Basketball Artwork

Anyone that has read my books or followed this blog for any length of time probably knows that I am a huge fan of college basketball, specifically my Kansas Jayhawks. Later today, the field of the 2010 NCAA Tournament will be announced and the Jayhawks will be one of the favorites to win it all.

I thought that I should find some clip art with a basketball theme so that you make your brackets look great for those inter-office pools. You'll even find a few other sports are represented in some of the artwork.

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A Servant's Heart

A Servant's Heart is another great image from our friends at Rocket City Shirts. It is supplied as a CorelDRAW 9 file in both a pre-separated form for screen printing or a composite image for digital garment printing or other uses. Of course it is vector-based so you can resize or make other modifications as you see fit.

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Textures Unleashed Volume 4: Terrain

The fourth collection of seamless textures has just been completed. In Textures Unleashed Volume 4 you'll find 119 different seamless textures from four different types of terrain: civilization, desert and barren, lush and rocky. As with the previous collections, you can use these textures seamlessly in all of your favorite graphics software. Maybe you need something low resolution for the Web or maybe you want a high resolution copy for use on a vehicle wrap. No matter what resolution you need, you'll find it in this collection. If you want to check out the textures before you get the collection, a PDF file showing sample of each can be downloaded.

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Vehicle Templates for CorelDRAW

An industry that has absolutely exploded over the past decade is vehicle wraps. If you go our driving, you will see vehicles with either partial or full wraps. Did you realize that it is very easy to create the artwork for vehicle wraps in CorelDRAW? For those who truly want to do it themselves, you can get detailed measurements of each area of the vehicle and create your own template. The rest of you will want to use a template where someone has already done that hard work for you.

Vehicle templates were supplied with CorelDRAW X4 though their usefulness was very limited since keywords were not included in the files to indicate the make, model and year. Users who really wanted to search hard might be able to find the template they needed, but the search could be time consuming. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 has improved the situation dramatically. In Corel's promotional information, they advertise the inclusion of over 2000 vehicle templates. During Corel's Webinar (you can still attend one of the future Webinars), they said that the vehicle templates included with CorelDRAW X5 included keywords for both make and model. What surprised me a bit was that they said the year wasn't included.

I decided to do a little bit of research myself to see what I would find. I used the popular ROMCat utility to search the CorelDRAW X5 keyword catalog for what I felt were some of the vehicles most commonly wrapped. If I didn't search on the model you want to know about, you can certainly get your free copy of ROMCat and search for that model yourself.

The first search was for the Cadillac Escalade. Five templates were returned by the search. Two templates included 2002, one included 2003 and two included 2007 (one of them is shown at right). So my immediately reaction was surprise since some of them did indeed include years.

Then I searched for the Smart car. Four templates were returned. Of those, two included 2007 and two had no year. My next search was for the VW Beetle and three of them were found. Two of the templates had no year and one had 2005. The last search was for the Toyota Prius and it found two templates. One of them had 2000 as a keyword and one had no years included.


After these searches I came to the conclusion that for artists who are not in the vehicle wrap business, you might be able to find the template you need should the occasion arise. Those who are creating wraps on a regular basis will probably be frustrated that they can't find the exact year they need or even the vehicle.

For those who need more templates, there is a solution! Corel licensed the included templates from the folks at Digital Design Ware and their full collection includes more than 60,000 templates filling four DVDs! No, this collection isn't included with CorelDRAW, you'll have to buy it separately. Yet it is extremely valuable to those who need these templates on a regular basis. Want to know what is included? You'll find a link on the product page to download an 1106 page PDF file (yes, that number is right) showing each of the included templates. The collection also includes a year of downloadable updates. That way if a new template is completed, you can download it when needed. You'll also see that there are 3D templates available. These are really cool because you can design in 2D for output to your wide format printer in CorelDRAW. Before output, simply export the design to a JPG file and the included 3D software will create a 3D rendering of the finished vehicle that you can fully rotate. Or take a photo of the customer's building and place the 3D rendering right in their parking lot so they can picture it before you wrap it. Not only does this allow you to get it just right before printing the wraps, it also can be a great sales tool to close the deal!

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Textures Unleashed Volume 3: Stone

The third volume of Textures Unleashed, Stone, is complete and it is filled with 133 different stone textures. Each of the textures is provided in sizes from 256x256 pixels up to 2048x2048 pixels. So whether you're designing for the Web or a vehicle wrap, you'll find the perfect size for your project.

You can see all of the textures included in this package at the Textures Unleashed home page, including the downloading of a PDF file showing each of the textures included. If you are unsure of how to use these textures in CorelDRAW, we have both a PDF and a video tutorial available for download.

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A Real Man

Our friends at Rocket City Shirts have been preparing an entire series of faith themed images and A Real Man is the first of the series to be available. Graphics are included for both the front and back of a shirt. Those of you using a digital garment printer will find a composite image included while those screen printing will find pre-separated artwork along with suggested colors. Everything is provided as vector CorelDRAW artwork so you can size and otherwise modify the art as you please. You'll find all the technical details and samples of both the front and the back on the product page.

