Digital Art Empire » tutorial

NIGHT VISION PHOTOSHOP CS4 [video tut]

Ben Rama — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 04:00:17 +0000

NIGHT VISION PHOTOSHOP CS4

Night vision is the ability to see in a dark environment. Whether by biological or technological means, night vision is made possible by a combination of two approaches: sufficient spectral range, and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night vision compared to many animals, in part because the human eye lacks a tapetum lucidum.

Featured Artist : Tony Ariawan Amazing Vector Illustrations

Ben Rama — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 11:52:09 +0000

Today we showcase the digital art of Tony Ariawan from Indonesia who’s work you may recognize from various magazines including Digital Arts, his work has recieved 484867 views & 20436 appreciations. The designs speak for themselves – so ill be quiet – these are truly mindblowing – please take some time out from work or school and be blown away Even my mom was impressed haha

Press & Recognition:

+ Poster Design for Massive Territory Exhibition Design and Conference Jakarta |
Kuala Lumpur, 2007
+ Interview for Territory Magazine Vol 07, 2007
+ Tutorial Stop Haunt Me Everyday Collection for DesignFlip Magz #01, 2007
+ Tutorial Stop Haunt Me Everyday Collection for PSD Magazine France Issue 02,
2008
+ Tutorial Stop Haunt Me Everyday Collection for for PSD Magazine US Issue 03,
2008
+ Feature Typography for Advanced Photoshop Magazine Issue 41, 2008
+ Tutorial Stop Haunt Me Everyday Collection for Digital Arts Magazine, May 2008
+ Cover Magazine for Digital Arts, June 2008
+ Tutorial Cool Neon text effects for Digital Arts Magazine, Aug 2008
+ Interview for Elle Girl Magazine Korea, January 2009
+ Feature for AdvancedPhotoshop Magazine Issue 53, 2009

Featured Behance Logo Designer: Gareth Hardy

Ben Rama — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:35:14 +0000

Hello happy new year to everyone -

Its been amazingly busy organizing clients over xmas with some big print jobs and also moving into a new office space , thus I haven’t had the time to publish , not to mention the fact I had a conflicting plug-in and couldn’t access my site’s admin at all for the last week , but luckily thats all done & sorted now. So onwards with this new year, we have a lot lined up I plan to focus alot more on writing new posts on current trends in Design so expect at least 2 of these posts a week – plus more tutorials and media rich posts too .

Featured Behance Designer: Gareth Hardy – Gareth was featured on Behance for his creative logos which you can check out below .

The current era of logo design began in the 1950s. A paradigmatic contemporary logo is the Chase Bank logo, designed in 1960 by Chermayeff & Geismar, considered pioneers of Modernist graphic design in the United States. The Chase logo was “the first truly abstract logo” of the contemporary era. As would happen with many subsequent corporate logos, mass media advertising was used to link the logo with the bank in the public mind, while its simple, distinctive form, free of specific cultural or other connotations, was well suited to represent a complex, multinational corporation.

Today there are many corporations, products, brands, services, agencies and other entities using an ideogram (sign, icon) or an emblem (symbol) or a combination of sign and emblem as a logo. As a result, only a few of the thousands of ideograms people see are recognized without a name. It is sensible to use an ideogram as a logo, even with the name, if people will not duly identify it. Currently, the usage of both images (ideograms) and the company name (logotype) to emphasize the name instead of the supporting graphic portion and making it unique, by it non-formulaic construction via the desiginal use of its letters, colors and any additional graphic elements.

Ideograms (icons, signs, emblems) may be more effective than a written name (logotype), especially for logos being translated into many alphabets; for instance, a name in the Arabic language would be of little help in most European markets. An ideogram would keep the general proprietary nature of the product in both markets. In non-profit areas, the Red Cross (which goes by Red Crescent in Muslim countries) is an example of an extremely well known emblem which does not need an accompanying name. Branding aims to facilitate cross-language marketing. The Coca-Cola logo can be identified in any language because of the standard color and the well known “ribbon wave” design.

