Digital Graphic Design

Try Your Hand at Digital Art and See the Possibilities

2008-05-19T07:54:00.000-07:00

Try your hand at digital arts and who knows what talent you may uncover. You'll hardly be a Picasso but with digital printers that allow you to convert these pieces to a real artist canvas you just might create the next masterpiece for your living room. Who knows, your large format printing might even land a spot in the museum of modern art.

Need an inspiration, just watch any of the recently released computer generated graphics movie and you know just how real graphic design can get. As a starter though, you would want to go for simple pieces you can use as a focal point for your home or office interior.

Here are a few design suggestions that will keep you glued to your computer:

• Graphic design is easy. There are a number of ways to start including with your digital camera. You can simply take your favorite snapshot, enhance it digitally and create your picture perfect profile you can hang in your bedroom or living room.

• When you want to create abstract art though, you can browse through the classic painters and choose a design school that draws your attention the most. You will be happy to find many filters in Adobe Photoshop that can help you emulate at least a basic art technique. Experiment with different tools and find the look you want.

• Aside from the classics, there are numerous graphic design superstars as well. You can look into these design subcultures in websites that host their pieces. Most of the time, they will even include a step by step tutorial that will help you copy certain techniques or create certain textures from scratch.

• You can start with small ideas and grow from there. You can work on a simple project and add layers of complexity as you go along and become more experienced in graphic design. Save different drafts so you can also observe the project as it develops.

• Digital art works well for the surrealist thinkers as well. If your idol is Salvador Dali, you can convert your photographs into surrealist art in one sitting. You can juxtapose pictures into different scenes stretching, bending, or blurring them as you go a long with various graphic design tools.

• Jackson Pollock wannabes on the other hand can have their fun playing around with paint brushes and extra large canvas. They can simply choose different paint brushes and splatter the blank screen. Or better yet, they can make their own paint brush.

And even if you want to design murals or extra small prints, you can simply adjust the size of your canvas. With digital printers, they can work on a variety of sizes from 8x8 inches to as big as 51x100 inches with half-inch increments.

Remember also that your artist canvas soaks more ink than your regular semi-gloss and will give you deeper and richer colors. In addition, you also have that beautiful fabric texture that builds up the drama for your large format printing.

Large Format Printing tips, guides and sizes can be found at Large Format Posters

By: Terry De Guie

Ten Font and Text Tips

2008-05-05T04:57:00.000-07:00

1. Use reversed text sparingly, although it produces a dramatic effect it is easily overdone and small sizes are difficult to read on some monitors.

2. Keep it simple. Avoid over filling a page, good use of white space encourages the reader to focus on the content. Use bullets, indents, italics or headings to distinguish important points.

3. Do not use too many font types. Generally, two font types are enough—for example one serif and one sans serif.

4. Avoid the use of all uppercase, depending on the font, it can be difficult to read. If you want a certain word to dominate use small uppercase, but an entire sentence or paragraph in uppercase is too much.

5. Use your boldface lightly. Contrast creates attention, if there are many bolded words, nothing will stand out.

6. Choose the right font. For example, a casual or frisky font distracts from serious content. The font should match your message and tone, not contradict it.

7. Select the proper font format. If you do not know what kind of format to purchase, consult with your font provider.

8. Test your font choice. It may be a good idea to see how a certain font appears across a broad range of applications or systems. Some programs, browsers or operating systems convert fonts and they may look different than they do on your monitor.

9. Do not overuse fancy, complicated fonts. Calligraphy fonts or other loopy, sweeping fonts may be beautiful, but are hard to read. Use them in moderation and never in content. For example, perhaps for a title in a large size that is easy to read, this will show a little style.

10. It may not be a good idea to copy fonts. Although the technology is available to copy a font, many are protected by license. Instead of copying, consider developing your own font style and purchase a custom, licensed font.

References
Adobe. Tips for Type. http://www.adobe.co.uk/type/topics/info8.html.
Adobe. Use the right character. http://www.adobe.co.uk/type/topics/info8.html.

Pamela Stevens

Pamela Stevens writes for TopTenREVIEWS.com, a review site that publishes unbaised reviews on a wide range of subjects, including software, online services, hardware, movies and actors.

Ten Font and Text Tips

2008-04-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

Photo Art Galleries

2008-04-11T14:01:00.000-07:00

Photo art galleries generally feature the artwork of photographers. The items for display are usually categorized into themes such as fine art, wildlife, nature, landscape, nude, travel, digital stock, documentary, and other images. By using advanced photographic production techniques, artists create black and white, color, digital, and film art photos in a variety of sizes and formats. At these galleries, you can view and buy images ranging from most modern and contemporary photography to vintage photography.

There are a number of photo art galleries located in the United States and Canada. Most of them feature mainly fine art photography, but some show other art media such as paper and textiles. In addition to photos, most photo art galleries carry a wide selection of videos, prints, and books. An array of stationery including bookmarks, greeting cards, and postcards are also usually available at these galleries. Some of the photo art galleries provide a wide variety of curatorial and design installation services as well.

Photo art galleries are greatly sought after for their personalized, friendly attention for art-selection assistance, archival-quality framing and matting, conservation and restoration services, special commissions, and installation services. There are photo art galleries that focus on particular projects such as thematic and historical topics. Many photo art galleries showcase a fine selection of religious photos. Sports, still life, fauna and flora, science, and fashion trends can also be the subjects of photos. Fine art photographs are excellent collectible items for a photograph collector. Single-subject photo galleries such as tattoo photo art galleries and nail photo art galleries are also very common.

Photo art galleries also conduct exhibitions for you to view and buy photos. These exhibitions sometimes focus on a particular artist or theme. Most photo art galleries provide online services for selection and purchase of photos. Online photo art galleries are also available.

Art Galleries provides detailed information on Art Galleries, Art Gallery Dealers, Fine Art Galleries, Online Art Galleries and more. Art Galleries is affiliated with Framed Art Prints.

By: Richard Romando

Finding and Choosing Fonts

2008-03-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

First off you need to identify what you require from your font. Some questions to ask yourself are:

1. What characters will be used?

Almost all fonts contain all alphabetical characters but not all contain numbers or special characters such as * or -. The last thing you want is to incorporate a font into a graphic only to find you can't use a character you need.

2. What special effects does the font contain?

Depending on your use of the font you may need to make it italic, bold or underlined. If so make sure the font has these features.

3. Serif or Sans Serif?

Sans means "without" in French. So Sans Serif fonts obviously don't have serifs and Serif fonts do. A serif is a small cross stroke at the end of the main stroke of the letter.

4. Font category?

What sort of theme/category are you loohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifking for. Maybe your making a website for a punk band and you want a grunge font or maybe you want comic book fonts for an illustration. Fonts are almost always grouped into categories for viewing so it's important to know which category to view.

Once you've decided on the criteria for your font it's time to go searching. There are two main ways to do this. The first way is to go to a free ware font website. There are many websites that showcase large collections of fonts for free in many different categories. A personal favorite of mine is Cool Fonts.

The second way to find fonts is to use a search engine. You can either search for a specific fonts, font websites or font categories.

Thank you for reading this article. I hope it has given you some useful insight.

By: Nat Petrie Dodd

How To Design Unique Logo

2008-03-24T04:31:00.000-07:00

There are 7 types of logo:

1. Typographic Logo which consist of word only e.g.: Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba

2. Geometric Typography Logo which consist of word (brand) and combined with geometrical shape such as square, circle, elipse. e.g.: Dupont

3. Initial Letter Logo which consist of one or more letters as an initial. e.g.: Hewlett-Packard

4. Pictorial Just like typographic logo (see no.1), but pictorial logo has stronger character since the typography was designed specially to create or design logo. e.g.: Hard Rock Café, Coca Cola

5. Associative Logo or symbol which has a direct associate with the product or main business core. e.g.: Shell, 20th Century Fox

6. Allusive Logo Logo that has indirect associate with the product or main business core. e.g.: Mercedes Benz, Alitalia

7. Abstract Logo that has an abstract symbol. This kind of logo is usually hard to understand, because the design comes from a very long process. In fact, it’s losing the basic form. Since the logo becomes an allusive/abstract symbol, everybody would have different perceptions about this kind of logo.

Personally, I love an allusive and abstract logo, because logo must be unique, simple and have a strong character. The basic idea could be anything as long as related to the company. It could be the product, main business core, the philosophy, the background, geographic, vision or mission, etc.

If you’re designing logo for fitness and spa center, leave the muscle and fitness equipment kind of image away. Start to think deeper about the purpose of being healthy and fit instead. What people get when they do exercise and spa (regularly)? The answer is “Their bodies will be healthy and so do their souls”. That’s the main purpose of doing fitness and spa, get healthy body and soul equally. It means that you can illustrate this with something equal or balance. The most common symbol to illustrate the balance is a “Ying-Yang” symbol. But you can not use this symbol as it is (that wouldn’t be unique, would it?!). Try to modify and make it related to the fitness/spa field. That would be another challenge for you as a designer…

I’m sure that the exploration of each business area to be exposed on logo is unlimited.

Anton Ardjanggi :: Jakarta-Indonesia based freelance graphic designer, http://anardlogo.blogspot.com/

Rich Fonts In Your Web Sites

2008-03-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

Font selection is perhaps on of the biggest deciding factors in the success of any given design. Using CSS we have the ability to modify existing fonts significantly. Unfortunately, we're still limited to a small number of browser safe fonts.

The sIFR typography module uses flash actionscripts and javascript to replace existing fonts with rich typography. It's an incredibly powerful tool. The module is free and available under a general public liscense.

How does it work?

sIFR downloads flash .swf files containing a custom font that is then held in the browser cache. This means you can effectively patch your user's browser with a new font that doesn't exist in their computer's font library. Crucially sIFR can handle dynamic content since the .swf is a font library, rather than a simple static flash movie.

Degradation/Compatibility

sIFR degrades gracefully into default CSS fonts for those users who have their Javascript of flash disabled. It's also fully accessible to screenreaders and other assistive technologies. Matt May from the W3C has fully endorsed it as an accessible method to create rich typography on the web.

In terms of compatibility, sIFR works on Firfox, IE5+, Opera 7+, Safari and many other browsers. 90% of machines are said to be compatible. On non-compatible machines the module simply does not take effect.

Limitations

I've found there to be some minor speed issues. It's generally advisable only to use the module on small headlines etc rather than whole paragraphs. Loading speeds are excellent though if used properly, and are invisible to the user.

Overall impression

I love this module. I'll be using it in many of my future websites. This tool can make your websites stand out from the crowd by displaying fresh looking typography. It's important though to remember that small proportion of people who can't run the module, and make sure that the default CSS styles are also up to today's high standards.

I think that sIFR is an excellent stop-gap measure. It's badly needed as designer’s grapple with current font limitations. In the long-term however, browsers will have to find a way to support rich typography ranges.

Article source: http://www.grumpycoder.co.uk

Original article: http://www.grumpycoder.co.uk/replace-browser-safe-fonts/

The Role of Typography

2008-03-21T03:29:00.000-07:00

Graphic Design is a very challenging creative and artistic job. Graphic designer has to be able to solve the task given and comes up with the idea of visual communication which not only attractive but yet persuading the viewers/readers to grab the message behind it and arouse the emotion, logic and certain needs. Generally, graphic designer use a lot of pictures, symbols, letters and any other graphic elements.

Sometimes, Graphic Designer is assigned to do the lay out or composition of many words or long sentences on many pages. In this case, letters or typography is no longer as an additional element but they are the main element of the graphic communication known as books, brochures or catalogue.

Either as an additional or main element, typography has a very important role to determine the result of visual communication. Many designers think that the most important in design is the thought or the idea and how it would be executed. They consider typography as an additional element.

The truth is that typography could be the main idea of the graphic communication and could be the only effective visual communication. In some cases, we found that the mistakes of the typography usage could ruins the whole design no matter how good the design is. The result is that the viewers/readers couldn’t get the message that we try to deliver. Some designers, especially the beginners don’t have the sense of harmony (yet) which is one of the graphic design principles. They were inclined to use fonts based on what they like, even more, they use them almost in same size, without considering the harmony, balance and yet headlines, sub headlines and content.

Choosing the type of fonts has some consideration, which are:

- the style of design (classic, modern or futuristic style)
- what design is about (the product)
- the size of the media
- how much information to put on

Try not to use too much kind of font on 1 page, 2 different types of fonts is the best. You can play around by make it bold, italic, use different size or different colors to make them looks vary.

Anton Ardjanggi :: Jakarta-Indonesia based freelance graphic designer, graphic design articles directory

3D Computer Graphics

2008-03-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

Graphics:

Giving life to any kind of presentation is just simply known as Graphics. Graphics is an image appearance such as wall, stone, screen, paper are used to visualize for entertainment purpose. For example photographs, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, images, drawings, line art, typography and engineering drawings and other images. Graphics design is use on purpose of selection, creation, arrangements of typography.

3D Computer Graphics:

3D computer graphics are basically created with the support of graphic art, digital computers and 3D software. 3D Computer graphics is nothing but to submit the good graphics or the computer graphic techniques which is related to new technology. 3D computer graphic is vaguely differing from 2D computer graphics. 3D is another way to say as a three dimensional. Three dimensional represents a geometric data which is previously accumulated in the personal computer. Three dimensional execute calculations and description 2D images. 2D images are display on real time screening.

3D modeling is one of the computer graphics. 3D computer graphics algorithm is frequently based on the 2D computer graphics. A 3D technique is frequently achieving the effects of lighting and striking. 3D computer graphics is commonly based on 3D computer graphics software which is way to create 3D computer generated imagery.

Application programming interface (API’s) in 3D computer graphics:

3D computer graphics are most fashionable in computer games. 3D computer graphics are very special in (API’s) Application programming interface concept it’s very simple to do the 3D computer graphics. Striking computer games are source of 3D computer graphics. Computer games are very admirable and eye-catching mainly in 3D computer graphics. 3D becomes very fashionable in computer games with realistic work. API’s has improved their status in computer games and crucial in graphics hardware. API’s has present a program to approach the graphics hardware in a fantasy way.

Computer Games:

A Computer game is supposed to come under the control of 3D computer graphics. Computer game can also call as video game. A video game is an effective entertainment to child and each every person who are interested in computer games. 3D graphics brings each person to beneath the control of computer games. 3D is a great interactive entertainment with computer and video games. Computer game is usually placed in a personal computer.

Animation:

Computer animation is one of the subfield of computer graphics. Computer graphics is supposed to animate the standard image. Animation is used to increase their status in 3D computer graphics and 2D computer graphics. 2D computer graphics is single bandwidth and also quite fast. To increase the speed of animation they introduce the 3D computer graphics. 3D computer graphics is not only in computer target itself and also mainly used in film and other 3D animation. 3D animation film is very popular in their people. Animation also has computer generated imagery (CGI) and that is mainly used for animation films.

Animation also views on the screen of computer and televisions; an image is swapping by a previous image to new image its measured action. 3D animation objects are creating in the computer monitor. 2D animation objects are used create skeleton and not the other part of the skeleton virtual. 3D animation is use to create a head, eyes, mouth and clothes etc. 3D animation are used to made the action what they created. With the help of key frames they utilize the computer process. In 3D animation all frames and modeling are utilize to complete the animation. You can place an animation under the bandwidth conditions.

Rose Wiliams - http://www.kreativpixel.com/services/3d-animations.html

All You Need to Know About Typography

2008-03-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

just want to define a simple classification of letter/font type. To me its important to recognize what kind of letters we need to use in graphic design. That's why typography appeared as a discipline. There are 5 kinds of letter/font according to their shape/ form.

1. Serif

Its a kind of letter with extended part in their foot-side. this part is called serif.
Example: Times New Roman, Garamond

2. Sans Serif

Sans means "no". Sans serif is a kind of letter without serif
Example: Helvetica, Arial

3. Script

Its a kind of letter similar to hand writing
Example: Lucida Handwriting, and another fonts with "script" word added behind their original name.

4. Decorative

Its a group of clip art defined as font. Quite help when we need instan art work on our design.
Example: Wingding, Webding

5. Monospace

Letters that have same width & space on each characters
Example: Monospace

I just want to define a simple classification of letter/font type. To me its important to recognize what kind of letters we need to use in graphic design. That's why typography appeared as a discipline. There are 5 kinds of letter/font according to their shape/ form.

1. Serif

Its a kind of letter with extended part in their foot-side. this part is called serif.
Example: Times New Roman, Garamond

2. Sans Serif

Sans means "no". Sans serif is a kind of letter without serif
Example: Helvetica, Arial

3. Script

Its a kind of letter similar to hand writing
Example: Lucida Handwriting, and another fonts with "script" word added behind their original name.

4. Decorative

Its a group of clip art defined as font. Quite help when we need instan art work on our design.
Example: Wingding, Webding

5. Monospace

Letters that have same width & space on each characters
Example: Monospace

By: Nanik Nasifah

Designs & Typography

2008-03-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

When typography is used creatively, it can accurately express and illustrate emotion and create a mood. Letterforms can be elegant and even visually exciting when used correctly. In the way letters are shaped for headlines and logos, they can reach out and get a reaction out of someone. When typography is used as an art form, it does not necessarily have to be read; in fact, it can stimulate the eye and carry a message without ever needing to actually read it.

When letter shapes are emphasized and become part of the overall design, graphic designers don’t have to rely so heavily on actual pictorial illustrations. In fact, some artists use typography as texture in the background of their layouts, or they use typography to create forms in the foreground. When color is added to typography or different weights or movements are given to it, all font families take on their own unique style. As found in many advertisements and logos, standard fonts can look extremely artistic. Most importantly, when typography matches the mood of the layout and appeals to the audience it was made for—mission is accomplished! The style of typography should support the visual communication and help illustrate the meaning behind the text. In other words, headings should mimic and complement the mood and setting of a layout.

Another factor to consider when designing a layout is to address the target audience you are looking for. For instance, if your audience is for young children, the typography should consist of playful shapes and colors. Since young ones prefer primary colors, try to keep the color palette simple or randomly place shapes and colors throughout the layout.

In conclusion, it’s plain to see that stylized letter shapes are an important part of designing and is a fundamental part of visual communication. Readability is a key factor in most cases; that is, if it is not being used as a background texture. Each letter in the alphabet is beautiful and it’s fun to showcase them and enjoy the meaning behind them. (revised 2/13/2006)

Debbie Jensen http://www.debjensendesigns.com

Typography and the Use of Stylized Fonts

2008-03-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

"[Typography is] the art of printing from moveable type, including the skilled planning of typeface and size, composition, and layout, to make a balanced and attractive whole" (Google Online Dictionary).

Movable type had to be set by hand for over 400 years prior to typewriters and computers. It wasn’t until the late 1800’s when automated type-setting became available. It is clear that Gutenberg’s movable typeset had a huge impact on communication throughout the world.

Typography has advanced to the point that an artist can choose from a wide variety of fonts for written communication or design elements. Typography is everywhere; it is seen on artistic layouts used for publications and found on functional computer-based products such as telephones, remote controls, and microwaves.

Since today’s software can turn typography into “outlines” as in Illustrator; or in Flash, the fonts can “break apart”--this too, was advancement for typography, because the Internet recognizes *digitally converted fonts* as artwork and not as typography. Digitally converting typography to artwork is important to today's technology, because artistic or unknown fonts (not digitally transformed to artwork) do not have to be converted to default fonts by end users’ computers.

Since decorative typography creates shapes in layouts, it can be arranged to be a focal point or used to create texture. When decorative typography becomes the focal point, it goes way beyond what graphics can do in visual communication. In most circumstances, graphic designs play second best to decorative typography especially in layouts, because decorative typography becomes part of the written communication. Generally speaking, the written word is easier to comprehend when comparing to graphic elements and editorial illustrations; and most often, graphics are usually not as precise as we want them to be. Even though a picture is worth a thousand words, misinterpretations of graphics are probably more apt to occur when compared to straight-forward written communication.

When stylized fonts harmonize with the intended meaning behind them, they can give a stronger punch to what is being communicated. Stylized fonts can clarify or confuse the meaning of the written word, so be careful with your choice of fonts in your layouts. No doubt about it, the art of typography is an art unto itself! (revised 2/13/2006)

Debbie Jensen, Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Photographer http://www.debjensendesigns.com

Caring for Your Original Art

2008-03-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

The following are some general guidelines for caring for original artwork and hand painted crafts that will keep your work beautiful for a lifetime and more.

Direct sunlight can fade and/or darken colors. Place your hand painted collectible or hang your painting so that it is not exposed to direct sunlight.

Do not mount display lights directly over your hand painted item or original art. Spotlights should ideally be located several feet from the surface of a painting or a special collection display.

The best environment for artwork is moderate, including average temperatures of 70-75F and a humidity of 50%. Since we do not all live in ideal conditions, try to avoid exposing your hand painted items and original art to extremes of either heat or humidity.

Avoid fireplace smoke and cigarette smoke. For other types of dirt and dust, paintings may be dusted with a soft, clean brush to very gently remove accumulated dirt and dust. Decorative crafts can be wiped gently with a damp cloth. Do not use any detergents or chemicals. In-depth cleaning for fine art should be done by a professional art restorer and is usually only required after many decades or even centuries!

If your artwork or fine art crafts need to be placed in temporary storage, store paintings and handcrafted items at the same temperature and humidity levels as indicated above. Do not seal in plastic or glass as moisture build-up may cause damage. Sheets or other low lint cloths may be used to lightly cover your paintings or handicrafts.

If your artwork has been seriously damaged (tears, punctures or other significant damage), the repairs should be handled by a professional art restorer. Common tapes and glues may contain chemicals that will damage the art.

Follow these guidelines and your original art and fine art crafts will add beauty and joy to your life for many, many years to come.

Kathleen Karlsen is a professional artist, writer and design consultant residing in Bozeman, Montana. Kathleen is best known for her contemporary impressionism style and her colorful forest, landscape and flower paintings. Kathleen's original art and fine art gifts can be seen at http://www.livingartsoriginals.com For an extensive article about flower symbolism see http://www.livingartsoriginals.com/infoflowersymbolism.htm To see a selection of Kathleen's flower paintings, please visit http://www.livingartsoriginals.com/originalfloralart.htm

By: Kathleen Karlsen

Original Artwork Online

2008-02-28T05:25:00.000-08:00

When it comes to buying original artwork online there is nothing better than purchasing a piece of original artwork directly from the artist who produced the work.

Not all artists promoting their original artwork for sale online have their own web site though, so it is quite common that you will see a lot of online galleries

promoting and selling artwork on the behalf of the artist.

This is a perfect scenario for an artist who would prefer to be doing what they ultimately do well, which is creating their art – instead of spending a lot of time on marketing their work.

However, I do admire the many artists who have a hand in the representation of promoting their artwork.

In fact, in a lot of respects it can be to the artist's advantage because as with producing artwork, marketing also requires some creativity. What better way to take advantage of that creativity with some input into their own marketing?

I am sure Dali and Picasso lived to see their success because they ultimately had a hand in the their overall "marketing machine". As a lot of us know, both of these amazing artists certainly new how to

make a splash and capture the public's attention.

This leads me to suggest that if you are looking to buy original artwork online, perhaps have a look to see if the artist is involved with his or her own promotion and associated marketing.

Of course this is not critical when it comes to buying original artwork because it goes without saying; good art is good art regardless if you meet the artist or get to read the

artists philosophy on life.

For a lot of people the art itself is enough to capture their attention. If the artwork holds enough credibility on its own because of its quality or manner in which it was produced and you truly love it, that’s all that really matters.

But if you appreciate an artist's work because you also like the way they view the world or tell a story within their artwork, you just may discover that you have been drawn to them through the manner in which they have represented themselves through their marketing and promotion.

Sometimes you will discover that there are additional little qualities that surround an artist when making an assessment to buy his or her original artwork.

This could be associated to how well they are getting the message across through their marketing and not just their artwork alone.

Here are a few tips that may interest you:

One way to discover more about the artist selling their work online is to see if they have their own independent web site.

If they do, then perhaps consider getting on their newsletter or mailing list. That way you'll get to appreciate how they are representing themselves and what their movements are within the art scene.

Sometimes, but not all time, you can get more of a personal tone when an artist has a hand in their own promotion. It can add to the

appreciation and overall enjoyment of purchasing their work.

These tips are not necessary but if you have discovered an artist that is speaking to you and not being spoken for, then perhaps hop along for the ride for a while.

Get to see how they present themselves and produce their work. Not only is it fun to watch but it can be quite interesting as well.

Nate Thomas is a writer and advocate of original Australian art. If you are an art collector or simply an admirer of quality art Nate highly recommends you visit Caku Art

Moden Interior Design

2008-02-27T03:31:00.000-08:00

Modern interior design does not just mean the decorating styles of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It actually refers to the clean streamlined furniture and architectural styles of the 1930’s. This style has its base in the German Bauhaus School of Design and Scandinavian modern design. Polished surfaces, clean geometric shapes and asymmetry are characteristics of this style. Expansive, unadorned windows help to connect the interior and exterior of the home. Colors:

The neutral palette allows the objects in the design to take center stage. White walls are predominant in a modern interior design with furnishings, accessories and fabrics sporting neutral tone-on-tone color schemes. Wall colors are in the light and highly reflective color range--white-based greens, teals and blues as well as stark white. Ceilings are usually painted a crisp, bright white to further emphasize dramatic architectural features.

Finishes:

The surfaces of homes done in a modern interior design are sleek, smooth and polished. Flooring is usually concrete, granite or linoleum. The common accents found in the kitchen are chrome and stainless steel and the cabinets are usually finished with a lacquer.

Architecture:

Modern interior design focuses on geometric and angular shapes. Light streaming through the windows makes an artistic statement and brings attention to the interior architecture.

Artwork:

The art and accessories used in modern interior design are extremely important and should exhibit striking shapes or forms. Spotlights should be used to focus on the art and create a visual impact.

Modern interior design uses less texture and is more about form and artistic expression than function. The touches of color added to the artwork and accessories are designed to make you think. Decorative accents such as oversized round chrome accessories, square-edged furnishings and rectangular -patterned rugs and artwork add to the ambiance of the décor.

Stainless steel, metal tubing, chrome and black accents are the hallmark of a high-tech designed area. Kitchens often feature an "industrial" look with sleek metallic appliances and storage cabinets. Glass block or curving transparent window glass may be set in a wall. The cabinetry is usually sleek and unadorned with plain panel doors and hardware that's hidden or unobtrusive.

For lots of great interior decorating tips and related information, visit Nr1 Home Decorating at http://www.nr1-home-decorating.com

By: Ken Wilssens

Art Frames

2008-02-23T07:55:00.000-08:00

When you are purchasing artwork, be it a painting or contact prints, remember that the total cost often include the cost of the frames they come in. Veteran or experienced art buyers will tell you to just buy unframed pieces and have them framed yourself. This way, you only pay for the real cost of the artwork. And this will also save you money on transporting the piece, especially if you made the purchase while on a trip or vacation.

Framing your purchased painting is a good designing idea, providing you with certainty that the painting blends well with the other pieces in your living or office space. This works well for contemporary art or those done by relatively unknown artists.

Art frames can be custom made to suit your specifications. Depending on the subject or style of the painting, you can choose between wood or metallic frames. Victorian-style art, with its elaborate details and decadence is more suited to be framed in wood to enhance the elegance and richness of its texture. Contemporary art, pop art, abstracts, and Picasso-like pieces look best when framed in sleek and simple metallic frames.

Before you decide which frame to use for your newly purchased artwork, search for design concepts in magazines, visit galleries or browse the Internet. There are many art frame suppliers on the web. You can get really good deals from them, especially when they are on clearance. When buying online, just beware of the security framework of the transaction. Give out your credit card details to accredited suppliers only. And you must know all the terms and conditions of the transaction, if there are delivery costs and if the product delivery is insured or not.

The better way to do it is by bringing your painting to a smaller gallery or a hardware store to be framed. This way, you won't have to frame your painting yourself.

Frames provides detailed information on Frames, Art Frames, Photo Frames, Poster Frames and more. Frames is affiliated with Cheap Framed Art.

By: Josh Riverside

VADE - Artwork and Imagery for media applications

2008-02-18T07:06:00.000-08:00

Vade: Artwork Posters Wallpapers.

If you are in the market for abstract artwork for your media promotions, you may have seen the artwork on offer from Vade. We decided to delve deeper in to there site and artwork (most of which is license free), from Vade.co.uk.

The artists who combine to produce the artwork available from that site cover a wide range of the more abstract styles. Some of the work appears quite intense but the majority of the imagery available is suitable for use in music and media production work.

The approach they take to their media is much more open with the heavy use of symmetry and intense colors. Although some may feel that it the images are simply mirrored textures it seems that once you take a look at the style they present (which is easier than trying to explain in words) you can see that a lot of work has gone in to each image/artwork piece.

