How To Develop a Vision For Your Graphic Design Business

I remember before my wife and I started our own graphic design business we asked ourselves – what kind of graphic design business do we want to be? If we were going to take this risk of starting our own business then we should paint a picture of what our preferred business future should look like.

The dictionary defines vision as:

“the act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be: prophetic vision; the vision of an entrepreneur.”

Here are 5 questions to answer that will help you discover what kind of graphic design business you want to be:

1. What stage of life are you at?

The stage of life you are at can influence the type of business you are want to be. We were just about to have children so we wanted the business to fit around the needs of a young family. That meant we wanted to work from home which gave us flexibility for working hours. Our stage of life also helped us to work out that we didn’t in the short term want to hire any staff, that if we had more work than we needed we would hire freelancers.

2. What kind of work do you want to do?

We have experience in the corporate world. We had experience in advertising, designing corporate identities, branding, annual reports and websites. Our industry sectors covered everything from superannuation (private pensions) to bio-technology. Just like us the best kind of work you could start in is the area of graphic design you have the most experience in. You should have a folio ready to show your future clients what you are capable of.

In the future if you want to enter into a market or business sector you have no experience in having an existing client will provide you with the financial security while you enter this new market.

3. Who are your main competitors in that market?

Knowing who your main competitors will influence you in several ways:

• What your billing rate should be
• How you need to position yourself from a branding perspective
• It can also help you create a list of potential clients to call as most graphic designers have a folio page (shhhhhshhh that’s a $100,000 sales secret I just gave you)

4. Where do you see yourself five years time personally and professionally?

Do where you see yourself in five years personally line up with where you want to be professionally? You may want to be a mum but want to have a graphic design empire. That may be possible, but you need to put strategies in place to manage the personal side of life so the business doesn’t suffer and vice-versa. You may see yourself moving from the city to the country. If so, how will you bring your clients with you? What strategies can you put in place to enable your working relationship to continue.

5. What kind of income do you expect?

What kind of income do you need? Do you want to be rich beyond your wildest dreams? Then work out what size business will help you do that. Think about how many staff do you need to drive the amount of income you would be looking for. Or you may be looking to supplement your shoe fetish because your partner earns a gazillion dollars already. What will it take to become the Imelda Marcos of your neighbourhood?

Answering these questions will help you develop your vision for your business. You may of already been running your graphic design business for a few years and not even have a vision, it’s not too late. These aren’t the only questions you could ask.

4 Strategies I Use To Help Me Deal With A Nightmare Client

I’ve seen many blog posts on how to avoid bad or difficult clients which offer great advice. Unfortunately you can’t avoid bad clients all the time. They sneak up on you in all sorts of different ways. Your relationship with your client may start of really well and go postal after you have been working together for a while.

Dealing with a difficult client or bad client is part of owning your own graphic design business. Sure you can do everthing to try and avoid them, but when you encounter them you need to understand there can be an upside to having them. Yes. Really. There is.

I remember a few years back learning a lesson I will never ever forget. I was working for a marketing client who was a junior account executive. He was pushy, demanding, unrealistic and he wanted everything yesterday. No appreciation or positive ever came my way. As well as leading the design I was also the client contact. After whinging and complaining to my boss she said something that I have never forgotten:

“Your worst client can be your best teacher”

If you don’t remember anything else about this post remember what she said. It has served me so well over the years. No matter how bad your situation you can learn something about yourself and how you handled the situation. Here are four strategies or questions I use to work out what I can do to avoid the same situation happening again:

1. How did I respond in the heat of the moment?

2. What did I learn from the situation?

3. If that happened again would I handle it differently?

4. What can I do to avoid it happening again?

As I said at the top of this post you can’t avoid difficult or bad clients all the time. But in the future you can put in place strategies in place to help you learn and avoid it happening to you again in the future.

Raygun Rises Again As “C A R S O N”

Raygun, the magazine founded by David Carson in the 90’s is to be relaunched as C A R S O N magazine. Raygun was published from 1992 – 2000 and was renowned for its interviews with musicians and the unusual/mental typography created by David Carson. The new magazine will cover art, culture, design, fashion and current events and will be published 6 times per year.

