The development of creative videos is currently an ongoing trend for today’s marketers since the evolution break out of mobile apps for iPods and smartphones. What this means is that an individual’s (i.e., teacher, marketer, consumer or people in general) thoughts, ideas, and expressions through visualization can be developed on creative videos. Creative videos are actually attracting mobile users because videos tend to be convenient and eye-catching than reading just content.
In fact, more and more people are actually watching videos on their smartphones and other mobile devices, like laptops and tablets. With social media sites like Twitter and Linkedin, streaming videos is a smarter way for people to present products and services, and to send their message (e.g., resumes and curriculum vitae) in a much more professional manner. Therefore, it’s no wonder that creative videos for education have become a growing trend for students and teachers with the use of advancing technologies, software programs and mobile apps in both online and traditional classrooms.
For people who own businesses, creative videos for mobile apps brings in more traffic than content ads because consumers prefer visualization rather reading just content, says Jane Wakefield of the Technology Reporter, Feb. 2, 2015.
Whiteboard videos (i.e., explainer video or sketched video), for example, are developed as creative videos for educational purposes to help students learn and comprehend subjects in a more creative, innovative and fun way. In addition, these types of sketched videos are being developed for employee training in today’s learning organizations. Because video presentations are effective, organizations are developing videos to explain their mission and vision (business plan) to stakeholders. Other reasons businesses create cartoon animation and design whiteboard videos are to able to explain new product development using easy understandable sketches and illustrations to educate employees and stakeholders. Photo by Jonathan Velasquez on Unsplash
Teachers, therefore, can create a whiteboard video to help motivate students to want to learn subjects in school in a more smarter and cooler way. Audio is a great feature as well when developing explainer/sketch videos for learning, explaining and presenting any type of subjects step-by-step. Below are just nine simple steps in developing a whiteboard video effectively to meet the intended objective and purpose for presenting a subject matter:
You first need a well-written script to define the message that you want your audience to take away.
Hire a professional voice-over artist, especially if the explainer video is being presented to top executives and stakeholders in organizations and educational institutions.
Define and sketching the imagery.
Revise and arrange the imagery into an impressive and fun illustration to keep the audience’s attention to want to watch the video to the end.
Draw and create guidelines for eye-catching contrast effects throughout your sketch video.
Record the video by drawing illustrations on camera.
Sync the audio and video after shooting after the audio is complete.
Add music, but be sure to seek proper licensing of music if developing your explainer video for commercial purposes.
Test, and then export, present and share your whiteboard video to your audience.
“Universities, schools, other educational establishments, and even museums are realizing the potential of whiteboard animation as a teaching aid,” says Paul Lewis of eLearning Industry online, May 2, 2017. He states that most people enjoy the visualization in explainer/sketch videos because it gets the message across effectively and because visuals are entertaining. “Viewers will retain your message – which is paramount,” says Lewis.
Creative media, on the other hand, involves being able to have creative writing, game media (i.e., game design) and/or interaction design (e.g., digital sounds, images and motion, and involves people interacting and working together) skills. Other creative media skills include film and video or even art and design competencies to build and share creative works on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. With continuous trends of creative videos and creative media, e-marketers are drawing the attention of consumers through video ads.
Considering how much the command line is an integral part of the developer’s workflow, it should not be thought overly difficult or tedious to learn.
At one time I avoided it myself, but one day began teaching myself ways to make the difficult as easy as it should be. I got over the hurdle, and you can too. It was worth investing my time to increase my command line comfort-level, and I am going to share a few tips and resources that I found helpful in this post.
The intended reader is the type who typically avoids the command line, or perhaps uses it occasionally but not as a regular or essential tool.
Tip #1: Maintain a Pragmatic Mindset
The way to get more comfortable with the command line is this: practice. You practice, and you get better. There is no secret trick to this; study and repetition of skills will turn into understanding and mastery. There is no use in the mindset that you cannot do this; it will only keep you from your goal. You may as well discard such thoughts and get down to it.
