is not actually cheating. In IT, a cheat sheet is a set of tricks which enable you to optimize your application. This application could be a software program, programming language or some other kind of application, such as WordPress.

These WordPress cheat sheets can help you take your blog to whole other level. These cheat sheets contain tricks related to design, development and SEO.

Every title of all cheat sheets refer to the name of the makers website. Click on the title to visit the source and download the cheat sheet.

DBS Interactive: Tag Reference

They are providing cheat sheets for two versions of WordPress, v.2 and v.3. Cheat sheet for version 2 is a mighty one.

Article Here : http://www.designzzz.com/helpful-cheatsheet-wordpress

Best Digital Painting From Deviant Art 2010

Deviant Art is an amazing artwork Gallery. Artistic community involvement has made this gallery Beautiful. Deviant Team has taken best Painting Art series around 2010. These are pure perfection and a must see for any aspiring digital painter.

18 Best Picks of Digital Painting From Deviant Art 2010

Source : http://smashinghub.com/18-best-picks-of-digital-painting-from-deviant-art-2010.htm

Plugin Replacing Tutorials, Snippets and Solutions for WordPress

It is no secret that there is an endless supply of plugins that will make WordPress highly extensible, its one of the main reasons why WordPress is so popular amongst developers. They give endless potential to the most basic installation and with wisely chosen plugins will very easily transform WP into a very powerful application.

But, do we really need to use plugins for the most common and basic tasks, like installing Analytics or re-directing your feed to Feedbuner? Or, do we really need plugins for pagination, contact forms or even a content slider? Of course not. There are better and in some cases simpler solutions, as we will show you in this article.

There are many benefits to not using plugins: You will have more control over customization and functionality, you can make WordPress faster and uncluttered, and most importantly, you will be able to reduce potential security risks. On top of all these reasons, there really is no greater satisfaction than coding everything yourself.

In this article we have taken 20 of the most popular plugin uses and offer a plugin-replacing solution, via either a code hack, tutorial or a simple tip.

20 Plugin Replacing Tutorials, Tips, Snippets and Solutions for WordPress

Source : http://speckyboy.com/2010/12/09/20-plugin-replacing-tutorials-tips-snippets-and-solutions-for-wordpress/

Amazing Creative Billboard Designs

Billboard Design, a major advertising vehicle in Outdoor advertisement is always filled with numerous options to display one’s creativity and potential. Companies spend a huge amount in promotion and advertising of their product and services and choose Billboards over other advertising media because of its distinguished identity and high visibility.

Creative Billboard Designs

Original Link : http://slodive.com/inspiration/showcase/creative-billboard-designs/

Creative & Beautiful iPhone App Websites

When trying to sell an app for iPhones, a good website will get a lot of the work done.

We’ve made a list of some iPhone app websites that look good and are well designed. We hope these can inspire you in your own designs and give you some new ideas.

35 Amazing iPhone App Websites for Inspiration

Read this awesome article here : http://www.reencoded.com/2010/12/16/35-amazing-iphone-app-websites-for-inspiration/

Awesome Fresh Portfolio Website

Building your online portfolio is almost the same as any other design project, the only difference is that you are your own client. In this article we will showcase 50+ Fresh Portfolio Website For Design Inspiration to inspire you to start creating your own beautiful and interactive portfolio website.

50+ Fresh Portfolio Website For Design Inspiration

Link : http://www.themeflash.com/50-fresh-portfolio-website-for-design-inspiration/