Pretty neat huh? There are many entities you can use on your website. For example, say you want to write content for the Romans in ancient Greece? There are entities for that:
To see a complete list of HTML entities, visit W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) for a current list of Character Entity References.
Do you need a website makeover or a completely new internet presence for your company? If so don’t hesitate to contact us for a free estimate and evaluation for your internet needs.
Color choice in design – whether you are painting a bedroom or developing a brand – involves a critical set of decisions that can easily lead your project astray. As in most things, some people have a talent for choosing color – its appropriate use, mixing and matching with other colors, varying hues and shades to create a desired effect – and they can do it intuitively. But for the rest of us, there is help – lots of it – in making color selections based on the security of a more scientific approach, or at least a time-tested one.
Good color selection for any project is critical to its success.
Please don’t choose a color for your website or print project based on the fact that you like green. It’s great to like green… but it may not be the most effective choice for the brand you are illustrating or effect you are hoping to create. Also, any color on the color wheel has an almost unlimited variation of hue and saturation that can take a warm color into the cool spectrum and a happy color into melancholy! The choice of secondary colors in your palette can also disturb or enhance the effect you are creating and must be selected with all of this in mind. A lot of things to think about – right?
Two great resources to get you thinking about what your color selection might convey: check out Andy Crofford’s infographic at TechKing.com for a beautiful illustration of the color spectrum and how each stop along the way can best be used in design and what it represents.
Another great infographic is from Kissmetrics.com, explaining how color selection affects purchasing among consumers.
Here’s a brief framework of color psychology basics (at least on the positive side – with changes in hue and saturation, these colors can take on societally defined negative connotations as well):
White: clarity, openness, simplicity Black: power, elegance, mystery Gray: calm, a conservative approach Brown: stability, hearth & home Blue: dependability, security Purple: wealth, nobility, creativity Green: balance, rejuvenation, spring Yellow: happiness, light, energy Orange: energetic, warm, autumn Red: passion, aggression, fire
Bear in mind, these are attributes Western society attaches to these colors. Many marketers have found out the hard way that these do not always hold consistent cross-culturally!
A great resource for developing a palette of colors to work with on any project is Adobe Color CC (formerly kuler) – built directly into InDesign and accessed with the Color Theme Tool. You can create various color themes with a simple click on any photo or artwork, add them to your swatches or export them into Creative Cloud Apps.
If your issue is the color paper you are printing on, Neenah Paper has both an app and an online Paper Selector to help.
Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, high impact marketing solutions.
Customized Microsoft Tag high-capacity barcode (HCCB)
We designed our first Microsoft® Tag high-capacity color bar code (HCCB) this week, incorporating a custom tag image. Microsoft® provides in-depth direction about creation and usage of Tags for print, electronic display, apparel, etc. at their Development Center website.
This is also where you will visit to generate the actual tag. The site is rich with information about tag usage, tracking and implementation in marketing campaigns. A quick read of the Implementation Guide provided here will ready you for Tag creation.
Step by Step Tag Creation
When you arrive at this site you will be prompted to create a free user account, from which you can create Tags in either color, black and white or (using dots instead of triangles) for custom Tag images.
There are 4 types of content for Microsoft® Tags:
URL tag: This is the default category of the Tag Manager. This tag will open the web browser on the mobile device and display the website you choose.
Free Text Tag: Sends a free text message to the user’s phone
vCard Tag: an electronic business card with 17 contact fields to send your information to the user’s address book
Dialer Tag: dials a phone number on the user’s smartphone
The resulting Tags are suprisingly versatile in form – they can then be manipulated in either Powerpoint or Adobe® Illustrator, customizing the look and appeal of the codes in a way impossible with the black and white QR code. (Again, the site gives you step by step guidance if you are unfamiliar with the software.)
Microsoft HCCB Tag Varieties
You can choose to create the Tags with dots rather than triangles, allowing more space for inclusion of a background image and a more intricate design. The limitations for customizing are maintaining the borders and white clearance space around the tag, and not changing the position of the dots. Otherwise, dots can be disguised by new design elements or hidden in fields of the same color, and any shape, color or image can be used in the open space between the dots. You are even allowed to vary the hue of the essential color dots themselves within a certain range. With some imagination, you can create an interesting graphic barcode that will be much more eye-catching for consumers to notice and hopefully ‘snap’ with their smartphone.
The Microsoft Tag Manager website is where you create a “category” taxonomy to organize your Tags and their usage. By default, a Tag will be designated with the category “Main.” To provide better results, you will need to decide on your taxonomy of categories up front. Tags can be moved from category to category, but only if they were created AFTER the category was defined. Here you will also be able to generate a number of reports to track, compare and chart data about the scans and performance of your Tags. By the way, all of this is free!