We came across there work have seen it used on music CD releases and it has to be said that it does add that extra something to your productions although once the images become well know online the unique aspect may diminish somewhat.

Although there is not a lot of info about the guys who produce this work, we get the feeling that they are pretty much happy just making the work available to the general public license free.

Unlike most other artwork sites, you don't have to join up to get your hands on the artwork and having used their work on several projects recently they are now among our list of favorite artwork sites. It’s a bit more refreshing than searching Google images…!

Protech Online

By: Gary Hall

How To Select An Art Piece In An Art Auction

2008-02-14T07:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifNowadays, there are many art auction houses available online such as sotheby and ebay. However, before attempting to bid for a fine art auction, there are some points you need to take note especially if you are a beginner to art auctions.

If you are new to fine art auctions, you might first decide what it is you like to collect. Is it abstract art, oil-based painting, impression art etc?

You also might want to read up on the art category that you prefer to buy. Take for example, you are into abstract art. It would help you in your art auctions if you knew more about abstract art history, the various abstract art movements. The best way to start would be on the internet. One such site is www.artsconnected.org. They provide comprehensive search tools for visitors to research on their favorite art category.

The other way is to browse the various art magazines, books, periodicals. You could go to your local bookstore, amazon or even the local library. Visit a few fine art auction houses and get a feel for the type of art you are interested in. Art Auction houses will usually provide detailed information on the art piece being auctioned.

How Do I Know The Art Piece I Like Is Real?

Ok, so you finally found an art piece you like. The next question you are probably asking is how do I know it is authentic? Since the value of an art piece is subjective depending on the person looking at it, it would be best if you can afford it to get a professional art appraiser to value the art piece.

For large fine art auction houses such as sotheby, you can be assured that the art piece is already appraised and is authentic. However, if you are looking for an art piece at smaller auction houses or online art auctions such as ebay, you do need to be extra careful. Particularly so for online art auctions where there are many fake art pieces being auctioned.

If you like a fine art being auctioned online, the best way if possible would be to communicate with the art seller before buying. Online art auctions usually keep a track record of the art seller’s sales history and can help you to determine whether the seller is a reputable person.

Ricky Lim runs an fine art auction info site. To know more about and early american art, visit his site

The Indonesian Art of Sculpting

2008-02-12T07:41:00.000-08:00

Since the beginning of time, men have had the interest for shaping simple objects into entirely new different objects. Human beings have learned to adapt to his surroundings, and this resilience of men has made them more in tune with their environment, enhancing their talents.

Modeling objects is somewhat similar to this concept. This process entails the usage of a material flexible enough to be manipulated through methods such as heating and molding. This manipulation is done to recreate the object it is being modeled after.

Sculpture is definitely a form of art that differs from culture to culture. All cultures may use the same material and same model, but how each culture implements their own cultural design, concept and beliefs would separate one work of art from another.

The Indonesian Symbolism

The Indonesian culture renders high respect and adoration for the nature that surrounds them. That’s why in most of their art forms, themes of natures are always incorporated in their designs. Such designs they use are intricate and very expressive. Furthermore, the Indonesian design sticks to colorfully bright and sharp details.

Indonesia’s close ties with its religious beliefs have led their art forms, specifically their sculptures, to be mythical in theme and design as well. These and other designs basically symbolize how significant life, nature and religion are to the Indonesian culture. Another addition to the already long list of themes significant to the Indonesian culture is the close ties that families form with one another which have so far inspired the Indonesian art tradition.

Indonesian Sculpture

Similar to wood carvings, sculpture in Indonesia follows the unwritten rule that the sculpture should incorporate the Indonesian's concept of life, nature and religious beliefs. Indonesian sculpture involves many processes of polishing and touches that highlights the truthfulness it should possess. Indonesian sculpture is also never limited to fixed model positions. Instead, it has the ability to portray extreme movement and expressive features. Most important of all, the richness of the Indonesian ethnicity is evident in every unique piece of art, especially their sculptures. Each unique piece also represents the unique cultural diversity that resides within the boundaries of Indonesia.

Sculpture and other forms of art not only serve as a hobby for the Indonesian society but a way to preserve their rich cultural heritage as well. At indonesia-exporter.com and other websites in the Internet featuring sculptures, further appreciation for the Indonesian art can be seen.

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By: James Osborn

Landscape Designers Can Make a Difference

2008-02-11T07:09:00.000-08:00

Landscape designs

Landscape design combines the essential elements of art and science to create a functional, aesthetically pleasing extension of indoor living to the outdoors. It is a part of landscape architecture and allows space and design to reflect creativity. Completely a man made exercise, the purpose of landscape design is to blend technology with nature. To become a landscape designer one must have a working knowledge of art elements and design principles.

Though an architectural field, landscape design has a special aesthetic value. Elements of art include but are not limited to color, line, form, texture and scale. These elements are never independent of each other, but their individual natures should be dealt with care before considering the interactions.

Landscape design is a multi-disciplinary field, including within its fold mathematics, science, engineering, art, technology, social sciences, politics, history, philosophy. Color, line, form, texture and scale are tools which are used in combinations to adjust design the landscape. Design principles include unity, balance, transition, focalization, proportion, rhythm, repetition and simplicity. All these principles interact to yield the intended landscape design.

The landscape designer essentially works on:

• The form, scale and citing of new developments

• Public parks, greenways, golf courses, theme parks and sports facilities

• Housing areas, industrial parks and commercial developments

• Urban design, town and city squares, and pedestrian schemes

• Large or small urban regeneration schemes

• Forest, tourist or historic landscapes, and historic garden appraisal and conservation studies

• Environmental assessment and landscape assessment, planning advice and land management proposals.

• Coastal and offshore developments

The key steps in landscape design are:

• Develop a plot plan.

• Conduct a site analysis.

• Assess family needs and desires.

• Locate activity areas.

• Design activity areas.

• Plant selection and placement.

Important in landscape design:

• Unity is obtained by the effective use of components in a design to express a main idea through consistent style. It is emphasized by consistency of character between units in the landscape. Use of elements to express a specific theme within units creates harmony in landscape design.

• Balance is also needed. It refers to the equilibrium or equality of visual attraction. Symmetrical balance is achieved when one side of the design is a mirror image of the other side. There is a distinct dividing line between the two sides. Equal lines, forms, textures or colors are on each side of a symmetrical landscape design.

• Colors are combined into color schemes for practical applications. Three basic color schemes are monochromatic, analogous and complementary. A monochromatic color scheme consists of different tints and shades of one color and is seldom achieved in its pure form in the landscape design.

• A line is maintained in landscape design with the height of the plants that have been planted. In the overall landscape, line is inferred by bed arrangement and the way these beds fit or flow together.

• The size of the area is to be kept in mind for a definite landscape design.

Landscape designers and Landscape technicians or engineers are employed with landscape construction and service companies. Landscape designers, like garden designers, design all types of planting and green spaces. With rapid modern urbanization, landscape design is fast gaining momentum.

Gardening and landscaping are one of life's simple joys. Learn more about Landscape design by visiting our Garden Facts web site.

By: Bill McRea

Fantasy Abstract Art

2008-02-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

Fantasy abstract art is a form of abstract art which uses dreams, myths, magic, wild designs, and stories in major. Fantasy art varies from Roman Gods to Mermaids to different fairy tales and more. Fantasy art is entirely about the imagination or the things that have developed just the way you dream about them.

Most of the fantasy abstract art work uses oil on canvas material. This provides the drawing with an additional attraction and moreover a realistic way of appearance. In general, a fantasy art drawing which uses oil on canvas differs in variety of sizes and the price package. For an oil-on-canvas fantasy art at a size of 18'x24', the price range would come around $375. Fantasy art can be categorized not only in the abstract form, but it is also developed in the modern form of art.

In the recent years, fantasy abstract art can also be developed with the use of software. The software offers you with quick drawing and development of fantasy art, along with lots of features that you can make use of. Fantasy art has been developed for more than twenty-five years with some exquisite masterpieces from various artists.

Fantasy abstract art has developed more number of drawings which comprise aliens, angels, collectives, dark, dragons, dreams, fairies, furry, goddesses and gods, mermaids, myths, sci-fi, and vampires. These are developed in the form of an imaginable manner, just giving shape to our dreams. This form of art development is gradually increasing in number, for the reason that it very soon attracts any kind of art lover. Fantasy abstract arts are also available around $8 in either framed or mounted forms, which have huge variety in selection with an incredible work done.

Abstract Art provides detailed information on Abstract Art, Modern Abstract Art, Abstract Art Paintings, Abstract Art Galleries and more. Abstract Art is affiliated with African Wildlife Art.

By: Damian Sofsian

Tattoos: For the Love of Art?

2008-01-30T06:55:00.000-08:00

How far are you willing to go for your love of art? Do you have art, designs, emblems, or icons written on your body? If art is your passion, why damage your skin with images you may later regret? To love and embrace art does not mean you need to tattoo yourself.

The permanency of tattoos has a serious downside. As we age, our taste in art and design and personal aesthetics usually change. No doubt, tattoos are popular worldwide, but caution for this form of art needs to be addressed. Do you know of any style that has stood up over a long period of time? People everywhere periodically change the style and color of their hair, eye makeup, eye glasses, and facial hair (for men).

Speaking as an artist, I have to say that no art is error-free. Artists cannot produce perfect work no matter how great they are. Only perfect people produce perfect work. Not only this, but tattoo technology improves from one decade to the next. What then? Removing outdated tattoos is painful and expensive. Most people can’t assume they will have the physical endurance and money to be able to remove tattoos.

There are more considerations too: faded tattoos, body weight changes, and aged skin. With sun exposure and passage of time, tattoos fade. As we age, our body weight can easily change which could cause a tattoo to appear too large or too small. And most definitely, our skin wrinkles and crepes as we age.

Tattoos brand people. Tattoos advertise and communicate messages to everyone who sees them. When someone feels so strongly about something that they are willing to brand themselves with a permanent tattoo or two, others take them seriously and try to read and interpret them.

Is the love of art your motivation for tattoos? If so, you may want to use your favorite tattoo design for your jewelry, a T-shirt, a poster, or for a motorcycle instead. If you think your tattoo is NOT good enough or does NOT merit being put on other items such as these, then why do you want permanent tattoo(s) on your body?

Debbie Jensen, Graphic Designer and Photographer http://www.debjensendesigns.com

Graphic Artist

2008-01-25T05:53:00.000-08:00

Graphic artists create art and layouts by arranging images and text to communicate a message in print and electronic media such as magazines, newspapers, books and websites, as well as for corporate branding, exhibitions and advertising purposes. Most graphic artists specialize in a number of fields including television, film and computer graphics, exhibition designing, corporate branding, book and magazine designing, advertising and illustration. A graphic designer can rise up in the creative world through his vivid imagination and hard work, and can acquire the post of design directors, art directors or creative directors in his career.

The profile of a graphic artist usually requires him to talk to clients to get a better understanding of their visual communication requirements and, on that basis, develop rough designs or sketches for approval. Once the client approves the idea, a designer prepares layouts of the sketches by using modern techniques like photography, illustration and computer-generated imagery. The layouts, once approved by the client, are printed and then set up for exhibitions or for advertising purposes. Although a graphic artist is only supposed to prepare designs for his clients, it is also imperative for an artist to interact with his client on a regular basis to understand his requirements, and supervise the design production stages to ensure a quality product for his client.

Graphic artists mostly work as a member of a team in design studios or advertising agencies, and after gaining considerable experience one can also undertake freelance work. Although a diploma in creative design is a plus for an artist, personal aptitudes like a creative and imaginative mind, good sense of color and form, good communication skills, good marketing abilities, the ability to work under pressure and ability to work in a team are some of attributes which are essential for a designer to succeed.

Graphic design is quite a rewarding career, and one can gain not only monetary wealth but can also amass fame through hard work and creativity.

Graphic Artist provides detailed information on Graphic Artist, What is a Graphic Artist, Graphic Artist Salaries, Find a Graphic Artist and more. Graphic Artist is affiliated with Graphic Design Jobs.

By: Jimmy Sturo

Top 10 Art Schools

2008-01-21T07:19:00.000-08:00

The top 10 art schools focus on the visual arts, such as graphic design, illustration, painting, photography, and sculpture according to the author’s best research results.

1. The California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture is at the progressive end of Earth Art and Ceramic Architecture technologies today.

2. Creative people require creative careers. The Art Institute of Phoenix leads the way to these opportunities. Programs focus on design— advertising, graphic, interior, and Web design.

3. The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute offers an self-governing research and academic program designed to encourage new approaches to the understanding of issues and objects from an adaptable style of art.

4. The Cranbrook Academy of Art, located in the affluent Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, MI, is a prominent graduate school of architecture, art and design. Founded in 1932 by philanthropists George Gough Booth and wife Ellen Scripps Booth, it is part of the larger Cranbrook Educational Community, also founded by the couple.

5. The New York Academy of Art or Graduate School of Figurative Art is the only accredited school of its kind in the world. Blending the traditions of the Italian and French Academies, the Academy focuses on the study of the human figure by rigorously studying anatomy, art history, sculpture, painting, and drawing.

6. The New School of Classical Art (NSCA) offers the Atelier Method of art instruction and is based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA. It was founded in 2005 by the Master Painter and Classical Realism (arts)Artist Dana Levin.

7. The China Academy of Art has the most complete range of degree offerings and programs of study in fine arts in China. There are eight schools under its jurisdiction offering Ph.D., master’s and bachelor’s degrees in fine arts, design, architecture, multi-media and film.

8. Iceland Academy of the Arts (Icelandic: Listaháskóli Íslands) is an Icelandic arts school which offers education in arts at university level.

9. The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy was formed to rival the Society of Artists after an unseemly leadership dispute between two leading architects, Sir William Chambers and James Paine. in Piccadilly, London.

10. The Royal Swedish Academy of Arts or Kungl. Akademien för de fria konsterna, founded in 1773 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden. The Academy is an independent organization, which acts to promote painting, sculpting, building and the other visual arts.

James Winston has developed many websites over the years in many different business areas. He is a professional web developer/designer/research specialist. He has a College University, Free Website Content Resource for Art School seekers with Five Steps To Choosing A College a place where anyone may read and prepare for The Basics of Starting college!

3D Abstract Art

2008-01-19T05:13:00.000-08:00

3D abstract art is a form of abstract art which uses the help of modern technology for the purpose of designing and drawing. This form of abstract art uses the help of software which comprises of multimedia and graphics. This type of art develops quick drawing and modeling of images that are complex in type. The software used for this type of art helps developers to save time and give more attractive designs of pieces.

3D animation software is categorized into two factors namely graphics and multimedia. These are the factors in which drawing designs can be developed very easily. The features of this software help you in developing highly complicated models very easily. It is, moreover, very user friendly and highly efficient. Newtek, Ulead, Eovia, and Allume Systems are few of the top software providers who offer you with a better 3D abstract art form. 3D abstract art software can cost anywhere from $30 to $200, depending on the features. 3D rendering and 3D drafting software are also used widely for this modern form of art.

3D Home Architect, which is very famous in the market, is of great use in developing 3D abstract art form. The software is used mainly for business and office purposes and also used for educational purposes. Encore and Mattel are the most popular brands that sell this form of software for commercial purposes. They cost around $30 to $60.

Floorplan 3D abstract art uses effective art designs that are categorized into computers along with electronics. IMSI is the only brand which offers this software for art development. It performs a complete home design solution with its features. The price range of abstract art software is from around $10 to $40. 3D abstract art software develops more efficient and effective art forms. The software offers you with high quality art technology at an affordable price range.

Abstract Art provides detailed information on Abstract Art, Modern Abstract Art, Abstract Art Paintings, Abstract Art Galleries and more. Abstract Art is affiliated with African Wildlife Art.

By:Damian Sofsian

Digital Fine Art

2008-01-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

You may not realize it, but digital art is the kind of art you are most exposed to. Computers and digital media improve our lives and our creativity in manners that we would never have thought possible only a few years ago. Some modern art experts say that digital fine art is a natural evolutionary result of the progression of human technology, and that it should be recognized as a vital cultural phenomenon.

Just like any art form, digital fine art is created by three factors: artist inspiration, technique and presentation. All the traditional artistic techniques still apply to digital art – techniques such as perspective, light, shadow and expression.

The greatest achievements of digital fine art

Perhaps the most significant impact digital art has made so far is its ability to create three-dimensional (3D) images in a few clicks. This technology paved the way for advancements in the field of digital design and applied digital sciences (as in robotics).

And, because a there are many different software and hardware tools to aid both digital fine art designers and regular users, digital art is the most accessible art form. Everyone can learn how to manipulate form, shade, space, color, movement, texture, shadow, light, transparency, radiance, luminosity and reflection to create ingenious digital fine art.

Some misconceptions

Contrary to popular belief, digital art is ‘serious’ art in a sense that the artists are just as creative as artists who use more traditional methods. The computer does not compose and create art by itself – it is still the artist who uses virtual brushes and paints to produce one-of-a-kind artwork.

The future of digital fine art

You can expect to see more elaborate, digital fine art in the future as artist’s organizations take steps to gain more publicity and launch their artworks. The move to get art enthusiasts to take digital art more seriously is likely going to progress and succeed. It won’t be long before digital fine art is traded in high end auction houses. Although the image of digital art on a computer screen can be stunning, the digital fine art print is a collectible artifact that can be appreciated on a very personal level and treasured for a lifetime.

Digital Art provides detailed information on Digital Art, Digital Fine Art, Digital Art Schools, 3D Digital Art and more. Digital Art is affiliated with Digital Prints.

By: Peter Emerson

Arts and Design Training

2008-01-15T05:44:00.000-08:00

Schools that provide arts and design training offer studies of crafts, arts, and design of all kinds. Arts and design training introduces a broad range of materials and hands-on instruction, including clay, wood, metal, and fiber.

Vocational arts and design training programs can be greatly diversified and may include courses in graphic design, jewelry production, illustration, interior design, fashion, film, animation, architecture, furniture, sculpture, and more. Arts and design training can also include painting, photography, sound design, and visual effects. Students in arts and design training programs will take courses in drawing, sketching, color, tools, techniques, creative vision, and art theory.

Art and design schools promote the development of critical skills to prepare students for professions in animation, studio arts, performing arts, production, advertising, educational instruction, video, film, and in graphic design, interior design, and architectural design.

Arts and design training may also include courses in the design of various mechanical devices and machines, such as kitchen appliances, windows, bathroom units, cars, airplanes, toys, and even interactive games, depending on the focus of the particular school and the interests of individual students. Artistic creativity and expression, intellectual understanding, and professional development are concerns of quality arts and design training in vocational, technical, and trade schools and community colleges.

If you would like to learn more about Arts and Design Training, or even Online Arts and Design Schools, you can find more in-depth information and resources on our website.

DISCLAIMER: Above is a GENERAL OVERVIEW and may or may not reflect specific practices, courses and/or services associated with ANY ONE particular school(s) that is or is not advertised on SchoolsGalore.com.

Copyright 2007 - All rights reserved by SchoolsGalore.com, in association with Media Positive Communications, Inc.

Notice: Publishers are free to use this article on an ezine or website, provided the article is reprinted in its entirety, including copyright and disclaimer, and ALL links remain intact and active.

Michael Bustamante is a staff writer for Media Positive Communications, Inc. in association with SchoolsGalore.com. Find Arts and Design Schools, Colleges, Universities, Vocational Schools, and Online Schools at SchoolsGalore.com, your educational resource to locate schools.

Expressionist Art - Is This What My Five Year Old Paints?

2008-01-11T06:05:00.000-08:00

Expressionist Art first came formally into being within the professional fine art community around the turn of the 20th century. It derived itself from the European Impressionist movement and one of its first great artists may be considered to be the Dutchman Vincent Van Gogh.

The Impressionist were primarily concerned with expressing the nature of what their eye detected rather than the more realistic art forms that preceded that period. The Expressionist however was more inclined to add a more personal touch to their artwork and were even further from the academic standards that had prevailed in Europe during the preceding centuries. In many ways, just as technology transformed life in the 20th century, the expressionist artist transformed the way art developed. Perhaps it was this rapid change in the pace of life that inspired Norwegian expressionist artist Munch to create the famous artwork "The Scream".

In any case, it took expressionist art several decades to make greater headway and developed primarily in Europe through the German expressionist school. This school involved such talented artists as Schiele and Kandinsky. In many ways though the art of Kandinsky, though showing traits of expressionism rapidly developed towards a more abstract level based on his theories relating numbers and colors.

Indeed the whole concept behind expressionism was to capture an emotion through art and not necessarily expressing it via a figurative image. And this leads us on to the questions of whether art created by elephants can be considered to be expressionist artworks. For this to be true we would require that the elephant be aware of its feelings as it creates the artwork. Given that this would be difficult to directly fathom I believe that there is no fundamental reason to define elephant artwork as expressionist. However, is this also the case for our five year old children?

Young children are often not fully aware of their emotions, but we all know only too well, that they do know how to express themselves through their emotions. As such, if they were to do so while creating and painting a picture then it must be assumed that such a work also contains elements of expressionist art. So, yes! Perhaps your child is an expressionist artist and that should only be encouraged.

To find out more on expressionist art you can review:
http://www.garpsworld.com/art/expressionist/expressionist_art.htm

By: John McMenemy

Book Cover Designing

2008-01-03T06:47:00.001-08:00

Book covers contribute as a litmus test to the success of a book. A buyer should be able to get the feel of the subject by glancing at the cover of a book.

There are few tips to be taken care of while designing the cover of a book.

1. Distinctive title or name of the book on its cover. Name of the book should stand out on the book's cover. Color, style and size of the font should be chosen carefully. Simple common rules are most useful like choice of opposite color shades i.e. dark font on a light image or vice verca.

2. Image or artwork or collage used on the book cover should definitely relate very clearly to the subject of the book. This involves great creativity like the one which goes in designing the logo for a company. Because its the image which acts as a strut or a prop to the recognition of your book's performance in reader's mind.

3. Towards the bottom normally the cover design should carry the writer and publisher's name. The fon size for this is kept much lower than that of the book's title.

4. Most importantly the cover design should give a perfect balance of artwork and text which communicates the glance of the book's subject with clarity.

Normally a couple of variants or designs are prepared and evaluated on parameters of appeal, recognition and impact value before pin pointing on one design which finally goes to make the history for a book's performance.

The author is a veteran in this field of book cover designing since last 3 decades. He runs a company specializing in book cover designing and book composing. Several samples and profile are available at http://www.linksngrafix.com

By: Manuj Bajaj

Abstract Landscape Art

2007-12-21T07:08:00.000-08:00

Abstract landscape art is a form of abstarct art which deals with various landscapes. It mainly involves landscapes like trees, mountains, or different kinds of natural sceneries. This also includes seascapes and weather as two other significant categories that have got developed.

In modern times, the availability of more number of landscape abstract art software helps the developers to make exquisite art forms. Real Landscaping Pro is a software program, which is used to develop various landscape portrayals in a much easier manner. It includes visualizing landscape ideas, professional presentation tools, landscapes with slopes and hills, usage of wizards which make the designing much simpler, digital importing photographs to the art, custom models that can be imported, and huge variety and selection of plants and trees. These factors are used to develop a more attractive landscape art form.

In general, landscape abstract art ranges from a minimum of $800 for an art which has an excellent finishing work. It also exceeds up to $2,000 or even more than that for some of the best pieces with an incredible expressiveness and finishing work. Landscape art has developed with variations in its size, which also influence the price range. The painting has been categorized into three types, such as up to 50 cm, from 50 cm to 100 cm, and exceeding more than 100 cm. According to the size range, the price range also differs from each landscape art design.

Most of the landscape art designs are developed with the use of muslins and oil paintings, which give more attraction and realism to the art. Oil paintings used on canvas can cost you around $20 for a simple selection of the landscape art design. Landscape abstract art is available in many categories. Landscape art that has developed in different stages by different artists are hugely sold for the art lovers. Landscape art developed before 2000, the landscape art created between 2000 and 2005, and very old masterpieces of many famous artists are the common categories one can see before buying.

Abstract Art provides detailed information on Abstract Art, Modern Abstract Art, Abstract Art Paintings, Abstract Art Galleries and more. Abstract Art is affiliated with African Wildlife Art.

By: Damian Sofsian

Graphic Design Course Requirements

2007-12-19T03:18:00.000-08:00

In order to participate in a graphic designer course there are certain requirements that a person will need to meet. So before a person can actually look for a course they first need to understand what graphic design course requirements they will need to have. In this article we will take a look at the various requirements people who wish to study and earn a certificate or degree in Graphic Design will need to meet.

For entry onto a graphic design course many Universities, Colleges as well as online courses require their students to show a commitment to learning about all aspects of art and design. It is best if a student has obtained an advance understanding of everything to do with art and design which they would have to learn both through theory and practice.

But for all students whether do a basic graphic designer course or one which will lead to them obtaining a degree they need to be able to sustain high levels of research for an MA. Plus they need a mind that is not only imaginative but is open and willing to accept new ideas.

The basics of any graphic design course is to help its students to learn and understand the importance of planning and then executing any designs that they have. These designs are then used to communicate a message according to the particular wants and needs of their client.

However when looking at graphic design courses it is important that you do not get this muddled up with graphic art ones. Graphic art courses generally teach the students about the technical side of graphic matter s relating to printing or electronic pre press. Rather than actually teaching the students the things you need in order to produce a design and then execute that design.

Through out the course as part of any graphic design course requirements the students will need to learn not only technological skills, but also conceptual and formal ones as well. Parts of their course work will cover foundation art matters such as drawing, colour and how to use 3D. Whilst in other parts of the course they will learn about the history of graphic design along with some elective subjects as well.

If you are someone who is able to meet al or most of the graphic design requirements that we have mentioned above you can then start to look at the various courses that Universities and online centers have available. But be prepared if you want to obtain a professional degree in graphic design you will need to allow 4 years in order to do so.

P Abbey owns and operates http://www.graphicdesigncoursesguide.com/graphicdesigncourserequirements.html - Graphic Design Course Requirements

Digital Art Galleries

2007-12-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

Digital art is a new breed of fine art. Digital artists have forged new ways to express their creativity with their computer-aided tools. Digital art galleries exhibit of artwork created with the help of computers.

There are a number of categories available in digital art such as computer-drawn art, digital painting, enhanced photography, digital photo painting, 2D and 3D digital art, techno, and algorithmic art. In addition to artwork, digital art galleries usually provide a wide selection of digital art CDs, books, periodicals, and journals.

The availability of photograph-manipulation software has increased the popularity of digital art. Mainly, there are two types of artwork: 2D and 3D graphics. The collections in digital art galleries generally include specially designed 2D and 3D graphics, motifs, drawings, digital photos, animated artworks, and specially taken photos. Digital paintings, prints, digital imaging, and mixed-media works are the other items commonly found in digital art galleries. You can view different versions of the same photos. For the creation of these different types artwork, image-editing software, various scanners, and desktop printers are used.

Digital art galleries mostly come online. They allow individuals to post their own artwork in different categories. Many online digital art galleries provide for sharing and learning art experience. Some of them offer low-cost education for individuals who are interested in learning digital art and design software. Digital art galleries also conduct exhibitions and competitions.

As the commercial illustration industry is growing with digital art technology, digital art galleries have become very popular all over the world. They assist artists and graphic designers in expressing their creativity in a short film, art piece, or photograph.

Art Galleries provides detailed information on Art Galleries, Art Gallery Dealers, Fine Art Galleries, Online Art Galleries and more. Art Galleries is affiliated with Framed Art Prints.

By: Richard Romando

Graphic Design Schools Teach Digital Design

2007-12-17T06:49:00.000-08:00

Digital design has become one of the most popular career choices, and graphic design schools can give you the skills and technological expertise you need to be a professional graphic designer. Graphic design training will show you how to use the latest design software to create visual effects for movies, websites, video games, and other visual media. Your graphic design course will most likely cover digital art production, digital publishing, website design, interactive media design, 2D and 3D computer graphics, DVD authoring, vector graphics, animation, image processing, and much more.

The various graphic design schools are housed in vocational schools, community colleges, and two- and four-year institutions. College degrees in graphic design can include the Associate of Arts in Visual Communication; the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology, Graphics, and Multimedia; or a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication. An associate degree would be sufficient for most technical positions; however a bachelor's degree is often required for the more advanced, specialized positions.

Well-trained graphic designers will easily find employment in the fields of art and design. Jobs are available in printing and related support activities; book, newspaper, periodical, and directory publishing; specialized design services; or advertising and related services. Graphic designers are often utilized in the area of engineering services, or for scientific, management, or technical consulting firms. Graphic designers commonly develop computer graphics for websites, computer systems design firms, and motion picture production firms.

The best news is that graphic designers are needed across the board when it comes to creating compelling visual designs. The employment outlook is excellent, and those with even a modicum of talent can have great success in today's burgeoning field of graphic design.

