Learn Photoshop for marketing

Some examples of good icons and graphic design in the wine industry: Wine Biz Radio, Caveman Wines, Twisted Oak, WLTV, Pinotblogger’s Bedrock 2007 Rebecca’s Pinot.

In order for you to have an icon/favicon/gravatar/logo for your website, you need to know how to use a graphics editor.  The two most common are Adobe Photoshop (for pixel images) and Adobe Illustrator (for vector images).  We are going to be using Photoshop a lot, so I recommend that you don’t use Adobe Illustrator unless you feel comfortable working on your own.

So, how do you learn Photoshop?  10 Steps to Improving Your Photoshop Skills

The plan is for you to:

1. Learn Photoshop basics
2. Pick a Photoshop icon design tutorial to follow
3. Design your website’s icon

Photoshop basics

• How to learn Photosohp in 24 hours
• How to master Photoshop in 1 week
• Lynda.com (paid)
• TotalTraining.com (paid) Video tutorials are nice to start…

Icon design tutorials

• Psdtuts (some tutorials require $9/month)
• Icon design tutorials all in Photoshop (Smashing Magazine)
• Icon design tutorials with Photoshop and Illustrator (Smashing Magazine)

Design your website’s icon

• What makes a great logo? via 70 Excellent Logo Design Tutorials and Resources (Six Revisions)
• Icon design guidelines
• Logo Design by LogoTournament ™ (paid freelancers)
• 99designs » Leading Designer Marketplace for Logo Designs and More… (paid freelancers)

You are going to be using your icon/logo/gravatar/favicon for twitter, facebook, business cards and more!

Try making a couple variations of your design if you have time.