As this technology develops, Microsoft® is making new resources available under the Tag Manager. A new app now recognizes which type of smartphone or device is reading youre Tag and will provide that user with the appropriate user experience for their interface. You can explore this feature in the App Download Tag section.
Microsoft® requires, at least for now, that when you display their HCCB tags you include basic instructions near the Tag on how to download and use the Microsoft® Tag Reader application. Their preferred text is: “Get the free mobile app at http://gettag.mobi.” Overall, their Tag Developement Center web site does a great job in giving you the knowledge to get started with Tags in a clear way that won’t take all day to school yourself.
Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, high impact marketing solutions.
If you layout your 8.5 x 11 brochure for a tri-fold by splitting your page into 3 equal columns, it will NOT fold correctly. Text and images will appear off center once folded on several of the panels. The thickness of the paper during the fold must be accounted for to achieve a finished panel that is centered. The panels on the inside, being a mirror image in placement of the ones on the outside, must also be offset an equal but opposite (in the other direction) amount. The amount of offset, however, can vary depending on if you are printing on text weight, cover stock, or other paper types. Below you will find a general setup that works for a tri-fold brochure. (With InDesign, multiple page sizes are supported within one document so you can set up your different sized panels there as a 6 page document as well).
How to set-up a tri-fold, 8.5 x 11 brochure:
Allow a .375” margin on all four sides of the paper (unless you are sure you are printing on oversized paper to accommodate a bleed.) Two panels are 1/16” larger than the third. Pages 1 & 2 of your document must be set up INDIVIDUALLY with different panel widths, being mirror images of each other – see the diagrams below. Unless you are using heavy paper, an amount more than 1/16” will be far too much for a fold allowance.
The FRONT COVER or outside panels:
Panels 2 & 3 must be slightly larger than Panel 1.
The Back or INSIDE PANELS:
Panels 1 & 2 must be slightly larger than Panel 3 (the mirror image of the outisde setup)
Dimensions for the inside panels of a Tri-Fold brochure
Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, high impact marketing solutions.
Any vector art can easily be converted to pixels (rasterized). The journey back from pixel to vector however is not an easy one, if possible at all. Some sound advice: get the original, vector, fonts-turned-to-outlines version of your logo from the designer as soon as it is created and signed off on. Even if you can’t place or use it any of the programs you use daily, get it and guard it! It can be reproduced at any size and mainting its clear, perfect resolution, it can be repurposed into any other file types needed for print or online usage, and it can contain the needed PMS spot color information needed for color separation to maintain your brand standards.
It is truly amazing the number of companies out there who have an established logo and brand, but are unable to lay hands on a vector version of their logo. They are ready with a marketing budget but armed only with a tiny .gif or .jpg someone nabbed off a website, or possibly a fuzzy print of a logo placed in a Word document. Many do not know the PMS color designated for their brand/logo. Imagine Target or Coke thinking any old red will work work their printing… or leaving it up to a random printer to decide which red to use!?! The original logo design for any well-made brand will have begun its life as a vector-based artwork. As many offices use software that requires a .jpg or .tif format for placed art and websites require low-res .pngs and .jpgs…. so the value of the vector art is often overlooked.
In the Old Days When You Needed a Vector Logo….
I use to love Adobe Streamline. It saved many print jobs from disaster. Discontinued with the advent of Illustrator CS2, Streamline was the program used to convert pixel-based art into vectors… and when it worked the way you wanted, it was a lifesaver for a prepress department. Could it redraw any logo to perfection? Of course not, but it could be used to re-create some logos for vector output.
A potentially huge new client gives you their first print job… you have to print some forms in black and their spot PMS color, but the logo they supply is a fuzzy RGB jpg – no way to properly color separate the pixel-based file, no built in spot color, no chance of impressing the client! But Streamline, if the logo scan was high enough quality, could render the proper shapes in a vector format that allowed you to print the job correctly, reset the logo as needed, and gain a new client’s trust.
Image Trace
Image Trace in Adobe® Illustrator (formerly called “Live Trace”) is a great asset for designers, and useful for far more than just a prepress department stuck with a lousy jpg and a deadline. As with most tools in Illustrator and throughout Creative Suite, the best way to learn Image Trace is to simply use it: open up a document, place a pixel-based tif or jpg on the page and the try the different options under the Image Trace button in your menu.
Drop down menu of actions under the Live Trace button.