If you are interested in learning more about Graphic Design Schools, and even Online Graphic Design Schools, please visit our website where you will find numerous graphic design schools just waiting to hear from you.

DISCLAIMER: Above is a GENERAL OVERVIEW and may or may not reflect specific practices, courses and/or services associated with ANY ONE particular school(s) that is or is not advertised on SchoolsGalore.com.

Copyright 2007 - All rights reserved by Media Positive Communications, Inc.

Notice: Publishers are free to use this article on an ezine or website, provided the article is reprinted in its entirety, including copyright and disclaimer, and ALL links remain intact and active.

Michael Bustamante is a staff writer for Media Positive Communications, Inc. Find Graphic Design Schools, Colleges, Universities, Vocational Schools, and Online Graphic Design Schools at SchoolsGalore.com, your educational resource for higher education.

Art Prints

2007-12-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

Art prints are reproductions of an original work of art like paintings made by a photomechanical process. Art prints capture the rich and vibrant colors of original artwork. Unlike posters, art prints are made using special heavier print stock that is mainly intended for prints.

Compared to posters, art prints are highly durable. A high-quality art print can last for several years. Even though they are longer lasting than posters, they should be treated with special care to prevent fading and discoloration. Certain art prints can be washed with glass cleaner.

Most people think of art prints when they have to decorate a room or a new space. Art prints play a vital role in decorating your rooms. Selecting art prints is very important as they can change the look and feel of a room. Using a carefully selected art print, one can achieve the illusion of lengthening, broadening or heightening the room.

A well-chosen art print reflects the taste and style of the family that occupies the house. Art prints made in different art styles such as Asian, American masters, art deco, expressionism, folk art, gothic art, modern renaissance art, and vintage are perfect to complement one’s room decor. In addition to decorating rooms, art prints are a good gifting option. For instance, bird art prints are ideal gifts for nature lovers.

In the early days before the internet became a marketplace, art prints were available only through galleries or museum shops. Today, art prints can be shopped online at a reasonable price. Art prints available online are categorized by artists, subject, colors, and art styles. Gift certificates for art prints are also available.

Most of the websites offer a wide range of online catalog of art prints of famous artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Cezanne, Leroy Neiman, Rene Magritte, and Jack Vettriano. Art prints based on different subjects like American life, animals, architecture, fantasy, humor, landscape, spirituality and religion, music, and world culture are available as well.

Art Prints provides detailed information on Art Prints, Fine Art Prints, Framed Art Prints, Original Fine Art Prints and more. Art Prints is affiliated with Fine Art Galleries.

By: Kent Pinkerton

Digital Art Schools

2007-12-06T19:56:00.000-08:00

Students who want to pursue careers in digital design now have more opportunities to formally train and graduate with actual degrees, thanks to the emergence of digital art schools. A student will can learn all about print and web digital designs through guided curriculums. However, before you enroll in a digital art school, it is wise to do your research first, so that you’ll know what to expect. Read on for some pointers.

Skills you’ll learn in a digital art schools

Expect to learn almost all digital design techniques in a digital art school. During your first months, you may be taught fundamentals covering basic art and computer concepts such as color theory. You will also be taught digital composition, layout and typography, graphic design and drawing board skills.

Expect to be taught more specialized techniques as your progress. Over and above the primary digital art skills you will learn in your first years, detailed techniques in specific software will also be taught. These detailed techniques cover the basic and the latest illustration software, advanced desktop publishing, etc. You will be taught all kinds of photo editing programs, creation of three-dimensional shape designs and offset printing.

Careers after digital art schools

Graduates of digital art schools are not confined to just creating artistic media used in print, computer demonstrations and the web. They also find employment in diverse creative fields like graphic designers. Some become production artists, assistant designers, assistant art directors, art directors, production coordinators for movies involving digital imagery and computer artists. Remember that the digital design industry is very fast paced and challenging. In order to survive, you must be knowledgeable of the latest digital design trends and technologies.

Digital Art provides detailed information on Digital Art, Digital Fine Art, Digital Art Schools, 3D Digital Art and more. Digital Art is affiliated with Digital Prints.

By: Peter Emerson

Free Clip Art Role In Your Graphic Design And Web Design

2007-12-05T02:49:00.000-08:00

Clip art is basically pre-made images that can be used to design any media. Of course, you can also create your own images instead of using clip art as clip art is something everyone has access to. However, the advantage with clip art is that you don’t have to spend time creating images to place on the website. You just have to get these clip art software that are available on the internet.

Clip art is found under different categories; it is up to you to decide on the clip art that is best for your website and product. You of course, should choose, and use clip art that is associated with the product or service you offer on the website. There is no point of choosing clip art associated with stationery if your website is one about automobiles and their parts. Remember, the clip art is meant to create a little visual stimulation to your website, while help in communicating your ideas to your readers. With the use of the wrong clip art, the clip art may in fact prove to be disadvantageous and not advantageous to your website!

With a clip art, you can actually speak more than a million words can say. You can depict whatever message you want to propagate through your website by means of clip art. So sometimes, it proves to be much more beneficial using clip art than a few pages of content on the website! Moreover, with the inclusion of clip art in your web page and website, you can include some humor, emotion or irony in your message. There are some images in clip art that if used correctly, can relay some irony or humor in your message that could not be achieved through words.

Of course, the greatest advantage of using clip art in graphic design is that just about anyone can use it. There is no need of you being a graphic artist to design sharp images. All you have to know is how to use the computer and the internet wherein you can produce images that may surpass some images the best in graphic designing may create.

If you use too large a clip art, the page may take a longer time to download. This is why it is better to choose just the right amount of clip art for your website as this will produce just the right amount of humor, interest or irony in the minds of the people who visit your website.

Robert Mathew is a freelance writer to read more about his articles visit Free Clip art & Halloween Clip art & Graphics

Irish Art - Investment For Art's Sake

2007-11-28T04:27:00.000-08:00

Art has become an increasingly popular area for investment and Art investment has become a fashionable, sociable and fun way for some of the Celtic Tiger Cubs to spend money. Occasionally, paintings are passed down through generations of families, but more and more, people are starting their own collections.

Many experts offer a simple piece of advice to those interested in art investment; Buy what you love. The piece is essentially something you should be happy living with for a long period of time, unless of course you are investing in art for the purpose of making a quick profit; however for most people a piece of artwork is a long term investment.

Starting out on the road to art investment is simple. Experts advise that the best way to become familiar with valuable or potentially valuable pieces is to visit galleries, exhibitions and shows regularly. This way, potential investors can become au fait with particular artists. Visiting galleries and exhibitions is also an excellent way to get an idea of price ranges for art work of current and historical value. Be prepared to research extensively on your chosen artists’ works. The artists’ entire body of work generally needs to be considered to determine its future value. Many new investors find that contemporary art – with all its diversities is rewarding financially and aesthetically.

When all is said and done, it is wise to remember that art, like any other investment will always be a gamble. So as formerly stated, buy what you love. While the monetary value of the piece you have invested in may fluctuate,http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif its inherent value to you will remain!

Owner of Sol Art, Martin Davis has been an art dealer for several years. In his vast experience from buying and selling art all over Ireland, he is in an excellent position to offer sound advice to potential investors. “These days people tend to put a lot of emphasis on saving money. Art is an investment and there is great pleasure in owning something which will rise in value, whilst giving aesthetic and visual pleasure as well”, Martin says.

Author is an independent journalist who periodically researches and publishes articles and reports about and Investing

By: Derek Carroll

Understanding Art

2007-11-27T07:02:00.000-08:00

Art is anything that people add to their 'output' which is not functionally necessary and is other than the default properties of that output. The word "art" has been derived from the Latin word 'ars', which, loosely translated, means "arrangement" or "to arrange". This is the only universal definition of art, that whatever it is was at some point arranged in some way. There are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymological roots. This word comes from the Greek technic meaning art.

Art and science are usually treated diagonally opposite to each other. While science means some phenomenon resulting in truth, which is universal and objective in nature. In other words, science findings can be repeated under the same set of circumstances anywhere in the world at any given point of time. Same cannot be said of art. Art, on the other hand is purely subjective in nature. Take for example, a painting - while one calls it a masterpiece, same feelings cannot be expected from other individual.

Art can roughly be divided into two, namely philosophical art and aesthetic art. The philosophical type of art involves human figures for some purposive actions. In other words, philosophical art depicts human condition or it is the conceptual frame of mind of the artist.

Aesthetic art, on the other hand, shows the perceived frame of mind. Two examples will help illustrate these two points of view - a Mona Lisa painting is philosophical art, while a demon being killed by a super human is aesthetic. These two categories are also called classical and modern art respectively.

There are other ways of classifying art - major among them being architecture, design, painting, music, drawing, literature, performing art, etc. While these have been (and still are) traditional forms of art performed by human kind, newer forms of art have emerged with the advent of technology. Some of the later era art forms are games, animation, movie, computer art, shooting, etc.

Two of the most researched areas of interest to artists, critiques and archeologists has been the art movement (or art history) and art school.

An art movement is a typical style or tendency in art with a specific common philosophy, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time (ranging from a few months to years or decades). Art school is any educational institute offering education to its students on various forms of art.

Birth of art gave rise to another group of individuals - art critics. Art critics study and evaluate a piece of art. Its main purpose is to rationalize the evaluation of art, and ridding of any personal opinion affecting the work of art. Art criticism today deploys systematic and formal methods to evaluate the piece of art.

Museums are known to nurture and store work of arts across the world. Early era museums were patronized by the then kings and emperors. Today these are maintained by governments or private trusts with or without public money. Three major museum institutes are British Museum, Museum of Modern Art, New York and Galerie des Offices in France.

Understanding art in its totality is almost an impossible task for a human being. There are over 3,600 terms in art to be understood. And these are not definitive in nature. Art is when you are free to redefine these.

Redi Zartey is the owner of Art Diz which is a premier resource for art information. for more information, go to http://www.artdiz.com

A Career In Graphic Design

2007-11-26T04:20:00.001-08:00

Graphic designers are predicted to hold the most jobs by 2014. Keeping in mind the future of the media and the need for creative work, graphic designers are projected to have the best employment opportunities of all creative professionals.

Job of a Graphic Designer

Graphic designers analyze, plan and make creative visual solutions for communication. They help to express the message in the most effective way, in the form of print, film or electronic medium. A variety of methods like color combinations, illustrations, photography, print and print-layout techniques are used in graphic designing.

Graphic designers create the layout and production designs for newspapers, magazines, corporate reports, journals and other publications. They also develop promotional displays, marketing and packaging brochures for various products and services and unique design logos for businesses. In addition, they also make signs for government and businesses. The graphic designer also produces material for interactive media, Internet web pages and multimedia projects.

Job Qualifications

A Bachelor's degree is a must at the entry level in graphic designing. Some entry-level technical positions may require an Associate's degree. However, problem-solving skills and creative communication are essential. Graphic designers should be familiar with computer graphics and the various design software available. A good graphic portfolio, with a collection of work samples showcases design ability effectively.

Graphic Designing Course Curriculum

Typical Graphic Design Curriculum Components:

• Studio art

• Computerized Design

• Principles of Design

• Printing techniques

• Commercial graphics production

• Web site design

Besides formal graphics training, there are some courses such as writing, art history, psychology, foreign language, sociology, cultural studies, business and marketing that are effective aids in understanding the intricacies of graphic designing.

It is the job of the graphic designer to give meaning to thoughts and ideas. When an idea is expressed, the job falls on the graphic designer to present it on paper and create a suitable combination of visual medium. This can be accomplished with pictures and animated presentations, which could include sound as well.

Working Of The Creative Department

After the client gives the company a rough idea about the project and his expectations, the creative team gets down to the business of trying out various ideas and techniques to achieve a positive end result. Although most creative people work as a team in advertising agencies and various publications, the graphic designer can do the job independently.

Earnings of a Graphic Designer

Architectural, engineering, and related services ................................$42,740

Specialized design services ...........................................................$41,620

Advertising and related services ................................................... $40,010

Printing and related support activities ........................................... $32,830

Newspapers, periodicals, books and directory publishers .....................$32,390

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Colour Wheel Theory In Web Design

2007-11-20T05:57:00.000-08:00

This article examines the use of the colour wheel theory in relation to web design. It explores the basic six colour schemes that are possible as well as touching on the history and origin of the theory, its advantages and disadvantages.

The colour wheel theory is used for analyzing hues in design, a very important factor to consider is that it generally only targets hues and does not incorporate saturation or brightness levels. While this seems quite severe you must remember there are almost infinite amounts of shades and a more limited amount of colours that can be analyzed.

Its origins lie with Sir Isaac Newton and his experiment to split light into various colours. His original colour wheel features red, orange, yellow, green, cyan and blue and was joined at the ends by Newton to display the natural hue progression. Over a century later Johann Wolfgang Goethe studied the psychological effects of colours and modified the colour wheel to split the colours into two sides, the plus and minus colours. Plus colours were ones that had a positive effect on psychology and generally included the warm colours such as red and orange. The minus colours generally invoked unsettled feelings in participants and tended to lean to the blue and green.

The next major revolution was by a Swiss art theorist named Johann Itten. He modified the wheel to the form we see today based on the primary triad and the twelve basic hues.

In web design it is highly recommended to stick to one of the following colour schemes for your web design. To venture outside them causes colour "clash" and will spoil the overall impression of your page. Do remember however blacks and whites are neutral and (if used correctly) complement any of these schemes well.

Monochromatic

The monochromatic colour scheme is exactly what is sounds like, a simple theme that use differences in saturation and light/darkness in a single colour to give a design that's "easy on the eye". It can be very soothing to use and looks good in blue or green. Monochromatic is fantastic for simple web pages such as blogs as it prevents design elements drawing attention away from information.

Analogous Colour Scheme

This colour scheme centres around one main colour being gently supported by the two colours adjacent to it on the colour wheel. Like monochromatic it is a gentle colour scheme that is best applied to achieve calming effect. Blogs and certain online shops would be best to use this scheme.

Complementary Colour Scheme

The complementary colour scheme is made up of two colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel. This should always be achieved by picking your main colour then tracing a 180 degree line across the wheel to find its exact opposite. Some complementary sets do not suit web design as they are so high in contrast. While a complementary colour scheme can achieve great effects in highlighting areas for websites such as online shops I do not recommend it is sued heavily as it strains reader's eyes after a while.

Split Complementary Colour Scheme

The split complementary scheme is used a little more often than its standard complementary brother in web design. It uses a combination of three colours which means you can create softer contrasts. It is done by picking one colour on the colour wheel and find the two colours that are adjacent to its complementary.

Triadic Colour Scheme

The triadic colour scheme is my personal favourite for web design. It uses a combination of 3 three colours that are equally spaced around the wheel. Its major advantage is that is strikes a great balance between harmony and contract. It looks especially good on online shops as it give you the ability to define several sections with different colours without creating a offensive contrast.

Tetradic Colour Scheme

The tetradic colour scheme is the most complex and varied stand colour wheel scheme. It is sometimes referred to as the double complementary as http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifit uses two sets of complementary colours. Although there is no standard for defining which it is a good idea to ensure they are evenly spaced. While this scheme can be successfully applies to make a website look varied and colourful it is especially hard to balance.

I hope this article has been at least a small help to you in your search for additional information about web design and the use of colour. While I have written this article with web design in mind the colour wheel theory can be applied to almost any form of graphic design or art.

Frank Woodford conducts extensive research when writing new articles for friends and businesses partners and aims to produce quality content that address the purpose of the article currently. He is currently helping to write content for Soula .

Design Strategies for Your Promotional Pens

2007-11-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for ways to increase your sales, you need offline and online marketing strategies so as to make your company or your products or services visible to costumers. One of the best offline marketing ploy you can add to your existing ones is by giving out promotional pens or having one tucked in your pockets, ready to be given out anytime to prospective customers. Nonetheless, there are some design strategies that you must consider for this promotional strategy to work.

Logo for your company

Embossed or in ink print, your company logo must be in your promotional pens. However, it must be in a form of abbreviation (of your company name) or image logo. For instance, your law firm's logo is a pencil-sketched balance, with thin lines that convey a modern look. Print your firm's logo at the upper part of the pen, so that it can be seen easily by anybody. Or if your law firm's name is Smith, Wesson, Colt & Jacobs, you can instead affix the law firm's abbreviated name, that is, SWC & J, for brevity.

One product or service

To promote your products or services, your promotional pens must have just one product or service printed on the ridges of the pen. This to avoid confusion as to what products or services you are offering and to keep the focus on a specific product, as though it was on a spotlight. The text must begin one inch from the tip of the pen, and ends just half an inch before your logo.

In the case of a law firm, if the firm specializes in alternative dispute resolution, mediation and arbitration, the firm may write along the ridges the following: "International arbitration, mediation and alternative dispute resolution." Even if the law firm engages in properties, wills and testaments and corporate law, it cannot put every service that it renders in a single pen. This is to keep the focus on one service.

Plain, two-tone colors

If you can avoid it, don't go for multi-color. Your aim is for the texts and logo to be visible and readable even at a longer distance. You can only do this if your texts and logo stands out from the pen. Therefore, just go for plain, two-tone colors to create a clear contrast between the pen and the text and logo print.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Select plain, bold colors in navy blue, dark green, maroon or black. These are considered as safe colors for your pen -- safe because these colors can be used by professionals and entrepreneurs (for the corporate look), and college students and the academe (for the clean and clear look).

To avoid overkill in design, follow these design strategies and you wouldn't go wrong. You can also ask a promotional pens supplier to give you samples of their designs to give you an idea on what to do with yours. Always remember that for your promotional pens to work, they must have simple designs that read clearly what products or services you are offering.

Gareth Parkin is the co-founder of Ideasbynet, the UK's leading online promotional pens and printed company based in the north of England. Established in 2001, he has taken the UK gift market by storm by the application of modern business thinking and the latest search engine marketing techniques. For more details visit www.ideasbynet.com

Color Sets the Mood

2007-11-17T03:41:00.000-08:00

You're ready to take that step and put some fresh color on the walls. With all the different choices available, which color will you choose? What shades? Well, before you make that final decision, consider how colors can actually change your space and the overall mood of your room.

Red

Red is the color of love. It is known to stimulate a faster heartbeat, increase blood pressure, and energy. Designers usually use red as an accent color. A red wall or red furniture will defiantly get attention. Red also increases the appetite, which makes it a good choice in dining rooms.

Black

Black is the color of authority and power. It also makes a great accent color against white. When used against white, it becomes a very stylish and timeless combination. Black and white accent pieces are extremely popular.

White

White symbolizes purity and innocence. It is one of the most used colors in decorating. This light and neutral hue goes with virtually anything. White is a great color for bedding or drapes when trying to achieve a peaceful, tranquil space.

Blue

One of the most popular colors, blue represents peace. This tranquil color causes the body to produce calming chemicals. People are usually more productive in rooms painted in blues. Blue is a perfect choice for a bedroom or a home office.

Green

Green is another relaxing color. The different shades of green can be used many ways. Lighter shades of green are great for bedrooms, living rooms, and great rooms. Dark greens are more masculine, and are popular in professional offices. Hospitals usually use green to help relax patients. Mid tone greens are great for kitchens.

Purple

Purple represents luxury, wealth, and sophistication. Dining rooms, bedrooms, and libraries work well with this color. Lighter shades of purple are great for children's rooms, and play areas.

Yellow

Yellow gains attention and is considered an optimistic color. It also enhances concentration. It is a very warm and welcoming color. Babies tend to cry more in yellow rooms, so it not wise to use this color in a nursery.

Orange

Orange tends to warm the room in a friendly way. There are many shades of orange, and can be used in many rooms. Burnt orange is extremely popular for living rooms, while lighter tones are great for bathrooms.

Brown

Brown is known to be reliable, and one of the more popular earth tones. It is a great accent with just about any color, but is especially nice with blues. Light browns are a symbol of genuineness. Most men enjoy browns, so consider this when decorating his favorite space.

A. R. Julien is the C.E.O. of Drea' Custom Designs. For more info please visit http://www.dreacustomdesign.com

The Design Checklist

2007-11-16T03:44:00.000-08:00

Before any SEO campaign can begin, a site must be analyzed to determine how well the site is being spidered by the search engines. It is also important to assess and modify the architecture of the site as needed. We always assess and recommend changes to the design of a site before doing any optimization. This ensures that a solid base is beneath the optimization and minimizes the amount of design changes we'll have to make later.

Before you begin optimization of a site, you should review the following areas. Ignoring certain aspects of the design can seriously limit the impact of the optimization.

1.) Spiderable Links

The search engines typically follow standard HTML. They do not render most scripts. The most common design problem is the inclusion of non-spiderable links. Often, these links are coded in either JavaScript or Flash, but non-spiderable code also includes HTML Forms. It is important to the optimization that as many pages as possible be indexed by the search engines. If the pages aren't indexed, they can never rank and do not provide value to the other pages on the site.

The most common usage of non-spiderable links is in dropdown navigations. The most common dropdowns are coded in JavaScript and are not spiderable. It is always ok to use JavaScript for animation or other functionality, but the link itself must be in standard HTML. There are numerous CSS/JavaScript alternatives that allow using standard HTML links with div tags to accomplish the same drop down effects without using non-spiderable links.

2.) Maximum Internal Linking

The architecture of the site tells the engines a lot about what pages are important and what pages are not. The search engines try to view sites the same way a user does. This means that pages linked to from prominent locations like a main navigation will automatically receive more attention and authority. This is why search engine-friendly CSS drop down navigations are a good thing. Our goal should be to provide as many direct links to important pages from as many other pages as possible on the site.

As a rule of thumb, do your absolute best to ensure that no page is more than 2 clicks from any other page on the site. It is not possible to link every page from every other page on a larger site, but proper organization should lead to pages being accessible through main categories that are accessible from anywhere on the site. Authority filters down. If a page is available from only one other page on the site and that page is hard to get to, the original page will never rank well. Make it easy for users to find and you'll make it easy for search engines to find.

Depending on the size of the site, it can take a good bit of planning to optimally lay out an architecture and internal linking structure. Generally, it's best to lay out a site like a pyramid. The home page should act as a true hub to the site with main categories providing maximum access to pages under its control.

3.) Portal Home Page

This ties directly into maximizing internal linking, but is important enough (and a common enough problem) to get a special note. The home page is given the most authority of any page on the site. The search engines assume most traffic will enter the site through the home page. They also assume that the webmaster understands that and links the most important pages and information directly from the home page. If the site uses a 'splash' or some minimal home page, it is seriously limiting itself.

An optimized home page will act as a hub to all information on the site. If a page is hard to get to from the home page, it will be treated as a supplementary page and NOT an authoritative page.

4.) Text Content

Good web pages provide good content. Without good content, the page has no value and no purpose on the Web. It should be assumed that good text content will need to be added to the site. If the site's design does not allow for the addition of content, it should be addressed as early as possible. The goal with any optimization campaign should be to provide the content that users are searching for. Grow your site, find out what people want, and provide it.

It is also very important to assess the visibility of the text content to the search engines. Text content should be written in standard text. Content that appears in Flash, images, JavaScript, behind HTML Forms, or in secure sections of the site will most likely be invisible to the search engines.

As we can see from the previous points, we have to address some things with each site before planning any real optimization strategies. We must determine what the search engines see. We must determine which pages are important and display them as such. We must cater to both the search engines and the users. This will provide a strong foundation for the optimization and help the site reach its potential.

Thank you for reading TreeHouse SEM articles. If you would like to know more about any of these topics, feel free to contact us. If you would like to reprint any of the above text, please contact us first.

About the Author: Steve comes from a rich Web background where he has worked on the design, development, and marketing aspects of hundreds of Web sites. Formerly from Mississippi where he attended Ole Miss, Steve moved to San Diego to pursue further challenges in the Web marketing arena.

To compete in the rapidly growing marketplace of SEM, Treehouse immediately set itself apart by placing Chief Technology Officer DeVries at the helm, who is one of the most coveted experts in the industry today. DeVries was previously a lead technical consultant at a competing local firm, achieving top rankings for major clients such as Entrepreneur, Vegas.com, Viacom, Workopolis, and Ziff Davis Media. DeVries' experience has brought him much industry attention and placed him in high demand as a speaker at industry events by those looking to pick his brain.

By: Steve Devries

Graphic Design Course at University

2007-11-14T04:32:00.000-08:00

Today no longer are you restricted to getting your graphic design course at University if you want you can in fact do it online. Certainly today the demand for graphic designers is increasing and especially demand is high in businesses that carry out advertising and marketing campaigns as well as for designing websites.

Anyone who has a love of design and has some artistic capabilities has the chance to become a graphic designer. But in this article we will be taking a look at the steps a person needs to take in order to become a graphic designer who can then use their skills on the internet.

Step 1 - You first need to decide just what sort of course it is you want to do. Do you want to do one for a complete beginner or have you much more advanced skills? As previously mentioned you can attend a university or do it online or through a correspondence course. So even if you are currently employed and are looking to change careers you can do your course whilst still carrying on with your current job.

Step 2 - When picking your course it is important that you select one which meets your particular requirements. So you need to decide whether you are going to make a career of this or whether you are just going to be doing it as a hobby. Also you need to check with the place where you are taking the course as to whether you receive a certificate or degree once it has been completed.

Step 3 - Before making the final decision on which university, correspondence or online course you are going to be taking you need to make a decision of what area of graphic design you are interested in training. If you are interested in designing websites or web design then find a course that meets these requirements.

Step 4 - You need to find out just how much the course is going to be costing you. Certainly if you do a Graphic Designer course at University this will cost you some what more than if you choose to do one online or through a correspondence service. Simply because you and the course suppliers will not have any additional overheads to worry about. You may also be surprised to learn that there are some graphic design courses now available online which are completely free.

As long as you keep the above in mind actually finding a graphic design course at University or online that suits your requirements will be much easier. So don't delay whether as a hobby or a change in your career take a look on the internet and see what graphic design courses are now available.

P Abbey owns and operates http://www.graphicdesigncoursesguide.com/graphicdesigncourseatuniversity.html - Graphic Design Course At University

Finding a Website or Blog Designer and Being a Good Client

2007-11-12T00:29:00.000-08:00

So you need a website or a blog and haven't the faintest idea how to go about choosing the best one for you or your business? My best advice to you, speaking as a small business owner, a website and blog designer, and well, a human being is know what you want your website or blog to accomplish first and then start your search. Why? Well, it will cost you less in time and money. You won't have to do as much research for one. And second, the designer or firm you hire will spend less billable hours talking with you and redoing whatever it is you want undone or adding whatever it was you forgot to mention for your website or blog to meet your needs.

Ultimately, when you're looking to hire a designer, developer or firm to design your website or blog, know your needs and know your wants, then get a reality check. In writing school we were always told to "kill your babies". Meaning, get rid of the part of our story or article that we love too much, so much that everything else suffers or so much that we get stuck. My advice to you individuals and businesses who are looking to get a website or blog created, make a list of your needs first, your wants second. Keep those things that overlap, keep the rest of the needs, put the rest of the "wants" in your pocket for a rainy day...or until your budget expands to support these wants.

Your Basic Website or Blog Needs

You need a domain name and a web host first and foremost. You can either do a search at Yahoo or your preferred search engine for "domain name" or "web hosting", or checkout Webhostmagazine. Web Host Magazine breaks down how to choose the ideal web host for your needs. We use Hostgator and Lunarpages for some of our websites. Both are excellent. My suggestion for choosing a web host is get more space than you need, think about what technologies you might need (i.e., database) in the future and make sure your host has that option as an upgrade or with the package you've chosen. It's just better to have more than you need than less 'cause switching web hosts can be a pain in the *arse*. My suggestion for choosing a domain name is make it relevant, easy, and put at least one keyword in the name.

You need to determine how big or small your site needs to be currently and how much growth it will have in the next year or two. Be realistic in what you need now, but think ahead about what you'll need later.

You need a designer and a developer. You can higher one person to create the design and another to make the design into a website but it'll cost you more and your design may suffer for it if the designer and developer you hire don't see eye to eye. A designer often designs and a developer often develops. But, more so than ever these days, a website or blog designer does both design and development.

Decide how you'll be contacted by whomever visits your site and let your web designer/developer know. It's often the case that site owner's don't want to have to login to their web host's server (via the cpanel or whatever administration area is used) to check email with some generic email account like Horde or Squirrel. You'll maybe want the email address to have the suffix of your website (i.e, youremail@yourwebsitename.com). So, tell whomever you hire you want email forwarding which basically means you want to use youremail@yourwebsitename.com but want the emails sent to that address to be automatically forwarded to perhaps your Yahoo or Gmail address for convenience. If you plan on receiving lots of emails, you might want a contact form, too. So, decide that and let your designer/developer know. Also, if you decide on just having a link to your email address on your site, make sure you get spam protection otherwise you'll be inundated with promises of cures for impotence you don't have and offers to make you wealthy by becoming an envelope stuffer.