I heard and saw David Carson speak (twice) at the Offset Illustration conference in Dublin last year and he was a complete joy. Very charming and witty and of course a complete design genius. He talked about how he didn’t know the rules of graphic design and just forged his own way not worrying about it. He told so many funny stories and had so much work to show that the questions and answers at the end had to be moved to its own slot the following day – hence the reason I heard him speak twice.

One of the stories he told was about an interview with Brian Ferry which was scheduled to run in the magazine but David felt the interview was so boring and not up to scratch that he set the type in Zapf Dingbats, basically rendering it unreadable.

Here’s a few covers and inside pages of old Rayguns.

Cleverly Designed WTF Situations By Estudio Minga

WTF Series is about things that happen to us while living a normal life… when you clearly don’t understand why those things happened! They’re usually out of the ordinary things that occur to all of us but are sometimes hard to believe.

These eleven illustrations are well-executed, giving us simple stories in straightforward ways. Also, love how each of these can stand on their own but when taken together, make a wonderful, imaginative and creative series.

Internet Marketing Strategies: 5 Key Steps to Sell Products Online

If you are a business owner or someone who is interested in selling something online, you probably have realized that there are many ways to sell products online, but it all comes down to effective marketing and traffic building. Indeed, selling products can be one of the lucrative businesses to do on the internet but you also have to learn how to do it if you want to sell your products fast and beat the massive competition online.

Some would say that we are in the age of internet marketing and if you want to promote your business then you need to be an internet marketing expert yourself or hire one. Marketing a product online needs a lot of strategic and intellectual thinking. In regard to marketing a product online, marketing professionals suggest a few concepts to be taken into consideration. Marketing research will also be carried out to some extent by the owners of businesses. They will analyze the problems relating to the marketing of goods and services. Getting to know the customers tastes for goods and services and their budgets, and how much they are willing to spend, is another key aspect to consider when marketing a product online.

Who are the business’ competitors?, What are the marketing strategies involved?, who are the target buyers, what are the key products that the business deals in?, and many other questions need to be considered. With a view to increasing the sales of a particular product, marketing professionals will tend to see things from a different point of view. Their key focus will be on how to increase the amount of customer traffic to a company website. Below I have collected some of the most important steps to follow to an effective online marketing.

You can learn your audience by analyzing your own website and website’s with similar audiences, you can review your website’s internal search data, and take note of the conversations that you have with members of your audience. You are looking for clues that tell you 1) who your audience is, 2) what their needs and wants 3) when they buy, 4) how they decide on what and where to purchase 5) where does your audience spend their time at online, 6) what is their level of comfort with their current situation and etc.

To understand who your competitions are it is a must beginning with a list of both long and short tail keywords that your audience uses to land on your website (you can find this with Google Analytics) and then searching for these terms on Alexa and Keyword Spy. The sites that show up in when you search for these keywords are likely to be your most likely sources of online competition. Often this list will include retailers, manufacturers, content portals and affiliate sites and that is fine.

Once you know who you’re competing against you can find out what their doing by using tools such as Hubspot’s Website Grader, you can analyze their search engine strategy using tools such as Spyfu, you can look at their blog and you can observe their social media profiles to see what their saying and to see whose speaking for them.

2. Set SMART Goals

The first thing that you should know when it comes to setting goals for your products is that you need goals that are SMART-specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timetabled.

Next you should know that there are two types of goals that you should concern yourself with when it comes to marketing your products online-business goals and marketing goals. These goals will provide you with the benchmarks that you need to assess the success or failure of your online marketing efforts.

Armed with the information that you have on the market for your product you will be in a position to set your business goals. Your business goals should address items such as sales, revenue, costs, and profitability. Since the type and degree of online marketing tactics will be influenced by your budget you will want to also take your financial position into consideration when putting your business goals together.

Your marketing goals should be designed so that your product sales will allow you to meet your company’s business goals. They should include metrics such as monthly website visits, page views, ad impressions, clicks, click trough rate, conversion rate, cost per conversion, average transaction value, and etc.

