Ryan O. Hicks

Download the Vertical Ribbon PSD below.

Download the call to action button PSD freebie below.

I love the playlistnow.fm search bar. So I decided to re-create it and offer it up as a free PSD for everyone.

I also love the site. So if you haven’t checked it out. Give it a go!

Download the Safari v5.1(OSX Lion) Download Manager PSD Freebie below.

With the recent release of OSX Lion, Safari received a slight overhaul on the UI and feature list. One of those enhancements was an update to the Safari download manager. I think the UI for the download manager is very cool, and of course retains that apple contemporary sleek look. So I made a psd for it in photoshop, and maybe someone will find it useful for their project(s).

I work for Wisechoice Brands, LLC as their UI/UX Web Designer. The first project I was put in charge of was to redesign one of their sites, ScholarshipExperts.com. Below is a case study or the general process in which I took to redesign the homepage.

As with any project I start out with my wireframes. It’s very important to get your ideas down through the research phase, see something visual, and wire framing is a quick and dirty way to do that. There are numerous ways to go about doing this. Prototyping tools are available to help speed the wire framing process up and make it look more organized than old school methods, which consisted of sketching. One of my favorite tools to use is Balsamiq. However, I am old school. The majority of my wire frames are sketched on paper. It is easier and quicker to me. There are essentially three types of wire frames; Low Fidelity, Medium Fidelity, High Fidelity. Medium is rarely used or talked about. Low fidelity wire frames consist usually of sketches or rough mockup comps of an idea that shows very little detail. Usually has the main elements in place, annotations, and specific call to actions(CTA) are displayed on the comps. Medium fidelity wire frames are comps that consist of design elements taking shape, CTAs being placed in specific areas, possibly color palettes being implemented, and start to see the overall design being more developed into something engaging for the user. High fidelity wire frames are comps that closely represent the final design of the product.

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In this tutorial I will be walking you through how I created my digital piece, “What weather do you want?”. This is a photo manipulation tutorial that combines some adjustment layers, filter effects, and some simple pen/lasso tool work.
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In this tutorial I will be walking you through how I created my digital piece, “Mother Nature”. This is a simple photo manipulation of a few stock photographs and some brush work.

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