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Valentine's Day #2

According to my calendar, it is now Valentine's Day. Your loved one is anxiously awaiting a box of candy, heart shaped balloons and other related goodies. While I can't afford to send something like that to all of you, I can tell you about Valentine's Day #2 where you can download all of those things for free in both AI and EPS formats. I hope you all have a wonderful day and that this artwork is useful to you.

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Heart Shape

Can you believe that Valentine's Day is only a week away? I can only guess that you are in need of graphics with hearts of all shapes and sizes. Heart Shape gives you what you need in both AI and EPS formats. Even better, you can download them for free!

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Vintage Cupid Shooting Arrow

I started the theme on Friday with a Valentine's Day related font. So it only made sense to follow up with some cupid themed artwork. I found a vintage hand-drawn image of cupid shooting an arrow that can be download as either a Photoshop file with transparency (should also work fine in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. It is also available as a vector EPS file that you can use in CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator. This might be of even greater appeal to those of you doing engraving since it was digitized from a classic engraving.

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National Hockey Teams

Can you believe it is less than a month until the 2010 Olympics begins in Vancouver? I have already heard various people talking about their hockey team and how it might do in the Olympics. That led me to searching for the logos of the various national teams. Only a handful are currently available and I suspect that more will become available as we get closer to the start of the games.

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Dare to Dream

Today I'd like to tell you about a really awesome piece of artwork perfect for any of you doing either screen printing or digital garment printing. Sure, it can be used for other things as well. February is Black History Month and the Dare to Dream graphic is a perfect depiction of the month. You get a full color version of the image as well as pre-separated versions for both Photoshop and CorelDRAW. If you want to sell garments celebrating the month, this is a great graphic to put on those garments.

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Swimming Pool

With all the winter weather, you may have forgotten the look of an unfrozen swimming pool. So with a hope of making you feel a little bit warmer, I thought I'd share the Swimming Pool seamless texture with you.

A seamless texture can be tiled without any seams so the area it covers can be as large as you want. They can also be used in almost any graphics software. If you aren't familiar with how it is used in CorelDRAW, we offer free PDF and video tutorials showing you how to use them. Jump in this virtual water and you'll definitely feel a lot warmer!

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Snowflakes Clip Art

One of the things I really enjoy about living in Arizona is that we don't have to deal with snow.As a kid, there were many days that I had to shovel the snow off the driveway. Of course I also got to play in it. Even now, I sometimes visit the snow so that I can go skiing. I thought it would be nice to have clip art of various snowflakes to use in some designs and I found a graphic with a number of vector snowflakes to use. Download a copy for yourself. The best part is that you don't have to shovel this snow!

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New Year's Cards

The dawn of a new year is right around the corner. I thought it would be a good time to find some artwork to help you celebrate the new year. I found two cards (Card 1 and Card 2) that you can download in both EPS and PNG format. Whether you use the whole card or just elements, I'm sure you can find a use for the cute raindeer character included.

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Awesome Art Volume One

The title of this package, Awesome Art Volume One, is really spot on. It contains over 2400 high-resolution image from some of the greatest artists in history. Artists include Monet, Van Gogh, Klimt, Gaiuiguin, Cezanne, Toulouse-Latrec and more. Due to the age of the art, all of the images are royalty-free and copyright-free meaning you can use them however you wish. You also get images from Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Dali, Pollack and others that is still under copyright so you can't use it for commercial purposes. This collection is nothing short of amazing and the cost can easily be covered by only one or two jobs using the art.

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Underwater World Layered Image

Yesterday was the last day of the 104th CorelDRAW Unleashed Training Boot Camp. It is hard to believe that we've held that many Boot Camps and then I realize that they were started more than thirteen years ago. One of the subject areas we discussed in depth during the most recent class were paintings of underwater art from some of the biggest names out there. One of the students worked with these artists to put their artwork onto shirts, tiles and various other items.

I've always loved that style of art. I'm sure my enjoyment of scuba diving probably has a lot to do with it. So as I was looking for artwork to discuss today, I wanted to find an underwater scene. That led me to the Underwater World image. It is a Photoshop file containing a total of 42 layers. Don't worry, you can also open the file in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. You will get a message saying that there were errors with the effects on some of the layers though I couldn't see anything obvious in the image where there were problems. If nothing else, the image shows you the technique of building up an image with numerous layers. Of course, it is also a cool underwater scene.

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Christmas Holiday Icons

It is still hard for me to believe it is December already. I guess the cold weather that has finally hit Arizona should have given me a good clue. Since we are getting closer and closer to Christmas, how about a whole series of icons in both vector and bitmap formats? I'm sure that you can find at least a few of these to use in your projects!

