Snappa
Create Awesome YouTube Channel graphics
YouTube is all the rage right now. If you own a YouTube Channel you know how important it is to have an updated graphic header. It's critical to have a cool looking header so that people will know that your serious about the videos that you have on your channel.
Fortunately you don't need to be an expert in graphic design, Snappa helps make YouTube headers in a snap!
Website Description
Create YouTube channel art on the fly with Snappa
- Save time by starting with the ideal image dimensions for YouTube channels
- Start with one of many professionally designed templates to throw together eye catching YouTube channel art in seconds
- Customize templates, graphics, and text to create on-brand channel art
- Access 500,000+ of high-res, totally not cheesy, 100% royalty-free stock photos from our library
- Add the polish typically reserved for professional graphic designers with customizable graphics, shapes, and text
- Download your channel art as a web optimized JPG, high-res PNG, Retina JPG, or Retina PNG
- Repurpose YouTube channel art for your other social media profiles and vice versa in a couple of clicks
https://snappa.com/create/youtube-channel-art
Snappa isn't just for YouTube, you can use it to create designs for all your favorite social media networks. The good thing about using Snappa is that you don't have to worry about the current design standards. They are up to date on the latest sizes - no more second guessing if it's the right size..
MockPhone
Simple way to show your design on any smartphone
There are lots of choices when it comes to using mockups to showcase your design. The nice this about MockUPhone is there's a lot of device options including TV screens.
Website Description
MockUPhone is a free tool that helps developers, designers, project managers and consultants wrap app screenshots on different mobile devices. Developers and designer can use the provided PNG files to make mobile screenshots and mockups for mobile application websites or advertisements. While project managers and consultants can embed the screenshots in keynote for their client projects. MockUPhone right now supports iPhone mockup, iPad mockup, Android mockup and TV mockup.
If you want to create screenshots for App Store submission, you can also check out one of our developer suite - ShotBot (http://shotbot.io/). ShotBot is screenshots makers for iOS platform. It helps you wrap screenshots and implements screenshot device art effortlessly.
Five Things I learned Using MockUPhone
- You have to use an image, there's no pointing to an existing URL for the image to rendered by the device.
- In order to get the final image you have to put in a valid email and then download the file from the email link
- The mockup images are in PNG format with transparent backgrounds.
- MockUPhone have a lot of designs and will tell you the best format to use.
- You get a preview of one of the layouts, to see if you want a final version.
Glitter Text
Create cool glitter effects with your text
GigaGlitters.com is a cool way to add some glitter to text. Simply put in some text and select the style that you want and then share the GIF file. You can use various GIF tools to combine the text.
Description from their site
GigaGlitters.com is super easy and fun tool to create glitter texts. It is FREE! With GigaGlitters you can instantly create glitter texts! Start right now, just enter the text you want to glitter. Place your glitter text anywhere you like: MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, Facebook, HI5 and many others.
Some tips/tricks
- Text can only be 15 characters long.
- There are 176 different glitter colors/styles to select from. You get a preview of all the styles.
- There are 101 different fonts to pick from. The only problem is that you don't get a nice popup to show the different font styles, you pick it based on the name.
- If your unsure, or in a rush, select the 'random' button and a style/font will be selected with your text. Keep clicking randomly until you find the perfect match!
- Once you find the perfect match, you can drag and drop the style to your desktop, or use the various code text provided.
Example Images
Background Image Generator
Create seamless background images for web and graphics
Background Image Generator by SiteOrigin is a good resource if your looking for a basic seamless image. Make your images POP by using a simple pattern image generator.
This is not only good on websites, you can also use this as background in graphic designs.
There are 296 pattern and 42 Blend Modes. Giving lots of different ways to create different style and color patterns.
Website Description
This is a simple background image generator. You can choose the base color, pattern, intensity and a few other settings. It generates the image for you. Great for creating tiled website backgrounds.
Samples Using OmniGraffle
engfto.com Text Effects
You can create some pretty cool effects using engfto.com
engfto.com is a great website to animate your text images. There are all sorts of creative effect to make your text POP. For starters, on the homepage, there are 43 general styles to pick from. Within each style, you have the flexibility to change all sorts of options.
If you want to brighten up a chatroom or a social media comment, this is the place to get it done.
Tip: You have a lot of flexibility to change the way the graphic design. I would suggest spending time using the site. While the default options are pretty cool, you can certainly spice things up to your needs with just a simple change here and there.
Website Description
Create cool text. Designer generator beautiful text logo online , with a choice of effects and fonts. Create a beautiful inscription online, inscription with animation.
There is no cost to use this site and many images are available as animated GIF or HTML5 effects.
Sample Effects
Here are just some of the cool effects that I was able to generate:
Embossed Label
Cool way to display a simple message
Embrossed Labels is a quick way to generate labels online. You can use the graphic for any purpose.
