Hey All – it’s (the other) Pete reflecting on another amazing season at iD Tech! This is the moment that everyone gets to take a nice long breath before diving back in and finding new, exciting ways to make 2011 even better. Of course, iD Tech doesn’t really stop – iD 365 is active all year round and is an awesome way to keep the iD spirit alive while waiting for summer to finally reappear.

While all of the other folks at iD are catching up on their much needed beauty sleep (ahem… Josh!), I figured it was prime time to take over the blog and fill it with some of the incredible stuff that happened this summer across the world of iD. There’s so much to cram in that I’ll have several posts over the coming week covering Nachos, iDX and new games!

All of our camps are connected via an active online community in order to share ideas, stories, advice and concerns to help make every camp better. The more we share, the more we learn and the better everyone does their jobs. Luckily for me, there is an entire Forum based solely around Nachos, a staff incentive program that encourages staffers to go above and beyond in their work. This online gathering place gives me a window into the amazing job our staff does every day.

Anyway, here’s a breakdown of the some of the cooler Nacho submissions we had during the summer:

The Drill Sergeant

Rocky from Columbia starting his Nacho quest.

The Mad Hatter

Sacred Heart scores big with a Wacky Hat Day!

Princeton rocks with this amazing Wacky Hat design!

The Michael Cotter

iD Vassar shows some High-5 skills!

The Scripps
One of my very favorite Nachos, we had a bunch of attempts from all over the country!

iD Vassar showing off their spelling skills.

UC Irvine spreading out on the pavement!

St. Mary's also had a little issue getting every camper in frame!

iD Gaming Academy at Stanford PWNS!

Columbia shows off a terrific height advantage!

Purdue serving up some old-school breakdancing...

St. Mary's showing the world their dance skills.

Stay tuned for more Nacho highlights! w00t!

Hi All! Summer is in full swing and I’ve been super busy touring iD Tech Camps all over the nation! I’d like to take this time to share with you one of my favorite iD Tech Camp traditions, one that is unique to our Princeton location, in fact, one that I helped to start!

In 2005 I was an instructor iD Princeton teaching Web Design & Flash Animation. The bottom floor of our dorm had a lot of free space and it occurred to me that having a dance party is a great way to end a day of hard work at a computer! Several trips to a party store later, we had outfitted the space as a nightclub, rigged a laptop into a modest DJ booth and iDisco Tech was born. I was excited to see that the tradition is still going STRONG and campers and staff are still having a blast! Enjoy these pics!

Keep partying Princeton!

The fun doesn’t stop there!  Make sure to check out all the cool photos from our Summer camps in New York, our Computer camps in Massachusetts, our Illinois summer camps and our Canadian Film School!

Now that camp is in session all over the nation (and in Canada too!) in places like our California Film Classes or our Boston summer camps, I thought it would be nice to show you all how to create your very own autograph/memory book to take to camp or anywhere else you travel this summer and capture memories and autographs of old and new friends that you meet along the way.

SUPPLES YOU’LL NEED & WHAT YOU’LL CREATE
For those of you attending iD summer camp, I’ve created this tutorial so that almost everything you need can be found at camp. If you’re not attending iD this summer, most of the materials are easy and inexpensive to find at any craft store.

Here’s a rundown of the list of supplies that you’ll need to create this super-cool autograph/memory book:

• Cardboard: Cut to the size of 8.5” wide x 5.5” tall
• Colored Paper: 2 sheets cut to the size of about 8.5” wide x 11” tall to cover your book.
• Colored Paper: 5 sheets cut to the size of 8.5” wide x 5.5” tall
• Illustrator, Photoshop or Microsoft Word: To create your cover image and inside page designs
• Scissors
• Hole Punch
• Glue
• String (to tie the book together)
• Green Tape (optional)
• Mod Podge & paint brush (optional—and not found at camp.)

Remember, if you want to make one of these books at camp to always double check with your instructor before grabbing these supplies.  In fact, if you’re at home, I bet your parents would appreciate it if you asked too.

And here’s what your final project will look similar to:

CREATING THE COVER
For the cover of the autograph book, I simply found some old cardboard boxes that I didn’t need and cut them down to the size of 8.5” wide x 5.5” tall. Sometimes cardboard can be tricky to cut, so make sure that you’re extremely careful when you do this step (always cut away from your body) and that you ask for help from an adult if you need it.

Next, you’ll want to use a hole punch to punch out three holes, which we’ll use later to tie the book together.