Try converting full color photographs, scanned drawings, images that have been run through PhotoShop filters – the results can be amazing. From the results you will begin to understand what kinds of effects you can apply in Photoshop before conversion in order to make your Image Trace output more of what you are after. For logo “re-creation,” a clear, large size scan of the logo is preferable to start from – and the cleaner the scan, the better the results. Once you select the preset you want, you will have to click the “Expand” button to actually apply the conversion, and then Ungroup the objects to work with the individual vector shapes. Image Trace will not give suitable results for scanned type in most instances. For more advanced controls over your vectorization, try the Tracing Options dialogue box by going to Window > Image Trace and choose a preset or specify the tracing options. You can enable Preview to see the results of your modifications. and play around with the blur, threshold, path fitting and other tools you find there.
A full color photograph before and after Live Trace - notice each color area has been turned into a vector shape.
Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, high impact marketing solutions.
Traditionally, when designing a website only certain fonts were available for use. These fonts earned the title “web safe fonts” because these fonts were installed on almost everyone’s computer. So back in the day, web designers and developers were limited to a list of boring, standard fonts. Some of these fonts included classics such as:
Arial Verdana Helvetica Comic Sans
New York Times Impact Lucida Console
Palatino Linotype Georgia Courier New
As you can imagine, this made for quite a dull user experience and was somewhat depressing for website designers as there was little room for typographical creativity.
Out With the Old, In With the New
But as all things go in life, things have changed and the state of website typography is quite different and very exciting! With font-serving applications such as Google Web Fonts and Typekit, the race is on to give a little bit of life to your website copy.
By utilizing such these font-serving applications, which are free to use with a few limitations, creating a beautiful website that uses rich typography is not in the distant future anymore… the time to incorporate beautiful web typography is now!
If you would like to get with the times and integrate beautiful typography into your existing website, contact ImageSmith at 828.684.4512 or fill out our contact form to get started. As always, we earn our stripes by helping you earn yours!
Rack cards are one of the most concise, effective and affordable marketing tools to put information into the hands of your customers. You can maximize their impact by keeping a few key issues of content and design in focus. Include a QR code, and you have bridged the gap between your printed marketing and your online presence.
High Impact, Low Cost, Full Color – The Benefits of Rack Cards
Full Color, Low Cost, High Impact Rack Cards
The very simplicity and size of rack cards make them a powerful, straightforward marketing tool. Standard rack card size is 4″ x 9″, suitable for easy display in high traffic areas and convenient to pick up and carry. They also fit nicely into a #10 envelope for mailing. Eyecatching color and graphics can work to ensure your content is noticed. Some rack card subject ideas include: company overviews & introductions, mission statements, sales events & promotions, specific product information, announcements, and informational/educational content. They should also encourage connection to online content and purchasing.
6 Tips for Designing & Printing Rack Cards
The size of rack cards encourages you to be specific about the information you include – keeping content focused, clear and effective. Here are a few tips for creating your layout – some are common to all printing projects, some unique to rack cards:
Maximize use of color and photographs. You only have a second to catch the eye of a consumer passing your rack card display and you will want to make the card something they pick up and enjoy visually. The top portion of the card needs to include either your logo or the title of the card’s content, and an eye-catching colorful image. Maximize use of unique, original photos of your business or subject matter, minimizing use of stock photography when possible. A good tip for inspiration: visit rack card displays and notice the cards that pop out and make you want to pick them up — study those!
Brand your work. Rack cards are a “high touch” marketing tool, and many people will see your card, even if they do not pick it up and carry it with them. It is essential your rack cards are designed to maintain the standards of your brand in both color, quality and content. To select a generic template online that does not match your brand, or to throw together a quick layout may save you money in the short run, but will establish a perception that is confusing and/or negative to many potential clients or customers.
Focus your content. Before you begin to write copy, be clear about the message you want to relate and your target audience. A specific message, directed to a specific type of consumer, increases your card’s chances of being picked up and remembered. Practice defining the subject of your copy in five words or less. If you can’t do it effectively, you need to narrow the focus of your subject matter.
Don’t limit print with low-tech assumptions. Printed pieces are a time-proven means of getting your information into the public. But they can now be the essential link between a hands-on contact and your online marketing. Use QR codes on your cards to drive traffic to online promotions or websites. You can then track exactly who, by clicking their smartphone’s camera, is coming to your site, and judge the effectiveness of your rack card promotion. At the very least, include your web address and direct people to find you online.
Multipurpose. A run of rack cards can and should be used in several different ways to maximize their effect. You can arrange a display at your business and find as many appropriate places as possible in public areas to display your cards. Ask vendors, neighboring businesses, and related but non-competitive businesses if you can leave some cards in their lobby. Also, use the cards for bulk, targeted mailings.
Don’t forget to include the basics… and proofread! You have limited space left after your photos and branding but you need to include the information a potential customer will need to contact you. Include a map (they are easy to get your hands on these days) to your location. If you want to push traffic to your website instead, replace the map with a LARGE version of your web address and a QR code. Phone numbers, fax numbers, mailing address… check and double-check for errors. The amount of waste due to one misplaced character is incalculable.
Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on rack cards, and more useful tips on how to create custom, high impact marketing solutions.
Direct Mail – How to Ensure You Get the Most “Bang For Your Buck”
Direct Mail, a vital part of cross-media marketing campaigns
Direct mail is still a great way to reach your customers and prospects. Web-based marketing (e-newsletters, Facebook, etc) is a great addition, but printed pieces still prove to get the best return. However, with postage rates increasing, you’ll want to narrow down the mailing list to get the most “bang for your buck”.
The trick to a successful direct mailing is to do a little market research to determine who is your target audience:
Geographic Qualifiers – where does your target audience live/do business? In your state, county, zip code… or maybe within 1 mile of your location?
Demographic Qualifiers – who makes up your target audience? What is their age, gender, household income… are they homeowners?
Once you have these questions answered, call or e-mail ImageSmith to do a FREE list search for you. We can tell you how many contacts are in your target list and the cost for purchasing the list. Then let us design, print, and mail your campaign… all Under One Roof!
We know direct mail, and we want to show you the benefits of integrated marketing – call us at 828.684.4512 or check us out online.
One of the most common questions we hear in the PrePress Department concerns those pesky “white lines” that are visible on screen in pdf files. The bottom line on the lines is:
they are a display-only apparition – called “stitching”, they will not print
you can make adjustments to your display in Acrobat to remove them
Transparency used in the drop shadow creates “stitching” visible when flattened for PDF/x-1a.
The Long Answer: Complex Issues of Transparency
Transparency has been available in page layout programs for quite some time now. The problems arise when you realize that PostScript – the language that is used by imaging devices for offset printing and many desktop printers – does not understand transparency AT ALL. At some point in the process from desktop to plate, transparency must be “flattened”. This can be a very complex, though behind-the-scenes, process whereby all your content containing transparency that was created in PhotoShop, Illustrator, and a page layout program is transformed into “PostScript-legal” content that can be read and correctly imaged by a RIP, yet still “looks” transparent. You may not know any of this is occurring, but it must happen in order to print.
The PDF solution
If your file is not for print (and you are not concerned about file size), there is no reason to ever flatten the transparency – the white lines will not plague you. PDF files since version 5.0 can contain “live” transparency – as Adobe realized pdf files can be optimized for uses other than printing. If your files are destined for print, however, you need to create PDF/x-1a files. These are optimized for Acrobat 4.0, and for PostScript output. Now, this is where the dreaded “white lines” issue arises. The process of flattening to create this file “cuts up” your page content into pieces or atomic regions, and these appear to have tiny white gaps between them. THERE IS NO GAP! The “pieces” fit perfectly together. (In fact, you could probably never print any lines that fine on an offset press anyway due to dot gain.)
Adjust Preferences to hide “Stitching” lines.
The Visual Fix
Now – if print is not your issue, but you simply want to view the pdf WITHOUT the white lines showing, go to your Acrobat Preferences, and in the Page Display Tab UNCLICK “Smooth Line Art” and “Smooth Images”. By doing this, you will create another problem — if you had turned any of your text to outlines, that will now display poorly and pixellated. Again, it will NOT print that way. These are just unfortunate side effects of bridging the gap between software that handles transparency and PostScript imaging language that does not.
You will find plenty of insight in the Adobe forums from users just like yourself who were left wondering “How do I get rid of these stupid white lines?!”
ImageSmith knows the pitfalls and common stumbling blocks when moving from desktop to offset – call us at 828.684.4512 for smooth guidance on your next print project.
There is nothing more frustrating than a full inbox, especially when most of the emails are unsolicited spam from shysters overseas. Often times they will send professional looking emails, acting as a professional representative of a reputable company.
For instance, a company called Domain Registry of America (DROA) has been scamming for years. In 2003 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint on DROA for deceptive practices. Yet DROA and others are still at it, sending spam to the masses trying to gain control over domain names.
How Do I Combat Spam?
Mark as Spam in Your Email Program/Client
Unfortunately, there is not much you can do to stop these emails from appearing in your inbox. The best way to handle these emails is to simply ignore them, mark them as spam in your email client, and delete them from your email completely. If you ever have doubt or feel you need help figuring out if the email is legitimate, don’t hesitate to ask a person who is more savvy than you are. Also, try a Google search for the company or the “from” email address and look for other people posting about the scam and their experiance with that particular company or email address.
File a Complaint to the FTC
If you wish to take action you can file an official complaint the FTC on their website. To file a complaint with the FTC, visit https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov.