3. Develop Your Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch, which is also sometimes referred to as a unique selling point (USP), is a tool that you use to etch your brand’s unique qualities into the mind of your audience. In short its what separates you from your competition and it is what let’s your audience know how your product will solve their problems. The Elevator Pitch is one of the most important parts of a sales and marketing strategy for any business. Sadly most people get it wrong, or even don’t know what it is, or how important it is from a business development viewpoint and this can severely limit the potential to obtain new business. However, get it right and you will see a serious increase in business opportunities. The Elevator Pitch comes into play when you meet people and this can be in a number of different ways. You’ve heard the saying “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression” and this is particularly true when you first meet potential new business prospects. The elevator pitch term derives from the idea of having a to the point short speech you will be able to deliver successfully in case you should be lucky to have 30 seconds in an elevator with the right person…

Steps to a Great Elevator Pitch:

1) Your elevator pitch should solve a problem or need. It’s important your website solves your buyers needs or problems. The tighter and more specific the problem or need the better.

2) Speak to your buyer. Who’s the who? Who is your website for? Who are you attempting to attract? Make sure you message matches your target market.

3) Be crystal clear in your message. It’s not time to get cute here. Make sure you’re elevator pitch communicates exactly what you do. ( Try your elevator pitch out on someone NOT familiar with your industry. If they understand what you’re communicating it’s probably a good pitch)

4) Keep it short and sweet. Most people ( especially online), have short attention spans. Make sure you get right to the point and eliminate unnecessary words and flowery language.

5) Give specific results. Numbers don’t lie. If you’re a copywriter and you’ve written a piece that pulled 42% for one of your clients, make sure you use it. If you’re a dentist and you’ve successfully improved 2,375 smiles…say it!

6) Use Curiosity. The human mind hates emptiness and must fill the void. This is why late night news casts use curiosity in their headlines.

7) Be ready to tell folks more. This is particularly true if you’re sharing your elevator pitch face to face with a prospect. If you’re crafted a tasty elevator pitch, your buyers will want to know more. Be ready to give it to them.

4. Finding an Online Home

Now that you’re about to begin marketing your product(s) online you will want to determine which type of website is the most suitable to help accomplish your goals. The basic options that you have are:

• Squeeze Page. This type of site consists of a single page, usually with no navigation that begins with copy and leads into the crescendo-a product sales offer. It works best when you have one product and want the consumer to take one action-which is either a purchase and/or to make a request for information. This is a tool for building squeeze pages fast that I recommend.
• Micro Site. A micro site is a miniature website that is typically built around one product; they often include several different types of commercial online content such as online videos, white papers, and etc. This type of website works well when selling expensive or complicated products.
• Website. This can be an ecommerce site, a blog, or a more standard website. This format works well when you have multiple products to sell. Often times marketers who utilize a complete website to market their products have several different landing pages-one for each product or family of products.

5. Promotional Plan Online and Marketing Strategy

The online marketing tools that you should include in your promotion plan will be based upon your goals, your audience’s online habits and preferences, as well as your company’s financial and time constraints. The most commonly used tools are:

• Organic SEO. Organic SEO is used to impact your website’s position within the search engine results for relevant keywords. Pros: This strategy drives targeted traffic to your site and has long-term benefits that often outlive your efforts. Surfers place more trust in the natural results than they do in paid results. Cons: It takes time for the benefits of organic SEO to materialize. It can be extremely expensive.
• Paid Search Engine Marketing or SEM. SEM is used to drive targeted potential buyers to your site via sponsored search engine results-think “Google AdWords”. Pros: This strategy can provide near immediate results. It also allows advertisers highly detailed analytics. Performance based pay structure-you pay only for clicks. Cons: Many a firm has lost their shirt doing PPC marketing. Campaigns can get expensive really quick and if you aren’t conducting testing you could easily get in over your head.
• Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate marketing is where you pay affiliates a commission on the sales that they help to generate for you online. Pros: Highly cost effective way to bring targeted buyers to your site. In addition to bringing you sales affiliates also give you back-links to your site. Cons: Your sales are dependent upon the strength of your affiliates. Although relative to SEO and PPC overall affiliate marketing costs are low the set up costs can be expensive.
• Online PR. Online PR speaks to the methods that you use to influence the perception of your online audience to your product(s) or brand. This includes social media as well as the management of your online newsroom and press releases. Pros: Relatively inexpensive to utilize. Since online pr often results in people sharing information with each other about your products, this tool is very similar to a traditional referral-you stand to get warm leads. Cons: You have little control of your message as much of online pr as the consumer primarily controls or drives social media. You also have less control over the type of traffic that your website will receive from your online pr efforts-meaning you could get a high percentage of window shoppers from this type of marketing.
• Email Marketing. Email marketing is a form of marketing where the marketer uses emails as the communication medium to reach the consumer-directly. Pros: This can be used to complement PPC marketing and it can greatly enhance the experience of your current customers. Relative to the other tools email marketing offers a very high ROI. Cons: You can easily alienate customers if you aren’t careful. If you break the CAN-SPAM Act you could be fined up to 16,000 USD for a single violation.
• Blogging. You can use a business blog to communicate with your audience while building your web presence. Pros: Very affordable. Easy way to establish your brand online. Cons: Can be highly time consuming. May take a long time to generate sales of your products.

