The tips to Convert from Print to Web Design »

Many people might think that it's easy to convert a print brochure to a website and vica versa, but it's not that easy at all. Things to take into consideration would be the following:

Resolution of artwork

Print resolution is generally higher than web (72dpi) and therefore images will appear much larger in 72dpi (screen) resolution. You have to ensure that you adhere to general browser restrictions.

Fonts

Many nice design fonts won't work on your website except if you keep them as images. This has pros and cons. The pros are that you'll have nice looking fonts, but the cons are that search engines can't read the text and you'll be shooting yourself in the foot. It's also much harder to update images than simple HTML text.

With general HTML fonts you're limited to only a number of fonts. The reason for this is because you want to be using fonts that most users have on their computers (whether Mac or PC).

Scales

A simple brochure might not be designed to the same scale requirements to fit as a website. A lot of cropping might render the artwork useless for use on the web, so make sure you have a designer that's up to the job of taking the concept and applying it on a website design.

It's never as simple as it might seem
It's important to remember that it's never as simple as it seems to take a print concept to web, so always keep in mind that converting a print design to a website might require some advanced skills!

Where do you find inspiration?

Finding Inspiration from:

• the homeless beggar on the way to lunch
• a chance rainbow on a half sunny day
• reading other design blogs :-)
• networking in business (everybody seems to want what we do, but where are they when you're looking for clients?)
• a high after a successful meeting
• random colours in everyday life
• raw talent from people that you never believed had any!
• give me some more!
  
  

Pop-Up Banner Design

Once again you have some popup banners to design. You know, these roll up banners that pack neatly away into a carry bag... Well your basic banner design principles once again count here.

Client brief was that they'd be using it at events and seminars. Now I don't know about you, but when I'm attending an event, I'm seldomly going to stop in my tracks to read a whole company mission or vision statement (that's what the client suggested). I suggested to apply the infamous KISS (keep it simple stupid!) principle and ditched the statements for something more catchy. A one phraser that tell prospective clients exactly what the client does and also carrying over their most important values. In the end, a much more effective banner, with larger text and visuals to do what banners do best, attract interest.

I can't begin to say how important a slick design is. You need good effective stock photography if you're going that route, or strong vector based simple design layout. After all, with stock, you're selling a lifestyle and your trying to create a mood. Often, once single striking image as backdrop for your banner could accomplish just that. Just make sure your text sits well on such a background or make sure you have sufficient non-effect to make it stand out. What's non-effect? Well, putting effects like stroke or drop shadow on objects without making it apparent that they're really there, so downtoning it a bit.

Also remember any print material done for a client must create brand awareness, so make sure you convey the message. Louder if you're working with a lesser known brand and toned down, but themed effectively so that brand recognition is not lost on better known brands. 

Print Resolution

As mentioned before, large format is usually printed at lower formats, BUT if at all possible, design your artwork at full resolution at full size. If not possible, work at no less than 25% of the original size, but still hi-res, say 300dpi, which will allow the quality to still remain effective on the large format prints.

How to brief the designer you are hiring ?

When commissioning a designer to do graphic or web design for you, it's important to keep a few things in mind. Graphic and web designers need specific information in order for them to accurately do an estimation of costs on the specific design project.
Things like colour preferences, formats and target audiences are important when briefing your designer on a new job.

Points to keep in mind for any Graphic to Web converting »

Importing PDF into Freehand

Had the unfortunate task of importing a vector PDF into Freehand today. Maybe there is a trick, but I found a nice solution. If you have Flash, you can import it into Flash and then export as Adobe Illustrator file, which imports nicely into Freehand.

Custom graphics made online

There are many freelance graphic designers that would make you custom graphics online. Choosing the right one for your custom graphic design is not such a difficult task.

Things to remember when acquiring the services of an online graphic designer:

1. Request a portfolio.
2. Ask about turnaround time.
3. Be sure that they can deliver the design file formats that you require.
4. Ask about pricing and hourly design rate.
5. Ask about methods of payment.
6. Know what you want and
7. Provide a proper brief, with colour preferences or examples of designs that you like.

It might seem simple, but these are things to consider when you acquire a graphic designer.

Large format printing preparation tip

Another tip I've learned from the local printshop is to sometimes apply a light blur on images that become grainly when you increase the image size. Use with caution though and do crop print samples (you increase the image size and then just crop a say 10x10 inch block of it to print a sample) with different variations in the effects. Remember that high quality sharply focussed photographs are the easiest to make big posters and bill boards from for obvious reasons!

How to enhance brightness and colour in your pictures

When you have a graphic that just needs that tad of 'spark', an easy way to improve on the visual effectiveness thereof is to apply some simple Photoshop techniques.

Levels

1. In Photoshop, open up your levels editor (I think it's image / adjustments / levels).
2. You will see a histogram of your image data.
3. From the right-hand side, there is sometimes some blank space before the graph starts.
4. By moving the right-hand pointer to the edge of that graph data you immediately improve brightness quality without losing picture quality.
5. Once you move the pointer to within the graph data you will start seeing a degration of quality (your whites becoming too bright).
6. If you move the left-hand pointer to the right, your dark colours will be accentuated, but use that sparingly.
7. The middle pointer changes overall brightness (like white balance), but you usually don't have to change that much except if the overall picture quality is quite dark.

 Saturation

1. To improve the colours in your picture, open up the saturation editor (image / adjustments / hue/saturation).
2. By moving the saturation slider to the right about 10-20 points increases the overall colour richness of your image.
3. If your picture seems to have too much of a specific colour, you can select specific CMYK to change that.
4. You can also get some interesting effects by changing the hue when having those selected, for instance you want to change the blues in your image to a richer blue etc.

The best idea is to play around with these settings and never to overdo it. Use different settings and do print proofs as onscreen colours often look different than print when working in CMYK.

How to create a letterhead with Word ?

Creating your company letterhead with Word is very easy. First thing you to do some preparation of your logo to be used within Word. Here are some steps for you to follow to make it happen:

1. Create a 150DPI version of your logo at fair print size (say around 50mm if it's square bound or 80mm if it's a horisontal rectangle etc).
2. Make sure your logo is created in RGB format, since Word is an RGB application.
3. When in word, click on view/header and footer.
4. You'll see a box open up at the top of the document.
5. What I've found best is to insert a table with no borders, with 2 cells, so that I can left align the logo in the lefthand cell and right align any contact details like address, phone numbers etc in the righthand cell.
6. Click on close (on the toolbar that pops up when you view your header).
7. Now if you want the letterhead only on the front page, go to file / page setup.
8. Click on the layout tab and select the 'Different first page' checkbox.
9. Click OK to confirm

It's done!!