Just because I never work in Illustrator, I thougth I'd do some layers styles - so here they are. 3 fun layer styles for your design pleasure.
Click on the image to download the styles
Can be used for commercial projects, just don't claim them as your own.
I've been so swamped with work that my blog has suffered from a bit of neglect. I've also had a long hiatus in terms of uploading content to my Graphic River portfolio. Here's my latest item, a psd layer style that looks like aged paint, it can be used on an image, text or a shape - it can even be used on a background. It comes in 3 variations, each with a different degree of subtlety.
There are some great sites where you can sell your excess creative work. From photographs, vectors, illustrations, layered PSD files, tutorials and ebooks - there are sale opportunities for your digital content without you having to worry about applying for 'merchant' status. Each site has a different buyer profile and different royalty structures. Getting started can be a bit intimidating as most sites require an approval process before you can start selling online.
This is not a recipe for overnight success, but rather an income opportunity that you should commit to over a long period. It can start off as a source of passive income and eventually become your full time income IF you manage to create a winning recipe.
Oh, and be prepared to get rejections, I've had one library reject an image that become my best seller on another site. Each site has it's own culture and they each attract a certain buyer. Find your niche and you could find your sweet spot at the same time.
Here's a short list to get you started:
You also have the option on most sites of going exclusive (selling your digital content only on their site) or being non-exclusive. Choosing either is a bit like making an investment choice - higher risk of success or failure with one portfolio of shares, or a lower risk with multiple portfolios of medium performing shares. The royalties are always higher with exclusivity and some sites allow you to upload your content as either exclusive or non-exclusive. Other sites allow exclusivity (or non exclusivity) based on the author/username, so ALL your files need to be either exclusive or non exclusive.
One of the trickiest aspects is correcly keywording your file, a well keyworded file means that your image will appear more often in the right buyer searches and will result in more sales.
Click here for an awesome keywording tool from one of the top Microstock photographers.
We've just gone live with Homeschool.com for phase 1 of the realignment. Here's the before image of the site:
Here's what the site looks like for phase one of the realignment. Still some tweaks to make, but most of the recommendations I made have been implemented on the homepage.
Here's the beginning of a series of quick designer tips:
Ever received an image from a client and it's too small for print and there's no time or no option to source a replacement image? One of my design cheats is to take a screenshot of the image. It only works on some images as a lot depends on the source file.
This works quite well if the source image is an Acrobat file.
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