So there is a competition going on at work for this years holiday card that we send out to clients as well as the birthday card and anniversary card that get circulated out to employees on their special day. I’ve been doing so much screen work, that I really wanted to take the opportunity to design for print again. Plus I wanted to try out some of the skills I’ve been gleaning from all the tutorials I’ve been looking at. These are my entries:

I’ve been into the grunge/distressed trend although I haven’t been able to use it much for most of the stuff I do. So I tried to incorporate it a little bit here without getting my designs too dirty. I just wanted them to feel a little rustic. Even if none of my designs get chosen, I had so much fun making them. I think I want to try doing one for my own personal use. I’ve already got holiday cards for this year though, so maybe I’ll do some Valentine cards when winter rolls around.

I already mention SmashingApps.com as a design resource for tutorials and inspiration, but I wanted to mention a couple more that I’ve become aware of recently.

Smashing Magazine is also an excellent resource. You can find tips and more tutorials. There is information on designing with CSS and links to freebies (wordpress themes, icons and the like). They also have a showcase of work if you are looking for inspiration and ideas.

I also wanted to mention some of the free stock photo sites that I have been using for a while.

Morguefile.com – contains a variety of hi-res images that are royalty free for personal and corporate use.

Stock.XCHNG – also has a good variety of hi res images, I personally think the quality is also better than what you would find at morguefile, but both are good if you can’t afford to pay for stock photography.