Hongkiat.com: Valentine’s Day Design: Best Tutorials and Resources Roundup

Valentine’s Day Design: Best Tutorials and Resources Roundup

Posted: 01 Feb 2010 09:00 AM PST

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. It’s one of those holidays that presents plenty of design possibilities, from cards to website modifications. But sometimes it can be a little puzzling when trying to figure out where to start. And other times, you just don’t have enough free time to create what you had in mind completely from scratch.

That’s where the resources we’ve gathered below can come in handy. We’ve found some great tutorials that can show you how to create some Valentine’s Day-inspired artwork. And we’ve also rounded up a ton of great stock resources for you, from icons to Photoshop patterns and brushes to vector illustrations. Use them as a starting point for creating something really unique while also saving time. If you have more resources you’d like to share, please do so in the comments.

You might also be interested in: 50 Exquisite Gifts for this Valentine’s Day

Tutorials

Here are some excellent tutorials to get you started on your Valentine’s Day design projects. Most teach basic techniques that can easily be adapted to suit your needs.

Photoshop Heart Wing Logo Photo
A fairly simple tutorial that shows how to create a heart with wings completely from scratch.

Heart Angel in Photoshop
Another tutorial for creating a winged heart, very different from the previous one mentioned.

Hearts on Sun Rays Background Wallpaper
A tutorial for creating a grungy heart and sun-ray wallpaper.

Valentine’s Day Hearts
A tutorial for creating a colorful Valentine’s Day Hearts illustration in Photoshop.

Love Wallpaper for Your Desktop
A Photoshop tutorial for creating a grungy love-themed desktop wallpaper.

Create colorful background for Valentine’s Day
How to create a colorful background for Valentine’s Day, using Custom Shape Tool, Layer Styles, gradients, and other Photoshop tools.

Happy Valentine’s Day Text
Create text "Happy Valentine’s Day" from a lot of hearts.

February 2009 Calendar Wallpaper

Valentine’s Day Cards
Learn how to design the background of heartshape forms for Valentine’s Day.

Valentines Day Ideas

Simple Valentine’s Day e-Card
Create a simple Valentine’s Day e-card for your special someone.

Grunge Valentine’s Design

Valentine’s day card
A Photoshop tutorial for creating a grungy love-themed desktop wallpaper.

Vectors

Weekly Free Illustration: Floral Hearts
A collection of free, vector floral heart illustration samples.

Free High-Resolution Heart Graphics
9 full-size high resolution heart graphics.

Heart Vector Illustration
A free vector heart from Vector4Free.

Vector Heart Flowers
A vector heart illustration comprised entirely of flowers.

Grunge Hearts
4 vector hearts in grunge style.

Vector Doodles

Lovely Heart Vector
Another fancy vector heart.

Flowery Hearts
Two hearts with flowers around them in different colorstyles. Ready to be used with included HQ

Free Vector Set: Red + Black + White
A set of red, white and black icons that includes a few different hearts.

Grunge Hearts
A set of four grunge heart vectors.

Valentine 1
A vector illustration of a girl holding a heart.

For My Sweet Love Valentine E-Cards
A set of 7 vector Valentine’s Day cards.

Dinner For 2
A vector illustration with two place settings and hearts.

HeartVectors
A collection of assorted heart vectors.

Valentine Card 2
A vector Valentine’s Day card.

Valentine
A vector heart with flourishes and a patterned background.

Cute Goth
A set of cute goth illustrations that includes skulls and hearts.

Vector Wallpaper 1
A vector wallpaper made up entirely of patterned hearts.

Winged Heart
A hot pink winged heart with flames and an orange background.

Flowery Hearts Vector
A beautiful heart vector illustration with a floral motif.

Icons

Heart Vector Set
A set of heart-shaped vector icons.

Heart: A Free Social Icon Set
A set of heart-shaped social networking icons from Smashing Magazine.

Valentine Love Icons
A set of twelve free heart icons.

Brushes

Hearts II Photoshop Brushes
26 brushes in total. For Photoshop 7+, Photoshop Elements 2+, GIMP 2.2.6+.

Whit Love
16 love Photoshop CS3 brushes.

St. Valentine brushes
11 valentine Photoshop CS3 brushes.

Sparkles Brushes
12 brushes in total.

Hearts Pattern Pack III
10 heart-shape patterns.

Heart Brushes
A set of 36 heart brushes for Photoshop in varying styles from XPhotoshoperX.

Happy Heart Attack
A set of 9 Photoshop brushes, in a hand-drawn style, from Eraweb.

Photoshop Heart Brushes
23 hand-drawn heart brushes.

Pastel Heart Patterns
A set of pastel heart patterns for Photoshop by Nayume.

Hearts Pattern
A set of simple heart patterns for Photoshop from XVanillaSky.

Patterns and Textures

Heart Bokeh Textures
A set of bokeh texture backgrounds from Gloeckchen.

Heart Blue Bokeh Texture
A blue bokeh texture background by Erykucciola-stock.

Bokeh Pack 5
A set of multi-colored bokeh textures from Joannastar-Stock.

About Author – Cameron Chapman is a professional Web and graphic designer with over 7 years of experience. She writes for a number of blogs, including her own, Cameron Chapman On Writing. She’s also the author of Internet Famous: A Practical Guide to Becoming an Online Celebrity.