About marinaduque

Hey! My name is Marina, and I'm a Toronto based Web & Graphic Designer, Artist and Illustrator with over 20 years experience.
26 March 26, 2017

How to Design and Add a Banner to Your WordPress Sidebar Widget

2023-05-04T00:41:58+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Marketing, Photoshop, Website Design, WordPress|

How to Design and Add a Banner to Your WordPress Sidebar Widget In this video tutorial, I am going to show you how to design and add a banner to your WordPress Sidebar Widget along with the HTML code. What should you put on your sidebar? ✓ Mail Opt-In Form ✓ Mini Bio no longer than 2 sentences ✓ Your own banner ads ✓ Blogroll limited to between 10-20 posts. ✓ Affiliate banner ads limited to no more than 2-3 ✓ Search bar (should be at the very top) ✓ Any other text/links that doesn't run too long that are crucial [...]

22 March 22, 2017

Kerning, Leading, Tracking, Widows, Orphans, Rags and Rivers

2023-05-04T00:06:01+00:00By |Graphic Design, Illustrator|

Kerning, Leading, Tracking, Widows, Orphans, Rags and Rivers Ya, the title of this post is pretty funny. What on earth is that you say? Well, if you are a typography guru, then you will understand. In my third year of University, I took a mandatory course in Typography. I'm not quite certain how my professor did it, but he managed to spend half a year just talking about what kerning and tracking was. You will see below my guide to what all this means. But why are all these things essential? Good design requires that all these rules be met. Sure, design software has [...]

22 March 22, 2017

What is Mechanical Paste-Up?

2023-05-04T00:01:22+00:00By |Graphic Design|

What is Mechanical Paste-Up Mechanical Paste-up refers to a method of creating or laying out publication pages that predates the use of the now-standard computerized page design desktop publishing programs. Completed, or camera-ready, pages are known as mechanicals or mechanical art. Wikipedia Here. Way Back When Back in 1994, I applied for the opportunity as a co-op student to work at large bank in their graphics department. For a whole year, I was shown the in’s and out’s of graphic design, “mechanical paste-up” and introduced to the world of designing on a computer. Back then, Corel 3.0 was the program [...]

16 March 16, 2017

Best Free Cloud Accounting for Freelancers

2023-05-03T23:58:41+00:00By |Entrepreneurship|

Best Free Cloud Accounting for Freelancers I was recently asked by an industry leader in cloud accounting to write a non biased view on what my thoughts were regarding cloud accounting, my experiences with it, any ups, any downs and any tips. So here is my write up on the Best Free Cloud Accounting Software for Freelancers. MICROSOFT WORD + EXCEL When I first got into freelancing for Graphic Design (which was back in 2007 when I decided not to return to work after mat leave), I actually started invoicing in Microsoft Word. Mostly because cloud accounting was not the norm and [...]

10 March 10, 2017

How to Design Business Cards + Downloadable Template

2023-05-04T00:39:28+00:00By |Graphic Design, Illustrator, Marketing, Photoshop|

Download my Free Business Card Templates below: Landscape 3.5" x 2" (.ai file) (.0125" margins) (.0125" bleed) Portrait 3.5" x 2" (.ai file) (.0125" margins) (.0125" bleed) How to Design Business Cards + Downloadable Template In this video, I teach you how to set up a business card as well as some tips and tricks in Adobe Illustrator for designing a simple business card that has a front and back element. Why you should NOT design business cards in Adobe Photoshop There are several reasons why you should not design a business card in Photoshop. If you click on my post [...]

8 March 8, 2017

How to Design a Book Cover Mockup in Adobe Photoshop

2023-05-02T13:34:44+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Marketing, Photoshop|

How to Design a Book Cover Mockup in Adobe Photoshop Watch my video tutorial below which shows you how to Design a Book Cover Mockup in Adobe Photoshop. A great resource I found was at a website called Covervault. He has a variety of different book cover mockups ready for you to download to insert your own book cover in. This is a great tool if you are an Author, or if you are designing for an Author, or someone who wants to showcase or promote a book or a downloadable Ebook. It actually looks even better than taking a [...]

7 March 7, 2017

5 Best Places to Get Free Digital Assets

2023-05-02T13:33:23+00:00By |Graphic Design, Photoshop, Website Design, WordPress|

5 Best Places to Get Free Digital Assets In any designer's arsenal, lies a stack of digital assets. These can range from social media icons to stock photos, to vector art. If you are a fellow designer, I'm pretty sure that you have your own stash of handy resources.  Here are my 5 best places to get free digital assets: 1. Creative Market Creative Market is a platform for handcrafted, mousemade design content from independent creatives around the world. Picture Etsy but with digital products. Every Monday, they feature 6 free downloads. This can range from custom created fonts, to [...]

1 March 1, 2017

My 4×6 Foot Roy Lichtenstein Painting

2023-05-04T12:17:15+00:00By |Art|

My Roy Lichtenstein Painting Roy Lichtenstein is one of my favourite artists. You can tell because I painted another one of his paintings here called "Girl with Hair Ribbon". About Roy Lichtenstein American artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923 - 1997) was born in New York City and grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He was one of most influential artists in the pop art movement. His style largely derived from comic strips, portrayed the trivialization of culture endemic in contemporary American life. Using bright, strident colors and techniques borrowed from the printing industry, he ironically incorporated mass-produced emotions and objects into [...]

27 February 27, 2017

How to Paint Roy Lichtenstein’s Girl with Hair Ribbon

2023-05-04T12:18:08+00:00By |Art|

How to Paint Roy Lichtenstein's Girl with Hair Ribbon Check out the painting I did below of Roy Lichtenstein's Girl with Hair Ribbon. I toyed with the idea of doing actual Benday Dots on her face by using circular stickers, and then thought an easier way out was just to colour her face nude, like alot of other replicas do, but instead, I used a red sharpie and went nuts on her face. Check out the other painting I did of Roy Lichtenstein on a 4 x 6 canvas. About Roy Lichtenstein American artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923 - 1997) was born [...]

27 February 27, 2017

Romero Britto Painting Inspiration

2023-05-02T13:14:33+00:00By |Art|

Romero Britto Painting Inspiration I first encountered a Romero Britto painting aboard the Disney Dream Cruise. It was a showcase of his Mickey Mouse project. After that, I became smitten with his work and ran into his stuff again at a local Christian bookstore where his art was now on ceramic mugs and notebooks of the sort. His style is pop art, an era which I love as you can see from the two Lichtenstein paintings I did previously. I love the colour and bold lines. So in my 8th month of pregnancy, I decided this would be the last painting [...]

Go to Top