There are so many tutorials and guides online that teach you how to make effective use of the web 2.0 design. While most these tutorials are useful, at the same time they kill the originality in web design. For example, most “guides” tell you that web 2.0 is about having a glossy badge, stripes background, and bold fonts. Result? There are countless hundreds of designs with badges, stripes and bold big letters… and they are no different from one another. It does not matter if you make a web 2.0, web 1.0, or web 75.0 design, it all comes down to being original and memorable.

However, if can’t really find anything particulary original to symbolize your design, it’s “safer” to go with the current trends of web design. So here is a very small fragment of web design layout, and how to turn a regular layout into a web 2.0 layout.

This is what we had…

And this is what we are going to do…

We are going to work in Photoshop, using nothing but layer styles; focusing on mild gradients and shadows.

Start off by Read the rest of this entry »

After the successful release of “Precious Heart” on my other blog, I decided to make a sister icon with a clover leaf. When I was in Prague last time I saw such an impressive variety of Swarovsky glass and it inspired me to make a graphic with similar structure, deep and subtly sparkling. Anyway, the download is free and you can use it any way you like The preview image is desized, otherwise blog template gets reformatted, you can previous the full version here.

Download FREE

Although I mostly prefer to make artistic PSDs, we can’t ignore the big demand in web 2.0 design elements, be it for software or website graphics. So, I decided to make a mini-icons set with animals. These icons cover the majority of web design trends, including rounded corners, juicy colours combination, folded edge, very light gradients on the icon and text, combination of bold and thin text in one line. I hope you will enjoy this file and as usual — feedback is welcome.

Please note that you must not use these icons for commercial use.

Download Free (100 kb, zip folder with the 3 icons in PSD format)

To fine a good PSD file that will be available freely online is not very easy. Some websites charge a small fee for downloading a PSD file, others just don’t offer them in the first place. Here are some really good PSD recourses that can help you to sharpen your skills.

Incredible free.psd file by Manicho fromdeviantART. This is an iPhone image with all it’s features and highest quality file. Download here. Tis fine is free for any sort of use, however you should link to the author’s page if you decide to use this image.

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This is a very nice Orb created by Paul Willocks back in 2005. Even though this PSD file is rather old and quite small (when you will download, you will see it’s hardly a big avatar size), it’s has a few very interesting effects and interesting metal-like frame. Download this file here. If you like artist’s style and want to see more of his works, take a look at his another psd orb here.

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Last year, Psychopulse, one of my all-time favourite Mac-style designers made this PSD file available for a free download. This zip folder includes 5 files that can be used either for a stylish signature, or (the original idea) for posting our desktop screenshot in a sort of thumbnail in the forums. Particularly widely spread technique in Aqua forums, but in any case, you are going to love the styles and learn from them. If you want to use them for anything else, you must ask for author’s permission. Grab the file here. If you like his style, I recommend to also check out his other downloads, snapshot 05, chalkboard, wood and frame.

As the so-called desktop design is gaining popularity, you might find this PSD file to be especially useful. it includes a few badges, note and photo effect. The author of this download — Deluxive, definitely made a lot of web designer’s life easier. Get the file here, you are going to love it.

Aero Vista. The word says it all, we all want that glossy sleek look and those semi-transparent frames. FastNFurious

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Terms of use:

Use freely wherever you want; on templates, wallpapers, personal and commercial use are okay as long as you:

1. Don’t claim the image was created by you.
2. Don’t resell the image itself.

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Download the full version

This is one of the first tutorials I was making when I tried to promote Lorelei Web Forum. It’s a very nice style, looks like it was caramelized and it has a lot of depth. You will certainly going to enjoy this file but please remember that this is my material and must not be redistributed without permission.

Download Caramel Style Effect (250 kb)

This a download file I made last year for my design forum, appearantly it still gets downloads, only in the forum it’s not open for viewers, only members. Here I thought I’d share it freely on this blog. All you need to do is open the psd file in photoshop, select each layer and load the layer styles, then save.

Download the PSD with layer styles (477 kb)