You need to decide on the purpose of your web presence. Is the purpose of your site to inform people about something? Sell to them? Create community? Promote you or your business? What is the raison d'etre of your site?

You need to decide on how you want you or your business to be perceived. Think of your online presence as clothing and accessories. You want to convey an image to your site visitors that represent who you are and what you're about. Are you or your business high-end, playful, humorous, low-cost, artsy, reliable, etc.? Ask yourself.

You need to decide on a budget and be reasonable and aware of how much labor is involved in having a website designed and developed. In the end you get what you pay for. A site or blog designed or developed for under $500 is very basic and often has no personality. A site under $800 is still basic and has maybe just a smidgen of personality. If you're in the service industry especially, you know that your labor is pretty much your service so don't take that for granted when hiring a website or blog designer. Projects defer in time, scale and money based on needs and wants. Remember that, accept that and you'll get the best services your money (your budget) can buy.

You need content. One of many mistakes that new site owners make is assuming whomever they hire to design or develop their website or blog (website especially) will automatically provide or edit their written content or supply images for them. Not so. The written content is the site owner's responsibility and is usually generated from marketing materials already in their possession. You can and should hire a web copywriter for your website or blog if you are not a good writer or don't have any marketing material. The written content is what "sells" your service, product or whatever your purpose to your site visitors. Don't skimp. As for the images on your site, outside of icons created specifically for your site, images such as photography and clipart you must purchase or find yourself. We love istockphoto. Most importantly, remember to clear copyright for images. It's not the designer/developer's responsibility to clear permission to use the image on your site. That's just standard policy among most, if not all, designers and firms.

You need to decide who and how often your site is going to be maintained. Will you maintain and update your site or will you hire your developer to do it for you for a monthly/yearly maintenance fee?

You need assistance with SEO and marketing if marketing is a priority. Your designer/developer may know SEO, or she may not. Ask. SEO is search engine optimization. It's basically a way to make sure search engines know that your website exists and is found when people search the search engines with relevant keywords. Also, it would be a good idea to hire search engine marketer or an online marketer. Some designer/developers know all about SEO and how to get your web pages ranked higher in search engines like Google, Yahoo and even vertical search engines like C/nets download.com or directories like Dmoz. Most don't. So, you should definitely hire an SEO or online marketing expert. It's an investment, not "another cost".

Your Typical Website or Blog Wants

You want fancy dynamic moving images. Well, that's great, but be prepared to pay for it. Flash movies are labor intensive to develop, more so than a static image. If you want moving objects, ask yourself why, first. Then, discuss with your site developer what you'd like. Many common dynamic elements can be achieved using JavaScript and some using PHP and fewer using animated gifs. These are often more cheaper alternatives. If you insist on using Flash, first make sure your target audience is web savvy and use computers sophisticated enough to support Flash without slowing down loading time. Also, you can also check out sites like Flashfiles and other Flash file directories that offer free use of flash movies created by others.

You want dynamic interactivity for your users. Fine, you should. Your users deserve it and it keeps them engaged and not bored. But, be specific and give your designer/developer the specifics of how you'd like your site visitors to interact with your website and they can tell you how that can be achieved given your budget and time constraints.

You want a database to store information. Again, ask yourself why. Then ask yourself what type of content will be stored in this database. Articles? Images? Videos? And then ask yourself who'll be in charge of updating and backing up this database of information. You? Someone in your business? The web developer you hire (for a monthly maintenance fee)?

You want a kick-arse fancy, artsy design. Design is labor hours. It takes time to think about, come up with and implement a design that's customized for you or your business. Don't take this for granted and you won't be disappointment. Trust me, if you want a customized designed that will make your competition pay attention or your site visitors never want to leave, it's damn well worth the price. It's not as expensive as you think (depending on the designer) but not as cheap either. Regardless, just let your designer know your vision and trust that she can make it happen if you're willing to pay more than expected and not as much as you fear.

Of course, there are many, many other things you may want for your web presence. Write them down and separate them from your needs. Interview a few designer-developers and compare pricing and timelines.

Be a good client by doing a little research, asking your designer lots of questions, giving them room to create what you asked and taking into consideration that you are paying for a service, not a product so the cost is rarely streamlined.

Kemi Oyesiku
http://www.polesapartdesign.com/blog

If you need help trying to choose a domain name, try this article from site ground on how to choose a domain name.

Graphic Design Course In London

2007-11-09T04:38:00.000-08:00

The main role of a graphic designer is to help get information across to others easily in such a way that is causes an impact on that person or persons. They do this through the use of images and words. Mainly you will see the work of graphic designers appearing in magazines, the covers of books as well as on TV and on websites. But in order to become a graphic designer a person first needs to train. In this article we take a look at what a graphic design course in London is made up of.

Although there are some graphic designers now working in the world of advertising who have no qualifications what so ever there are many others who do. Generally these designers would have gained either attained their BTEC HND or the Foundation Degree or a Degree in Graphic Design. Whilst some others may have when attending either a college or university in London obtained a degree in either art or design whilst there.

Certainly when it comes to finding out just what graphic design courses are available for a person to attend in London the best place to start their search is online. As you will soon discover the main college now in London which offers students the chance to earn a degree in graphic design is at the London College of Communication (LCC).

All students who participate in any kind of graphic design course will learn how to express and communicate a particular idea through the use of images and text. But not only do the students have the teaching staff to rely on them to help them better understand what is required of them they have the chance to gain help from other students and also people who are asked to speak at the college as well.

Plus all the tutors who provide the students with their training are themselves actively involved in various types of research relating to graphic design and some are involve in professional practices so they are able to help their students develop their own personal identity.

Above all the reason why many students choose to carry out their graphic design course in London at LCC is that it has a very strong relationship with professionals in the industry. This then provides the chance for students to have the opportunity to gain access to the expertise of others which can provide them with a much more solid foundation for their learning. Plus this particular college understand how important graphic design is in modern society. Not only does it contribute in a large way both directly and indirectly to the economy in the UK but also to the well being of those that live their.

P Abbey owns and operates http://www.graphicdesigncoursesguide.com/graphicdesigncourseinlondon.html - Graphic Design Course In London

A Logo Without Your Name... Can Be A Big Branding Pain!

2007-11-08T04:38:00.000-08:00

I often get asked to develop a small business's logo as a symbol-only logo. But for many small businesses, this isn't the right choice for a couple of reasons.

Designing a symbol-only logo is a much more complicated (and often more expensive) process, because the symbol has to:

- Carry a lot more meaning - there's no text to help explain the business. It's important that your logo has some meaning and a role in explaining your business - and that's a lot for a little symbol to do all by itself.

- Be entirely unique all on its' own. I don't need to tell you that there are a whole lot of logos out there. A lot of the basic shapes - and even some of the more complicated ones - are already "owned" by big corporations. But you can still use variations or combinations of those shapes when they're designed into a logo with your company name.

- Communicate to your audience. The more obscure the symbol design that you create, the less likely that your customers will understand its meaning. Or they may interpret it incorrectly. Either way your clients will feel alienated - and that's never good.

If you do create a symbol-only logo, you'll have a couple of challenges with your brand identity:

- It will take a lot more time and effort to educate your target audience about your business. Think of all the symbol-only logos that are really memorable, like Nike or Apple. The reason that those are so memorable and well-known is that each of those companies has a very large advertising budget. They can afford to dedicate people and time to getting the word out. Their deep pockets build visibility and encourage recognition. Small businesses just don't have those kinds of resources.

- Trademark infringement can be more of a problem - from both sides of the fence. It can be very difficult for your designer to design a logo that won't look like any other trademarked logo out there, regardless how hard they try.

1. First of all, it's hard for a designer to comprehensively research all of the other trademarked logos just to see what you're up against. However, the Trademark Office has more thorough tools and methods of researching the other existing logos out there and they might find one that you overlooked.

2. Secondly, logos and trademarks can be a bit subjective. Just because you and your designer think that the design that you've created doesn't infringe on other logos, the Trademark Office might reject your application based on their interpretation of "similarity"

3. And you're not just worrying about what the Trademark Office thinks. Any other business with an existing trademark could also challenge your application. They can even ask you to cease-and-desist using your logo after it has been trademarked if they held their trademark to a similar logo first. While surrendering might not seem like such a bad thing, remember that you'd also have to destroy any existing printed collateral, forfeit your trademark (and the trademarking process isn't cheap!) and redesign all of your materials. You'll also lose the equity and memorability that you will have built up in your logo if you do have to redesign.

If you do finally manage to design and trademark a symbol-only logo, you'll have to be extra-vigilant about making sure that other companies don't design a mark that's similar to yours. You are ultimately responsible for "policing" your own trademark and will have to stay up-to-date on trademark applications.

Alternately, you could hire someone to keep an eye on new trademarks for you but that can be expensive.

You can easily avoid all of these complications by designing a combination logo that includes both a symbol and your company name. Once you've designed your combination logo, you should always use the components together. This helps avoid potential legal issues like those mentioned above.

Erin Ferree is a brand identity and marketing design strategist who creates big visibility for small businesses. Through her customized marketing and brand identity packages, Erin helps her clients design effective websites that help them extend their brands, bring in new clients and make sales. http://www.elf-design.com

Basic Graphic Design Course

2007-11-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

A basic graphic design course will teach a person about all the elements that are involved in producing a great design. These basics can then be used to further their career either by advancing in to more technical areas of design such as for motor vehicles or for the designing of furniture or clothes.

The first lesson that a person will participate in when they choose to do a basic graphic design course defines what are the building blocks one should be using when producing a design of their own. You will be made to look closely at the 5 elements that all graphic designers use in their own designs and these are as follows:-

1. Line
2. Shape
3. Mass
4. Texture
5. Color

All of which are essential for a person to understand and know how to use if they really want to become a competent graphic designer.

After learning about the 5 elements mentioned above during the next lessons a person will learn exactly how these pertain to designs. Although we all know what lines are during this lesson a person will learn much more about the various different lines that can be used during the design stage of a project and the ways in which they can be used.

Once the student has learnt about the importance of lines in their designs they can then move on to the next lesson which involves shapes. The three main shapes that any basic course will include are squares/rectangles, triangles and of course circles. During the lesson the student will closely examine the role that these shapes play in the scheme of a design.

Although to some people mass and texture in relation to a drawing or design may not seem important to a graphic designer it is. Through participating in a basic graphic design course a person is able to understand the visual weight of graphics and text elements which they will include in their own designs and in the designs of others. Plus by learning about texture a graphic designer is able to understand how embossing or other visual textures may make a person react in a certain way to a design.

Finally as part of any good basic graphic design course a person will learn how important the colors are that they choose for their design and the way that are likely to impact on it. Also it provides them with a better understanding of how certain colors work together and which don't.

When it comes to finding a basic graphic design course the best place to start your search is on the internet. Not only will there be schools located close to where you live that offer you the chance to learn a little bit more about graphic design but there are also some courses available which you are able to take online. So in fact you are not restricted as to when and where you take yours if you choose to do one.

P Abbey owns and operates
http://www.graphicdesigncoursesguide.com/basicgraphicdesigncourse.html
Basic Graphic Design Course

Graphic Design - Topography and Images to Present Information

2007-11-06T03:46:00.000-08:00

Meaning

Graphic design is process of visual communication using topography and images to present information and attract people. It gives an interesting mix of presenting varied information in attractive formats to increase the overall users' base. Whether you are reading your morning papers or commuting by a public bus, or open a book to read, element of graphics can be seen every where. It gives a great way to express your thoughts, ideas and opinion to reach millions of other users. This creative process involves different formats of graphics, which are easily available in today's world:

Logos

Logo is an important form of graphics that conveys lots of ideas to its readers and users. A logo provides identify to the vision and the purpose of the organizations or any other agencies. In addition, it is difficult to register a company without a valid logo attached with it.

Websites

Websites reflect the major works of graphics aiming to attract promising clients to the organization. So, make sure your website reflect good piece of information prepared through graphic design services.

Business Cards

Business cards are essential in this competitive business boasting world. An impressive business card can get you really good impact and you will be successful to express your mind freely and effectively.

Advertisements

Graphics in advertisements have a specific role to play. You can hire a graphic design company to get your advertisement really rocking and reflecting you ideology.

Brochures

Brochures also consist major graphic designing in it. Without a good design, a brochure may not look very impressive. So, graphic can bring a life in brochures.

Billboards

Billboards or hoardings consist of advertisements promoting a product or services so the major attraction point is graphic designing.

Product Packaging

Nowadays, product packaging has a definite role to play in the promotion of a product or a service. Packaging clinches eyes positively and gives you several benefits in future context.

Posters

Posters are one of the popular methods to express the ideas and opinions. Therefore, it becomes necessary to make it really effective with lots of graphics and pictures in it.

Book Design

Graphic has a definite role to play in book designing. While designing a book, it is necessary to represent the content of the book to attract the promising readers.

Magazine Layout

Magazines offer wide information about varied subjects and current happenings. Therefore, it has to be attractive enough to tempt readers to go through its pages. So, the role of graphics can be really important here.

Newspaper Layout

While layout a newspaper, the importance of graphics can not be ignored. Anything colorful and informative attracts readers to a great extent.

Greeting Cards

In greeting cards too, graphics can do wonders and equally express your ideas to the fullest.

Introduce myself, I am content writer for Web Site Design. Synapse India is a Graphic Design Company and an eCommerce Website Development firm in India. For more information, please visit Graphic Design Services

By: Martine Moore

Top Five Brands In Camping Tents

2007-11-05T22:05:00.000-08:00

For many folks, when it comes to making any type of purchase brand names are important. The same can be said for campers looking for camping tents. Buying a tent from a top rated and trusted manufacturer can make or break your camping experience.

Here is an overview of some of the most trusted names in tents:

North Face

The name alone may make you think of mountains. So, when you think of North Face tents, being comfortable, dry and warm probably comes to mind. North Face was founded in 1966 by two California-based hikers. Their brand focuses on high performance hiking and backpacking gear.

North Face expedition tents can range up to $2500-but for those braving the elements of mountains this high ticket price could literally save a life! The model for the aforementioned price is a smaller dome, which sleeps eight. Lower price tents in this category cost around $400-$500. North Face's three-season tents start at $159, and come in many styles and sizes. The company also offers an ultra-light category

Coleman

There is probably not a more trusted name in camping gear than Coleman. In fact, that's their slogan: "The Greatest Name in Camping Gear." This company has been around over 100 years and makes over 100 camping items, everything from stoves and lanterns to, of course, tents.

Coleman tents are also very affordable, ranging from $50 to a few hundred dollars. There are solo tents, and tents with several rooms that can sleep up to four people. They make backpacking tents as well. Some of their tents come with pet play areas, too!

Kelty

Kelty specializes in tents, backpacks and sleeping bags. The company was founded by avid outdoorsman, Dick Kelty, who started his outdoor business making backpacks for his friends in the Sierra Club. Now, his company in addition to other gear, offers several dozen tents, sleeping from one to eight people. Prices start at $89 and go up to several hundred dollars.

Sierra Design

Sierra Design began improving the wilderness experience in 1965, by offering tents, sleeping bags, clothing and more. Sierra Design's website has an excellent section for choosing a tent by the activity you are using it for. They offer backpacking tents, family tents and even origami tarps for backpackers or for use on beach vacations.

L.L. Bean

L.L. Bean is a catalog company that is synonymous with the outdoors. They offer shelters, family tents and backpacking tents of all sizes.

Bill is an avid tenter. He is a regular contributor to Tents Today. Visit Tents Today and its sister site RV Today for all your outdoor information. Both are Camping Outdoors projects.

Become a Master of Graphic Design

2007-11-04T18:36:00.000-08:00

Graphic design is a creative process that combines art and technology to communicate ideas. It is the process of communicating visually using typography and images to present information, usually used whenever visual intricacy and creativity are needed to present text and imagery. It can also be applied to the layout and formatting of educational material to make the information more accessible and more easily understood.

Designing a masterpiece graphically is the art of combining text and graphics to communicate an effective message. It is primarily used in the design of logos, brochures, newsletters, posters, signs, and other type of visual communication. Graphic design is the use of words and images to pass on information or to create a certain visual effect. This art form is sometimes referred to as commercial art because of its application to advertising and its vital contribution to business function.

Graphic design practice embraces a range of cognitive skills, aesthetics and crafts, including typography, visual arts and page layout. Graphic designers have a unique ability to sell a product or idea through effective visual communications, and are asked to perform the difficult task of being creative every single day.

Combining visual communication skills with the interactive communication skills of user interaction and online branding, graphic designers often work with web developers to create both the look and feel of a web site and enhance the online experience of web site visitors. Color is also another powerful way of helping users find their way around a site, and color coding sections of the site helps users identify where they are.

Graphic design adds a visual and emotional context to the purely cognitive text on the site. The primary tool for this art form is, of necessity, the creative mind. With the advent of computers and software applications, the task of the designer has become a little easier, as these have provided more effective production tools than traditional methods. It is a creative profession and things that were once only conceived in the mind are brought to life through skills and imagination.

There is a downside to the inclusion of graphic design on websites. Many designers have tried to force the Web to be what it is not, creating ineffective and sometimes unusable websites. There is a tendency to forget that words, and not images, are the building blocks for the vast majority of websites. People are strongly visually orientated, and their response to the website's aesthetics and visual structure plays a strong part in how they interact with it as a whole.

The mid 1980s heralded the arrival of desktop publishing and the introduction of graphic art software applications. This introduced a generation of designers to computer image manipulation and 3D image creation that had previously been a tedious and intensive process. Today's graphic designers often use desktop publishing software and techniques to achieve their goals.

Graphic design requires that the advocate must continually keep up to date with the development of new and updated software, usually either on their own or through software training programs. Contrary to popular belief, anybody with the right software can not necessarily do it, creativity is the biggest attribute that needs to be added.

Graphic design is not just a case of being fluent in some type of software, but also about communication, solving visual problems, and imagination. The tools that are now available do not detract from the need for creative imagination, rather just make the performance of the task easier, and perhaps open the floodgates to applications that may have been out of reach previously.

Sharron Nixon is a 44 year old mother of 3 who lives in New Zealand. To get all the information you will ever need on Graphic Design, check out Sharron's website: www.sharronnixon.com/graphic-design And first Special Report: 15 Awesome Tips For Your Cheap Las Vegas Affair

Web Design Company, The New Style Guru For Your Website

2007-11-03T18:38:00.000-07:00

Once a spider web helped king Robert Bruce to get up. But humans have become more advanced now. So, they are more dependent on the World Wide Web, rather than spider web. If you need to publicize your product through a website, then you need the help of a web design company.

A web design company helps the client to create their own website. The client just needs to say what exactly he wants. The company will do the rest of the work.

In this age of packaging, information is not just the only thing you require. You need glamour and style. If you want to popularize your website, then you have to make it look good, trendy and smart. The web design company will do just that for you.

A web design company knows your requirements. And as they have a strong experience, they will easily understand how your website can look catchy. And with the help of a step-by-step plan, they will give your dream a realistic shape.

The web design companies will provide you some efficient web designers who will help you to design your website. They will also look after the programming part and will upload your website.

Once you have a good website, you can reach to more and more people and the more you reach to people, the more your websites will start getting good advertisements.

A web design company will not only design your website, but they will also look after the maintenance of your site. If you want to use any logos then they will help you in designing them too. They will also take care of the marketing side and will promote your web site.

A web site is created mainly by using HTML, java, CSS etc. One specific website can contain multiple web pages for different kinds of information.

After the structure of your website is made, then you should concentrate on the uploading. The website has to be uploaded in the Internet. Uploading a website is not an easy task. You have to keep a lot of thing in mind. Like, the domain name, network service provider, your server etc. A good web design company will help you in all these matters. So, you don't need to do anything apart from providing the information.

In today's life a web design company is becoming mandatory for the web world. And these companies help you in many ways. They are providing you the structure, color and all the other ingredients. They are the one who are giving all the labor thereby giving you much relief. Because you won't have to pay much heed to your website. The web design company is there for you always.

But remember, if you want to make a good website, then go to a professional and good web design company. Otherwise you may land up in a problem zone. So make up your mind, search and give your dream a new direction.

Mark is a software engineer and web site developer. For more information on the work pattern of a web design company, he recommends you to visit www.smartimeinc.com

How To Design A Website In 3 Easy Steps

2007-11-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

Forget even all your so called web designers who are out to quote a killer price for you. I know because I've been there. There is a plague going on where people think that using a certain jargon will give them the ability to "overcharge" you.

The good news is those days are over and almost anything you want to do can be done quickly and easily. All it takes is a good will to succeed. Plus, a dash of a heart to learn from others and what they have to say. Likewise, lets begin your lesson on how to design a website.

Step #1: Determine Your Theme

Just like any other web designers will ask you is this. They will try to figure out how to design a website with your personality. Hence, questions like your favorite colors, feel and layout. Don't be freaked out just keep reading. Colors can be anything from your own liking or a certain format.

Name 3 type of main colors that you like. Remember this and start to imagine what would you want to website visitors to feel when they arrive at your website. Relaxed? Excited? Touched? Sexually Aroused? All these are emotions when visitors come.

Pick one or a combination then decide the format of your website. Where you want to position your menus or contents.

Step #2: Getting Your Website Done

Often times, many of my friends gets puzzled when they want to learn how to design a website. They say it takes a good software like FrontPage or DreamWeaver to do it. Guess what? You don't even need to know HTML to start.

It may be useful in the future but you really only need to know how to write an email to get started. Go ahead and search about the many "free website editors" you can find on Google. Choose on that you like and start editing like its a MS Word document. Then save it. Its as simple as that.

Step #3: Making Your Website Public

Get the word out! Thats what you need to do after you have designed your website. Use an FTP uploader. Don't worry if you don't know what that means. It just stands for File Transfer Protocol. You will need a web host (a space for your website to reside) to store your work on the Internet.

Invest in a good reliable host. Make sure you get a good uptime, space and support with this service. Some web hosting services can cost between $10 - $100 monthly depending on what you want.

All in all, make sure you have the consistency to continue to update yourself. Learn more advanced methods on how to design a website online. Making your web content fresh and appealing will really impact your bottom line profits and traffic conversion.

About The Author:

This article is the property of http://www.Simple-Riches.com - you may freely publish it on a website as long as it is not modified in any way. It must include the author bylines; all hyperlinks and URLs must be made or remain active.

Vern How has been earning online since June 2006. He is a professional affiliate marketer who believes in giving back by helping others.

To find out how Vern can help you work from home, visit him today at Simple Riches

For more information about profiting massively online, just check out How To Design A Website Using Good Hosting!

How to Create an Effective Tagline For Your Logo?

2007-11-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

Many people require designers to add a tagline to their logos, but I found out that several times the required taglines came as sentences and even paragraghs. This is horrible. The business owners want to enhance their company’s advertising on the logo design and try to cover as much information as possible, but they ignore the tagline’s definition and functions.

How to create an effective tagline for your logo then?

First, we need to know what a tagline is and what it can do for your business. A tagline is a branding slogan that is typically used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product. From this definition we know that a good tagline can make your business and even your logo more memorable in the target clients’ minds.

A good and effective tagline should be concise and clear, usually including from 3 to 7 words. This will avoid being overly wordy and will ensure your audience understand what your company does or offers.

An effective tagline should be inspiring and also reflect the personality of the company. For example, Nike’s tagline-‘ Just Do It’ inspires their buyers to take action to achieve their goals; while Apple Inc.’ s tagline-‘Think Different’ reflects the personalites of both their products and their clients.

Last but not least, an effective tagline should also be memorable. For example, Mcdonald’s tagline- "I'm Lovin' It." , deeply captures attention and interest from both you and me.

An effective tagline will make your logo design look more powerful, and will reinforce the image that your target audience holds about your company. Follow the principles illustrated above, and create an effective tagline for your logo!

Do you need a logo for you website or company? Click here: logo design

If you are running a blog and would like to get a logo for it, click here: affordable logo design

Far More Than A Pretty Picture - Logo Design Demands Professional Expertise

2007-10-31T01:16:00.001-07:00

Business owners go to great lengths to select the ideal names for their business. They know that a name plays a key role in creating a first impression about the business, and is an important consideration in making that impression both positive and memorable.

There’s a visual first impression that’s every bit as important as the verbal message delivered by the name. A company’s logo is a unique symbol that identifies a business or other organization. It represents the business in advertising, on wearables, on signs, and in every other way the business connects with key stakeholders. As people become familiar with the logo, they associate it with the company’s characteristics.

Business owners and marketing directors understand the value of having a logo, which explains why obtaining one is one of a new company’s first steps – and why a company that’s eager to change its image will often begin that process with a new logo. While they understand the need for a logo, few of those people have a deep understanding of the considerations that go into logo design, or about the most effective ways to create a logo that will stand the test of time.

Easy – or is it?

It seems that it’s amazingly easy to design a logo. After all, everyone from the local quick-print shop to the guy down the street who makes T-shirts claims that they’re capable. Unfortunately, sources like that typically design a logo that’s perfect for the immediate need but doesn’t accommodate all the other applications you’ll have. For example, a colorful logo that looks great on a computer screen might lose its charm when reproduced in black and white on a fax cover sheet. A logo that’s stunning on letterhead might be poorly suited for signage. And a dazzling, intricate design can drive the price of an embroidered golf shirt right off the course.

Those reasons and more are why it makes good sense for anyone serious about a new logo to turn to a professional graphic designer. Designers have the training and expertise to understand the many challenges involved in distilling a company’s personality into a graphic symbol, along with the practical experience to know the many ways in which that symbol will be applied.

Look for versatility.

A skilled graphic designer will consider the many places your logo may eventually appear (including some you might not have considered). That may include everything from business cards and letterhead, to vehicle decals, to store signage, to premium items, to advertising, to that familiar golf shirt. The designer’s goal will be to create a logo that provides a consistent image of your company, no matter how and where it is used.

The designer will also consider the various forms your logo may take. It may appear in full color on your signs, in just two colors on your letterhead and business cards, and in black and white in newspaper ads. It may be blown up to six feet wide on an outdoor billboard and shrunk down to a half-inch on a product label. Sometimes, it may appear in white on a dark background. As the designer moves from initial concept to finished design, all of those potential uses will be considered, and concepts that fall short will be discarded.

A step-by-step process.

Most professional designers will begin the process of logo design by asking you questions and listening carefully to your answers. They’ll develop a thorough understanding of your business and what makes it different from your competitors. You’ll probably have opportunities to review a variety of very rough sketches before the designer creates three or four recommendations. If the designer does not provide sketches showing how the logo will work in a variety of applications, be sure to ask for them before giving final approval.

Be sure to tell the designer about any special applications. For example, if it’s critical that your logo be etched into metal tools or applied as a decal to a service truck, knowing that will help the designer ensure that you’re not disappointed down the road.

How much?

Logo design is like many other things in business: prices are all over the board, but you’ll typically get what you pay for. That newspaper sales representative may create a logo for next to nothing, but when you try to use it elsewhere, you’ll find that next to nothing is about what it’s worth. If you work with a graphic designer or design studio, you’ll typically pay between $1500 and $10,000. When you consider that your logo will symbolize everything about your business, and will be used everywhere in your company, that’s a small investment.

How do you find a graphic designer?

A good way to start is by paying attention to logos you like. If you notice that a local business has an impressive logo, call the owner or marketing director and ask about the designer. If they’re happy with the work, they’ll usually also be happy to make a referral – and if they’re unhappy, you’ll want to know that, too. Focus on thinking

Once you connect with the designer, ask to see samples of his or her work. When looking at a particular logo, go beyond its appearance. Ask about the challenges the designer faced and what the client wanted to convey. After all, marketing and communications savvy is just as important in logo design as artistic taste – and there’s a big difference between a designer who takes an approach because it served a need and one who took an approach because it “seemed cool.”

Remember that you’ll live with the logo you choose for many years to come – and making a change down the road will be far more costly and disruptive than investing the time and money today. Your logo may never be as famous as Nike’s swoosh, but if it presents your company in the best possible light, it’s every bit as successful.

Alexandra Leonova is the founder of an eleven-year-old award-winning graphic and web design studio - Alex Design http://www.alexdesign.com LLC based in Carmel, Indiana. If your current business logo needs a makeover or if you’re looking for a new logo, you can contact Alex at (317) 815-0449 ext 1

8 Must Have Graphic Design Skills in Today's Market

2007-10-30T03:07:00.000-07:00

8 "Must Have" Graphic Design Skills For Today's Market

1. Adobe Photoshop The ability to use and understand the basics of pixel based photo manipulation. The best Photoshop experts are constantly learning and experimenting through online tutorials, books and seminars. This is the grand daddy of them all. Make it a goal to spend X amount of time each week learning a new technique.

