After the dumb struck success of our long-standing recycled box board and letterpressed business cards (image below), it was time for a change. Following the relocation of our office, we needed a quick and dirty fix to state our new details. Subsequently (and with great reluctance), the move also meant we had to throw out boxes and boxes of unused cards!

In an effort to prevent this mass amount of wastage happening again, we thought we’d try our hand at the age old art of DIY, by having some quirky, custom made stamps made so that we could individually press our contact info onto pre-cut box board cards. Sounded like a great idea! Not only would we be doing our part to save the earth, but we’d be able to produce uniquely individual cards every time. Little did we know this cost-effective and waste reducing method would be such a tricky and time consuming chore. Needless to say, after hours of hand braking stamping, we needed a better solution.

Let’s do something special

A couple of months ago, we decided to attend the 2011 FOWA conference in Las Vegas, and having not had a card for several months, we figured that now was as good of a time as any to get our act together and create something special that we could hand out to our North American counterparts. Coincidentally, as we were thinking of creating a new card, we received a visit from our K.W Doggetts paper rep (Thanks Neale!) who seduced us with some gorgeous Rives Design paper samples. Totally smitten by this sexy stock, and after much deliberation, we decided to stray away from the recycled paper vibe we had been using for so long and try something a little more schmancy.

Finding inspiration

With the conference creeping up, we needed to start considering the design of the card. Often a tricky process to portray the style of your business in a 55mm x 90mm area, we reached out to the usual suspects for some design inspiration, including Creattica, Lovely Stationery and Dribbble before deciding on a design which will now be forever known as ‘The Koodoz Sandwich’. Now with the design settled, it was time to find a printer who could help us out in creating our idea and turning it into something really memorable.

Lucky for us we didn’t have to look too far to find the right guys for the job, with Taylor’d Press just around the corner, they were able to envisage our idea and brainstorm with us to create a solution that would make our card unique and unlike anything else they had seen or done.

The ‘Koodoz Sandwich’

Not too dissimilar from a Big Mac, Club Sandwich or 3×3 from In-n-Out Burger (Yum!), The Koodoz Sandwich is a three tiered combo of 320gsm Red Plike wedged between slices of 350gsm Rives Natural White, glazed with a 1 colour dollop of PMS 186 and finished with a custom forme-cut garnish of our infamous Koodoz ‘k’ to reveal the juicy bottom layer of Rives. Bon appétit!

A big shout out to James and Kirsten from Taylor’d Press for all of their help and expertise in creating a fantastic result!

It’s getting awfully close to Christmas now… only 57 days if I’m not mistaken. Which means you have approximately 50 days before it becomes socially unacceptable to send your Christmas cards to clients, friends and loved ones.

With that seed now firmly planted, you’re probably starting to freak out about what kind of cards to send out this year. Should you go with the glossy, foil stamped, glitter encrusted Santa Clause motif? Or perhaps the super-witty, comical kind that, you know, makes everyone laugh (Ho, ho, ho!)? Hmm, so many choices. So little time. What on earth will you do??

Well you could go down the ‘my-unimaginative-personality-requires-equally-uninspiring-christmas-cards’ route, which will, undoubtedly, get the same reaction from it’s receivers as last years cards. Or, if you want to be just like the cool kids, you could buy yourself some tremendously creative, environmentally friendly, screen printed Christmas cards that are hand-made by my good friends Tim and Tanya Ruxton – owners of We Are Messengers, creators of tantalizingly tasty typography and purveyors of quality stationery.

We are makers of handcrafted greeting cards and other stationery goods. All of our products are individually screen printed and environmentally friendly. All of our products feature a unique message that is designed to impact others in a good way. We care about making a difference to the world we live in and we hope you do too.

Hook yourself up this Noël with some killer Chrissy cards and be the envy of all your unimaginative friends and family. And if you get in quick (before the 30th of October, 2009), you could win one of two ‘Messenger Value Packs’ valued at $35! For more info on how to enter, head over to the We Are Messengers website or meet the duo at the Finders Keepers Market in Brisbane and buy them in person.