Developing Your Marketing Strategies:

Your marketing strategy is the final process of your plan. Your plan must include both short-term and long-term strategies in order to succeed.
Short term marketing strategies are those that bring you a temporary boost in traffic. Although these techniques are very important to your over-all plan, they are only a temporary traffic source and must not be solely relied upon.
Short term marketing strategies include:

• Purchasing Advertising
• Participating in Forums
• Search Engines

The Secret Order Of The Streets- Talks Mainstream

It doesn’t happen often, that a clothing brand should have a driving ethos besides just the aesthetic sides of things. The S.O.O.T.S (which stands for ‘The Secret Order Of The Streets’), endeavours to encourage it’s wearers to find an alternative source of truth, besides the mainstream media.

Young social entrepreneur Adi Abdul Aleem, who owns the brand has dedicated 5% of the clothing sales to 3rd world charities.

This brand prides itself on the ethical way in which their products are produced. Every items are sourced and created in England, hand produced in limited quantities, and non have ever seen the inside of a sweatshop.

The London street wear line is based on beliefs in world peace, charity, ethics, human rights and other such just causes. Their tag line is ‘Conscious swagger for the conscious mind’-speaks for itself. Through the clothing design, and the online representation of the brand, The S.O.O.T.S pushes for rebellion; against the system and the status quo.

“We ARE the streets, we speak the truth and dont fear consequences, we represent the poor in the name of charity, we dont follow corrupt governments, nor do we allow ourselves to be brainwashed by biased media, we ARE ‘The New World Disorder’, we are ‘The S.O.O.T.S’.”

http://thesoots.bigcartel.com

In His Words..

Media Bias.. I do think the mainstream media are biased. The news we are fed are manipulated and distorted and only show the idea of the story that we are supposed to see to suit what the government want us to feel, such as; the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, completely distorted reports to justify and propagate their supposed “just wars” on innocent people, viewing the real victims of countless war crimes as nothing else but the other.

The mainstream media feeds us lifestyles and behavioural attitudes through mental programming whether we like to admit it or not; through television that demonstrates to us how to behave and what we should see as the norm, and what we should see as nothing but unnatural (the burka.etc.), and how to react to it in society, what to eat, how to dress, etc.

Young People and current affairs.. I think that the best way young people can involve themselves in current affairs and learn is to do nothing more than seek knowledge: knowledge is power.

Have an open mind, and be open to make decisions for themselves rather than to have it made for them, and to realise that the right decision may not be the one that they are being told as being the social norm or necessarily be politically correct.

My inspiration and situation.. The clothing line was first started as a dissertation for my final year of Graphic design at uni. I had always had a dream of starting my own clothing line and had come across the business ventures of Johnny Cupcakes at the time, and i though to myself- why not? So it started, and it went on from there.

To be honest when creating the line I did not think about how it can help these situations. I created a clothing line and just started drawing random designs and these matters that were close to my heart came out naturally and it went from there.

If anything, Ithink a big fan base and following could not only help stimulate thinking but also a visual billboard against the mainstream and provoke others.

Adi has big plans for The S.O.O.T.S in 2011, including new designs such as this one:

Easy Steps to Design Unique and Professional Business Cards

If there is one thing permanent in business, that would be change. Products and services are constantly added, offices change locations, and new promotions are created.

But are your business cards keeping up with these changes? Remember that there will be a lot of changes you will experience in the business industry, and it helps a lot if your cards are able to keep up with the changes to help keep your business thriving.

You are probably asking now, just how important are business cards? They are actually very important as they help provide you a good first impression. Your business card will basically give your customers important details about your business and its style and culture. Because your cards are so essential to your success, it's crucial they are designed uniquely and professionally. Fortunately, there are ways you can design unique cards in just a few easy steps.

