Fin Andrey Gordeev on the web .

http://gordei.com/

Thankyou

First of all thank you so much for reading the blog, obviously you are the force that makes the whole thing work and in a sense it really is your blog. We love to hear what you have to say so please don’t be a stranger and join in the community.

After being inspired by Little Box of Ideas and their recent 1 year update  I decided to post the recent changes here at Digital Art Empire ( hopefully soon simple writing DAE will be ok but until people know what the hell I mean it’ll have to be the long version.) So my intention is to make the blog more personal and grow a community with some healthy design discussions.

Posts & Progress

As part of being an active,open and transparent community I would like to share the progress of Digital Art Empire.

For the regular readers you will have noticed as of January this year I have been posting every day, except weekends. Firstly this has increased the readership and exposure for the blog, which always makes me happy.

Secondly this has given me a structure and made the discipline of blogging easier. I also like to think of this Jan 2010 as the actual start date of my blog, even though my first post was in August 09. Back then I hadn’t really planned what I would post and had expected a much easier growth.

You may well have noticed that over the weekend the side bar disappeared briefly then repapered completely transformed. This was because I upgraded the site and the side bar nav was gone, I had been planning to change it anyway so knuckled down and spent the wkend editing it.

The design changes

First of all the for side bar I used a plugin to add clickable images to the sidebar. As you can see on the right of this post, I made them nice and large – from RSS to Flickr.

I took away the old logo (modified it a bit) and made it shorter. Then added the subscribe to RSS / email and social media buttons. Of course if you haven’t already please do subscribe via RSS or email to get the latest direct to your reader or inbox.

Then I added a much improved top navigation with more focused categories. We now have a freebies, articles, interview and inspiration category.

The archives are also completely expandable with all the posts from the very start listed.

To improve SEO I included pagination, you can click through all the pages now. A back to top button on the footer for easier navigation, I use this one myself a lot.

Last but not least the main change, for me at least and the one that was trickiest is the sliding gallery on the font page. After customising it to match the themes colours I added the code and got it running. Let me know what you think.

Having taken inspiration from Creativeoverflow’s Redesign I’m planning on widening the site and having posts at around 680 pixels wide instead of 500.

What the future holds

Im going to continue to publish every week day with some high quality posts like  7 Proven Ways to Boost Your Creativity.

I will also be posting a tutorial every week on friday as I have done this month – please feel free to ask what you would like to see more of either in comments or directly.

I know that most of you who read this blog would like some exposure for your own blog, folio or name. Guest posts are the best way to give your career a boost. If you would like to write for Digital Art Empire please get in contact.

I’ve done quite a few guest posts at My Ink Blog and another at PSD Fan and it really is the absolute No1. way to gain exposure and make some connections. Andrew Houle over at My Ink Blog is an exanple of the kind of client/blogger that makes design enjoyable. Of course you will get a Bio, a link to your site and twitter profile.

Behind the scenes

The running of Digital Art Empire is all done by Ben Rama (me) -they guy writing all this stuff : )

This is me in my profile image:

There have been some interesting films released this year and some fairly original posters to go with them. Film posters are designed to be seen in as many places as they can, by as many people and  as much as possible.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide what your favourites are. Which ever they are it’s a good exercise to break down how these could be made and which programs you would choose.

It’s surprising to see how some of these posters look when you think of the budget these films have. But that should make us designers feel good right?

Thank you for visiting the Digital Art Empire Blog!   
We routinely publish collections of inspiring artworks such as film posters like this one. If you found these useful,
please consider subscribing to our feed by RSS  so you don’t miss these posts.

Did you know we have a Flickr group for this blog ? The group has grown from last time to 146 members and 914 items. I think I’ll post this group every time there is a significant growth.

We are receiving more and more submissions from you as we get bigger and bigger.Remember you can join this group for free and then have your artwork showed in the blog footer. The submissions are still at a high level of creativity and quality.

Top Five Contributors :

Miguel J. Ramos (105)    Őri Balázs (65)    Studies in Solitude (51)    W70 (44)    rupertalbe – ufficialmente scenografo (42)

Here I have chosen my favourite designs from the group which I think represent a full range of digital art and design.

