By Steven Snell
Photoshop users are able to benefit from the vast amount of high-quality resources that are freely available to the community. Brushes get a lot of attention, but custom shapes are also extremely useful in the right situations. Finding a custom shape that has already been created can save you some time and headaches in your design, and fortunately there is a very wide variety of custom shapes available.
This post highlights 80 different sets of custom shapes (over 2,500 individual shapes) in several different categories. If you plan to download and use any of these shapes be sure to check to terms and conditions set by the creator of the shapes.
1. People
People Silhouettes (306 shapes)
Costumes and Characters Shapes (56 shapes)
Skateboarding (9 shapes)
Skater Collection (3 shapes)
Skateboarders (8 shapes)
Stock Girls (8 shapes)
Businessman Silhouettes (12 shapes)
Business Girls (12 silhouettes)
Jumping People Silhouettes (104 shapes)
Break Dancing (8 shapes)
Hoops (57 shapes)
Presentational Shapes (10 shapes)
Random People Shapes (11 shapes)
People Shape Set (25 shapes)
Hot Babes (7 shapes)
Go-Go Girls (18 shapes)
Sexy Stances (13 shapes)
Ladies (7 shapes)
Sexy Girls (47 shapes)
2. Animals
Birds (12 shapes)
Butterflies (38 shapes)
Horses (9 shapes)
Horses (15 shapes)
Zebras (6 shapes)
Sea Creatures (27 shapes)
Animals (10 shapes)
Animal Patterns (13 shapes)
Bugs (20 shapes)
Weathered Flying Bugs (21 shapes)
3. Planes and Boats
Aircraft (21 shapes)
Maritime (27 shapes)
WW2 Planes (13 shapes)
4. Guns and Weapons
Guns (30 shapes)
Guns (26 shapes)
Ray Guns and Laser Blasters (15 shapes)
I Love Weapons (12 shapes)
5. Halloween Shapes
Halloween Shapes (23 shapes)
Halloween Shapes (10 shapes)
6. Trees
Trees (17 shapes)
Dead Trees (24 shapes)
Live Trees (21 shapes)
Plan Trees (20 shapes)
7. Circles
Retro Circles (10 shapes)
Circles (10 shapes)
Circles, Lines and Sunlights (108 shapes)
8. Random Shapes
Stars (200 shapes)
Sunbursts (30 shapes)
Splats and Drips (15 shapes)
Splat Shapes (8 shapes)
Stains & Blots (34 shapes)
Drips (25 shapes)
Paisley (24 shapes)
Kiddy Stuffs (72 shapes)
Ribbon Collection (3 shapes)
Voters Collection (2 shapes)
Surfing Themed Shapes (6 shapes)
Hero Shapes (13 shapes)
Flames (5 shapes)
Markers (23 shapes)
Vector Shapes (13 shapes)
Arrows (10 shapes)
Speech Bubble Shapes (42 shapes)
Cartoon Shapes (25 shapes)
Assorted Logos (38 shapes)
CD & DVD Logos (7 shapes)
Foliage Shapes (371 shapes)
Tools (9 shapes)
I Love Skulls (12 shapes)
Urban Shapes (31 shapes)
World Map (3 shapes)
Banner and Scrolls (28 shapes)
Art Supplies (16 shapes)
Skyline Collection (6 shapes)
Arabeski (23 shapes)
9. Combination Packs
Custom Shapes Pack v. 1.1 (100 shapes)
Custom Shape Pack (45 shapes)
50s Custom Shapes (14 shapes)
Revolution Collection (6 shapes)
Custom Shape Mix (24 shapes)
Vector Shape Mix (50 shapes)
If you’re interested in learning more about the basics of custom shapes, how to load them, and how to create your own, try the following resources.
About the Author:
Steven Snell is a Web designer and freelance blogger who can be found on his own blogs: Vandelay Website Design and DesignM.ag. (al)
By Steven Snell
News websites can be intriguing to examine from a design perspective. Regardless of what type of news they cover, they all face the challenge of displaying a huge amount of content on the home page, which creates plenty of layout, usability and navigational challenges for the designer. The lessons that can be learned from examining how news websites address these challenges can be valuable for designers who work with other types of websites, including ones with blog theme designs.
Monetization is also a major factor for news websites, and it’s interesting to see how they integrate advertisements in the design. In some cases, the ads are somewhat intrusive or excessive, but most news websites are able to use ads without turning readers away, in part because of the content that’s available.
For the purposes of this article, the term “newspaper website” refers to any news-related website that has the editorial focus of an online periodical. Many of the websites mentioned here are the online versions of major newspapers, but others are standard news websites and some blur the line between news website and blog.
You may want to take a look at the following related posts:
- Award-Winning Newspaper Designs
This post is supposed to provide you with some examples of outstanding newspaper designs which have been rewarded with prestigious awards (see references at the bottom of this post), and demonstrate unusual approaches of newspaper design.
Common Trends of Newspaper Websites
1. Color Schemes
Most news websites use dark text on a white background. Obviously, these websites contain a huge volume of content, and readability is important. A few of the websites mentioned later in this article use darker colors for headers or for the body of the page outside the content.
