The MPC Feed @ Washington College

Vintage design, when done well, can make a user feel like they have been transported back in time. This particular style often uses design elements that look like they were found in the attic of an old house dating back to the 1920’s, 30’s, or 40’s. If you have a project coming up that requires this type of design, here is a big roundup of textures and Photoshop brushes, all found at deviantArt.

Tags: deviantArt.com, Free, photoshop brushes, vintage textures

As a designer, it’s not always possible to take the time and generate your own textures for all of your graphics. Thankfully, there are tons of convenient stock textures that others have freely contributed to the design community! These folks have gathered 99 of their favorites in this gigantic list!

Tags: canvas, Design, Free, metal, paint, paper, Stock Images, textures

Interested in seeing how an award winning ad was designed? BennyYarnell™ is a designer who has shared the elements that compose his ad for the DC10 Club, which won last year’s Punctum Day awards for Best Design of the Year. Hear in his own words how he addresses the client’s interests in the creation of this ad:

Tags: award winning, Graphic Design, iStockPhoto.com, Punctum Day 2007, stock photography

iStockPhoto.com awards $40,000 is cash/prizes next month for the second annual Worldwide Punctum Day. These awards go to the top voted stock files on iStockPhoto.com. To get a feel for what they are looking for, you can see last year’s winners online:

• Photo of the year
• Vector of the year
• Video of the Year
• Flash file of the Year
• Design of the Year

It’s not too late to upload and enter your files!

Tags: awards, Design, Flash, iStockPhoto.com, prizes, stock photography, vector, Video

Are you familiar with iStockPhoto.com, a popular website for buying and selling stock photography? iStockPhoto also has a”Steel Cage Battle” section to their forums, where designers battle it out over several days. As part of the rules, designers must incorporate portions of the opponent’s most recent design into their next visual attack. (For an example of a steel cage battle, check out these images, created by the MPC’s Brian Palmer and Instructional Technologist Nick Smerker. Images also shown below)

Now for the point of this post… iStockPhoto is getting ready to hold it’s yearly Battle Royal. This is 85 days of design battles, head to head with other designers, until only one designer remains. First prize? $5000.00!

How can you get involved? If you don’t already have a free account with iStockPhoto, go get one. Don’t waste time, because I think there is a day or two waiting period before you can post to the forums (to help prevent spamming the forums), and the Battle Royal is part of the forums. Better yet, if you email me, I can “invite you”, which will get you 3 free credits for downloading stock images, video, audio, flash, and vector images.

The battle begins this Thursday, July 17th, and runs for 85 days. So even if you just wanted to follow along with the design mayhem, that would be fun too. You’ll be seeing some of the world’s best designers in action, always good inspiration for your next Photoshop project.

Have fun, and good luck!

Images from the battle between Nick Smerker and Brian Palmer:

Round one:

Nick’s first attack:

Brian’s response:

Round two:

Nick’s response:

Brian’s response:

Tags: Battle Royal, design competition, iStockPhoto, Photoshop, Steel Cage Battle

Here are several Photoshop tutorials to produce some amazing effects. Enjoy!

Tags: Adobe Photoshop Tutorials, Digital Imaging, Effects, Photography, retouching

Are you an aspiring motion graphics designer? Here is some inspiration from 2 accomplished designers to get your creative juices flowing:

Eden Soto - http://www.edensoto.com
Demo Reel

Vitamin Devo - http://vitamindevo.com
Demo Reel (2004)
Mini Reel (2005)
Flash demo for his DJ work (2005)

Tags: 3D, after effects, creative inspiration, Demo reel, Flash, motion graphics

Are you an incoming first year or transfer student!  Do you have an interest in filmmaking and/or photography?  Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Registration is now open for the Filmmaking and Photography Pre-Orientation Session, but seats are limited to only 12 participants!  Go to the Forms and Resoruces page, scroll down to Pre-Orientation Forms, print out the Pre-Orientation Registration form, and mail it in today!

Why should you attend this particular workshop?

• You’ll learn a TON of great info about photography and video production
• Classes are taught by award winning staff, including a workshop by Paul and Holly Fine, with 75 regional & 10 national Emmy Awards, 4 Peabody awards.
• We’ll be working individually and as a team to create a film that will be featured before all the pre-orientation sessions at the Prince Theater, as well as be entered into other industry competitions, featured on the WC homepage, WCMC.tv, iTunes U, Youtube, etc.
• You’ll get your hands on high end equipment, both items in our loaner pool, as well as professional gear that we don’t lend out.
• You’ll learn skills that will directly apply many academic assignments during your 4 years here, and may give you an added edge over your classmates.
• You’ll get to meet other like minded people who you’ll surely want to team up with in the future for MPC challenges or independent projects.
• When else during the year can you dedicate 4 solid days to anything without it conflicting with your academic or social calendar?

Tags: Boot Camp, Filmmaking, Paul & Holly Fine, Photography, pre-orientation, workshop

Metacafe.com has teamed up with podcaster Israel Hyman, who has been production Izzy Video podcasts for some time now.  Metacafe has a collection of videos that address many topics, including:

• Directing
• Shooting
• Lighting
• Sound
• Editing

Tags: Izzy Video, podcasts, Tutorials

There are lots of scripts out there for making a dropdown menu in a website. Most of them are poorly coded or are too complicated for beginners to easily use. This one is clean and simple.

Tags: dropdown, javascript, menu, Web Development