Some countries have logos, e.g. Argentina, Spain, Italy, Turkey and The Islands of The Bahamas, that identify them in marketing their country solely for tourism purposes. Such logos often are used by countries whose tourism sector makes up a large portion of their economy.

Logo design is an important area of graphic design, and one of the most difficult to perfect. The logo (ideogram), is the image embodying an organization. Because logos are meant to represent companies’ brands or corporate identities and foster their immediate customer recognition, it is counterproductive to frequently redesign logos.

Color is considered important to brand recognition, but it should not be an integral component to the logo design, which could conflict with its functionality. Some colors are formed/associated with certain emotions that the designer wants to convey. For instance loud primary colors, such as red, are meant to attract the attention of drivers on highways are appropriate for companies that require such attention. In the United States red, white, and blue are often used in logos for companies that want to project patriotic feelings. Green is often associated with the health and hygiene sector, and light blue or silver is often used to reflect diet foods. For other brands, more subdued tones and lower saturation can communicate reliability, quality, relaxation, or other traits.

Digital Art Empire, Redesign, News & Stats

Ben Rama — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:11:54 +0000

Thanks to the design community

The new design here at Digital Art Empire has already helped to increase the community interaction and general positive energy around the blog.

I’ve been able to make many online friends and acquaintances who have design blogs too ; they have all been refreshingly open and friendly .

I’m really grateful to the community of designers and bloggers who read my blog and help to make this site work . These are the people who I talk with regularly and help to make the community.

In no particular order thanks : )

If I missed you out sorry , please leave a comment and we can connect : )

At the start of my journey I set out to see what would happen, having had some great successes making video tutorials for my You Tube channel I had high hopes, which happily I can say have been met.

After blogging part time since September last year and more seriously devoted since the start of this year I have seen a steady and faster than expected growth in the community here.

The growth after the start of 2010 has been doubling every month, and I put this down to publishing every day and writing good quality articles and tuts that get stumbled and tweeted. So, points to note if you own a blog are, consistently publishing and writing attractive content is a formula for success.

Over the weekend we had a massive traffic increase with 20 thousand visits over Saturday and Sunday , our monthy total was 62 thousand – this isn’t our usual stats as you can see , but they say you should celebrate all you victories. Most of this traffic came from stumble upon

The plan is to continue to write original tutorials articles and inspiring showcases whilst broadening the topics to include more 3D,code and web programs.

The new design –

I’d like to thank Kailoon for his amazing support whilst getting this site together and ironing out any little glitches

There will be a User link feed setup in the very near future so I’ll send out an email to all those who blog.

Header

The header is simple gorgeous , and reflects the quality of posts you can expect at DAE.

Sidebar

Nice large Rss & Twitter buttons with FB and email subs too. If you haven’t already please take this time to sign up – its absolutely free .

Footer

I really love the footer area and may well enhance it some more – it has our Flickr group and pulls posts from categories. Theres also a scroll to top button and link to our freebies.

Under the hood theres a php script called timthumb that auto resizes images making my life a lot easier.

The new logo

I wanted to say ‘Empire’ with the new logo , that was my overriding objective because it’s the unique selling point that no one else in the design/blog sphere has.

I originally had in mind a triangle and pillars like a Roman temple or forum , I took this idea to concept feedback and was reminded to keep it simple. So after much drawing and redrawing I chose the wreath, which I think simply and subtly says ‘Empire’

Have your say – thoughts and feedback.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say , please feel free to point out any glitches – There are known issues in IE 7 and below – and some database errors that are being ironed out as I type . Overall I’m very happy with the design and will build up on the success I have seen humbly and steadily : )

6 Stunning Floral Brushes

Ben Rama — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:15:27 +0000

Afer the popularity of our previous brush sets 15 Free Space Brushes – Galaxy Nebula & Planets & 9 Unique and Exclusive iPod and iPad Brushes for Photosho it looks like Ill be doing a weekly brush set because you like them so much.

