But hold the phones! This isn’t just any old e-card! That’s right, you can send personalized e-cards using Aviary’s suite of image editing tools!

Here is a collection of free e-card templates for you to use and send to all your lovers this Valentine’s Day.
To send one, select any of the following cards, then click the “Send to Friends” link found on the right hand side of the page to send it to your lover! (Separate email addresses with commas to send to multiple lovers.)

“I picked you” by meowza on Aviary

”Tweet Nothingness” by meowza on Aviary

”Zombie Love” by meowza on Aviary

You can also use select the “Open in Image Editor” link to edit the card to your heart’s content.
To add your own text to the card, simply disable the Text layer and type in your own custom message using the Text Tool.



Or, select the File > Import File function to import your own photographs into the templates for maximum personalizing fun!

”His heart” by meowza on Aviary

”Her heart” by meowza on Aviary



Here are some more free templates for you to use, generously provided by Aviary user, jeffdoute.
“Will you be mine ecard” by jeffdoute on Aviary
”Valentine Hearts” by jeffdoute on Aviary

Or make your own from scratch using any of Aviary’s free online tools!

Go on, show that special someone that they’re not too bad this Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines!]]>

As of today, we have decided to make using Aviary’s suite of editing tools FREE for everyone.

At Aviary, we believe that everyone in the world should have access to powerful creation tools. We therefore chose our company mission to be We make creation accessible to everyone. Our powerful set of tools helps fulfill this mission by enabling small businesses, students, artists & creators across different genres.

As a business, we did need to bring in revenues to cover our costs and development and to accomplish this we created a tiered pricing plan for certain types of uses. Although this was financially successful for us, the side effect of this was that our tools and their features (in their full capacity), were not truly accessible to everyone.

We have long felt that to better serve our core mission our complete feature set needed to be in the hands of everyone – not just those who could afford it. Fortunately, our recent round of funding (by Spark Capital, Bezos Expeditions & others) enables us to finally achieve this goal as we shift revenues opportunities to other exciting areas that don’t limit individuals in any way. We are excited at the opportunity to stay true to our mission. Not many companies are so fortunate.

What does that mean exactly? Now everyone can:

* Save private files on Aviary.
* Add your own automatic watermark or go watermark-free.
* Access all tutorials.

Existing subscribers who signed up in the last 30 days can request refunds. [refund@aviary.com] For all other past Blue plan members, we will cancel all future recurring payments directly. You will remain on indefinitely as our legacy Blue Supporters (recognized by the blue badges wherever they appear on Aviary’s site) and you will continue to gain first access to all alpha products we release (rumor has it that a new one is floating around). And of course, we can’t thank you enough for supporting Aviary’s growth and development. That means the world to us.

Thanks for your continued support and we looking forward to seeing what you create.

What you waiting for? Go create something AWESOME !]]>

our flock to include a couple of new faces and one face that’s very familiar to Aviary users.

In order of addition, welcome to Mike Peutz (mpeutz), Ana Rosansky (ana) and Ralph Hauwert.

Mike Peutz, otherwise known as mpeutz in our forums was easily Aviary’s most prolific user. We like to think of him as Aviary’s Mozart. He showed us ways to use Aviary’s tools that even we didn’t think were possible. Check out some of the top creations by Mike, to get a sense for his complete mastery of Aviary. So when it was time to bring on someone who could help round out Aviary’s user experience from an application detail perspective we knew that Mike was the only real choice we had.

Ana Rosansky, (Ana in Aviary), joins us from IAC where she worked on CollegeHumor (internally, one of our favorite sites to waste productive time on) and other IAC properties doing market analytics and user experience. Most recently she worked with Vogue on their digital marketing strategy. She will direct Aviary’s marketing strategy going forwards and work on crafting a site that is easier to use and navigate for everyone. Additionally, she will help unite the Worth1000 and Aviary brands more closely.

