So, through the blogs and the superbad, a little sliver of dismay caught my eye. (via Art & Ghosts) The series, Séance, Can be found through Art & Ghost’s Photostream on Flickr for better resolution and to catch an eye on all the fascinating textures. This beautiful artwork is darkly inspired by the book ‘The Other World’, as the artist states.

On a personal note, i love when an artist can find inspirations and turn them to a reality. Working for the magazine that i do, i’m constantly looking through any publication for the smallest bit of inspiration, and today i found that on a cover of SPIN magazine. Keep your eyes peeled, you never know when your muse is going to give you the cattle prod you’ve been waiting for.

Client: Churm Media, in association with Southland Golf Magazine

Program(s) Used: Illustrator

Time Span: 2-4 Hours

About: The client, through proxy of Churm Media, wanted a new look for their company, with not a lot of direction other than a logo (*shudder, it’s papyrus) and their product/model photography.

Designer Notes: Using some free download organic brushes in Illustrator i was able to give the client a fresh look for their company. Keeping in mind that they are strictly women’s golf clothing really helped to choose a palette and theme… women love flowers!

How many steps do you imagine it would take to get tot his final product? i’m not going to lie. i thought at LEAST 25. Well, PSDTUTS did it in 16 steps. Now of course a step counts as a whole portion, but still. that’s pretty effing amazing if you want my opinion, and since you’re on my blog, i’d say so. haha.

For me, the tutorial really grabs hold at around step 8 up until the conclusion. The process of adding the flame and the particles with the brush manipulations are brilliant. Grab your stylus and start making pretty things, because really, we’re designers… that’s what we do!

Create a Spectacular Flaming Meteor Effect on Text
In Text Effects by Fabio

Take typography one step further by having text falling from the sky in a burning inferno. Yes, this is the text-on-fire tutorial to end all tutorials. It uses a little Illustrator for the text and a lot of Photoshop to burn up the screen!

In previous tutorials you’ve seen two smoke effects that I’ve created, but let’s face it, you can’t have smoke without a fire somewhere. So in this tutorial I will show you how to create a fire effect similar to when a spaceship or comet enters the earth’s atmosphere. The image we’ll be creating is inspired by a Nike Ad I saw some time ago. I’m not sure what the URL is, if anyone knows it, please link us up in the comments.

It’s always a good idea to keep your eyes open for inspiration for effects and designs no matter what you are doing. Graphics are everywhere and you can learn a lot by looking at what other people do. Now on to the tutorial!

Follow the Trackback to PSDTUTS for the full 16 step tutorial.

Being a HUGE fan of photoshop and it’s brush options. i’ve decided to post this link for everyone. Take the 20 minutes to do the tutorial, and if you’re in a crunch for time. at least skip to the section about the brush options. It’s MORE than worth any designer’s time, especially if you’re a photoshop junkie like myself!

Mix Cool Retro Curves Into Your Photographs
In Effects by Fabio

I’m a huge fan of James White’s work. I love the way he plays with geometric elements and colors. It gives a retro feeling to the design, but at the same time he uses a modern approach. In an interview, he mentioned that he uses a Flash script to generate the vector shapes. Then he does the rest of the job in Illustrator and Photoshop.

Well, inspired by James’s designs, I decided to figure out my own way of creating that type of effect in Photoshop. In this tutorial, I show you how to mix cool retro geometric shapes into your photos

Follow the Trackback Link to get to the full tutorial, with pictures and easy to follow instructions.