1. Dafont.com

Da original font source! dafont.com is one of the biggest and best sources for free, original fonts for Mac, PC and Linux platforms with and excellent font preview system and a very organised, categorised menu of available font styles.

2. My Font’s WhatTheFont

My Font’s WhatTheFont (WTF) is simply amazing! If you ever need to find out the name of a font in a design that has been rasterized or turned into outlines, all you have to do is crop a selection of the font in question, upload image and presto! – WTF will return a selection of fonts which match or come very close to your uploaded image. And… if the suggestions that WTF offers aren’t what you’re looking for, you can always ask the super-responsive font guru’s on WTF’s Forum if you’re still looking for answers.

3. Identifont

Identifont is another excellent online resource for discovering the name of that illusive font. However, as opposed to WTF’s image recognition methods, Identifont allows you to answer a series of questions related to the characteristics of the font you are questioning. Once you answer a few simple questions, Identifont provides a selection of 30 fonts that it considers close matches to the answers you have provided.

4. Typophile

Pixel & Web 2.0 Icons

5. Icon Finder

6. IconsPedia

IconsPedia is another great free resource for quality icons. With an apparent focus on providing sets of icons – it is a great place to find a themed package of cute little characters for your next web project. They also have a ‘Submit’ area where you can upload your own icon creations to share with the rest of the world.

High Resolution Textures

7. Mayang’s Free Textures

Mayang’s Free Textures is an oldy but a goody. I’ve been coming to this site since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Stacked with looooads of hi-res images of just about every surface known to man kind, Mayang’s Free Textures is bound to have some rarities that you can’t find anywhere else. The only cons for the site is the absence of a search tool and it’s bland aesthetics. Unfortunately, being a part of an image driven industry, this site lacks the wow factor of some of the newer kids on the block, therefore, more likely to being teased and bashed after school.

8. Lost and Taken

As discussed above, Lost and Taken is one of the new kids on the block. Packed with some amazing textures, Lost and Taken caters to those looking for something unique and a great place to find that one of a kind photo of the top of an industrial, ninja turtle-esque manhole or scans of an old leather bound book with burnt paper edges once owned by a 15th century Spanish pirate with scurvy.

9. Texture King

Texture King is indeed, the King when it comes to grunge, dirt, plaster, concrete and rust based textures. With a nicely structured interface, carefully organised categories and a growing library of over 870+ images, finding the right textures for your design project is a piece of piss.

10. Texture Lovers

Texture Lovers is so fresh, it still has the smell of a new car with a leather interior. I only discovered this site a couple of weeks ago, after The Klog was showcased in their Texture Inspiration section. Featuring a selection of garden variety textures, Texture Lovers also offers some niche categories including Fabrics, Foliage, Liquids and Paints.

Seamless Pixel & Vector Background Patterns

11. Squidfingers

A distant relative of Salad Fingers – Squidfingers (a.k.a Travis Beckham) is a Graphic Designer from Nashville, USA who has very kindly, created a shite load (158 to date) of really funky, seamless, pixel based patterns for you to use in your next web design project.

12. DINPattern

DINPattern is one of those sites you want to keep to yourself. An amazing source for some of the web’s most unique and exquisite background patterns. Their collection includes floral designs that remind you of those elaborate wallpapered bathrooms from a bygone era, flourishes with a grungy touch, metal mulisha-esque skull designs and a myriad of other themes which could best be described as persian, baroque, gothic, oriental, ugly necktie and disco!

13. Pattern Head

Pattern Head is a blog dedicated to offering ‘repeat patterns’ and freebies. Their range of custom patterns include retro imagery reminiscent of a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 60s or more recently, Pixar’s The Incredibles. There is also a fine selection of black & white designs, vintage, eroded and hand-drawn seamless patterns. This site is definitely worth adding to your bookmarks.