Lastly, Aviary’s success has always been about the depth of its engineering team. Today we are excited to announce another All Star to our roster: Ralph Hauwert, one of the first members of Papervision3D, a frequent speaker at top Flash conferences and frankly, one of the most respected names in the Flash space will be joining us to lead development on some of our top-secret initiatives. His work (several awesome demos of which are viewable on his web site) is enormous and in great demand. We are absolutely thrilled to have him join the Aviary flock.

We will be profiling these new members of the Aviary flock in individual blog posts shortly. In the meantime, please join me in welcoming them to the Aviary team!]]>

Magnetic Poetry kits? You know, those novelty products featuring words adhered to magnetic tiles which you can arrange to form lines of prose on your fridge?

If you don’t, today I present to you a template from which you can create these fascinating refrigerator poems in Aviary!

And if you do remember them, today I present to you a template from which you can create these fascinating refrigerator poems in Aviary!



To begin, launch the Refrigerator Magnet template.

The application is very simple to use. When you launch the template, you’ll be presented with a graphic of a refrigerator, with a series of words surrounding it.



To compose your poem, simply click then drag your desired words onto the fridge.



Then, it’s just a matter of arranging your chosen words on the canvas to create your very own poem!
Simple, isn’t it?

Sometimes, the challenge of making a creation comes in the form of limitations you’re presented with in a particular setting. In this challenge, the goal is to make your own lines of prose, poetry, one-liners, philosophical meanderings, using only the words and word fragments presented in the application.

What may seem like a simple challenge at first may throw you off down the line, as you find yourself scrambling for words outside of the present inclusions!

When you’re satisfied with your poem, click the “Save As” button in the top right corner and follow the on-screen instructions to save the image to Aviary.
Additionally, you can save a flattened copy of the graphic to your computer by selecting File > Export > Export Bitmap.



Once your poem is saved, you can go to your creation page and select the “Send to Friends” option in the right hand column to send the poem to anyone you desire.



Go on try making some poems yourself, using Aviary’s Refrigerator Magnetic Poetry generator! And you won’t even need to get up to go to the fridge… unless you want a Coke.
Next blog post, Brewing Homemade Cola in Aviary. I may need to sleep on this one.

Here are a few examples:
Old Man Poem.egg by meowza on Aviary
Abe.egg by meowza on Aviary

Try making some of your own!
You can post them as comments here, or participate in the forum thread.
I’ll include my favorites in this blog post.]]>

In this example, I’m going to show how to create and place your own personalized image on a coffee mug that you can order online.
Personalized products always make great gifts for friends or loved ones or friends that you love.

What better way to say “I care” than with a gift of a personalized… “mug”!


There are a number of online shops that allow you to order custom products. For my example, I’ll be using Zazzle.

To begin, open Raven, Aviary’s Online Vector Editor.



Using Raven’s powerful vector drawing tools, you can create fully scalable art, suitable for printing on various products.



New to Raven? Here’s a tutorial on the basic functions of Raven to help you get started creating vector art. Or, check out the Raven Documentation for further information on the application.

When you’re satisfied with the image, you will need to download the image to your computer.
To do so, Select Export > Export Bitmap from the Menu, select your file extension from the pop-up (I would recommend the PNG format for the least destructive compression), then select “Generate Image” to download the image to your computer.



Once your image is downloaded, launch Zazzle’s custom mug creator.

Select “Add Image” and add the Raven creation you had previously saved to your computer.



Then it’s all a matter of moving, resizing and positioning the graphic where you want it oriented on the mug.



When you’re satisfied with the graphic and orientation, go on and purchase the product, park your seat in front of the mailbox, and wait for your very own personalized mug to arrive!



Additionally, you can even post your mug for sale in Zazzle’s marketplace to earn yourself some serious money for every sale you generate from your design!

To open and explore the vector file used in my example, click the image below to launch the design in Raven, Aviary’s online vector editor.

