GDS Designer Contest 2012 – Round 2

 

GSD Designer Contest - Round 2

I can’t believe we’re onto Round 2 of the 2012 GDS Designer Contest already! Last week saw me creating a mini-kit and an alphabet using a lovely muted colour palette and a theme of my own choice. If you missed the result, check out my post HERE to grab the mini-kit and alphabet.

 

ROUND 2

For Round 2 we have to create a mini-kit using a colour palette of 6 colours taken from the photo below. The theme is something on our own “Bucket List”. I had never even heard of the term ‘Bucket List’ before this competition, so it took me a while to figure it out! Anyway, our palette photo is below. Lot’s of colour choice!

GDS Designer Contest Color Palette

This time round we have to create 15 elements and 6 papers and deadline will be the same – Thursday lunchtime my time. Check back by then for a link to the kit.

Have a great day everyone!
Dodie
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GDS Designer Contest 2012

GDS Designer Competition Round 1 Badge

Get ready… I have signed up for the GDS Designer Context 2012! Woot! I can’t believe I am doing it, but I am having a LOT of fun! Stay tuned for lots of freebies in the weeks to come:)

ROUND 1

For Round 1 we have to create a mini-kit using the palette below (which I love!)

GDS Designer Competition Palette

We have to create 10 elements and 5 papers and deadline is coming up super fast! Thursday lunchtime my time. Check back by then for a link to the kit.

Have a great day everyone!
Dodie
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The Dreaded Photoshop Pen Tool

I have totally and utterly ignored the Photoshop and Illustrator pen tools. There was no need to make my life miserable trying to attempt using them! That all changed once I started to design. I would then look at the pen tool and admire people who could use it. No tutorial I ever took helped me understand it and I would just get more and more frustrated with it and give up.

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This has now ALL changed, thanks to a tutorial I stumbled upon quite by accident. This has REVOLUTIONIZED my use of Photoshop and I thought I would share it with everyone, just in case there was anyone else out there like me! The tutorial is called, “Photoshop’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide” and it’s title is SO accurate! By the time you finish this quick tutorial you will be able to use the Pen Tool – you’ll still need lots of practice, but it will MAKE SENSE!!!

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OK, so here is a screen shot of the tutorial. It’s basically a Photoshop file (so you’ll need Photoshop to run it) and when you open it you’ll need to zoom in closer so you can see the first letter clearly.

Photoshop Tutorial

It should look something like this. As you can see, it takes you step by step through how to create the letter P using the pen tool. You follow the directions and you’ll be able to do it super fast! It took me around 30 minutes. Once you do all the letters a few times, try clicking the instruction off and try doing it with just the coloured dot markers to help you. Then, try to do it without any markers! You’ll be amazed how fast you pick it up!

Tutorial Close-up

If you’re interested, head over to the tutorial site HERE and download it. You won’t be sorry! You will need Photoshop to use it. I should also mention that after you have tried out the Photoshop Exercise File, head back to the website as the author has included a LOT more information regarding the pen tool after the download – this will be most useful for you when you done the tutorial exercise file first!

Illustrator Tutorial

There is also a similar tutorial for Illustrator HERE by the same author and is very similar to this tutorial, except designed for Illustrator. The way the pen tool works in Photoshop and Illustrator is apparently slightly different. This is lost on me as I’m still learning how to use them!

Illustrator Tutorial Close-up

If you found the above tutorials useful, you may also find the “Illustrator Pen Tool Exercises” from Veerle’s Blog interesting. Very similar type exercises designed for Illustrator.

Illustrator Pen Tool Exercises

Well, that’s it from me today. Hope it was helpful!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Dodie
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