Cool Idea: Put Your Logo on a Custom Printed Bandana

The classic bandana with a paisley pattern seems to never go out of style. We love these custom printed bandanas that incorporate the customer logo seamlessly into that classic design. They are lightweight woven cotton with screen printing in white and come in the whole rainbow of colors you would expect.

The pet bandana version is also pretty awesome – a triangular shape makes it easier to tie around your best friend’s neck. They come in different sizes to fit the tiniest dogs or cats or some king-size buddies. The entire imprint area can be designed with your repeating logo or with some other shape or design of your choice.

You’ll need a version of your logo that works reversed out in all white with no screens. In our large bandana sample here, we used the logo at a larger size in the center, and then in four smaller imprint areas on each of the four corners. When folded, you’ll always see one of the logos. You might want to include a tagline or web address as well if the imprint area works better with that information.

Developing your logo in different variants is important for multichannel marketing. Never settle for one “FINAL” version of your logo from your designer with the idea that it can multitask for every need. Develop different “flavors” of your logo that will be versatile enough to work in full color, single color with screens, spot color and at different sizes from tiny to billboard size, offset to online . The standard full color logo that looks just perfect on your letterhead may not be the version that works for embroidery on uniforms, screenprinting, promotional products, black and white forms, single color designs, or wide format prints. For versatility of use, it’s also great to have your logo designed in a “Tall” (portrait) and “Wide” (landscape) version. Think about it: what might look good on a round coaster might look pretty tiny if you decide to print it on the side of a pencil!

Call us at 828.684.4512 to order your bandanas, or for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

November 4, 2014

New Respect for Doodling: Problem-Solving and Logo Design

It starts on paper.

Doodling is often for designers a free form beginning to the exploration and creation of great ideas. While many exciting digital devices with intuitive interfaces are built to spur your creative process, nothing quite lives up in the beginning to the ease and freedom of doodling on paper. Sketching or doodling are the first steps of tracing out into reality the designs still forming in your imagination. Paper gives you permission to make mistakes, to create something odd or terrible or just maybe ingenious. It nurtures the “sketchy” nature of new ideas that are only partially formed, shadowy connections and inspirations that only begin to take on real shape in a quick sketch or design on paper.

Writing – or more precisely copywriting – takes place onscreen today. Mistakes are quickly edited and blocks of text can easily be moved around and reconnected as ideas evolve and take shape. The keyboard has sped up the creative process for wordsmiths. But to begin a visual idea, pencil or pen on paper still seem to be the tools of choice.

In the creation of a logo or any design concept, doodling is thinking. How do you represent a company’s core values, mission, standards, range of expertise in a compelling way? Sketching becomes a visual expression of real-time problem-solving – an essential part of the creative process. The shapes and ideas liberally sketched out on paper will be edited and developed on screen as the process continues. But in the initial stage, feel the freedom to draw, connect and reject. Wrong turns and attempted ideas all litter the page as you continue to draw, but still inform the overall process.

Alma Hoffman has a wonderful essay on this in an article called “I Draw Pictures All Day” on Smashing Magazine. She points out that all artists, writers and creatives should carry a sketchpad. You may also want to check out Sunni Brown’s book “The Doodle Revolution” about using the habit of doodling to improve creativity and focus.

With that in mind, we at ImageSmith gave custom embossed Moleskine® notebooks as gifts last holiday season. You never know when an idea will arise or you will find some tidbit of vital information to remember. No wifi needed. And now Moleskine has a notebook with a “Livescribe” app that instantly brings your sketched and notes to your computer screen and can convert writing to text. The paper itself has a dot pattern embedded in it which is read by the pen as you write. Moleskine understands the intersection of analog and digital.

Leonardo da Vinci sketch of a perpetual motion machine.

No surprise, doodling itself has risen to a high art form in the hands of many talented designers and artists. Check out this gallery for some inspiring examples: 48 Examples of Doodle Art. You might also find enlightening the random doodles of some creative greats at these sites: Doodles of Famous Authors like Plath, Nabokov and Kafka and Six Famous Notebook Users like Hemingway and Picasso.

They’ve also found doodling can help combat stress – another plus with those looming deadlines, right?

