thought i'd help this guy out...

photoshop tutorials

looking for some solid photoshop tricks and techniques to add to your belt? want to learn a bit of 3d design and illustration? want to know the secret of life? well, computerarts.co.uk can help you with the first two (if only they made tutorials for life....) as they have a boatload of tutorials on a variety of design subjects done by actual designers! and its all for free! nothing could be better than that, not even the secret of life.

wood engraving style

1. Your type layer that you emboss should be rasterized. Make sure you have made a copy.

2. Also make sure your layer that you want to apply the effect to is either on multiply, darken, color burn, or overlay. Experiment and see what works best.

Delicious Design

Here are some links that may ad some jazz hands to your work.

-Fun swirls, dirty brushes and weird textures:
http://www.brusheezy.com
http://qbrushes.com/

-vector patters, good clean design
www.designfruit.com

-font fun:
www.dafont.com

Dynamic Typography

Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo

is one of the most excellent music videos ever. It's a song by a Uruguayan group called Cuarteto de Nos whose title translates to "I don't know what to do with myself anymore." The video uses kinetic/motion/dynamic typography (whichever you want to call it) and was created using Life Type or (more likely) After Effects.

Once you see somethign like this, you'll get that YouTube high and want to check out all the other offerings like it. I suggest:

1. The Child
2. The Hush Sound - The Lion's Roar
3. What does Marsellus Wallace look like? (Pulp Fiction)

Design Inspiration

and check out these cool blogs/sites for some eye candy...

http://www.imgspark.com/
http://grainedit.com/

Pretty Paper Press

Beast Pieces has very very lovely typography and paper textures / layout stuff. The crazy crazy detailed detail is very awesome. Plus ideas for kickass namecards anyone?

:)