Tip #2: Keep a Cheat sheet
Don’t be afraid to keep a cheat sheet. I find that a thin, spiral-bound notebook kept next to my keyboard is perfect; writing the command down helps commit it to memory; having it in a place where I can refer to it while I am typing is convenient to the process. Do not permit yourself merely to copy and paste; you will not learn this way. Until you know the command, make yourself type it out.
Tip #3: Peruse languages outside of the one(s) you normally use
Spend time looking at commands in various languages, looking at the commands even if you don’t immediately absorb, use, or remember them. It is worth it to invest a bit of time regularly, looking at these commands; patterns will eventually emerge. Some of them may even come back to you at an unexpected time and give you an extra eureka moment!
Skimming through books with lots of CLI commands can prove interestingly useful for recognizing patterns in commands. I even take this one step further by getting my favorites spiral-bound. I am a big fan of spiral binding; a place like FedEx offers coil binding services at a surprisingly low cost.
Tip #4: Practice… safely
When I am advising someone who is new to contributing to open source, they are inevitably a bit nervous about it. I think this is perfectly natural if only to comfort myself that my own nervousness about it was perfectly natural. A good way to practice, though, is to set up your own repository for a project and regularly commit to it. Simply using common Git commands in a terminal window to commit inconsequential changes to a project of your own, will establish the „muscle memory” so that when it does come time to actually commit code of consequence, you won’t be held back by still being nervous about the commands themselves.
These are the commands I have noticed most common to use in the practical day-to-day of development. It’s perfectly acceptable to expect yourself to learn these and to be able to do any of them without a second thought. Do not use a GUI tool (they make weird merge choices). Learn how to write these commands yourself.
Check status
Create a new branch and switch to it
Add files
Add all the changes
Just add one of the changes
Commit
Push to a remote branch
Get a list of your branches
Checkout a branch
Delete a branch
Delete a branch even if there are changes
Fetch and merge the changes to a branch
Syncing a fork took longer to learn- I don’t often spend my work hours writing code for a repository that I don’t have access to. While contributing to open source software, however, I had to learn how to do this. The GitHub article about the topic is sufficient; even now I still have it bookmarked.
Tip #5: Level Up!
I really enjoy using Digital Ocean to level up my skills. Their step-by-step guides are really useful, and for $5 USD per month, „Droplets” are a cost-effective way to do so.
Here’s a suggested self-learning path (which, feel free to choose your own adventure! There are over 1700 tutorials in the Digital Ocean community):
Create a Droplet with Ghost pre-installed. There is a little command line work to finalize the installation, which makes it a good candidate. It’s not completely done for you but there’s not so much to do that it’s overwhelming. There’s even an excellent tutorial already written by Melissa Anderson.
Set up a GitHub repo to work on a little theming for Ghost, making small changes and practice your command line work.
It would be remiss of me to write any guide without mentioning Ember, as the ember-cli is undoubtedly one of the strongest there is. Feel free to head over to the docs and read that list!
Conclusion
There may be some that find this brief guide too simplistic. However, as famously said by S. Thompson in Calculus Made Easy- „What one fool can do, other fools can do also.” Don’t let anyone else make you think that using the command line is horribly difficult, or that they are a genius because they can. With practice, you will be able to do it, and it will soon be a simple thing.
Southern California is the epitome of architectural variation. Consisting of a heavily urbanized environment, the southern cities have attracted people of various backgrounds and heritages throughout history and continues to do so. From its car, architectural fusion with Jet futurism to many other forms of Googie styles, it has presumably made this modern form of art its signature style. Googie designs first appeared in California’s architectural style after WWII, when car transportation became the dominant mode of transport. Influences from the vehicle industry led entrepreneurs to incorporate such designs as a marketing gimmick to entice customers to walk into their food franchises, cafes, gas stations etc.
