A blog by Kelly Barkhurst featuring articles about Full Stack Design and Full Stack Development.
Ever stretched a pattern in Illustrator and wondered why it looks distorted—or why it won’t move with your shape? Learn how to precisely align, scale, and reposition pattern fills using the Transform Patterns option and the tilde (~) key shortcut. Perfect for designers who want more control and cleaner results.
Recreate the bold Smartwool “CHASE WOAH” postcard in Adobe Illustrator. This step-by-step tutorial covers Pathfinder cuts, text-to-shape techniques, embedding images, clipping masks, and exporting a print-ready PDF. A perfect copycat exercise to sharpen your print design skills while learning Illustrator essentials.
In this Illustrator-based tutorial, we’re taking a closer look at an iconic piece of design history: the logo designed by Alan Fletcher for the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in 1989. Not only is this logo visually striking, but it’s also a masterclass in typography, iteration, and creative problem-solving. Today, I’ll show you how to analyze it and even create a “copycat” version to learn...
Learn how the DOM tree affects heading hierarchy in web design. Improve accessibility, SEO, and UX by mastering H1–H3 structure and real-word example of using Wix Studio effectively.
Recreate the iconic 1962 Moderna Museet poster in Adobe Illustrator. Learn clipping masks, grids, and kerning in this hands-on typography tutorial inspired by modernist design.
Copycat Design Series Have you ever wondered how designers bend and warp text perfectly into custom shapes—like the Pringles logo’s bowtie? In Illustrator, it feels like magic when you see it happen with just one click. But here’s the catch: not every logo plays so nicely. Take the Harley-Davidson badge, for example. The word MOTOR across the top isn’t something Illustrator can nail with a single...
In this installment of the CopyCat Design Series, we’re diving into the iconic LA Dodgers interlocking monogram logo. By studying and rebuilding this design in Adobe Illustrator, we’ll practice typography basics, anchor point editing, and interlocking letterforms—skills you can apply to your own monograms and logotypes. A Brief History of the LA Dodgers Logo The Dodgers’ “LA” monogram is one of...
In this post from our Copycat Design Series, we’ll walk through how to recreate one of the most iconic logos of all time: the Olympic rings. Along the way, we’ll dig into the history, explore the official brand guidelines, and learn some Illustrator techniques that you can apply to any design project. Table of ContentsWatch then read (Video Tutorial)Understanding the DesignHow to Analyze and...
Juggling back-to-school schedules? Instead of typing practices and games into Apple Calendar one by one, I used ChatGPT to instantly generate an iCal file. With a single download, all the events appeared in our shared family calendar—saving time and preventing mistakes. Here’s how you can do it too.
Tired of seeing generic “(Item)” breadcrumbs on your Wix Studio Dynamic Pages? Learn how to create custom breadcrumb trails that display your item’s actual name using Velo code. This step-by-step guide walks you through identifying the right dataset, CMS fields, and breadcrumb IDs—plus exactly how to update the script to suit your project.