Eshark Design

Not every designers out there owned an iPhone, wtf does designer need an iPhone for? Well, before that.. I’m quite sure this post will make you reconsider if it is the time for some good investment to buy an iPhone, or an iPod Touch would just fine for me.

One of the best things for designers for using an iPhone is that the mobility for designers (especially those who do freelancing) doing their job efficiently with the iPhone app, and it helps a lot especially those every hardworking designers.

Here I’ve named a few iPhone app that every designers should have..

TweetDeck Act as your mobile browser for staying in touch with what’s happening on Twitterc+ Facebook from your iPhone or iPod Touch. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date no matter where you are.

ConvertBot will helps you convert between over 500 units across over 20 categories including currency, time, length, and many more. It’s even smart enough to convert between mixed units like Foot + Inches, Pounds + Ounces, Minutes + Seconds. Converting units has never been more fun.

Cliq Cliq is the fastest photo sharing and upload support from Mobile Safari

Evernote lets you create notes, snap photos, and record voice memos that you can then access any time from your iPhone, computer, or the web.

WordPress for iPhone Lets you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress. Since there are tons of WordPress users, this app seems to be the favorites.

What The Font connects directly to MyFonts’ acclaimed font identification service, which has been helping customers pinpoint mystery fonts for 10 years. It works via Wi-Fi or the mobile phone network, so you can get your font fix right there on the spot.

MoneyBook is the simplest and elegant way to track and manage your business finances. Your budget at a glance, and expense tracking at your fingertips.

Momento act as your unique diary/journal writing app for iPhone which provides a quick and easy way to record appoinments + datelines throughout your day. Momento also connect with popular social web services, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Last.fm, in order to collect and display your online activity as part of your diary.

DesignRuler is an accurate reproduction of the standard Graphic Design ruler - essential for anyone working in advertising line, newspaper and magazine Print Production. Business owners who advertise in any form of Print should also have DesignRuler

and the last one, of course one of my favorite app, Photoshop.com Mobile simply drag your finger to crop, adjust color, apply effects and a lot more photoshoping..

These are just few of tons of amazing iPhone apps available for designers out there and if you know of a few really good ones that made especially for designers or maybe for web developers, feel free to share them in the comments below!

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Client : Nilam Boutique
Nilam Boutique is a fresh online portal based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The task requires me to design a logo to be something like feminine touch since it will be use for online portal selling female clothes like blouse, jackets, suits and other beauty accessories.

At first the client came up with the idea of a combination of damask and chandelier. Later on, I came up with a concept of Malay traditional damask kind of style with an English chandelier style. As for the font type, I manage to get the solution by choosing a correct typeface which are solid + serif + simple. The Damask comes with brownish+ goldfish color scheme in order to make the logo look more fabulous and stylish feel of tones.

Here are some of the design that didn’t go through.

and below are the final sample that the client love very much. After few tweak and enhancement on the typeface, it took me no trouble to complete the color scheme process.

Thanks for reading and if you have different thoughts + comments or maybe some critics, all are much welcome. Feel free to write down your comments below..

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Have you ever thought that modern vinyl art can be interesting when it applies in your own home. Well, what I’m about to share with you guys today is something to do with home-deco designs. Hu2 Design, a UK-based company has an amazing wall vinyl decals to offer, a company consist of 5 creative peoples lead by Antoine, the designer, the manager and also the founder of Hu2 design.

Hu2 Design made high quality vinyl stickers for your kitchen, living room, bathroom that are specially designed to be applied to any smooth surface including home walls, windows, furniture and even your personal computers. What makes Hu2 Design vinyl stickers the perfect + smart modern-indoor-deco for your house is that they are completely removable and leave no residue.

Take a look some of Hu2 Design vinyls after the jump..

Learn more these amazing vinyl stickers at Hu2 design or you could even purchase it online as they are available for worldwide shipment.

