How to Use Photography to Enhance Your Homepage

Facebook recently reported that over 350 million photos were uploaded to its website every day during its fourth quarter of 2012. This comes as little surprise when you consider that, nowadays, more pictures are taken every two minutes than were taken in the 1800’s. So, how can this ‘photo boom’ work for the rest of us? Let’s focus on your website, specifically the homepage.

Read More

Bigstock Welcomes Google Drive!

Bigstock has some exciting news to share. We’ve made it even easier for Gmail users to access and save Bigstock images, thanks to Google Drive.

On every Bigstock image page, you’ll now see a “Save” button, directly to the right of the “download preview” under the image. (In the images below, the button is circled in orange.) How Google Drive’s Save button works on previewed images: This button allows Gmail users to download a watermarked version (or “preview”) of the image directly into their Google Drive cloud. Simply click this “Save” button, and the image will pop right into your Google Drive. In one single step.

Read More

5 Crucial Budgeting Tips for Every Freelancer

For new freelancers and veterans alike, juggling your income can be a challenge. While the benefits of working on your own are certainly appealing – flexibility, independence, and tax deductions, to name a few – managing your checkbook on an inconsistent income isn’t one of them. That’s not to say that it can’t be done. With a little foresight and some thoughtful budgeting, you can lead a steady, stable life on a freelance income.

These quick tips will help get you started:

Read More

An Intro to Working with Vectors

Vectors are images that are suitable for illustrations that contain precise measurements. A vector is different from a bitmap image (jpg) because its information is much simpler, and it is scalable to any size and can be edited freely. Vectors are not as useful for displaying photo-realistic images like photographs because those types of images generally do not contain well-defined shapes and curves. In this tutorial, you will learn how to work with a vector to make it easily editable for you. You will change the color of individual shapes, color many shapes together, and edit a path, which is what defines a shape in Illustrator.

Let’s use this vector from contributor Fixer00.

1. Find your vector image. To narrow your search down to vector images only, make sure the “Vectors” checkbox is clicked. Once you find your image, download it, making sure you click the “vector” option. You’ll then download an .eps file.

Read More

Bigstock Basics: How to Find the Perfect Image

Finding the perfect image can be as easy as 1-2-3. Keeping the below steps in mind can make your search even more effective.

1. Enter Basic Keywords Let’s say you want to find an image of a dog. But not just any dog. You want an adorable dog. To begin, you can enter the basic keywords dog and adorable in the main search box. You don’t want to add too many keywords. Entering too many keywords can be limiting, and you’ll end up with too few results.

Read More

Movie Magic

A tutorial in movie poster design by Art Director and founder of Pureworks, Victoria Jordan.

Lately, I’ve been inspired by a few of the big summer movies like the Dark Knight Rises and The Bourne Legacy which I was lucky enough to screen last week (definitely go see it…lots of great action!) As an homage to summer blockbusters, I looked for a subject among the cool images that Bigstock has to offer. I found this one, which I love, that made me think of the new Total Recall remake. With that inspiration in mind, I’m going to design a poster inspired by Total Recall, in celebration of the summer blockbuster. Keep in mind this is just an inspirational ad. Make sure to check copyright laws when working on your own designs.

Read More

Freelancing in NYC? This Talk is for You.

This Thursday (07/19), we’ll be hosting a talk at Wix Lounge, right here in NYC. The topic “Hotshot Tools for Freelancers” will help independent creatives take charge of their freelancing career. We’re especially excited to have our very own UX Designer, Erin McCue, as one of the evening’s hosts. She’ll be sharing that duty with…

Read More

Compositing Images, Part 2

Part 2 in a series of Photoshop tutorials by Art Director and founder of Pureworks, Victoria Jordan. In case you missed the first tutorial in the series, click here for a quick refresher. In the first tutorial we added some shiny red lips to an existing stock image of a woman’s face. For this next…

Read More