Pieter van der Lugt is a freelance writer based in Cape Town. He's available for work in Afrikaans or English and his specialist fields are entertainment, pop culture and literature. See about me for a full CV and contact details.

LUCKY DAY!

YOURS. OR MINE.

graphics tools

Brusheezy
Brush King
Free brushes for Photoshop. Really good ones.
 
VectEezy
Free Vectors
Free vectors with no credit required.
 
Coolest Brushes
Get Brushes
Loads of them for free. Lovely.
 
Bittbox
Excellent textures and other freebies.
Colorotate
Find a cool colour scheme or make one online.
 

Photoshop Tutorials

Photoshop Tutorials
Tutorialized
Photoshop Star
PSD Tuts Plus
Web Designer Depot
More inspiration than helpful tuts, but well worth revisiting.
CSS Globe
Brush up on your style sheets. Daily, no less.
 

Web Design

Smashing Magazine
Not just tuts and tips, also solid pieces on web trends and freelancing.
Weg designer Wall
Keeps you waiting a bit for updates, but quality stuff. Don't skip the Trends section.
Photoshop Star
PSD Tuts Plus
Photoshop Roadmap
I won a great commercial plugin here. They have regular competitions.
Photoshop Lady
She finds and indexes the best tuts on the net. Handy.
Typester
Tweak font settings online, then copy the code. Brilliant.

Music

Pontone
Two Polish DJs covering all brands of electronica and offering free mix tapes. Cool people.
Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor - the master of soft, loud, soft, rock.
Android Lust
A tiny woman from Bangladesh who sounds like Trent Reznor's female alter ego.
Biosphere
Norwegian Geir Jenssen gives ambient a good name.
Klaus Schulze
Ugly site for an electronic veteran who's made an enormous pile of good albums.
Deerhoof
Odd site, but wonderfully demented pop.
Pearl Jam
Eddie Vedder always moves me even though he's beginning to look like Dennis Quaid.
Damon Albarn
Blur, Gorillaz, solo jobs. Genius.
Boredoms
Experimental, deconstructed rock. Good for popping blocked ears.
David Bowie
Seriously. Not just the undisputed classics, either. Cme on, give Earthling a spin.
Tricky
My top favourite artist deserves more than a MySpace page, but that's all there is.
 

film and tv

Sites other than the usual suspects.
Screen Rush
Detailed info, trailers, episode guides and nice publicity pics.
Epguides
Where all TV writers find links to episode summaries.
 

blogs

Stella's Magazine
Arts, odd and bisarre things, lifestyle and a few more.
Oddee
A popular blog on everything strange and... bisarre.
Loop
News and culture "by the people. for the people". Right. Good, though.

arts and culture

Daily Icon
Online magazine mostly about interior design - cool chairs and stuff.
Obvious Mag
An incredible online mag about design with art, music, photography and more thrown in.
Revolution Art Magazine
Download the bi-monthly PDF edition of a mag meant to inspire creatives. Basically.
Cartoon Modern
A fascinating roundup of info about classic cartoonists and illustration.
Loop
All things art, music, fashion, film, culture and community it says here. A big site with a team of writers.
Art + Culture
A massive site on all the arts. Great for fact hunting or browsing.
 

japan

The Japan Times
An excellent English paper.
Japan Society
The New York society's site is a great place to start your virtual trip.
Tokyo Mango
Entertaining English blog about Tokyo life.
Japan Zone
The only history of Japan I've found so far. Brief, but it's a start.
Let's Japan
Pop culture covered in gob-smacking detail.
 

retro

Chronically Vintage
A cutesy, but good blog on retro pop culture.
LP Cover Lover
Uploaded album covers. Lovely.
Chronically Vintage
Ultra Swank
Keeping tags on all retro-inspired design, courtesy of Chris from Sweden.