In response to what was suggested on the forum, we are going to have a quick competition for making the new logo for Republic of Code. 

Prize: 1 8GB iPod Nano for the first place winner of the competition.

Contest:
Design a logo for the Republic of Code.

• The logo must include the words “Republic of Code”.
• The logo must not include the logo or trademark of any other company, website, or individual.
• The logo must be submitted in AI format.
• We are NOT asking for a banner, but just a logo on a white background.
• Take note of the fact that the logo should remain distinctive even when used in a small size (eg. as a Favicon).
• The logo is preferred to be usable in monochrome as well as full color.

Method of Submission:
All submissions are to be sent to competition@republicofcode.com, along with the participant’s full name and contact details including a mailing address to which the prize could be posted. You may submit up to three logos, but only one will qualify for the final poll.

Choosing the Winners:
The Republic of Code team will select the best three submissions and put them in a poll for the registered forum members to vote for the winning submission.

Deadline:
January 18th, 2009. The poll will be started on the 21st of January and will be closed on the 25th of January.

Qualification:
Individuals from all around the world qualify for this competition. Registration is not required. The moderators, administrators, and website owners and their families do not qualify.

Legal:

 Learn how to give your car a whole new paint job by using a number of selection and fill techniques in our latest Photoshop Tutorial.

 Not sure how many of you guys have seen Adobe Flash Catalyst. It is a very interesting new tool that connects designers and developers in the process of creating interactive applications using the Flash Platform. It is possible to use Catalyst to create interactive Flash applications without using any code. Using Catalyst you can import a program you graphically designed in Fireworks, select buttons and add functionality to them by right-clicking them and selecting the required functionailty from a menu. Catalyst files could be imported into Flex Builder  where the functionality could then be further tuned and updated by a developer.

It is worth noting that Catalyst will write its source code in MXML and not ActionScript 3.o. No mention is made as to a functionality link between Flash Professional and Catalyst.

The beta version of Catalyst should be released on Adobe Labs sometime this year. Check out the videos and learn more about Catalyst from here.

 This tutorial is going to teach you how to draw and color an awesome Vista styled mouse in Photoshop using the Pen Tool by applying some various shading and highlighting techniques.

As look forward to the new year 2009, we thought we’ll show you the most popular tutorials we published in 2008! We hope that you enjoyed reading these as much as we enjoyed writing them.

Flash ActionScript Tutorial

The most popular tutorial which was published in 2008 was our famous Flash XML Image Gallery, with close to 100,000 page views on its own, this tutorial teaches you in a detailed step-by-step guide how to create a Flash XML image gallery using ActionScript 2.0 which you can update and configure by manipulating the XML file.

Creating a Basic Flash Website is probably the most sought after subject ever, our tutorial will teach you how to create your first full-Flash website using ActionScript 3.0.

3D Studio Max Tutorial

Another basic tutorial which was viewed thousands of times is the tutorial on how the poly modeling technique  to create a fine pen in 3D Studio Max. This technique could be utilized in all sorts of projects.

This tutorial will teach you an advanced technique for creating a missile animation that tracks a target object by using the Particle Flow Source System.

Photoshop

Learn how to create your own Patters Using Photoshop and then apply it for the Paint Bucket, Pattern Stamp, Healing Brush, and Patch tools, as well as in the Layer Style dialog box.

Create funky Rich Flame Swirls using the Blur and the Shear Distort Filters. 

Website of the Year

Out of the 12 selected “Website of the Month” winners, we are blown away by the awesome website of Samuel Eschiavo. It won our hearts by its innovative concepts and nice integration of video, vector graphics, and sounds.

These were our ultimate highlights of the year 2008, we wish you a happy new year and the best of luck in 2009!

(You can view our last year’s list here)

Republic of Code’s Website of the Month Award for January 2009 goes to Digitmotion Studio. It is the online portfolio of Shkumbin Ferizi featuring excellent artwork and awesome animations. View the website via this link.

(You can submit your website to win the Republic of Code Website of the Month Award via this link.)

Today we start a new era with this website under a new name: Republic of Code. Our new name is reflective of the nature of this website as one with a universal message for all those people wishing to learn. The Republic of Code will continue to bring you the best tutorials on the Internet on Flash, Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, and many other design and development applications.

You can check our ever expanding collection of tutorials and join our forum to get some instant feedback.

 This Photoshop tutorial will teach you a simple technique to enhance the colors of your image making it more vivid and alive. The image is going to be retouched using Layer Blending Modes and a slightly visible Gaussian Blur.

 This tutorial will teach you how to display objects on the screen in ActionScript by making use of the Display List API. Check out this topic on the of the AS3 fundamentals here.