Well another year almost over. I’m looking forward to 2012, hoping that it’s a better year for our industry and for all my friends. I have a couple of exciting bits of news to share and more free downloads so here’s my final blog for the year.

Mark Coleran, a good friend of mine and an extremely talented designer is giving away the entire LayerLab collection of After Effects template projects free. Layerlab was a resource for After Effects designers that Mark worked on a few years back. The project was put on hold while Mark pursued other career options. He’s now made a very kind gesture of giving these projects away for free. You can also check out Mark’s blog and portfolio here.

I have a new workshop out in time for the new year. Creative Graphic Design: Essential Typography – Principles and Techniques for Working with Text is a workshop with a difference. Making good decisions in typography — choosing the right typefaces, fonts, sizes, spacing and so on — can have a major impact on the quality of your designs. In this one-of-a-kind workshop I introduce you to the essential principles of typography.

After exploring the terminology, history, and anatomy of traditional and computer-based fonts, I take you all the way up to the present day by looking at how text is formatted in today’s creative applications. You’ll also learn specific software techniques for creating your own lettering from hand-drawn text, animating text on a path, using operators and effects to customize existing fonts, working with 3D text, and more.

There are several free movies you can check out here. If you like what you see, here’s a special discount code for you if you’re interested in buying this course;  Coupon Code: ETYP20 Discount: 20% Expires After: 29-Feb. Just enter the code during checkout to get 20% off the advertised price.

Inspiration

Word Spacing

Using Clipping Masks in Photoshop

Layering Effects

Animation Speeds and Durations Onscreen