I am huge fan of pixel art, I even dabbled with the form in 2004, however after my studio got robbed, I lost my backup disks including my pixel work and I've never tried it again. As of late, I've been following the work of Alex Griendling and some of his amazing pixel arts.

This post is part of our daily series of posts showing the most inspiring images selected by some of the Abduzeedo's writers and users.

Last weekend I was playing in Illustrator trying to create a simple wallpaper to use on my phone and tablet. I love geometric patterns, but I hadn't done anything like that in a while. So, I started playing with some ideas inspired by Andy Gilmore. It's really nice to see how the Pattern Tool in Illustrator facilitates the process of creating patterns these days.

It's been quite a long time since I played with water textures. I was checking some amazing artworks on Behance and Pinterest when I saw some examples that really inspired me to try something and learn a little bit more about Photoshop and the Displace filter.

So for this tutorial, I will show you how to create a really cool effect with water texture and the displace filter.

Back from my first visit to Portland, Oregon I got really inspired by the city, especially the rugged Pacific Northwest landscape, the grey colors of the sky, the Willamette River running right through town and the people that make the city unique.

With the announcement of iOS7, Apple revealed a completely new UI for their mobile OS. With the super flat design and thin fonts, Apple said that the design would be adaptable to apps by making some of the basic UI elements transparent, therefore, some of the colors of your apps content would bleed through and define how iOS7 basic components would influence the overall appearance.

The book suggestion of this week is very important read for any designer out there. The book is titled The Art of Explanation: Making your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand.

A few weeks ago I posted artwork I created for a poster inspired by the Man of Steel movie. I used Pixelmator for that project and got quite a few comments and requests about how to achieve the same effect in Photoshop. As Photoshop doesn't have the awesome Vintage filters that Pixelmator now has, I tried emulating the effect using brushes which I will share with you today.

I shared some posters awhile back on Abduzeedo and got a few emails asking how I created the application mockups for the posters so I decided to post about the process.

This post is part of our daily series of posts showing the most inspiring images selected by some of the Abduzeedo's writers and users.

Next month one of the most anticipated movies of the year will open in the theaters, I am talking about Man of Steel, the new Superman movie. It's amazing how much promotion this movie is getting lately, every day there's a new picture, poster or some news about it. With all of that, of course I also get really inspired to create some artwork about it.

Personal projects are the best way for a designer to learn because it's much easier to try different things. It's just about making decisions and building them. With Abduzeedo we try to keep it as personal as possible, at least when it comes to changes. We redesign it at least once a year, not only the overall site design but the brand identity.