As the saying goes, “Nothing lasts forever…”. It’s true and we all know that we live in an ever changing world. The constant struggle to progress or adapt to the changes that’s taking place around us. Many businesses are always chasing their client’s interests and focus, and this normally involves redesigning or rebranding to keep their audiences’ attention. Each year, several companies go thru major corporate ID overhaul to refresh and revive their images. This year we are listing 22 of the most notable logo redesigns in 2011. We did a similar round-up 2 years ago with our Top 45 Logo Rebranding of 2009, so you may also want to check that out.

Alere

ANZ Bank

Audi

Ben Sherman

Comedy Central

Google Chrome

TNT Post

Science Channel

Virgin Australia

Little Chef

TechCrunch

Heineken

Smart Communications

eHow

Swiss Airlines

Children’s Miracle Network

Starbucks

JCPenney

Toastmasters International

NBC Universal

THQ

Play.com

QR codes, short for Quick Response codes, are starting to get popular these days. If you are not yet familiar with QR codes, here’s a simple introduction about it. QR codes are similar to bar codes that we see everyday on consumer products. Bar codes are used by retailers for inventory and product pricing for POS. Now what’s the difference between the two? Bar codes are only linear one-dimensional codes which can only hold up to 20 numerical digits, while QR codes are two-dimensional (2D) matrix codes that can accommodate thousands of alphanumeric characters or data. Which makes QR codes more practical to use for a lot of purposes.

How does QR codes work

QR codes are scanned with mobile devices like iPhone, Android, or other camera enabled Smartphones. With QR codes, you can link users to your site’s URL, download content, activate phone functions and easily connect the mobile device to the internet.

So how do you generate QR codes? There a numerous QR code generators around. You can try two popular QR code generators, Kaywa and Zxing Project QR Code generators. You simply enter the data you want to send with your QR code, a web page link, text, phone number or SMS. Generate the code and it will provide you your own unique QR code instantly.

Reading QR codes will require your mobile device an application or a QR code reader/scanner. Searching for QR code readers will give you ample choices compatible with your particular brand and model of mobile phone. Head on to Mobile Barcodes for a list of the best QR Code reading software available for download.

Practical applications of QR codes

There are many ways you can use QR codes. Here are some of the most common applications for QR codes these days.

1. Business cards
2.  Corporate or product brochures and other marketing
3. Posters and announcements
4. Product packaging and tags
5. Signages and billboard ads
6. Clothes (QR codes printed on shirts are a big hit these days)
7. Magazine or newspaper ads
8. Website, email or any online campaign
9. Name tags
10. Books
11. A whole lot more than you can think of…

Designer QR codes

QR codes doesn’t have to look boring. You can design QR codes outside its black and white mazed like box. QR codes are very potential marketing tools, and presenting visually appealing QR codes will surely enhance your branding and appeal to your audiences.

Here are a few short tips on how you can enhance your QR code’s looks and create your own stunning designer QR codes.

1. Add colors to your QR codes. They don’t always have to be black and white. You can add colors as long as you maintain proper contrast between the dark foreground and light background.
2. Soften it with rounded corners. Softening the corners will dramatically reduce the visual stiffness of QR codes. Soften it and see the difference.
3. Use other graphic elements to add dimension to your QR codes. You can add images or any design element like your logo on your QR code. Just make sure you don’t obstruct some of the important boxes that contain data.
4. Use trial and error. You might ask on the previous tip, how do I know which of my QR code blocks I can mess around without affecting code readability. Well, technically you can do the math to compute which blocks aren’t necessary and can be played around or removed. But doing computations like that is unnecessary, you can just do your design, scan and test it as you go along.

Be sure to try different code readers. Different mobile devices and code readers may read your QR code differently. Make sure also that your designed QR code will be read instantly and will not take more than a few seconds to scan and generate results. If it takes a while to scan it, you need to redesign, simplify and try again.

I tried it out and here’s my first crack in doing designer QR codes for designfreebies. I quickly made two vector QR code designs using Illustrator. You may try and scan them and see if they work giving you designfreebies home page link.

