Everywhere we look we are surrounded by design. It is in every website you visit, museum, street sign, product label, t-shirt, book, magazine, music album, even your makeup (if you wear one). Yes the world is getting creative and so can you. So whether you want to brush up on your skills, learn few new tricks, or start from the very beginning – the Internet is filled with great resources to help you out in your creative endeavors.
With nearly 800 free tutorials, prepared by top professionals in the field, on everything ranging from 2D and 3D design, animation, web, and new media – Computer Arts website is one of such resources.
Each tutorial comes with a zip file containing all of the supporting files and a step-by-step guidance that will help you complete the project. The projects themselves are designed not only to give you the basic foundation to use software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, InDesign, After Effects, and Blender, but also to help you learn a few very important tricks of trade. There is everything on creating amazing vector graphics, high end illustrations, working with and designing your own fonts, enhancing traditional ink digitally, working in Cinema 4D, logo design, patterns, retouching and enhancing photographs, improving your character animation, creating vinyl decals for interior design, creating animated DVD menus, and even screen printing at home, just to name few.
Among the traditional computer based projects, however, some of the tutorials go even further and give you advice on how to survive and succeed as a designer.
Every now and than Computer Arts releases a tutorial about topics as diverse as self-promotion on a budget, creating an identity for a company, building a custom WordPress theme, how to prepare style guide and branding materials for your next movie blockbuster, ins and outs of magazine layout, working with clients, project management, and dealing with agents.
The website also offers reviews of the latest software and hardware, articles, gallery, and a list of up-and-coming competitions if you are ready for the challenge.
Computer Arts is owned by Future Publishing Limited from United Kingdom, which publishes over 100 specialty magazines worldwide including 3D World, MacFormat, and Computer Art Projects.
The tutorial we linked to originally is no longer available, but we kept the link to the tutorial section of the site, at it contains many downloadable lessons and assets you might still like.
Related Links:
Computer Arts website