1. Create a good logo. The first step to creating a distinct card is to create a logo that is simple, easy to remember and distinct enough make you stand out against your competition. If you already have a good logo, you are a step ahead. But if you do not have a logo yet, you have to create one right away.

2. Decide where to put your logo. The next step is to decide the placement of your logo on your card. There are two rules to follow when it comes to logo placement: keep the logo small and place it on one corner. This leaves a lot of room in the middle of your card for your contact details. The other rule is to put your logo at the back where it can be place in the middle for easy recognition. You can also dress up your logo with unusual graphic or fonts to make it look unique.

It is important to consider that when deciding on your business card templates, your logo suits your business image. The traditional layout is best if you want to convey a conventional image. Uncomplicated logos if you want to easily shrink your logo to a small size. But even though this design is simple and conventional choice, it doesn't mean that you will make the design boring. With the right graphics and color scheme, your logo will be unique and memorable.

You can also soften the logo's colors and make it your background. The information can be printed in a dark font and placed over the logo. This design will offer you several advantages such as creating a logo that is large enough to be clearly seen, having enough space left for your contact details, and achieving a distinctive business card design.

3. Determine the finish you will use. After creating the design, you can now add the final touches. There is no exact requirement to an effective business card design. Just be sure to consider your choices effectively to come up with an effective and harmonious design that will suit both you and your business. If you decide carefully, you are sure to create a business card that will work in telling people about your professionalism and style.

If you are able to create a unique design, your business cards are sure to create an innovative card that will surely get a second glance.

This writing provides information and tips to the readers about how to promote your business with cheap but appealing business cards, try to check out this page for more eye catching and free business card templates.

Increase traffic? Now there's a MILLION dollor question.

The answer to this question is not an easy one in many respects, but mainly It's almost impossible for one answer to be correct for every circumstance.

I began my venture into cyber space with absolutely no computer knowledge what-so-ever. Not only was I computer illiterate I didn't know the InterNet from a fishing Net.

One of the very first things I learned was that the Internet can be a very lonely and impersonal world. Sitting alone in front of a computer screen hour after hour day after day and keeping your focus is not an easy task.

My first suggestion is to establish contacts with like minded people as soon as you can. Not only will this help keep you from feeling isolated it will allow you and they to take advantage of each others experiences and expertise.

I'm not saying bring others into your business, but networking has been a part of good business practices since the beginning of time. It just makes good business sense to take advantage of all the resources that are available.

How is this going to help me get traffic to my website you ask! Well, in a number of ways. Some of these networking pals will have websites that compliment yours, trade links. The more LEGITIMATE ( I say legitimate, because there are those that aren't) links you have to your site the better.

Links help in a number of ways, they push traffic from the linking site to yours, and they garner you higher rankings on some search directories.

I am a firm believer in links. I have written on the subject a number of times. I'll relate A good example of why I'm so link happy!.

We have a small obscure resource site sitting all alone in the middle of one of our domains. The page itself was just a 5 minute project to fill a hole we needed filled about 2 years ago.

To make a long story short, because of links to other sites that 1 page sees 3 to 4 hundred visitors a day every day, day in and day out. The traffic count increases by 30% every month. A New York radio station picked up the URL for that page and has it featured on their website. That's why I'm link happy.

The first thing you need is accurate tracking of your traffic. A site counter is not tracking your site visitors. Until you have a valid tracking method to track where your traffic is coming from where it's going, how long its staying, what time it arrived, what time it left, how many of your pages did they visit,what key words brought them to your site, what search engine sent them, what other site sent them ( from your links! remember) your wasting your time promoting.

Until you have the system in place to track all of the above and more, all the site promotion in the world won't help. And why is that you say? Very simply put, you have no earthly idea what's working and what's not!

40+ Free Vector Graphics and Photoshop Brushes For Commercial Use

One of the most common emails I receive from designers,hobbyist and other users is ” are these for commercial use?” most freebies on Qbrushes/QVectors are under “Creative Commons License” but a good amount of them do allow commercial use, so I decided to create a list of free vector’s and brushes from both Q sites and from around the web that allow commercial use.

You can use these images for logos, advertising, promotional products,
and much more!

