When it comes to creativity, great fonts are a must. Fonts can either make or break your design. I ran into some really nice looking creative fonts the other day and wanted to share. Hope you enjoy!

1. MDRS-FD01 – by mindriders

2. SquaretypeB – by digitalAM

3. Velocity

4. Exus Pilot – by mauroh

5. Dirt To Death – by Keepwaiting

6. PT Banana Split

7. Avant Garde

8. ABC Font – by MyFox

9. Karabine

10. Val Font

Here are some other font resources you may want to check out:

1st Web Designer – 65 Popular and Professional Free Fonts

76 Dirty and Extreme Creative Fonts

Creative Nerds – 50 Best Free Fonts of 2009

When you first start using Illustrator as your design program make sure to have an open mind. Most tasks are a bit different than Photoshop and it can get a little frustrating when your not familiar with the tools and techniques. 6 years ago I taught myself how to use Illustrator and now 90% of my designs are created with this program. Below are some great tutorials and will help you get started. Hope you enjoy!!

1. Create A Cute Panda Bear Face Icon

2. How To Create Shiny Vector Dice

3. Illustrator Cs3 Vectoring An Eye

4. Design And Print Bold Promo Cards

5. Creating Geometric Patterns In Illustrator

6. Bling Bling Text Effect

7. How To Make 3D Vintage Stars

8. 3D Lighted Text Effect

9. How To Create A Landscape Wallpaper For Your Desktop

10. Creative Masking Techniques In Illustrator

11. Understanding The Pathfinder Tool

12. Illustrator Masking Tutorial

13. 3 Ways To Apply A Line Pattern Effect On Text

14. Create A Vector RSS Icon

15. Perfect Silhouettes with Illustrator’s Live Trace Feature

With new social media websites comes the demand for new icons.  Google Buzz is the latest and has generated its own followers of worker bees pretty quickly.  You can link Buzz to other social media websites to keep your followers informed at all times. This tutorial will show you how to create your own Google Buzz icon with a few easy steps in Illustrator.  Don’t forget to download the source files below. Enjoy!

Step 1 Create a new file in Illustrator. Set it to RGB and letter paper size (8.5 x 11)

Step 2 Using the shape tool draw an Oval shape with a solid color black

Step 3 Using your pen tool you will need to create the bottom section of the info bubble. There is no set size for this but don’t go over board. Take a look below.

Step 4 Select both the Oval and the bottom half of the info bubble and go to the top toolbar (window – pathfinder). While both objects are selected click the Merge feature in the Pathfinder tool. Now you have your information bubble.

Step 5 Set the object to outline mode only using a stroke of 10pts, and change the color to a light grey.

Step 6 Now, we are going to create large diamonds using the Rectangle Tool. You will need to create a total of 4 diamonds: blue, green, yellow, and red.  I like to spice them up a bit using a radial gradient to create a nice effect.

Step 7 Once you have all the diamonds created, group them together using (command + G) and place them behind the information bubble.

Step 8 Next select the information bubble object and go to the top toolbar (object – expand), and select fill & stroke. Click ok to continue.

Step 9 Select all the objects and go to (window – pathfinder) and use the Trim feature. You will now be able to double click on the excess objects around the information bubble and delete them without deleting the contents inside the bubble.

Step 10 Once you have deleted all of your objects around the information bubble you will now have a nice Google Buzz icon.

Leave me some comments below if you enjoyed this.  I would love your feedback.  Also here is the Link for the source file GoogleBuzz_Icon.eps.

Until next time…