Download the ZIP file with the AI and SVG artwork

Canon 40D vector clip art by Luke Roberts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at lukeroberts.us.

After saving the hard drive from my laptop which died a few weeks ago, I’ve finally been able to recover the 2011 calendar I had made!

If you’ve decided to participate in Project 365 this year, you might start to find it difficult to keep track of which number day it is in the year once you get out of January – I know I did when I did my Project 365 in 2009.

That year I made a special Project 365 Calendar with all the days of the year on it and now I’ve updated it for 2011.

Details

After some feedback on the previous year’s calendars, I’ve adjusted the layout to 4×3 columns and moved the notes section to be under each month.

The PDF contains two A4 pages (all vector graphics, so it’s no problem to print at different sizes).

Page one is the full colour calendar (I actually wanted to change the colours, but don’t have access to InDesign or Illustrator for now, so feel free to edit it if you can).

Page two is a simplified version – just black text on a white background.

Download

Project 365 Calendar 2011

I love the layers of colour in this poster for 'Motoring in Germany'

If you’re looking for some inspiration, the Bostom Public Library has a fantastic Flickr account with lots of classic posters. They’re all licensed under Creative Commons and for available at a reasonable size (unlike many similar resources).

I really love the style of these old travel posters. The colours they’ve used and the hand-painted texture gives them a lot of character that is often difficult to reproduce digitally. The scans, with their subtle paper texture, creases and folds, only add to that. I particularly like the layers of colour in the poster for ‘Motoring in Germany‘.

As well as the travel posters, there are WWI and WWII propaganda posters, old manuscripts, postcards and photos. The whole account is a great resource for colour, texture and general design inspiration.

MSN Live Messenger drawn-conversation in progress

The problem with these drawn-conversations is that it can be difficult to keep a record of what has been drawn. Sometimes whole comics or detailed pictures are drawn with no way to save the images… unless you have Adobe Illustrator. Here’s how.

Next time you have a drawing in MSN that you want to save, open up Illustrator and simply drag and drop the drawing into the Illustrator workspace.

Drag and drop the drawing into Illustrator

The beauty of using Illustrator (rather than just taking a screen shot) is that it saves the drawing in full vector detail.

So whether it’s a comic that you’ve been able to get just the right expression on or just a funny picture you want to save, you’ll be able to retain all the detail and enlarge or refine the image further in Illustrator. Or even  export it to Flash and animate it, or print it out and give it to the friend you were talking to (things seem funnier in print).

Right: Vector outlines in Illustrator. Left: A custom brush applied to the strokes.

Illustrator is the only program that seems to be able to capture the vector data properly. If you know of any other programs that work, let me know!

I decided to participate in Project 365 this year. Only 5 days in and I can already see it’s going to be difficult to keep track of which number day it is in the year. You can see my Project 365 photos here.

I meant to get myself a calendar today but forgot, so I decided to make one myself, which shows on each day what day of the year it is.
 

Details

1. There are two versions: one with a “notes” section on the right and one with the “scavenger hunt” items for Project 365.
2. Each version has 3 pages in the PDF: Full colour, Black and Economy. This is to let you choose which you want to print depending on the capabilities of your printer.
3. Made in InDesign in a surprisingly short amount of time.
4. Formatted for A4 paper.

Download

Project 365 Calendar 2009 – Notes version (PDF ~38kb)

Project 365 Calendar 2009 – Scavenger hunt version (PDF ~53kb)

 

Preview

While I’ve been happily using it, I wanted something with a bit more colour, but still with the natural wood. I stumbled across this colourful wallpaper, which turned out to be “Catch the Beat” by StaredownStudios, and wanted to combine the colours with the wood.

This is what I came up with:

Download

1600×1200

1280×1024

1280×800

1920×1200

Update

On some computers I prefer the colours to be at the top rather than the bottom. So I made a flipped version. I think i prefer it to the original in some ways.

Flipped version: 1600×1200

Flipped version: 1280×1024

Flipped version: 1280×800

Flipped version: 1920×1200

Any other size requests?

Update 2

Following a request from LOSTman, I’ve done a few iPhone versions of the wallpaper.

1. Colour Wood iPhone

2. Colour Wood iPhone – flipped

3. Colour Wood iPhone – alternative

Occasionally for a print or website, you might require images with a white background. Usually these are easy to find, take or mask yourself, but for some things it can be more difficult.

Fire is one example. It would be very difficult to try and mask out flames from a fire photo using the pen tool or a brush, because of the organic shapes and indistinct edges.

As you will see in moment, it doesn’t have to be difficult. Using blend modes and layers, it’s very easy! So easy that I’ve turned it into an action which you can download at the end of the article if you so desire.

One

Take or find a photo of some fire (other images with a similar black background might work too – let me know in the comments if you’ve found something else on which this technique works!)

I started out with a rather nice Creative Commons licensed photo found here on Flickr.

Two

In Photoshop, you should have the default “background” layer. Duplicate it and call it something like “inverted”. Then, do just that – invert the image (CTRL + I)

Now set this “inverted” layer to the “Luminosity” blend mode.

As you can see, the whites of the fire have been dulled and it doesn’t really look very fiery. We’ll fix that in the next and final step.

Three

Duplicate the “background” layer again and drag it above the “inverted” layer. Rename it something like “Lighten”.

Finally, set this layer to the “lighten” blend mode and that’s it. You should have a nice white background on your fire photo.

Download the action

This technique is very useful in general. For example you can use it for blending objects into a background or for making a grungy text font.

Watch below or in high quality.

Below are some examples I’ve made previously.

Any requests, let me know in the comments. Here’s the list so far:

Pirate Windows wallpaper

Pirate Apple wallpaper

Pirate Ubuntu wallpaper

Pirate Windows – rusted edition wallpaper

Destroy Ubuntu wallpaper

Template file

I installed Ubuntu eee last night on to my little Asus Eee PC 701. It’s a very well put together package and I really like the Netbook Remix interface. I’ve had a few little glitches so far, but over all it’s really impressive.

The background wallpaper takes on a bit more significance than normal with this Netbook Remix interface. With the whole thing semi-transparent, the colours are defined by the background you have. I liked the default red/yellow/green wallpaper but once the interface is over the top of it, the yellow is all but invisible, leaving a murky red and green background.

So I have quickly made up a few alternative coloured versions. The blue one is seen in the screenshot above.

All credit goes to the original artist: Soft. Also more Ubuntu eee wallpapers can be found here.