I’ve had quite a lot of positive feedback regarding my Inception book covers created in the classic Penguin books style, and so I’ve decided to release this template for Adobe Illustrator that will allow you to quickly and easily create your own.

The layout for this template uses the classic ‘Marber grid’, created in 1961 by Romek Marber to decide upon the composition and placement of elements, and is possibly the most recognised grid used for Penguin books, as well as Pelican books. I’ve included the grid itself within the Illustrator file that you can view by hiding or showing the ‘Marber Grid’ layer.

Hopefully the lines within the grid should show you how each element is aligning, but don’t be too worried about moving things about. The book title for example can be shifted to the left to make room for a longer title, so long as it you left align it with the author name and the type at the top.

The font itself is Helvetica but if you don’t have it installed on your system you could use a font like Arial/Arial Black or download a free Helvetica alternative.

Here’s a quick look at the layout.

Notice the green space. This denotes that the theme of the book is crime, as the hue of the cover was often used to categorise novels. Orange is another commonly recognised hue and denotes that the books is fiction.

I may also create this in Photoshop format for people who don’t use illustrator or perhaps aren’t familiar with working in vector, so if you want a Photoshop version, let me know in the comments section. Also, if you use this I’d love to see what you’ve created.

Enjoy!

Portfolium is a new free, clean, simple portfolio theme from WPShower.com that allows you to post your work directly to your blog index page, which is then displayed as thumbnails in a grid.

The layout is very similar to the popular Gallery theme by Smashing Magazine, but features a much cleaner layout in my opinion.

WPShower.com say;

“Portfolium is a clean and flexible WordPress grid-based portfolio theme designed in a modern & minimalist style. Portfolium is ideal for designers, artists, photographers, and other creative specialists who require a professional portfolio theme. You don’t need to showcase your works? Just choose blog page and apply this theme to your site. It is really easy to use and won’t take you much time to figure it out. Portfolium theme is coded in valid CSS and HTML and compatible with all modern browsers. It supports all WordPress 3.0 features and gives you extra flexibility.”

They’ve even added a selection of videos that demonstrate how to set up the theme and create different posts.

I think this is a theme that will suit the needs of many creatives, from photographers to illustrators to web designers, and I’m sure it will become popular in no time.

Head to WPShower.com to download it.

A collection of 51 free fonts, based on the signature typography of a range of famous films and television programmes from throughout the years that will give your designs that authentic look.

All Fonts © Their Respective Authors

This brush is a simple tyre track pattern that allows you to easily  draw a tyre track effect that will follow your mouse or pen direction of movement.

It’s vaguely similar to my rope brush and my chain brush, though they are pen-pressure sensitive and so allow you to adjust the size of the segments on the fly, where as this brush does not.

I’ll be refining this and creating similar tyre patterns which will eventually be released as a brush set, absolutely free, so be sure to subscribe through feedburner, follow me on twitter or like my Facebook page to keep up to date.

Free for personal and commercial use. Credit isn’t needed but a link back to this page and a comment are massively appreciated.

Not sure how to install it?

Simply extract the brush_name.abr file to your Photoshop brushes folder, for example;
Windows: /Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop/Presets/Brushes

Mac OS: /Applications/Adobe Photoshop/Presets/Brushes

In Photoshop, from your brushes panel (F5), click the little arrow and choose ‘Load Brushes…’. Simply select the brush file and it should load into your palette.

Enjoy!

I was recently asked to create a rope brush similar to my chain brush and this is the result. Like the chain it’s pen-pressure sensitive, meaning you can adjust the size by how hard you press with a pen/tablet combination.

I’ll admit, this brush is quite troublesome to use and requires being used at a small scale to help keep the segments looking uniform. I also found it best to move the pen quickly and avoid sharp turns of the brush.

I’d really appreciate feedback for this via the comments below so I can attempt to tweak it and smooth out the problems.

Free for all uses, including commercial use. Credit as always is optional but linking to this page and leaving a comment is encouraged and hugely appreciated.

Not sure how to install it?

Simply extract the brush_name.abr file to your Photoshop brushes folder, for example;

Windows: /Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop/Presets/Brushes

Mac OS: /Applications/Adobe Photoshop/Presets/Brushes

In Photoshop, from your brushes panel, click the little arrow and choose ‘Load Brushes…’. Simply select the brush file and it should load into your palette.

Enjoy!