1stwebdesigner

1stwebdesigner is a design blog dedicated to bloggers, freelancers, web-developers and designers. Topics focus on web design, tutorials and inspirational articles.

40 Promotional Sites Where To Submit Your Design Related LinksDecember 26 2008

Since I use social bookmarking/voting sites to promote my articles a lot, I thought I might share these sites with You too - I know if You submit every article in each of these sites regularly, You’ll get many new and regular readers in short time period. I, for example, got 4,000-5,000 unique readers everyday using this method. Of course, there is also much more small and useful tips, but I think I’ll do that kind of article a little bit later.

And I know, there are few another similar articles, but at least for me, I want my own list, showing the more and less useful sites for me in diminishing order. Not all of sites are just for design related articles, but I couldn’t not to include those sites too, since they create so much traffic for me. Also if You use this technique, You get very strong backlinks which are good for SEO and Your site at first place, of course.

I marked social bookmarking/voting sites with registration required with “*” mark.

1. Stumbleupon *

If You get at least 15-20 Your article stumblers in short time period, You can get amazing amounts of traffic, so this i

Academy Student Photoshop Works: Poster, Journal and LogotypeDecember 25 2008

Since I wrote an article and got really good feedback for creating new articles about my academy works, I talked with my course comrades and asked them to send their works to me, so I can show You these. I am talking about lection called as Photoshop where we got 3 exercises to create a new logotype, journal (both sides) and poster. So again thanks to my course comrades and here we got some great list with interesting works, different tastes, trends - just let me show You pictures, which can say more than words can do. Many works are created in Latvian language, so I think it’s useful for You just to check out composition, illustrations and something like that.

Session is finally over!

In this lesson (Photoshop) we had 3 exercises:

a)Poster creation

Need to be textual information on poster as real life example. Variations - can be brochure type home page or opening event poster.

b) New journal cover creation. Format, font and color selection need to be consistent to issue.

c) Logotype creation - must be created from name and surname initials and + sign, also can be a real work for company. Also should be created color

Sensational List Of 25 The Best Design Worldwide ForumsDecember 12 2008

Forums always are a great place to get answers to Your unclear questions about coding, designing, SEO, marketing, blogging much faster and clearer than just googling Your answer sometimes. Also it’s a great way to network with professionals in Your community or just people with the same interests. As a designer myself I felt in need with these kind of communities, maybe You’ll find these sites useful too. Participating in these forums not allows You to share Your knowledge with peers, but also allows to gain trust, for example, if You write a blog as I am - good user profile on popular forum linking to Your blog can be great marketing way.

1. Estetica Design Forum

There are several related forum categories like typography, photography, graphic design, print design, logo design & branding identity, general 3D and more.

Excellent graphic design forum with 15,580 threads, 157,326 posts and 6,975 members already.

Night Before Christmas : Photoshop Tutorial And WallPaperDecember 4 2008

As I saw everybody enjoyed previous Christmas related tutorial, I decided to keep it that way and now I am offering You the next Photoshop task. Tutorial creation took me about 4 hours, so You could do this in 30min or an hour. I wish You good luck and please provide us with Your outcomes! We will use many different and useful techniques here so read everything carefully and ask if You don’t understand something.

And now I wish You good luck - and keep Your Christmas spirit going!

We will create something like this, click on the image to see full preview:

Step 1: Document Creation And Sky

Create a new document, I wanted this image to use later as wallpaper, so I used 1920×1200 resolution, 72 dpi.

Fill backgro

The Third Month And Time To Talk!November 30 2008

Hey everybody!

It’s been a while I haven’t done any short post to check in with You guys and one more reason - it’s already the third month of my blogging carrier.

At starters I wanted to apologize for my laziness ( not really actually), but session in my academy starts in 8. December, but I don’t want to get bad marks in the field I love. If You don’t know I am learning as graphic designer, already the second course is at half. And I will be very proactive after session, I got professional praxis after that, but I am doing different jobs all time, so actually I am getting free time. And yes, I am planning that time spend to learn and digg deeper in 3dsMax, Photoshop CS4, Illustrator, Indesign, Logo and business card creation - and that means also many tutorials, inspirational articles from me!

But to get to the point - there is a question to You - there are actually people interested in design school atmosphere, workflow? With this question I mean, there would be people interested to read an article  showing my works, lessons and actual overview? For now I am just wondering and writing articles