This month’s roundup focuses a lot on HTML 5 and CSS 3 techniques. Along the way I also found some quality write ups on logos, spec work, Wordpress and much more.

You read the advice on virtually every design blog populating the cyberspace landscape, and if you haven’t, you don’t read enough design blogs. Kidding, but seriously, people say it all the time, ‘If you want to be taken seriously as a designer, you cannot use the Bevel or Drop Shadow tools in Photoshop’.

I’m so thankful for the sponsors here on MyInkBlog! Without their support it would be financially impossible to keep things running. But they serve as more than just a support system for blogs like mine.

‘The time has come,’ Houle hath said, ‘to give more freebies away!’ So we had answered the call, with some grungy vector sprays.

This tutorial will show you how to add descriptive icons to your links using a CSS pseudo selector element. This small progressive enhancement greatly improves a site’s usability.

The definitions used here are from the Photoshop help files, with a few bits of added explanation where I saw fit to add them. The Blend Modes specified in the options bar control how pixels in two separate layers interact with and effect each other. It’s helpful to think in terms of the following colors when visualizing a blending mode’s effect:

Freelancing has treated me very well. I’ve been able to make some decent money while doing something that I love to do. Recently, I wrote an article called “Take the Plunge into Freelance Work” on my blog, The Creative Lab. However, freelancing isn’t for everyone; here is a list of reasons why you’d want to avoid it.

Desktop backgrounds are a huge source of inspiration for me. I’m constantly changing mine in an effort to keep things fresh, and keep my creativity flowing. Because of my quasi-obsessive behavior and all the cool wallpaper and photography sites out there, I’ve developed quite a large library of photos.

When working with and setting up your website you will need to decide on a hosting provider. Hopefully the two of you will have a happy relationship but make sure that you have an understanding of everything involved before agreeing to a plan.

This month I focused on quality HTML and CSS advice. At the end of this roundup is a featured sites list which is chock full of cool new sites I’ve found this month. I hope you folks enjoy this month’s best of the design community!

It’s time once again for that collaborative effort between the Arbenting team and the infamous MIB! This time we wanted to do something a bit different for the Photoshop freebie than we usually do, so Angie struck brainstorming gold and mined through the web to unearth some old time royalty free map images to age and weather into a mighty fine brush pack.