A large percentage of news websites also use blue and red in addition to a dark gray or black for text. Blue is extremely common for headlines, article titles and links. Red is often used sparingly as an accent color. Some news websites also mix in more colors in other places, such as in the navigation.
The L.A. Times website demonstrates a common color scheme:
2. Header and Sidebar Banners
Of course, all of these websites need to produce revenue, and banner ads in headers are a key source of income. Some websites use banner ads on all pages, and others exclude banners on the home page but display them above the header on other pages.
While blogs commonly use 125 by 125 pixel banners in sidebars, news websites commonly use 300 by 250 banners or tall skyscrapers. Many of the websites mix in some AdSense or other text link ads.
The Telegraph uses a 730 by 90 pixel banner over its header.
3. Top Navigation
Although there are a few notable exceptions to this trend, most news websites put their primary navigation menu just below the header and above the content. The New York Times and MSNBC are two of the exceptions, as they both use the left sidebar for the main navigation.
The Times Online uses a two-level navigation menu.
4. Tabbed Content Areas
Many news websites use tabbed content areas that allow visitors to see popular articles, recent articles, most commented articles, etc. This is sometimes used in the sidebar, and other times in the main content area, such as on Wired. This allows for more control by users over what content and links they see, and it can save space in the design by making more content accessible in a specific area.
5. Grid-Based Layouts
Newspaper websites are commonly built with grid-based designs. The grid is a popular choice not only because of the sharp look it creates but because it’s one of the most effective ways to manage and organize a large amount of content. The New York Times has one of the more well-known grid-based layouts.
Notable Differences Between News Websites and Blogs
The line between a news website and a blog is a fine one, and the two types are difficult to distinguish sometimes. For the purpose of this article, “blog” refers more to a traditional blog than to a commercialized news blog by a team of writers. While there are certainly similarities between blogs and news websites, there are also some key differences.
Social Media Integration
Seeing widgets or voting buttons on blogs is extremely common; in fact, most blogs use them in one form or another. Most news websites, however, use them more subtly, if at all. It’s common to see a “Share” section on articles, such as the one shown below from ABC News, but voting buttons are not used in quite the same way as on blogs, where a standard “Digg This” button may appear at the top of every post. A growing number of news websites recognize the impact of social media, but they are still using such tools subtly in their designs.
A few websites shown in more detail below do make more use of social media than others. The Huffington Post has a section specifically to display stories that are new on Digg, and the website certainly makes plenty of front page appearances.
RSS Feeds
Subscriptions and RSS feeds are a huge part of blogging, and most blogs use large icons or FeedBurner counts to make it easy for visitors to subscribe. Most news websites, however, don’t push RSS feeds on readers like a blog would. Most news websites do offer feeds, often according to category of content, but they’re not a major part of the design or layout. In fact, most visitors probably don’t even notice the small icons or links to feeds. As RSS feeds become a part of the daily lives of average readers, this will probably change.
The Guardian promotes a link to its feed in the website’s header, but with much less attention drawn to it than most blog themes.
Comments
Reader comments and discussion are a critical element for most blogs, but they’re not as important to news websites. Many news websites allow readers to leave comments, but they’re usually an afterthought in the design and are rarely promoted the same way as they would be on a blog. For example, many blogs show excerpts of posts on the front page, and almost all will also show a comment count with the excerpt that links to the comment section. This is used on a few news websites, but it’s rare.
ABC News is one of the rare news websites that shows a comment count by the post excerpt on the home page.
A Look at 20 Leading Newspaper Websites
The Onion
Satirical news website The Onion features a grid-based design (it’s been called the funniest grid you ever saw) that makes excellent use of the screen space that’s available. There is a lot going on on the website, which can be both good and bad. The main navigation separates the content into video, radio, sports, election, etc.
The header includes an ad on each side, and the sidebar has some advertising as well, but nothing too intrusive. Some parts of the home page are used essentially as advertisements for features that are part of The Onion, such as The Onion Personals and The Onion Store.
New York Times
The website of the New York Times is another well-known grid. The majority of the website’s navigation is down the left side of the page, which is not as common as top navigation. The website does use a tabbed navigation bar at the top with links to such features as “Today’s paper,” “Video,” and “Most popular,” but all of the content category links, such as World, U.S., Politics, Business, etc., are down the side.
The website’s design includes a nice use of blue and black headers and links, with a touch of red added in a few places, such as the time of an article’s publication. Overall, the New York Times presents one of the better newspaper websites.
Chicago Tribune
Unlike many of the other websites featured here, the Chicago Tribune uses only one small banner in the header of its home page, although individual article pages use a 730 by 90 banner. Aside from the header, the rest of the home page is fairly ad-heavy, including text link ads.
The content on the Chicago Tribune website is spaced out a bit more than, for example, the New York Times’. Again, blue is used for headers and links, with a touch of red.
Washington Post
The Washington Post also uses the common colors of blue, black (or dark gray) and red on a white background. The header includes a small 290 by 45 banner, and the top of the sidebar includes a 300 by 250 banner. The rest of the home page contains only a few other small banner ads.
The layout of content on the home page is focused on providing categorized links to specific content. An image is included for the lead story, but other headlines ab
