Tips and Tricks: Free Retro/Vintage Photos
Get 10 lovely retro/vintage photos free for personal or commercial use to use as textures and backgrounds for your design work. JPG format, high quality. Don’t forget to bookmark for your Notes to Reviewer! See a thumbnail sample below and have fun!
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Tips and Tricks: Photo Tutorial
How to Scan, Stitch and Edit Large Photographs is a helpful Photoshop tutorial for those who work with pictures and need to do some restoration and cleaning up to make them suitable for use in GCU designs. This could also apply to larger pieces of art that have to be scanned in multiple stages.
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Dash of Inspiration: Create a Photo Studio
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen 
Just wanted to share a couple of quick finds today. Leaving my big photo studio behind when I downsized a few years ago occasionally left me ‘wanting’ when I had an idea for a photo shoot. I ended up choosing a folding light tent (box) and lights which I can put on top of my drawing table to set up small shoots. For shooting people, I always opt for bouncing natural light and creating backdrops.
So, when I saw these great tips on creating temporary ‘studios’ at home, I thought the photographers out there might find these links useful.
Make-shift Photography Studio by Jill Wellington
5 Tips for Flawless Food Photography Lighting by Foodess.com
Also, back in 2012, we did a great blog post on Mouth Watering Food Photography you might find useful.
10 Tips to Get Started with Still Life Photography by Simon Bray
5 Tips for Photography Using Natural Light Indoors by Karthika Gupta
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And – be sure to check out our June Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge!
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So until next week … Learn … Create … Inspire!
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Wanted: New Cards – Congratulations, New Job
Every week, we showcase a GCU category that has few or no cards. We’d like you to create at least one card for this category using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers – cards submitted for underused categories are much more likely to be approved provided they follow the Submission Guidelines. Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Good luck!
Today’s category with 2 cards is:
Congratulations – New Job
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Tips and Tricks: 15 Font Families for $15
Design Cuts is having an amazing sale – get 15 professional font families for $15! Yep, they are OK for commercial use. Some of these fonts are super trendy and would cost a mint if you bought them separate. We’ve bought from Design Cuts before and they are reputable and reliable. You do need to sign up to make a purchase, but signing up is free, you get access to freebies and special offers. See below for examples and have fun!
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Tips and Tricks: Marketing on Pinterest
As some artists are already aware, Pinterest is a great tool for marketing your work, but only if you use it right. Social Media Examiner has a great article, 7 Pinterest Marketing Tips to Improve Your Visibility that offers good advice for newcomers and experienced Pinterest users. Check it out! And to learn how to make affiliate earnings on your links, here’s an article we ran here earlier, Getting GCU Referral Links on Pinterest.
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Dash of Inspiration: FREEBIE Week
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen Passing on some fun finds this week which hopefully you’ll find useful in your designs. As always, please be sure to read and follow each contributor’s TOU (Terms of Use).
7 Natural Paper Textures from Graphic Burger
63 Wedding Shapes from All Silhouettes.com
Fun Glasses, Lashes And Staches Shapes from Zooll.com
Here are a couple of fonts which are simple, but very useful:
Rounded Elegance by Douglas Charles Cunha
The Bold Font by Pindarots 
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And – be sure to check out our June Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge!
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So until next week … Learn … Create … Inspire!
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Wanted: New Cards – Rosh Hashanah, For Kids
Every Friday from now on, we’ll be showcasing a GCU category that has few or no cards. We’d like you to create at least one card for this category using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers – cards submitted for underused categories are much more likely to be approved provided they follow the Submission Guidelines. Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Good luck!
Today’s categories with (2) cards are:
Holidays – Rosh Hashanah – For Kids
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Tips and Tricks: Free Illustrator Brushes
Spoon Graphics has a set of free (for personal and commercial use) stipple shading brushes for Adobe Illustrator. I know some of our artists have started to work in this graphics editing program and this is a handy set of brushes to have. As always, double check the TOU/licensing – creators sometimes change their terms. Check it out and have fun!
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Font Frenzy: Niconne
Niconne is a pretty unconnected script font free for commercial use. It’s got a bit of a flourish and a rounded feel, making it a nicely feminine font. The capitals would work for drop caps, too, and the font pairs nicely with a plainer sans serif font. I can think of a lot of uses for this font, can you? See example below and have fun!
GCU Community 