Tag: graphics

Free Online Resources for Self-Publishers

free pixabay pay-706798_640
FREE courtesy of Pixabay!

Just over a year ago I wrote a post highlighting some free online resources for writers. Since that time, I’ve discovered even more wonderful free resources for photos, music, backgrounds, fonts, and more, so it’s definitely time for an update.

Each site has a section regarding licensing, which needs to be read prior to downloading and using content. Some sites don’t require any attribution, but some do, so make sure to read the fine print.

Links to all the various sites won’t be included in this post, because minions can get into trouble with Google for posting too many scammy-looking links. But at the bottom of this post will be a link to one of Indies Unlimited’s fabulous resource pages, where you can find links to all the sites mentioned.

First up, Photos: Continue reading “Free Online Resources for Self-Publishers”

Specialty Mini-Graphics

This is the final section of this tutorial to deal with “mini-graphics”–small images for various writerly purposes–before discussing topics more related to generating covers and other major graphic output. There are three applications I think many writers would find useful–and all three are also a lot of fun for more general applications such as entertaining kids (inner and outer varieties) or just clowning and attracting eyeballs to your brand. Continue reading “Specialty Mini-Graphics”

Banners, Buttons, And Beads

As promised, this tutorial will cover the making of buttons, logos, banners, and other graphic types needed by writers. Not as sexy an issue as covers, but very necessary. And it all applies: if you can create a cool-looking logo, you can create a cool-looking title and byline. In fact, if you examine this collection of images I think you’ll see that the difference between a “logo”, a “banner”, a “button”, and even a “title” is pretty abstract. What you’re seeing there, top to bottom, are: the title for an online serial, my personal logo I use for many things including “signatures” in mailings and forums, a custom SmashWords buy button, a dragon social media avatar, a Twitter button in custom colors, three RSS buttons to match three different sites, and a website header. All basically the same thing, using the same resources and simple skills.

And you’ll love this: it’s a lot easier to do these things. Your chances of learning, fairly quickly, to create good-looking, useful graphic doodads is virtually 100%. And there’s better news than that for those less than comfortable with all the talk of installing and learning graphics programs: you can do it all online without having your own programs, and it’s easier to do that way and at least as high quality! Cool, huh? Continue reading “Banners, Buttons, And Beads”