Test: Can you do complex selections via the selection tool? Are you accomplished with layers? Do you understand how to use adjustment layers, masks and channels? Can you remove blemishes, “scratches” and color correct

2. Adobe Illustrator The ability to use and understand vector based graphics. This program is essential to creating crisp, clean artwork. You will need this program for logo/identity creation, poster work and even some print work. The program can be a bit tricky to learn but worth all and any aggravation to learn it.

Test: Do you understand the concept of bezier curves? Can you convert a bitmap image to a vector graphic? Have you mastered multi-step gradients? Do you know how to create graphic images with text?

3. Adobe InDesign or Quark Express The ability to use a page layout program. This program is fundamental to any print work. Whether you are creating books, magazines, brochures, sell sheets or advertisements you will need to possess the skills of a high-end layout program.

Test: Do you understand the concept of Master Pages? Would you be able to set up a 32 page catalog? Do you have an understanding of how to control text with images? i.e.; how to flow text in and around images. Do you have basic knowledge of offset printing and pre-press processes? Hint: if not, schedule a visit to a fairly large local printer and ask if you can be shown their process AND bring a list of a questions.

4. Flash The ability to use and understand this motion-based juggernaut. Flash is now the most widely deployed video platform on the Internet. Flash Player is installed on nearly twice as many desktops and devices as any other video player. As the web becomes more and more video-based having a solid knowledge of Flash, In my opinion, is one of the most important programs to learn.

Test: Can you create a simple animation? Do you understand the concept of keyframes? Do you know how to incorporate a Flash movie into a web page? Do you understand the power of interactivity and user interface design?

5. Understand Typography One of the most “overlooked” design skills today is knowledge of Typographic design. It is one of the tell-tale signs between a good and excellent designer. Our business is all about communication and if type is not clear, appropriate or well designed the design is seriously compromised.

Test: Do you have a font management system installed on your computer? Have you recently read (or revisited) some of the classic type books? Are you up-to-speed on typographic standards? Do you know the difference between True Type, PostScript and OpenType fonts? Do you have a font reference guide resource book in your studio?

6. Idea Generation In the design business it is critical to have a method of idea generation. Why? Some of the best designers in the world are paid the most money not because they know Photoshop of Flash better than you do but because they have the ability to consistently come up with new and innovative ideas that make their clients serious money.

Test: What methods do you use to generate ideas? Do you know how other innovative thinkers come up with their brilliant ideas? How often to you read (in general) so as to have myriad references and viewpoints to call upon? What do you do when your idea well has gone dry?

7. Building a Network To be successful in area of life you need the help and support of others. This is especially important for designers who need to spend much of their time in their studios/offices. Building a network of trusted confidants and friends will pay off in more ways than you know.

Test: How often do you attend networking events or seminars? Have you made a list of 5 influential people that could help your career? Do you have some sort of system for capturing and entering your new contacts information? What can you do this week to open and expand your network? Have you sought out a successful mentor?

8. General Business Skills You do not have to be a genius at business but you DO need to know basic business skills, like; sales, marketing, accounting, tax strategies, database management, etc. This tends to be one myth that designers rather not deal with. If you are marketing your own design firm or you are a freelancer the sooner you learn your business is NOT graphic design but the advertising and marketing business you will be light years ahead of your competition.

Test: Do you know the basic outline of a sales call? What new marketing strategies have you learned/implemented? When was the last time you wrote a hand-written thank you note or sent a surprise gift to a client?

Doug Farrick has owned and operated a successful graphic design studio for the last 4 years. He is currently putting together a very unique set of graphic design tools, tips, interviews and much more called the Designers inner Circle. To be on the pre-launch list, please sign up here: http://www.thedesignersinnercirclereport.com

Useful Information on Choosing a Graphic Design Agency

2007-10-29T04:06:00.001-07:00

Why choose a design agency for your project?

With the wide variety of design houses, ad agencies and printers out there, choosing the right supplier for your creative needs can be a daunting prospect. So what are the key elements involved in choosing the right kind of creative resource for your needs? should you employ an in-house designer? What are the pro’s and cons?

Most decisions based on sourcing a creative supplier, inevitably come down to budget and what you feel you are looking to achieve. If you are simply looking for a few business cards, and yours is a sector where image is not the highest priority, a design agency may be a more expensive option for the level of input you need.

Many types of company offer graphic design. Printers no longer just print, even many photographers are offering graphic design as a service, as are stationery suppliers, IT companies and many other businesses.

What is a design agency?

So what is a design agency, as opposed to these other options? A design agency is a specialist in creative design as a core business. Independence is a key feature of a true design agency, hence the word ‘agency’ where we are able to choose unbiased solutions that are not tied in to having to use, for example, a certain print provider or being limited by any other linked-in factor.

At the other end of the scale, there are advertising agencies. Should you use an advertising agency for design work that is not advertising? The probability is that unless your requirements are linked to a certain advertising campaign that has been produced by the ad agency, the level of budget necessary for them to complete other forms of design is usually prohibitive for most businesses.

The reverse situation is equally true, most design agencies will not be appropriate for producing broadcast or press advertising, and especially where media scheduling and buying are a factor. The set-up of a design agency can be very effective for some advertising, but usually for limited campaigns aimed at niche target audiences.

The right design agency?

Within the design agency sector itself, there are still many different options to consider, here are a few points to help in making a decision:

• Where is the agency based, do I prefer a geographically close supplier so I can call in, or they can visit face-to-face?

• What is their relevant experience, do they have examples within the type of design discipline I am looking for?

• Have they worked for similar sized businesses, in closely related business sectors?

• Do they have marketing expertise as well as creative, can they understand wider strategic aims?

• Can the agency handle my expected workload, what evidence do they have of this?

• What is the specific experience of the team, who will handle the account?

• Is the agency doing many more web projects than design for print? Are the designers qualified designers for print, or web designers who outsource the print design?

• Is the agency willing to give references of satisfied customers other than pre-printed testimonials?

• Can the agency provide quantitative results for work, what evidence can they provide for return on investment and accountability?

• Which services are outsourced, which are provided in house?

With the explosion of the web as a marketing tool, many early websites were created by IT people, who had no training in graphic design but simply knew how to put a web site together.

Web site design has now become a standard part of a design agency’s portfolio and it is a natural progression for clients’ to expect their web sites to have the same level of branding as any other marketing communications tool.

The main benefit of using a design agency to design your web site is that a graphic designer can integrate your site’s branding with that of all your other marketing items. It is true that many design agencies have to buy-in technical back-end functionality for their sites, but this is only like using a printer to print a brochure that has been conceived and designed by a design agency.

In-house versus Agency?

Many businesses have taken the decision to employ graphic designers for themselves as in-house creative teams. Reasons for this are usually based on saving money as there are many designers available and the equipment investment is relatively low.

Although employing an in house team can be cost-effective, the inherent danger is that whilst the cost is less, the value created by the designers over the longer term may be reduced as complacency and ultimately boredom set in.

Potentially, over a longer term, the cost savings made by going in house may be overshadowed by a reduction in sales and profits as the ideas in the in house studio inevitably slow down and the communications become repetitive and stale. Of course, it is important to state, that this will not apply to every in house creative resource.

Using a design agency has certain key benefits over an in-house creative studio. The main benefit is that of value. Design agencies work in a competitive environment, their designers must constantly deliver the highest standards of work, as clients have a choice of suppliers who will often compete on a project by project basis.

As in football, to maintain a ‘first team place’ it is in the interests of all design agencies to constantly come up with exceptional creative for clients as there are consequences for not doing.

This competitive environment benefits clients by offering them cutting edge creativity, and projects that deliver effectiveness and return on investment.

In house designers very seldom have that competitive pressure to drive up their creative efforts. Work is effectively given to them on a production line and it can be hard for employers to get a true benchmark as to whether levels of creative effort are being maintained over the long term.

Unlike in-house studios, where the projects may only involve the products and services of one company, designers within an agency work for many different sectors and business types. This constant variety leads to many fresh ideas and the honing of cutting edge creative talent.

This variety benefits the client as the designer in the agency is far less likely to become stale over the longer term. Experiences with new design challenges and constant use of the imagination for new products and services, means that when the designer comes around to working back on a certain client’s project, he has all the experiences from other client’s work to bring to the table.

Although the trend for in-house design will continue due to pressure on budgets, working with a good design agency may still be the better option, as long as your agency can deliver cost-effective services, and offer you a measurable return on investment.

Apple Creative Design offer clients high quality marketing communications, predictable costing structures across all projects, and the benefit of strategic marketing capability to back-up all creative initiatives. If you have anything you would like to discuss, contact us any time on 01772 561234.

Copyright Apple Creative Design, 2006, all rights reserved. www.apple-design.com

Phil Ashforth is Managing Director of Apple Creative Design. Apple is a graphic design agency providing high quality graphic design for print and the web. Apple can be found at http://www.apple-design.com

Design Psychology: Fabrics

2007-10-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

From a riot of color in bold chintzes to the gentle rustle of taffeta, fabrics influence our mental attitude in many subtle and not so subtle ways. Playful patterns make us smile, while mixing prints and solids can present a paradox of dynamic energy.

No matter which effect you’re looking for, you’ll want too choose the right fabric colors, patterns, and textures to reflect your interior design plan. Emotional Factors Fabrics make impressions on all of our senses. For instance, tactile pleasure is strongly reinforced by the softness of fabrics. The touch of a fabric suggests wealth (silk), formality (damask), or informality (burlap).

Our hearing is enhanced in rooms with an abundance of noise-absorbing fabrics. The colors and textures of fabric affect our sight, and some fabrics also influence our sense of smell, offering scents that may be pleasurable, cooling, or annoying. Fabric colors even modify our perceived sense of taste.

Fiber and Texture Fiber is what gives substance and texture to fabric, and may include such things as reeds, grasses, animal hair, or even plant seeds. When shopping for any type of woven fabric, look for a high thread count for softness and durability. Wool is the environmentally-favored choice for carpeting.

It’s natural, renewable, fire and soil resistant, and long-wearing. For furniture upholstery and window coverings, cotton is the natural fabric of choice. Fabrics also reinforce the degree of formality in a room. Rough-textured fabrics say "picnics," while soft textures whisper "formal dinners."

Cotton damask, toile (sheer linen and silk cloth), chintz (which is never out of style, just out of popularity from time to time), and soft chenille speak of formal, traditional spaces. Regardless of the look and feel you’re seeking for your home, the careful use of fabric textures, colors, and patterns should be a large part of your overall design plan.

Copyright c. 2004 Jeanette J. Fisher.
All Rights Reserved. Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology.

For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm By: Jeanette Joy Fisher

De-Mystifying Catalog Design

2007-10-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

Your catalog is designed with one purpose – to make people aware of the products you offer, and convince them to buy. Your printed catalog is your Advertising vehicle, a good one will drive your sales right to the bank. An online version of your print catalog is highly recommended – the USPS reports that 55% of online shoppers shop with a printed catalog in hand.

Cover these five areas with the help of advertising professionals who will design, photograph, write -- and get your catalog online.

1. Product Photography High Quality – poor quality photos diminish your credibility Image Focus – whether sharp or selective, be consistent with your brand Color – accuracy is a must and depends on paper, prepress, and printing Consistency – of style regardless of type (silo, background, location) Visual interest – all your photos should be interesting to look at Space allotment – bigger is better, use as much space as possible

2. Product Copy Balancing act – romance with personality plus descriptive information of product Always benefit driven – customers want to know “What’s in it for me?” Always credible – accurate, authoritative, helpful and informative Targeted to the audience – know who you’re speaking to and use appropriate language Easy to read and understand – readers don’t want to have to figure it out for themselves Space allotment & size – consider brand, product being sold, and target audience

3. Page Layout Product is focus – quick identification of what’s being sold Price point visibly noticeable – especially if price is your niche Clean and simple and easy to shop – readers usually don’t spend a lot of time Consistent in format and purpose – all pages should look like they’re from the same brand Space allotment – good design sense is key here White space – rest for the eye is critical Location of information/order form – make it easy for the customer to purchase Overall print quality – must be consistent with your brand

4. Front Cover An invitation – inviting the reader to open the catalog Provide a taste of what’s inside – use top sellers Point to purpose of catalog – is there a season or other reason Focus on merchandise – you are what you sell Convey company image – ALWAYS be consistent with your brand Provide stopping power and reason to go inside – there’s a lot of competition out there Highlight new products – especially if you carry the same items each month Sell company services/policies/extras – sell your customer service right up front

5. Company Policies and Services Guarantee – strong return policy visually evident Make shopping simple – customers will go elsewhere if not Ordering info – placed where easy to find Web address – placed where it’s easy to find, and specify online services Personalize and caring feeling – utilizing demographic information and purchasing history Going beyond basic services – poor or non-existent customer service is not an option Honesty and Sincerity – be your image.

Don’t ever promise what you cannot deliver Linda Lullie is co-owner of Inspired 2 Design, LLC – a full service Advertising Design & Production company specializing in Small Business Marketing Solutions. Free Consultation and Special Value-Added Packages for Start-Up Companies. Visit them at http://www.inspired2designllc.com Article may be reprinted only with Author’s bio and links intact.

Fashion Design Templates

2007-10-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

Fashion design templates are layouts that are pre-designed. These can be used to make new designs by adding certain features. Fashion design templates are extensively used for making fashion drawings. The templates are available in different sizes.

Templates are of different types such as fashion silhouette templates, posture template and free fashion and body silhouette template. The templates are the best option for those who do not have the necessary drawing skills.

The fashion design templates display the outline of a model in different poses and sizes. The designer has to make his own judgment about the pose and the size of the template that would be chosen for the display of the fashion apparel or accessory.

For instance, if the costume is classy and represents the bygone era, the designers would normally choose a template that is more elegant and refined. The templates are important for the proper presentation of the designer’s artistic skill.

The templates have to be chosen according to the theme of the apparel ready for display. If the template chosen for a particular designer apparel or accessory is not correct, it might give a misrepresentation of the theme and the concept of the design, and have a negative impact on the marketability of the design. Considering the importance of templates, many people have come out with e-books based on templates.

Similarly, there are web templates that serve the fashion needs of the budding as well as the established designers. The templates can either be downloaded or they can be used to produce similar images for the purpose of sketching.

The templates display basic outline of the models .The outlines can be drawn upon or a print can be taken to create a fashion design befitting the template. The fashion design template is an important tool that can be used by the designer to escape the drudgery of drawing or for getting a fair idea of what to incorporate in his creations. Fashion Design provides detailed information on Fashion Design, Fashion Design Schools, Fashion Design Programs, Fashion Design Games and more. Fashion Design is affiliated with Fabric Hammocks. By: Jennifer Bailey

Annoying Website Design

2007-10-24T05:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever considered that your website may be annoying? When it’s comes to website design, knowing what visitors hate most is a must, unless you don’t want them to visit you again. This article describes what you should exclude from your website. If you know about an annoying website, feel free to send this article to its webmaster.

A few weeks ago I received an email from a colleague asking me to check one of the website he had developed. He is a web designer and his client wanted a nice attractive flash header. The flash header was great. You can’t miss it at all. Some nice graphics elements were flying in while sound effects created just the right atmosphere.

However, after starting to explore the website, the header became very annoying because every time you clicked on the website the header restarted. What was pleasant initially became very annoying very quickly, disturbing your concentration and making it difficult to read what was on the page. He is not the first to create what I like to call – "annoying website design".

Many webmasters, especially new webmasters are totally "in love" with their ideas and tend to go overboard with their design in one way or another. It’s nice to have an attractive header, but is it really necessary to assault the visitor’s mind with it? In my opinion, absolutely not! Webmasters sometimes forget that their website design should send a message to the visitor that should reflect the website topic and not the programmer’s skill level.

Is Your Website Design Annoying? Well…. It’s not that hard to be annoying. However, some webmasters are much better than others at annoying their visitors.

Check my top 5 list and decide for yourself whether you have been annoying your visitors.

1. Background music – Unless you are operating an online internet radio station or sell music CDs, why play a midi/wav file in the background continuously on every page?

2. Huge font size – If you are designing a website for people with a disability then you are doing the right thing, but if not then you are shouting. People don’t like it when someone shouts at them.

3. Small font size – Do you want to be heard? Keep a normal tone, don’t shout but "speak" in a reasonable volume.

4. Overlapping layers – Layers can be very useful up to the point. But not when they are being used to put an annoying message in the visitor’s face. Don’t try to force your visitor to read your messages. Try persuasion instead of brute force.

5. Popup windows – Even though popup windows are now blocked by many add on tools, webmasters keep using them. The annoying part of popups is sometimes we actually miss important information because of those anti popup tools.

Haven’t you heard the old phrase "if you can’t beat him, join him”? Don’t use pop up windows. Put your important messages in a central place on your website. Most likely each one of us has our own private top five lists. You probably have many more annoying design cases in mind.

Well, you’re right, the list is much longer then that. I just wanted to describe some of the highlights in order to bring this important subject your attention. Some of you are probably reading those lines and smiling while some others have a feeling a deja-vu. Keep in your mind that as a webmaster the last thing you want to do is put lots of effort into your website and then find out that your visitors hate it.

It’s not a matter of taste, it’s more about being the same polite person we all try to be when we go to a party. I tried to point out a few things that might be useful to some web designers and webmasters. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to send this article to my friend, hopefully he’ll send it to his client :)

About the Author:
Warren Baker is an Internet business consultant for WebDesigners123. WebDesigners123 connects the Freelance Web Designer with Webmasters who need their services. If you would like to read more of Warren Baker’s writings, visit our Website Design Articles page.

Design Does Matter

2007-10-24T05:24:00.001-07:00

The idea that good design can improve how people perceive your business has long been a part of a designer’s sales tools. They try to convince you that by improving your image, maybe creating a new logo or changing the way you communicate with your customers you can somehow improve sales and improve your bottom line.

But are they right? Over the years many companies have been sceptical about these claims because of a lack of concrete evidence. Designers struggle to back up their claims with written evidence and so this argument for good design often falls down at the first hurdle. Companies fail to understand why they should invest time and money in improving their visual identity if there is no tangible result.

However, last year The Design Council released the results of a groundbreaking study on the link between the use of design and financial performance. The study published in March 2004 finally recognised the direct relationship between effective use of design and financial performance. The study looked at 166 design-led UK quoted companies over a period of ten years from 1994 to 2003.

A group of 63 companies were recognised as effective users of design. This was based on the fact that they consistently appeared in the listings at various design award schemes. The study reveals these 63 companies outperformed both the FTSE All Share and FTSE 100 indices by around 200% between 1994 and 2003. The Design Council is a professional body which supports the work of the UK design industry.

It works to demonstrate and promote the vital role of design within business and the wider UK economy. A recent study by the Design Council, Design in Britain 2004-05, based on an annual business survey of 1,500 companies of all sizes and sectors, shows companies using design to innovate and stand out are growing faster than their competitors are.

According to the in-depth research, a third of the UK’s fastest growing companies see design as integral to their business, while only 11 per cent of businesses with a decreasing turnover have this view. The figures confirm the impact of design across sales, profits, quality, share price, market share and competitiveness.

Using design throughout your business ultimately boosts the bottom line by helping you create better products and services that compete on value rather than price. Truly Ace: Providers of Logo Design, Print Design and Web Design Services About: Truly Ace offers creative unique and cost effective logo design, commercial illustration, graphic design, and web design services. http://www.trulyace.com Copyright Truly Ace Logo Design, Graphic Design & Commercial Illustration By: A Vlahakis

Design With Purpose

2007-10-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

If your website is falling through the cracks, the chances are that the site has no message, no central core to build traffic or a core readership. Websites that try to do everything usually fail. We begin every web site evaluation by helping you define your web site goals. You can do this yourself.

Knowing what your site is supposed to accomplish should be the first step in your design process. Your website success starts with understanding your site’s purpose and goals. Start by grabbing a notepad and pencil and begin brainstorming your website’s purpose. Write down everything that comes to mind.

Some common goals include:

* direct sales
* customer support
* branding
* lead generation
* information/community service
* solicit donations
* indirect sales
* expanded brochure
* establish credibility with online presence
* online advertising
* ??? Now ask yourself what is most important?

Prioritize your web site goals so you can prioritize your web site’s needs. Sometimes your list will not be linear, it may look more like a bubble chart or be structured more clearly. Your priorities should be reflected in the site organization.

Do you lead with you top priorities or are they shyly hidden within your site map? It’s time to get real. Once you understand your goals go to your site and see how close you are to achieving them.

* If you expect to make online sales you need to offer online ordering. Printable forms just aren’t enough.

* If your site’s purpose is to provide information and your site has no content, you can’t meet your goals.

* If you need to get potential customers to contact you – is it easy or do they have to click a link to find a phone number or email link?

* Does your text content effectively communicate your site’s purpose?· Do the images on your site reflect your purpose and your site text?

* Do you link to websites your visitors would actually be interested in or are your links only reciprocal link building schemes? Your website content should reflect your site’s purpose and nothing else. Start a blog if you want to offer your poetry, opinions or family photos. Don’t try to sell widgets and cats on the same site. Focus your attention and you’ll grab the attention of the search engines and your target audience alike.

A web site evaluation that doesn’t begin with these basic questions is doomed to be useless. Don’t waste your time fixing anything on your site until you know what it is supposed to do! JoMarie Thomson of Crucible Designs has been designing websites since 1997. She offers website success strategies on JoMaries Dot Com for do-it-yourself website makeovers.

Managing Design Complexity

2007-10-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

"100% of your design documentation is contained in the specifications of your information resources." - Bryce’s Law There are many companies today, most overseas, still tackling major systems projects particularly in the areas of banking and manufacturing.

These mammoth application development efforts contrast sharply with American companies who have failed in such undertakings and are now content with chipping away at systems, program-by-program, with the hope that disjointed software will somehow/someday interface with each other. Whereas foreign competitors talk in terms of enormous systems with hundreds of programs and millions of lines of code; large integrated systems tend to intimidate the most ardent of American developers.

But this is not so much a story about competition as it is about understanding design complexity. People in both the east and the west recognize the design and development of a total system is no small task. A system can consist of many business processes, procedures, programs, inputs, outputs, files, records, data elements, etc. The problem lies in how to best control these information resources and the design decisions associated with them. Two approaches are typically used: progressively break the problem into smaller, more manageable pieces, or; tackle a minuscule portion of the problem at a time.

Whereas the former requires a long term perspective, the latter can show a quick return, which is more appealing to a company with a "fast track" mentality. Some time ago we conducted a study of customer application development projects. Our research centered on two types of projects: those aimed at building a total system, and; those aimed at building a single program. One obvious conclusion was that the number of information resources used in a major system was considerably more than in a program.

However, the key observation made in the study was that there is a finite number of design decisions associated with each type of information resource. As an example, for an output, decisions have to be made as to its physical media (screen or report), size (number of characters), messages associated with it, etc. For a data element, its logical and physical characteristics must be specified (definition, source, label, size, class, length, etc.).

For a program, the language to be used, program logic, required file structures, etc. These design decisions can be simple or complex; regardless, they are all required in order to design a system or a program. When we multiply the number of design decisions by the number of information resources, we get an idea of the magnitude of a systems design project versus the design of a single program (see Figure 1).

FIGURE 1 NUMBER OF RESOURCES IN AVERAGE SYSTEMS PROJECT: 2,006 NUMBER OF DESIGN DECISIONS TO BE MADE: 49,850 NUMBER OF RESOURCES IN AVERAGE PROGRAM PROJECT: 98 NUMBER OF DESIGN DECISIONS TO BE MADE: 2,070 NOTE: Decisions are design oriented only; they do not include Project Management related decisions (such as those associated with planning, estimating and scheduling).

From this perspective, the average system design project is nearly 25 times larger than the average software design project in terms of complexity. As a footnote, our findings also revealed the "average" system design project is seven times larger than a "complex" software design project. This discrepancy in system/software complexity provides a clue as to how companies address the problem.

Since a software design project is smaller and seemingly more palatable to implement than a total systems project, some companies will focus on software engineering tools and techniques, and abandon total systems engineering practices. This is one reason why programming tools enjoy popularity today.

Contrast this with the size of Japan’s "Best" project to build the country’s next generation of on-line banking systems. This was a major application development effort resulting in 72 "average" systems; a considerably larger project than what is typically addressed in the United States. MANAGING DECISIONS There are two aspects to handling decisions: how they are formulated, and how they are controlled.

Trying to make nearly 50,000 design decisions in one step is not only an impossible task, it is a highly impractical way of operating. Just like the design of any product, a system must be designed in gradual phases in such a way as it becomes possible to review and refine the design. In other words, the 50,000 design decisions will be made throughout the life of a development project, not all at once.

It is the responsibility of a systems engineering methodology to define the sequence of events for designing a system. As such, the methodology represents the channel for formulating decisions. Breaking a complex system design down into smaller, more manageable pieces, also provides for:

* Parallel development and delivery of portions of the system (concurrent development within a single project).

* An environment conducive for building quality into a product (as opposed to inspecting for quality afterwards).

* The formulation of Project Management related decisions (such as estimating and scheduling the delivery of systems, in part or in full). This philosophy of design is no different than any other product design/development effort, such as shipbuilding, automobile manufacturing, bridge building, etc. All require a specific methodology that breaks the product down to its sub-assemblies and parts; thereby organizing the specification of parts and the design decisions associated with them.

Managing the decision making process for even the smallest of application development projects can be a huge undertaking. We estimate there are approximately 500 design decisions associated in a small software design project (as compared to more than 125,000 decisions in the typical complex system design project).

To record and control these decisions requires something more sophisticated than just paper and pencil; it requires an automated "Information Resource Manager" (IRM), a software tool capable of inventorying and documenting an enterprise’s information resources. Whether you call it an "IRM", a "Repository", a "Data Dictionary" or whatever, the philosophical heart of the product is based on the age-old concept of "Bill of Materials" whereby resources (also referred to as "components" or "parts") are cataloged and cross-referenced to each other.

Consider a parts manifest as included in a major appliance maintenance bookley (or lawn/garden tool), I am sure this type of diagram is familiar to any homeowner who has reviewed product maintenance/warranty booklets. Every part in the product is identified by number and name (see section to the right in the figure).

To the left side in the figure is a schematic showing how each part relates to the other parts and, as such, represents the assembly of the product for maintenance purposes. The concept of "Bill of Materials" provides the means to inventory resources thus allowing us to share and re-use them. For example, many of the parts shown in Figure 2 are re-used in other lawnmower models offered by the manufacturer. How can we share and re-use resources without such a concept? The answer is simple: we cannot.

And this explains why there is considerable redundancy in our information resources and work effort. It also suggests most of our design decisions are maintained "by the seat of our pants." Most college courses involving computing are unfamiliar with the Bill of Materials concept. Their focus is on programming and file design, and little else.

The concept of "Bill of Materials" has three objectives:

1. To uniquely identify each resource by number and name (as well as by aliases). Names are nice, but numbers offer a more precise way to uniquely identify a resource. Identification is critical. After all, we cannot share and re-use something if we do not know it exists.

2. To record the part’s specifications. Thus providing a way to determine if the part can be re-used in another product (thereby promoting the sharing of parts and eliminating redundancy).

3. To record where the part is used in a product(s) (aka "Where-used"). This specifies the relationship of parts to each other and, thereby, their assembly. This is also extremely useful for "impact analysis" whereby we can analyze where the part is used in all of our products, not just one, which is vital for making intelligent decisions about modifying a part.

For example, if we change the specifications of a part in one product, this will severely impact other products it is also used in. By controlling parts in this manner, a product’s design is fully documented. The "Bill of Material" concept can easily accommodate information resources and offer the same benefits of sharing and re-using components.

By doing so, we can easily manage the 50,000 design decisions accompanying a system design project. Our system/software products may be less tangible than an automobile, aircraft or lawnmower, but we can still apply the same concept to their control. Therefore, an IRM Repository should have the ability to identify, specify, and cross-reference all of the resources mentioned in Figure 1.

This can certainly be done manually with paper but this may lead to bureaucratic and access problems for developers. Instead, automation is recommended. There are several such commercial products on the market, but it is also fairly easy to create such software using today’s Data Base Management Systems (DBMS) which are now fairly easy to define and relate resources (they also provide excellent documentation services).

The IRM should be viewed as the hub of all development efforts and provide the means to interface (import/export) with a myriad of other development tools; e.g., CASE, prototyping aids, program generators, etc. Such tools will use the intelligence of the information resources as contained in the IRM to function accordingly. As an example, a program generator should be able to interpret the program and file specifications in order to produce the necessary code.

Such development tools should also have the ability to turn around and import resource specifications back into the IRM. This is particularly useful for documenting existing systems/software (aka "Reverse Population").