About the logo at the top of this article: ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

October 31, 2014

PhotoShop Makes it Easy to Quickly Straighten a Scan or Photo

If you begin work with a raw photograph or scan, chances are the image will be off-kilter – maybe just a little bit crooked, maybe a lot. Here’s an easy fix to straighten your image that does not require guesswork of how many degrees or rotation are needed.

In the sample image above, the subjects appear to be walking up a slight hill, but our objective is to have them on level ground. Beginning with CS5, the PhotoShop tools got a whole lot smarter and you can now Straighten a photo with the click of a button. The Crop tool itself will allow you to manually rotate the image, just by clicking slightly outside the crop area and pulling the image in whatever direction you desire. To have PhotoShop straighten your photo exactly, just click the “Straighten” button in the Toolbar at the top. This accesses your Ruler tool to draw a line on your image that you want to use to make your image plumb. The new tools make what use to be a more difficult task very intuitive and easy.
The “old” way of doing this was to get the Ruler tool (its hidden away on the fly-out menu of the Eyedropper tool). Find a line or edge in your image that you want to be perfectly horizontal. Click and drag out a line with the ruler tool that you want to be exactly 90° perpendicular to vertical. Choose Image – Rotate – Arbitrary. The exact amount of rotation needed (to the 100th of a degree!) will be entered into the “Arbitrary” amount box. Just hit enter and your image will rotate clockwise or counterclockwise as needed according to the line you drew.

Using the Ruler Tool in PhotoSHop — Find the “horizon” or edge you want to be perfectly horizontal in your image and drag the ruler tool across it.

Rotate Image in PhotoShop — Image – Rotate Image – Arbitrary

Straightened Image before recropping — Image aligned with drawn line, before recropping.

After aligning, you will need to recrop the image to make it square again. But the girl walking her dog is now on level ground. If your image was a scan of a document or printed photograph, aligning with the edge of the original will bring the image plumb again.

Thanks to CS5 and beyond, you may never need this again!

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

October 14, 2014

Kuler is now Color! Plus, the New Color Theme Tool in Adobe InDesign CC 2014

The latest update for Adobe InDesign CC 2014 gives you a great new tool for creating a beautiful matching color palette based on the images and artwork already in your layout. The Color Theme tool will create for you 5 different 5-swatch palettes or themes of color with a simple click based on the objects you have selected on your page, which you can then add to your swatches palette or export to Adobe Color (formerly Kuler – will get to that in a moment) for use in other applications and on other devices.

If you have a photograph placed on your page, select the new tool then click the photo. The Color Theme tool will select a range or palette of colors based on that image. It will also work on a vector object, shape or a selected area of your layout including several different objects. A main 5-swatch color theme shows up automatically. By clicking on the down arrow you will see four additional “themes”: Colorful, Bright, Dark and Muted. These will give you variations of the basic theme from which to choose.

A button to the right allows you to add any or all of the themes to your Swatches palette. Option clicking that button will allow you to add just an individual color. The colors are by default defined according to your “document intent.” If you hadn’t noticed, whenever you create a new InDesign document, there is a drop-down menu called Intent where you choose if your creation is heading for the Print world, for the Web or for Digital Publishing (e-Pubs). By double clicking the actual Color Theme tool in the toolbar, you can choose to leave your colors “defined as per document intent” or go ahead and decide for yourself to have the colors rendered as CMYK or RGB. In the prepress department here, we were hoping the tool would include the magic of matching the closest PMS color to the selected sample, but no such luck…..yet.

Now here’s another new feature. Adobe Kuler is now Adobe Color. You can access your Creative Cloud Color account directly in InDesign by going to Window – Color – Adobe Color Themes. In the panel that opens, you can access all your previously defined Kuler… er, Color themes, explore the themes of others just as you did with the mobile app or online, or create new ones from scratch. Any themes you create in PhotoShop or Illustrator are also here to share. Adobe has integrated the favorite advancements of its former Kuler app directly into the Creative Cloud applications in a very seamless, easy to use way.

You can watch a couple of very brief overviews of these new features from Adobe by going to Help – What’s New… These new features are very intuitive and a great tool for your color inspiration. The integration of Adobe Color directly into the Creative Cloud apps is very handy and will be welcomed by the Kuler/Color community, though I’m already finding it difficult to stop calling it Kuler.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

October 1, 2014

Why We Started Double Spacing after Each Sentence, and Why Typography Says “STOP!”