Octodrink.egg by meowza on Aviary]]>

The humanitarian in all of us wants to do whatever we can to help.
So what can we, as a community of artists, do?

One way to spread awareness is by creating and bearing graphics, banners, or avatars on your website or social media networks showing your support for the relief efforts.

One of the sad realities is that during situations of major disaster response, rights management for photograph usage become ignored or overlooked, and finding graphics to use to show your support become scarce.
So in this post, I’ve included a template for you to personalize and customize for free use on your site.

Personalizing the Banner

To customize the banner, first, click the following image to open the template in Aviary’s online editor:


To customize the Helped Haiti text on the banner, select the “Help” Layer from the Layers Menu and select the Text Tool. Then, just type in your custom text over the existing words.



You can also change the “Support relief aid in Haiti” text by selecting the “Support” Layer from the Layers Menu and following the same instructions.

To import your website or personal logo to the image, select File > Import Image from the Menu.
Follow the on-screen instructions to upload an image from your computer, from a URL, or from an online photo sharing site into the template.

If the uploaded image is larger than the canvas size of the banner, select “Resize Image” to resize the graphic to fit the canvas when prompted.



Then, use the Transformation Tool to resize, rotate, and move the graphic where you want on the banner.



To save the image to your computer for uploading to your own site, you can either save the image to Aviary’s server by selecting “Save As” and following the on-screen instructions, or you can save it your computer.

To save it to your computer, select File > Export Image and select the file format you want, probably JPG from the dropdown.
Then select “Generate Image” to generate and download the graphic to your computer.



You are now ready to upload your custom banner to display on your website so all your friends, family, and followers can see you support the relief efforts.



Here are free templates for you to use and display on your own sites:

728 px x 90 px:


300 px x 250 px:


Please do not hesitate to create your own graphics, banners, and templates as well.
If you create a template that you would be willing to share with the public, please link it here or in the forum thread, so I can share it in this blog post.

Our hearts go out to you, Haiti.]]>

Staff Member: Meowza

Welcome to the first in a new series of staff spotlights. I thought we would start of with the awesome Mr. Meowza Katz. Author of Aviary’s first book, technical reader for the second, (Introducing Aviary), artist extraordinaire and all round funny Mr Nice Guy. If you haven’t seen his work you don’t know what you are missing. And if you have, this may be a small insight into the world of Meowza…


So, Meowza, introduce yourself

Hi, my name is Meowza. I’m a drawler of things from Vancouver, Canada.
My likes include peppermint gum, erasers that look like food, and my yittle fiancéface.
My dislikes include erasers that look like pink.

Q. What do you do here at Aviary?

I’m an illustrator, designer, brander, writer-of-bloggy-things here at Aviary. I drew all them birdy and egg icons you see on the site. I wrote many of the Phoenix tutorials and lessons found in the Tutorials section, forums, and in the first Aviary book, More Than One Way to Skin a Cat. I also help design graphics, slides, promotional material for external use in presentations, shows, exhibitions, etc. I’m also a contributor to the Aviary [url=http://aviary.com/blog]blog[/url] where I post things that interest me and probably two other people!

Q. Walk me through a typical day on your end of Aviary?

I don’t have a typical day here at Aviary, as different needs arise for different occasions. I usually prioritize requests made by members of the team who need graphics for the site, promotional material, etc. so that if anyone else needs a design, I’ll make sure to get the most urgent needs addressed first. I’ll also spend my time trying to come up with relevant projects, challenges, design ideas for tutorials, threads, and blog posts for you cool cats to play around with.

Q.How did you get started with Aviary?

I was a frequent contributor to Aviary’s sister site, Worth1000.com. When they started Aviary, Avi asked me early on to design some of the early logos, ads and teasers for the suite. As the site grew and evolved, I continued on designing new thingies to go along with the new thingies on the site. Wait a minute, if Aviary was birthed from Worth1000, but Worth1000 is Aviary’s sister…

Q.Tell us something that no one might know about you.?