This is a unique way to communicate a message on a Blog or Social Media.
Description from the Website
Welcome to the Embossed Label Generator website, where you can make and download free custom text embossed label images for your design projects or websites.
The generator uses actual images and not a font - they are made from the high resolution scanned label strips that are on my main website here. The original scans were only in blue, red and green and I also made a black version in Photoshop - I may add more colors in the future.
Sample Design Ideas
These labels are perfect for displaying short text in the graphic form. You can combine labels with interesting graphics layouts.
QR Code
Great Way to get people to get connected to your WiFi
QR Code Monkey is a fast easy way to generate QR codes. People can scan the code to get more information about a product or to visit your website.
Website Product Description
QRCode Monkey is one of the most popular free online QR code generators with millions of already created QR codes. The high resolution of the QR codes and the powerful design options make it one of the best free QR code generators on the web that can be used for commercial and print purposes.
https://www.qrcode-monkey.com/
Cool Use of a QR code
Do you have company over your house that wants to get on your WiFi? Want to keep your WiFi access point secret?
Easy, simply create a mini-poster with the QR code for people to scan. Hang the poster where people can see it. When they scan the QR code it automatically connects that device to the WiFi access point with the WiFi password.
How cool is that!
Now you can have some complex password and not have to worry about someone incorrectly typing the password.
Simply scan the QR code and they are online. Works well with laptops that have a camera too. Apple iOS users can use the camera app
This is a good idea for doctor offices, gymnastics waiting areas, bars etc. Just about any place that wants to promote Free WiFi..
Now people can get online without typing in some highly encrypted password.
PermalinkDeposit Photos
Deposit Photos has a great Image catalog for all your needs.
If your looking for great stock photos or vector images - Deposit Photo is the way to go. You can find lots of great graphics and ideas.
These files aren't free, you need to buy a package to download the files. They often run a special promotional deal where you can download 100 files for $100. It's a great deal since the 100 credits don't expire.
If you're really into Deposit Photo, you can subscribe to their services - there's a monthly and a yearly plan.
From their Website
Depositphotos -- is a commercial platform that brings authors of high-quality licensed stock photos, graphics, vectors, and videos together with appreciative buyers. Thanks to the efforts of talented professionals from all over the globe and our world-class technical solutions, we were able to build a perfect place to marry business with creativity.
75+ million files. Clients in 192 countries. 24/7 support in 20 languages. It is possible only because we have a strong team located in New York, Milan, Kiev, Moscow and Warsaw.
You can find great Christmas graphics, images for invitations, infographic designs or graphics for blogs.
I have found that some designs from Creative Market are also available on Deposit Photo. Instead of paying $8, I paying $1 for virtually the same graphic design.
Get Started
Check out their site and search for images to see what they have in their library. See if it meets your image demands.
Permalinkcamelcamelcamel
Find the lowest price on any product on Amazon.com
camelcamelcamel is a great site to find out if your getting the best deal on a product on Amazon.com. Simply enter the product name or Amazon URL and it will display the product price history for any duration.
Website Description
Our free Amazon price tracker monitors millions of products and alerts you when prices drop, helping you decide when to buy.
The website will also display the current top Amazon price drops and the most popular products on Amazon.com.
This is a great site for anyone looking to get the best deal on Amazon.com
PermalinkSpell with Flickr
Cool graphic letter generator
Spell with Flicker is a cool service where it searches Flickr for the letters of the word that you want to spell. This is pretty cool for a social media post to highlight a name or word.
If you don't like a particular letter simply click on it to get another design style.
How it All came about
Krazy Dad (jbum) made a note once using the letters from the One Letter group with the Flickr API. I decided to try making something similar as a way to learn Flickr's wonderful developer tools. Along the way, it got VERY popular. I still feel like it could be better, but it gets the job done. I have made the source code available for free. It's not coded very well, my first time parsing XML(ish) with PHP(4), and also my first time doing caching of remote resources (funny story, I had a bug in this script that bypassed the cache each time - when I got really popular, Flickr felt the strain, and temporarily disabled my API Key). I'm still thrilled with the response it has gotten, and welcome any suggestions or comments. You can reach me on my blog at metaatem.net, or email me at kastner@gmail.com.
Sample Designs
Here are some cool designs that you can create with Spell with Flickr.
About
I will highlight a fun Internet site every Saturday. The basic premise is to highlight sites that I regularly visit for a variety of reasons. All site recommendations are mine and are unsponsored. By highlighting these websites, I hope to provide value to those who may not know of the sites or who might be interested in visiting the sites. I also want to share the sites that I find valuable in the hopes that others will find them just as beneficial.
Check out all the blog posts.
Blog Schedule
| Thursday | BBEdit |
| Friday | Macintosh |
| Saturday | Internet Tools |
| Sunday | Open Topic |
| Monday | Media Monday |
| Tuesday | QA |
| Wednesday | SnagIt |