The first thing I was told years ago on my very first day of work in prepress was to forget the old rule from high school typing class about using two spaces between sentences. When you learned to type on a typewriter, that became second nature and it was a hard habit to break in the beginning. But I only recently learned the reason WHY two spaces are no longer used, thanks to an excellent history of the phenomenon by Farhad Manjoo over at Slate. He makes a convincing case for why today you should “never, ever do it.” Knowing the reason always beats the the standard justification of “because that’s how it’s done today.”

First, rules in typography really are rules! Of course there are exceptions where rules are broken for good reason, but “that’s how I was taught” is not one of them! The rules of typography were agreed upon over years and years of professional development of “best practices.” In the early days of typesetting – so they tell us – the rules had not been developed yet. Printed material might have one space between sentences, it might have four. What was a “space” anyway? The size certainly varied. But as time rolled on, typesetters standardized their work and one space became the rule. Enter the typewriter.

Typewriters revolutionized business communications, and also created the need for the now outdated 2-space rule. Typewriters before the 1970s were monospaced – each letter the same width as any of the other letters or characters, unlike the type you are reading right now. Typewriters had no kerning or tracking capabilities and the result was difficulty in distinguishing sentences from each other because of all the “loose” spacing between letters. Two spaces between sentences proved to be generally more pleasing to the eye and easier to read.

So that’s the reason. But we aren’t using typewriters anymore! Even the later typewriters employed proportional type, ending the need for any extra spaces. Two spaces make an unpleasant gap in blocks of type. In the prepress department, the first step to placing and laying out a customer’s text is to do a “Find – Replace” for two spaces.

If you are still dropping in those extra spaces between sentences, you are not only saying that you are most likely over 40 and learned to type on a typewriter, but that you don’t like change very much! It really isn’t that hard a habit to break. Some specific workplaces or disciplines still cling to the two-space rule… I’ve heard the legal world is one of those. If you earn your living in one of those fields, you have an excuse. Otherwise, if you choose to hang onto the old 2-space rule, just be aware that the visual text you are creating in your emails and documents is saying things about you which you may not intend!

…and one more unbreakable rule: no indenting paragraphs with FIVE SPACES! Still see that typewriter holdover from time to time as well.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

August 22, 2014

Shandys, Selfies & A Mustache: Traveler Beer Does Integrated Marketing Right!

What is more fun than a stick-on mustache?!

…well, taking a selfie with your mustache to share with the world AND enjoying a new European twist on delicious beer at the same time. That combo has helped prove Traveler Beer Company a pro at integrated marketing. Combining a great product and marketing design with social media buzz is one step. But in Traveler’s current campaign, the vital link between the products and the online excitement is good, old-fashioned print and promotional products! It is exciting to see these traditional marketing tools put to their best use in combination with the latest in digital communications.

Traveler is “introducing” to the American market the European tradition of “shandys” – quality craft brews combined with carbonated citrus or fruit flavors. The four Traveler flavors use lemon and lime (“Curious Traveler“), grapefruit (“Illusive Traveler“), strawberry (“Time Traveler“), and pumpkin (“Jack-O Traveler“). With such a unique product, Traveler is wisely shaping their marketing around the adventure of a new experience. By using a turn-of-the-LAST-century flavor to the graphics, they are reinforcing the idea that these flavors have been around a long while in Europe and proven a favorite. With the current public preference for all things hipster, the classic Victorian handlebar mustache works as the perfect representative of the product, and the perfect way to involve consumers in becoming a part of the marketing itself.

Traveler’s mission was to involve the public through social media – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, primarily. To achieve that, they created a great variety of bar swag and promotional products to put the Traveler brand into consumer’s hands. Online, and in retail outlets, bars and restaurants, you can find branded t-shirts, backpacks, glassware, bar taps, and on and on. The key to actually involving folks in the marketing game is a set of stick-on mustaches attached to printed cards. The card for each style mustache directs the user to stick on the mustache, take a photo, and post it online with the hashtag #TRVLR. The result has been that elusive social media buzz and virality that makes a marketing campaign successful.

The payoff for the consumer? Primarily, the fun of seeing their mustachioed selfies online! The Traveler website has a page called TRVLR GLRY with Mustache and Traveler of the Week photos, and shots from parties and events hosted around the Traveler products. Search for the hashtag #TRVLR on Twitter or Instagram to see all the folks joining in the fun.

