BlogmyQuery – BMQ

Today, we present yet another freebie — a free set of icons related to movies and television, designed by Samuray and released for Smashing Magazine and the design community. The icons are available in six different sizes as transparent PNG files, JPG files as well as Photoshop PSD source files. The icons are released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Download The Set For Free!

You can use this icon set freely for commercial and personal projects. Please link to this release post if you want to spread the word.

• large preview (.jpg)
• download PNG and JPG for free (.zip, 1.41 Mb).
• download PNG, JPG and PSD for free (.zip, 34.41 Mb).

Description

Perhaps you’d like to showcase your interests in your portfolio, or perhaps an obscure indie filmmaker has asked you to put up a small site for their upcoming movie. Or maybe you are organizing a party and would like to invite your good ol’ friends or colleagues to a movie evening. Eventually you might end up looking for a set of original cinema or TV-related icons, and purchasing generic stock icons isn’t really an option. In these (and hopefully many other) cases, this icon set might be useful.

This set contains 10 images related to film, movies and the movie-going experience. Each icon is available in six sizes: its original size, 256×256px, 128×128px, 64×64px, 32×32px and 16×16px. The icons included are:

• Ticket
• Anaglyph Glasses
• Camera
• Cinema Seat
• Clapperboard
• Soft Drink
• Film Reel
• Megaphone
• Popcorn
• TV Set

The icons are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. You are free to distribute, transform, fiddle with and build them into your work, even commercially. However, please always credit the original designer of the set (in this case, Nikolay Kuchkarov).

Behind The Design

As always, here are some insights from the designer:

“My inspiration was the Academic Icon Set. I saw this amazing set and decided to make my own, and today I am honored to share the results with you all. This icon set is the result of about a month of work, and I hope that you will love it!”

— Nikolay Kuchkarov

Also, you can watch the video of the design process for the icons below:

Making of Clapperboard icon from Samuray on Vimeo.

Making of Popcorn box icon from Samuray on Vimeo.

Thanks, Nikolay! We sincerely appreciate your time and efforts!

(jc) (vf)

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Today, we present yet another freebie — a free set of icons related to movies and television, designed by Samuray and released for Smashing Magazine and the design community. The icons are available in six different sizes as transparent PNG files, JPG files as well as Photoshop PSD source files. The icons are released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Download The Set For Free!

You can use this icon set freely for commercial and personal projects. Please link to this release post if you want to spread the word.

• large preview (.jpg)
• download PNG and JPG for free (.zip, 1.41 Mb).
• download PNG, JPG and PSD for free (.zip, 34.41 Mb).

Description

Perhaps you’d like to showcase your interests in your portfolio, or perhaps an obscure indie filmmaker has asked you to put up a small site for their upcoming movie. Or maybe you are organizing a party and would like to invite your good ol’ friends or colleagues to a movie evening. Eventually you might end up looking for a set of original cinema or TV-related icons, and purchasing generic stock icons isn’t really an option. In these (and hopefully many other) cases, this icon set might be useful.

This set contains 10 images related to film, movies and the movie-going experience. Each icon is available in six sizes: its original size, 256×256px, 128×128px, 64×64px, 32×32px and 16×16px. The icons included are:

• Ticket
• Anaglyph Glasses
• Camera
• Cinema Seat
• Clapperboard
• Soft Drink
• Film Reel
• Megaphone
• Popcorn
• TV Set

The icons are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. You are free to distribute, transform, fiddle with and build them into your work, even commercially. However, please always credit the original designer of the set (in this case, Nikolay Kuchkarov).

Behind The Design

As always, here are some insights from the designer:

“My inspiration was the Academic Icon Set. I saw this amazing set and decided to make my own, and today I am honored to share the results with you all. This icon set is the result of about a month of work, and I hope that you will love it!”

— Nikolay Kuchkarov

Also, you can watch the video of the design process for the icons below:

Making of Clapperboard icon from Samuray on Vimeo.

Making of Popcorn box icon from Samuray on Vimeo.

Thanks, Nikolay! We sincerely appreciate your time and efforts!

(jc) (vf)

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Today we are happy to release two printable UX sketching and wireframing templates, designed by Pixle for Smashing Magazine’s readers. This article presents Outline, a set of sketching and wireframing papers for mobile platforms and Tapsize, a set of templates for checking optimal tap areas without a mobile device.

Outline

Outline is a set of 28 printable sketching and wireframing papers (in PDF) for seven mobile platforms: Android, BlackBerry, iOS (iPad and iPhone), Meego, Symbian, webOS, Windows Phone 7. The set consists of a few combinations, such as actual size, 10 devices fit to a page, and landscape layout.

Note: Print the sheets at actual size (i.e. do not resize).

As a bonus, Outline includes an Illustrator file displaying the mobile devices.

Outline paper set

Windows Phone 7 and 8 panorama template

Android 4.x template

Tapsize

With Tapsize, you can determine the optimal tap area without having an actual device. Just print the screen you need. The set includes 9 PDFs:

• 3.5 inches — 640 × 960 pixels
• 4.65 inches — 1280 × 720 pixels
• 5.3 inches — 1280 × 800 pixels
• 7 inches — 1024 × 600 pixels
• 7 inches — 1280 × 800 pixels
• 7.7 inches — 1280 × 800 pixels
• 8.9 inches — 1280 × 800 pixels
• 9.7 inches — 1024 × 768 and 2048 × 1536 pixels
• 10.1 inches — 1280 × 800 pixels

Note: Print the sheets at actual size (i.e. do not resize).

Tapsize paper set

Calculating the grid

Checking the optimal tap area for the Google Nexus 7 tablet.