What I look like.

Q. What are the 3 things you would most like to see happen to (/at/on) Aviary?

The three things I want to see happen most at Aviary are, *********** ** *** ****, ****-**** *************, and *** ***********. These are all features that are currently in development to be released this year, so I can’t really mention them quite yet. So my 4th, 5th, and 6th, things I would most like to see here are:
· Additional user stats and rewards that would give users to create frequently, such as creation milestone awards.
· Challenges given more prominence on the site somehow so they’re not just reserved to those who come check out the forums.
· A frequently requested feature and one that will probably be implemented, is for users to be able to organize their own creations.

Q. What is your favourite junk food?

Coca-Cola and popcorn.

Q. What are your favourite creations that you have made here on aviary ?

Some off the top of my head are:

Matching Light I just think elephants are cute.


SeaMonster I just think the little lizard is cute.


In The Clouds I just think massive deities with full ‘stache/beard are cute


Q. Who or what influences your art and is there any other form of art that you particularly enjoy doing?

I’m most inspired by cartoons in most of the forms of art I do, especially the fundamentals nurtured through the characters of Looney Toons. Even in my non-cartoony creations, I still draw inspiration from my cartoon roots in terms of trying to make images with strong readability. Cartoons are caricatures of life, simplified to maximize appeal and relatability to a viewer. If a design doesn’t work in it’s most basic stripped-down ideals, all the fancy bells and whistles you add won’t help it.
In my spare time, I mostly enjoy playing around with character design and experimenting with textures, evident in some of my personal work at www.meowza.org.

Anything else you would like to say ?

I graduated from the same high school that Colin Mochrie did.

Thanks Meowza, for that extraordinarily awesome incite into your life here at Aviary

Some of my all time faves……

]]>

The importance of good design is especially important in something like video game character design, as characters do hold the personal link between the game and the player. I mean, if you don’t care about the character, why would you need to see to it that he succeeds?

I took on the nearly impossible task of trying to come up with my list of the Top Ten Video Game Character Designs. Please note that my selections were based purely on the character designs and how they relate to the game, rather than for their popularity and general success in the consciousness of the gaming public.
The definition of good design varies from selection to selection in my list, as great designs need not follow one set of rules. Various factors can make a design good, such as overall aesthetics, practicality within the confines of the game they’re set in, to just plain looking awesome.

With that said, here are my top ten choices:

10. Hotsuma – Shinobi (PS2)
He’s just a beautifully designed character in general. But what sets him a cut above just being a “cool character” is the way his long, flowing red scarf plays an integral part in the flow of the character’s every move. It’s not as if the scarf was tagged on as an afterthought so he looks good, but rather plays a definitive role in the general aesthetics of the character, in a lightning paced hack-and-slash game which finds the character dashing and rolling through the air over chasms and obstacles regularly with exquisite grace.

9. The Long Block – Tetris

I know, I know. There’s nothing that should be aesthetically pleasing with the “l” block in Tetris. Say what you will about this choice, but when you’ve been building up your stack with only layers away to certain doom, there is no more beautiful sight in the world to see than The Long Block.



8. Earthworm Jim
Many years ago, I remember reading about Dave Perry who left Virgin Games to start Shiny Entertainment. Totally enthralled by the fluidity of the graphics in his previous games (Aladdin, Cool Spot), I couldn’t wait to see what he developed with Shiny. Not long after, the company released several concept sketches for Earthworm Jim, and I was ecstatic. The character held all the virtues of what made classical cartoons of the 70s and 80s great, while the facial expressions, and most importantly, the dramatic body language deployed by the character, while donning the space suit, created one of the most “readable” characters in video games.

7. Sackboy – Little Big Planet
The most recent of the selections in this list is of one of the most gorgeous games ever created on any console. There is no character more perfect to take the helm of this multimedia world than our wool-knit hero. Textures aside, the character works even as a 2-D cartoon because the facial aesthetics of the character are so whimsically proportioned and comical that you can’t help but smile when you see him in his various forms.




