WorldWide Telescope by Microsoft

This is a really cool new program by Microsoft that allows you to view the entire universe, for the most part, via a 3d viewport. I am amazed by this program. It's still in beta but Microsoft basically used the worlds largest database of space images and tied all the images together. It's really worth checking out if you're really into astronomy. I love it, you can even see pictures of Mars from the Rovers. What makes this way cool is that there are tons of options and you can also view different planets!!! Check the link for Microsoft's website.

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

It's About Timing for Small Businesses

As we all try to stay afloat in this turbulent economy, many small
businesses are buckling up and tightening up their budgets. One area
where businesses are cutting back is marketing and advertising. But
they should be doing the opposite. With a slow economy, businesses
should expose themselves more and explore different and creative
options that are more affordable. It's times like these that offer
businesses a chance to stand out. So while the competition is cutting
back their exposure, one should step into the spotlight and try to
gain a new audience. Because once the economy picks back up, they'll
remember that one business that had the guts to put themselves out
their....yours.

- Tien P

Happy mother's day

To all those special ladies in our lives that are always there for us.
Happy mother's day. The people at Visual Smash wishes to send a shout
out to all of our moms!

John Stossel explains Graphic Design in 43 Seconds

This is very funny! Yet not so cool.

Our Top 5 Tutorial Websites

We've played with many tutorial websites in our days. There are many out there. Many crappy ones too! So we've put together a short list of our favorite 5. These are very biased so there's no scientific way of how we figured out this list, just our favorites.

#5 : Tutorialized

www.tutorialized.com

A great website with many tutorial for many programs. Generally there are only one window tutorials so you don't have a bunch of windows open. Great site to check out for any designer.

#4 : Kirupa

www.kirupa.com

This is a great and simple website dedicated to more flash actionscript and photoshop tutorials. The step by steps on this site is one of the best. With many example photos shown also.

#3 : Flashkit

www.flashkit.com

This site is dedicated almost entirely of flash if not all. It's got a built in forum where users can discuss tutorials, downloaded files, and other flash topics. It's got a ton of flash tutorials and goodies to download.

#2: GotoandLearn

www.gotoandlearn.com

This is one of the sites we enjoy going to because Lee Brimelow is one of the best flash guys ever!
This is his site and he's generous enough to share his skills with us. It's got full video so you can follow step by step with Lee to learn a few tricks.

and our number one!

#1: Pixel2Life

www.pixel2life.com

This is a very comprehensive website with tutorials for many programs. It's a great looking website that is always updated and has some of the coolest tutorials on the web. We highly suggest this website to everyone! The members on the site are very talented and are friendly.

11:40 pm and Counting

It's late on a Friday night and we're still at it. We're trying to add final touches to the site and upload more client work examples. The gallery is a little empty right now but we'll get it full soon. Thanks for being patient with us. The blog is growing quite nicely. Also, the site is loading a tad slower than we want it, so it's back to optimizing the site for us. Compression owns us. It also might be our hosting, so we'll have to look into that.

stock.xchng - Free stock photography

In searching for inexpensive stock photography for a comp, we ran across this website called stock.xchng. It's basically a community where members can share stock photography, for the most part free. This is what they said on their website:
"SXC was launched in February 2001, as an alternative for expensive stock photography. The idea was to create a site where creative people could exchange their photos for inspiration or work. In about two years the site evolved into this massive community you see now - there are over 1.500.000 registered users and more than 350.000 photos online!" (courtesy of stock.xchng)

It did have some decent photography on there so it was worthy of bookmarking. In order to use it, you have to sign up and you'll be a part of a community where you can also socialize. It might be worth checking out if you're in need of some free photography.

http://www.sxc.hu

Free Fonts!!!

This is a great website for free fonts! Yes Free. We absolutely love getting free stuff especially fonts. The site offers hundreds of downloable fonts with just one click. You ever visit a site where they make you jump through hoops and a bunch of links just to download a font? We hate those. This site has one click, for both PC and Mac. It also has a previewer so you can see exactly what your word(s) will look like before you download them. Check them out.

http://www.dafont.com/

Photoshop Express

Adobe just released a new online software dubbed PhotoShop Express. It's suppose to be a stripped down version of PhotoShop via online for people who use Facebook and the likes of. It's Flash based. Pretty neat program for people who want to edit photos and stick it on there Facebook profile. We've tried it and it's pretty good. It's a little slow but not detouring. You'll have to give it a test drive.

https://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

Color Schemer

You know those times when as a designer, you're stuck in figuring a color scheme? Well this is one website that can help you.

http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html

It's got a neat web app that quickly gives you colors / hex codes for designing websites. I've used it pretty often because I can bookmark it and quickly access it when I need it. Enjoy!

The First Post

This is the first post. Visual Smash is alive! So after a lot of hard work, late nights, and dedication, the studio is born. I have to say that I have learned a lot of valuable things from trying to start this company. The most important thing is to never give up. After late nights of reading about starting a LLC, writing the business plan and gathering work, it's paid off. The studio is constantly updating, growing and changing to accommodate the needs of our clients. Please feel free to check the blog for updates, news and other info about the industry. Stay tuned!