Time to talk about our artwork!

Contributing Design & Artwork
21

Masks, if there is the same thing in gimp I don’t know how to use it. And the filters don’t work exactly the same. Since I’m a beginner I can’t really tell you all the things are different but gimp can do the job for almost everything you want. You can add brushes, fonts, patterns… It’s easy to deal with layers and features too. Photoshop is not necessary to make artwork, at all :slight_smile:

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22

Merci Millie!!

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23

I also like GIMP! But I also use some free online tools for photo editing like Ribbet. com.
And I think it is always good to combine “simple” things like a photo collage, single photos, text, free graphics and so on.
This is of my latest design (the Music Channel isn’t approved yet ^^)

But the tricky part in my eyes: The Background picture! I “prefer” black or white backgrounds as it makes the design job a bit easier (for instance the text will be readable and so on). I think I spent more hours on looking for a nice background picture/idea (and then ended up with no good results) than the actual design work. lol
How do you decide on the Background picture? Is it easy for you to find one?

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24

No, I always have to do at least 3-4 options, then I found one.
On my design for good doctor, french, I let the back in white because with the colors I used, I thought it was prettier.
I just found out that I could find png images on the web that are already on a transparent background, like a tree or a bookz I like it because I don’t need to erase the parts I don’t want on my design. I found the $ tree like that,

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25

Ah thank you! I didn’t think of using png images. It is a great tip!!! Thank you! :slight_smile:

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26

You’re welcome!!
And here is the place I take my fonts: http://www.fontspace.com/
It’s really easy to install a font, you need to extract the file that you download and you put it (only the font file, not the txt file and/or the image that comes with) in the same file that your computer keep the regular fonts.
In my computer, it’s in “Windows/Fonts”

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27

WOW!!! Thank you! I love that site!!!:-)))

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What is really nice, it’s that these fonts will also be available for all the programs that uses windows fonts. So, if you use Words, you will see the new fonts :slight_smile:

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yes, I have Windows and I just installed one new font in order to try it out, it works!!! Yeahh! Thank you! It is so cool!!!:slight_smile:

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30

Hooray! This is a great topic!

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31

I second what everyone said about GIMP, it’s a great photoshop alternative! I’d also recommend Paint.net which is a simpler photoshop alternative. However it doesn’t have as many features as GIMP does. >_<

Question–I noticed that some channels use HTML to make matching backgrounds, fonts, etc. (including the other images) Does anyone here use HMTL for the channel design?

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Sometimes I do, for the background color, but I always do my designs as an image :slight_smile:

33

Only really for background colors. I’ve never been able to get fonts to show up, it’s always the default Viki font now :expressionless:

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34

This is the main reason why I always put images instead of text and pictures alone.
I can do design a lot more pretty if I do it like that :slight_smile:

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35

I’m glad I found this topic! ^^
I’m new at designing. In fact I don’t know much :/(looking for tutorials now hehe) but I do want to try to make a design for my profile page, if I get creative and all is nicely done… well try to design for channel in the future.
I’m wondering, what size do you make the picture for the background?

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Ahh! I know this! …I think.
Channel walls are 558px wide and profile pages are 710px wide. So if you want a picture to span the whole page, you have to make them (at least) that wide so there’s no stretching.

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37

Is there any program downloadable from the net that i can use, and links for designing apps?:frowning:

38

Great idea! I really wanted a topic like that, but I wasn’t so sure if people would join in the conversation.

So, what softwares do you use? I work with Photoshop CS2. I don’t know a lot of fancy techniques, so I usually visualize what I want to do (a sort of draft) and then I start looking for tutorials that will help me get there. Most of my designs are quite simple and I don’t think they’re so good, but I enjoy making them :slight_smile:

39

What are you looking for the programs to do?
And what kind of…apps?

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Thank you!! :))