Now grab two sheets of colored or decorative paper that are at least 10” wide x 7” long. (Letter-sized paper works well for this). These two sheets will be our cover for our book. I bought some decorative paper from a craft store for my cover. If you’re at camp, the neon construction paper that your Camp Director has will work great as a cover. Or if you want, you can leave the cardboard uncovered…it’s up to you!

If you choose to cover your cardboard pieces you’ll want to print and cut out this template.

Download: Cover Template

Once you have this cutout, glue the paper to the cover of each piece of cardboard (don’t worry about covering your hole punches…you’ll be re-punching them later.)

Then turn the cardboard pieces over, fold over the tabs and glue them to that side of the cardboard.

Use your hole punch and and re-punch the holes that you punched before. Set your two cover pieces aside for now, as we’ll be coming back to them later.

CREATING THE INSIDE PAGES
The inside pages are simple to create. Take 5 pieces (or more if you want) of any type of construction or decorative paper and cut it to the size of 8.5” wide x 5.5” tall. Use a hole punch to punch holes in the same spots as you did for your two cover pieces.

Set these pages aside for later for when you assemble your book.

DESIGNING YOUR GRAPHICS
Now it’s time to power up that computer and start digitally designing! For these graphics, I used both Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop; you can even Microsoft Word to create your graphics.

First up is the cover artwork. In Photoshop I opened up a new print document (CMYK color mode at 300 dpi) with an artboard size of 5.5” wide x 4” tall.

Then I created a summertime cover graphic. You can choose anything for your graphic. If you need any help thinking of design ideas or styles, check out on some my previous posts on how to create a certain type of style.

After that, I added in a title for my book.

After you’re satisfied with your cover design, print it out and glue it on the top cover of your book.

Next up, you’ll want to create your inside page graphics. This is where you can really let your creative freedom go, since you can choose any type of subject for the inside of your pages.

Using Adobe Illustrator, I created a new print document that was 8.5” wide x 11” tall.  Then I created two rectangles with 7”wide x 4” tall. After we print our artwork, these lines will help us know where to cut so that they fit on the colored paper that we prepped earlier.

Then, I created designs on four of the boxes that included fun things that I could fill in about my summer and added in a title and a graphic on each page.

The remaining four pages, I kept as autograph pages, so I anyone I meet can sign my book. Once again I added in a title and a graphic for each page.

After I designed all my inside pages, I printed them out on a color printer and cut them out to size. Once each page was cut out, I glued one on each side of the paper that was prepped earlier and set them aside to dry.

OPTIONAL MOD-PODGE
This step is optional, but if you’re able, get a hold of some Mod Podge (found at any craft store). Mod Podge is a glue-like substance that will give a nice, glossy coat to your book. It will also make your cover water-proof and more durable.

You’ll need some sort of brush to apply the Mod Podge to your book covers and then just brush a thick coat on. When you apply it, it will look white and filmy. Not to worry, as it will dry clear.

ASSEMBLING YOUR BOOK
Assembling your book is easy. Just take your two covers (if you used Mod Podge, be sure that they’re dry) and all of the pages that you created and put them in the order that you want them to appear in your book. Each of the holes that your punched should line up if you measured them out each time. Take three pieces of string and string them through the holes in your book and tie them in a tight knot (but just slightly loose enough so you can turn the pages).

CAN I GET YOUR AUTOGRAPH PLEASE?
Now that your book is ready to use, be sure to bring it along to all the places you go this summer. How cool would it be, if you attended one of our summer camps or teen gaming camps and were able to get every camper and instructor’s signature in your book? Very cool! If you manage to do that, be sure to let us know on our iD Tech Camps facebook page, because that is one tough feat…but one that I know any iD camper is capable of achieving!

Howdy!

It’s (the other) Pete and I am super excited about the awesome stuff that’s been happening at iD Tech Camps all over the country. There’s been so much positive activity that I’m going to blog a whole bunch more to share just a sliver of the good times with our internet audience.

One of the iD Tech traditions is called the “Photo of the Week” contest (POW), where each camp is asked to satisfy a photo prompt and a single winner is chosen. So far, we’ve had three weeks of challenges and three amazing pictures.

POW #1 - Take a photo of your entire camp in a prestigious/ defining location at your school.

WINNER – Colorado State University!

POW #2 – Take a photo of your head and another person’s feet to create the illusion that you are really tall.

WINNER – Vanderbilt University!

POW #3 – The obligatory World Cup assignment! Creativity wins in this open contest.

WINNER – Sacred Heart University!

Stay tuned to see the creative and crazy submissions we get all summer long!