To give you more ideas on how you can create your very own designer QR codes, here are a few examples of beautiful and creative QR codes that you can check for inspiration. If you have any designer QR codes you want to share, please let us know by mentioning it in your comment. Enjoy!

1. Zophia

Design: QR Arts

2.Corkbin

Design: Corkbin

3. HBO’s Boardwalk Empire Promotion

Design: SET Japan

4. IPA QR Code

Design: QR Arts

5. Collective Architectures Book

Design: Buenos Diaz

6. Louis Vitton QR Code

Design: SET Japan/Takashi Murakami

7. WIRED Magazine

Design: SET Japan

8. Brainy

Design: QR Code Workshop

9. Qubism and QRcodes

Design: QR Arts

10. Telstra’s MUM 2.0 Campaign

Design: SET Japan

11. Coffee QR Code

Design: QR Code Workshop

12. Jameson

Design: QR Code Workshop

Once again, Christmas is just around the corner. And what better way to truly show people you care during this most wonderful season of the year, especially when you cannot be with them physically, but to send them some lovely and creative Christmas cards from the heart.

Many people just resort to quickly sending their loved ones some electronic greeting messages but nothing compared to receiving and opening a real Christmas card wrapped beautifully in a special envelope and finding that lovely crafted Christmas card inside. You can send Christmas cards not just to special friends and relatives but also to your business associates and make them feel real special this Christmas time. Don’t let the good ‘ol tradition of Christmas card giving disappear. Create your own special Christmas greeting card today.

Creating your own Christmas card doesn’t have to be a task. We have here tons of design resources to help you get started in creating your own creative Christmas card. We have here 7 easy to follow Christmas card tutorials, 7 Christmas card design inspirations, 9 Christmas card design templates in various file formats, and 12 amazing collection of assorted useful Christmas graphic design downloads like vector graphics and icons, backgrounds, Photoshop brushes and more.

Browse down, download and enjoy creating your very own Christmas card. Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Card Tutorials

1. How to Make a Christmas Tree Pop up Card

2. How to Make a Christmas Card Star

3. Handmade Christmas Card with Removable Ornaments

4. The Joy of Christmas – Christmas card making tutorial

5. How to Make Handmade Christmas Waterfall Cards

6. How to Make a Christmas Card Using Wrapping Paper

7. Making a Christmas Story Star Card

Christmas Card Design Inspirations

1. Magical Christmas Card designed by Swedish Post (Posten) and Crispin Porter + Bogusky

This 2010 Clio Awards winner is a unique design of Facebook updates and dialogues transformed into various Christmas decorations like reindeer, bells, trees, etc.

2. Be! Christmas Card

Christmas card for “be!” – producer of clothes for children & pregnant women.

3. Volkswagen Christmas Card

A very creative and unique Christmas card any Volkswagen enthusiast would like to receive this Christmas.

4. Christmas Time! card design by Patrycja Zywert

A good example of clean and creative use of typography in Christmas card design.

5. The Xmas Card 2009 by Travis Purrington

Excellent mix of simplicity and elegance, traditional and modern Christmas card design.

6. Barajas Christmas Cards by Manuel Olmo-Rodriguez

A set of promotional mail materials with playing cards used as Christmas cards for OlmoCS, designed by Manuel Olmo-Rodriguez.

7. Christmas Cards for Jamaica by Eva Bodok

Lovely Christmas illustrations designed by Eva Bodok in this 2007 set of gate type Christmas cards for Jamaica.

