Flash Develop And Design

Fabulous: Free February 2012 Calendar Wallpaper

This post is part of the free calendar wallpaper series. Each month I create a new wallpaper featuring the current calendar. Looking at the same image over and over again is not very stimulating. Hence having a new desktop background each month should help getting your creative juices flowing. The February 2012 Calendar Wallpaper is entitled Fabulous. While most of my calendar designs are somewhat minimalistic I wanted to go even further this time round by using a very limited colour palette, subtle textures and a very basic geometric layout. It’s really difficult not to overdo it as I have a tendency to always add one more thing. I hope you like it!

Fabulous: Free February Desktop Wallpaper

contains 1 .zip file – 2 Versions, 4 Resolutions, 14.1 Mb

The following resolutions (both calendar & non-calendar versions) are included:

2560 x 1440
1920 x 1200 (suitable for 1440 x 900)
1600 x 1200
1280 x 1024

Fabulous: Free iPhone Wallpaper

Resolution: 640×960 (Retina Display), Format: JPG

Fabulous: Free iPad Wallpaper

Resolution: 1024×1024, Format: JPG

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How To Create A Set Of PS Brushes From A Single Texture Photo

Creating Photoshop brushes is rather easy. But, I often find that brush sets lack consistency and are often created form various textures or sources. I like consistency.

I think a great set of brushes isn’t just a matter of throwing a bunch of brushes that kinda look similar together in a set, but rather create a set where each brush complements each other—this way if one of the brushes doesn’t work for what you’re trying to achieve, another brush in the set might since they’re created from the same source.

Start With A Photo

First of all we’ll need a high-resolution image. I find it works best with a photo of a texture rather than something like a landscape or portrait, for obvious reasons.

For the purpose of this tutorial I’ve used one of my own photos taken with a Nikon D90.

Your image should be as big as possible – this one is 4288×2848. It is also included in the download link at the bottom of the tutorial.

Optimizing The Image

Next we’ll need to optimize the image a little bit before we start cutting it up and creating our brushes.

The goal here is to raise the shadows slightly and adjust the contrast if needed. So, let’s open up our image in Photoshop:

You can of course adjust the shadows and highlights, levels and curve settings according to the image you’re using.

Select Areas To Create Brush From (5 to 10)

Then we can slice up this image into a number of areas. I’ve decided to cut it into 10 rectangles.

An easy way to split your image up into 10 parts is to use the Slice Tool

Using the Slice Tool simply drag over the whole image to select it all. Then click on ‘Divide’ at the top. It’ll open up a dialog window asking you how you want to slice your image.

Since I want to have 10 rectangles I put the following:

Hitting OK will divide our original image into 10 almost equally sized rectangles.

Then you can ‘Save for Web & Devices’. You should be familiar with the window that opens next. You probably won’t need to change anything there so you can just click ‘Save’.

Then save this on your desktop or somewhere that’s easy to find on your computer.

You’ll end up with 10 images. Now we can use those to create our set of Photoshop brushes.

Those images are still big enough to create some very interesting brushes and they’re still quite hi-res. Of course having a very big original image helps there.

We could definitely have created more than just 10, but for the purpose of this tutorial it’ll do just fine.

All 10 Images

Now you can close the original ‘texture.jpg’ document. Create a brand new document and make it 2500×2500 and select Grayscale as the color mode.

Then you’ll need to import your first rectangle texture. Simply place it in the center of your new document.

Now you may want to cut out a part of your image – I like to keep just an interesting portion, in the case of this first brush I cut out the bottom of it to focus more on the top part which has more details. You could also use the Lasso tool to select a portion of the image you’d like to keep.

Higher Exposure

Since we’ve already optimized our image earlier we can jump right into the ‘Exposure’ settings. Photoshop will take into account that we’re working on grayscale and by increasing the exposure we basically make the lighter parts of our image white instead of light grey.

In the case of the first texture image I went with 1.5 Exposure with 0.8 Gamma correction.

And here’s the result:

Less Square

You could simply leave at that and repeat the process for every other texture image, but I think this brush would benefit from not being a rectangle – it’d be nice to make it more rounded.

Let’s grab the Eraser Tool and select the basic Rough Round Bristle brush (or any other brush you might have in there, experimenting never hurt anyone). We’ll erase parts of our texture image with this brush to create more natural and smooth edges.

Creating The Set

Once you’re satisfied with the result it’s time to save your brush. Simply go to Edit -> Define Brush Preset and then name your texture and hit enter.