But this isn’t all there is to SoCal’s art of construction. In this article, we explore the residential home decor and the combination of various cultures, which is the reason behind such enormous architectural practices and progress in this state. California’s frequently changing landscape is a result of its growing diversity, just checking out Laguna Beach real estate will prove the wild diversity of the architecture even in one of the state’s most crowded areas. Apart from the commercial designs and ultra development, a traveler will find residential architecture ranging from adobe homes of Spaniards to glitzy homes of Hollywood celebs to breakthrough modernist architecture to stunning amusement park buildings to Googie structures aforementioned to historic bridges. These interesting and eye-catching sights are found in the following dominant areas of SoCal: Orange County, Los Angeles, Riverside-San Bernardino and San Diego.
Various Types of Architecture that manifests itself in SoCal Cities
Suffice to say is that these designs reflect the region’s development that spans well over 100s of years. It is the rich history from which these cities get most of their art marvel. Of course, the famous Hollywood’s influence and expansion is another major factor that shapes the increasingly modern constructive development.
Adobe Homes
Adobe homes are spread throughout Cali. made from organic materials like brick, it is also known as mud-brick homes. The structure basically resembles cob and rammed-earth buildings, even though adobe homes appear in varied fashion across the region. Adobe building material can be dated back to thousands of years when it was used by the locals of America.
Ranch
Ranch homes go by several names. One of the popular names is Californian Ranch. Originated in the US, Ranch homes are unique for their lengthy and dense ground structure with minimum interior and exterior decor. It is a simple style that first became popular during the war period and later at some point lost popularity to neo-eclectic house styles.
Bungalow
The year 1880 marked the popularity of bungalows in America which have Indian origins. They were originally found during the English colonial period in India. After they found its way into America, it was Southern Cali that made it the most renowned in the history of American housing styles with its large detached housing structure, a triangular roof with dormer windows, and a front porch. Today, bungalows have been innovated to reflect one of the finest art exhibitions.
Spaniard
The Spaniard architectural construction is completely reminiscent of their culture. Despite the south being a British colony in the 17th century, most of the inhabitants there were Spaniards; hence they built buildings and homes the way they were built in their motherland. The Spaniard home design has been adopted and innovated many times over and is popular across SoCal.
Colonial
The colonial housing style evolving from European influences began in the 1600s with the arrival of European immigrants. Colonial homes were originally two stories and resembled wider building structures but would have only one room on each floor. Today, these houses exist with multiple stories and several rooms on each floor.
Contemporary
Contemporary styled homes saw their rise between the 1960s and 1970 era. These houses have large plate glass windows. They use wood and stones in form of geometrical shapes and incorporate style into them. Contemporary designs are asymmetrical and designed to allow sunlight slip through the large windows and sliding doors. It has large doors with a plain interior. The style is a classic modern design which is added to from time to time but still remains an ever-changing one.
These are just a handful of the many housing decors found in these cities. Southern Cali’s climate is hot, droughty and sunny. It is a typical Mediterranean climate and this is why you’ll see many balconies and outdoor pool facilities in the front and backyards. There’s also a great deal of ultra-modern development in pool designs in residential settings. In summary, Cali is home to tremendous styles and trends in all capacities.
Welti-Furrer is Switzerland’s leading moving and transport company. It’s expertise is grounded in a long tradition that goes back to the 19th century.
If you need a simple beginner’s introduction to working with gradients, watch this quick video from my course on Mastering Logo Design in Adobe Illustrator. I’ll show you how to create different types of gradients and change various options such as the colours, position, and opacity.
By the end, you’ll be clear about how to create various different types of gradients and edit them to get the exact look you want.
How to Create and Edit Gradients in Adobe Illustrator
How to Create a Simple Gradient
Start by using the Rectangle Tool to create a simple rectangle to work on. Then you can open the Gradient panel by clicking the icon in the toolbar or by going to Window > Gradient.
Clicking anywhere on the gradient slider will create a default black-to-white gradient. And the Reverse Gradient icon just above it lets you reverse the direction, going from left to right or right to left. Or you can manually adjust the angle of the gradient by typing a value in the box.
