This is pretty cool. If you don't know what the golden ratio is, check out this Wikipedia article.

Golden Ratio Calculator from Design by Ninjas

For web designers and graphic designers, gradients provide almost unlimited options for creating the perfect look. This list is a collection of excellent tutorials and resources for effectively using gradients. Some of the tutorials and resources are specific to Photoshop and Illustrator, and others are general.

71 Gradient Resources for Web Design from Vandely Design

Ah, the beautiful world of Photoshop brushes. With thousands of incredible sets floating around the web, and thousands more being made all the time, it can become quite a daunting task to find the perfect ones for your projects.

75 Insane High Res Photoshop Brushes from Elite by Design

Ideas. They’re at the heart of every creative process. However, almost no really good ideas are flashes of inspiration. They may start that way—a single glimmer of something special—but in order to work, they need to be honed. Like a really good cheese, they need to mature. Indeed, the “flash of inspiration” idea—the Eureka moment—is only part of a longer process that, if ignored, will see most ideas simply fizzle out.

Saving the Spark: Developing Creative Ideas from A List Apart

Tutorial Dog is a tutorial web site that seeks to help people learn Adobe Photoshop, CSS, Javascript, HTML and OS X Tips (and have fun). Tutorial Dog tries to provide the most insightful tips and coolest techniques to advance your knowledge of the subject covered. Having said that, we try to always include a psd (Photoshop Document File) with every Photoshop Tutorial so that you can go hands on with results we show. We also like to give away cool resources such as OS X icons and handy templates for free.

Tutorial Dog

Whether you’re a website designer, logo designer, print designer or other, this comprehensive list of colour tools and resources will help. The links are separated into the following: colour palettes and combinations, colour theory, colour tools, colour patterns, and colour code.

Colour Tools, Palettes, Schemes and Theory from David Airey

Qbrushes.com , is a place where you can download all the free Quality Photoshop brushes from around the net. the site is updated with fresh brushes very often, so be sure to bookmark the site.

Qbrushes

One of the most important and hardest things to overcome when designing is to understand when the piece you are designing on is actually finished. while creativity is sometime boundless the end result should always be the result of a clear objective, the end result. I often get caught between creativity and completion and from the emails I've received, I have discovered im not alone .So we asked the experts.

A Design is Finished when... 23 Pro Designers' Opinions from Abduzeedo

Personally I'm not a big fan of the image reflection effect, but if you're a fan then you'll love Picreflect. Picreflect has to be the 'dirtiest' way to create image reflections :p

Picreflect.com

Ever wondered how the great icon designer do it? Well, here are 15 Photoshop Tutorials that lets you peek behind the curtain and get you started.

If you want to learn how to design icons like a ninja, check out Icon Resource (not free by the way).

Want to be an Icon Designer? 15 Amazing Photoshop Icon Tutorials. from Speckyboy

Professional edited free vector arrow symbols & icons for personal and/or commercial usage. This collection of arrow symbols can help you in your art & design. Arrows are often used in Signage and Wayfinding design to guide a visitor in the right direction. All 56 arrows are drawn by Sander Baumann with Adobe Illustrator and can be used in many different ways.

56 Professional Free Arrow Symbols and Icons from SEGD

Sometimes when I create a pattern background in Illustrator I don’t end up with a Pattern Swatch. Instead, I create a Symbol of the repeating element and I create a whole background repeating this Symbol: duplicating 1, then 2, 4, 8, 16 and so on. It’s just not always that simple to create perfectly seamless patterns, especially with geometric forms. Today I’ll show you how to create a geometric pattern shape and fill a background with it using the method I just described.

Creating Geometric Patterns in Illustrator by Veerle Pieters

Sometimes you stumble across something that really makes you say "wow" and reminds you that there's so much more to this internet thing than just the latest web app. Case in point is this article describing some of the visual resources available on the web. The deep web. These images won't show up in search engines' image searches or on Flickr (save one exception), but instead can only be accessed via the links below.

Digital Image Resources on the Deep Web from ReadWriteWeb

Perfectly put. “Frilly bits” seems to aptly describe what are typically called ornaments, fleurons, vignettes, embellishments, or in some cases, frippery. Type ornaments, also termed printer’s ornaments, have been used in conjunction with type for literally hundreds of years. Of course, nowadays it’s all too easy to abuse these design elements, adding them merely for decoration rather than communication. But in the hands of an accomplished designer who knows how to use them appropriately and in moderation, type ornaments can serve to beautify and enhance a design.

25 Resources for Ornaments, Fleurons, and “Frilly Bits” from Cameron Moll

PDF magazines are a great promotional tool used by companies and collectives. They are quick to put together, can be attached to emails, or made available as free downloads. Numerous visual arts publications from around the world are available for you to draw inspiration from. These magazines serve as excellent sources of both conceptual and visual design. Furthermore, it’s both interesting and important to know what other artists do — to explore new artistic style, learn new techniques and make new contacts.

Inspirational PDF Magazines from Smashing Magazine

Don't miss this one!

Images can be found just about everywhere on the mighty internet. Below you’ll find some interesting gateways to larger image collections. Some are for free, some ask for hard bucks. Some are copyrighted, others are not or even others have a Creative Commons license. If you have located an image somewhere in the digital chaos of the world wide web, always check the conditions of use. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

How to Find Images on the Internet from Random Knowledge

This is sweet.

FontStruct is a free font-building tool brought to you by the world’s leading retailer of digital type, FontShop.

FontStruct lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks.

You create ‘FontStructions’ using the ‘FontStructor’ font editor.

Once you're done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.

You can keep your creations to yourself, but we encourage users to share their "FontStructions". Explore the Gallery of fonts made by other FontStruct users and download them or even copy them and make your own variations.

You can also use the FontStruct widget to show your FontStructions on your own website or blog.

FontStruct by FontShop

Top 20 Free Vector Resources for Designers from Speckyboy

Registering as a member will allow you to access Font Cubes's unique font management system that were made for designer's uses. By registering, you could keep track on your favourite fonts by fontmarking them and asside of that, you could also use the system to keep track of font you have used in your project. If you're a font author, feel free to signup and publish your work to other users. You could also use our site feature to collect donation on your font work.

FontCubes.com

Anyway, design history and research of good design do confirm that truly good designers rarely just ornament but definitely focus on use and usability. And making a product useful and usable never meant that it doesn’t need to be appealing. This still is, and will always be, one of the key lessons the hordes of fresh, so-called designers need to learn.

The 10 Design Theses of Dieter Rams from Jens Meiert