Summer is in full swing here at iD Tech Camps, with many of our summer camps for teens and kids already in session. Since the next three months of your freedom will be most likely be filled with some sort of travel, what better way to keep connected to your friends and family by created your own set of postcards? Looks like it’s your lucky day, because in this post, that’s exactly what we’ll be doing.

Looks like it could be used if you were attending one of iD’s Rhode Island summer camps this summer!

The link below this paragraph will include all of the stock files that you’ll need to follow along. If you want, feel free to use your own files and just follow the technique instructions that I’ll give you along the way.

Tutorial Source Files (Approx 6 MB) : iDTechCamps_PostcardTutorialFiles.zip

SETTING UP YOUR ARTBOARD
Often times I want to find a professional, reasonable place to print my designs and Overnightprints.com is a great source for this. We’re actually going to be using their 4×6 postcard template to get started. This template will show you exactly where to place your artwork so that it prints correctly, should you decide to get your postcards professionally printed. If you decide to print at home, this template will allow you to do that as well.

To get to the file go to this this url: postcard template. Then click on the button that says, “Download Start File”, just below the red text that says 4”x6” Postcard.  You’ll want to save this to your computer, since you will be using this file to create your postcard.

When you open up this file, you’re going to see a folder in your layers panel that’s titled “delete these layers”.  On your artboard, you’ll have some additional directions for making sure your artwork stays within the printing boundaries and other printing information.  Keep this folder so you know where your design should go. You can delete it at the very end.

For now, you can hide this folder by clicking on the eye in the layer panel. We’ll need to reference this folder every so often, so you’ll end up hiding and displaying it with this click.

CREATING THE BACKGROUND
The first design element we’re going to create is the background. While you may not be able to see it in the smaller thumbnail version in the beginning of this post, the background actually has a slight watercolor texture to it that really adds to that retro feel.

To lay a color base for the postcard background, draw a rectangle that covers the entire size of your artboard. Since we’re creating a print design, we’re working in CMYK at 300 dpi (not RGB at 72 dpi, which is for the web). The CMYK color code of this rectangle is: 10, 3, 45, 0.

Now place the watercolor, texture background on top of this. To do this, go up to the top menu bar of Photoshop and click on File>Place.

Navigate to the folder that you downloaded at the beginning of this post that has all of the design elements in it (you’ll need to make sure that you’ve unzipped the zip file or it won’t let you open the folder.) Find the image that’s labeled, grungy_watercolor.jpg and select Place. Resize this image so that it covers up your entire artboard.

Once you’ve resized it, change the Blend Mode to Overlay.

Instead of being bright purple and orange, your background’s colors should now be a lighter blue and yellow.

If you haven’t done so already, create a new group folder and name it, BG Elements. Place the two layers you just created into this folder. If you’ve read any of my other posts, you know I like to keep an organized layers panel, and folders are a great way to do so.

ADDING A GRUNGE BORDER
Next we’re going to add in a subtle white, grunge border. First, let’s create a folder called, White Grunge Border. The next two layers you create will go in here.

Create a new layer called, White Border. Then use the Magic Wand Tool (W) and click anywhere on the artboard. Go up to the top Photoshop menu and select Edit>Stroke.

Change your menu settings to be the following:

This will create a thick white border around your postcard. Now, we want to add just a bit of an uneven grunge border. To do this, we need to use one of the brush sets in that was provided in the beginning of the tutorial. To load a new set of brushes, select your Brush Tool (B) from the Tools Panel.

Then go the Brush Preset Menu just below the top Photoshop Menu. Select the Down Arrow, then select the circle button with the arrow pointing to the right. A new menu will pop up allowing you to select the option that says, “Load Brushes…”.

Navigate to the folder that you downloaded earlier in the tutorial and select asunder20 brushes file and click, Load. When you look at the brushes in your Brush Preset Menu, there should be a whole new set of brushes available to use.

Create a new layer above the White Border Layer and name it Grunge Border. With the color white selected, use these brushes to create a subtle grunge border on the inside of the straight white border we created earlier. Experiment with different types of brushes in the set to create a random border effect.

CREATING RETRO-LOOKING TEXT
Now it’s on to the colorful, retro text. The font I used is called, Road Movie and can be found on dafont.com if you search for it. If you want to use a different font, by all means…go crazy and use whatever your creative mind desires.

To create the overlap look of the title, we’ll need to create each letter as a separate layer. So using your Text Tool (T) (located in the same area where the Paint Brush is located), click on your artboard and type in a letter “G” and make it about 65 pixels large. (Keep in mind that this may vary depending on which font you use.)

