Alcohol is the most commonly consumed intoxicant on the planet, and has been created for thousands of years as a form of refreshment and valued for its numbing and depressant qualities. Alcohol is a huge industry globally, with many different types to choose from, and many specific to some regions (Vodka in Russia, wine in France and Italy (among others), Sake in Japan, and more). To stand out, an alcohol producer must not only develop a quality product, but create a brand that signifies its qualities. Some alcohol is meant for cheap parties, some for exclusive events. Some is for the working man, while other alcoholic beverages are for the sophisticated palate. Here are some examples of packaging design: Melbourne Moonshine Brother Duran Pig on Fire SuperJay KOI Archie Rose Rum Blender Gordon McPhail Chandon Holiday Fjellheim Related Posts Creative Websites with Horizontal Layouts and Navigation Creative Examples of Book Cover and Packaging Design Free T-Shirt PSD Mockups for Designers Delicious Looking Confectionery Packaging Quality Web Designs That Use Textures

Today I have another set of black and white wood textures that you can use for your projects. They are very detailed and grungy, perfect as overlays and creating vintage effects. Enjoy! Download all textures as ZIP from copy.com (411Mb) Did you like these textures? Let us know by leaving a comment, and you can even post a link if you used them in your artwork. Related Posts Free Texture Friday - B&W Grunge Wood Free Texture Friday - Grunge Painted Wood Free Texture Friday - Colorful Grunge Wood Free Texture Friday - Grunge Painted Wood 2 Free Texture Friday - Rotten Wood 3

Today we're excited to announce the redesign of the new Vecteezy! The old site was well overdue for a redesign and that black and yellow was looking quite nasty. The new Vecteezy features a cleaner, easier to use interface with enhanced search and browsing functionality which makes for a much more pleasant experience. One of the cool things we've added to the sites that we're pretty excited about is the Eezy ID feature.. If you choose to create an account, this is what we're calling your Eezy ID. It will work on both Vecteezy and Brusheezy. That means you can use the same username and password for both sites which makes for a much better experience. If you choose to sign up and create an Eezy ID you can also take advantage of: • Faster Downloads • Saving Favorites • Community Features • Personal Profile and that's just the start! We've got a whole slew of new features in the development cue that we hope to roll out in the next few months so stay tuned! We know the sites are far from perfect and they're always a work in progress. By all means please feel free to leave a comment below and let us know what you like or dislike about the new sites. This community was built for users like you, so please speak up and make your voice heard!

A long time ago, in a studio far, far away... Adobe Illustrator 1 was born. Fourteen new versions and a quick twenty four years later, Adobe Illustrator is the most popular vector graphic editor on the market. To all those out there who spend more time working in Illustrator than any other software program, then sit back and relax. Go grab a cup of coffee and put your feet up as we take a stroll down memory lane to reminisce the evolution of Adobe Illustrator. The Birth of Venus Adobe Illustrator began back in 1986, as a graphic design, font, and logo development application. The original platform and purpose for Adobe Illustrator was to integrate the use of mathematical equations for smooth and curved lines and shapes by a system known as Bezier curves. To emphasize this notion of being able to produce and edit and save curved and flowing lines, Adobe chose Botticelli's Venus from "The Birth of Venus" to become their marketing image. Over the years and versions, she changed to highlight the new features and improvements Adobe had made, and we were able to gaze on her beauty until the creation of the Creative Suite in 2003. If you want to see an awkward Adobe President in 1987 showcase his company's new creation, check out this awesome video below: Time To Start Upgrading With the praise of Adobe Illustrator 1, and the ever-growing interest in computers and computer generated images, came a slew of upgrades as well as support for other platforms, beginning in 1988 with Illustrator 88 (not 2... 