We’ve put together a big list of resources which will inspire and make your world better. Fonts, brushes, patterns and textures, we’ve found plenty of stuff to get your mind wandering down the path to creative genius. There’s more motivational links here than you can shake a shiny brush at, so bookmark this page and come back when you’re low on creative juices, you’ll feel fluid in no time. We’re going to be updating this page when we find more resources, so if there’s something you’ve found and would like to see on the list, leave it in a comment and we’ll put it in and give you the credit!
Tutorials
Sometimes you’ve gotta. Following a tutorial from start to finish is not just about learning how to get a specific effect done, it gives you an idea of the many different workflows people use while they’re designing. So even if you think you’re already Joey Photoshop, you might learn a short cut or two by following a tutorial.
25 fire and explosion tutorials
Fire and explosions. What more could you want from a set of tutorials?
Using brushes to make interesting layouts
Some really interesting designs using brushes. Forget clean cut edges if you want to follow these tutorials.
10 principles of good web design
Not so much a tutorial as a check list for making sure your site is the best possible shape. Very interesting stuff.
Once you’ve got your design laid out in photoshop, it’s a very worthwhile string to your bow if you can then convert that design into HTML/CSS
16 photoshop tutorials for web design
Various types of design tutorial. A great place to start for inspiration…
18 font effects to add to your design arsenal
Perfect for getting inspiration on making logos or interesting splash pages. We’re a big fan of the milk tutorial!
If you haven’t already checked out this site for photoshop and web design tutorials it’s time to remove your head from the digital sand. Get subscribed straight away!
Patterns and textures
They play a major part in many projects so knowing your way around the net to get your hands on what you want is vital. In the mean time you can start with our collection, but if you feel we’ve missed some excellent resources off, please leave them in a comment.
Pattern8
Seems to have decent potential for a good pattern resource, keep your eyes on this one.
Book textures
Download them all for free, but if you like it, donate!
Wood Textures
Does exactly what it says on the tin. Wood textures.
Patterrific
It provides seamless repeat patterns. Well worth subscribing to for inspiration and resources for your work…
Lisndru
A blog with a brilliant selection of resources, everything from icons through to PSD templates and textures. Well worth a subscription.
Texture King
If you can’t find it on texture king, it probably doesn’t exist.
It must be love. Another selection of textures.
Another wide selection of resources, well worth a subscription, so hop to it. It has good tips and tricks as well as some design resources.
Perfectly aligning patterns for all your pattern needs.
Brushes
They’re a great place to start for inspiration. Download some brush packs that tickle your fancy and play around with them in Photoshop, before you know it that illusive idea will make itself clear and you’ll have thrown something special together in no time.
There are more brushes here than you’ll know what to do with. It’s updated every day so it’s well worth a subscription in your favourite RSS reader.
100 excellent high-res brushes
1000+ free and high-res photoshop brushes
This website not only has a fantastic selection of brushes for your using pleasure, but it has an extremely usable navigation system.
Fonts
They can be the difference between a nice design and a horrible one so try and get a feel for all the different typefaces. There’s plenty of sites out there with free fonts for your downloading pleasure, the problem is that there are so many fonts it’s hard to trawl your way through them.
A truly massive collection of fonts available to download for free. The problem with da font is that if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for the site can be a little difficult to navigate or take inspiration from. Despite this, with such a huge collection of fonts it’s well worth a visit.
A fantastic blog entry that shares some of the better free fonts available to you online so you won’t have to crawl through hundreds of free fonts to get to something half decent.
Nice vector fonts in the .AI format. Have a browse through and see what you think…
Inspiration
Inspiration can come from anywhere, the brushes you use, the textures you find, or the cereal box in the morning. Take inspiration from where ever you can get it, but it’s always worthwhile browsing through the work of world class designers, so here’s a miniature collection of inspiring design portfolios.
There’s a great collection of fonts and other such goodies over at their resources section, and the site also doubles up as a fantastic blog for inspiration.
Chris Spooner’s very own blog. It has Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials, articles around the subject of design and a bunch of free vector and resource giveaways. Well worth a subscription.
Resources
If you need a pattern, or at least want some inspiration for potential backgrounds, have a look through these pattern generators.
The building blocks of a website have already been put together for you here. If you’re new to CSS it’s a good way to look at how layouts are constructed, or if you’re just a bit lazy, you can use these code snippets as the framework for your site.
13 must have addons for firebug
Firebug lets you look at the code of a website and see what is doing what with ease. If you don’t already have it you need to get it.
Find out which fonts work together by experimenting with this great application. Mix together as many typefonts as you like and see what looks good and what doesn’t!
A brilliant idea. They release zip files of textures, photographs and inspiration round a specific theme every week. Well worth a subscription…
This page definitely needs bookmarking. From hex codes to photoshop shortcuts, this cheat sheet list covers everything.
100 resources from 2008 you can’t live without
2008 was a good year, here’s the resources it produced that you need in your life.
What the font?
They have an excellent database of fonts, but what’s on offer doesn’t stop there. If you’ve seen a font that you like, you can submit an image of it to their site and they’ll instantly recommend a font which closely or exactly matches the one you’re after. Clever stuff!
Free alternatives to Photoshop
There are now so many free Photoshop alternatives available that you’ll wonder why anyone ever pays for it any more. Check out this great list put together by our own fair hand…
Since we’re on the topic of alternatives to photoshop, The Gimp is the most widely used. If you’re interested in giving it a go check out this collection of tutorials.
More links
As if that wasn’t enough, here are some more links to start a fire of inspiration.
The world’s biggest post about Photoshop (PSDs, textures, tutorials, patterns, shapes, and brushes
60 Most Wanted Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes, .PSDs and Resources
70 Excellent Photoshop Resources
So there you have it, keep this page bookmarked because it’s going to get updated each and every time we find something really interesting! As ever, if you liked it, share it!
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