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Photoshop has no longer been a part of every designer’s life, now Photoshop has been everybody’s favorite, photographers, retoucher, web designers and maybe your grand children. Today, Photoshop turns twenty and here are some amazing back-to-the future stories I would like to share.

The story was all started when one college professor named Glenn Knoll maintained a darkroom in his house basement. Glenn’s darkroom has brought some huge influence to both his son Thomas Knoll and John Knoll where Thomas first learned image manipulation of how to make black-and-white and color prints conversion, while John was attracted to Glenn’s personal computer Apple II Plus (with 64k of RAM at that time) that he had brought home for his work research.

During the year 1988, the nature of technology that Glenn’s brought home had influence Thomas Knoll, at that time was a PhD student at the University of Michigan and currently is an American software engineer, teams up with his brother John and combines the routines of writing graphics program called Display on Macintosh Plus. In 1988, the program Display has been refined to becomes ImagePro and only in 1989, the program ImagePro has been finally renamed to Photoshop which turn the program into a full-fledged image editing program and so call the original “killer apps”

About a year later, in 1990, the first Photoshop version 1.0 ships in February. Only in the year 1994, Photoshop version 3.0 ships with the ‘Layers’ capability and following with ‘History’ palette functions in 1998 on Photoshop version 5.0. Since Photoshop was first run with Macitosh computer, it was only first run on PowerPC chip for Windows version in 1993.

Unbelievable isn’t it.. so, this question might be interesting, which first Photoshop are you?

Happy 20th Birthday Photoshop!

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How often you work with Adobe application on your daily basis as a designer? especially those who use Photoshop a lot and have you ever sometimes found that photoshop shortcuts helps you save a lots of time editing.

Well, here are some tips I would like to share that might helps you..

Brush tips (click ‘B’ for brush tool)
- Make Brush size larger ….. ]
- Make Brush size bigger …. [
- Make brush soften ……….. Shift + [
- Make brush harder ………. Shift + ]

Color
- Switch foreground and background color …………….. Shift + X
- Make foreground and background to Black&White ….. D

Viewing
- Zoom tool …………………. Z
- Zoom out ………………….. hold Option
- Zooming In ……………….. Command + +
- Zooming Out ……………… Command + -
- Zoom to fit screen ………… Command + 0
- Hand tool …………………… press H
- Hide palettes + toolbar …… press Tab
- Hide palettes ………………. Shift + Tab
- Zoom to actual pixels……… F

Layers (click L for Layes)
- Add new Layer ……………… Shift + Command + N
- Copy to new Layer …………. Command + J
- Create clipping mask ………. hold ‘Option’ while click on between Layers
- Release clipping mask …….. hold ‘Option’ while click on between clipped Layers
- Checking which on layer….. select move tool (V) + hold ‘Command’ to your current working window

Adjustment dialogue windows (Curves, Levels, Saturation.. etc)
- Change ‘Cancel’ button to ‘Reset’….. hold Option
- Step back to history palette …………. Command + Option + Z

Selecting Tools
- V …… Move tool
- M …… Rectangular Marquee
- L …… Lasso
- W …… Magic wand
- C …… Crop
- I …… Eye dropper
- J …… Healing brush
- B …… Brush
- S …… Clone Stamp
- Y …… History brush
- E …… Eraser
- G …… Gradient & Paint bucket
- O …… Dodging
- P …… Pen
- T …… Type
- A …… Direct & Path selection
- U …… Custom shape
- Select multiple tools …… hold Shift while press tool shortcut

Quick Help
- Quick Help button …………. Command + /

Please note that this tips written for Mac users, just type Ctrl instead of Command and type Alt instead of Option for PC users.

Feel free to add more shortcuts if you have something useful that I’m not aware about in the comment box!

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Hi again! This is some fresh addition to my self portrait series, after about one hour of editing, finally I made one retro comic look to be my current self portrait. At first I was looking into like rich creamy mocha tone for the overall feel, but at the end I’ve made the background to be look more retro colorful than just boring brown + reddish color. In addition, I added some retro lines at the background blends with wall textures and for the final touch, I add one bubble text to the image to make it more like a comic look.