88, because of the year). The first version designed for Windows was Illustrator 2.0, which was released a year later and did not fare too well, but Windows would not be outdone by its arch-nemesis. Illustrator came out with a couple alright versions for NeXT, Sun Solaris, and a couple of other platforms, but time would show that versions for Macintosh and Windows would begin to dominate the market. Check out this awesome 80's video from 1988 presenting Illustrator 88: Versions 3.0 and 4.0 came out in succeeding years, with improvements made upon each, and the ever wonderful development of possible editing in a preview mode, popped its head up first in the 4.0 version for Windows but did not appear on the Macintosh until 5.0. The Playing Field is Equaled The Adobe team made some major changes to Illustrator's user interface with the release of Illustrator 6 in 1996. This is when Illustrator started supporting TrueType fonts, making the "font wars" between PostScript Type 1 and TrueType pretty much obsolete. This is also when Illustrator also began supporting plug-ins, quickly extending its abilities to make it that much more awesome. It wasn't until the mid 90s with version 7.0 when users started to finally see some standardization between the Macintosh and Windows versions, and really kind of ended the competition to beat each other out. Because of this designers were really finally given the opportunity to firmly choose Illustrator as the creative application of choice, instead of going back and forth between Illustrator and CorelDRAW and FreeHand. This of course was also the age of the 'world wide web', which even further pushed Illustrator into the spotlight, because developers quickly sought out a way to support publishing for web purposes and internet plug-ins, which really was one of the biggest avenues for change and improvement in Illustrator's life so far. Some crazy things started happening as time and versions went by, some things that we now take for granted and kind of use them like they have always been there - things that have now become ol' reliables. For example, the paint bucket tool - how many times have you used that? It's only been around since 1996 with version 6.0. Or, the smart guides? Can't imagine working without them, but they weren't around until 1998 - version 8.0. This was a great time for changes and improvements in tools for Adobe. Year after year they came out with more awesome tools that were for sure groundbreaking then, and have become as common and used as a pencil and eraser now. Ahem... Introducing the Creative Suite!! By the time Y2K was over (remember that? weird...), Adobe Illustrator had firmly placed itself as the choice vector graphics editor. By 2003, Adobe decided to bundle all it's successful products together into one super package called the Adobe Creative Suite. With this, for the first time user were able to create simple 3D effects and objects, a huge milestone in the designer world, and more milestones just kept coming - Live Paint and Live Trace were created a few years after that. With the integration of so many Adobe programs into this 'Suite', we finally said goodbye to Venus.. she lived long and served well, but with the redesigning of the product and its brand, came a new theme revolving around nature. We now see stylized Vector Flowers and leaves on the product boxes and opening windows. With the release of CS3 the team at Adobe decided to rework the branding yet again to simplify the packaging and unify the entire suite. Each program within the creative suit was associated with a color and our beloved Illustrator was given the color orange. Today Fourteen generations and twenty four years later, Adobe has released its Illustrator CS5, with all of its beauty and grandeur. But, whatever version you use and which ever you have decided is your favorite, be it Illustrator 6 or CS5, it surely has been an interesting and exciting ride for one of the most beloved of the graphic designer's tools. Resources: guidebookgallery.org Wikipedia Rufus Deuchler | Travelogue What do you think? What version did you start learning on? Were there any particular versions or changes made that you didn't like? Feel free to add your two cents to the comments section below.