14. BgPatterns

I love this site! BgPatterns is a DIY pattern maker where your very own custom patterns are limited only by your imagination. Actually, I lie. You are a tad limited, but only by their set selection of textures and shapes. Still, this is a fantastic concept and a great way for designers to get all creative on a 127 x 127px canvas.

15. Patterrific

Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking… “Another pattern site?” What can I say? The web is crammed full of sites dedicated to the fine art of making and sharing patterns so that your backgrounds look great! Patterrific is, again, another must have bookmark for background lovers. Their range includes some very pretty themes including, wood, cardboard, flower-power, tapestry, candy bar wrapper, polka dots… the list goes on.

16. Background Labs

Last, but not least, Background Labs is a site that lives up to it’s name. Although a little light on content compared to some of the other pattern sites I’ve showcased, Background Labs has some very interesting ‘experimental’ patterns that can only be described as the offspring of a twisted love affair between a mad scientist and his interior designer mistress.

Vector Graphics

17. Vecteezy

Fo’ sheezy my neezy! Conceivably inspired by Snoop Dogg’s patented brand of ghetto talk – Vecteezy is anything but ghetto. In fact, I’d probably describe Vecteezy as being that kid at school who would do anything to become your friend by giving you his lunch money, do your homework and offer you their personal stash of vector art.

18. iStockphoto: Free Vector of the Month

iStockphoto, the fine purveyor of cheap, high resolution photos would have to be one of the most well recognised stock photography libraries in the design community. However, what some of you may not have known (if you’ve been living under a rock) is that they also provide high quality vector illustrations, video and audio at very affordable prices. So why, you ask, is this site being featured in a list of free resources? Simple. Because they also, very graciously, offer their loyal customers a free vector every month for you to download.

19. Vector Valley

A neat little site, Vector Valley is a great source for quality vector graphics. Offering everything from Icons, Symbols, Nature, Patterns (yes, more patterns) and Humans (yes, humans – not the illegal human trafficking kind, just the 2D vector kind).

High Resolution Stock Photography

20. stock.xchng

stock.xchng claims to be ‘the leading free stock photography site’ and IMO, I think they are too. With almost 400,000 images in their library, there is plenty of images (some good, some not so good) to choose from and download freely.

21. Flickr: Creative Commons

Yahoo! owned Flickr is one of, if not the biggest photo sharing sites on the Interweb. It is also a brilliant place to download and use images from a selection of very talented photographers via Creative Commons licenses including, Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works and Share Alike. What’s Creative Commons? Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright. For more info, visit the site.

22. FreePixels

Although a small fry in comparison to the other free stock photography sites out there. FreePixels doesn’t seem to be too phased. Opting to go for quality over quantity, their library of 3,700+ images offer an eclectic mix of imagery ranging from Abstract to Architecture and Landmarks to Landscapes.

23. iStockphoto: Free Photo of the Week

As mentioned earlier, iStockphoto offers free downloadable imagery to those who are ‘in the know’. Alongside their free monthly vector image, they also offer a free weekly photo image from their massive catalogue of high quality stock photos. Make sure to remind yourself to check the site for your weekly gift when you get to work on Monday mornings.

24. Crestock.com: Free Daily Image

If iStockphoto’s free weekly image doesn’t satisfy your insatiable appetite for stock photography, then I suggest you subscribe to Crestock.com’s free daily image RSS feed. Although a little hit and miss on quality and subject matter (there seems to be a lot of images of dodgy Eastern European models siphoning through), occasionally you do come across some real gems that are worthy of archiving. Of course, to some folk, maybe those dodgy Hungarian ‘models’ are the gems you’re looking for.

Tutorial Blogs

25. Vectortuts+

26. Psdtuts+

The bigger brother of Vectortus+, Psdtuts+ offers the same high calibre of tutorials for the grandaddy of digital imaging software, Photoshop. Without a doubt, the most complex imaging program on the market, Psdtuts+ helps both Padewan and Jedi Photoshop users with tips, tricks and techniques to understand the intricacies of digital image manipulation.

