The Place to Be

Hi.

Where do you get resources like PSD’s for Facebook Covers, Business Cards etc?

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Create them myself?

Or are you looking for stock art?

Make, shoot, draw them myself
Hire an illustrator or photographer
Internet searches (followed up by tracking down the owner as needed)
Stock art:

  • Getty Images
  • iStock Photo
  • Shutterstock
  • Alamy

Aren’t there any website where we can download layered PSD files??

You’ve likely done Google searches and come up short on what you’re looking for. The shortage might be because layers are typically dependent upon the needs of the designer’s particular project and created by the designer as he or she works with the files.

There might be downloadable layered PSD files with an image and type or some other object on a separate layer that people can change themselves, but given that this is a professional design forum, I doubt many here have much experience with these sorts of pre-built, easy-bake graphics. It all really depends on what you’re needing, I suppose.

Thank you for the input.

Been searching a lot indeed, but there must be a hidden gem somewhere that I haven’t found.

Mostly looking for simple things like Business Cards and head letters perhaps Facebook covers.

Please share your knowledge.

Can you be more explicit about what you’re looking for?

Hi Steve,

I’m looking for PSD files of business cards and corporate graphics. Which I can edit and use for my company.

As a starting company I really don’t have the funds yet to hire a graphic designer.

Business cards and corporate graphics are prepared in vector formats (think Adobe Illustrator or InDesign), not raster formats (Adobe Photoshop).

The reason for this has mostly to do with resolution of the finished piece. Vector graphics are scalable to any resolution and print at the maximum resolution of the output device, which is often around three or four thousand dots per inch (which is different from a halftone dot resolution or the resolution of the image itself). Photoshop files optimized for that kind of output resolution would be cumbersome to work with, so they’re not typically used. As the name implies, Photoshop is mostly an application used for photos and scanned images.

I’m not saying that you can’t find inappropriate things made with Photoshop, but a good graphic designer would never do it that way.

Wow. I didn’t have a clue about that.

Thank you so much!

I did managed to find ESP files and downloaded Adobe Illustrator to open them.

But it has no layers, how can I edit the text only or which solution would you advise?

I have 0 experience with illustrator.

All tough I know my way with PS a bit.

Illustrator has layers similar to Photoshop, but in reality, every object in an Illustrator file is on a separate layer of sorts. In other words, all the objects are stacked over the objects below it.

If you’ve downloaded an EPS file with live type (type that hasn’t be outlined), you should just be able to select it with the type tool from the menu and start typing. If the type has been outlined, you can’t really edit it since it’s no longer associated with a font. Instead, select it with one of the arrow tools and delete it. Then, using the type tool, click your cursor at the appropriate place on the art board and start typing. You can change the typeface and point size just like in Photoshop.

There are some gotchas in all of this, like grouped objects and accidentally attaching your text to object paths, but if you run into those kinds of things, just ask.

Just to go a little off-topic and a little opinionatedly (no surprise there); you talk about starting a business, so not having any money to hire a designer. If you were opening a shop and needed it refitting, would you not hire the right people to do that? Or perhaps do the electrics yourself as it’s cheaper?

Let’s say you set up this amazing business with everything in place to be a success, but you cobble together a kitchen table brand that looks like your nephew did it with his felt tips (not implying that will be the case, but to illustrate a point). What will potential customers read about that business? They will read, amateur, shoddy, lack of care and no attention to detail. There is worth in how you communicate your business, it’s values and emotional capital.

Why does everyone think they can do this themselves with free templates? It takes years to learn how to do this. There are many facets to communicating one person’s thoughts and ideas to another / others. Business communications are just that; communications. It is not about being a pretty afterthought.

What value do you put how potential customers perceive what you do?

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