In this tutorial I will walk you through a process which is great for turning some static type into a more interesting art piece. For this tutorial, you will need: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Phtotoshop, an ink jet printer, printer paper, a scanner, and a cup of water. A hair dryer will also help speed things up. I initially created this typographic piece to help promote my new TheVectorLab fan page on Facebook. So please feel free to check that out if you get a chance. Here is the final product I'll be showing you how to create: Note: The second part of this tutorial will be posted over on the Brusheezy Photoshop Blog since Part Two deals with only photoshop techniques. Make sure you subscribe by email or RSS so you don't miss it! Part One System fonts are lame! If you can find some interesting reference on which to base your typography, then your final result will more likely be interesting. Just make sure not to knock off your inspiration too closely. Here, I found a photo of some beautiful typography on Ale Paul’s Flickr page. I really like the shape of the upper-case N and also the top portion of the L. Sketch out and re-work your typography using tracing paper until you get something that you like. Scan this in and trace your letters with the vector pen tool in Illustrator. Here is the font traced in outline. Here is the basic completed script. Change the color to white. Copy & paste the type in back of the lettering and give it a black stroke. Make another copy of the black stroke lettering and move it to create the 3-D shadow behind your lettering. Now ‘bridge’ the black outlined letters together. You can draw a rectangle at the appropriate angle and copy and paste that around to fill in all the areas you need to bridge. Toggle on smart guides in Illustrator to help you line things up. For this example, it doesn’t need to be exact because we are going to be thrashing up the type in a little while. Expand all your black paths from strokes into outlines. Select only the black parts of the lettering. Use your pathfinder to merge all the black paths into one object. I pretty much exclusively use the ‘merge’ tool (highlighted in green) in the pathfinder menu to merge paths. Go in with your direct selection tool and selectively delete out the ‘holes’ that you do not want. I nudged the white part of the type up and over a few clicks so the outline around the type has more thick and thin areas instead of a consistent outline. This is the final vector type I have before getting to the fun part... Part Two is posted over on the Brusheezy Blog! Be sure to go on over and check it out! Make sure you subscribe via email or RSS so you don't miss the next awesome post!

In this tutorial I will walk you through some easy steps for creating 3D text in Adobe Illustrator. These steps are pretty simple, but once you learn them, the possibilities for 3D text are pretty much limitless. Ok, let's get started! Creating the Document and Setting Up the Text To begin, you will need to create a new document. Go to File > New... and pick your dimensions and resolution. For the purpose of this tutorial I used the the Web default settings. Next, you will want to create the text you would like to apply the 3d effect to. Using the Type tool located on the toolbar, create a text box, and type your desired text. While using the type tool you will be able to choose your font family, weight and size. I recommend picking a heavy or bold font. Then, using the Appearance pick your color (Figure 4), preferably a color that is mid-value, meaning neither dark nor light. Converting Text to Editable Shape An important step often used with fonts, is creating outlines of the font. This turns a the selected text into an editable shape, handy for doing tricky text manipulations or sharing the document with another person who may not have the same font you chose on their computer. Right-click and select Create Outlines or on the top toolbar go to Type > Create Outlines. Using Illustrator's Extrude & Bevel Beginning with CS4, Illustrator has had the the effect Extrude & Bevel that applies a 3D effect to any vector shape. Once the text has been created into outlines, you can apply the effect onto text. Simply go to Effects > 3D > Extrude & Bevel to apply the effect. I would also click on More Options which allows you to adjust the lighting of the shape. A new window will open up allowing you to customize the effect. I would recommend checking the box Preview that allows you to see your changes as you adjust the values of the different options. For this tutorial, I left them primarilly on default settings. Although I did alter the rotation a bit as wel as the extrude depth. Rotation: The rotation allows you adjust the angle of the shape based on the x, y and z axis. You can either change the numerical value in the boxes or use your cursor to rotate the cube to get the angle you want. Perspective: Perspective distorts the shape to create distortion usually visible when you are at looking at an object at extreme angles. For example, if looking at the top of a tall building you've probably noticed that the sides of the building do not seem like they are going straight up but rather at a slight diagnol towards the center of the building. By adjusting this value, it will add a certain degree of perspective. Extrude Depth: This value is the amount of debth or thickness of the shape that you would like to have. Cap: This option allows you to change from a flat surface for the front of the shape or more of an outline. Bevel: Beveling is the rounding of edges. Changing to different beveling options will provide different edging and countours to your shape. If you pick a bevel you will be able to adjust the height of it below the beveling options. Surface: Surface adjusts the texture of 3D shape you will be producing. Plastic Shading gives it a smooth surface and the others have different effects. Try using Wireframe to see outlines of 3D shapes, or No Shading to see what it would look without any lighting. Lighting Adjustments: After you select a type of surface, and as long as it isn't wireframe or no shading you will be able to adjust the lighting of your object. You can adjust the intensity or brightness of the light as well as the extent of area that the lighting will hit. You can even add additional lights. Adjust the position of the light by clicking on the white dot on the sphere to the position you would like the light to hit. And You're Done! Once you press OK you will have created your own 3D text which you can manipulate further in Illustrator or then take it into Photoshop. Play around with all the settings of the Extrude & Bevel tool to get a good idea of all the capabilites of the effect.

