These days the tutorials are very common and almost everyone makes one. The problem is that a lot of those tutorials are not very good written/explained or they aren’t showing anything interesting. What I’m trying to do is making a weekly appearance of a selection of good quality tutorials. Most commented, most viewed, most appreciated. Every week 20 of these are here.

This selection of tutorials will come in handy when you design your own marketing materials like business cards and postcards.

From Sketch to Vector Illustration

Author’s comment: “A technique of vector illustrating that takes a little bit more skill that I did not cover is starting with a hand drawn sketches. I will focus on that technique of vector illustrating for this tutorial.”

How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion

Author’s comment: “This first tutorial at Spoon Graphics covers the process of designing a logotype, this particular logo created in the tutorial is for a fictional business named Purple Lemon, which immediately suggests a modern, trendy, possibly web/internet or design related company.
The tutorial covers the complete design process from conception to completion, creating a practical logotype that will work in the real world.”

Creating a crazy cool logo

Author’s comment: “I’m a huge fan of typography and logo design, even though I havent worked on too many logo design projects I had the opportunity to express my love on a few, but at the same time, very pleasant ID projects. One of them was in 2005 for a company called Zagora.”

How to Create a Vector iMac Graphic in Illustrator

Author’s comment: “Follow this Adobe Illustrator walkthrough to create a vector based reproduction of the popular Apple iMac computer. Using simple shapes and tools that can then be put into practice to create further icon style images.”

Illustrate image into vector

Author’s comment: “Today I am going to show the basic way to illustrate and image into vector. Basically, it is quite simple to illustrate an animate rather than a real object. Its color tone is simple and easy to apply. It is a good practice method for the novice. This is the image that I am going to use, Princess Mononoke( one of my favourite characther of Ghibli’s product ). ”

Gloss Button & Icon

Author’s comment: “Frankly speaking, this tutorial is my way of doing this kind of icon in Illustrator. Someone out there might have a better way of doing it. If you have any suggestion or question, feel free to add a comment or leave a message at the Chat Box.
Let’s start from the easy one… Green Button”

Vectorial illustration with Illustrator

Author’s comment: “It’s time to write a tutorial about vectorial illustration. In this post i’ll explain the process i followed at the time of designing by order (from SOSFactory) the mascot in vector format of Twisted Monkey Studios, producers of horror films.”

Creative Arabic Calligraphy in Adobe Illustrator

Author’s comment: “his tutorial will guide you on how to draw creative Arabic fonts in Adobe Illustrator, this type of calligraphy is called “Free Calligraphy” as it is not “restricted” to a strictly set of rules on how the letters should be drawn and connected as with other forms of Arabic Calligraphy. You can learn more about the art of Arabic and Islamic Calligraphy from Wikipedia’s page on this topic.”

Create a Colourful Abstract Wavy Ribbon

Author’s comment: “One of the subscribers here at Blog.SpoonGraphics recently emailed me asking if I could create a tutorial on how I produced the wavy ribbon shape as seen in one of my personal works; Retro Kicks. I was happy to oblige so here we have a simple walkthrough on how to create a colourful abstract ribbon shape in Illustrator, which can then be used as an element in your designs.”

3D Pill

Author’s comment: “All those long hours and sleepless nights designing can really get to you. With this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a 3D pill to cure your design headaches!”

Design an Awesome Product Ad

Author’s comment: “One of a companies main goals is to convince consumers that they’re getting their money’s worth with any particular product. Sometimes, a good advertisement design will go a long ways in the industry. This tutorial will teach you a few techniques to improve your designs in general.”

How to draw a banner (scroll) in Illustrator

Author’s comment: “Wrapping scrolls around illustrations or images are quite popular designers little trick these days. I’ll show you how to draw a scroll “easy way”.”

Creating Halftone Effects

Author’s comment: “It used to be a time consuming process to create a halftone. First, I would open a picture in Photoshop, convert it to grayscale, apply a halftone effect, open it up in illustrator, trace it, and if didn’t get messed up somewhere in the process, I would use the halftone in Illustrator. In Illustrator CS3 it is quite a bit easier to create halftones without leaving Illustrator.”

Swirl Mania in Illustrator & Photoshop

Author’s comment: “In this tutorial I will show 4 ways to create swirls, and by mixing them you will learn some very powerful techniques that will allow you to easily make tons of different styles of swirls and crazy sperm vectors.”

The Perfect Diamond

Author’s comment: “Drawing a diamond is pretty simple in illustrator. First, let’s do some research on the anatomy of a diamond. We don’t want to do some fancy cut and get rejected by our clients. Here’s a proportional diamond line art taken from the website. We will use this as a guide to help us create a perfect diamond.”

Creating convincing characters

Author’s comment: “Illustrator maestro Alexis West demonstrates how to magic up appealing characters using a pencil, a computer and bags of imagination.”

Logo Design Creation Process from Start to Finish by Expert Graphic Designer – Angela Ferraro-Fanning

Big title, huh? ^_^

“We are very excited to have Angela Ferraro-Fanning guest write for us this week. Please visit her fabulous portfolio to see more of her amazing work. Many of you will find that she is a graphic designer that is very talented and experienced. She wrote this article to guide you through her own creative logo design process, from start to finish. Please feel free to contact us if you want to submit your article as well.”

Creating Omspace 3D cylinder graphic

Author’s comment: “When entering Omspace, a weblog of Kenny Ren, immediately I was attracted by the huge and interesting 3D graphic header. Then, I wonder how to create the 3D Cylinder looking graphic in Illustrator. Well, actually it’s quite simple to achieve and I have plenty of fun too in the process.”

Abstract poster effects

Author’s comment: “Make your mark with strong but simple shapes and bold, read-my-lips colours: Danilo Rodrigues shows you how.”

Design a Business Report Cover

Author’s comment: “Buildings are an easy to create yet professional element you can use as a center piece in your designs. They can be used to communicate the concept of business. Add motion lines in and then you have the concept of speed being fused into your skyscrapers as well.

We’re going to create a classic design layout that can be built quickly using Adobe Illustrator. Jump in and use the 3D Tool to make a set of business buildings and then add motion lines throughout. We’ll finish up by adding some texture to soften the strong lines in this vector graphic.”