Note:
I use Paint.NET 3.36 on a Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit workstation with 2GB of DDR2 RAM and ATI FireGL V3300 Dual-head display adapter. Installing a plug-in is a snap. Just copy the plug-in DLL to the relevant directory. For example, if the installation path of PDN is C:\Program Files\Paint.NET, then effects plug-ins should be copied to the Effects folder and file type plug-ins should be copied to the FileTypes folder.

1. Buttons

Forum | Author | Download

2. Rounded Corners

Forum | Author: dan9298 | Download

3. Borders and Shapes

Forum | Author | Download

4. Checkerboard

Forum | Author | Download

5. Multi-Color Gradient

Forum | Author | Download

6. Gradient Bars

Forum | Author: Pyrochild | Download

7. Water Reflection

Forum | Author | Download

When I say regular people, I meant to classify those who do not belong to the school of designers and related disciplines. The five top reasons why Paint is the choice of graphics editing program amongst the common can be stated as follows.

• Paint has an extremely simple user interface and strictly follows the desktop metaphor. Because of this, there is no way a user can go wrong with Paint. There is one window, one canvas and one toolbar to deal with. There is the pallet area too; but most users aren’t afraid of it as they are with other parts of a window.
• Paint starts fast: you don’t have to wait until the next epoch to use Paint. It has such a small footprint and will start before you are done doing a double-click. Another benefit of the small memory footprint is that you don’t need a fancy computer to run Paint on.
• You can only use the most common file types with Paint. Here again, you do something, and save the file in your format of choice without being presented a handful of post-save options. The file is just saved and ready to be used in a few milliseconds.
• You will never rip apart Paint by accident. Most modern software are designed with ‘total UI flexibility’ in mind so that there are 101 toolbars and menus to a density where people are scared to move the mouse pointer across the screen with the fear of moving one part of the UI and sticking it in another area rendering a total mess in the GUI. Paint doesn’t have this prevailing silliness and hence you are a happy user.
• You can buy a new computer and Paint will be there; you can go to a friend’s PC and still Paint will be there. Paint is ubiquitous; it’s installed by default on every computer since Windows 95. It’s totally available to you during the lifetime of your computer and will never expire asking you for a new serial number.

It seems like the main reason for regular people to like Paint is its simplicity. A normal user doesn’t fancy sophistication in software. They want their job done, in the easiest way and in the shortest timeframe.

It took me about three months to complete the design. This is entirely done in Illustrator and has no raster elements to bleed. The base for the card was done in wood and painted to glue to the two sides of the card. The card flip opened to show the invitation text inside the fold.

Hi Resolution Images

Inspiration

I looked at many Sesatha designs before attempting to do one on my own. Most real designs were not eye-catching and the elements that made the Sesatha looked oddly put together. Then the design on the 2000 rupee note caught my attention and this was heavily inspired by that.

Hi Resolution Images

Note: This was done on off hours. Therefore a week’s work is about ten to fifteen hours.

This theme is more modern looking than the previous two. There is adequate white space surrounding objects and consistency has been preserved across pages. I have also made every attempt to make it look good on all browsers. Different sections of the theme (header, main menu, content area, etc.) have different appeals to it so that they do not conflict with each other in appearance.

The most notable element on this design is the large desktop area on the top of the page. On my previous two themes I used an area similar to this to designate specialty. For example, for Halloween, I had jack-o-lanterns on this space. But the header blended with the rest of the design too well to the point where it was not noticeable. There was also a lot of work involved as a change in the header was in fact a change in the entire design. Now on this design, the header has been made an integral part of the design while without making it a part of the content.

With the introduction of this theme, I’m going to release the previous theme to the WordPress community. It will take some time though as it needs some modifications and patching before making it more public aware.

Thank you for visiting nStation.

Ergonomics of the right-handed design: The practice of creating right hand oriented icons has come in to play from industrial design as almost all devices are right-hand oriented. If you haven’t noticed this before, the right-handed design is the same reason why your TV remote is well operated from your right hand compared to the left hand. The power button (or any other crucial controller) is conveniently placed where your thumb finger would rest when you are holding the remote. This is the same reason why controls are placed on the right-hand side of the elevator; and the list can go on and on.

To illustrate this, I’ve shown the left hand orientation in the Google Android UI icons here. See how the Android design is completely opposite to the common design in certain cases.

Primary and secondary objects are used in these icons to suggest the left hand orientation. For example the Alarm Clock, Browser, Calculator and Calendar icons are oriented towards the left hand side. The Dialer and Messaging icons clearly show the left hand orientation as the handset and the pencil is held left-handedly.

Android screenshot courtesy androidcommunity.com.

Certainly the current Android prototype is too early to sustain till the final release. Probably the entire set of UI icons will be changed in the final release. Maybe this is done purposely to be different from the rest of the world. The guys at Google are famous for doing things differently. I’m not complaining here — just enjoying the fact that someone has made a design that suite my style as I’m a left-hander!

Hi Resolution Images

BilliTones 2005 Poster (36×24′)
BilliTones 2005 Poster (17×22′)

More Details

Project Name: BilliTones 2005 Sri Lanka Tour Posters
Date Created: 2005
Project Type: Freelance
Duration: 2 weeks
Software: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
Delivery: Flattened Artwork

Note: the color theme of the website was chosen by the client.

Screenshots

More Details

Project Name: AMDCCI.org Website
Date Created: 2003
Project Type: Freelance
Duration: 1 month
Software: Ulead PhotoImpact, Adobe Dreamweaver (then Macromedia Dreamweaver)
Delivery: HTML source files and related images

Screenshot

The following image is a screenshot of the main player and playlist.

Apparently everyone is in a hurry to give their site a new look and Mozilla falls no short. Check out the new Firefox Add-ons site with the hip search bar and pretty inner pages. Although the previous website didn’t have any serious usability pitfalls in its design, the new look-and-feel is very compelling to use. I love the fact that they’ve decided to show a couple of thumbnails on the main page and provide a clear rating and reviewing panel on the convenient right-hand side of the page. Furthermore that green color search box somehow invites me to explorer more. Another good example for effective use of color to uplift the usability of a design.

It is also worth mentioning the drop-down categories list on the left hand side of inner pages that is so well designed that it is not one of those “hover me and I’ll show you myself” kind-a-design. A note to all you AJAX loving, “I’d do whatever the dudes do” web designers, learn from the pioneer.