Christmas Card Templates

1. Christmas Card Vector Templates from Freewareme

2. Beautiful Christmas Card Vector Template from Koocha

3. Another Vector Christmas Card Template from Koocha

4. Christmas Card PSD Template

5. Free Christmas Photo Card Templates (PSD and PNG file formats)

6. Christmas Card PSD Template (Danish and English)

7. 13 Lovely Christmas Card PSD Templates from Hero

8. Memory Makers Magazine Free Holiday Greeting Card Templates

9. Free Holiday Cards and Referral Cards Photoshop Templates from EW Couture

Other Christmas Card Design Resources

1. Designfreebies’ Free Winter Snow Flakes Vector Graphics

2. Free Christmas Vector Set 1

3. Free Christmas Vector Set 2

4. Free Christmas Vector Set 3

5. Free Christmas Card Background 1

6. Free Vector Christmas Backgrounds 2

7. Free Christmas Vector Background 3

8. Free Stylized Vector Christmas Tree

9. Free 22 Christmas Snowflake Photoshop Brushes

10. Set of Assorted Christmas Photoshop Brushes deom Ischarm

11. Great Collection of Christmas Photoshop Brushes from Atenais

12. Free Christmas Vector Ornaments and Gift Icons

Infographics or Information Graphics are visual representation of data and information. This kind of visual representation is used whenever complex information needs to be presented or explained clearly and quickly. Infographics mostly contain visual elements such as signs, maps, charts, diagrams or other graphic representation that will aid easy comprehension of complex data. They are often more powerful than plain imagery or words in transcending context, understanding and meaning to readers in a manner they have not previously experienced. Thus, treating them to a visual feast to learn, become enlightened, and motivated to learn more.

We have gathered at least 15 of the best infographics made in 2009 to present (2010) to inspire everyone not just in creating visually effective infographics but also to generate ideas and stimulate everyone’s creativity. These are a mixture of different types of infographics from statistical, to timeline to map based infographics.

If you know anything else worth mentioning in this 2009-2010 Best of Infographics list, please mention it in your comment. Enjoy.

1. 37 Minutes Bus Ride By Rayz Ong

2. Adaptation – Inadaptado by Rodrigo Machado

3. Balance Your Media Diet from Wired Magazine

4. Tree of Skills by Peter Grundy

5. DPS for Mens Health magazine, listing UK deaths by Peter Grundy

6. Digital Nostalgia from Wired Magazine Italy, March 2010 Issue

7. The Map of the Future from Wired Magazine Italy

8. Flowing Data Infovis by Luca Masud

9. 2010 World Cup Schedule by Martin Oberhäuser

10. iPod plus iTunes Timeline by Filip Chudzinski

11. The Babel of Beers (consumption, prices, taxation and restrictions: beer world infographic status report) by Francesco Franchi

12. Grandes navegações, Revista Superinteressante / março 2010

13. Student demographics within the Design Faculty at Politecnico di Milano developed by Density Design

14. World Cup Prediction Infographic from Wired UK, June 2010

15. 2010 Chile Earthquake Infographic

Summer is here and I’m turning up the heat some more by featuring our hottest collection of fire digital artworks, tutorials and background images.

For ages, we have been using fire for cooking, generating heat, signaling, and propulsion purposes. Even with its many uses, fire is also associated with many destructive effects that includes increased soil erosion, increased in atmospheric pollutants, and an increased hazard to human life. With March being the start of summer months in most regions, most countries observe their annual Fire Prevention Month starting this month. But any day of the year, everyone should take extra precaution, continue to educate people and regularly conduct fire drills to inform and prepare citizens on how to prevent and react to a building fire.

Now going back to our featured design free resources on fire, the safest way to use fire is when designers use them in their projects. Fire is very effective in conveying energy, aggressiveness and passion in your designs. So if that is what you intend to project with your design, maybe you can try some of these free fire background images. You may also want to learn creating your very own fire effects with these easy to follow Photoshop fire tutorials, or just amaze yourself and be inspired with some of the best fire digital artworks listed below.