Then just repeat the whole process for the 9 remaining texture images and you’ll have a set of 10 brushes that are consistent and all fit together.

To export your set go to Edit -> Preset Manager -> Select your 10 brushes -> Save Set.

Download The Final Result

I hope you liked this tutorial! Of course feel free to experiment with other techniques, some things might work better for you. Experimenting with various source images will obviously get you different results.

You can download the set of 10 Photoshop brushes right here →

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Coming to Paris, London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Lisbon

Later this month I will be embarking on a small European tour with Mike, Thibault, Deepa, Michael, and Adam. The goal of the tour is to talk with the community about the future direction of Flash and to get you up to speed with the new stuff we are working on.

As part of the tour we will be attending and speaking at FITC Amsterdam. My comrade Tom Krcha and I will be doing a great workshop on building games with Starling. If it sounds like something you would enjoy then go and register. Below are the dates and the registration links for the tour.

I really hope to see you guys at one of these events as we have a lot of important stuff to talk about!

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New tutorial on object-oriented JavaScript

I just uploaded a new tutorial that covers a basic introduction of OOP with JavaScript. I show you how to create separate class files with private, public, and static properties and methods. As you will see, doing object-oriented programming in JavaScript is a lot less elegant than using languages like AS3, C#, and Java, but it can still be very powerful.

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Ten Things To Think About When Designing Your iPad App

Like most well-designed things, the magic of an iPad app comes from a union of usefulness, usability and meaning. Games aside, the app must be useful by solving a problem that people actually have through the right set of functionality at the right time. It must be easy to use and, just as importantly, easy to get started using, without a lot of pesky setup and learning steps. And it must hold meaning for the user through visual beauty, an emotional connection, personal insights, etc. In this article, we wonâ��t outline the entire design process for creating an iPad app, but we will explore 10 of the key things to think about when designing your app (and planning the design process).

Weâ��ve excluded tips that have already been mentioned in every single iPad design article ever written (such as, â��Invite users to touch by presenting real-world metaphors in a skeuomorphic interfaceâ�� â��look it up!). Instead, weâ��ll focus on what to really think about when doing design work. By reviewing these considerations in the context of your own application, you can assess whether youâ��re making good decisions about your design.

Take A Goal-Oriented Approach To Simplify Functionality.

Good iPad apps are about simplicity and doing a few things well. This means you have to be selective about the functionality you include and not throw in the kitchen sink. Consider following a goal-oriented approach to figure out what functionality you need. List all of the high-level goals a user might have when using your app (better yet, watch users doing things that you hope your app will help with in order to get a full picture of what the userâ��s goals are â�� but thatâ��s an article for another time). What would someone be trying to get done? Then, brainstorm all of the functionality that someone might want in order to accomplish that task. Look at that big list, and start pruning, with an eye for the minimum that is needed to help the user succeed. And then select a few magical, delightful features to complete the package.

For example, Epicurious does an excellent job of giving the multi-tasking cook exactly what they need. When viewing a recipe in landscape format, users can easily scan ingredients on the left while keeping track of the next instruction on the right, with a bright placeholder that can be dragged with the finger to the current spot. Reviews and additional tips for the recipe are easily accessible via tabs, but the main screen is kept clean and uncluttered, with just the basics.

Epicurious provides a clean interface for recipes, with an orange marker to keep your place.

By contrast, the Whole Foods app starts off being helpful by letting you add recipe ingredients to a shopping list. Unfortunately, it neglects to combine repeated ingredients, so items are listed multiple times. In the screenshot below, bananas appear three times, once for each recipe that requires them, instead of being combined into one entry.

Whole Foods should enhance its app by merging duplicate list items.

Also, donâ��t provide a button for every control the user might need to accomplish their goal. Think about what the user can infer about the UI through gesture. For example, Appleâ��s Notes app doesnâ��t have an â��editingâ�� mode; instead, you simply touch the screen to bring up the keyboard, and it auto-saves when youâ��re done. Basic editing controls such as cut, copy and paste also appear only in response to gestures as needed (and undo is accomplished by shaking).

The Notes app limits on-screen buttons and presents controls only if it detects they are needed.

Leverage What You Know To Create A Fully Personalized Experience.

No one wants to spend a lot of time setting up a $1.99 app. Leverage as much of what the iPad and other websites know about your users as possible (with their permission, of course). Could you use the userâ��s location, calendar, Twitter feed or contacts list to make the app smarter and more personalized?

