Today I have put together the largest collection of free Photoshop patterns DesignM.ag has ever offered. Enjoy!

Flowers Patters for Photoshop (6)

Books offer graphic designers, illustrators and typographers a great way to expand their portfolios. There are endless possibilities that can be explored when designing for book covers, and often are explored, as can be seen in this post.

I’ve had an increased interest in book covers recently after putting together another showcase at The Inspiration Blog on minimalistic book covers, since then I have been browsing for book cover inspiration daily so thought I would share some of my findings here at DesignM.ag. This showcase presents a collection of 64 typographic book covers, all of which are interesting and are genuinely unique. The books themselves are crossed between a number of

Coney Island of the Mind

Buy on Amazon

Bundle Hunt announced a treasure that is sure to get any designers mouth salivating. For those who don’t know, Bundle Hunt is a premium resource pack aimed at empowering the creative community, offering more than $1,400 worth of apps, templates, icons, eBooks, hosting plans and premium memberships all for less than $50!

The bundle, which includes some of the most prestigious brands in the business, began on August 2nd and will continue through the 16th.

Here is a line up worth checking out!

Billings

Billings is a time billing program for professionals who want to simplify quoting, invoicing and time tracking. Includes customizable templates for those who want their invoices to make a good first impression.

If you’re a web designer and you’re NOT using social media to help you in your work, then all I can do is direct you to 2002, because that’s where your workflow lives. Your competitors, co-workers and clients are all using social media, which means if you’re not, you’re getting left behind. Social media isn’t just a time waster, and it’s not just Facebook and Twitter – there are many different ways a designer can use it to advance his or her career. Here are six ways you could be using social media to help your grow your design career.

1)Promote Your Work

– This is probably the way most creative types would think of using social media, whether it’s tweeting about a new client’s page that just went live or sharing a link to the guest post you wrote for your favorite design blog. However, there are also a few designer-specific social media platforms out there that aren’t cluttered with sponsored tweets and e-book offers just yet. Most designers know about the Digg-like sites such as DesignBump.com or WPVote.com, but there’s more out there. There are communities like Coroflot and deviantART where you can share your portfolio and get feedback, but there’s even more still. For instance, Dribble.com is like crowdsourcing site/Twitter for designers – a site where you can share small snapshots of your designs for comment and assessment by your fellow designers. Whatever platform you use, social media has changed the way we share, promote and often improve our work.

Finally, you’ve done it. You’ve successfully persuaded your visitor to close the deal. Now it’s time for the hard close.

We all know how important the layout of your sites homepage is, or the product details page but what about the pricing table? No one ever talks about that, when really it’s such a vital part of a websites sales funnel.

The real tricky part is the strategic thinking behind it. You need to make the entry version bare bones and not give away too much, yet you still need to show your clients the value of the product. It takes clever thinking and also a visually captivating pricing page. I’ve come up with a select few sites that have perfected the art of the pricing table. Use this as inspiration to create that perfect pricing page or update your current one to increase the conversion rate on your site.

They’ve got it nailed down…

Basecamp

A few weeks ago, I had an article published here on DesignM.ag entitled “The Problem with Free Fonts,” in which I basically suggested that one of the potential problems that may emerge from the vast pool for free fonts that are available (in a variety of capacities) across the internet might be found in their obvious over use. I cited Papyrus and Comic Sans as potential examples, and ultimately was quite happy with the response – both in terms of the quantity and quality of the comments.

A couple days later, I came across another article via Twitter. This one was written by the greatly-esteemed Brian Hoff, and published on his Design Cubicle blog. It was aptly and wonderfully titled “With beautiful type comes great responsibility,” and I was first drawn to the title by the awesome Spider-Man allusion. After realizing who the author of the article was, however, I was excited to read it, since Brian’s insights into the typography are always fascinating and helpful.

Imagine my surprise then, when the very first sentence in the article actually referenced and linked to my article. I must confess that I felt a bit of a twinge in my stomach when I read that Brian was “a hint disappointed by the depth of the articles positioning,” but I read on anyways, still interested in what he had to say.

Basically, the article suggests that the problem I outlined is not the only problem with free fonts and goes on to suggest that issues of missing typographical history, a lack of proper weights and styles and just poor craftsmanship are actually much more significant problems when it comes to free fonts. By the time I finished reading, I concluded that it was a marvellous article and a great response to my own piece.

JumpeyeComponents.com has offered to giveaway a free Slideshow Box Premium HTML License to a lucky DesignM.ag reader. The value of this giveaway is $99.

SlideshowBox is an application that allows you to easily create HTML and Flash photo slide show galleries. The Flash component is supported by all Adobe Flash CS versions. The HTML embeddable as SWF objects (they require Flash Player 9+) and some of them as pure JavaScript slide shows. There are 24 different templates you can use to create your slide shows which gives you a lot a of flexibility. See below for some screen shots of their templates or visit their Slideshow Templates page.

Sure, there are hundreds of great resources to seek inspiration on the web, but it is never quite the same of holding a book in your hands and getting to flick through the pages. This collection of inspirational design books features a handful of categories, from illustration to t-shirts, infographics to letterpress products and much more in between! It’s time to splash some cash and start growing your graphic design library!

Images 33 2009

Author(s): AOI Editors

Images 33 is a superb book, featuring the very best British contemporary illustration from 2009. In total, the book features around 600 illustrations over 360 pages, as well as 8 editorial essays about various illustration categories.

Buy from Amazon.com

When it comes to online strategies you should never overlook the design of your sign up page.  Some of the given examples are sites than many of you I’m sure are familiar with, although, I feel there are some growing gems among the group.  Take a look around!

Gist

DailyDesignAdvice.com has partnered with DesignM.ag to bring you an exciting new series showcasing prime design advice. Each week we’ll be doling out 10 useful, bite-sized tips on a variety of design-related subjects to help you become a more productive, knowledgeable and successful designer. To get the party started, we’ve got 10 tips for web designers for your reading pleasure. From typography to audience to branding to usability, I’m 100% certain that you’ll find something of interest here. Since this is a brand-new series, be sure to let us know what you think about it (including any suggestions you have) in the comments. Enjoy!