The greatest part of this type of marketing? It can be done on a large scale like Traveler has shown us, or on a small scale for a local business with a lot less money and time to invest. Print and promotional products can be designed to encourage the recipient to actually market for the brand – post a photo, wear the logo, visit a webpage, or share the experience on social media of using the product. The reward for doing that can be a coupon or discount, a contest prize, or it can just be the kick of seeing one’s very own selfie on a website. When done right, adding the social media component to a standard print marketing campaign only amplifies the impact of the original idea but with very little, if any, added investment. For the consumer, it enhances your brand image and their enjoyment.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

August 20, 2014

Hard to Hide: Disabling an Overactive Welcome Screen in Illustrator CC 2014

When the Welcome gets worn out…

With each new software upgrade, organizing your workspace and learning the new tools and interface changes can take a little time. Creative Cloud software generally launches by default a Welcome screen with helpful info on “What’s New” in the latest release. For the first few days, these are helpful; after that they begin to feel intrusive. With Illustrator CC 2014, the “Welcome” screen is pretty persistent in trying to keep on welcoming. The fix is a simple one – albeit not as simple as it could be!

In previous version of Illustrator, the Welcome screen appeared with each launch, but the checkbox to hide the screen on future launches was always located at the bottom in plain view. With InDesign CC 2014, it is still there and easy to access. With PhotoShop CC 2014, there is no “Welcome” screen – it just lives under the Help menu and will take you to an Adobe webpage when chosen. But Illustrator expanded the Welcome screen for CC 2014, putting in four tabs to access different information. I wonder if Adobe is pushing a little harder to introduce PhotoShop and InDesign users to Illustrator? The expanded screen can be useful, but it seems Adobe went a little further in trying to make you work to hide it.

The “Create” tab, which is the default screen on my installation and includes the easy access to open recent docs or new projects, does not include the box to hide the Welcome screen. I have no idea why. For some reason, only three of the four Welcome screen tabs have the check-able option to hide the window in the future. And, even on those three tabs, the bottom of the window is not visible until you scroll down to find the check box.

The Welcome screen info always lives under the Help menu, so if you find it annoying like I do, just click on any of the three tabs other than “Create” and scroll to the bottom of the window. There you can access the SLIGHTLY more elusive than normal “Don’t Show Welcome Screen Again” box.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

July 31, 2014

Designing Product Labels: Stick a Label on a Bottle with Illustrator and PhotoShop

OUR PROJECT: design a label and show it in use on the actual product. We need to create print-ready label files AND on-product demos for proofing those labels – a very common scenario for the designer. Moreover, our goal is also to end up with a usable set of files that are organized, fully editable and ready to be repurposed for any integrated marketing projects that lie ahead. What is the best approach for digitally sticking a label on a bottle?

We love Illustrator. The ability of vector artwork to be edited, printed in spot colors, redefined for other purposes and resized to any dimension without loss of resolution or quality makes it a versatile winner for multipurpose projects. On the other hand, PhotoShop is essential for realistic product presentation. Amazing effects can take a vector label file from the design stage to a true retail appearance and on-product photo. Using both programs in a coordinated way will leave you with a flexible set of files that can be used for offset or digital printing, wide format product displays, realistic proofing and any other application you might need. When you return to prepare other labels, these files are invaluable time-savers.

The label design for this whiskey bottle began in Illustrator. The customer’s requirements were a matte finish paper with a die cut shape. The handiest solution was to create the label in Illustrator, then manipulate that file into PhotoShop for the proofing and on-product look. Here, all of the type and design elements were created as vectors in Illustrator, and assigned the PMS spot colors that would be needed for offset printing. This part of the job is essentially a typical design/print job.

While working in Illustrator, it helps to be able to see your design on the actual bottle as you work. So, we placed the .tif image of the bottle on its own layer and locked it. An image of the paper was placed on another layer – just for reference – along with the outer shape of the label. We then made a clipping path of that shape on the paper layer so that with all layers turned on, the Illustrator file appeared like the finished label on the bottle – minus the PhotoShop effects. These two layers are not for print purposes – only to help you visualize the end product while designing. Play around with the design of the label until finished, turning off the “bottle” and “paper” layers as needed. From this file, we can generate any actual print files for production of the label.