Fire Digital Artworks

1. Eternal Flame by Silvatrez

2. Rebirth Flame by Darkhalo

3. Fire Hall by Pinkuh

4. Vodka by Nikita -trainfender- Buyanov

5. Snail Flame by Ghost3D

6. Heart of Fire by Chymere

7. Fire, Stars, and Fire by Shadow Umbre

8. Incandescence by Benjamin Delacour and Thomas Kim

9. I Love You Collab by Nikolay Ivanov and Stefan Chinof

10. Fire and Water by Artur Napierajczyk (naz)

Fire Background Images

1. Sailor Fire Background 1 by Senshi Stock

2. Nature Fire Background Stock Image Collection by Ayelie Stock

3. Collection of Fire Streak Images by Blary 54

4. Fire Photo Collection by Bcbusinesshub

5. Flame Background Collection by Iran Hot Head

6. 35 Free Hi-Res Fire, Flame and Firework Textures from Designshard

7. 11 Hi-resolution Fire Textures by Shin Rhys

8. 20 Hi-resolution Fire Textures by Frasio

9. 25 Free Fire Textures by Jason Bobich – Heavy Satin Flames

10. 52 Fire Light Textures by Elliptica

Fire Tutorials

1. Fire Tutorial by Windancer53

2. Fox Fire Tutorial by Ashwings

3. Fire Tutorial by Hawk4

4. Hell of Tutorial in Photoshop from Abduzeedo

5. How to Create a Flaming Photo Manipulation

6. Dramatic Text on Fire Effect in Photoshop

7. Create a Stunning Text on Wild Fire Effect from 10Steps

8. 3D Text on Fire from Denis Designs

9. Making of Flaming Hand from 10Steps

10. Creating Blue Flame Text on Carbon Fiber Background from 123RF

It’s been almost a year now since I last shared a typography inspirational roundup with “Some Amazing Works of Creative Typography“. And now here’s another one showcasing 30 inspiring pieces of 3D typography. You may have seen many similar 3D typography showcase around but I tried my best to feature the freshest among the best, so hopefully these mind blowing 3D typographic pieces will provide new inspirations to everyone.

Typography in itself is one amazing art form that most of us find really interesting and appreciate whenever we see some really awesome artworks through magazines, posters, brochures, or web. And creating these kind of typographic artworks in 3D is not an easy task. Most of these amazing pieces are done in 3D softwares like Maya, 3D Max, Cinema 4D or Lightwave in combination with such pure skils in texturing, lighting and creating 3D objects and elements present in the design. Adobe Photoshop or other image editing softwares are usually used for post-processing these artworks by adding topping it off with realistic elements and backgrounds.

I’m pretty sure there are many more latest and inspiring 3D typography artworks out there, so if you know any outstanding pieces that you think are worthy mentioning here, don’t hesitate to include it in your comments below.

1. Maximum Grunge by GrungeTV

2. Word Search by osbjef

3. Verdana Type Factory by Paul the Illustrator

4. Wash Your Hands by BK1LL3R

5. Earth Day by FaMz

6. Adidas Originality by Steve Flowers

7. Sammii by marcinxp

8. Grunge by chapter3d

9. Calibre by denzoo

10. On us by Shinybinary

11. Waste by Andro Conde

12. Coffee Socks by Andro Conde

13. 50th Anniversary McCaan Concept from Nylon Studios

14. Bauhaus Architectural Typography by Chris Labrooy

15. Helvetica Architectural Typography by Chris Labrooy

16. Star Crossed by xtreamArt

17. Try-type by til01 / Stayros til Georgakopoulos

18. Jesus Iso by Thomas Pavitte

19. Ingratitude by Tomaturge

20. Fresh Style Words by Michele Zamparo

21. Gettin Loose by Luke Lucas

22. Can’t get enough of this byAlex Beltechi

23. CMYK – Colour Your World Project by Markie Darkie

24. Typography is Everything by Simon Page

25. Chaos Type Experiment by Alex Beltechi

26. Some Type Of Wonderful 2010 by Luke Lucas

27. Let there be light by Jeff Osborne

28. Type Illustration by Alex Beltechi

29. Faith by Loswl of INSPIKS

30. Broken Mecore by Michael Schmidt

I’m always fascinated by near-infrared photography just like HDR. They both represent a different kind of surreal world and interesting ways to view ordinary and everyday images. There are a lot of amazing photo possibilities that we can produce with our cameras, from time lapse, to high-speed, to panoramic. But Infrared and HDR photography takes the ordinary imaging concept one step further and shows us the hidden wonders of colors and imaging drama the human eye simply can’t see on its own.

