N.Design Studio

Got some skills? Do you want to take the challenge and prove your skills? Check out these design competitions that are currently going on in September:

• UT Grand Prix 2009 T-shirt Design Competition
  Prize: 3 million Japanese Yen (approximately $30,000 US)
  Deadline: September 21, 2008
• Shapeways & Dutch Design Week - Every Day Design
  Prize: $250 in free 3D printing from Shapeways
  Deadline: September 21, 2008
• Don’t Panic & 3 Mobile - Street Work Design Competition
  Prize: £500
  Deadline: September 28, 2008
• PSDTUTS - "Solving Poverty" Button Design Contest
  Prize: 1st Prize $300, 2nd Prize $200, 3rd Prize $150…
  Deadline: September 28, 2008
• HOW Design - Poster Design
  Prize: $150 worth of HOW books & 1 yr subscription to HOW magazine
  Deadline: December 1, 2008
• Project Never
  Prize: Profile on projectnever.com & a "custom-built award"
  Deadline: December 1, 2008
• ScreenBurn at SXSW Game Design Competition
  Deadline: December 5, 2008
  Read on…

Finally, the job board (Design Jobs on the Wall) that I’ve been working on is launched. It is a very simple job board where you can post or find design jobs. If you have a job opening, please post a job and let me know your thoughts on the workflow. You can post a full-time job for only $75 or a freelance job for $50. Opening special: enter coupon code “promo” to get a 50% discount on your first job listing. Lastly, I would like to thank Justin from Scheetz Designs, for his excellent job on coding the back-end of the job board. Justin is also the guy behind the web design gallery, Design Snack.

Finally, the Facebook app that I designed for WIRED Science is officially launched. The app is called "WIRED SCIENCE: What Element Are You?" It is basically a fun app that lets you take a short quiz to find out what element you are from the periodic table. Then you can combine your element with your friends and it will tell you the relationship between the two of you. If you are interested in adding me to your network, here is my Facebook profile. Read on…

Yes, I’m still alive. It has been more than two months since my last update on this site. So, what’s up with me? Well, I have a lot of new work coming up. I’m working on a new site of mine (yes, another one) and designing a Facebook app for Wired Science. But I can’t show you another of the new work yet (they are still in progress). Meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other sites Web Designer Wall and Best Web Gallery.

Want to learn my Illustrator and Photoshop techniques that are commonly used in my design work? Please read the article, Vector Polishing Techniques that I just posted on Web Designer Wall. I have posted 9 Photoshop techniques on how you can add more depth, color, contrast, and texture into the vector art. The 9 techniques included: lens flare effect, dusty effect, rainbow, glowing lights, particles, color dodge, blurred, watercolor, and vintage texture. Some of them are commonly asked, such as the rainbow and particles effects appeared on N.Design. Let me know your thoughts on the article and don’t forget to Digg it.

I recently came across this site, FreeRice.com, which I thought it is very nice and creative. It is nice because you can learn vocabulary and help end the world hunger. The idea is very creative. This is how it works: you go to FreeRice.com and play their vocabulary game, for each question answered correctly 10 grains of rice will be donated by the sponsors to help people living in poverty. It is a win-win situation - you get to play the game, FreeRice get the traffics, advertisers get their exposure, and people get the free rice. If you like the idea, please help to spread out the word. For more details, please read their FAQ page. Read on…