These are all amazing bushes at the highest possible size, 2500. I’m sure you’ll enjoy using theme for a variety of projects. Please retweet this and be sure to subscribe via RSS. If you would like set of brushes with a particular theme please leave a comment or email me and I’ll be happy to get them made.

Thank you to the following photographer’s russelljsmith / Lincolnian (Brian) /ruurmo /Swami Stream /tomooka /Per Ola Wiberg ~ Powi ~ back

https://rapidshare.com/#!download|274l35|112907713|Floral_

Brushes_Digtal_Art_Empire.zip|15064|R~688B7D7E9702316E555C15E2A6483F6D

http://uploading.com/files/f712b1f6/Floral%2BBrushes%2BDigtal%2BArt%2BEmpire.zip/

http://www.filesonic.com/file/1484171844/Floral_Brushes_Digtal_Art_Empire.zip

http://hotfile.com/dl/124515097/e3d7961/Floral_Brushes_Digtal_Art_Empire.zip.html

http://www.fileserve.com/file/Feyz3CH

http://depositfiles.com/en/files/k2o1vsi7c

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RIXVFM9W

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6 Free Stunning Fractal Brushes Which You Need

Ben Rama — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:22:06 +0000

I recently made some fractal brushes for Little Box of Ideas . They had a good response so I thought I’d make some for you guys too .

These are all made at 2500 pixels and should work in photoshop CS and above. If you enjoyed use them please feel free to link to them but please don’t redistribute as your own.

It looks like we’ll be publishing a new brush set every week so if you have any requests for brushes leave a comment saying what type your interested in or email us. Please retweet this and be sure to get out RSS feed.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZLPOBCFP

http://depositfiles.com/en/files/iz6hh58g2

http://hotfile.com/dl/124516155/e234553/Fractal_Brushes_Digital_Art_Empire.zip.html

http://uploading.com/files/38dc4a5e/Fractal%2BBrushes%2BDigital%2BArt%2BEmpire.zip/

http://www.fileserve.com/file/zUcSaGq

https://rapidshare.com/#!download|444tg|2877892971|Fractal_Brushes_D

igital_Art_Empire.zip|22202|R~087F8B93A73D604CB6BCAF591AE568E5

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Some Small Changes – Digital Art Empire Update

Ben Rama — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:01:41 +0000

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:

Read the Latest News from Digital Art Empire

Ben Rama — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:09:26 +0000

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.

A tutorial published on My Ink Blog

Ben Rama — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:33:57 +0000

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

22 Unique Marbling Brushes you will Love

Ben Rama — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:52:04 +0000

22 brushes in one set of 11 medium and 11 large both ,all unique and created by Digital Art Empire.

‘Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to marble or other stone, hence the name. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size, and then carefully transferred to a sheet of paper. This decorative material has been used to cover a variety of surfaces for several centuries. It is often employed as a writing surface for calligraphy, and especially book covers and endpapers in bookbinding and stationery. Part of its appeal is that each print is a unique monotype.’ Wikipedia

I really enjoyed making these one Sunday afternoon in the summer some of the original marbling textures (15) can be found here. Using the brushes is good , they work seamlesly and I will include them in a tutorial soon .

A little update about Digital Art Empire

To all the regular readers ,which are growing steadily daily,thankyou to everyone who has been following the blog. Marc is no longer a part of our team because of his career interests, howver I [Ben] am still looking for writers for tuts and articles, so if you would like some exposure get in touch, its awesome to collaborate.

If you want to contact me for any reason ,even just to say hello please feel free , I always answer all my emails. I would really like to grow a genuine community of like minded designers and digital artists who have real discussions . The reason I haven’t posted as much as I intended this month is because I have been busy writing tuts for other blogs, namely PSD Fan and My Ink Blog which I recommend checking out in themselves. I set out with the intention of posting one tutorial a week which may work, however a more modest amount of two a month may mean better quality.

preview: 6/22

22 High Res Unique Marbling Brushes

medium are 1735 x 2448

large are 2500 x 2500 all at 300 ppi

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

Download from here: