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I am looking to do some basic UI elements for my website, eg a logo. I am not looking for anything really fancy, something like:
(source: 37signals.com)
and this sort of things.
Besides photoshop, was program do you guys recommend where I can do this things easily.
I am using Mac, native Mac apps are more than welcome.
Check out Art Text by BeLight Software. It lets you create glassy buttons, stylized text, and icons in different styles. MacUpdate Promo happens to be running a 30% discount on it till the end of the week.
There is also Aquatint, but it requires that Rosetta be installed before you can run it on Intel-based Macs. It's really old.
A favorite of mine (though it doesn't manipulate text like Art Text) is PhotoStyler. It lets you create all sorts of effects. It's perfect for the Photoshop-challenged, like me. The publisher, Corner-A, also makes other apps that you might find helpful.
And last but not least, check out Apple's list of Imaging & 3D apps.
Illustrator. use ilustrator to design a logo. Perhaps Inkscape, but make sure it goes well as vector shapes without gradients. You might want to consider how to scale / amend it to use it as a favicon bitmap, hence 16x16 px.
If you want to have it long-lasting, ask an expert – folks are spending years to study graphic design – not without a reason.
Some open source options: http://www.gimp.org/ http://inkscape.org/
The best App besides Fireworks and Photoshop is Pixelmator IMHO
I'd second Fireworks. It's designed specifically for web graphics and is a nice blend of raster and vector.
The GIMP is a bit wonky on my snow leopard as everything requires a double-click for some reason.
Inkscape is a nice open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator.
Photoshop is a beast and expensive, but obviously widely used. I've been meaning to check out Pixelmator.
As for 'easy to use' well, they all have learning curves.
I am going out on a limb here, but I would guess that your problem isn't what application to use but the creative process itself. I have a lot of engineers and other friends who make their own logos and I end up throwing out the design and starting from scratch.
Do you have a design already sketched out?