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Father Christmas

I saw parts of a few parades on TV during the Thanksgiving holiday. Each one had a very similar ending as Santa Claus arrived and the Christmas season officially began. So I thought it would only be appropriate if I were to find a clip art image of Santa arriving. Father Christmas Came is just such an image. You can download it either as an EPS file or a JPG depending on your needs. Give it a look and get starting on creating your own holiday illustrations.

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Round Turkey

I'm really lucky this year. I get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice. Yesterday I joined some friends for an early Thanksgiving dinner. I'm still full of food! Of course I'll celebrate with some other friends on Thursday on Thanksgiving day. What this means is that I get to have a lot of tasty turkey. To commemorate the meals, I thought I'd share some turkey clip art with you. I know, the clip art doesn't taste as good as the real thing. It will definitely get you in the mood for the real thing!

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Fashion Graphics Women

If you design garment graphics, you definitely want to check out YouGraph's Fashion Graphics Women collection. It includes a total of 30 fantastic designs that are ready to use or even to modify. Not sure if it is right for you? Download a free sample and check it out.

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Tribal Turtle

I've always loved the various Hawaiian images for common animals such as turtles. Today's vector turtle graphic is somewhat of a cross between the Hawaiian symbol and something a bit more tribal. I still haven't quite figured what I can find a use for this cool graphic, but I'm sure it will find a way into a project soon.

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2010 Calendars

As we get closer to the end of 2009, it becomes more important to get a calendar for 2010. The folks at Xerox have put together some nice 2010 calendars in PDF format that you can download. While you might be able to import the PDF into CorelDRAW for editing, be very careful about how you use the calendars so as not to violate any copyrights. If nothing else, use the calendars to inspire you to create a unique calendar for your customers.

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Vector Smiley Pack

It seems that every where you turn in software, there are smileys. I thought it might be nice to have some cool vector smileys to use in various projects and so I went searching around the Web. The search led to some really nice vector smileys in the Vector Smiley Pack. The files are supplied as Adobe Illustrator files so you may have to do a little editing after importing into CorelDRAW to get them to look the same. You should only have to edit the transparency ellipse used on each icon to provide highlights. Don't worry, I'll send this file to the appropriate folks at Corel in hopes that they can make it import better in future versions.

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Komodo Vector Leaves

The folks at Komodo Media have put together some files with vector leaves that look really cool. Now here's the problem, you can't get the full benefit of them in CorelDRAW. The original files are saved in Adobe Fireworks format. While it has the PNG extension, you won't be able to use the vector data with CorelDRAW. A second file includes the leaves in Adobe Illustrator format which you should be able to use in CorelDRAW. The only downside there is that you lose the gradients found in the Fireworks files. So check out the leaves for yourself and see if you can recolor them in CorelDRAW to get something even better than the originals.

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Buff's Vehicles

A new artist has recently joined the Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace and he has uploaded a number of really cool vehicles. Buff Combe is obviously a talented artist who can re-create all types of vehicles as a vector graphic in CorelDRAW. If you are needing a realistic looking vehicle for one of your projects, you definitely want to check out all of Buff Combe's vehicles. I'll bet you find one or more that you want.

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Hand Drawn Vector Skull

The calendar has rolled around to October and that means that Halloween is only a few weeks away. Of course we'll need some good scary clip art to get us ready for the holiday. I searched around a found a really nice hand drawn vector skull to add to your collection of scary art. Just looking at it has me thinking about getting some candy bars.

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Retro Sun Burst

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it is now fall and the sun won't be as prevalent in our lives until next Spring. Of course those of us in Arizona still have plenty of sun for another month or two. Anyways, I went looking for some artwork of sun bursts and found some really great EPS images available for download. I've linked to my favorite and you'll find links to other sun bursts on the same page. I'll bet than one or more of them will find usage in a project of yours some day.

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Textures Unleashed Volumes 1 and 2

Each of the Textures Unleashed collections have over 100 seamless textures for use in all your favorite graphics software. All of the textures are supplied in four sizes: 256x256 pixels, 512x512 pixels, 1024x1024 pixels and 2048x2048 pixels so that they can be used in almost any design project from Web pages to billboards.

You can also download sample booklets that show each of the included textures. Download Textures Unleashed Volume 1: Wood or Textures Unleashed Volume 2: Metal booklet now! You will probably want to save a copy of the PDF booklet for future reference. For those who don't want the entire collection, you can also get any of the textures individually by clicking on the sample in the PDF booklet.

Soon you will find free PDF and video tutorials that show how to use seamless textures in your favorite software. There are also many more collections in the works. You might want to bookmark the Textures Unleashed home page so that you can check it from time to time for the new tutorials and new collections.

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YouGraph Fashion Graphics

A couple of weeks ago I told you about one of the packages from the folks at YouGraph. They have added three more packages of graphics geared towards those working in the direct to garment and screen printing industry. So that you can sample the excellence of their graphics, they have also added free samples in each of the categories. To see all of their packages and download any of the free samples, visit the YouGraph page.