For information on how to create an IRM Repository, please see =>http://www.phmainstreet.com/mba/pride/spir.htm The concept of "Bill of Materials" is an important part of an overall strategy to implement an "Information Factory" environment to design and develop information resources. But this will be the subject of a separate paper. CONCLUSION This philosophy to managing design complexity is no different than what is found in the engineering and manufacturing of any product. Engineers break their design projects into smaller stages so that reviews can be performed and revisions implemented.

A "bill of materials" processor is used to track the parts or a product and how they interrelate; which is no different in intent than the IRM tool. For people imbued in programming, it is difficult to think in terms of "parts" as described herein, but it is a practical solution and can be applied to any development effort, large or small. Standardization and integration of information resources is built by design, not by accident.

Without a formalized methodology for design or an IRM tool to record design decisions, a major system design is incomprehensible; there are just too many variables for the human mind to remember or control using manual techniques. It is not that analysts do not want to take on a major systems design project, they simply cannot. They lack the organization and proper tools to perform the job effectively. Because of this, they default to the things they know best, programming, and tackle systems in piecemeal.

The difference between east and west here is not one of working harder, but smarter. The Japanese and Europeans are simply better organized and equipped to perform system design than their American counterparts. This can be attributed, in large part, to management’s sensitivity to the role systems play in a company. Because of this, they are not afraid to tackle large endeavors, while American companies view such undertakings as seemingly too massive to undertake. As such, they sidestep large projects in favor of smaller projects that may address only a portion of the overall problem. This is resulting in the unsettling situation where our competitors are rapidly becoming the world’s systems engineers, while Americans become the world’s software engineers.

For more information on our philosophies of Information Resource Management (IRM), please see the "Introduction" section of "PRIDE" at =>http://www.phmainstreet.com/mba/pride/intro.htm#irm Tim Bryce is the Managing Director of M. Bryce & Associates (MBA) of Palm Harbor, Florida, a management consulting firm specializing in Information Resource Management (IRM). Mr. Bryce has over 30 years of experience in the field. He is available for training and consulting on an international basis. His corporate web page is at =>http://www.phmainstreet.com/mba/ He can be contacted at: timb001@phmainstreet.com Copyright © 2006 MBA. All rights reserved.

The Magic of Design

2007-10-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

There was a time people thought the world was flat. At another point in history it was believed that women didn’t have the know-how to run a business or change a tire. Then there was the one about man not being able to fly. Over time all of these fairytales have proven untrue. So it is with interior design. Until recently, many people held the belief that having their home decorated by an interior designer was reserved for the rich and famous.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Fact is, many people of average income who live in a middleclass neighborhood are frequently surprised to learn they can easily afford the services of an interior designer. In other cases, many folks prefer to learn tips about design so they have the flexibility to redo a room on a whim. Either way, you have more choices today then ever before.

It is not uncommon to completely redo a room for a one time social event such as a birthday celebration, a graduation or a wedding. With some simple tips, even the most inexperienced person can easily spruce up a room. Before you begin, think about the style you are interested in. Is it art deco, traditional, Mediterranean, western, modern, or contemporary? These are only a few of the multitude of choices you have. Think through how functional the room will be with what you have in mind. Avoid rugs and chairs that stain easily if there will be a lot of traffic in the room. Be very careful to scale your furniture to the size of the room.

If you have a very large space you can break up the area into little sitting groups or area groups. You can easily shift the “feel” of a room with the use of lighting and/or plants. Area rugs are another tool many designers use to break up large spaces. A variety of paint colors and wall textures can make even the most mundane room come to life. Small space decorating is fast becoming a favorite topic for many people as real estate prices rise.

Think priorities when it comes to small spaces. Do you need to use an area of the room for more than one reason? In some cases you can easily convert the kitchen table to your workspace provided you have cabinet space handy for supplies. A chest of drawers can easily serve this purpose by holding office supplies, linens, or even computer components. If you are considering utilizing the services of a designer, do your homework. Check their portfolio and references. Find out how they are to work with, did they deliver on time, were they easy to work with and did they listen to the homeowner.

If you get an affirmative answer on all of these and their fees are suitable to your budget, then take the leap. Often, interior designs services are provided at no additional cost to you, and will give you the extra edge you need to create exactly the feeling you want for your home. A great designer can make recommendations you may not have thought of. Ultimately, their goal is for you to be ecstatic with what you were able to accomplish together.

After all, you are the one that has to live in the space long after the designer has done their magic. Copyright: © 2004 by Melody Foster Web: www.thecozyhome.net Publishing Guidelines: You may publish my article in your newsletter, on your website, or in your print publication provided you include the resource box at the end.

Notification would be appreciated but is not required. About The Author Melody Foster is the proprietor of The Cozy Home. The Cozy Home recently received the award for Best Interior Design for 2004 from the Parade of Homes and Salt Lake Home Builders Association for homes in the $400,000 - $700,000 range. Located in historic downtown Draper, Utah, The Cozy Home has a retail outlet that offer a unique selection to those who want the ability to furnish and accessorize their homes in a very individual way, with one-of-a-kind pieces that cannot be found elsewhere.

The Cozy Home also focuses on interior design for homes in the $200,000 and up range, specializing in the enhancing the average American home. Contact Melody Foster at mfoster@speakeasy.net Web: www.thecozyhome.net

Cool Web Design

2007-10-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

Design is about more than just making things look nice and pretty, it is about functionality, usability, accessibility, and more. In short; it is about making things fit for purpose, and nowhere are there more stark contrasts of good and bad design than on the World Wide Web.

In order to discover whether a site is ’fit for purpose’ certain questions need to be asked, such as: Is a website easy to use? Can you find the information you were seeking easily? Can the site be found by search engines? Is the site accessible to people with vision impairment? can the size of the text be made smaller or larger? Is it clear to viewers with colour blindness? Can the site be easily navigated using screen reader software? All of these things, and more, have to be taken into consideration when designing for the Web - and this is especially important for a business presence on-line where issues such as accessibility are not only a good idea, but nowadays a legal responsibility.

Publishing on the Web is a fairly simple process and seems to be getting easier by the day as ever more improvements are made to WYSIWYG and on-line editors. However, there is much evidence of ’bad’ design seen on a myriad of web pages; many of them featuring cyan text on yellow backgrounds, and an abundance of animated gifs and flashing, scrolling, blinking text in all fonts, sizes, colours and styles - the eyes hurt and the head aches when confronted with such examples! Being able to put the pages of a Website together with a WYSIWYG editor like Frontpage or Dreamweaver does not make a person a web designer.

Not that Microsoft or Adobe would want that fact to become common knowledge for fear of losing sales of their high end software to amateur designers. But it is not just the glaringly obvious tacky bad taste sites that are at fault.

How many times have we seen an absolutely gorgeous, good enough to eat almost, Flash based website that looks fantastic but is difficult or almost impossible to use? I know I have, many many times! Where is the navigation? Why does it take ages for the pages to load? Why can’t I find the information I need? Why is the text on the page so small? And so on... The point is that it seems that in examples like the above, the ’designer’ has ignored basic functionality in favour of trying to make the pages look ’cool’ - and that is not design at all.

So it can be seen that the merits of good Web design encompass both the practical and the aesthetic. Yes, we want to make our sites look good (’cool’ even); but we also need to ensure that they are visible and easy to use for everybody. To overlook these basic considerations would be irresponsible and perhaps even disastrous for the long term future of the Website. So; is your Website well designed or just cool? Tony Williams is the author of Web Traffic in Black & White, the guide that unlocks the secrets of Web traffic. Check it out at http://webtraffic.tdlwebs.com

Art and Design

2007-10-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

Maybe you’ve faced it before – a new house with an empty room or two. This room is just crying out for some furniture. So off you go to purchase a sofa you admire - then a chair. Or perhaps you purchase a full living room set complete with tables and rugs. With delivery a few weeks off you can just picture your living room (and not surprisingly, it looks just like the showroom).

The delivery day arrives and you can’t wait to cut the tags off of your new furnishings. You may have to position the sofa a few times to get it just so, but all in all, you’re pretty satisfied – until you notice there’s no art on the wall. And so you decide to buy some art that matches the sofa. I cringe a little while I write this, but in reality that is how many of us choose art.

In fact, little confession, I still have art in my house that I bought because the frames matched! If you have also considered buying art in an afterthought, you’re not alone. We have all been taught that accessories finish off a room. In fact, if you’ve ever watched a design show, you’ll notice that some professional designers decide on the art once fabric, furniture and rugs have been selected.

So maybe we’ve all been brainwashed to believe that filling our space with art doesn’t require much planning – just the ability to carry a swatch of fabric to a store. Well, just for a moment, I’d like you to think about your art and why you might acquire it sooner rather than later. Art inspires creativity. First choose art that appeals to you, and then let your furniture and accessory purchases be influenced by the art you have selected.

This shift in viewpoint allows for freedom of expression. Through the process of seeking out new art, and finding something you’d like to live with, you open your mind to all the new possibilities. Perhaps an abstract piece of art inspires you to consider an eclectic collection of furniture instead of a uniform suite. Maybe art with cool beach tones allows you to consider that slip covered furniture with a nautical appeal. Or a tropical print encourages you to use a hand-painted floorcloth in vivid hues in your new artistically inspired room.

Consider also the structural elements in your room. Many living areas have unique architectural details that historically have been used to display important art. By only focusing on furniture placement or accessorizing, you may lose sight of some of your home’s great details. If the architectural details are not what they once were, before you rip it out, liven it up. Apply a mosaic design or faux finish to your fireplace surround. When you’re thinking about changing things break out of the familiar and experiment with your creativity.

For some creative inspiration, find the nearest child. Generally, young children are much more free to express themselves than some adults, and when it comes to design, I can say from experience that they’ll have their own unique opinions on what goes in their rooms. Take a cue from your child’s artwork when you design their rooms. This way they are more inclined to love it when you’re done. Gather together several of their favorite paintings or sketches, and note their favorite color, or emerging themes. You can copy these same themes through painted fabric, a wall mural, unique stained glass for the window, a floorcloth or even a quilted wall hanging.

Don’t forget to frame and hang the original artwork that inspired their new design. So set out to design your living spaces with art as forethought. You will appreciate the art for what it adds to the overall project as well as the positive feeling you experience when you see it. And then you may begin to wonder why you ever tried to buy art that matches that pillow with the odd purple color.
Happy art collecting!

About The Author Lise Richards is an Artistic Lifestylist and owner of The Creativity Center, Inc and Red Door Gallery. Her Artistic Lifestyling program helps all people live more creatively in artistically designed spaces. Visit the company online at www.ArtisticLifestyling.com information@artisticlifestyling.com

Good Logo Design

2007-10-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

A good logo design represents a good company that clients and customers alike can put their trust in. Although it might seem like a minimalist issue when it comes to talking about a big company a logo actually has a lot of influence on how the company it stands for fares in its respective market.

And it does not matter how big or small the company is, it has a great impact on its acceptance by the people. It comes as no surprise that all the companies place so much importance on such a small symbol. When you are going to start a new company or a new business venture a logo is one of the first things that should be decided upon: a logo that somehow tries to represent the ideals and interests of the respective company.

A good logo design seeks to do several things for the company that it represents. It serves to give a good first impression of the company it represents to whosoever its customers happen to be. Before the company is known well it is the logo which will attract the attention of potential clients and customers. Nowadays brand recognition is very important in all kinds of businesses. And logo designs play a pivotal role in bringing brand recognition to a company.

A good logo design not only advertises a product or a company it also makes it look attractive and alluring to the customers. The successful marketing of a brand surprisingly owes quite a lot to its respective logo design. So, what is it that makes a logo design good? There are several factors that should be the models on which logo designs are based to turn them into “good” logo designs. One of the most important of these factors is originality.

A good logo design has to be unique and has to stand on its own. It should not be summarily mistaken for the logo design of another brand. All this takes is just a little creativity and also a strong urge not to borrow from the logo designs of other companies. And there is no need to worry if you do not want to spend too much time and energy in trying to come up with your own good logo designs.

There are several very good logo design makers on the web. Some of the good logo design makers include Logo Creator, Logo Bee, Logo Design Guru, the Logo Company and Logo Design Works. These are only a few of several others. These good logo design makers are adept in making customized logo designs. These are made from scratch. Everything is made so that its styling and designing is suited to your own interests.

It is interactive. You can give these design makers your ideas about how you would want the logo design of your company to look like. And they will take your ideas and most importantly put their own touch on them. Being professionals they would obviously know how to mould your ideas into well devised good logo designs that will be able to stand on its own as a good representative of your company.

Practicality is also a major factor when it comes to designing a good logo. This is especially so in the case of small time companies or individuals who want logo designs for their letterheads, business cards and so on and so forth. Practicality implies not being too extravagant in the styling of the logos.

It should be designed in such a way in such a style that it can practically be used in various mediums. Its use should not be restricted to a few mediums like only the print media. It should be viable for use in print media, on the web, etc. A good logo design does not necessarily have to be complicated or extravagant in its styling and in the use of its colors.

A lot of very big companies use very simple but very eye-catching logo designs. And these are invariably working out very well for them. For example IBM has an extremely simple but very good logo design. There is minimalist use of color and style but its understated simplicity is capable enough of bringing across the reliability and stability of the company.

Anthony Gregory is a freelance writer and journalist. He is available for hire and website promotion. He helps to promote the following sites: car insurance UK Asbestos Survey SEO Company

Web Design – Is It An Art?

2007-10-10T09:01:00.000-07:00

Web design is an art. There’s no question about that. The question is: how many websites designed by real web designers are out there? With the amount of crap that purely invades the Internet and suffocates the users nowadays, there are serious reasons to doubt that web design is an art in its own right.

So called web designers create terrible made for AdSense sites, or those awful personal pages that have nothing to say. But the Internet is a World and you should expect to find, as in the real world, tones of nonsense and digital rubbish. Such websites have no real value, are full of grammatical errors, respect no design techniques, blend colors, fonts and graphics irrationally, display flashy banners, annoying gifs and so on. Sites like these make people believe that it is ok to put up a website even if it is lousy. Anyone can start a website, but, can anyone design a website? Obviously not, since new websites appear online every day that are not good at all.

Web design combines traditional arts with technical skills. A web designer is not just a web coder: he or she is an artist able to understand the value of image and other visual elements, and knows what impact these might have on the viewers. The web designer works with images and words to create the perfect web layout. To create unique websites, the kind of websites that really add value to the World Wide Web, skilled web designers use various tools. They might retouch pictures and graphics or create astonishing images using programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Jasic Paint, Photo Impact and so on. They might use 3D software or Flash to design dramatic layouts that will transport the visitors into another world. No matter what tools they employ, professional web designers create functional, astonishing web pages.

Don’t believe that web design, as an art, is not for business, corporate or informative websites. As a matter of fact they need it the most. While business and informational websites don’t need to be artistic, they need to inspire. Corporate websites need clear designs, simple layouts so that any visitor could access the information fast and understand the purpose of the website. To create a website that sends the right message and develops brand awareness in an agreeable manner is an art. A good website can sell a service or products, but this doesn’t mean that its appearance should fade. Compare a website to a car: you need it to transport your visitors through a space full of information. You don’t want them to be bored by what you have to offer. You want to entertain them, to mesmerize their minds, to make them come back. What it will be: a Hollywood like limousine or a second hand car? Yes, it’s true: it’s not the car that matters, but the ride. However, when you travel in an uncomfortable seat you might not enjoy the ride. And doesn’t anyone dream for a first-class ticket?

After all this being said, you do not have to hire a web designer to build a great site in today’s online world. Web design is an art, but with the advent of the new high power website builders, anyone can create a high quality website for a fraction of the cost of hiring a web designer. This is especially true of web building programs that are template driven.

Online web building programs using this “template driven” technology allow the user to make their website using professionally designed templates. This means the “art” of web design has already been done. The user simply chooses their template, adds their own content and photos, and in a matter of hours or days, a HIGH QUALITY website is created!

Don’t be fooled. Not all website builders are the same. Make sure you use a website builder that includes ecommerce capabilities without an additional charge. One such program is HighPowerSites.

In conclusion: You can hire a skilled, talented web designer to create your business website but you will pay a high price as web designers are not cheap. Or you can use a top notch web building program for a fraction of the cost. You’ll need to pay the price for either one, but high quality websites don’t come cheap. If you are serious about doing business online, you should invest in your website. The future belongs to those that provide for quality on the World Wide Web.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites.com at: http://www.highpowersites.com

By: Scott Lindsay

Web Design Ranking

2007-10-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Good web design is the probably the most important factor in helping a site get a good search engine ranking. Websites that follow good design practices and offer unique content receive a higher ranking from search engines.

When evaluating the credibility of a website, visitors are more often affected by the design of the site, than any other feature. Elements of the visual design, including layout, typography, white space, images and color schemes, make an impression on the credibility of the site. Professionally done graphics create an impression of higher quality, impressing many visitors who make snap judgments based on the appearance of a website.

For a web design to receive a high search engine ranking, the objectives of creating the web site must be clearly defined and understood. The site should be designed in a manner that is oriented towards fulfilling these objectives.

The size of the website also has a huge impact on web rankings. Search engines love content, so if a site has only a few pages, it’s difficult to obtain a top search ranking for that site.

The proper use of HTML meta tags is essential. A website that is regularly updated will maintain a good ranking, while websites that offer the visitor a more aesthetically pleasing experience may seem like the best option, they are often the most difficult to optimize for search engines. Search engine robots cannot read text that is part of a graphic or animation and they might see just a small amount of text. A good amount of text content is highly recommended.

Getting top web design rankings can move your website to the prime location on search engines for key search terms. Anyone can have a great looking website. However, if no one can find it, it serves no purpose. It would be like building the most beautiful house ever created, but having no doors to let anyone in.

Web Ranking provides detailed information on Web Ranking, Web Design Ranking, Web Ranking Reports, Web Ranking Software and more. Web Ranking is affiliated with Search Engine Ranking Optimization.

By: Kent Pinkerton

Blog Design Solution

2007-10-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

Looking for a blog design solution? Then let’s define the problem first, or another words, why are we creating a blog, what’s it’s purpose and what is the ultimate big picture?

Before any blog design solution can be implemented you need to take a look at the big picture. Are you creating an AdSense blog or maybe a blog to promote your product or service, how about a blog that you and your family use to share info and photos?

Blogger helps with blog design solution by allowing bloggers the opportunity to use their current domain names. This is a great feature and allows you to use a site you already have up for your new blog, thus giving you more flexibility in your design.

Some of the other benefits of using this type of service is that it’s very easy to set up, you don’t have to mess with the normal FTP process, there is no longer any delays in getting your files uploaded to your hosting provider. Step by step guides help you build your blog and point and click blog design solution makes the process efficient and easy, all you need to do is worry about the content

If you are planning on using your blog to generate AdSense advertising income then there are a few things you need to think about. First is relevance, any blog design solution requires that your content be relevant to the topic matter. Fore instance, if your putting together a blog on golfing then blog entries on sailing would not be relevant, (you would be surprised how far off base people can get), though putting would certainly be relevant.

You will also need to incorporate keyword management into any blog design solution plan. I’ll use the example of “putting” if your blog entry is about improving your putting skills and you only use the word “putting” a couple time then the search engines wont view you article as relevant even if it’s the best article ever. As a rule of thumb you want a keyword density of between 2-3% to keep the search engines happy.

The last thing I want to cover of AdSense blogs is the ads themselves. A critical part in blog design solution for AdSense blogs is ad placement. Take some time and look at you blog, ask yourself, will the see may ads and how will they appear to your blog’s visitors. The are many trains of thought on this, I prefer to have my ads on the right side towards the top of the article or about half way down the page across the page.

There are quite of few more blog design solution techniques to explore and in future articles I’ll get more in-depth on blog design solution.

Victoria Hargis has been a web developer for over 10 years. Take all the fear out of building a web site with a revolutionary new Web Site Creation Tool. Follow the step by step, point and click web site design system to build a web site in less than 2 hours. Go to http://www.JVWebsiteDesign and take all the fear and most of the work out of building your web site

By: V Hargis

1-2-3 Guide To Website Design

2007-10-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

Details are very important when putting up a site. And these details are there because they are essential. As I always mentioned before, make your site’s contents useful and not just a “bling, bling” sensation for everyone.

Utilizing all the details on your website could make your readers happy. This means that they would find your site easy to navigate. In addition, happy customers credit your site because it takes little time to download everything and the contents are readable because they are clear, short and comprehensive.

I know for starters that establishing a website may be too overwhelming. Who wouldn’t be when there are too many distractions offering you free or cheap software for your site? Choosing from all of them greatly affect your overall plans for your site. So I suggest that you put only the essential things on your site. When doing this, it is also better if you could make an mockup layout of how your site will look like.

The rule of the thumb here is: Keep your site nice and clean.

Your site should not:

1. Appear cluttered, that is, too many distractions on a page.

TIP:
• Lessen the contents by creating a link directing the reader to another page.
• Avoid animated/flash ads, instead choose ads that are simple and will very much compliment your page overall look.
• Pop-ups are more annoying than helpful. So this is a big NO.

2. Take a long time to download. Remember that not everyone is connected to a fast server.

TIP:
• Do not overload your site’s page with too much content, especially too many graphics and video/audio streams.

3. Be inconsistent throughout. Make every page the same in color, navigational tools and directions, and overall impression.

TIP:• Be able to choose colors that are nice to look at. There are tips that will help you choose the right color schemes for your site.
• Navigational tools should be properly put in place, where your visitors could easily see it.

When designing your site, put into mind a website that is homey. Like the saying “There is no place like home”, bear in mind your visitors ease and comfort right through your web pages. A contented visitor will most likely back because he has found a site that is so easy to use and is free from frustrations.

http://onlinepr.gbwatch.com gives updates on the ins and outs of public relations and marketing within the Internet. It helps various companies of all sizes to become competitive entrepreneurs, and to focus on building good publicity, promotion and higher sales. It aims to teach businessmen to be witty, confident, and strategic in whichever industry they hope to build their dreams upon.

By: Mary Ann Carolyn Dalangin-Tordecilla

Web Design & Graphics

2007-10-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

Graphics are an important part of web design but require serious thought and planning.

Many websites I see suffer from the same problem. The graphics make the page look unattractive and cause the site to be ineffective because the all important message is difficult to focus on.

This article is aimed squarely at those adventurous souls that are about to design and produce their own website for the first time.

Before you start to design you site, ask yourself “What graphics do I really need”. Filling every spare inch of space with animations or flashing buttons is definitely not a good idea; your pages should look nice and clean. When it comes to web design less is definitely more. Too many unnecessary graphics may slow down your load speeds. They will cause your page to be cluttered and confusing making it difficult to focus on your message. Isn’t your message the only reason you have a web site?

Now might be a good time to spend a few moments discussing how you get to see a web site when you visit one.

After you type the URL you are taken to the site you intended to visit. The first thing that will happen is that your computer will cache the page you have arrived at. It will cache every file on the page including the graphics files. The more files it has to cache and the larger they are the longer it will take to view the page. There are few things that can do a better job of turning an internet visitor off than slow loading pages. People may be patient in life but there is no such thing as a patient web surfer. Make them wait and they will vote with their feet. Always remember that not every one has a high speed internet connection so design for slower surfers.

There are a few basic things that you can do to help speed your page load times and also make your site more attractive and user friendly.

Think of a theme. If you intend to use a tiled graphic as a background with a blue side border and your logo, use it throughout your site. It will help make your visitors more comfortable as whichever page they visit will be visually similar enough that they will always know that they are still in your site. It’s surprisingly easy to click a button and end up in a strange site without realizing it. By using the same graphics over as much as possible it will speed your load times because once a graphic has been cached, it can be reused as needed without caching it again.

Optimize your photographs. When you take a photo with your digital camera the chances are that your picture file is between 100Kb and over 1Mb. There is usually no advantage to using even a 100Kb graphic on your page. If you want to show a large photo, place a small picture on your page with a link to the larger one that way your visitor will be able to choose whether they are interested enough to wait for a larger file to load. I usually try to reduce my graphic file sizes to about 10Kb maximum; it’s not as hard as it sounds. Just cropping your photo can have a drastic effect on your file size.

Remember:

• empty space is not always bad

• small files are fast files

• if you don’t need it, don’t use it

Steven Fraser is the founder and owner of STF-Web Designs - http://www.stf-webdesigns.com - Affordable Web Design Solutions for small & medium sized businesses

Ready for a Re-design

2007-10-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

Many companies realize the importance of having a website on the internet and consequently launch one. However, the website is not a permanent, unchanging installation. You or the department of your company tasked with internet marketing should be asking the following questions on a regular basis:

-Do you update the content regularly?
-Is the design more than 2 years old?
-Has your company made any changes that should be reflected in the website?
-Has anyone recently evaluated the site for consistency, functionality, etc?
-What is your competition doing on the web?
-Are you familiar with the latest web trends?

The truth is, many company website could be more effective through a redesign. The best procedure is to start with asking the questions above. If you find you need improvement on two or more areas, then you should consider a redesign (note: if your only area of concern is that your website is more than 2 years old, you should definitely consider a redesign as I guarantee more updates than just visual could be found).

What Next?

Once you have determined a website redesign is immanent, the best thing to do would be to hire a professional design firm to handle the process. Look for a firm that has experience with redesigns, can also offer consulting, and is on the leading edge of what is happening with technology and the web. If a firm also offers marketing, that is an added bonus as they will also understand how your website can interact with other marketing materials for uniformity in campaigns.

Here at JV Media Design, we walk our clients through a specific process when approached with website redesigns. The purpose of the initial steps outlined below is to allow a company to explore what their needs are internally and assist us in learning how to approach the project.

A "Wish List" of Changes

We ask our clients to come up with a Wish List of what they would like to incorporate into their newly redesigned site. The best way to accomplish this is not by one person in the company creating a list, but everyone working together to determine the answers to questions such as:

-What are the current strong/weak points of the website?
-Has there been any positive or negative feedback received from customers (especially helpful with ecommerce websites)?
-Are there any functional problems or errors with the current site?
-How would you like to make updates to the new website?
-Do you need to add or modify ecommerce on your website?

Although we encourage our clients to explore options and discuss what needs the rest of the company has for the new site, we discourage seeking the advice of friends and relatives as their opinions are often biased and can be detrimental to the project timeline.

We recommend the moment you know your site will need a redesign, you begin the Wish List process. If you have already approached us and are starting the process at the same time, we recommend the process be completed within 2 weeks to stay on track with any timelines for completion.

During this time, we will also be evaluating the website and making more detailed recommendations on changes we would suggest and formulating our proposal and estimate for you. The proposal will include what your needs are, what our recommendations are (including any recommendations for hosting, ecommerce, use of flash, video, etc.) as well as cost breakdowns.

Once a project is approved, the actual development process begins.

Gathering Materials

Based on the information provided in the Wish List, we will create a site map outline. This will assist you in gathering materials for any new or rewritten page content (including photos).

The next week should be spent gathering the materials that you will need to provide us with.

In the case of adding ecommerce to your website, we would ask that you start to create a master list of your products (sku, name, price, description, photo, etc.). We would also need access to your hosting and merchant account gateway in order to set that up properly on your newly designed website.

The Rest Is Easy

Providing there are no delays in receiving requested content or information, then your site design should be completed without you having to do much more than review and sign off as major progress is completed. Before removing the old site and replacing it with the new one, we run a number of error checks as well as request a final review from the client.

In the end, you will have a professionally redesigned website that should not only function and look better than your previous one, but also server your customers better and enhance your overall business image.

Sherry Holub received her degree in design from UCLA in 1995. She is now the Lead Designer and Creative Director at Southern California firm, JV Media Design. Sherry is also a member of the NAPP, the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA), and Cambridge Who's Who.

Web Design Tools

2007-10-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have been designing websites since 1997, and since that time, there have literally been numerous web design tools introduced each year, many claiming to greatly simplify the process of designing a website. With the plethora of options now available for creating a site, consumers can easily become baffled with the many options to choose from.

In this article I will discuss how to find the right web design tools for your needs.

1. Define your specific needs
First, you need to define exactly what you want your site to accomplish, as this will dictate which web design tools you should consider. If iwhat you need is strictly an opinion or information site, a simple blog might suffice. On the other hand, if you have a database to access, or want to conduct transactions, you will most likely need to hire a professional. I recommend writing down the goals of your site to get a better handle on the scope of the project.

2. Determine your skill and commitment level
If you just want to create a personal website, selecting professional web design tools like Dreamweaver and Photoshop will be plain overkill. These programs are meant for professional web designers, and the casual hobbyist, unless extremely determined, will most likely be overwhelmed with these tools. A more reasonable solution will be to utilize web-based, template driven tools for creating sites. On the other hand, if you need a sophisticated site but cannot handle working with professional-grade software, it may make sense to hire a professional.

3. Set a reasonable budget, and don’t be a freebie hunter
I have tried out some free web design tools and they are for the most part not very useful. You will most likely need to spend some money on such things as books, tutorials, and basic software. If you try chasing free tools that may or may not exist, you will probably waste a lot of time and end up with web design tools that prove unsatisfactory.

After defining your needs, your commitment level, and budget, you may want to consider these "best of breed" web design tools:

The best tools for professionals: Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop.
These two programs have been the de factor standard for professionals since the very beginning. Although these web design tools can handle most tasks, professionals will still need a good HTML reference book or two as well.

The best web design tool for non-professionals: WebWizard
This is the best non-professional solution among many similar programs that allow you to build websites with nothing more than basic word processing skills. WebWizard allows you to select your site’s overall look from hundreds of pre-designed, professional templates. So while your site may not look completely unique, it will definitely look professional.

The best tool for creating a blog site: Wordpress
I know Blogger is quite popular, but Wordpress is a better tool in my opinion because it allows for more customization and is more extensible in terms of additional features. Also, one can use the Wordpress blogging platform to make sites that do not look like blog sites at all. In this sense, Wordpress can be used as a true web design tool instead of a simple blog tool.

Click here for more information on these tools.

Tom Oki is co-founder and editor of business-reviews.com, a premier website that provides reviews of business opportunities and marketing tools.

By: Tom Oki

T-Shirt Design

2007-10-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

The fashion industry woke up to the importance of T-Shirt design, sometime in the last decade or so. Till then nobody had cared to give the designing of T-Shirts much forethought. If there was a great idea that could be put on a T-Shirt, then well and good, but if not, then no sleep was lost over it. T-Shirt design emerged as a major component of the fashion industry when the designing world saw the coming of skilled graphic designers. Over the years this trend has gained in popularity and T-Shirt design is fast becoming a major money-spinner in terms of the designing business.

By using innovative graphics to design T-Shirts, graphic designers found a new medium to showcase their wares. Using spectacular artwork, they made T-Shirt designing a whole new form of art. Moreover an increasing focus on personalizing items that were used daily, saw the popularity of T-Shirt designing gain by leaps and bounds. The inherent desire to advertise your thoughts, desires, likes, and dislikes on articles of daily wear has meant that we are seeing highly innovative, fantastic, and sometimes scandalizing T-Shirt designs entering the market. Today, you not only see customized T-Shirt designs but also get to see personalized car graphics, accessories and even mobile phone covers.

You might just be of that generation when ‘sloganeering’ was very popular. This was the time when you wore your slogan on your tees, also called ‘slogan tees’. Though simple in nature, a witty slogan was generally printed on these T-Shirts. These T-Shirts are now not in-sync with what is usually termed the ‘generation next’. The limelight is now being stolen by more adventurous and complex T-Shirt designs.

The popularity of T-Shirt design can be gauged from the fact that it has now evolved into a venture that is community driven. There is extensive collaboration between consumers and designers, whereby a kind of non-formal product testing takes place before the products are finally produced for the market. The latest technology has enabled unspecialized people to undertake the designing and printing of their own T-Shirts.

Many companies have now formed online communities. The purpose of these communities is that members can contribute their personal designs to a particular product. T-Shirt aficionados have also got into the act now and have created blogs that cater to the specific needs of the consumers. Here, ‘expert consumers’ guide other members as to what design they must go for and what is hip and what is not.

Moreover, these experts have industry contacts and are in-sync with the latest brands available in the market today. They have their own networking groups and also have an idea about the latest T-Shirt designs that are available in the market. T-Shirt design is a million dollar industry today. If you are looking for a great T-Shirt design then you definitely will be spoilt for choice. So go buy your T-Shirt that has a design suited just for you.

Find T-Shirt Designs at http://www.uneetee.com

By: Henry De Guzman

Ecommerce Design

2007-10-02T04:11:00.000-07:00

If you are looking to expand your business, an ecommerce store can be a very good investment. However, just building a website alone will not attract the customers you desire. In order for your site to be effective, it needs to be designed properly. One of the most important factors related to ecommerce design is search engine optimization. For your website to be noticed by potential customers, they have to actually be able to locate it online. The majority of people today use search engines when seeking information. For any given search term, you are likely to get several results. However, most people do not browse beyond the first three pages of search results. If they cannot locate your site via the search engines, you cannot increase your sales and clientele. Having a high ranking among the search engines should be a top priority for ecommerce design.

An important point related to ecommerce design is to honestly describe your product or service. For example, if you are selling the popular weight loss product called Hoodia, you want to be very clear when marketing it online. Be sure to include weight loss product or appetite suppressant in your description. You do not want to describe it as a natural way to improve your health. Customers reading this description may feel deceived or even upset if they click on your site and discover you are selling a weight loss product. The best advice is to always be honest and upfront about what you are marketing. By gaining customers trust first, they are more likely to purchase your products.

While ecommerce design will most likely require the use of specific keywords to market your product, this technique alone will not draw tons of traffic to your website. Today the search engine spiders are much more efficient in detecting actual content from keyword stuffed pages or articles. In order to achieve and maintain a good ranking among all of the major search engines, your site needs to include quality content that is well written. Most people browsing the Internet are looking for information. If your site cannot provide answers to the questions they are seeking, they will look elsewhere.

Be sure to provide sufficient information regarding the product or service you are selling. Try to think about what questions potential customers might have about your product or service. It is a good idea to include a FAQ section within your ecommerce site. On this page you can list answer to the most frequently asked questions about your product. Be sure to include a way for customers to contact you if they have further questions. It is a good idea to have more than one method of contact. The more information you provide regarding your company such as physical address, email, and phone number, the more likely customers are to feel comfortable in placing an order with you.

Another good ecommerce design technique is to actively sell your product. If you have an item to sell, be upfront and forward about it. Let customers know the benefits of your product and why it is superior to other similar products available. Your website should include an easy to locate buy now or order now button. If customers cannot easily find how to purchase your product they are not likely to spend a lot of time searching for this information. If they become frustrated and look elsewhere, you have just lost a potential customer.

If you are somewhat familiar with ecommerce design, you have probably heard the popular phrase “content is king” before. What this means is that in order to attract customers to your website and rank high with the major search engines, you need to have quality written content. However, having quality content is only the first step. The number of pages your ecommerce site contains will also greatly affect the amount of visitors to your site. In general the more pages you have, the more likely you are to receive a high amount of traffic on a daily basis.

An important tip to remember when writing content for your site is that the information must be both useful and unique. There are many online sites that allow you to download content articles for free but these articles most likely are being used at a number of other sites online. If your content is identical to that on another site, the search engines are not likely to rate your site too favorably. You should either take the time to write unique content of your own or hire a freelance writer to do the job for you. If you decide to hire someone else to write your content, make sure you have full rights to all of the articles that you purchase.

Mark is a webmaster with Discount Domains a leading Budget Web Design house. This article is free to republish provided a working hyperlink remains to our site.

By: Mark Lawson

Effective Design

2007-09-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

Developing new products and services rapidly and effectively is a very important skill in many businesses and the ‘decision to design’ can commit the business to hundreds of thousands of pounds and many months of work, as well as significant risk. The focus needs to be on minimising cost whilst reducing the time taken to develop the product or service and reducing the business’s risk exposure.

The problems with traditional design processes are that they occur sequentially and often involve ‘over the wall engineering’ in that one department ‘throws’ the design to the next department who then have to unpick the problems that have been designed in, often at great cost. In manufacturing companies, often the design engineers will not understand the production process and will design a product which cannot easily be made, or is too expensive, and in service companies often the marketing team will not understand in detail the operations function and will promote a product which is difficult to manage effectively – both examples of dysfunctional and sequential design.

During WWII, the need for rapid product development was recognised and the concept of Concurrent Design (CD) was born. The backbone of CD is the formation of a multi-function team consisting of designers, production, quality and test engineering personnel and key suppliers to develop a new product. This changes the cash flow profile (ie more money is spent earlier on), but can easily reduce the ‘time to market’ and post-design changes by 75% as well as reducing the actual development spend by up to 40%.

CD is a concept which is viable for both manufacturers or service sector businesses, but for manufacturers is complemented by Rapid Prototyping tools and techniques which have evolved to a new level of sophistication over the last 20 years, again reducing the time taken to receive solid models from weeks to hours and contributing to shorter development times.

Reducing time to market for new products and service can be shown to have many benefits including increased market share, longer product lifecycles and higher margins, but requires collaboration between departments and companies and the adoption of new practices and processes in the design value stream.

Mark Eaton holds the Viscount Nuffield Medal for his contribution to UK Industry and has held numerous senior positions within industry, as well as holding the post as Director of a number of major public sector programmes. Mark is Chair of the IET's Manufacturing Network and the IOM's Operations Development Panel which aims to promote best practice in Operations Thinking in Manufacturing & Healthcare.

Email: markeaton@amnis-uk.com
Tel: +44 (0)870-446-1002

Top Website Design: Top 3 Elements of Website Design

2007-09-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

If Website usability and search engine optimization create an easy-to-find, easy-to-use Website, then the aesthetics or looks of the site becomes icing on the cake, creating a unique Website design. A pleasing, professional layout builds your brand image, makes a more inviting site, helps visitors feel more comfortable, all of which feeds back to the Website usability and search engine optimization results.

Top 3 elements of Website design

1) Develop a page hierarchy. Don't just dump everything on the Web page. Build a flow of information through the use of white space, heads and subheads, type size and style. Some items on the page are more important than other items. Make those distinctions clear and help your Website visitors understand what is most important.

2) Use color effectively. Study the meaning conveyed by different colors and use appropriate colors on your Website. Use colors that make reading easier. For instance, you may love bright pinks and blues but putting them together on a financial services Website just doesn't make sense and will impede the readability of text on the Website. Use a color wheel to help develop a pleasing and appropriate color palette for your unique Website design.

3) Top Website designs eliminate the use of distracting backgrounds or busy backgrounds that can reduce readability. Overly textured or cluttered Web page backgrounds take attention away from what's important on the page and can make reading text a real chore. Before you add that cute graphic behind the text on your Website design, take an objective look at the effect it has on clarity and ease of reading. Move these kinds of backgrounds out of text areas on your Website.

Top Website design is not just pretty. In fact, pretty is pointless on a site that can't be found or is difficult to use. The three tips above aren't really about making a pretty Website. They are about using principles of aesthetics to make your Website better at communicating with visitors.

Objectively view your site for workability first. Is it easy to use? How well does your Website place in search results? Does it accurately reflect the professionalism and brand image you want? Does your Website express your unique message?

Try this Color Scheme Tool to help develop an appropriate color palette for your Website.

Then learn more about top Website design at pinscreative.com. Read the newsletter or subscribe to the Ballyhoo Blog for more information and tips on marketing, graphic design and Website development.

By: Cynthia Pinsonnault

Quick Web Site Design - 5 Steps for Web Site Design

2007-09-27T04:59:00.000-07:00

The number of websites on the Word Wide Web is on a rise for past many years. At present the number of websites existing on the internet is in the millions. As a result it has become really important for the websites and their marketers to find ways of standing out of the crowd. If an internet surfer starts searching about a particular product on the internet, he or she must be able to locate you. If you are search engine friendly and the search engine finds you for him or her, you will be able to make a sale and the volume of business will grow. To achieve this level of being search engine favorite, you need to spend lots of money on advertising and promotion of your website. This money which you spend has to be compensated somehow. To compensate it, the best way is to design your website in a manner which can help you in making lots of money through your website.

Designing your web site can be a very interesting job. Most importantly and firstly, you need to know in detail about the requirements of your online business. Then you need to understand your budget and the plans of making money through your website should be very clear to you. When you are done with this planning phase, you can present this idea to some one who is a web designer. You must have some vacant space on your website so that you can place paid ads and links on that space. This will increase the amount of money you will make.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? Secrets of Article Marketing

Raymond Nesa is an experienced web marketer specializing in article marketing, traffic generation, and list building.

By: Raymond Nesa

Fast Web Site Design - 9 Ways to Advance in Web Site Design

2007-09-27T04:56:00.000-07:00

Just creating a web site is not sufficient as web site design trends usually change with time. However with some minute changes in your website design, you can find your website improve and bring in more traffic for you.

With the many brands of computers available in the market today it is important that your website design is compatible with most computer systems. If there are features in your website required, place a download link in your website. Make sure that all the pages in your website are complete; if you have to include incomplete pages, ensure that there is some informative content on the page that motivates people to check back later.

Keep a constant upgrade of your content by adding new additions to the web pages with the improvements and modifications in your business. Check your website for spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical content too. If you use graphics in your website, use them sparingly as too much of graphics only makes people impatient while waiting for your website to load while websites without graphics prove to be boring.

Keep your web design filled with interactivity with the surfers by adding mail lists, ezines, message boards and guest books. You could also include contests to make your customers return for more. If you have links on your website, make sure that they are all in working condition. Pages that are removed from your website have to have a custom 404 page redirecting visitors to your home page.

Make sure that your website takes no longer than eight seconds to download as if it takes longer, the visitor may leave your website. Your website design has to be such that it is easy for the visitor to navigate on your website. They have to find what they were looking for!

Search engine optimization is important for a successful website as this is the only way you could get a good search engine ranking. With a good search engine ranking, you get more traffic to your site. Last, but not least, please ensure that your website design is consistent with all your business goals. This is because the look and feel of your website design reflects your style.

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

By: James Krawder

Productive Web Site Design - 4 First Steps to Web Site Design-

2007-09-26T19:11:00.000-07:00

There is no point in just going ahead and creating a website for your business. It is only if the right steps are taken into creating a productive website will you find some profit and benefit from the website. The content is the most important part of the website. Create content for the website using keywords the user will most probably use to make searches to reach your website. With the right keywords, you find it easier to get a good ranking for the website in search engine directories.

When you choose a domain name for the website, make sure the name is something that refers to your topic as this will also help in search engine ranking. When buying a domain name, you also need to buy hosting for the site. Choose the hosting program that best suits your needs.

Another point to remember while creating productive websites is not to use too much flash on the website. Though flash may make the website look interesting, it reduces the loading time of the website as flash has a longer downloading time.

There are other key factors to keep in mind while creating your website with Search Engine Optimization like linking and pictures. Though pictures may look great on the site, there is no point in using too many pictures on the site as robots can’t read pictures for information. Using page links is something beneficial in search engines; however make sure you link the pages to your website properly lest you end up with links that bring up an error page. Once you complete the website, check that links work as with the right links, it is very much possible to increase the traffic, and productivity to your website.

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

By: James Krawder

Vector Logo Design Vs Raster Logo Design

2007-09-25T00:48:00.000-07:00

Raster graphics are images that are defined in terms of a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or picture elements. Each pixel is one small square of colour, which, when combined with other pixels side by side, merge together to form one solid image to the eye.

Raster formats
There have been a number of formats developed over the years to store raster graphics. Some of the most popular formats are discussed below, each with their advantages and disadvantages.

BMP - Bitmap Graphics (Avoid wherever possible)

Easy to create with the built-in Windows Paint program.
Long history, therefore good, universal support.
No compression means the format is lossless.
Creates huge files since no file compression is used.
No transparency.

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format (Good for the web, on images of less than 256 colours, for example simple geometric shapes e.g. bullets for lists)

Creates small files as good compression is used.
Universally supported across platforms.
Transparency supported.
Animation supported.
Palette of colours limited to 256 per image.
Transparency is only 1-bit, therefore no translucency.

JPG - Joint Photographic Expert Group (Good for the web, for images like photographs where colour depth is important but lossless formats produce large file sizes)

Lossy compression format produces relatively small files.
Universally supported across platforms.
Artifacts visible at high compression rates.
No transparency.

PNG - Portable Network Graphics (Great for the web, but be careful if using transparency. Good trade-off of quality and compression)
Both lossy and lossless compression available.
Both 1-bit and full alpha channel transparency available.
Small file sizes produced.
Poor support in some web browsers for full channel transparency.
Compression not as great as lossy formats.

Vector Graphics
Where raster graphics are defined in terms of individual pixels, vector graphics are actually stored as mathematical rules - widths, heights, curves, proportions, ratios. Where raster graphics have a set height and width and look pixelated when stretched beyond these boundaries, vector graphics render themselves to the space given to them, such that they are resolution independent. login in to http://prowebb.com to view image exmaples of raster vs vector.

Vector based logos is not based on pixels any longer. It is based on points set at proportional distances, joined with lines and curves, and filled with a solid black colour. When drawing curves in vector graphics programs, a number of points are defined and dragged such that a smooth curve is plotted. This curve is independent of dimensions but is saved as in proportions and ratios such that it will scale to any resolution.

Vector artwork can be modified and stretched without havinng to worry about loss of quality, clarity or sharpness. Because of their mathematical origins, Vector Graphics are readily scalable without distortion.

Vector graphics formats
Again, a number of formats exist for storing vector graphics, each with their advantages. It is important to note that, by their very definition, vector graphics are SMALL in comparison to raster graphics when it comes to file size. Since they are not saving information on each and every pixel, but rather rules for rendering, file size is cut immensely. The universally accepted format for vector graphics, particularly when it comes to company logos and sending files to print, is EPS - Encapsulated PostScript. PostScript is a format developed by Adobe to describe pages to a printer, plotter, or screen. Rather than storing straight data it stores instructions for the makeup of the page. Fonts are stored as individual character vector objects, for example, so they can be printed at as high a resolution as the printer can print. Macromedia's Flash technology is an excellent example of vector graphics working at their finest - whatever the window size, vector elements of the Flash movie appear crisply anti-aliased, and individual frames can even be printed in high resolution due to the vector-based nature.

Popular raster graphics programs

Adobe Photoshop
Jasc Paint Shop Pro
Macromedia Fireworks (tailored to web design)
The GIMP

Popular vector graphics programs

Adobe Illustrator
CorelDraw
Macromedia Freehand
Macromedia Fireworks (tailored to web design)

Popular vector graphics animation programs
Macromedia Flash

A good question. At first glance, vector graphics seem to overcome all the difficulties of raster graphics. They can be resized to any size without loss of quality, and pixelation just doesn't occur. File size is also greatly reduced. However, each format has an individual purpose. A photograph cannot be expressed as a vector graphic because it simply isn't vector data. A sunset cannot be defined mathematically, at the risk of starting a philosophical argument on the world around us. The real world is not vector-based. The table in front of you has an infinite pixel depth, infinite variations in colours, infinite variations in relief and texture. Vector graphics are reserved for images such as typefaces, lines, curves. Complex vector images can be created but they have been created specifically in vectors. Photographs and complex raster effects like lens flares are defined with pixel-by-pixel lighting and colour effects, not with vectors.

Logos for businesses should always be created as a vector. Why? For maximum usage. It's all very well creating a great raster logo with lens flares and bevels and gradients but what happens when it needs to be on a huge banner in a hall? Or, at the other extreme, printed on headed notepaper. Raster effects just are not practical when it comes to corporate identities. With vector-based logos, the image will scale to any size and any application; raster graphics would require re-rendering each time a new size was required, not to mention problems with transparency across print and computer platforms.

Hussein Ali is a Graphic designer and web developer at Prowebb, a web design company located in Northridge, California. For more information about the company or the article you read above, visit us at prowebb.com

Productive Web Site Design - 8 Steps to Make More Money With Web Site Design

2007-09-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

The design of your web site should be attention grabbing, interesting, and enticing. This is the first element that prospective visitors will see when they click on your URL. You don't want them to immediately leave your site because it appears boring. Make your visitors want to stay through effective web site designing. Here's how:

1. Make it compatible with all brands of computers. There are numerous brands of computers these days, make sure that your web designs are viewable to all of them. You don't want to limit your visitors to specific brands as it will limit your web site traffic.

2. Limit your graphics and images. Sure they attract visitors but too much of them will slow down your downloading time.

3. Make your web site interactive. Put forums, article submission page, comments page, etc. 4. Check all your links. Monitor your web site on a daily basis. Make sure that all your links are working and that they drive the customer to where they want to go.

5. Provide room for advertising. Your web site must have enough space that you can sell to other sites or advertising companies so you can generate revenue.

6. Utilize the best web designing technologies. Design your page using joomla, html, XML, etc.

7. Make it easy to download. Your site should be downloaded within few seconds or you'll lose your visitors.

8. Use up-to-date web site design software. They will give you the latest features to attract more visitors and survive the online competition.

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Want to learn more about driving traffic like I do? Download my free traffic guide here: Traffic Generation

By: James Krawder

Quick Web Site Design - Advanced Tips for Make a Profit With Web Site Design

2007-09-24T02:13:00.000-07:00

The number of web sites on the World Wide Web is continuously on a rise for last so many years. Almost All the big market share holders in any kind of business in the world have now their web presence. It has become really important for the success of a business. People have really gone global now. As a result the businesses are no more confined to political boundaries. The web sites are now very important tool for all the businesses. This in turn has given the web site designing a lot of importance. It is the art and the science of designing a web site which makes it user friendly and which ensures that the web site will get a lot of attention on the web.

Making money through web site designing is very much possible. Lots of people make money through web site designing. Not only the web designers earn through the ever increasing demand of web site designing, they can also earn through the uniqueness of their ideas. While designing a web site you need to know the exact requirements. A web site needed by a doctor will be definitely different than a web site which offers you sports guidance and training books. Keep this in mind while you design a web site. A web site pays well if it has proper places to put the ads and links of other web sites. It needs to be state of the art kind. Taking care of all these points will help you in making money through web site designing.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

By: Sean R Mize

Best Web Site Design - 6 Key Ways to Get Started With Web Site Design

2007-09-22T00:12:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of competition in the online world today. The number of websites is increasing at a very fast pace and now the World Wide Web is clustered with lots and lots of websites. It is becoming very difficult with each passing day to stand out of this crowd. The internet marketers have to pay close attention towards this point. If they do not promote their websites properly, they will not be in a position to make any money out of it. Along with the marketing efforts one makes for making his or web based business a success, the way your web site is designed is also important. If a web site is well designed it will help you in generating money. If not, you may not be able to face the competition in the online world of business.

If you want to design your web site properly, you must be careful about certain small points. Design your web site in a manner which gives you ample space to sell to other websites. You will get paid for renting out the space available on your website. Banner ads of other websites may also be placed on your own website. Rss feeds and pay per click advertising efforts may also help you in making money. All these factors can help you if the website is designed properly. Keep these factors in mind when you design your website. The web site should be up to date technically other wise it will not be able to survive the competition.

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

By: James Krawder

Best Web Design Sites For Web 2.0 Design Ideas

2007-09-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

If you were online many years ago, before the internet first became a household word, maybe you can remember how jumbled and chaotic all those early webpages were. Everybody wanted to put everything they possibly could on their sites. It was like a giant collage of content, and the net surfer didn't know where to aim the mouse first!

Now, we're in the era commonly known as "web 2.0." This is the age of eBay, blogs, social networking, wikis and instant messaging. The web has changed, and web design has changed along with it.

Web 2.0 design is the new and improved version of the internet. Gone are the endless, long scrolling screens, or the sites with tiny texts and bland colors. Web 2.0 design is simpler and bolder. As a webmaster, you should be hip to these changes to improve your internet marketing. To that end, here are a few of the best web design sites where you can hone up on web 2.0 design ideas.

Web Design From Scratch: www.webdesignfromscratch.com

Web design is one of the more mystifying parts of starting your own website. Unless you are a "design person," you may not know much about what looks good or bad, and what works and doesn't work. This site is simple and straightforward, and has lots of easy explanations with screen shot examples.

The site is in a simple blog format. Along the left sidebar there are topics like "basics," "design process" and "site architecture." It not only discusses basic design principles (i.e. which designs work best), but that actual nuts and bolts of doing your own design in HTML or CSS. Everything is thoroughly covered, and the site walks you through each process step-by-step. The site also has a variety of tutorials that make it even easier.

Web Design From Scratch is a great general overview of the steps you need to take. It also shows you all the different options you have to choose from.

Photoshop Lab: www.photoshoplab.com

This site is colorful and easy to navigate. It has screenshots showing you exactly what to do, and simple tutorials that any idiot could use. With Photoshop Lab you can tackle some of the more complicated graphics programs that might now be intimidating.

The site has tips for using different programs, the latest news and reviews in the web design world, and a handy list of links to other sites with tutorials and tips. You can also search the site for specific information.

Photoshop Lab is a more topic-oriented site, so it's most useful when you're looking for some specific information about your design.

Template World: www.templateworld.com

Here's a site that you can really use. This site offers you templates that you can use for your sites. This takes some of the headache out of having to design your site pixel for pixel.

Along the sidebar they list different categories. If, for example, you have a pet-oriented website, you can click on the "animals" category, and it shows you the most popular templates.

Template World has a huge variety of great ready-made website designs, but there's one catch - it's not free. You have to become a member, and membership runs about $50 for a half-year. But, that's still cheaper than hiring a designer to make it for you.

We really shouldn't be complaining about how tough it is; designing a website has never been easier than it is today. You can do it all by yourself with any one of these handy Web 2.0 design websites - they're the best.

BONUS TIP: When you're ready for more ways to improve your website, tap into the massive collection of free and effective internet marketing strategies available right now at: http://www.InternetMillionaireCode.com

By: Ethan Allen

Pet Photography & Graphic Arts - A Guide on Pet Photography and Creating Great Artistic Pictures

2007-09-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

1. Introduction:

If you have just picked up a camera for the first time, or have been taking pictures for years, the information contained in this guide will ensure that you do not overlook anything as you frame and shoot that picture. Taking your photographs to the next level, by using a few computer tools, and free clip art, we will walk you through the steps to create a picture like the one on the cover of this book as easy as 1-2-3.

At pet shows, and especially dog shows, enthusiasts like yourself pay close attention to every detail down to making sure that every hair is in place, the bows in the top knot are perfect, down to the shin on the glistening coats. The end quality of your picture is dependent upon your attention to details. Whenever we take a photograph for a client and create their unique art we do exactly the same. Starting with the right photograph is key and we will provide some often overlooked aspects of pet photography. Remember that you must start with the right photograph in order to obtain good and even great results.

2. Digital Photography Basics For Pets

There are two assumptions made here. The first is, that you are interested in color photography and the second is that you have read your camera owners manual and understand the features and capabilities at least at a basic level. With that said the intent of this guide is to help you get started with taking photographs and getting the best possible results. Before we continue, there is one thing often overlooked until it is too late that will ruin a great photograph. Shut off the date and time stamp feature. You can be sure that it will always take away from the picture or be in the wrong place where no amount of editing can account for it.

2.1. Picture Quality

The focus here is to start with the best of everything possible and use your camera to the fullest. This does not mean that you need to spend $2000 on a camera and special lenses, but it does mean taking advantage of the best capabilities your camera provides. Even a $100 camera can create good small prints. After you understand your cameras feature menu and how to navigate it, go back and re-read the picture quality section again. Once you understand that section set your camera to the BEST modes possible.

Many cameras have resolution settings similar to Normal, Better, Fine, and quality settings of Good, Better, Best. Select the Fine and Best modes or what ever your camera calls the highest quality and highest resolution modes. You can always reduce the resolution and quality later if needed, but you can never improve it. Starting off with the best quality photograph gives you the best possible chance of having a great photograph and piece of art. This becomes even more important when making larger prints or even posters. As you increase picture quality, your memory card will fill quicker and be able to store fewer images. Be sure that you have a large enough memory card or multiple cards. Remember, you do not want to run out of storage when your pet is doing something that will look great on that next Christmas card, so be sure to have that extra 512M or 1G card handy

2.6. Lens Filters and Shades

If you must take photographs in bright sun, such as at an outside farm and pet show, use a lens shade and force flash to overcome the harsh sun. One alternative to use especially if your flash is not powerful enough, is a polarizing filter instead of the flash. The polarizing filter is one of the most useful filters for outdoor photography and is a requirement for any serious photographer, especially for those that use a digital camera. A polarizing filter will reduce the glare and make colors stand out more in harsh sun conditions. These filters can significantly reduce white-outs or wash-outs (surfaces with the primary color all washed out) due to bright reflections. An example of this would be your golden lab having a whitish back, and dark murky looking legs lacking in detail. Some photograph flaws can be edited out and touched up, however, these flaws are nearly impossible to eliminate after the fact and make the editing look natural.

A second important tool to have in your camera bag is a lens shade. A lens shade is inexpensive and is attached on the end of your lens to keep excess light from directly entering the lens. It basically provides a tunnel that shields the optics (lens), and due to its black color absorbs any bouncing light. This helps the camera to better detect the light levels of the subject.

3. Express your Pets Personality Through Creative Art

People find many ways to express their personality, whether it is through sports, music, art, or another outlet. In any case, the creative nature that we have comes to the surface once we have the tools and have developed ability to accomplish this. One area that has continued to grow as a result of technological advancement is with computer enhanced graphics. Faster home computers coupled with programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator have taken the high end graphics work once limited to corporations to smaller businesses. The most basic photo manipulation is to correct flaws in the picture, which can be expanded to the more advanced creation of fantasy scenes, such as overlaying multiple images and the addition of special effects.