Change your letter “G” CMYK color code to be: 50, 100, 0, 0. This will give is a deep, fushia/purplish hue. Then change the Blend Mode to Darken.

Copy the “G” text layer you just created by hitting Ctrl + J. Using the Move Tool (V), move this copy to the right and change the letter to be an “R”. Keep the Blend Mode at Darken, but change the CMYK color code to be: 100, 0 , 0 , 0. Then adjust the placement of your letter “R” so that it’s overlapping the letter “G” just a bit.

Continue to do this until you’ve spelled out the word, “Greetings” using the CMYK color codes below.

Now let’s add in the very subtle white drop shadow to the title text. An easy way to do this is to create a folder and name it, Title. Then put all of your letter layers into that folder. With the entire Title Folder selected drag it to the Create New Folder icon in your Layers Panel. This will create a copy of your Title Folder.

Right click on the copy of your folder and select, “Merge Group”.  Now double click on the layer and change the Color Overlay to be white.

Now move your white Title Layer to be below your original Title Folder and place it so that it’s slightly to the above and to the right of the original text. Set the Opacity to be 80%.

Lastly, angle the entire title text and white drop shadow and place it towards the top left corner of your postcard.

ADDING IN THE PAPER GRAPHIC
In the tutorial files zip folder that you downloaded, place the paper.psd graphic on your postcard artboard. Place it below your “Greetings” text and to the right a bit. Then use a script font and add in the word “from” in the top left corner of the paper graphic. Change the color of the font to be the orange that you used in the “Greetings” text. If you want to use the same font I used, you can go to dafont.com and search for “Honey Script”.

If you want, you can fill in the paper area with the place you’re going, but I thought it might be fun to keep it blank so that you can print out a bunch of copies and write in with permanent marker the place where you’re at when you decide to write to someone. Or you can always write your name in there too. It’s completely up to you.

CREATING THE LIGHTHOUSE GRAPHIC USING THE THRESHOLD FEATURE
We’re almost done with our graphics for the postcard! The next thing you need to do is open up the file called, “lighthouse.jpg” from the tutorial files folder that you downloaded. Once you have it open, duplicate the locked Background Layer by selecting it and clicking Ctrl + J, then delete the locked Background Layer so that you only have your copy in your layers panel.

Next go up to the top, main Photoshop menu and select Image>Adjustments >Levels. Bump up the contrast of image by moving the middle slider to the right a bit.

Now to up the Image>Adjustments>Threshold. Move the slide so that your Threshold Level is at about 141.

Now take the Magic Wand Tool (W) from the Tools Panel and select any area of the image that is white. Since we want to select everything that’s white, after you do this, go up to the top, main Photoshop Menu and go to Select>Similar.

This should select all of the areas in your image that are colored white. Now hit delete so all of the white disappears.

Now to change the color of the black areas, double-click on the layer so that the Layer Style Menu pops up. Select Color Overlay and make the color to be the CMYK color code: 100, 50,30,010.

Make sure that both your postcard file and the lighthouse image are open on your Photoshop screen. Then in the Layers Panel (not the artboard), click and hold on the lighthouse layer that you just created. Now, drag it over to the postcard file artboard (not the layers panel) that you were working on earlier. This layer should appear on your artboard now.

It’s probably too big for your artboard, so hit, Ctrl + T to transform the size. Resize the image so that fits your artboard.

Also, you’ll want to make sure that this layer is below all of your layers except the BG Elements Folder you created earlier. This way you won’t be covering anything up that you want to be seen on your postcard. Here’s how I’ve organized and named my all of my layers to I can easily move groups and know what I’m clickin on.

GO FORTH & CREATE
For the back of the postcard, I’ve included a Photoshop file in the downloadable folder that includes a postcard back. You can use this file if you want, or create your own.

If you’re looking to print your postcards, you can easily print them on your home printer, two to a sheet. Or you can go to OvernightPrints or UPrinting and upload your design files and they can print out as many as 25 or more. It’s reasonable and makes your postcard look like one that you would buy in a souvenir shop.  (Keep in mind iD is in no way affiliated with any printing companies. These are just some that I’ve used in the past.)

That’s it. You’ve now created a retro-looking postcard design for all your travels this summer. Now that you know how to add these elements into your design, you can modify your postcard to include a different image that conveys where you’ll be in the coming months. For example, let’s say you went to a summer camp in Colorado, instead of a lighthouse image you could include an image of the Rocky Mountains.

Tell us where you’re traveling this summer by posting your destination and activities on the iD Facebook page.

