Man Made DIY

Today's lesson, class, is how to make the vintage-y, screen print-style banner at the top of this post. I created the banner in Adobe Illustrator and then brought it over to Photoshop to add some texture. This post, however, will just focus on what I did in Illustrator. If you're interested in learning how to add textures to your vector graphics, check out this post I wrote a while… read more

I'm not a big zombie movie person. I like Night of the Living Dead, and that's about it. So I was surprised when I found myself really liking walking dead, a lot. One thing that hooked me was how well they pulled off shots of a post zombie-pocalypse Atlanta.

This is the demo reel from Stargate Studios, the company behind The Walking Dead effects, highlighting how they composite in graphics and animation to make The Walking Dead look so good. It's awesome, and it gives a good sense of how much time goes into making those shots.

The video is a little long, but try and stick with it at least to 1:28, when they show how they did… read more

While there are plenty of cool, affordable tech gifts to give your friends and family this season, there are a few you should avoid. Cause they're bad. Like, worse than… read more

Google Street View may seem frightenly big brother, but there's no satellite peering down on your every move, providing accurate traffic updates and realistic weather. Rather, a van just drives along the street, with a nine lens camera snapping photos, then blending them together with a GPS location. On the last update, I was excited to see that my recycling bin, set out for pickup, made it into the shot.

But, of course, there are much more interesting things than recycling bins that have been captured. Like, well, people. Artist Jon Rafman pours through these images, finding magical moments that happened to have been captured as the van was driving by. He calls it "Street View… read more

Sometimes, you need a desktop wallpaper that inspires, educates, and keeps you stimulated.

And sometimes, you just something to blend in, look clean and simple, and not interfere.

For those later cases, allow us to present: Simple… read more