There are also lots of presets, so you can go from top to bottom or left to right, and you can apply the gradient either to the fill or the stroke. And if you change the Type from Linear to Radial, it will emanate from the center towards the edges (and, of course, that can also be reversed).
How to Change the Colours of the Gradient
You can adjust the starting point for each colour as well. So if you want more black, you can drag the arrow below the slider over to the right. And, if I bring the white in from the right hand side, you can see it creates a very, very harsh divide.
So for a softer gradient, it’s always better to move these colour swatches apart.
Now, for any gradient, you’ve got to have a minimum of two colours, because you have to have one colour that graduates into another. However, when you hover over the slider, a plus icon appears, and you can add more swatches. You can then double-click a swatch and pick a colour.
So go ahead and add some more colours there. If you use global swatches, you can go into the Swatches panel and change the global swatch, and it will update it in every instance, including gradients.
How to Change the Location and Opacity of a Gradient
To delete a swatch, just click and drag it off—you can do that with the black one on the left.
Then you can extend the other colours out by dragging the swatches, or you can also be more precise and type in a Location value. For the orange one, you can type 50% to get it right in the middle.
Of course, you can adjust the Opacity of any swatch by selecting it and choosing a value from the dropdown menu or typing a value in.
Between each individual swatch, you can adjust the position using the little diamond icon on the top of the slider. It’s very similar to moving the swatch itself—you can introduce a bit more of one colour and a bit less of another just by adjusting the break point within the gradient.
And they also have Location percentages, so you can enter precise values if you prefer.
Watch the Full Course
In the full course, Mastering Logo Design in Adobe Illustrator, you’ll learn the essential tools you need to create a logo in Adobe Illustrator. As I did in this video with gradients, I’ll go through some important tools and techniques in Illustrator, and then at the end, we’ll apply everything we’ve learned in a practical project to create a complete logo design.
You can take this course straight away with a subscription to Envato Elements. For a single low monthly fee, you get access not only to this course, but also to our growing library of over 1,000 video courses and industry-leading eBooks on Envato Tuts+.
Plus you now get unlimited downloads from the huge Envato Elements library of 300,000+ creative assets. Create with unique fonts, photos, graphics and templates, and deliver better projects faster.
Before you start, download and install these assets. It will help you to get the same result.
Introduction
If you are a beginner and are not good at painting, you can download and install the pattern, and skip the next part of the tutorial. To do that, go to Edit > Presets > Preset Manager. Change Preset Type to Patterns.
After that, click on the Load button, find our pattern file on your device, and press Load. That’s all—now the patterns have been added. Also, you can drag and drop the pattern file to Photoshop.
1. How to Create the Brain Pattern
First of all we need to create the brain pattern. It will be the base of our text effect.
Step 1
Open Photoshop (I use Photoshop CS6), go to File > New, and create a new 314 x 374 px document.
Step 2
Rename the layer as Background. Fill this one using #d88364 color.
Step 3
Create a New Layer (Layer > New > Layer) with the name Lines. Move it above the Background.
Step 4
Pick the Brush Tool (B), select a Hard Round brush, and go to Window > Brush to change some settings:
Size: 8 px
Spacing: 7%
If you are working with a graphics tablet, also check the Transfer and make sure that Opacity Jitter and Flow Jitter are controlled by Pen Pressure.
Step 5
Set the Foreground Color to #7f2b16. Make sure you are on the Lines layer. Let’s start drawing the lines of the convolutions. You can use Eraser Tool (E) to clean or delete part of the image. My result:
Step 6
Duplicate the Lines layer. Change the layer name to Shadow. This layer should be between Background and Lines.
Step 7
Right-click the Lines layer and choose Blending Options to create the Layer Style.
Add an Outer Glow:
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 34%
Noise: 0%
Color:#7f2b16
Technique: Softer
Spread: 0%
Size: 4 px
Contour: Linear
Uncheck Anti-aliased
Range: 50%
Jitter: 0%
Step 8
Right-click the Shadow layer and choose Blending Options to create the Layer Style.