Here’s hoping you have a safe, happy and FUN summer. And remember…don’t forget to write!  (You can be sure that if you do send us mail, we here at the main office will personally write you back too! For our mailing address go here.)

iD Tech Camps has this incredible incentive program for the Staff called Nachos (I find them particularly incredible because my friend Bryan and I invented them!)

These cool little badges are given for going above and beyond during activity time, completing difficult objectives and making camp a better place. I had the pleasure of introducing the Nacho program at two of the three trainings that were held in 2010.

The Lake Forest and Villanova trainings were amazing!

Between the two of them, hundreds of training-only Nachos were distributed. Some, like “The Second Easiest Nacho in the Book,” is pretty simple. The Staff member simply needs to attend the Camp Culture seminar – a required event!

Others can be a little more difficult. “The Drill Sergeant” requires a Staff member to recite a chant during lunch on tape and “The Night Owl” is given to anyone that participates in the voluntary evening activity session (we had about 150 participants altogether!) Only about 8 or so Staff from both locations managed to earn and claim *all* of the training Nachos, earning them the prestigious “Train the Trainer” award. We did have an excellent time and I wish I could have stayed longer to play more games (but, of course, the dark got the better of me!)

The Nacho program is in full swing at camps across the country. We’ve been giving out about 20 – 30 Nachos a day – and that number is only going to get higher as more camps start the season. This means that the user profiles of many of the iD Tech Staff members are filling up with neat little award icons, the more the better!

We just finished up a contest to create two brand new Nachos for this summer. The winners were:

“The Mascot” (submitted by Medium Rare) – Create a local Camp Mascot and make a movie with the mascot including at least five excited campers, then post it to the forums.

“The Battlefield” (also submitted by Medium Rare!) – Organize a cross-camp gaming night with another camp on the nVidia Servers! Post the end-of-game scoreboard at both camps and on the Forums. Both of these additions encourage camps to go above and beyond in their programming, whether as a fun goofy afternoon activity or a collaborative nighttime event.

Medium Rare (surprisingly, that’s not his real name) gets “The Bender Bending Rodriguez” Platinum nacho for winning the contest; a major addition to his profile.

We hope that multiple staff members can meet the challenge this summer and earn “The King Hippo” Platinum nacho for getting more than 62 nachos, which happened to be the record last year. I’m pretty sure we can make it, because iD is not just a summer camp for teens and pre-teens that teaches video game courses or film-making; It’s a camp that teaches about the power of collaboration, positive social skills and the benefits of going above and beyond to do something big!

Big news at Columbia and another Rendezvous Dilemma!!! Hey guys! I just got back from a whirlwind trip to the East Coast, visiting some of iD’s most prestigious locations, Princeton and Columbia. Mainly, I was there to put some finishing touches on our lab spaces at both.  Our big news is that due to popular demand, we are adding two weeks to our schedule at Columbia!!!

Also, while at Columbia, I had another amazing chance rendezvous, similar to when I ran into Jen at OSU. However, this one involves one of my oldest friends ever, Jon B. who I met at summer camp(!) just before my first year of kindergarten (which was with him as well)!  When I ran into him, he was on duty as a Columbia EMT, safety first!

Below is a then and now comparison, the first is of myself (right) as a lobster and Jon (left) as a fish during a 1st grade school play, the second is of our encounter at Columbia:

Again, I’ve decided to calculate the odds of us randomly running into each other. I’ve made some adjustments to my original equation to suit this scenario. First of all, (for the purposes of this study) we are eliminating the odds that Jon could have ended up anywhere else; the program he is in is highly specific and his choice to enroll was deliberate, so his relationship to Columbia and NYC is given.  It is also given that Jon will be spending a significant amount of time publicly traversing the campus as an EMT shift-worker, we will assume that he is working part-time (as being a Ph.D. candidate is a lot of work!) which is standardly 20 hours per week. This equation is much simpler then my original as I’ve reduced almost all of the variables to time and space;

(FYI – All of Jon’s assumptions are contrived, I have no idea what Jon’s actual work hours and habits are!!!!)

We are still missing one thing. Just as we started the equation with the odds of Jon being on campus at a given time, we must also consider my timing on campus. Of the 40 potential work week hours that my visit may occur, only a portion would involve a public part of the campus (as I’m typically behind doors in meetings in the pre-season). I’m going to estimate that variable at half an hour.

Below is the final solution.  Sorry for mixing decimals and fractions below (don’t you hate that?), I’m hoping that it may help some people visualize the variables:

Though the solution is an extremely small number, this is significantly higher than the probability of running into Jen at OSU (which was taken to the power of -26).  However, with an entirely different equation it isn’t nearly apples to apples.