Near-infrared photography is different with far-infrared (thermal imaging). An easy way to understand near-infrared is somewhat similar with its name, NEAR-infraRED, which is basically the color of light next to red, a color that is invisible to the human eye. In infrared photography, the image sensor or film used is sensitive to infrared light. Together with infrared filters, visible light spectrum is blocked, but allows infrared light to pass, thus the filter looks dark red or black. Thus producing very interesting in-camera effects like false color, wood effects, dreamy black and white images, lurid and snowy foliage, dark hazy skies, etc. The possibilities are beyond our normal visual comprehension.

To better appreciate what near-infrared photography is all about, below are 30 amazingly breathtaking near-infrared photos that will captivate and inspire us.

1. lrargerich

2. Jeffrey Klassen

3. 2121 Studio

4. Mr. Walczak

5. Bill Gracey

6. Billy Currie

7. Blackdaddy

8. Robert Brown

9. Roger Sandgren

10. Cavagna Ottavio

11. Nahoj Sennah

12. Rosario Campione

13. Lukas Ondrousek

14. Francois Spenard

15. Rarindra Prakarsa

16. Kevin Temple

17. Rachel Jacklyn Bilodeau

18. Delbert

19. Irene Müller

20. Niek Haak

21. Mutrus

22. Crossie

23. Porg

24. Snailfan Man

25. La Vita A Bella

26. Dannie Tj. – 李泉亮

27. Prokyron

28. Dingodave

29. Werol

30. Szmytke

I hope everyone had a great time last year. As we enter Chinese new year this coming February 14 (which, coincidentally, is also Valentines Day), we welcome another auspicious year, 2010, celebrating the year of the tiger.  And so with that, we are bringing you more tiger today by featuring 30 amazing and beautiful tiger illustrations to inspire us and jump-start our lives this year.

This special feature on tigers was also made not just for 2010 being the year of the tiger, but also dedicated to all tigers of the world. A simple call to everyone to be aware of the imminent extinction of the most beautiful, powerful and gracious animal on earth, who are being slaughtered to extinction every day. Current figure estimates of around 5,000 to 7,500 tigers are left in the wild out of the current five subspecies left. These numbers may not be that accurate but it is also feared that the actual figure of tigers in the world today is much lower. Others estimate that the remaining tiger population will be totally extinct or eradicated by the turn of the century or soon after.

May these 30 amazing tiger illustrations not just inspire all of us but also move our hearts to help them survive. Save the tigers!

1. Water Tiger by Graf Art Club

2. Blue Eyed Tiger Cub by Bovar

3. White Tiger by Raipun

4. Siberian Tiger in Snow by Yuko

5. Smilodon Fatalis by Balaa

6. Bengal: King of Diamonds by Balaa

7. Fearful Beauty by Balaa

8. White Tiger Swordsman by Peterpan

9. The Year of the Tiger by Heise

10. White Tiger by Brooksart

11. Sylphe by Darvete

12. White Tiger Clan by K. Beyit

13. Tiger Queen by Lorenzo Di Mauro

14. Beautiful Tiger Art Wallpaper from Desktop Nexus

15. White Winter Winner by Karl Bang

16. Tiger Painting by Jason Morgan

17. Tiger Limited Edition Painting by Jason Morgan

18. White Tiger by Kentaro Nishino

19. Ocean Bed by Kintaro Nishino

20. The King of Forest by Kintaro Nishino

21. Curiosity by Kentaro Nishino

22. White Baby Tiger by Kentaro Nishino

23. Girl and Tiger from Desktop Nexus

24. Siberian Tiger by Jason Morgan

25. Tiger Pool by Avril Brand

26. Year of the Tiger by Mimi Yoon

27. Good Mates by Eric Sheperd

28. Tigger by BarbBarcikKeith

29. The Embrace by Sandi Baker

30. Amber Eyes by Koop27

I grew up learning traditional painting and have also seen how digital painting emerged, opening a new era in visual arts. Digital painting is applied using digital tools such as a computer, a digitizing tablet with stylus, and softwares like Corel Painter, ArtRage, openCanvas, GIMP, PaintShop Pro and the most widely used and popular Adobe Photoshop. All these digital tools are used to try to mimic what traditional media has, like utilizing different kinds of digital brushes and effects.