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Richard Reilly's Vector Vehicles

If you have followed the Graphics Unleashed Web site over the years, you know that Richard Reilly has delivered some fantastic tutorials for getting the most out of CorelDRAW. Richard is a screen printer by trade and his artistic specialty is creating realistic looking vehicles as vector graphics.

Richard has started to add his vehicles to Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace so that you can use them in your projects. When you look at the thumbnails, keep in mind that each of them is supplied as a vector graphic in either CorelDRAW v8 format or an editable PDF file. That makes it easier for you to edit the graphic to fit your project. The more you support Richard's efforts, the more incentive he'll have to continue adding more of his amazing graphics!

Do you have artwork you'd like to sell? Consider becoming an author in the Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace! Learn all the details on our FAQ page.

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Fashion Graphics Men 01

I'm really excited to have template collections from YouGraph in the Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace. One of the first collections is the Fashion Graphics Men 01 which features fifteen separate pages with two designs on each page. Samples of each are shown below. If you are creating apparel via screen printing, digital garment printing or any other method, you'll want to check out this and the other YouGraph collections.

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Football Title

Can you believe the first pre-season NFL game is tonight? It seems like the Super Bowl just ended and the players are back on the field again. Fans of high school and college football know that the teams are already practicing for their first games. So today I went in search of some football related artwork and found Football Title featuring a football surrounded in a creative way by the word football. Even if this particular image isn't of use to use, it might spark your creative juices for other images.

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Monkey Vector Pack 2

Yesterday I went to the Phoenix Zoo for a photo shoot. Our first stop was in the spider monkey exhibit. Our group must have spent at least 30 minutes watching and photographing the monkeys. That led me to looking for some monkey related clip art. I found the Monkey Vector Pack 2 and it had some cute monkeys as well as a bunch of other artwork. Download and enjoy!

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Digital Graphics Collection Volume 2

Over the past year I've gotten the chance to meet with a number of CorelDRAW users who are using digital garment printers to make shirts on demand. One thing they need is high-quality graphics. Heck, all users need that! We just launched the Digital Graphics Collection Volume 2 on the site.

Just look at the detail of the wolf shown in the logo at right. Keep in mind that the graphic is a very low-resolution graphic so it will download quickly on the Web site. The original is so detailed you might have nightmares after looking at it. Each of the graphic included in this collection are very detailed high-resolution images. Use the included templates or craft your own graphics around the supplied images. No matter how you do it, you'll end up with some eye catching designs that will sell!

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Astronaut with Space Background

It was forty years ago today that the Apollo 11 mission passed behind the moon and went into lunar orbit. A day later, the first man set foot on the moon. Clearly this was a very historical event and it is one that is part of my earliest memories. You see, I was at the launch on July 16, 1969 when the mission to the moon started. I can't say I remember it in vivid details since I was a pretty small guy at the time.

In honor of this mission, I thought I should hunt down a space related piece of artwork for today. The result is a really nice vector graphic of an astronaut with a space background. For those who want to see some pictures from the mission, NASA has a nice archive on their site. Higher resolution versions of many photos are also available. Those of you who enjoy space images can literally spend hours on the site looking through the many photos.

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Ten Amazing Skull Vector Designs

It seems like every t-shirt I see these days has a skull on it somewhere. So I set out to find some vector artwork of skulls to use in my projects. I came across the Ten Amazing Skull Vector Designs which are supplied in SVG format. Each of them has a different style and there is definitely a skull for everyone in this collection.

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Ten Amazing Vector Backgrounds

Typically the focus of a design is the artwork in the foreground. But it can be just as important to have a great background. Today I've found Ten Amazing Vector Backgrounds in SVG format that you can download. Since they are vector, there may be edits and color changes you want to make to get it just right for the project at hand. There are definitely some cool images included and I think you'll find something that you can use.

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Chinese Dragon

I was recently searching for vector dragon images. I came across a dragon I really like, even though it wouldn't work for the project at hand. Just in case I downloaded a copy of it so that I would have it for future usage. The file is supplied in SVG format and it will import just fine into recent versions of CorelDRAW. Included are both a full color version and a black and white outlined version. No matter what you need, you'll find it in this file.

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Signs of the Zodiac

As the sun brings those of us in the Northern Hemisphere the longest day of the year, why not find some artwork that deals with astronomy. To that end I found artwork with variations on each of the signs of the zodiac. Two symbols are provided for each sign and they are supplied in vector EPS format. Download and enjoy!

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Sunday Stock: Abstract Halftones Vector Pack

Users are always wanting a way to create vector halftone patterns. This is especially true for those creating artwork for apparel. We at Graphics Unleashed are happy to be working with Go Media to bring their artwork collection to you in CDR format. The first of the packages available is the Abstract Halftones Vector Pack. More packages will be added in the Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace once they have been converted to CDR format.

In this pack you will find a series of halftone patterns that can be used in your artwork. Simply pick from one of the 23 patterns and PowerClip it into the ship where you want a halftone. Heck, you can even mix and match various patterns or modify the existing patterns to create your own.