Free Vector’s for Commercial Use

1. Colorful - By MyStockLogo.com

   
   Free logo templates from MyStockLogo.com for free high quality vector logo templates in any commercial or non-commercial works Enjoy it!

2. Vector Swirls – By Designious.com & Smashingmagazine.com

   
   10 high-quality vector illustrations, created with Adobe Illustrator and available as .eps source files. These illustrations were created by Designious.com and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

3. Vector Tribals – By SadMonkeyDesign.com

   

   Vector Tribal designs. Feel free to use this tribal for anything you wish, personal and/or commercial. Enjoy!

4. Sacred Heart – By Sabasdesign.com

   
   Sacred Heart heart illustration in AI format for personal commercial use.

5. Vortex Waves – By QVectors.com

   
   Vortex Waves. wavy vector element that can be used to create some nice works. the preview isn’t show much so i suggest you check out the full 1680×1050

6. Vector Lemon – By Stefano Simioli

   
   Free Vector Lemon Graphic by Stefano Simioli licended under GPL which allows commercial use .

7. Vector Ornaments - By keepdesigning.com

   
   free vector download is a collection of antique frames and ornament.

8. Vector Characters – By Blackmoondev.com

   
   very nice vector characters, which you can use freely in any project – private or commercial

9. African Animals – By Blackmoondev.com

   
   Beautiful vector illustration of savannah animals, which you can use freely in commercial projects

10. Vector Skull – By olddirtydermot.com

    
    You lookin at me sucka!-detailed skull with shading and cracks. You’ll also find a grunge border to play with. Have fun!

11. Illustrated Sneakers – By blog.spoongraphics.co.uk

    
    This latest collection of free vector graphics from Blog.SpoonGraphics features a set of three illustrated sneakers with a rough, hand-drawn appearance that can give a stunning and cool effect when used together with your personal illustrative work. As always, download and use freely in your personal and commercial projects.

12. Rectangle Stickers – By fullcoursemeal.com

    
    I’ve been looking online for Rectangle Vector Stickers for our Control Yours Website , I didn’t find any, so I needed to make some. If you don’t know what to use vector files for, they are mainly for print design like T-shirt graphics, Skateboard Deck Designs, Website images, etc.

13. Hand DrawnSkull – By room122.com

    
    This is a vector skull drawn with a Wacom tablet. For more design goodies visit room122.com

14. Free Vector Graphics Set – By Pien Duijverman & Smashingmagazine.com

    
    Swirls, Flowers and Circles, a vector graphics set designed by Pien Duijverman from Netherlands. The vector graphics can be downloaded for free and is available in formats AI (Adobe Illustrator CS3) and EPS (8.0).

15. 40 Vector Icons – By Gosquared.com

    
    40 vector icons for your photo editing application. we’ve got something for everyone’s needs – some smiling lips, a camera lens, some vortex colour, a crop tool, a TV icon, and plenty more.

16. 86 Vector Icons – By Gosquared.com

    
    86 free vector icons in adobe illustrator cs2 but also available in SVG.they’re free as always, and you can do whatever you want with them.

17. 165 Icons – By Gosquared.com

    
    This Pack is Huge, the Preview image isn’t justifying enough. check out the Gosquard.com site for the preview and the other colour variations.

18. Vector Animals – By Spoongraphics.co.uk

    
    Safari and Zoo Animals vector freebie pack from Spoon graphics.feel free to download and use in your personal or commercial projects.

19. Russian Ornament – By craftsmanspace.com

    
    Old Russian ornament vector design. with permission to be used in your personal or commercial projects.

20. Rose & Swirls – By craftsmanspace.com

    
    free rose and swirls vector graphic in illustrator format. you may use this vector for whatever purpose you want

21. Vector Stock – By ysr1.deviantart.com

    
    Vector stock pack free to use with no obligations at all. Enjoy !!!

22. Cyber Plant – By vectorjunglet.com

    
    Vector spirals and floral graphic.

23. Milky – A free stock vector – By iconeden.com

    
    lovely set of simple but nice icons happily created by IconEden.com. The Milky set contains more than 131 icons primarily colored in green, giving an eye-pleasant look and prominent display on either dark or bright backgrounds.

24. Bright! – A free stock vector iconset – By iconeden.com

    
    lovely set of simple but nice icons happily created by IconEden.com. The Milky set contains more than 131 icons primarily colored in green, giving an eye-pleasant look and prominent display on either dark or bright backgrounds.