Zite is a fabulous RSS reader for iPad that doesnâ��t wait for you to add sources, but rather connects to your Google Reader, Twitter or Delicious account and then presents articles based on what it has learned about your interests. I connected it with Delicious (where I store all of my bookmarks), and in five seconds it created a personalized magazine for me to explore new and interesting content! And just like Pandora, the more you use it, the more relevant and personalized the content becomes. So far, even though some argue that Flipboardâ��s UI is more elegant, engaging with Zite is easier because itâ��s all set up.

Zite sets things up immediately by connecting to an existing account.

Zite created my own personal magazine by learning about my interests through my Delicious account.

Think About The Place Of Use.

Assume that your user will be out and about when using your app â�� in a restaurant, in the car, in the kitchen, on a sofa, etc. How does that change the list of goals youâ��ve put together? For a user browsing recipes, are their needs different on the sofa than in the kitchen, or in a restaurant?

Open Tableâ��s Web app for reserving tables displays a list of restaurants as the default view for search results (i.e. without a map). On the iPad, the default view is a large map with a list of restaurants on the right, along with an option to search your vicinity. This accommodates the common use case of someone trying to find a place to eat when they are out and about.

When youâ��re out and about with the iPad, Open Table shows you what is near.

Awesome Note opens with a set of default categories that reflect the various places that people might take notes on an iPad.

Awesome Note complements traditional categories likeÂ â��My ideaâ�� and â��To-do listâ�� with out-and-about categories like â��Travel diaryâ�� and â��Shopping.â��

GroceryIQ is a shopping list that organizes items by aisle to speed up shopping. It also allows filtering by store, which is handy.

GroceryIQ offers functionality to make your shopping trip more efficient.

Consider Multi-User And Multi-Device Cases.

Assume that multiple members of a family will be sharing an iPad or viewing the device at once. Unlike a personal computer, the iPad is not necessarily a personal device but could be treated more like a coffee-table book or magazine that multiple residents share. In addition to allowing users to switch accounts, indicating who is currently logged in is also important. An added benefit of accounts is that they facilitate syncing between devices (for example, an iPad and a smartphone).

Flipboard is a great example of shared use through multiple accounts. When you sign in, your name is displayed on the home page.

Flipboard makes clear that it knows who you are.

Like Flipboard, FedEx displays the name of the logged-in user (although the appâ��s heavy grayscale appearance is odd).

eBay, on the other hand, supports accounts but provides no indication of who is signed in until you touch the â��My eBayâ�� button in the corner.

eBay doesnâ��t make clear who is logged in until you touch â��My eBayâ�� in the corner.

Donâ��t Do Crazy Navigation Unless Itâ��s A Game Or One-Hit Wonder.

Crazy, spinny, eye-catching interactions are fine for one-hit wonders and games. But stick with standard navigation for frequently used apps, such as news readers. If you do want to do something innovative, make sure it supports the task at hand and is extremely usable.

Martha Stewart Living, which is built on the well-designed Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, uses horizontal and vertical scrolling in a novel way by reserving horizontal scrolling for navigating between articles and vertical scrolling for navigating pages of an article. This is paired with a clever pane that visually shows how scrolling works, plus an overview of the current issue for even quicker navigation. With all that and a clickable table of contents, the whole experience is quite lovely.

Martha Stewart Livingâ��s overview pane shows the clever horizontal and vertical scrolling scheme for content created with the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.

The best thing you could do is actually use an iPad constantly for all kinds of things, and see what works for you. Youâ��ll quickly discover inconsistencies and annoyances all over the app world, and youâ��ll figure out where to be consistent and where to branch out.

Here are three different methods that news readers follow to enable users to exit articles:

Huffington Post: top right.

New York Times: bottom left.

Zite: top left.

People tend to rest their thumb near the top left when holding an iPad, so putting the button there is easiest because then people wouldnâ��t have to change their grip. Also, Zite enables you to click anywhere on the screen outside of the article to close it, which makes for a nice flexible gesture. Similarly, the New York Times enables you to pinch an article to close it and return to the home page, which is even better, especially because the controls disappear once an article has been open for a few seconds â�� although a one-finger gesture closer to the top left would have worked better, because the two-finger gesture would probably require the user to change their grip.

