Toluu

COLORBURNED - Professional Design Resources

Meet Jacob Cass from Just Creative DesignYesterday

Just before the Christmas holiday I had the opportunity to interview Australian designer and blogger Jacob Cass from Just Creative Design.  At the time, Jacob was just about to take his holiday from school and work to celebrate his birthday and the holidays with his family so I really appreciated Jacob setting some time aside for this interview.  I think you guys will find Jacob's insights into the world of designing blogging very helpful.  I was especially interested in learning how Jacob balances his time between school, freelance projects and blogging.  So take a look at this interview and when you're done, visit his websites and connect with him using the social network of your choosing. 

Jacob, thank you so much for participating in this interview!  Let me first start off by wishing you a happy birthday!  How old are you now?  Did you do anything exciting?

Thank you Grant and thank you for compiling this interview too. My 21st birthday is actually next week (27th December) and yeah I am doing something quite special - a 21st is a big event here in Australia.

I am hiring a massive boat for a 4 hour cruise with my friends & family on Sydney Harbour with a

20 High Resolution Photoshop Lens Flare BrushesJanuary 7

I have always been fascinated with lens flares.  Recently, I started using Knoll Light Factory, an amazing Photoshop plug-in used to create all sorts of realistic-looking lens flare effects.  Prior to Knoll Light Factory, I had to create lens flares on my own or, god forbid, use Photoshop's default lens flare plug-in.  After playing around with it for a little while I decided to create a set of high resolution lens flare brushes for Photoshop to give away to you guys.

These brushes are really great!  You can use one big flare to add some interest to your designs or a lot of smaller flares to create pixie dust or some other effect.  So feel free to download these brushes for free and use them in your personal or professional works and if you still can't find what you need, feel free to purchase a copy of Knoll Light Factory for yourself!

To use these brushes in Photoshop, open up the brushes palette in Photoshop and click the arrow in the upper right corner. Click Load brushes and locate the .ABR file on your hard

2008: A Year in ReviewJanuary 6

In 2008, this website celebrated a number of exciting milestones.  In May, I officially launched this site as a means to display my personal portfolio to prospective employers.  At the time, I had just lost my job and I was looking to start fresh in a new design job somewhere.  As time went on, the focus of this site changed from a means to showcase my portfolio to a platform to share my opinions and design resources with other designers.  Since then, I've published some really great articles, freebies and tutorials but since this site is relatively new I decided to review some of my favorite posts just in case some of you guys missed them.  Thanks again and I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!

BRUSHES

Vector Freebies: Paint Brushes Set 4

The Most Retro Line Illustrator Brushes Ever!

Win a Free Copy of Filter Forge - Comment to WinJanuary 5

Recently, I had the opportunity to try out Filter Forge, a plugin for Adobe Photoshop. There are a lot of Photoshop filters and plug-ins out there. Some are good, some are bad and some are just plain awesome! Filter Forge falls into the "just plain awesome" category. I was so impressed with the software that I decided to contact the developers and give away a free copy on my website to help spread the word.

On the surface, Filter Forge is just a Photoshop plug-in to generate textures, visual effects, enhance photos and process images however there are 2 things that make Filter Forge unique.

1. You can create your own filters.
2. You get access to over 5,500 user created filters.

What I found so great about this plug-in was the quality of many of the filters in their library.  Filter Forge ships with an excellent selection of default plug-ins but you also have the ability to download and use all 5,500 user

Meet Ryan Putnam (AKA Rype) of VectipsJanuary 1

This week I had the opportunity to interview one of my favorite illustrators and tutorial writers Ryan Putnam (AKA Rype) of Vectips. Some of you may immediately recognize Ryan from his website, others may know him from some of the amazing tutorials he has written over at VECTORTUTS or even from some of the many illustrations he has for sale on iStockPhoto. I have been very impressed with Ryan's work as well as his blog and I highly recommend that you guys take a look at his website as well as his tutorials. He has a lot to offer some one looking to learn more about Illustrator or illustration in general. As always, scroll down to read more about Ryan and when you're done, feel free to connect with his using the social network of your choosing.

Ryan, thank you very much for participating in this interview.  I've learned a lot by following your blog and I am sure that my readers feel the same way.  Can you start off by explaining a bit about your background?  Where are you from?  How did you get your start as a designer?

Thanks for the interview! I love Colorburned and all the great Illustrator bru