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Sunday Stock: Hubble Images of Space

I recently had a very interesting day and evening focused on space exploration. One of the CorelDRAW users on our CorelDRAW Unleashed Boot Camp Cruise this past January worked for NOAO (National Optical Astronomy Observatory) on the University of Arizona campus. After a brief tour of his office and a private tour by an optical engineering professor, I got a tour of the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab. The Mirror Lab makes telescope mirrors as large as 8.4 meters (that's 27.6 feet) in diameter. Not only are they huge, they must be made in a perfect parabolic shape and smoothed to very detailed precision. The whole process was fascinating.

Later than evening I took part in the Nightly Observing Program at the Kitt Peak Visitor Center. Two guides gave the group a tour of the sky with the naked eye, through binoculars and through one of the many telescopes on Kitt Peak. If you are ever in the Tucson, Arizona area, I highly recommend it. The guides were fantastic and the sights were even better!

Once I got back, I wanted to get some good pictures of space and one of the best places to look is at HubbleSite. The site is all about the Hubble Space Telescope and features a large gallery of images taken by Hubble. Numerous images are available for free download, including very high resolution images. The largest I found was 16,000 x 8,000 pixels. That's 128 megapixels!

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Sunday Stock: Halftone Free Pack

Getting a good vector halftone effect is a popular technique these days. Today's download includes nine different halftone patterns supplied as a vector EPS file. This allows you to import the patterns and use them however you wish. If you decide to use these patterns in your art, I'd love to see the results.

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Sunday Stock: Animal Patterns

One of the coolest things about talking to CorelDRAW users is the many ways that they use the software. Sure, many people simply think about designing artwork for printing on something. Yet that only scratches the surface of the ways to output artwork.

Today I've found a number of animal patterns that you can download for free. Some of them would work well for cutting, others mention suitability for intarsia and any of them could be printed. Each of the files is supplied in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), EPS, DWG and bitmap formats.

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Sunday Stock: Design Elements

I really love the little flourishes that are added to a design. Today I found a file with 35 of these flourishes that you can download. The artwork is supplied in SVG format and imports just fine into CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator and the free Inkscape editor I told you about recently.

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Sunday Stock: Vector Emblem

I'm not sure that vector emblem is really a good description. To me is the a good example of the trendy artwork I often see on t-shirts these days. I can definitely see a gas mask, barbed wire, guns and what looks like wings in the background. It is supplied for free in EPS format! Even if the image as a whole isn't what you want, you might find parts of the image useful in a project. Download it and give it a try.

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Sunday Stock: Graphics Studio

The folks at Digital Art Solutions have released two new packages of artwork, Graphics Studio Volume 1 and Graphics Studio Volume 2. Each of the packages includes artwork in AI, CDR, PDF and EPS formats so that you'll have the perfect file for whatever software you are using. Everything in the collection is vector based so you can scale it for any size output. Check out these collections if you are looking for fresh artwork to use for vehicle wraps, banners, direct to garment printing, sublimation, wide format digital printing and more!

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Sunday Stock: The Godfather

Not too long ago I watched a marathon of the Godfather films. I was searching for some artwork related to the movies and came across a vector cartoon image of Don Corleone. It almost seems to be in the style of South Park. You do know that the South Park team uses CorelDRAW, right? Anyways, enjoy the Godfather image!

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Sunday Stock: Food Clip Art

I found a site that has the friendliest looking food clip art I've ever seen. Smiling pears and mushrooms and peppers and more. Best of all, you can download any of them for free. It certainly isn't the best artwork I've ever seen, but it could add a little comic relief to a design you're doing involving food.

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Sunday Stock: Open Clip Art Library 0.19

Nearly three and a half years passed between "monthly" releases of the Open Clip Art Library. The last release was in the fall of 2005 and I had given up on seeing a new release. Just in case I would check back every now and then. I was definitely surprised when I saw that release 0.19 (377 MB download) had come out at the end of March. It contains 12,337 images in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic) format along with PNG thumbnails and browsable HTML pages.

According to the project's Web site, they are planning to return to monthly releases. I'm thrilled as this is a great source of fresh images to use in your favorite vector graphics tool. Download the massive collection and check it out!

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Sunday Stock: Mardi Gras

The calendar gets the best of me sometimes. This year has definitely passed faster than most and I didn't even realize that Mardi Gras (Carnival) was upon us until a friend mentioned it a couple of days ago. That led me to search for some artwork with a Mardi Gras theme. The folks at Clipart and Fonts have a collection of Mask clipart that is pretty cool and you can download a free sample to decide if it is right for you.

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Sunday Stock: Skate Skulls

OK, maybe I should actually spell it like I found it and that was Sk8 Skulls. Included are a variety of skulls in Illustrator format along with some Illustrator symbols. Some of them are very cartoony and some are more ominous. But if you are looking for vector skulls, this will give you quite a few of them.