Can anyone do better?  I’m sure there are lots of ways to solve this!  Bonus points if you can create an equation that isn’t limited to specific geographical scenarios (as mine are).  E.g., it wouldn’t matter whether the rendezvous occurred at one of our Florida summer camps, or one of our Illinois summer camps, or even one of our Vancouver summer camps, it would still employ all the same variables and constants.

Each year since I’ve worked at the iD headquarters, I get the privilege of creating the camp desktop wallpapers for iD Tech Camps, the iD Gaming Academy, the iD Visual Arts Academy and the iD Programming Academy, which you can see if you attend any of our programs this summer since they’re installed on every computer that’s used at camp. I can honestly say that this project is one of my favorite projects every year and it often inspires me to create my own wallpapers in my free time, which is what I’ll be showing you how to do in this post.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN & CREATE

This tutorial will incorporate design elements such as adding textures, gradients, layer properties and using the mask feature in Photoshop. These are all basic to intermediate skills  and should be fairly easy to grasp. If you want to explore the possibilities that all of the Adobe products have, check out our Web & Graphic Design Courses or our Video Editing & Photography Courses that we have at our Day Camps and Overnight Summer Camps at iD.

The final project that you’ll have at the end of this tutorial will look something like this:

Are you excited? It’s another Mario Bros. graphic. If you can’t tell by now, I really like Super Mario Bros (I mean seriously, have you played the New Super Mario Bros on DS? I’m totally addicted.). Not only that, I find that there are a lot of free resources out there for Mario graphics. Did you know that if you attend camp, you can actually make a replica of a Mario game in our Video Game Creation Course? Pretty cool stuff.

GATHERING RESOURCES

When I work on professional projects for iD or freelance projects at home, I sometimes need to purchase certain graphics due to copyright issues. For projects that I am creating for only myself or that I won’t be re-selling, I always look for free resources, because who doesn’t love free stuff?

This project requires a few resources—a couple of fonts, some high-resolution textures and an AI (Adobe Illustrator) file I pre-made. You can download the fonts and textures to a file on your computer here:

• Mario Wallpaper Resources

You can also find your own textures by doing a quick web search. Always remember to be careful about what sites you download content from, and if the computer you’re working on isn’t yours, it’s best to ask the person who owns it if it’s okay to download a file. Below are some good starting points for free, (safe) design resources on the web.

FONTS

• DaFont.com
• UrbanFonts.com

VECTORS, GRAPHICS & TEXTURES

• Vecteezy.com
• Brusheezy.com
• GrungeTextures.com
• Noupe.com

Another way of getting textures for your projects is to take your point and shoot camera and capture close-up photos of things around you. You’ll be amazed at what you can get from doing this.

GETTING STARTED

To get started, you’ll need to first figure out the size of the desktop wallpaper to create so that it will look good on your screen. To do this, you need to find out the resolution that your monitor is set at and set your image size in Photoshop to be those dimensions.

You may already know your screen dimensions, but if not it’s easy to find out. Click on the Start Menu on your PC computer, choose Control Panel. Once you’re in the Control Panel, go to Display and then click on the Settings Tab.

As you can see on the image above, my screen resolution is 1280×1024, so when I create my new file in Photoshop my art board dimensions will be 1280 pixels wide x 1024 pixels high. Since this will be used for the computer screen, the image resolution will stay at 72 pixels/inch and the color mode, RGB.

CREATING THE BACKGROUND

To create the background, use the rectangle tool to create a shape that extends over your artboard. Name the new layer you created, “Blue BG Gradient”.

Open up your Layers Style Menu by double clicking on the layer (but not on the text, or you will be given the option to rename your layer.)

Now, click on Gradient Overlay and create a blue, radial gradient with these settings:

Now we need to add some texture to our background. Select File>Place at the top of your Photoshop screen, then navigate to the folder where you saved the texture files you downloaded at the beginning of this tutorial. Find the rust.jpg file and click on the Place Button to bring it into your PSD file.

You should have a transform box around your image, which allows you to resize the image. Resize the image to fill up your entire artboard and then hit Return to set the image into place.

(By the way: When you place an image, it automatically becomes a Smart Object in Photoshop. Smart Objects can be useful because they allow you to resize and manipulate images without losing their original quality. You can tell when something is a Smart Object when it has a little icon in the lower right corner of its layer.)