Download The Set For Free

Both sets are completely free to use for commercial and personal projects, without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

• Download the package (ZIP, 2 MB).

We’d like to thank the creative minds behind Pixle for providing the resources for everybody to use and share.

(al)

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Contracts are a source of anxiety and dismay in creative work, but they exist for a good reason. A good contract ensures that you and your client have the same expectations, and protects you in case things go south. Ideally, your contract should be a combination of industry standards, legal protection and personal preferences. To help you get started, here’s a set of 10 basic agreements for a variety of common business situations that creative professionals face.

How much do you expect to be paid in advance? What happens if a payment is late? Who will own the rights to the work, and when? Contracts can seem overwhelming, but don’t need to be. Reading through these documents is an opportunity to learn from experienced designers in a collaborative setting. Furthermore, every document comes with usage statistics and can be legally signed online for free (at least if you are in the United States). All content on Docracy, the free repository of legal documents, is open source and free to take (or even improve), so please feel free to share your own examples and experience.

Image credits: Joybot.

Here’s the full set that you can customize online:

1. AIGA Standard for Professional Design Services
   Drafted by the premier design association in the US, this is probably the most complete designer-friendly agreement out there (works best for big projects). Multiple versions available, with different licensing options.
2. Contract for Website Development & Identity Work, with Annotations
   A modern Designer-Client Agreement, drafted by a New York lawyer. It’s loosely based off the AIGA form, but closes some loopholes and trims the fat. Informative annotations are provided to guide you through the various clauses.
3. AIGA/GAG Speider’s Designer Contract
   The contract that the designer/writer Speider Schneider sends to his clients, as featured on Smashing Magazine. It’s a hybrid of the AIGA and GAG (Graphic Artists Guild) models, along with some common sense changes. Plus it’s optimized for e-signing to help save some trees.
4. Contract for Web Design
   A plain language agreement for Web design development projects, based heavily on the Andy Clarke’s brilliant “Contract Killer” article on 24 Ways. The beauty of this document is in the language: this is a non-legalese, plain English, straightforward pact that two reasonable people sign.
5. Shortform Design Contract
   Jacob Myers, the author of this sample, is a lawyer/developer who works closely with designers. In his words: “The next time a client comes to you with a quick job, save yourself time and aggravation by sending them a Short Design Contract to be signed BEFORE you start working. The doc is basically an abbreviated contract confirming the scope of the job, the schedule, fees to be paid and essential terms and conditions. Use this style of contract for quick jobs or where a full-blown contract would make the client apprehensive.�
6. Work for Hire
   A short and flexible work-for-hire agreement, where the contractor is an artist being hired by a creative firm for a work of design. Remember that with this kind of contract the IP rights are automatically assigned to the commissioning client.
7. Consulting Agreement
   If you’re hiring a consultant, this is a great starting point: a model agreement by a top US law firm. If you are the consultant, you might want to mitigate some of the provisions of this client-friendly document, like this version (see changes).
8. Shortform NDA
   The contract that everybody signs, sooner or later: The Non-Disclosure Agreement. This is a unilateral example, so if both parties are disclosing confidential information to each other, make sure you use a Mutual NDA instead.
9. Contract for Original Illustration Work
   A simple, commissioned illustration agreement drafted by a lawyer based in Portland. This contract is pro-artist, and a flat, non-refundable commission fee is charged. All rights are non-exclusively licensed, but because most people want a “unique� piece of art, the artist agrees not to resell or publish the work, except for portfolio use (such as posting on DeviantArt, Dribbble, etc.).
10. Simple IP Assignment
    Work is done, money is in the bank, but you forgot to give the IP rights to the client? Fix the issue with this simple IP assignment. Also useful when you hired someone but forgot to have the rights assigned in the original contract. Get this signed to tie up any loose ends.

You can also download the full set in PDF/DOC, with one single file (.zip).

Don’t forget that the legal stuff is important, and so please treat these documents as a starting point. A good lawyer can help you review these examples and tailor them to your particular project and local laws. Standard documents are useful and educational, but are never a substitute for legal advice. Docracy, Smashing Magazine and the original authors of these documents disclaim any liability connected to the use of these material without a licensed attorney.

(vp) (jc)

© Veronica Picciafuoco for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

Today, it is our pleasure to present to you a free set of icons related to education and academia—commissioned by PixelsDaily exclusively for Smashing Magazine and the design community. The icons are available as transparent PNGs as well as Photoshop PSDs in a size of 128×128 pixels. The icons are released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Download the Set for Free!

This icon set is completely free to use for commercial and personal projects, without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

• large preview (.jpg)
• download the set for free (.zip, 8.83 Mb).

Description

This beautiful icon set consists of 10 images related to education and academia. They are provided both as 128-pixel PNGs and in the original PSD format. The icons included are:

• Backpack
• Blackboard
• Books
• Calculator
• Math equipment
• Dictionary
• Globe
• Mortarboard and hat
• Artist’s palette
• Science equipment

All of our free resources are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This lets you distribute, remix, tweak and build on your work, even commercially, as long as you credit the original designer (in this case, PixelsDaily).

Behind the Design

As always, here are some insights from the designers:

PixelsDaily is a collection of free and commercial resources for designers. We publish pixel-perfect freebies that are perfect for building up your design collection. We wanted to do something special for Smashing Magazine readers, so we commissioned an incredibly talented icon designer — Artem Borysenko — to craft this special icon set. You can subscribe to receive our daily freebies on Facebook, Twitter, email and RSS.

Thanks, Artem and PixelsDaily! We sincerely appreciate your time and goodwill.

(al)

© David Appleyard for Smashing Magazine, 2012.