**Update! Update! Read all about it! T-shirt Contest Winners have been selected!** Winners have been selected, so watch out for your prize! Thanks everyone for participating in this giveaway, thanks to BlueCotton, and we hope all the winners enjoy their shirts and wear them proudly! And the winners are... drumroll, please... From the comments section of the blog: anabelunga from USA cuddle_bunny from Australia Howard from USA southpawgrafix from Barbados gidea from Romania From Twitter: @con_TODA from Colombia @Tennsoccerdr from USA @ 2boysblue from USA @ silvercutie from USA @ filmeo from USA And from the RSS feed: sammographer from Russia n8i from USA, and last but not least... BrentOlivier from USA Congrats to all the winners! Be on the lookout for your prize! To everyone else, definitely stay tuned, because Vecteezy has more great giveaways and freebies right around the corner. Happy Monday everyone! Today we're announcing our first ever ("official") T-Shirt giveaway! In the past we've given away a few free T-Shirts on our Facebook Fanpage, but nothing this big. With the help of our friends from BlueCotton we're giving away these Vecteezy T-Shirts to 15 lucky winners. The Prize: The T-shirts are 2001 American Apparel Fine Jersey T-Shirt (4.3oz) and you can choose which color you want (Orange or Black) as well as which size you want. Three Ways to Win: 1. Leave a comment below telling us what size and color you want (Orange or Black) 2. Tweet this contest by clicking the retweet button above in the header or copying and pasting this line into twitter. RT @vecteezy Free T-Shirt Giveaway! http://bit.ly/cbH3IW 3. Subscribe to our RSS Feed via email. The Details: 5 winners will be randomly selected from the comments below. Also, 5 winners will be randomly selected from twitter and 5 winners will be randomly selected from our RSS Feed. The winners will be announced here on our blog on Thursday July 1st, 2010 and will be contacted directly by our community manager Erin. If you have anymore questions please leave a comment below and we'll get back to you asap. Good luck everyone! Bonus Update: We're also running this same contest over on Brusheezy too! Feel free to enter over there too and increase your chances even more. Remember: if you already have an Eezy ID you don't need to create another account. You can login with your Vecteezy username and password. Good luck!

In this tutorial, I will show you a few vector brush tricks that will allow you to create some quick, easy, and super-cool effects in Adobe Illustrator. I use this technique all the time to create custom ornamental borders, frames, and background patterns. Here is the final product I'll be showing you how to create: Start with some ornamental horizontal pieces, like the ones shown below. You can draw your own, or you can use pre-made border elements, like the ones available in Borders 001, 002, and 003 vector sets. The main thing is to make sure that your border element repeats seamlessly left to right. One easy way to accomplish this is to make a copy of your element, flip it horizontally and then butt the two pieces back together. Open your brushes palette and then drag your border element right into the palette window. A New Brush window pops up. Select the New Pattern Brush option. Next, select the Approximate Path option and click OK. Now you have a brush that will show up in the brush palette window. When I am creating a new brush, I like to test it out to check and see if it looks and behaves the way I want it to. Here, I made 4 circles then clicked on my new brush in the brush palette window to apply it. The cool thing about brushes is that you can change the stroke weight to alter the thickness of your brush. Just a side note here... If you get to a point where you are happy with your creation, you may expand the brush into vector points by going to Object >> Expand Appearance. This way you can go in and edit and color the vector points if you so desire. I went ahead and created a brush with the more ornamental border element shown previously. Here I applied the brush to a curve to show you how the brush can follow the lines of any curve you draw. If your brush is complex, make sure your curves are smooth. Otherwise you may have problems with the lines getting kinked. Here I made a path with the Rounded Rectangle Tool. I then went to Object >> Path >> Offset path in order to make the outer path, which follows the radius of the inner path. Here, I applied the first brush to the outer path. And then I applied the more ornamental brush to the inner path. The result is a cool ornamental frame which you see below. Experiment with various settings (such as Flip Across in your brushes palette) and also stroke widths until you achieve a result that you like.