Now that your rust texture is placed, we want to de-saturate it. First we need to rasterize our rust image by right clicking on the layer and selecting Rasterize. You’ll know that it’s rasterized if the icon at the corner disappears.

Next go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and change the Saturation to -100.

To create the light texture feel, change your Layer Property to Soft Light and the Opacity to 40%.

Now we’re going to create the yellow background element by creating a yellow-orange rectangle. Name this layer, Gold Brick and double click on it so that you open up its Layer Style. Change your Drop Shadow settings to be a dark blue (#043875), with a Blend Mode of Multiply. Change the angle to be 124 and uncheck the “Use Global Light” box. Make the distance, 29, the Spread, 0 and the Size 0.

Also, you’ll want to add a Stroke, which will be white and size 13. You can keep the rest of the settings at their defaults.

Now it’s time to bring in the second texture. Go to File>Place and find the file where you saved the brick.jpg. Expand this image to be at least the width of your gold shape. Then change the Layer Property to Overlay.

We want the brick texture to only be placed in the gold area, so we’re going to use a Clipping Mask to accomplish this. First make sure that your brick image layer and your gold shape layer are on top of one another in the layers panel. Then, to create a Mask, hold the ALT key and move your mouse in between your brick layer and the gold layer until you mouse changes from a hand icon to a double circle icon.

After you do this, your brick texture should only be seen within the yellow shape area. Nice!

The last thing we need to finish out background is to place the starburst graphic. From the files you saved earlier, place the starburst.ai into your Photoshop file. Resize it to fill up most of your artboard and center it on top of the yellow brick image. Lastly, change its Layer Property to be Soft Light.

To make things easier as we progress through the project, create a new folder and name it “Background Elements”. Now place all of the layers you just created in that folder by selecting them all at the same time (hold Shift to do so) and using your mouse to drag them on top of the folder.

BRINGING IN & COLORING MARIO

Now we get to add in the Mario character. If you haven’t done so, download and install the fonts that from the beginning of the tutorial. The Mario and Luigi font is a type of font called dingbats, which means that each character of the font isn’t a letter, but an image. (If you want to learn more about fonts, check out Looking at Typography.)

The Mario graphic we need is found by typing in the lowercase letter, “q”. The default size of your font is probably pretty small, so change the size to be about 385pt.

Now since Mario is black and white, we’re going to color him in to give him a little depth. Coloring Mario is fast and fun. Basically what we’re going to do is use our Paint Tool to paint underneath Mario. To do this we need to create separate layers for each part of him.

First create a new layer by clicking on the New Layer icon in your Layers Panel. Make sure that this layer is underneath your Mario dingbats layer, which is named “q” since it’s actually a text layer. Name your new layer “Shoes”.

Pick a dark brown color (I used #844100) and use the Paint Brush Tool to paint in Mario’s shoes.

After this, you’re going to create six more paint layers, named, “Gloves”, “Shirt”, “Shirt Buttons”, “Face”, “Eyes” and “Hat”. In each layer, choose a color and paint the area in. I’ve included the color codes that I used in case you want to follow what I did.

When you’re done painting Mario, create a new folder and name it “Mario Character”.

ADDING IN THE TITLE TEXT

To add the title text, you’ll want to use your Text Tool and select the font you downloaded called, “Super Mario Bros.” Then type in the title that you want your desktop wallpaper to say. You can use the text I wrote or you can type in a new phrase if you like.

When you type your text make sure your font is black. Because of how this font is designed, when you type your text, the letters should be outlined in black and not filled in.

Next angle your text to the left to get that action feel. So far, your text should look like this:

Since this font isn’t colored in by default we need to do so ourselves. To do this, make sure you have your text layer selected, then select the Magic Wand Tool (W) on your Tool Panel.

Then click anywhere on your artboard, except for inside the text letters. You should see flashing dotted lines around what the magic wand selected, which should be everything except for the text. Now, while holding the Shift Key (if you do this correctly your cursor will change into a wand with a plus sign) , select the areas of the letter’s O, R and A.

With all of those areas selected, hit, SHIFT + CTRL + I. You should now have only your letters selected. Now go to your layers panel and create a New Layer. Then go to the menu at the top of the Photoshop screen and select Edit>Fill. From this menu choose “Color” and select the color white, or any color you think might go well inside the letters. After you fill in your letters, your text will still be selected. You can unselect the text by going to the Marque tool and clicking anywhere on your artboard.

Make sure to rename your new fill layer to something such as, “Text Fill”, then drag it below your original text layer so that the black outlines show up. To add the hard, drop shadow on the letters, make a copy of your “Text Fill” layer, then open up its Layer Style by double clicking on it.