    Free Photoshop Brushes for Commercial Use

25. Acrylic Brushes – By theshoreways.com

    
    Great high resolution photoshop brushes by Jeff from theshoreways.com , check out this full Preview , these brushes are absolutely free for personal or commercial use, and while your at it be sure to check his article on how he made them theshoreways.com.

26. Watercolour PS – By theshoreways.com

    
    26 high resolution (2500x) water colour brushes for download by theshoreways.com it’s great for textures and might come in handy when designing posters.

27. Watercolour brushes set 2 – By theshoreways.com

    
    A pack of 20 hi-resolution watercolour brushes perfect for textures, overlays, and even poster making. The smallest brush in the set is 1931 px, with most of them hovering around 2300 px.

28. Watercolour brushes set 2 – By theshoreways.com

    
    A pack of 20 hi-resolution watercolour brushes perfect for textures, overlays, and even poster making. The smallest brush in the set is 1931 px, with most of them hovering around 2300 px.

29. Line Brushes – By theshoreways.com

    
    A set of 10 high resolution flowing line brushes. Feel free to use them for both personal and commercial use.

30. Brush Strokes – By Qbrushes.com

    
    6 High quality watercolour brushes created by me and as part of a 3 freebie set release at smashingmagazine.com . You may use these brushes for personal and commercial use.

31. 6 Watercolour Brushes – By Qbrushes.com

    
    6 High quality watercolour brushes created by me and as part of a 3 freebie set release at smashingmagazine.com . You may use these brushes for personal and commercial use.

32. Splatter Brushes – By Qbrushes.com

    
    11 High quality brushes created by me , average size is 2200px/2500px. You may use these brushes for personal and commercial use.

33. Hi-Res Mess – By Qbrushes.com

    
    This set was created by Qbrushes, it contains 5 high resolution 2000px plus grungy/messy brushes for photoshop CS. Feel free to use them as you wish for commercial and none commercial use. Enjoy.

34. Light Blurs – By Ben Collier & Smashingmagazine.com

    
    Light Blurs Photoshop Brushes is a set of 23 high-quality brushes, created for Adobe Photoshop and available for free usage without any restrictions whatsoever. The set is created by Ben Collier.

35. Messy Watercolor – By fudgegraphics.com & Smashingmagazine.com

    
    In the past we have featured Franz Jeitz’s work already (he designed a couple of desktop wallpapers for us) and the response from our community was really great. So when Franz suggested to do something together we were quick to respond. The result is a set of Messy Watercolor Photoshop Brushes, released exclusively via Smashing Magazine.

36. Health And Beauty Brushes – By fudgegraphics.com & Smashingmagazine.com

    
    Health and Beauty Photoshop Brushes: a free set of 67 Photoshop brushes ranging in resolution from 69 to 2463 pixels. The set is compatible with Adobe Photoshop 7.0, CS, CS2 and CS3 (you can use it in Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP and Paint.NET, too).

37. Grunge Brushes – By graphics-illustrations.com & Smashingmagazine.com

    
    Smashing Photoshop Brushes — a free set of 74 grungy Photoshop brushes in resolution 69 — 2463px. The set is compatible with Adobe Photoshop 7.0, CS, CS2 and CS3 (you can use it in Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP and Paint.NET too). The brushes were designed by Silvia Bukovac Gasevic, the creative mind behind graphics-illustrations.com

38. Splatter Brushes – By =ka05

    
    These splatter brushes were made by vectoring some stock photos (in Illustrator) then saving them as brushes using Photoshop. They are quite large (made to fit 300dpi a4 documents), so they’re great for print use. Use these in any way you want, no restrictions

39. Line Designs – By skeedio.com

    
    Great set of swoosh lines that can come handy for creating nice header backgrounds.Feel free to use this for Personal and commercial use.

40. Indian paisley – By designersbrush.com

    
    This brush set is a collections of 22set Indian paisley(3 main paisely) and (19-small paisley elements) high resolution brush. very good for any design work.

41. D-Stressed Geometry – By thedesignbureauofamerika.com

    
    It’s hi-tech vs vintage…and we all win. This brush set is perfect for creating unique patterns and backgrounds. Find interesting sections within the patterns to create new patterns. Use color overlays and layer effects to really bring out the potential of these brushes.