Digital painting is also similar to a traditional painting environment minus the mess. Of course, who wouldn’t miss, aside from the mess, the smell of oil and acrylic paints, and the emotional strokes your brushes create against the canvass. Admittedly, I do. Many times I wanted to try doing oil again but never got the time. But definitely I want to try some digital painting myself, probably on my leisure time, if I can afford one.

There has been always debates on which is better, much like the traditional vs digital photography debate. And there will always be drawbacks and benefits. While digital painting gives the artist ease of working in a virtual, organized and mess-free environment, a lot of traditional artist will argue that there is more control when you are holding a physical brush in your hand and there will always be something missing that the digital world can’t provide.

In as much as I want to talk more about digital and traditional painting, there are much more information and resources around that you can read comparing both. And if you really want to learn more and perhaps master the art of digital painting, there’s nothing much better than to learn it using Adobe Photoshop. There are a lot of digital painting tutorials around but most of them are non-Photoshop or combinations of Photoshop and 3D or other softwares. But most of us are only familiar with Photoshop, so I gathered purely Photoshop tutorials that discusses in details the process, techniques and tips you’ll need to learn and master digital painting. So here are 20 awesome Photoshop tutorials that you can read through and learn. Enjoy!

1. Photoshop Painting Tutorial by Ionen

2. The Making of Frodo by Vishal Pawar

3. The Making of Aretha Franklin by Jason Seiler

4. Portrait of Nathan by Jason Seiler

5. The Making of Halloween Witch by Amber Chen

6. Bioshock Videogame Digital Painting by Roberto Campus

7. Landscape Painting with Photoshop by Alain Descamps

8. Me and Louie’s Sister by Daniel Hammonds

9. Painting a Tree Frog by Richard Harris

10. First Digital Painting Tutorial by Ethe

11. Little Panda Girl Digital Painting Video Tutorial by Rodney Mella

12. Making of Naughty Robot by gigsmella

13. Photoshop Concept Car Tutorial by Martin Tyminski

14. Do You Want to Play With Me? by Mélanie

15. Creating a Photoreal 2D Motorcycle by Renze Rispens

16. “Hanagumori” Digital Painting Tutorial by Dianae

17. How to Draw a Portrait in Photoshop by Constantin Potorac

18. Painting Stone and Rock in Photoshop

19. “Aburod Terra” Digital Painting Photoshop Tutorial by Alexiuss

20. “Praetorian” Digital Painting Photoshop Tutorial by Alexiuss

Previously, I shared some generic 2010 Desk Calendar Illustrator template that everyone can use for regular desk calendar giveaways. But if you’re looking for clever and creative calendar designs, then check out our collection of 10 beautiful and creative 2010 calendar print designs.

Sometimes, we designers ran into some standard linear thinking until we get inspired by creative and outstanding designs that draws us out of the box. Same thing, calendar designs doesn’t have to be always rigidly structured calendar months with dates neatly arranged in columns and rows beneath. Out of the box, there could be  a number of creative approaches one can consider when designing calendars. But also remember, unique or unusual design doesn’t always follow good design. Good design should not only be visually appealing but should always reveal function and remains usable.

Hopefully most of you will find this creative showcase useful and find something interesting that you can use for your next calendar print design. Happy new year and may you all have a blessed new year come 2010.

1. Colorful wall calendars from Melissa Design (Vanhoosedesign)

2. 2010 Pershing Calendar by Manuel Dall’olio

3. Shim and Sons 2010 Calendar from Etsy.com

4. Flip Book Calendar by Tomato Kosir

5. Bubble Calendar – 2010 calendar with bubbles to pop each day

6. 2010 By The Numbers by Post Typography

7. “You Can Do It This Year” by Jason Wilkins

8. Hard to Read Calendar 2010 by Timi Everent

9. Spiral Calendar 2010 by Alone-zino

10. Multifaith Calendar for 2010 by Pawel Pilat