Be mindful of how you yourself use features, and notice when something is usable and when you have to move your hand awkwardly or do something that disrupts your flow. Look around to find apps that do what youâ��re trying to do, assess their usability, and decide whether being consistent or doing something different would make more sense. iPad apps are still a new frontier, so now is not the time to buckle down and set conventions â�� but we should assess whether a new idea really adds something useful or is just novel for the sake of novelty.

Provide A Home Page.

People are used to home pages that orient them to whatâ��s available and that give them a base of operations. Without one, discovering and browsing content can be disorienting and frustrating. Take the NASA news app, which has no home page. Upon launching the app, users are dropped directly into a news article. To view other articles, they would use the carousel arrows on the left and right, or press the tiny list icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen. The list view allows users to browse content in a small scrolling pop-over window that has only enough room for thumbnails and short headlines. The navigation is generally unwieldy and disorienting.

NASA does not provide a home page, but rather drops you into an article with vague pop-over navigation.

Pulse, on the other hand, is a great news app that uses a home page to quickly orient users and to introduce the navigation scheme, which is consistent throughout the app. From the home page, users can easily browse content, having plenty of space to view the large thumbnails and article descriptions to see what interests them. Drilling down into an article will collapse the navigation to the side so that you donâ��t lose context.

Pulse presents a horizontal scrolling list of articles on the home page.

Opening an article willÂ collapseÂ the navigation to a side panel in landscape view.

In portrait view, Pulse displays the navigation for one content source at the bottom, with easy access to the next page.

Beware Of Awkward Pop-Overs.

iPad offers the nifty interaction of a pop-over to help users retrieve content and navigation in context. But the interaction can also make for a jerky flow, cramming a lot of information into a tiny peephole. Given the limited width and height of a pop-over, avoid stuffing too much in it. Awesome Note tries to cram the interaction for editing a list of folders into a small pop-over, presumably to maintain context. Instead, we get a confusing interaction, with tabs duplicated on the screen and not enough room to get things done.

Awesome Note has a somewhat confusing pop-over that duplicates the information on the screen in a cramped space.

NASAâ��s complex navigation, which we saw in the preceding point, is a similar example of a bad pop-over.

Consider when opening a new page would make more sense than opening a pop-over. Unless context is critical, donâ��t be afraid to take users to a full-screen view to give the content some room to breathe.

Or consider using split views in clever ways:

Houzz has secondary navigation for each category in a convenient split view.

Martha Stewart LivingÂ displays the table of contents for an issue as a full-length pop-over, opening up space for images and descriptive headlines.

Flipboard favors a slide-out panel to give the navigation enough room to do its job.

Avoid Gratuitous Splash Screens.

Remember when the Web had splash screen, and then everyone got annoyed and left? They are even more annoying on the iPad because youâ��re usually trying to access content while someone is waiting for either you or the iPad. If you need a splash screen because something has to load, display it for the minimum amount of time possible. Better yet, display useful content while the rest of the app loads to give users a head start on the interaction.

Zite piques your interest by loading the first few photos on the home page while the rest of the app loads. When the app is ready, those initial photos animate into place, making for a delightful little welcome interaction.

Zite draws you in on the splash screen, with thumbnails of articles that will be ready once the full app loads.

Use Gestures In Clever Ways, But Donâ��t Overdo It.

Cool, useful gestures are a mainstay of iPad use. But the line between effective gestures and gesture overload is fine. For example, donâ��t provide a swipeable carousel and then also allow a generic swipe gesture on the same screen, because this would put competing swipe gestures at odds with each other.

And if a gesture is not obvious, give users a hint.

ZiteÂ indicates more content with a cute little â��swipeâ�� text at the bottom.

Discovr, a music-discovery application, integrates information about gesture controls right into the UI. The red circle in the screenshot below says â��Tap me,â�� leading to information on how to expand nodes.

Discovr educates users with a red dot explaining the gesture options for the current screen.

Once basic information has been provided, another red node appears saying â��Tap and hold me,â�� informing users how to access more content with a new gesture. With this information baked into the app experience itself, users learn about powerful features of the UI without having to be psychic.

Make Clear Whatâ��s Touchable, And Make It BIG.

Many apps suffer from what Jakob Nielsen calls â��read-tap asymmetry,â�� whereby the font may be legible in size, but the tappable areas are so small that users are prone to missing the targets or are unsure whether the areas are even tappable. In the advertisement below, from the Martha Stewart Living app, the arrowed questions in the middle of the screen are tappable, but you wouldnâ��t know it because they have no affordance. If youâ��re going to go through the trouble of making more content available, then make it clear where to tap, and make the tappable area nice and big.