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Sunday Stock: Metal and Glass Buttons

It seems people are always asking me where to find cool buttons for a Web site. That led me to hunt down something for today's post. I found a set of eight buttons in your choice of AI, EPS or SVG format. Basically there are two styles of buttons with each of them in four different colors. The good news is that you can easily edit the buttons to get whatever color you desire. Enjoy!

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Sunday Stock: Octopus Designs

One thing I love about the ocean is getting on a dive boat and doing a little scuba diving to see what kinds of creatures I can find. Some of the most interesting to watch are octopus. And the feel of an octopus around your hand and arm is definitely unique. On that note, today's illustration features several different octopus designs.

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Sunday Stock: Freedom

Yesterday we returned from the CorelDRAW Unleashed Boot Camp Cruise and I immediately went to the ISS show in Long Beach to check out some of the latest products in the world of sportswear. That led me to today's design, Freedom, which would look really cool on a t-shirt.

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Sunday Stock: Ramses II

Looking out on the horizon, all I can see is water. I'm somewhere between Long Beach, California and Cabo San Lucas Mexico and we've already finished the first day of our CorelDRAW Unleashed Boot Camp Cruise. I'll dig a little deeper and see if I can find some Aztec artwork for next week's installment. Today, I'm featuring a very detailed illustration of Ramses II in the Battle of Kadesh. The file is supplied in a number of vector formats. Your best choice for CorelDRAW is either the SVG or the EPS formats.

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Sunday Stock: Vector Borders

Framing your masterpiece can often make the difference between good and great. The key is finding the right border to go with the artwork you've created. I found a handful of borders you can download for free that might just be what you need. I was pleasantly surprised to find some nice designs.

I will issue a little bit of a warning. The files are provided in WMF format. While they are vector, they contain a very large number of nodes due purely to the WMF file format. Also, all of the objects use RGB colors. Both of these issues can be corrected in CorelDRAW. Changing the colors from RGB to other models can be done quickly using different tools. They include the Color Styles Docker and the Find and Replace Wizard. Decreasing the number of nodes can be quite time consuming in files with a large number of objects.

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Sunday Stock: Hand Drawn Snowflakes

It is pretty rare when I get any snow at my house. It might happen every 2-3 years. Even when it does snow, it lasts for a few minutes and it is gone. We had one of those episodes last week and it got me looking for snowflake artwork. I found today's pick, Hand Drawn Vector Snowflakes, from my search.

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Sunday Stock: Greeting Card Templates

Did you go to the store and spend a small fortune on greeting cards for the holidays? Well hopefully today's blog can help you to save money on your cards in the future. Xerox has a number of free card templates you can download and use. There are easily over one hundred of them to choose from. Each of the templates is provided as a PDF file. So you'll need to import the PDF into CorelDRAW for further editing and customizing.

Want to save even more money? Get a Free Color Printer from Xerox! You'll have to fill out an online request form. Basically Xerox wants to make sure that you'll be printing a decent volume of documents each month. If you quality, they'll send you a free network color printer. I have one of the printers myself and love it!

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Sunday Stock: Sign Templates

Last week I told you about artwork for highway signs. Today I thought I'd cover something a little bit more fun. We've all seen signs geared towards those with a particular hobby or that were just plain amusing. Sign Templates Volume 1 includes artwork for 36 amusing signs.

Each of the signs is supplied in thirteen different file formats. No matter the software you're going to use to output the signs, you'll find a format that works for you.

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Sunday Stock: Standard Highway Signs

I just had somebody asking where they could find artwork for all the standard signs. A book from the US government immediately came to mind. The Standard Highway Signs gives you the specifications for all of the standard signs.

Now you might wonder how the book provides the artwork. It is supplied as an unlocked PDF file. That means you can bring any of the pages into CorelDRAW for editing. It may take a short while longer than just clip art, it doesn't take much more and gives you all of the information you need directly from the government.

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Sunday Stock: Extracurricular Volume 1

Last week we look at templates geared towards sports. This week we're going to look at templates geared towards many of the other extracurricular activities that take place at schools.

Extracurricular Volume 1 contains more than 277 templates in CorelDRAW format covering a wide variety of extracurricular activities. Even if you only use a couple of these templates, the package will be worthwhile.

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Sunday Stock: Sports Volume 1

As I travel around and train CorelDRAW users, one area where users are always creating products is for sports teams from the local area. There are many packages on the market with templates, but today I'm featuring a product with great templates and a great price. Sports Volume 1 has 277 templates covering thirteen different categories.

All of the files are stored in CorelDRAW 10 format which means they work in all versions from CorelDRAW 10-X4. You'll also get 32 bonus fonts included on the disc. If you are creating sports themed products, this collection may be just what you need.