Add an Outer Glow:
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Noise: 0%
Color:#c05648
Technique: Softer
Spread: 34%
Size: 16 px
Contour: Linear
Uncheck Anti-aliased
Range: 100%
Jitter: 0%
Step 9
Create a New Layer (Layer > New > Layer) with the name Highlight. Move it between the Lines and Shadow layers. Set the Blending Mode for the layer to Vivid Light. Pick the Brush Tool (B) and draw the highlights using #e9a186 color. If your result doesn’t look smooth, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 3 px.
Step 10
Now we need to make sure that our image works as a pattern. To do that, stay on the Lines layer, go to Select > All (Control-A) to select the picture, go to Edit > Copy Merged to copy all layers as one, and go to Edit > Paste (Control-V) to paste this layer as a new one. Rename it Pattern. Now select this layer, and go to Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object (or right-click on the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object).
Step 11
Pick this Smart Object, go to Filter > Other > Offset, and set these values:
Step 12
As you can see, our future pattern has some issues. To fix it, create a New Layer (Layer > New > Layer), pick the Brush Tool (B), change the Hardness to 30%, and paint over it using the Eyedropper Tool (I) to pick the colors. Result:
Step 13
Create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and decrease the Saturation to -20.
Step 14
Our image is ready, and all you need to do is to create a pattern. Go to Edit > Define Pattern. Type Brain Pattern in the Name field.
2. How to Create the Text Smart Object
The main goal of this part is the creation of a Smart Object with a text layer inside. It will help you to make fast changes in the future.
Step 1
Set the Foreground Color to #454545. After that, pick Switch Foreground and Background Colors (X).
Create a new 4000 x 1420 px document with resolution of 300 pixels/inch. Set Background Content as Background Color.
Step 2
Pick the Type Tool (T) and select the Rounds Black font. Set the Font Size around 250 pt and Font Color#ffa81f. Write „BRAIN” in capital letters.
Step 3
Select the Brain layer, press Control-A, pick the Move Tool, and press Align vertical center and Align horizontal center to move the layer to the center of the document.
Step 4
Go to Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object to convert the text layer to a Smart Object(or right-click on the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object).
Step 5
Double-click with your mouse on the layer icon to open the Smart Object.
Go to Edit > Transform Free Path (Control-T) and change some settings of the text layer:
X: 2012 px
Y: 483 px
W: 93%
H: 111%
Step 6
Create the stain effect of the text using the Pen Tool (P). As you can see, I have filled the background with gray color to differentiate better. This layer is temporary and will be deleted before closing. My result:
Now you need to save it. Go to File > Save (or press Control-S) to do it and File > Close to close this file. After that, you will get an updated Smart Object with a new word.
Step 7
Pick this Smart Object and duplicate it four times. As a result, there will be five copies of the Smart Object. I suggest renaming each layer from the top to the bottom using the following names:
Volume
Pattern
Stroke
Shadow
Outer Stroke
It will help you to navigate the document during the following steps.