Itâ��s not obvious where you would tap in this ad to get more information.

It turns out that tapping the light-gray boxes in the middle shows more information.

The image areas at the top of the Cool Hunting application are actually swipeable galleries, but we get no hint of it. What if there was some kind of affordance, such as dimensionality or a peek at another image to indicate there was more to the right?

Cool Hunting does not indicate that swiping the top image would reveal more images, which makes this functionality hard to discover.

In iOS itself, double-tapping the home key and then swiping left in the multitasking bar reveals a bunch of controls for sound and music, yet this functionality is pretty well hidden. Why not provide some affordance of what is available?

Double-tapping home and then swiping left on an iPad reveals hidden functionality.

What Else?

These are just 10 of the many things to consider when designing your iPad app, but itâ��s a good place to start. Weâ��d love to hear your top considerations and examples in the comments. We especially lack a strong repository on the Web of examples of good and bad iPad app design. Please share examples of the different ways that apps treat the same functionality (such as exiting articles), and explain why certain solutions are better than others. Have you discovered other techniques through your own design work that you think everyone should put on their list of doâ��s and donâ��ts? Let us know.

Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: February 2012

We always try our best to challenge your artistic abilities and produce some interesting, beautiful and creative artwork. And as designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, weâ��ve discovered the best one â�� desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This creativity mission has been going on for over two years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month.

We continue to nourish you with a monthly spoon of inspiration. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for January 2012. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. Itâ��s time to freshen up your wallpaper!

Please note that:

All images can be clicked on and lead to the preview of the wallpaper,
You can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our Desktop Wallpaper Calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

Colored Edge

"For February, the month of spring, love and 29 days." Designed by Rahul.s from India.

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with calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×960, 1440×900, 1440×1050, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440
without calendar: 800×600, 1680×1200, 1920×1200

Hungry Owl

"February, just one more cold month.. :)." Designed by Katerina Bobkova from Ukraine.

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with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080

Hot Drinks

"Which drink will you choose to make you feel better during the cold season?" Designed by Agathe Altwegg from France.

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with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1200

Bold

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with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

February Prison Break

"We suggest – do not mess with February." Designed by Marek GuziÑ�ski From Rio Creativo from Poland.

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with calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2540×1440
without calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2540×1440

All You Need Is Love

"Love is all you need." Designed by Kaspars Dedzis from Latvia.

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with calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

February Splashes

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with calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Penguin Hockey

"No coward plays hockey!" Designed by Cheloveche.ru from Russia.

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with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Mr. & Ms. Nice

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with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Jealous Much?

"Calendar for February 2012." Designed by Annabelle Bay from USA.

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with calendar: 320×240, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×240, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Heartbroken

"Illustrated wallpaper for february on the theme of heartbreak.1920 x 1200." Designed by Danae Botha from South Africa.

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with calendar: 320×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1440×1050, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1440×1050, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

The Shortest Month

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with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080
without calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080

Kids And Dragon

"My drawings are mostly black-and-white and the year of the Black Dragon inspired me to start drawing another picture. Let the Dragon this year be friendly and playful ;)." Designed by Jelena TÑ�ekulajeva from Estonia.

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with calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080
without calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080

Heart On A String

"For hopeless romantics that let others play with their heart." Designed by Jacob Giesler from USA.

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with calendar: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

A Shadow’s Chance

"A nod at Groundhog Day! The artwork provided with a calendar has a winter color, because the groundhog sees his shadow which means six more weeksof winter. And the other (Green) has no Calendar and no Shadow which denotes anearly spring." Designed by Joseph Brooks from United States.

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with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1920×1080, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1920×1080, 2560×1440

Be Mine

"A cutsie calendar theme." Designed by Sandi | Pop Up Factory.com from Toronto, ON, Canada.

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with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050

It’s The Love Signal

"Let’s beam our love to the universe!" Designed by Lew Su-ann from Brunei Darussalam.

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with calendar: 800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Winter Church

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with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Lock Your Love

"February is the month of couples and love, so if you do have that one special person in your life! Then this would be the prefect month to show how much you love her or him :)." Designed by Rihards Gromuls from Latvia.

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with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Cyclops Encounter

"I am a big fan of the Odyssey. Cyclopses are awesome." Designed by Glorm from Canada.

