FREE PATTERNS, TILES, BACKGROUNDS & CONVERSATION
This is scrumptious: whizbang color thingy from colr.org. Choose an image you like from the web, copy the address into the "image url" box then go down and click "random from image" and you will get a color palette. When you get one you like, tag it with any combination of words or phrases. You can see my palettes by entering "taz" into the "Tags:" box and clicking "go".
You can add tags to other people's palettes, as well, and also tag the colors themselves. Greatest little color toy I've seen in ages; go have fun (and if you make some palettes, why not add a comment here to tell us what tags to looks for!)
Posted by taz May 6, 05 in Color, Color toys, Web tools, Web Toys | Permalink
| Comments (9)
| TrackBack (1)
|||||||||||||||||
Okay, I know it's hopelessly, ridiculously, irredeemably silly, but I can't stop playing with the fat dollmaker. Why do I want to dress her in the most sluttish costumes? Why?
(via kitschkitten's del.icio.us bookmarks, where you can also find the Housewives Tarot)
Posted by taz May 4, 05 in Silly | Permalink
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack (0)
|||||||||||||||||
Aha! Gotcha!!!
I'm always getting hopelessly lost when trying to find my way back to fontBROWSER, one of the most useful pages on the internet for FontHogs. This time I've posted it here, I've posted it at the LinkBlog, I've posted it at del.icio.us, and I've bookmarked it on my linkbar. Do I like this app. or what? *kissy-kissy-smooch-smooch*
Posted by taz May 3, 05 in Fonts, Web tools | Permalink
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack (1)
|||||||||||||||||
I just have to point out what a lovely, simple, black and white blog template this is (not to mention, sex-ay, teh hot!). Made by Blogger Templates, where you can also pick up a nifty trick for getting rid of the top navigation bar on your Blogger blog (I hate that thing).
Makes me really want to start playing with some of the fantastic B&W photos at places like stock.xchng and morguefile (more here) to work up some blog designs.
Posted by taz May 2, 05 in Site design | Permalink
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack (0)
|||||||||||||||||
Something brilliant, found at DaFONT: interconnecting "line dings" by Aenigma Fonts (Brian Kent). Each character will connect to any other to create decorative flourishes, and specific characters together will create symmetrical designs; you can see a couple of chains exampled at Brian's site, here, and I played around with a design for an imaginary book binding here. I completely adore this.
Lots more fun stuff to check out at Aenigma, too. And back at DaFONT, I'm also loving their big collection of retro fonts — especially, so far, Chocolate Box and Isadora. Note that DaFont allows you allows you to type in your own example text, by the way, so you can view font samples displaying the (short) text of your choice — very helpful when searching for just the right face for a specific logo or header (and lots of fun when playing with the line dings mentioned above). Also handy: if you see a font you like, you can click on the little plus sign next to the author's name see more offerings by that designer. Nice touches.
*by the way, you can pick up the tile I used on the book here.
Posted by taz Apr 26, 05 in Fonts | Permalink
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack (0)
|||||||||||||||||
via del.ico.us, gorgeous photography by Justine Cooper at Kayashya Hildegrand Gallery: Saved by Science, large-format photographs of selections from the vast scientific collections stored in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Wow.
(Also, a note: We have two new OverAll pages, here and here. I especially like the last set, and especially the last tile of the last set. I have a beige/brown tint on these because I like the way it works with underlying color, but you can always desaturate to get rid of it.)
Posted by taz Apr 26, 05 in Art, Photography | Permalink
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack (1)
|||||||||||||||||
If you are familiar with Citrusmoon's "OverAlls" and would like to try making some of your own, I've written a wickedquick guide to doing it. Although it may look complicated at first glance, it really isn't at all, and using this method, you can create a semi-transparent tile from an existing design in about 30 seconds!
Before we jump in, I'd like to note that I've used a tile with a fairly bold design with a lot of white space for our practice session, not because this is necessarily the best type to use for an OverAll, but so that the results will be visually unambiguous in our sample images. So. Ready? Let's go...
Continue reading "Make your own semi-transparent backgrounds"
Posted by taz Apr 26, 05 in Color, Photoshop, Tips | Permalink
| Comments (4)
| TrackBack (0)
|||||||||||||||||
AKVIS Software has some interesting products, and I am passionately coveting Chameleon for collage, a plug-in that blends cut-and-paste objects with their new backgrounds. It's really much too much for me to spend on something that I mostly only do as a hobby, but I'm going to download the free trial when I have a couple of not-so-busy days, and see how good they are at convincing me to unclench the money fist. Prognosis: not likely. Money fist is mighty, and $70 for a plug-in? Ouch. But, we'll see. I'm nothing if not capricious.
Posted by taz Apr 25, 05 in Photoshop | Permalink
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack (0)
|||||||||||||||||
Lightning as represented in Japanese prints is just one of the great informational pages at printsofjapan.com, a site that's short on designerly fillips, and long on content, effort and soul.
With over 200 pages, the geography here can become quite a maze, delightful to ramble through, but easy to become lost in. For a quick and dirty thumbnail gallery of its nearly 1,000 images, though, you can use google's image search of the site, to keep track of all the gems.Also note that many of the images are actually larger than they appear on the pages; if you are using Firefox or Mozilla, right-click on a picture and "view image" to see the larger size.
Here are a couple of tiles inspired by the site, and here is an example box using them.
Posted by taz Apr 23, 05 in Art | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack (0)
|||||||||||||||||
Rugged Art. Art rugs. Yum.
Posted by taz Apr 21, 05 in Art | Permalink
| Comments (1)
| TrackBack (0)
|||||||||||||||||