27. Vectips

Vectips is a private blog, owned and maintained by Rype (a.k.a Ryan Putnam), a vector art enthusiast. Focusing mainly on Tutorials and Tips & Tricks for Adobe’s Illustrator, the site boasts some great downloadable vector freebies, vector-based design inspiration and a neat self-portrait of Ryan (I presume), as the site’s mascot.

Photoshop Brushes

28. Brusheezy

If Vecteezy was the Snoop Dogg of vector graphics, then Brusheezy, a site dedicated to Photoshop Brushes would have to be Snoop’s cousin, Warren G. Chock full of .abr files that are individually moderated by real people, expect nothing but the best from Brusheezy’s mass collection of high quality Photoshop brushes.

29. PS Brushes

PS Brushes is another one of my favourite resources for brushes. Recently upgraded with a new interface, PS Brushes still offers the same quality .abr’s and continue to offer a handy preview image (a screenshot of the Brush Palette from Photoshop) showing you what the brushes look like before you download, making it really easy to find the effect you’re looking for.

30. My Photoshop Brushes

Although their name would suggest that they only cater for PS Brushes, My Photoshop Brushes (MPB) is handy depot for all kinds of PS effects, with a vast selection of Brushes, Shapes, Gradients, Styles and Patterns, MPB is very worthy of a Cmd+D (Ctrl+D).

31. Qbrushes

Another great spot to find some quality brushes, Qbrushes offers a well laid out gallery for you to peruse their extensive collection. They even have a 5-star voting system, making it quicker and easier to sort through the good and bad user-submitted brushes.

Vector Based Logos

32. Brands of the World

Having just been purchased by graphics.com and given a facelift, Best Brands of the World (BBOTW) is without a doubt one of the must-have’s for your bookmarks. Loaded with practically every famous logo ever created (over 160,000 logos to date), BBOTW really is the only place you need to go to when you’re looking for a crisp vector logo to replace the low res .gif your client supplied you with. In fact, the site is so good, even Armin from Brand New rates it as one of the best sites on the web for graphic designers.

33. LogoZu

Okay, so if you struggle to find the logo you’re looking for on Best Brands of the World, you may have some luck with LogZu. Although not as rich with content as BBOTW, LogoZu has delivered on the odd occasion. Definitely worth having as a backup.

Conclusion

That concludes the list of 33 of my favourite, free Graphic Design resources. I hope some of these sites prove useful, if you didn’t already know about them. And if you did already know about them, and know of some more comparable sites that are worth sharing. Don’t be shy… Let us know about ‘em.

Hot off the press. Melbourne City Council has just unveiled their new $240,000 logo. The newly launched brand, developed by Landor to replace the previously dated design from the 90s follows in the footsteps of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre’s logo.

Already described as an incarnation of MTV by Monash University’s Francis Farrelly, this new logo presents itself as a prism-esque monogram of the letter ‘M’ with sharp, shard like edges creating a striking 3-dimensional effect.

At first glance, I was a little unsure if I liked it, as it does come across as ‘over-futurized’ and potentially, trying too hard to look like something from the year 3000. Not to mention the miniature rave dance party that’s going off in the top left corner.

However, after studying the logo for more than a nano second, I think the new logo has been well executed with a great style system/colour palette that would roll out nicely on Melbourne City’s streets, ultimately complementing some of the more modern architecture (Federation Square, Southern Cross Station and Olympic Park’s Rectangular Stadium) that have been constructed in recent years.

In all honesty, this logo is already growing on me and I think the new look strikes the right balance to complement the modern and energetic vibe that this glorious city offers. In fact, I’m quietly confident that this rebranding will hold it’s own for (at least) another decade.

As with anything that promotes change, I’m sure this logo, like the 2012 London Olympics logo will create a bit of a stir (although, maybe not as big) so it would be interesting to see what thoughts other folks have on the new ‘Big M’.