6. The Cast of Team Fortress 2

My inclusion of Team Fortress 2 echoes the sentiment of Avi’s post on Half Life from a while back. Basically, if you’ve never played a First Person Shooter in your life and picked up Team Fortress 2, you would have to have no prior knowledge of the game, characters, or mechanics to know what every character’s role on the field is. The designs behind the characters draws from our own graphical associations and stereotypes as good, if not better, than any other game out there.

5. Pac Man

To the irony of many jokes on the design, the creator of Pac Man’s design, Toru Iwatami, did, in fact, conceptualize the character while looking down on his pizza with a missing slice. I’m not going to sit here and say that Pac Man is a brilliant design by any means, but with all practicality, game context, and platform limitations considered, there could not have been a more perfect character design for the game. Not to mention, Pac Man still holds the highest brand awareness to any video game character in North America.



4. Sonic the Hedgehog

With the progression of 3D games in the industry near the end of the 90s, we saw the dramatic downfall of one of video games most beloved characters. But I am keeping Sonic on this list because there are not many who parallel his relevance in his prime than Sonic did in the early 90s. Often imitated, no other character quite embodied the quick, snarky, Generation X attitude befit for the 90s the way Sonic did. Perhaps it’s in part due to the way he perfectly captured the attitude of the times why he couldn’t carry through the turn of the century as his base of fans grew up.





3. Solid Snake – Metal Gear Solid

The baddest character design in video games. Ever. From his constant furrowed brow due to his low worn sash, to being covered neck to toe in some of the most recognizable bodysuits designed since the costume worn by Spiderman, Snake embodies everything “cool” in a character design. So recognizable are his suits that anyone who dares put it on is instantly distinguishable as Snake, regardless of who has it on.




2. Mario

No video game list would be complete without him. It’s interesting to note that a lot of Mario’s most synonymous features were elements designed out of necessity over design strategy. His trademark hat was added as a means to forego added work of animating hair when the character jumped, and his moustache was only added in to avoid the need to detail facial expressions under low resolution pixels. Ask a million designers with all the resources at their disposal to design an Italian plumber for a video game and I would bet not one of them would ever come up with a character design stronger, more recognizable over nearly thirty years, and iconic as the Mario we know today who was designed out of necessity and limitations.

1. Amaterasu – Okami

I said I wasn’t going for most famous or iconic, but rather the character I felt embodied all the elements of great design. Sure, a character like Mario works well in nearly any game (not produced for the Cd-i that is!) from platforms, to racing, to RPGs, so doesn’t that make him the more versatile of the two, while the white wolf of Okami would not work in nearly the same myriad of genres? My reason for picking the lead character of Okami is that it is because she fits so perfectly within her game that she becomes synonymous within the context of the world in which she is existing. Not to mention she is a gorgeous work of design to begin with, in maybe the most visually appealing games I’ve ever seen. Heavily inspired by the Japanese art styles of Sumi-e and Ukiyo-e, Okami is a game that literally paints a work of art from one scene to the next, with the white wolf, Amaterasu, at the forefront. My choice for this character as my top pick for best character design lies on the fact that, from a visual standpoint, you can pause the game during any frame and not only read the character’s body language, but experience a new work of art one would desire to frame and hang on their wall.




Of course this is only one person’s opinion.
The next time you’re playing a game and find yourself fascinated with the character on the screen, try asking yourself why that character holds appeal to you.

Are there any video game characters you find well designed? What makes their designs great in your opinion?]]>

If you had a one second job interview, how would you present yourself?
Instead of cramming your life story into that one second, you would be much better off using one or two words to convey your message.
In the case of a logo design when you only have a second of a viewer’s attention, how do you convey this message graphically?

