Ho Ho Ho-liday Greeting Cards!

Fridays are fun

TGIF.  
Ready for a weekend filled with beautiful summer-like weather here in Ohio.  

High 70's all weekend, we'll take it!
Look how excited we are!

Anyhoo...onto the purpose of this post...

Here at LSG, we do a lot of designs that are text dominant, and are always looking for different ideas to make them unique.  We stumbled upon this great tutorial that shows you how to create this...

Pretty fun, huh?  We thought so too.

Here are our steps to create this beauty...

Step 1

Download and install these brushes.

Step 2

Create a document in Illustrator, 600px x 600px.

Step 3

Pick a word, any word. 
Type the first letter of that word with a bold, chunky font. 
Change the fill and stroke color to your liking.

Step 4

With your letter selected, go to: Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel

Step 5

 Change your settings to something similar to this: 

Step 6 

Repeat this process to the rest of your letters of the word. 
Make sure they are each in their own box.

Step 7 

Create a document in Photoshop, 600px x 400 px.
Find a fun texture/pattern that can be used as a background. 
You can use different layers to create different looks.  

Step 8

Copy and paste each letter from your Illustrator document, into your Photoshop file.  Make sure to paste them as pixels.  Arrange however your heart desires.  Overlapping is a great.

Step 9

Select an individual letter layer, and go to: Image > Adjustments > Vibrance.  Change the settings to be Vibrance 12 & Saturation 83.  You'll notice the letter to get brighter.  Repeat this process on all letters.

Step 10

 Double click on layer, then go to Drop Shadow.  Here is what your settings should look like.  Be sure to change the Blend Mode to HARD MIX.  Apply this to all your letters.

Step 11

 Once your letters all have beautiful drop shadows, hold down command + shift then click on the layer. This will grab just the outline of each letter.  Should look like this.  If at first it doesn't work, keep clicking.

Step 12

On the keyboard, use the short cut letter "B" to get your brush tool. Make sure your brush color is white and grab one of those splatter brushes and paint away within your selected letters.  If you want to change the size of your bush command + [ or ] works nicely for that.  Once you have it to your liking, command + D (deselect) and change the layer blending mode to OVERLAY.

Step 13

 Create a new layer, below all the letter lays.  Using another type of splatter brush, splatter a design behind the words.  You can change the colors of each splatter and change the layer blending options to create different looks. We used 'screen'.  

Step 14

Once you have this lookin' the way you like, jump back into Illustrator and create the line element.

Draw 2 lines using the rectangle tool (M on the keyboard) and fill to a color.  

Click the first line and go to Effect > Distort & Transform > Twist.  We have our twist angle set to 15.

Click the second line and select Zig Zag, under the Distort & Transform drop down.  

Step 15

Copy and paste your lines (as pixels) into your Photoshop document.  You can play around the drop shadows and different layer blending options as well.

Step 16

  Smile and give yourself a pat on the back for finishing this tutorial.

Easy enough, huh?!

Have a great weekend!

As Promised...

...here is the scoop from our speaking event.


After putting our blood, sweat and tears into both our new website (check it out!) and our materials for our presentation, we are feeling pretty good about how everything turned out yesterday. We traveled down to Columbus to the Marriott at the airport and spoke to a group of individuals within the security industry on "Promoting Your Brand Through Web & Social Media." A lot of great questions came up regarding use of social media outlets for both marketing and research, and we definitely learned a lot from this great experience. Thanks to Schmidt Security Pro for the invite!

We have a lot of great ideas for future blog posts based on social media topics that we'll share with you soon. Check back in with us to see what tips we have for you and your business!

Here are some pictures from the event...

Natalie getting the projector set up.

Branding portion of the talk...

Ed (VP of Everything Geek)

 Ed & Natalie answering the audience's questions

So....we hate to admit this, but we are suckers for candy. The Marriott conference room we were in had small bowls of these little bites of joy and we took some back with us to enjoy all week!

We're kind of a big deal.

First post of the LSG blog.  

Exiting, huh!?  

Our plan for this blog is to give y'all a little insight on what our days are like, and things that we are workin' on.  We also hope to post some great tutorials and fun little things that keep creative minds going. 

Today we have the pleasure of speaking at the Ohio Electronic Security Association of Ohio conference held in Columbus, OH.  We are going to be speaking on using web and social media marketing to help market your business and grow your brand. 

Right up our alley!

We'll have an update and pictures on the conference later in the week, so stay tuned!