Finding Images & Fonts Online

There have been a number of people who have asked me where to find images to use in their projects. Here are the sites that I use;

1. www.istockphoto.com - you have to sign up for an account here, but the image prices are very reasonable
2. www.sxc.hu - stock.xchg, a Hungarian photo site that istock just bought, however the images that come up here are free to use. istock does include images above your results that cost.
3. deviantart.com - Resources and Stock images - each artist lists what their requirements are in order for you to use these images
4. Microsoft Clipart - they actually have a very nice collection
5. www.flickr.com - Under and to the right of each image it says Additional Information which is where you can find how each artist allows their image to be used

The font sites that I use to download wonderful fonts are...

1. www.dafont.com - it's the best and all the fonts are free!
2. www.1001freefonts.com - this fonts are also free but I don't use this site as much because it's not as user friendly as dafont.com.

Enjoy, and happy creating!!

Photographers: Getting Paid for Your Photos

I run across many amateur photographers who would be interested in getting paid for their photographic passion. I encourage anyone who takes quality photographs to sign up for 2 accounts:

1. istockphoto.com, here you get paid per download of your image. They also accept illustrations, audio, and flash.

2. flickr.com - this is a photo sharing site that even graphic designers look to for artwork. Read the article on graphics.com, How to Get Paid for Your Flickr Photos, about how to get noticed, and maybe even contracted, via flickr.

There is also the art sharing site deviantart.com, and they have a special Resources and Stock Images section where pros look for artwork to use. Each artist gets to decided how people can use their artwork.

4 Multimedia Learning Principles

How many of you go to a conference, only to fall asleep the second the lights go out and the gleam of a lengthy power point presentation starts up? Power points are supposed to be powerful teaching instruments, however many people end up using them in the same way middle schoolers use 3x5" index cards when giving presentations. They cram as much as possible into a tiny space so they won't forget anything when in front of the class.

There are some basic rules for power points, like use a non-serifed font at least 34 pt large. Use high contrast colors. Use short, bulleted lists as much as possible. However, even when using these rules the presentation is not going to keep people awake and interested. So what is?

Using instructional design.

Olivia Mitchell has put together a great post on precisely this called 4 Multimedia Learning Principles That Will Improve Your Slides. She describes instructional design as a way of design that incorporates the different ways people learn and process things, including both visual and audio. I would encourage anyone who has ever had to or ever will create a presentation to read this blog and memorize its content.

My favorite presentation that she posted is called "Brain Rules for Presenters."

Brain Rules for Presenters

View more presentations from garr. (tags: reynolds garr)

All My Faves

There is a new web page that has all the links in a visual interface making it very easy to get to every page that you would visit on a daily basis.



Check it out! http://www.allmyfaves.com

It gets the Vivid Orchid stamp of approval.

Adobe CS4 Resources

Notes from the Pre-Conference ACTEM workshop:

Use Flickr to search for images to use in projects as well as istock, etc.

Go to www.adobe.com and do searches for these keywords to find fabulous resources on how to do anything with any Adobe project:

"CS3 workflow guides"
"CS3 video workshop"

Adobe publishes a series of books called the Classroom in a Book series

Education reources: www.adobe.com/education

Video resources similar to youtube? tv.adobe.com


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Etsy: An Online Shopping Experience

My boss told me about this great new website called Etsy where one of her friends is selling her homemade goods. Generally, when I hear the word homemade, I associate it with words like tacky, tasteless, unfashionable, cheesy, crude, and garish. (Not that anything I have ever made would fit into any of those catagories of course!) But I checked out the site anyway, and boy was I ever blown away. Not only are the products classy, the site design and interactivity is leap-years beyond anything I have ever seen. The site is actually FUN to browse through. I have only made it through the first two "Ways to Shop," via Color and Treasury, because they are just so addictive. When you zoom your mouse around the color block colors bubble up and then slowly bubble down and disappear as your mouse gets farther away. Once you click on a color a bunch of snapshots of different products of that color appear and you can zoom in on them, visit their individual pages, or click, hold, and throw them off the page. As I said, really fun! The treasury puts together lists of similar items that are also fun to browse through.

This site kind of makes me think of when Old Navy became popular, with the slogan, "Shopping is fun again!" This site gets my vote for best online shopping experience for it's layout, colors, and interactivity. Also, I like that it is open to the general public so that even artists who want to sell things online but can't afford their own storefront have a classy place to sell.

http://www.etsy.com/

Principles of Graphic Design

Charlie Johnson found this AMAZING design learning tool by Andrew Mundi which he gave to the students of his Portfolio seminar. (Disclaimer: I did not create this, just uploaded it to one of my websites to share.) On the left there are 5 categories,

1. Introduction to Design
2. Color Theory
3. Composition & Layout
4. Perspective
5. Typography

Then to the right are sub-categories of each of the above. It is a wonderful overview of the principles of design.