Simplicity

In our most basic form, our ability to retain images is based on our brains breaking down graphical elements into their most basic shapes.

For more in-depth views on the importance of design foundation, please see my earlier post, Great Design Lies in the Foundation.

Almost all the most memorable logos in existence work for this very reason. A great logo, like most design, works even when it’s stripped down to its basic silhouette.



If you’re ever in doubt, analyze the silhouette of your own design and see how well your image maintains its readability.

Or, try the Pencil test.

Imagine, or mock-up, your logo as if it were printed on the side of your company pencil. If your logo is no longer recognizable at this scaled down size, you may want to reconsider the number or placement of the elements in your graphic.



And what type of shapes you use can have monumental impact on the overall feel of your brand.
For example, using hard angles/spikes conveys urgency and attention, while rounded corners invites a user with a sense of welcome and softness.
As with our own Aviary logo, we employed these ideals by using rounded connected shapes to convey an inviting atmosphere with a sense of freedom and fluidity.

Typeface

Imagine the style of font and lettering you use as your voice in this job interview.
Do you want to walk into this job interview with a loud, boisterous voice, announcing to the employer you’ve arrived?
Or do you want to convey a sense of playfulness in your tone?

Using the appropriate typeface can work as well as vocal expressions can for your brand identity.



Styles

There are several different approaches to crafting a logo.

Text – The Text logo uses only type to communicate the brand. Since this is the most basic of the various approaches, it is therefore of utmost importance to select the right font, and equally important, the right color(s), to identify your company with. This style is generally favored for informative websites and companies, as it presents a non-distracting element for a company intent on showcasing their most valuable assets, the content.

Symbol – The opposite of the Text logo, the Symbol logo is stripped down to its bare graphic form to communicate the company’s brand. This particular style is generally reserved for long established brands that have the luxury of such brand recognition.

Text and Symbol – With this particular style, the logo is usually presented as a graphic with adjacent text. The upside to this style is that it gives the logo a chance to convey its message through a graphical and vocal representation. The downside is that the added element can inadvertently inundate a user with sensory overload. But when done right, the text and symbol become synonymous in a viewer’s mind.

Embedded Symbol Within Text – This style places symbol(s) within a design’s type for subliminal recollection and identifiability of a brand. When employed correctly, this style can have long lasting rewards for a company, as the logo can, and should, stand strong on its own, with the added symbolism a prize for the attentive and the astute.

Color

Finally, color can play as important a role as any of the other aforementioned elements.

A user can identify with color using previous subconscious associations, providing long-lasting brand awareness for a company.
For example, the color red generally encompasses a sense of attention and energy, prevalent and befitting for something like a cola company.



Challenge

Using the preceding tips and your own observations, join in the forum fun and try creating a new logo for Aviary for fun!
Feel free to try your hand at using Aviary’s established brand to construct your logo, or give Aviary a whole new look and feel as your imagination deems fit!
Note: This is not a contest to design a new logo for Aviary, but rather a fun exercise in design.

Here are a few of my favorites from the community:
Aviary logo take two.egg by WalrusGumboot on Aviary
WalrusGumboot employed a literal approach that plays well to Aviary’s motto, “Creation on the fly”.
Aviary Logo.egg by mpeutz on Aviary
Mpeutz took the letters of the word “Aviary” and embedded it into the shape of a bird, an opposite take on Aviary’s current logo with the eggs embedded into the “Aviary” text.
Aviary Logo Contest.egg by kayjaycali on Aviary
Kayjaycali used simplicity. A design strategy often used by websites to not distract from the site’s content.
Logo, Caligraphy.egg by anderlohr on Aviary
Anderlohr applied a hand-drawn looking text to evoke a mood of loose, freehand artistry.
Aviary Logo Challenge.egg by FalseReflex on Aviary
FalseReflex created a design using shapes that evoked a sense of fun and airyness, giving Aviary a loose and playful environment in his interpretation.

Happy Aviating!]]>