4. The Photo Shoot - The Tricks of Understanding Your Pet

Now that you have a general understanding of how to use your camera, lets focus on where, when, and how to get the optimum environment. There are some things in our control, and others that are not, and at any one time they can change. It is important that we discuss each element so you can decide what to do given your situation. These elements are lighting, the location, and the position of the pet. If you are restricted to a specific time of day outside, then you many not have any control over the lighting, or do you? If you are photographing the pet at a show such as walking around the judging stage, you are probably limited to the camera position and location. Ideally you want the best lighting, optimum flexibility with positioning the camera. Lastly if you are going to remove the background from the final print, the cleanest background for editing is desirable. This section will help you take advantage of any flexibility and optimize your shoot given the environment

4.1. Pick The Right Lighting

Given that we are focusing on color photography, proper lighting is essential. In fact proper lighting actually means LOTS OF LIGHT, and the correct type of light. Without proper lighting it is nearly impossible to have an award-winning photograph, even one that has been touched up with the best photo editing tools. When it comes to lighting you want to have an even distribution of light over the entire surface of the pet, including the underside areas. This light illuminates all areas, is not harsh or glaring and does not cause shadowing. Light that is at a low-angle such as parallel to 30 degrees above the ground, or when outside, sun rise or sun set is often the best. This low-angle light covers the side surfaces of the pets' body with light. Light that is high in the air, such as overhead lights, or when outside sun light that is high in the sky such as that mid-day harsh sun should be avoided. This harsh light results in the top surfaces being washed out, and the lower areas being dark with excessive shadowing. The ultimate goal is low angle, soft, evenly distributed light that illuminates the entire pet. Also remember when to keep the light source or the sun behind you and watch out for your own shadow!

4.5. Picking The Location

You need to determine if the photo session will be indoors or outdoors, and once that is decided you need to optimize the environment as much as possible to make the pet at ease. Before the pet is there, take a good look all around and make sure that the area is clean, organized, and there are minimal distractions. Distractions can be toys, a left over newspaper lying around, and even a tree branch. You will be in competition with all of these distractions for the pets' attention. Unless you have a sleeping dog you are photographing, you will always be in competition with the environment. Now the dog may be well trained and stay where you put them, but their attention may still be elsewhere. You also want to remove any items that could complicate the photo editing later on.

The intent for many of the photographs used in fantasy scenes is to remove the background and have the pet stand alone. It is important that nothing sticks up in front of any part of the pet that can cause an obstruction. Unless your final print will be of your pet in a grassy field, do not take your pictures of your dog laying on a lawn or grassy field. The blades of grass will hide the bottom of the paws or any part of the dog that is in close to the round

4.9. What Photographs Should You Take - Getting inside your pets head

It is recommended to initially start by letting your pet act naturally in the environment and study how it acts and responds to whatever stimulus is there. This will allow you the opportunity to get inside of your pets head and over time possibly predict how they will act. Remember that many pets will see the camera equipment around and sense the extra attention making them want to get even more attention. Over time they will forget that you are there and start to focus on the elements in the environment, including even laying down on that special pillow. The idea is to have your pet at ease and capture that natural moment. This will require you to be patient and continue to snap the shutter hoping to capture that special moment. Even in as little as 10 minutes you will understand the pets' personality and be able to now stage that specific photo.

5. Basic Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Introduction

For most photography work and picture manipulation you will be using Adobe Photoshop or other similar photo editing tool. If you will be creating large prints greater than 11x17 with text, you should use an illustration tool that provides good text and layout capabilities such as Adobe Illustrator. With these two types of tools you can create fantastic and artistic pictures, and then include them in professional looking layouts. The intent of this section is to provide some starting guidelines to create some of the basic pictures that are displayed on www.PalmieriConcepts.com. Keep in mind that the guidelines and steps provided here have been generalized, however, they will point you in the right direction to create a great picture. The references in this section are referring to Photoshop, so if you are using a different photo editing tool, you will need to find the equivalent features.

Note that to better demonstrate the techniques, the photographs used are not the best and did not follow all of the rules in the previous sections. For example, there are poor lighting and lack of detail to emphasize the use of the tools and techniques.

So to get started, take what you have learned here, get out that camera and have fun.

The selections of text are excerpts from the Ebook titled Pet Photography and Graphic Arts by Anthony Palmieri at www.Palmiericoncepts.com

Anthony Palmieri founded Palmieri Concepts after 20 years of creating custom artwork for his own pleasure and enjoyment. This business grew out of a love for motor vehicles and was started to share with others what began as a hobby. After taking his own pride and joys (yes this really started with family pictures and not cars) and combining them with creativity, it became obvious that many others would like to showcase their loves as he has done.

In addition to the custom artwork, he has also written numerous articles on automotive art and car shows covering topics from custom show boards, to automotive theme garages. Links to some of these articles can be found on http://www.PalmieriConcepts.com web page. His goal was to create a business where each and every one of his works of art are custom done just for you with the intention that it would be something that he would display on his own walls. Many of the custom pictures that he has created can be seen displayed at his house.

By: Anthony Palmieri

Lucrative Web Design Business – How to Create a Strong Web Design Business

2007-09-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

Lucrative Web Design Business – How to Create a Strong Web Design Business

How to get good at a lucrative web design business – it will require some hard work and testing, but it can certainly be done, even if you are just starting out. A lucrative web design business is one great way to explode your internet business. Also, a lucrative web design business is a great way to maximize your online business revenues.

So how do you use a lucrative web design business to explode your internet business and to maximize your online business revenues?

I have developed some incredible new innovations to help you to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business.

Try these powerful new ways to help you to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business:

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, first begin by building a list to which you can mail regularly. One of the most important things about growing any business online, especially a web design business, is creating a list of subscribers to whom you can promote your business regularly.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, send quality traffic to your web design business by writing and submitting articles to the major article directories online. They will promote your articles for you, and you can simply write and watch the quality traffic come in.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, use the web design business as an entry point for people into your business. Be willing to expand past just web design, and meet other needs of your customers.

- to explode your internet business with a lucrative web design business, look for additional revenue opportunities and convert one time web design customers into long term customers by offering backend, related products.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 500 articles in print and 9 published ebooks.

Web Design Myths - Myths About Web Design Beginners Should Be Aware Of

2007-09-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

Web Design Myths – Myths About Web Design Beginners Should Be Aware Of

When you first get started online, one of the hardest things to do is to get your web site going. You probably don’t know any fancy web programming, and you probably think that you need it.

You have looked at some site builders and html editors and you think that they look cheesy. But the funny thing is, they look better than a lot of the Adsense sites I see out there.

When I got started online, I started with Frontpage. It is pretty easy to use, and is WYSIWYG, like a Word program. I mean, you gotta learn some stuff. But the online Microsoft tutorials are pretty cool.

Another way to go is to use a site builder. Most of them these days look pretty professional, and they are literally point and click.

So, what are the myths?

1) You have to know web programming to have a good looking site. That could not be farther from the truth. The bottom line is, you are more concerned with whether it sells, not how it looks anyway. And sales is based more on content – don’t get me wrong, it can’t look like kindergarten, but it doesn’t have to be hot-shot professional, either.

2) Learning how to do stuff like autoresponders and putting that code in your web page is hard. It is truly easy – you just use the directions that come with your autoresponder.

3) You cannot design your own web site. That is far behind the truth. If you are willing to work a little, watch a few special videos, and do things one step at a time, you can have a good-looking website in no time flat.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 500 articles in print and 9 published ebooks.

By: Sean Mize

Web Site Design - How to Create More Money in Web Site Design

2007-09-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

Website design is very important. The number of websites on the World Wide Web has increased a lot in the recent years. Now there are millions of websites on the internet. In this situation the competition amongst the websites has become very close. Now the website owners have to pay all due attention towards the design of their website. Some of the web site designs are user friendly and they are suitable according to the type of business a website is in. Other designs may not be a very good choice in this regard. Keeping these things in mind, web site design becomes very important for people.

You can make a lot of money through proper web site design. A web site can help you in generating lots of money through your business. The website needs proper promotion. You need to invest your time and money into your website. Once your website becomes a visitor’s favorite, then you can make lots of money through a properly designed website. If your web site is so built that the links of other websites can be placed on it at prominent places, you have a chance of making lots of money through it. You can place the banner ads of other websites on your web site to help them promote their web site. You can charge them for this support. Once you have promoted your own web site and you start getting an appreciable number of visitors per day on your web site, you can use your web site as a resource to generate more money. The design of the web site will assist you in this regard.

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

By:James Krawder

Website Design Key Aspects - Design a Better Website

2007-09-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

The internet is huge. Google alone list over 3 billion pages, looking at one each second of the day would take you over 99 years to view them all!

Many people can do website design, but how many can actually design a website. The design element is so important and so often overlooked.

If you intended to send out brochures to your customers, or potential customers, and the brochure was poor quality what type of image will this reflect on your business.......a poor website will do exactly the same.

When designing a website the most important task to remember is colour co-ordination. Ideally you should strive for a maximum of three main colours, with variations and tints of these. By using more you run the risk of non-matching colours and ultimately less easy on the eye for visitors.

Next comes navigation. Colour co-ordination and Navigation are the top main priorities. If your site isn't easy to navigate, people will not stay around to delve deeper. Once you site is designed ask some friends or family to test it out. The easier your website is to navigate, the longer people will stay.

Accessibility is a key issue that has been highlighted recently with a AUD$20,000 fine imposed on an Australian website for not ensuring people with disabilities and sight impairments could use the website. These rulings are few and far between (for now) but to help always use ALT tags on images (helping to describe your image), plus use text based links where possible. You have your site ready, it's full of content, great design and ready to hit the super highway - now how will people find you. This is where SEO comes in to play (Search Engine Optimisation). Optimising your site for the main search engines can help bring free targeted traffic to your website. The main and basic rules of SEO are:

1. A good Title tag, e.g for C2 Web Design being a website design company based in Essex, UK and covering Colchester our Title tag is 'Website Design Essex | Website Design Colchester'. Using your main keywords for your title tag can instantly bring good results.

2. Make sure your keywords appear within your website. The % of times it appears has started to have less an impact, but the general rule is your keywords should make up around 5% of your copy.

3. Request Linkbacks. Make requests for other sites to link to you from the day you website is activated. Search Engines, particuarly Google, base a large porpotion of their listings based on the number of websites linking to you - plus their popularity and themed relationship to the content of your site.

4. Be patient. It can quiet easily take a year or so to achieve a good placement in Google for a popular phrase - but considerably less time in other search engines e.g. MSN and Ask Jeeves.

By sticking to these basic principles and ensuring your site is pleasent on the eye, easy to navigate, and optimised for search engine visits you should be able to claim your stake in the World Wide Web.

Dean Cosson is website design manager at C2 Web Design (http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk)

By: Brad Miles

Wedding Web Site Design - How to Design a Wedding Site That Others Will Rave About

2007-09-17T01:11:00.000-07:00

If you are in the process of design a wedding web site, you want to put some serious thought into the design of your site before actually building it. The reason you need a plan is so that you know where you are going and how to get there, the plan is a roadmap of sort for the success of your wedding web site. There are a variety of things you need to keep in mind when designing a wedding web site your friends, family, and visitors will rave about, so consider the following suggestions before you get going.

Tip #1 - Plan

You should first make a plan for your wedding website and address your different goals and what kind of audience you are trying to reach. Will this be a typical wedding site, one designed for outdoor weddings only, different faith marriages, will you include rings, dresses, invitations, and other information? Will you simply write stories about weddings? You must come up with a cumulative plan, one you can certainly modify as you go along. The more detailed and in depth your plan, the better. You need to have a vision of your site before you start building and designing it and a plan is the starting point.

Tip #2 - Evaluate

You should do some serious research on the Internet and check out as many wedding sites as possible. Make a checklist to go over while you are viewing each website that includes things like organization, colors, topics and themes, not to mention ease of navigation, URL formatting, speed, links, and other interesting information. By reviewing what works and what doesn’t work on other wedding websites, you will be able to avoid a lot of mistakes and mishaps of your own. Surfing the web is fast and easy and the perfect way to get some great design ideas as well as design inspiration. This part of your research will prove very successful for you.

Tip #3 - Focus

Your wedding website should have a clear focus starting with the very first page. Of course, you can focus on any specific part of a wedding, every aspect, a mixture of aspects, or anything you want. Make sure your focus is clearly stated on the first page so visitors know what is available on your site, where to go, and what to expect. You don’t want to make visitors have to guess or try and figure out what your site is about. Make it easy for your visitors and tell them. When people know what to expect, they are more likely to stay on your site instead of clicking away.

By following these suggestions you will be able to design an amazing wedding site that not only your friends and family rave about, but that web surfers love as well.

Michael Turner reveals his foolproof way to increase website traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it free right now at at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

By: Michael Turner

Profitable Web Site Design - Advanced Ways to Make More Money With Web Site Design

2007-09-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

Web site design is just growing bigger and more profitable by the second with the booming number of websites that are mushrooming on the web every single day; the web is growing larger and can accommodate everyone. Using your website to attract other opportunities is the crux of profitable web site design.

1. If you are a good graphics designer or know how to make website templates you can indeed make a profit selling graphics and templates. If you are interested in learning to create your own graphics and templates you can learn good graphic creation software like Photoshop for example.

2. You can also participate in affiliate programs. There are many sites who will give you a percentage of their profits if your site points to theirs and that helps them make a sale.

3. You can also design entire sites for people, including the graphics. For that all your need to know is basic HTML and if you wish to pursue this on a professional level you can also learn the workings of popular shopping cart software for people who have small businesses and need a good site designer.

4. If you have good, quality content on your website you can restrict access to a certain part of your site for which you can charge a membership fee. This is of course only after you have enjoyed a certain amount of success with your content that you can expect people to pay for your content.

5. You can also offer a pay-per-use service. Renting a service is equally popular as is selling one and you can have customers coming back or recommending others.

Want to learn more about it? Download the free ebook, Steps to Article Marketing Success.

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Want to learn more about driving traffic like I do? Download my free traffic guide here: Traffic Generation

By: James Krawder

Signtronix Style Design - Top 10 Sign Design Tips

2007-09-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

I am amazed every day I drive down the street and look at the same outdoor advertising graphic design mistakes repeated over and over. Business owners trying to make a living with a street-side presence that barley commands attention.

There are two scenarios that I see on a regular basis.

* A potential customer walks into a custom sign shop and indicates their budget. The sign shop owner is weak, afraid of losing a potential sale, so he delivers a sign product designed to fit the proposed cost. With some simple education style selling the sign shop could have sold a product that would have made more money, for his shop, and the customer.

* Another customer walks into the sign shop with a layout, or design concept that stinks. Again, fear of losing the customer causes the sign manufacturer to deliver the useless sign. Money down the drain.

Here are some key design elements that I have learned over 15 years in the outdoor advertising industry.

1. Remember that potential customers of all backgrounds and ages are looking at your business from a moving vehicle, in traffic, day and night. They must be able to see and read your outdoor advertising easily. Don't attempt to sell them with information on the sign - save that information until they are in your business.

2. The correct design and layout of your sign is critical to its effectiveness. Crowding the sign with too much text makes it impossible to read from a car, or at a distance. Therefore, the fewer words the better. Use the age-old adage - K.I.S.S. method - Keep It Simple, Son.

3. Understand the concept of “First Read.” There should be a focal point located on the sign that will have impact and command attention. Ideally, the first read should incorporate Branding elements like a large graphic, or your company logo.

4. Your sign is your “first impression” with the mobile market, and first impressions are lasting impressions. Your outdoor advertising must project the positive image you want the public to have of your business. Potential customers will judge the inside of your business by how it looks on the outside.

5. Many owners mistakenly think of a sign as merely a device that identifies the business. What they fail to realize is that over half of all new retail sales are a result of impulse buys. People see, shop and buy. If your outdoor advertising is ineffective, it will cost much more in lost sales then the entire cost of a good sign.

6. Your outdoor advertising must have visual impact. It must make your products or services, and your location, easy to remember.

7. Make sure the colors are used in contrasting patterns. Green on blue is not readable, whereas black on white is extremely visible.

8. If you have several colors in a graphic, stay away from multi-colored lines of text or words (they will compete with the colors in your graphic). Black text is better.

9. Ideally, the design and the colors of your location or building should reinforce the design and colors of your sign (or vice versa). Color is probably the easiest and most cost-effective device for this coordination of design for business identification.

10. "White-space". This is the surface area of a sign's face that is left uncovered by either text or graphics. The proper amount of white-space is just as important for quick readability as are graphics, text and colors. In fact, 30% to 40% of the sign's face area should be left as white-space for optimal readability.

© 2007 RightNow Communications

SIGNTRONIX Corporate Office
1445 W. Sepulveda Boulevard
Torrance, CA 90509-2901
(800) 729-4853

Signtronix Signs Video

Signtronix - Authorized Dealer

By: David Evarts

On Copyrights - The Creative Experience and Graphic Designers

2007-09-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

There he is - the young art student - in the corner, sporting a slouch, worn blue jeans and a faded ironic t-shirt, standing in front of the canvases he submitted for this month’s class show; large, blue, sci-fi landscapes, which, from a distance, are beautiful. They look like heavenly, undulating space-scapes of sky and stars.

But move five steps closer, and the illusion fades. He is in the corner, yes, but the slouch is affected — he’d be more comfortable standing straight. His worn blue jeans? Brand new, but distressed. His ironic t-shirt? That once most noble badge of indie creed? It’s been on sale at the Urban Outfitters down the street for a month. And the paintings – the paintings! Up-close, they show themselves as crude copies of those prints featured in the discounted Salvador Dali calendars sold at Barnes and Noble: forced line, muddy colors, uninteresting ideas.

What’s offensive is not the young student’s pose, for at least he is trying to do something with his image. And the paintings, while bad, are not so bad that his art school scholarship would be threatened. No, what’s most worrisome is that he doesn’t know he’s posing, doesn’t know that the elements he’s so carefully cultivated as “his own,” are not. He’s exuding “originality” in the most culturally acceptable way, possibly the only way he knows: he buys it.

Those shelves of products that our young hero peruses in his off-time– all copyrighted, patented, or otherwise “pre-approved” for consumption - give him the feeling that he has freedom of choice, while, in fact, his freedoms are limited. “Have a problem? Use this face cream. Buy a car. Wear these blue jeans.”

These are his only options. We should feel pity for him – after all, he’s lived in Pasadena his whole life, he doesn’t know. This is what he thinks is edgy. Because he has taste, he makes do with what he has. But because he is young, he is a bit too proud. More seasoned personalities whisper to each other: His shirt, the off-white one? With the cartoon of a red-bearded lad, holding close his seven bottles of bear, stating, “Irish 7-Course Meal?” Done. His blue jeans? 700 dollars, faded in all the right places, do not connote the roughshod life. Oh no, they scream, “Mom buys my clothes!” And the Art. Oh God, the Art.

What can save our young hero, apart from extended sit-down sessions with Roland Barthes or concentrated perusals of Frederick Jamison (both of which are, for the most part, impossible to comprehend at such an age)? What can pull away the cowl of ignorance, freeing the young artist from that most hated of appropriations – derivative? Ready? Here comes the answer – and it’s not drugs, religious experiences, or world travel. The answer is that he must study and learn the copyright laws of United States.

And in order to learn the copyright laws of the United States, he must first know what a copyright is. Here are the simple definitions, according to onelook.com:

# noun: a document granting exclusive right to publish and sell literary or musical or artistic work
# verb: secure a copyright on a written work

Why is a knowledge of the legal precedence of copyright important to a young artist? Because in order to create, a good artist should know as much as possible about his tools. This means not just the origins of his fine bristle brush, or the interesting history of the chemistry of his pigments, but to examine the social and political tools that will allow him to function as an artist in the United States in 2007.

Thus, while copyright law is not as glamourous as brushes or paint, it is nonetheless as important. For within copyright law lies the secret of what to do after. And what do American’s do after they’re done? They sell. They horde. And, in turn, they covet, they hide... While squirreling away money is a good idea, hiding creative output is not. Keeping the creative hidden leads to problems such as our hero’s - too much confidence in too much little. Our hero’s problems stem from this ignorance - for, despite his fancy education, he is creatively ignorant - too many things have been kept from his eyes.

But wait! you say. Surely it is his responsibility to educate himself! There are libraries, public exhibitions, and teachers.

Of course, these are necessary elements in any person’s education. But our hero cannot personally own a library book, an outdoor concerts, or the mind of a great teacher, and the relative unavailability of ownership of fine works of art encourages a lazy attitude towards authenticity. Within copyright law, too, lies a history of the role of the Artist within American Society, a role our hero has wanted to play, desperately, for many years. Is it not also his responsibility to know his legal rights? Sadly, our hero does not know about the Berne Convention, held in Switzerland, in 1886. Led by that most diligent, most empathetic of writers, Victor Hugo. He does not know of Hugo’s obsession with la droit d’auteur. He does not know most of his European and Asian contemporaries not only consider intellectual property more important than money, but that the status of the artist is more socially powerful than that of entrepreneur. He does not know that Europe and Asia have historically made political concessions to facilitate their artists’ creativity. Or that the United States didn’t join the Berne Convention until nearly one hundred years after its inception – on March 1, 1989.

Here is something else he doesn’t know: copyright laws in the United States, had, until 1989, been focused on keeping intellectual property private in order to facilitate economic growth. In other words, in the US, copyright law has historically been a monetary issue, not a creative one…Thus the shelves of products posing as freedom as choice.

And here is something else: thanks to the acceptance of the Berne Convention, which decrees that work belongs to its creator as soon as it’s created, without having to fill out government forms, the tide is turning.

And finally, another fact: the most notable example of progressive copyright translation in the United States is the group called Creative Commons. Creative Commons gives artists the information and encouragement needed to not squirrel their work away, in fear that someone might steal their ideas, but rather, to share and remix their work with the work of others.

And now, for a theoretical leap: This is a necessary step on the incline from being derivative to being truly POSTMODERN. (Ugh, but why postmodern? Isn’t that old hat? AU CONTRAIRE).

The hallmark of postmodernism is the desire to combine. And we are at a point in cultural history where the only thing left to do is combine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Marcel Proust, that most beloved of all neurotic writers, stated as a child that he did could not name a single color as his favorite, but rather, he found the most pleasure in their combinations. And all postmodern art is a hybrid – a little of this, a little of that – which in turn encourages the creation of the global ego – an ego much less offensive than the ego present in our young hero at the start of this article.

Some say the start of the Enlightenment was thanks to the creation of factory-produced mirrors, which allowed even the most plebeian life form to see themselves as individuals. But today, we don’t look to the mirror for accurate reflections. Instead, we gaze into the computer monitor. Our thoughts, words, and images, regardless of original source, create a collective brain, one that can be harnessed most powerfully through an artist’s understanding of copyright. And even science is beginning to consider human beings in a similar way - the millions of individuals that populate the Earth are really a single, throbbing organism, a human membrane, if you will, that covers our planet, hovering, blue and bulbous, like a helium balloon bobbing about in the milky way.

Which takes us back to our hero’s work. Remember? Those great blue swathes of sky and stars that looked so good from a distance? Does he know about Turner? And if he did, would not his unpleasant ego dissolve, leaving him – his ideas and his work – behind to do the talking. And would not his art - our art - be improved?

Lainie Liberti - Creative Director + Principal
http://www.jungle8.com
http://blog.jungle8.com
Your business, growth and sustainability depend on your brand reaching and inspiring your audience.

How well are you succeeding? Check the bottom line. The key to success is making “Authentic Connections” with your audience through memorable design and a relevant message. jungle 8 is passionate about creating authentic connections for you.

memorable designs + connective meanings = measurable results

By: Lainie Liberti

Web Design Know-How: Simple, Effective Methods of Choosing Colors in Web Design

2007-09-14T05:56:00.000-07:00

It's well known that certain color combinations harmonise while other are considered unattractive and clash. Although it is well established that there is more to this than subjective choice the underlying rules are extremely complex and seldom formulated explicitly. Looking at thousands of natural scenes taken worldwide with highly complex spectroscopic apparatus scientists from Cambridge University determined that natural scenes have a highly complex (and mathematically precise) harmony and balance which requires complex multidimensional transformations from our normal methods of color representation to predict. It's an art that skilled designers learn to reproduce over many years - and the basis of a lot of great art and fashion.

In web design it's relevant because the clients great the fear is that someone with the taste and dress sense of Dilbert will end up by choosing the aesthetics and harmony of how your company presents its self to the world.

It turns out however that there is a very simple practical way of choosing color sets that obey exactly the right rules. All you have to do is to take a naturally harmonious scene and use your color dropper to pick out any colors in that scene for use as the basic colors on you web page and fonts. These will already have exactly the right color relationships. To give a web site a closely integrated look pick the colours from the actual images used on the home page. To get a radical, arty look pick colors from a great art masterpiece in the same way.

It's simple, its effective and it has - we are told - ten million years of human evolution behind it - for that how long we have had our modern color vision and that's the heritage you are fighting against if you don't get it right.

http://nationalwebdesign.co.uk/

National Web Design. Internet application design since 1991, Web Design since 1994, eCommerce developers and payment system experts since 1997

By: Will Gibson

Web Design Prices and Costs - How to Get A Fair Web Design Quote

2007-09-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

If you’re looking at commissioning a web designer to build you a website, one of the first things that you will need to know, is the monetary cost. This article will explain to you why there is such a huge variance between web designers and their quotes and will give you some advice as to how much you can expect to pay to contract a competent web designer in the UK.

First of all you have to have a rough idea of what it is that you want from your website. You have to have thought of what you want to achieve with the website. What are its objectives? You will then need to have thought of a basic structure for your website. There are many website examples out there for you to have a look at; the important thing is to have an idea about what structure you want for the site - meaning a rough outline of the numbers of pages and the content (text and images) that will make up each page.

Once you have your project objectives in mind and a rough idea of your websites structure you are in a position to start contacting suppliers. There are multitudes of web design companies everywhere and in our particular area of the UK - Doncaster there are lots of web design companies to choose from. The key thing to remember is that everyone wants your business. The web design marketplace is completely saturated so you as the buyer have the upper hand!

As in all other industries there are people who provide excellent service, there are people who provide an average service and there are also cowboys (people who sell web design services without the necessary knowledge and experience to do so).

What you have to think to yourself is this: If a person promises me the earth for £1 does that mean to say that they can deliver it? The best advice I can give is to be realistic. There are lots of really good city based web design companies throughout the UK that provide excellent services. They are always there to take your calls and you even get your own personal account manager to handle your requests and hold your hand through the entire web design process. The services of such companies are wonderful but this obviously comes at a price. City based offices, account managers and admin staff are large overheads and the prices charged by large city based web design companies reflect this. If you have a modestly sized website, which needs to be under content management system control, don't be surprised if the web design quote runs into tens of thousands of pounds from a major city based web design company. If you are looking for a top quality 100% inclusive, comprehensive service and your company can afford this kind of bill then I would suggest using a big city company every time.

Then there are the smaller companies that are made up of just a few individuals. These types of companies have much lower overheads and frequently have very knowledgeable and capable staff. The service level can be much lower than that of major city based web design companies but you can get some excellent work done by such companies at a fraction of cost of the large city based companies.

A much overlooked group of web designers that can produce some excellent web designs are the wide community of freelance web designers. Freelance web designers are private, self employed individuals who work from small offices (they frequently work from home). Freelancers have very low (mostly non existent) overheads. As such they can provide quality web design work for much lower costs than larger web design companies. If you are looking for good quality web design for less money then it definitely work looking at using a quality freelance web designer.

The people that you really need to avoid are the web design cowboys. As stated above cowboys are people who sell web design services without the necessary knowledge and experience to do so. If you are unfortunate enough to have contracted someone like this in the past you will be aware of the low quality work that they produce and the lack of significant results that they achieve. Cowboys invariable promise you the earth for a £1. Use your common sense and if someone is quoting you £100 for something that 5 other companies are charging around £4000 for, you know that something is not quite right. Remember the old adage - buy cheap, buy twice!

Conclusion:

You will find a great deal of variance between web design quotes depending on what level of web designer you choose to contract and what level of service you require. Always make sure to get as many quotes and talk to as many people as you can so a) see what’s available on the market and b) get an unbiased idea of the likely costs involved. There are lots of good web designers out there but there are also a lot of lesser skilled web designers and even some of the proverbial cowboys. Make sure to use good common sense and get a feel for the web designer’s skills and experience when you meet them. No matter how charming a person is, experience is very hard to fake. Ask to see examples of their work and where they have done similar work to your proposed project. Remember - you have the upper hand!

Stuart is a freelance website designer in Doncaster UK who specialises in search engine friendly web design doncaster for companies of all types.

By: Stuart Mortimer