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Sunday Stock: Stick Figure Volume 1

Drive around the United States and you will often see a vinyl sticker on the back window of vehicles with various stick figures representing the make up of the family inside. How would you like a whole disc loaded with stick figures so that you could create those signs easily for your customers? If so, I've got the perfect disc for you. Stick Figure Volume 1 contains 500 different stick figures in a number of different categories. This means the family can be represented in different styles. Plus each of the graphics is supplied in all popular vector and cutting formats. No sign shop should be without this collection of artwork!

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Sunday Stock: Vector Glass Buttons and Bars

Some of the coolest artwork I find is the design of icons. There are numerous outlets that offers icons in editable vector format. I found a really cool set of vector glass buttons and bars that are available as editable Illustrator files. The default set shown is gray but you can very easily change the color to anything you want.

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Sunday Stock: Vehicle Tribals

If you are looking for tribal graphics, there is no reason to look any further than the Vehicle Tribals Mega Pack. All in all, it includes 1650 pieces of artwork in AI, EPS and CDR file formats.

Best of all, the artwork is optimized for all sizes of output from something destined for the Web to a large sign. You can download a catalog showing you what is in the package as well as some free samples so that you can see the quality included. Give it a look and I think you'll like it.

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Sunday Stock: Power Graphics

Logo design is probably one of the most difficult areas of graphic design. A simple graphic is used to portray a company in all of their marketing materials. Power Graphics Volume 3 includes a number of graphics that can be used to build logos or pretty much any other type of graphic. There are a total of ten categories of graphics included in the collection. They are: Flames, Retro, Gangsta, Speed, Mascots, Sports, Offroad, Surf, Rebel and Tuner. All of the graphics are high-quality vector images that output well in most every production environment that CorelDRAW supports.

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Sunday Stock: Major League Baseball

The World Series is in full swing. What better time to look for baseball-related artwork. One of the best places to look is on the Major League Baseball Web site. You'll find the logos for all major league teams, logos for special events like the World Series or the All Star Game, uniform designs for the upcoming World Baseball Classic and more. This is definitely a great resource if you are looking for any artwork related to baseball. Keep in mind that this artwork can't be used commercially without a license.

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Sunday Stock: Sports Logos

I frequently hear of users trying to find logos of professional and college sports teams. One reason you don't see them sold as collections is that they require licensing fees to be used legally. I recently came across a site that has a wide variety of sports logos you can download for free. Many of them are vector, other come as good quality bitmaps. Point your browsers at Sports Logos Screensavers and download the logos you want. Just remember, licensing fees would be required to use them legally.

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Sunday Stock: Andy Nortnik Clip Art

I recently discovered an artist doing some really cool retro clip art and we proudly feature the artwork on the Graphics Unleashed Web site. No, it isn't free. But with a cost of no more than $10 per collection, you're getting a lot of value from each collection. You'll also find that some of the collections allow you to download collections of free fonts that work well with the clip art.

To fully appreciate the range of artwork that is available, visit the Andy Nortnik page and look over the collections. If you are interested in any of the collections, just click on the Get more info link or the graphic for that collection and it will take you to a page with a complete description and samples of the items in the collection. Each of those pages will also allow you to immediately buy the collection for download. This is some really unique artwork for a great price. I'm sure you'll find several collections that you can use!

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Sunday Stock: Digital Graphics Collection

I spent a lot of time a week ago with a group of CorelDRAW users in the business of garment printing. Many of the users were fairly new to CorelDRAW and they didn't have an artistic background. An art collection that appeals to them is the Digital Graphics Collection. Below are a few examples of the included artwork.



The collection is a collaboration between an artist, Dane Clement, and Digital Art Solutions, a company specializing in production ready art. This results in some amazing art packaged into easily customizable templates. It is very easy for CorelDRAW users to modify the artwork to meet the needs of their clients with some amazing designs.

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Sunday Stock: FreeFoto

Often stock sites will have different terms for usage of their images. FreeFoto.com allows you to use their images online for free, but you have to provide attribution and link back to them. The images are also available for purchase.

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Sunday Stock: Free Art from Digital Art Solutions

If you aren't familiar with Digital Art Solutions, they have a huge amount of "production ready" artwork. What is production ready? Well, it isn't the artwork you get in those mega boxes of clip art. Those are fine for dropping in your word processor, but they don't work very well if you need to modify the art in any way. Production ready artwork can be easily modified to fit into a production workflow. For example, it is easy to re-color for RGB, CMYK or spot colors. It's also designed for output at any size and in almost any workflow. For example, the graphics are perfect for cutting vinyl, screen printing or garment printing.

Still not sure if this will work for you? You can download a small library of their artwork for free so you can see exactly what you are getting. All you need to do is provide five pieces of information.

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Sunday Stock: Vecteezy

Today I'm going to keep it short and sweet. The Vecteezy site offers a number of pieces of vector artwork that you can download and use in your projects. Most of the samples I explored are provided as Adobe Illustrator files and you'll find a few CorelDRAW files. You should be able to get most of the AI files to work in current versions of CorelDRAW, but your mileage may vary.