Thank you for visiting the Digital Art Empire Blog!

A brief update : Here are some changes

1. No Ads

As you may have noticed there are no ads – on the sidebar – they are being replaced with more useful content for now. This is partly because we recently got accepted onto buy sell ads and are making sure the prep is done properly; and Partly because they weren’t generating enough revenue to be justified.

2. Facebook

Here is the link to my Facebook profile which is updated everyday – I answer every email and love to network.

There is also the  Face Book Fan Page which is massive amongst social media gurus .

3. Frequent Posts

There are more frequent posts here on Digital Art Empire, some of my regular readers will have noticed I’m posting every week day. This is set to continue for the whole of 2010 and beyond. Please ask either in comments or by email ( contact page ) what you would like to read more of . I know you enjoy tuts so I’m going to do at least one a week, increasing as I have the time.

We also ran a succesful competition last week and are running another one this week. This should become a regular occurance here .

4. Success and Popularity

In terms of our popularity it looks set to grow steadily again this year. I’m writing for My Ink Blog again this month so I’ll post that link when it’s up. This guest post helps to bring in readers and boost the overall exposure of Digital Art Empire.

Last week I featured a tut on good tutorials which was an overwhelming success, bringing in a whopping 2043 visits in ONE day. This helped to show me clearly the way Digital Art Empire should go – more tuts. This will be easy as I love the creativity of making them.

5. Twitter

The twitter followers are at 849 and there are some really good tweets going on there so check it out.

6. RSS

If you know about RSS please sign up, if not read this and then sign up here.

Thanks to Bruno Maia, for the twitter icon, Arturo de Albornoz for the Ad & woodleywonderworks for the earth.

To celebrate the New Year and a new start for Digital Art Empire, the dedicated team at UPrinting.com are giving away 250 Business Cards !

How to Enter:

Leave a Comment on the giveaway. Be creative and let us all know how you might use them.

The contest will end on Monday 11th  January 2010 at midnight (GMT).

Winners will be announced the next day (Tuesday 12th January 2010)

Official Competition Rules:

Only one post per person

Use a valid email – the winner will be contacted via email so be sure to include a valid email address when you are leaving your comment.

Limited to US Residents due to shipping costs.

Goodluck to you all ! Please feel free to tweet this and spread the word.

In adherence to the  FTC ruling on Blogger Reviews and Sponsored Postings , I need to fully disclose that I will be receiving 100 Postcards from UPrinting.com for hosting this giveaway.

Last week a tutorial I wrote for My Ink Blog was published.  It is the second time I have written for My Ink Blog and it really makes my day to see work viewed by so many people.

The number of people visiting Digital Art Empire is continuing to grow steadily. I’m happy with the large numbers so far and glad that there are a core group of readers who always read my articles.

Writing for other design blogs is a great way to gain exposure and create friendships with fellow designers.With increasing popularity and exposure I intend to grow the site, with more regular tutorials, design articles and the freebies you download so much.

The new year and new decade is approaching and I assure you it will be full of amazing content. Please retweet this and let me know what you would like more of.

View the Tutorial here

This is the first of Digital Art  Empire’s Flickr group Showcase where we exhibit the best designs from our group. We currently have 638 items and 133 members .

Our top 5 are Top Five Contributors are as follows:

Miguel J. Ramos (62)    Őri Balázs (60)    Studies in Solitude (47)    W70 (37)    Liam Key (36)

Here I have chosen my favourite designs from the group which I think represent a full range of digital art and design.

If you are not a member and would like to join Digital Art  Empire’s Flickr group, its free and you’ll have the chance to have your designs showcased here ; not only that the community is friendly and give honest critiques which are invaluable to designers whether professional orotherwise.

Free for personal and commercial use with no attribution/credit however please do not redistribute or sell them as your own.

If you like this font there is an accompanying font tutorial which will show you the steps you need to take to create a font.

I would also love to see where you use this font in your designs but this is not obligatory and what you think of this one.

Download from here:

Rapidshare Download (17.46 kb Zip File)

Mediafire Download (17.46 kb Zip File)