Shot taken with Canon EOS 5D Mark II.
Treatment: PS CS4
Techniques hint: Soften, half tone, pixelate, blending

For those who been wondering of how i get this effect, so this is the good news.. Photoshop tutorial for this technique will be added later in future, so guys.. stay tuned!

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It was not long enough the EOS 500D (Rebel T1i ) was introduced about less than a year after and this February comes the latest EOS family, the 18 megapixel EOS 550D (Rebel T2i). What can I spot that the EOS 550D comes with clean and solid display buttons from its previous predecessor which makes it look neat and tidy at the rear body. The EOS 550D also comes with new battery of BP-E8 and new battery grip of BG-E8 which enhance the capability of allows more accurate ‘power remaining’ display. The EOS 550D also comes with the ‘Q’ button (Quick Control Screen) fast access to the overall shooting setting which has been applied to the EOS 7D earlier. Almost all specs from 500D has been enhance to be likely as another Canon’s hugely the popular consumer SLR range.

Sensor : 18.7 million effective pixels
Image Size : 5184 x 3456 (L) / 3456 x 2304 (M) / 2592 x 1728 (S)
Auto Focus : 9-point CMOS sensor
Movie - 1920 x 1080 / 1280 x 720 / 640 x 480
Sensitivity: ISO 100 - 6400
Shutter: 30 - 1/4000 sec (0.5 or 0.3 EV steps)
Shooting modes : Continuous 3.7 fps
Metering: TTL 63-zone SPC
LCD Monitor: 3.0″ 3:2 TFT LCD at 1040,000 pixels
LCD Live View: Live TTL display, 100% frame coverage (30 fps display rate)
Storage: SD / SDHC card / SDXC card
Dimensions: 129 x 98 x 62 mm
Weight: 530 g with no battery

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Starting as low as $499, you can get the latest technology by Apple. Steve Jobs has just unveils the new Apple iPad, one of a kind Multi-Touch screen on larger dimension. Similar to the revolutionary technology on iPhone, just on iPad the technology of Multi-Touch screen has been re engineered for its larger surface, which makes iPad an extremely precise and responsive device ever alive.

Comes with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, and available with an optional of wireless only (with built-in 802.11n) or wireless + 3G (with superfast data speeds up to 7.2 Mbps). Powered with the A4 chip inside, iPad is extremely powerful yet extremely power efficient up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge.

Lets take a brief look on iPad specifications after the jump.

Display:
- 9.7″ (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
- 1024 x 768 pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
Processor: 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed
TV and Video:
- 1024 x 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter
- H.264 video up to 720p, 30 fps
Audio playback: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
Audio formats: AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
Height: 9.56″
Width: 7.47″
Depth: 0.5″
Weight: 0.68 kg (Wi-Fi model) / 0.73 kg (Wi-Fi + 3G model)

and the most interesting part is, iPad also runs Windows..

Now this is what I call technology!!

Head to the official page here! or you like to see the video

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If you own an iPhone, here is something I would love to recommend..

Take a best photo with your iPhone, make some editing with the apps of your choice and send to Adorama iPhone Photo Contest which will takes you one step behind these cool list of prizes :
1 x $1,000 Adorama Gift Certificate
10 x Wacom Tablets (Bamboo Craft Pen & Touch)
15 x Canon Wireless Printers (Pixma MP560 Inkjet Photo All-In-One Printer)
25 x $50 Apple App Store Gift Cards
30 x $100 Adorama Gift Certificates

Don’t panic or over reacted as you have ample of time to send your best photos, this contest ends only by 22nd March 2010. Currently the voting round has started since 15th Jan while the judging round will start on 15th Feb. The rules are simple, the photo that you submit has to be captured from an iPhone, that’s it.

Browse all Adorama iPhone Photo Contest entries here!

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May all the joys of the season be yours!

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