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Sunday Stock: stock.xchng

It is hard to keep track of all the sites on the Web offering stock photography. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of them. Most of those sites charge for the photos you use.

Today we're going to look at stock.xchng, a site that offers mostly free images. Before you download and use an image, make sure you look at the usage rights. Some of them have no restrictions, others require you to notify the photographer or provide mention of the photographer.

I've found some excellent, high-resolution photos and I've certainly found some that are fairly low quality. The fact that you can find some good photos at no cost, it is a place that I'll always look before I check the for-pay sites. You will be offered a few images that have a cost to them but they are always listed below the free images. Give the site a visit and I think you'll find it has some great images that you can use in your projects.

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Sunday Stock: Digital Design Ware

We have added a wide variety of clip art, textures, templates and more to the Graphics Unleashed Web site this week.

This artwork is geared towards those in the sign and vehicle wrap industries, but it can certainly be useful to other artists as well. Probably the coolest feature is taking a two-dimensional template for a vehicle wrap and turning it into a 3D rendering of the finished wrap with only a few clicks. Typically 3D software is baffling to me. But this is a task so simple that anyone can create a 3D rendering in only a couple of minutes.

So not only can you get the templates and artwork to create some amazing wraps, you can also create a rendering that is sure to convince your client to order the wrap. Check it out, I think you'll find something you can use!

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Sunday Stock: Xerox Templates

Sometimes you can find templates without even looking. I recently got a promotion from Xerox telling me about a new printer. One of the rewards for replying to their promotion is that you can download some templates. The good news is that you don't even have to reply to the offer to download the templates.

You'll find templates for Business Cards, Postcards and Letterhead stored in PDF format. They are already laid out with multiple business cards on a page. The PDF files are interactive so that you can replace the relevant information. I found you can also import the PDF into CorelDRAW, though you will only get the graphic elements and not the text. Maybe the most useful elements are the Invoice templates stored as Microsoft Excel files. I doubt you'll want to keep the included logo, but the invoice itself could be quite handy to have.

Look around on the site and you'll find even more templates in almost every category imaginable!

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Sunday Stock: Design Contests to Win Stock Subscriptions

I'm going to take a slight departure from my normal Sunday Stock post. Chris Dickman told me about a series of design contests going on at his graphics.com site. The winners of the contests will receive a free subscription to a stock site.

Go to the Gallery page on graphics.com and you'll see the various contests listed. Click on the title to get the details on the contest along with the prizes. Even if you don't feel like you have what it takes to win, look through the galleries for inspiration from the submitted designs. You might even realize that you do have what it takes!

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Sunday Stock: CorelDRAW Layout Templates

Sometimes you run across something that doesn't always make sense to you. Someone recently alerted me to a series of CorelDRAW Layout Templates that can be downloaded from 48HourPrint.com. You'll find business cards, postcards, nightclub flyers, brochures, sell sheets, envelopes, letterhead, rack cards, pocket folders, door hangers, table tents, posters, notepads and much more. All of them are CMYK templates in CDR format and all are free to download.

Now I'm sure the idea is that they want you to use their template to design something and have it printed at 48HourPrint. That's where I found it a bit strange. When I looked at their notes on preparing files, they won't support CorelDRAW X3 or X4. They also don't support the two latest versions of QuarkXpress. Yet they don't list version limitations on any of the Adobe products. The fact that they haven't upgraded CorelDRAW (or QuarkXpress) to the newest versions tells me that they aren't really worried about supporting people using those programs. That's really too bad for us and for them.

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Sunday Stock: Dover Design Sampler

Many of you probably remember the Dover clip art books. Did you know that they now have a number of packages that include a CD-ROM full of artwork?

Each week they send out an e-mail with links to some free artwork as well as information about their new packages. If you wish to get the free samples, you can sign up on the Dover site. To get an example of what you get in the weekly e-mail, check out the samples from this week.

When you find something you like, the price is definitely right. Each collection has a very reasonable list price and we offer the packages at a discount of at least 20%. You'll find most packages are no more than $15! With all this great artwork at such great prices, I bet you can find several packages that you want!

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Sunday Stock: iStockphoto Image of the Week

You may already be familiar with the folks at iStockphoto. They supplied 1000 high-resolution images for inclusion with CorelDRAW X4. And when you registered, they gave you credits towards the purchase of more images.

I know users are hesitant to create accounts sometimes because they don't want to get extra e-mail. I can't remember when I created my iStockphoto account, but it was probably at least two years ago. I do get 2-3 e-mails a week. Some are purely promotional, most have something of value. For example, one of them tells me about the free image of the week. That's right, once a week you can download a high quality image for free! Some of the images will be something you can use, others will be interesting though not useful in your line of work. I just make sure to download all of them and store them in a folder just in case. Once a month they also offer a free vector illustration for download.

Yes, you'll need to create a free account to download the freebies. I think it is a very fair trade-off to get the free images and illustrations.

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