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create your own custom vector halftone gradients. These are great for use in backgrounds and pattern fills. They can even be made into vector brushes and will conform to the shape of curves that you draw. This is the same method used to create the Gradients 001 Vector Set on TheVectorLab. Start by creating two simple vector shapes; one larger and one smaller. These shapes can be anything: circles, triangles, rectangles, etc. The two shapes can even be different geometry; one could be a star and the other could be a circle. For this example I made a larger and a smaller square. Click on each square with the blend tool to create the ‘in-between’ shapes. If you then double click on the blend tool in the toolbar, it will give you the option to specify the number of ‘in-between’ shapes. Copy and paste your newly created shape. Move it over to be horizontally adjacent to the original. Select and ‘expand’ your shapes. Click on both groups of squares using the blend tool once again. Here is what your gradient pattern looks like. You can stop here, or you can go further and make it into a pattern that seamlessly repeats. Select the halftone pattern and ‘expand’ it once again. Above, note the center points of the squares on the left and right sides. You will want to crop down the halftone shape to these center points in order to have it repeat horizontally. Draw a rectangle (yellow object shown below) that lines up exactly with the center points of the squares on the left and right side of the halftone pattern. Select your rectangle and the halftone pattern. Go to ‘Object >> Clipping Path >> Make’ to mask the shape so it will repeat horizontally. With the object still selected, hit the ‘merge’ button (highlighted magenta) in your pathfinder window. This will crop down the actual vector lines to the size of what is visible in the masked shape. Now that it truly is in horizontal repeat, you can even drag the halftone shape into the brushes palette to make it into a vector brush. (as described in the previous blog post, "Vector Brush Tricks") Now that your halftone pattern is also a brush, you can apply the shape to any path. So here, I have drawn a simple curve shape. With the curve selected, click on the brush you just created in the brush palette. This will apply the halftone pattern to the shape of your curve. You can then adjust the stroke weight and the shape of the curve until you achieve a result that you like. Experiment and have fun!

When I first launched Brusheezy back in 2006 it was just a simple gallery of photoshop brushes. Nothing more, nothing less. A few months later I teamed up with Kennon and redesigned the site and launched Vecteezy as we expanded into vector graphics. As the sites slowly continued to evolve and grow, we realized we needed to do a complete overhaul and launched the redesign you're looking at right now. We added user accounts, cleaned up the interface and made it much easier to share and promote your freebies. It's always been a work in progress as we've continued to refine the system making it as simple as possible. Today we're excited to announce our newest launch. We're calling it Eezy Premium and I'm very excited about it. Many of you have asked about the direction we are heading so I just wanted to outline a few details. First off, the Eezy sites will always be, first and foremost, a platform to share free design resources. We're well aware that there are plenty of freebie sites out there, and if you're reading this, we're glad you stopped by. We have no plans to merge the sites into one big corporate stock graphics site and start charging users. We're proud to be a "little guy" and have no intentions to charge money for content we don't own. The Premium content is a result of things we've found people searching for on our site that wasn't readily available. We teamed up with some extremely talented professional designers to create an ongoing collection of resources to fill the gaps where content was needed. Our goal is to provide the best overall user experience possible by providing exactly what our users are searching for. We hope this will help. In the coming weeks we hope to double and triple the size of our collections on both sites by adding more High Res Photoshop Brushes, Premium Textures, Patterns & Vectors. We also have a large collection of exclusive coupon codes that we plan on releasing soon too. Unfortunately the more content we create, the more our costs increase, so those prices may go up real soon. Current subscribers will lock in their pricing until they choose to cancel so if you're looking to get some premium quality graphics at a redonkulously low price, now is the time to join. Thanks again to those of you who have already subscribed and we can't wait to bring your more free and premium resources in the months to come!