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with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1400×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1400×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Gloomy Light

"Sometimes we ever feel’s like useless, moody, gloomy, that’s so sadly. Maybe it just like an old gloomy paper effect on my calendar template. But, we can change it with give it colors, this year our life will be not far from heaviness like our years before, just bright it up and make a colors in your moody days!" Designed by Dwi Prastika from Indonesia.

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with calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 2560×1440

Chillout

"Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, where you will not be online…" Designed by Chilid Interactive Agency from Poland.

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with calendar: 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 2560×1440

All You Need Is Love

"The Beatles said it best! Love is all you need." Designed by Allison Brown from Canada.

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with calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080
without calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080

Fight For You

"This valentine we should fight for the ones we love." Designed by Tonie Tannous from Lebanon.

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with calendar: 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Ice Melted

"Ice melted is coming back soon." Designed by Yank from France.

preview
with calendar: 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200, 1920×1200
without calendar: 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200, 1920×1200

Load Time

"What Scott Adams means about load time." Designed by Fredrik Jensen frRss AD

Free Texture Tuesday: 5 Split Wood Textures

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FYI Monday: Playful Typography by Spencer Harrison

This post is part of theÂ For Your Inspiration MondayÂ series showcasing the most inspiring designs out there. Each week a new artist or design style will be presented in order to get your creative juices flowing for the upcoming week. I hope you enjoy the series.

Spencer HarrisonÂ is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia.Â His approach to work is playful, experimental and inquisitive. SpencerÂ specialises in art direction, branding, illustration, custom typography, installations and print design. For more inspiration make sure to visitÂ www.spencerharrison.com.au.

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Black Sun â�� kill Nazi zombies using Stage3D

Minko is one of the lesser-known Stage3D frameworks but it is actually one of the most advanced. Developed in France by Aerys, Minko boasts some of the best technology for things like 3D model compression, dynamic lighting effects, and hardware-accelerated animations.

Aerys has just launched a preview level of their first game built using the Minko engine. In Black Sun, you are tasked with killing not only zombies, but Nazi zombies. The game has amazing lighting effects and is only 9MB large because of the compression technology built into Minko. Check it out!

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Freebie Friday: 6 Abstract Lines Brushes

Happy Friday everyone! Today I’m releasing this set of unique and tough to define brushes. The source for these was a microscopic piece of pollen. Up close the strands looked like barbed wire. After photographic it, I brought the images into Illustrator and Live Traced each one, so the edges are very defined. Each brush is 2500×1800, hope you enjoy.

Preview

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Flash Develop And Design

Fabulous: Free February 2012 Calendar Wallpaper

Fabulous: Free February Desktop Wallpaper

Fabulous: Free iPhone Wallpaper

Fabulous: Free iPad Wallpaper

How To Create A Set Of PS Brushes From A Single Texture Photo

Start With A Photo

Optimizing The Image

Select Areas To Create Brush From (5 to 10)

All 10 Images

Higher Exposure

Less Square

Creating The Set

Download The Final Result

Coming to Paris, London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Lisbon

New tutorial on object-oriented JavaScript

Ten Things To Think About When Designing Your iPad App

Take A Goal-Oriented Approach To Simplify Functionality.

Leverage What You Know To Create A Fully Personalized Experience.

Think About The Place Of Use.

Consider Multi-User And Multi-Device Cases.

Donâ��t Do Crazy Navigation Unless Itâ��s A Game Or One-Hit Wonder.

Provide A Home Page.

Beware Of Awkward Pop-Overs.

Avoid Gratuitous Splash Screens.

Use Gestures In Clever Ways, But Donâ��t Overdo It.

Make Clear Whatâ��s Touchable, And Make It BIG.

What Else?

Further Reading

Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: February 2012

Colored Edge

Hungry Owl

Hot Drinks

Bold

February Prison Break

All You Need Is Love

February Splashes

Penguin Hockey

Mr. & Ms. Nice

Jealous Much?

Heartbroken

The Shortest Month

Kids And Dragon

Heart On A String

A Shadow’s Chance

Be Mine

It’s The Love Signal

Winter Church

Lock Your Love

Cyclops Encounter

Gloomy Light

Chillout

All You Need Is Love

Fight For You

Ice Melted

Load Time

Free Texture Tuesday: 5 Split Wood Textures

FYI Monday: Playful Typography by Spencer Harrison

Black Sun â�� kill Nazi zombies using Stage3D

Freebie Friday: 6 Abstract Lines Brushes

Preview

Download ZIP