Check the Color Overlay box and change your settings to the ones below:

Name this layer “Text Drop Shadow” and move it below your “Text Fill” layer. Use your mouse to adjust it a bit to the left and a bit below the original text. It now gives the illusion of a drop shadow.

After that your wallpaper is complete! Looks pretty snazzy, huh? Now that you know the basics for using textures and Clipping Masks, you can add in other elements to make your wallpaper uniquely your own. For mine, I decided to add some other Mario characters using the same dingbats font and the same coloring method I used for Mario. I also added in our iD logo for fun.

The last thing you’ll need to do is so save your graphic as a jpg. You can create a small file by going to the top Photoshop Menu and selecting File>Save for Web & Devices and saving your graphic as a jpg. Then go to your computer’s Start Menu and go to Display (like you did at the beginning of the tutorial to find out your screen size). On the Destktop tab, click on the browse button and select the file you just saved. Hit OK and your very own wallpaper should be on your computer!

Now that you know how to create a personal desktop graphic, you can be sure that I’m going to ask you to send us any of your cool creations. As always feel free to send them to info@internalDrive.com or hit us up on facebook and show us what you’ve created. Happy designing!

I issued a challenge to Bryan: Create or break a world record.

This challenge was not taken lightly – but I will get to that momentarily. Bryan accomplished his task and then reissued the same challenge to me: Create or break a world record.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a world record breaking blog post – “The Most Links in a Blog Post on InternalDrive.com that Lead Back to InternalDrive.com Without Getting Too Off-Topic”

This summer, we are issuing the same challenge to all of iD Tech Camp locations through a new program called iDX with a little help from the Universal Record Database.

iDX is a competition between four teams that spreads across all iD Tech Camp locations. Teams are made up of several individual camps (mainly centered around a large region) that work together to score points by completing various specific challenges set forth by the iDX administrators (Bryan and I). Many of these tasks have to do with creating or breaking records and each has a value (or bounty) of 1 – 10 points.

For instance, one of our Florida summer camps, such as Rollins College, could get everyone at camp to sign the same sheet of paper. This task would earn the BLUE team 1 point. The other Florida summer camp, namely University of Miami, could then complete the same task for a second point for the BLUE team. An Illinois summer camp, such as Lake Forest College, can tape everyone at camp high-5ing 10 different people which would score the RED team 2 points. Each week we tally the scores and share the statistics on which team is leading for the summer, for the previous week and which camp has scored the most iDX points.

The higher point challenges is where the record breaking begins! An Orange County California summer camp, namely UC Irvine, could get 8 points for the YELLOW team by performing the difficult “Group Soccer Juggle 2″ task, where at least 20 Campers need to keep a soccer ball in the air for 5 minutes or 300 taps by juggling with their feet. If their video is accepted by the URDB as a world record setting performance, that point score is doubled!

We are really excited about iDX this year because it adds some competition and cooperation between all iD Tech Camps. Campers are used to competing against other camps in our video game tournaments but now there is another outlet to dominate! I will keep everyone posted on the iDX highlights from this blog and especially call out any new records set by iD Tech Campers or staff.

And, as promised, here’s Bryan’s record breaking performance: “Longest Time To Keep An American Quarter Balanced On Spinning Coat Hanger”

From URDB:

Bryan Vitale placed an American quarter on the tip of a bent metal coat hanger and spun it for 2 minutes, 56.20 seconds.

CRITERIA TO BEAT RECORD:

- must use a standard coat hanger bent in a diamond shape

- must place/balance an American quarter on tip of hanger

- timing begins when first spin starts

- no adhesives are allowed to keep quarter on hanger

And for future reference, I linked to InternalDrive.com 19 times in this blog post – setting the current record!!!

Hey guys!

I was just shown some awesome pictures taken by the campers at our spring break beta camp and I wanted to share!  When I first saw the email, I assumed that these were taken by one of our in-house pros (lookin’ at you Marta) but I was stoked to find out that they were, in fact, the products of campers in our photography course!

I can’t wait to see the photography that comes out of this summer!  With such a variety of settings, from our West Coast Washington Summer Camps all the way to our East Coast Baltimore summer camps, I’m expecting to see some awesome photography from our kids camps nationally!  In fact, I should say internationally as we’ve expanded in to Canada with our Vancouver Summer Camps and others!

Next week I’ll be heading up to our headquarters in San Jose for Pete’s famous Paella Night.  Long time readers know that means my next blog will likely include the documentation of some epic pranks… at Pete’s expense!