3. How to Create the Volume Layer Style
Step 1
Change the Fill of the layer to 0. Double-click with your mouse on the Volume layer to apply the following layer styles. Add a Bevel & Emboss using the following values:
Style: Inner Bevel
Technique: Smooth
Depth: 103%
Direction: Up
Size: 103 px
Soften: 16 px
Uncheck the Use Global Light box before setting an Angle: 120°
Altitude: 60°
Gloss Contour: Linear
Uncheck the Anti-aliased
Highlight Mode: Color Dodge
Highlight Color:#ffffff
Opacity: 65%
Shadow Mode: Color Dodge
Shadow Color:#ffffff
Opacity: 87%
Step 2
Add a Contour:
Contour: Half Round
Uncheck Anti-aliased
Range: 73%
Step 3
Add an Inner Shadow with these settings:
Blend Mode: Difference
Color:#7adafa
Uncheck the Use Global Light box before setting an Angle: -60°
Distance: 29 px
Choke: 20%
Size: 125 px
Contour: Linear
Uncheck the Anti-aliased
Noise: 2%
Step 4
Now add an Inner Glow:
Blend Mode: Overlay
Opacity: 72%
Noise: 0%
Color: #ffffff
Technique: Softer
Source: Edge
Choke: 4%
Size: 33 px
Uncheck the Anti-aliased
Range: 55%
Jitter: 0%
Step 5
Add a Satin style using these settings:
Blend Mode: Multiply
Color:#000000
Opacity: 36%
Angle: 0°
Distance: 25 px
Size: 66 px
Contour: Linear
Uncheck the Anti-aliased and Invert
Step 6
Add an Outer Glow:
Blend Mode: Multiply
Opacity: 57%
Noise: 0%
Color:#000000
Technique: Softer
Spread: 0%
Size: 25 px
Contour: Linear
Uncheck Anti-aliased
Range: 100%
Jitter: 0%
Step 7
Don’t forget about a Drop Shadow:
Blending Mode: Multiply
Color:#000000
Opacity: 41%
Uncheck the Use Global Light box before setting an Angle: 120°
Distance: 25 px
Spread: 0%
Size: 25 px
As a result, you will have the following image:
4. How to Create the Pattern Layer Style
Step 1
Double-click on the Pattern layer to apply the Layer Styles. Add a Stroke:
Size: 2 px
Position: Outside
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Fill Type: Color
Color:#a8262d
Step 2
Now add an Inner Glow:
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Noise: 0%
Color: #f15d62
Technique: Softer
Source: Edge
Choke: 100%
Size: 10 px
Uncheck the Anti-aliased
Range: 100%
Jitter: 0%
Step 3
Also add a Color Overlay with these settings:
Blend Mode: Soft Light
Color: #f59088
Opacity: 100%
Step 4
Add a Pattern Overlay:
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 80%
Click on Pattern and select the pattern that we created earlier
Scale: 240%
As a result, you will have the following image:
5. How to Create the Stroke Layer Style
This is a simple step. All you need to do is to add a Stroke with these settings:
Size: 20 px
Position: Outside
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Fill Type: Color
Color:#fb705c
As a result, you have the following image:
6. How to Create the Shadow Layer Style
Step 1
Double-click on Shadow layer to apply the following layer styles. Add a Bevel & Emboss using the following values:
Style: Outer Bevel
Technique: Smooth
Depth: 1000%
Direction: Up
Size: 21 px
Soften: 0 px
Uncheck the Use Global Light box before setting an Angle: 90°
Altitude: 30°
Gloss Contour: Linear
Uncheck the Anti-aliased
Highlight Mode: Normal
Highlight Color:#ffffff
Opacity: 0%
Shadow Mode: Multiply
Shadow Color:#000000
Opacity: 50%
Step 2
Add a Stroke with these settings:
Size: 20 px
Position: Outside
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Fill Type: Gradient
Gradient: from #c88206 to #753104
Style: Linear
Angle: -90°
Scale: 100%
Uncheck Reverse and Dither
Check Align with Layer
Step 3
Add a Drop Shadow:
Blending Mode: Normal
Color:#000000
Opacity: 75%
Uncheck the Use Global Light box before setting an Angle: 90°
Distance: 11 px
Spread: 47%
Size: 38 px
As a result, you will have the following image:
7. How to Create the Outer Stroke Layer Style
Add a Stroke with these settings:
Size: 30 px
Position: Outside
Blend Mode: Normal
Opacity: 100%
Fill Type: Gradient
Gradient: from #bc1526 to #c72435
Style: Linear
Angle: 90°
Scale: 100%
Uncheck Reverse and Dither
Check Align with Layer
As a result, you will have the following image:
Congratulations, You’re Done!
The brain text effect is ready. Here is the final image. I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.
Don’t forget to share your result with us.
By the way, if you want to change the text, double-click on the Smart Object icon, and Photoshop will open a new PSB file. Change the text, go to File > Save to save changes and File > Close to close this file. After that, you will get an updated file with a new word.
Photo by Jonathan Velasquez on Unsplash
