Creative Sessions

"Sessions are blocks of articles, interviews, tutorials and content on a particular creative subject.

Sessions are hosted around the Tuts+ network depending on where each article fits best. So for example web design posts might appear on Psdtuts+ or Nettuts+. This site is like a table of contents for each session.

The aim is to provide lots and lots of mini courses on different topics! That way you can get a variety of knowledge about the creative fields."

- Creative Sessions

Check it out

Working in a creative field, I found it to be best practice to do as many tutorials as is humanly possible. This is because it is the only way to stay current with techniques and best practices and allows you to experiment and enhance your newly learned skills.

The Tutsplus.com network is the best tutorial network; bar-none. Through their sites you can learn everything from flash animations to backend web-developement (if that's your thing).

Unlike most tutorial sites, the Tutsplus Creative Sessions is a series of tutorials on specific topic which are all nicely put together for the views pleasures. Currently, the Sessions site is playing host to the topic of character design and has some really nice write-up on the values of sketching designs first before moving them to the digital world; something people don't do nearly as much as they should.

This is a definitely a site to watch!

-Chad.

CS5 is Here

"Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 software is the ultimate toolkit for designers who need to express their wildest ideas with precision; work fluidly across media; and produce exceptional results in print, web, interactive, and mobile design. Craft eye-catching images and graphics, lay out stunning pages, build standards-based websites, create interactive content without writing code, and extend page layouts for viewing with eBook reading devices".

-Adobe.com

Check it out

Unless your living under a shell, or have been without a computer for must of your life, you would probably know what photoshop is. Just recently, adobe has announced its latest version of photoshop and there rest of the design family.

Watching some of the demo videos on illustrator specifically (my favourite piece of software from the Adobe suites) I am pretty excited. Some of the most interesting things that they have done is introduce bristled brushes into its painting engine. As a guy who loves painting in illustrator for its vector abilities, I am excited to finally get some better brush love like that you would find in Photoshop.

My only issue now is saving up enough cash to get this upgrade.

-Chad.

IxEdit

"IxEdit is a JavaScript-based interaction design tool for the web. With IxEdit, designers can practice DOM-scripting without coding to change, add, move, or transform elements dynamically on your web pages. Especially, IxEdit must be useful to try various interactions rapidly in the prototyping phase of your web application."
- IxEdit.com

Check it out

I am a huge fan of modern web standards and techniques. Currently, two of my favourite web technologies are javascript libraries (like mootools and jquery) and CSS3 (animations, customizations, etc.).

IxEdit is a really interesting tool for individuals to use who would like to add jquery to their website without having to know how to code it. All it takes is a bit of code to implement on any site, enabling the you to animate, remove, slide, colour, and change just about any element on your site with the click of a button.

I would suggest you check it out if you'd like to add some "bling" to your site.

-Chad.

The Freshmen Collective

"We are a collective of like minded cultural curators, conduits and content creators."
"No expiration date. Always fresh."
-thafreshmen.com

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The Freshmen Collective is a collaborative bunch of individuals with interesting opinions on fashion, design, music, architecture, and just about any kind of art your can through at them. I have had the distinct pleasure of be able to be connected with some of this collective and can tell you that they know what is up.

This site is new to the web, and is pumping out new content all the time. Videos, images, reviews, write-ups; you name it, they got it. I am excited to see what this collective is going to do next. From the rumblings that I've had the opportunity to be a part of... it will be exciting

-Chad.

I AM ENGAGED!

Date it happened: March 27th, 2010
Where it happened: St. Catharines, Ontario
Was she shocked? "Yes!"
When is the big day? July, 2011

So, now that I am engaged I have come to realize that there is a lot of planning and designing to do. The biggest thing that I am excited/worried about; from a design perspective, is creating the invitations.

When you love paper and printing and designing as much as I do, you become very stubborn when having to pick the perfect weights, colours, textures, and sizes. I want to include some letterpress stuff in the final product (the opposite of embossing); I want it to be maximum 3-colours; and I want it to be impressive.

Of course, there is a difference between wanting and doing; so we will see how the invitations turn out in the end.

-Chad.

Graffiti Stop Motion Animation

"New animation clip by Tant and Unga! we shot it in 3 days on our roof in Hadar… Turn the speakers on before pressing play.." - Brokenfingaz.com

Check it out

I am not really sure what to say about this video. I was pretty excited after I watched the video for the first time. Just go ahead and watch it and maybe shoot a comment on the Auxhey blog about it.

-Chad.