Now – over in PhotoShop: we wanted to show the label on an actual bottle, both for proofing to the customer and to create imagery for use in several related projects (no special photoshoot necessary!) We start with the photo of the bottle itself. This image is much larger in size than the actual bottle, being a high resolution image suitable for wide format output. If you have worked in Illustrator at the actual label size, you will need to enlarge the vector design when you bring it into PhotoShop – no problem as vectors can be easily resized with no loss of quality. Copy the parts you want to use in Illustrator and paste into their new PhotoShop layers as Smart Objects. By working with Smart Objects in this way, you can double-click on your layer and the artwork will open in the native application (in this case, Illustrator) for editing. When done, click save and the art updates in your PhotoShop file. Learn more about how great Smart Objects are for design versatility here.

Tip: be sure and carefully name each layer you create. I often think I will remember which is which, only to wind up confused and searching through layers one by one to see what I have created. You can easily use dozens of layers in one simple project, so take the time to name them as you create them.

For certain effects to work in PhotoShop, you must rasterize the Smart Object layer before you can proceed. If you are unsure and want to do that safely, make a copy of your Smart Object layer and turn its visibility off – that’s your backup. Now rasterize the original layer and proceed. You can always trash that if the results aren’t right and turn back on the layer you saved. Here, we brought in vector pieces of the label in different groupings so as to be able to apply various lighting effects and filters on different parts, hopefully recreating the appearance of a realistic label. You can experiment with various layers to find which works best for your project. In this case, all the ink coverage (the red bar, the type, the logos) were kept together in order to use a light reflection effect on them that would simulate the ink on paper. The outer border required a different look, as it was set to print in metallic ink. We brought in a layer that looked like gold foil and a layer which held the label frame as a Smart Object. First we selected the pixels on the frame layer and turned its visibility off, switched over to the foil layer, selected the inverse and deleted. What was left is the shape of the frame, but filled with the reflective foil (see photo at right). As this is not a Smart Object layer, you can go ahead and apply bevel and emboss effects to make it stand out a little more from the rest of the matte label.

Save this heavily layered version of your project – it allows you to easily edit individual parts during proofing or for future applications. You could easily switch out the paper layer, substitute a silver background, entirely redesign the label, or even insert a new bottle and background. By starting off on the right foot, you can confidently edit and repurpose your designs with a minimum of wasted or repeated effort.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

July 18, 2014

Auto Generate QR Codes with Data Merge in InDesign CC 2014

The Data Merge function in InDesign is a powerful, versatile tool for integrated marketing. We use it for variable data printing to personalize individual pieces – text and images – and, if a direct mail piece, to address and barcode for delivery to the USPS. The latest enhancement to Data Merge is the ability to integrate automatically generated QR codes into the Data Merge workflow. The best part is InDesign does almost all the work.

As you may know, InDesign CC will automatically generate a QR code within a document. Choose Object – Generate QR Code. From the Content tab, you can choose which of 5 main classes of QR code information you want to create: Text, Website, Text Message, Email or Business Card/Contact Information. The Color tab will let you change the QR code from standard Black to one of your other Swatch colors. When you click OK, the code loads onto your cursor for placement (or if you already selected a placeholder box, it places itself on the page). It can be resized to any dimension needed and is a high fidelity graphic object – in other words, it behaves just like a vector piece of artwork.

To automatically generated MULTIPLE QR codes through a Data Merge, the key lies in correctly entering the data in your Data Source .csv or .txt file. You will need to create a column (in Excel for example) and – this is the important part – name the column beginning with a hashtag (for example, “#QRcodes“). Within that column you can mix and match any of the 5 types of codes, but the data entries must be in the following formats:

For plain text: simple, just enter the text you want to be encoded.
For an SMS Text Message: SMSTO:<Phone number>:<Message> Example: SMSTO:8285551919:Call me!
For a Website Hyperlink: URL:<url> Example: URL:http://www.imagesmith.com
For and Email Message: MATMSG:\nTo:<email address>\nSUB:<subject>;\nBODY:;;<body of email> Example: MATMSG:\nTo:name@gmail.com\nSUB:Your Subject;\nBODY:;;bodyofemail
For Contact or Business Card Info: BEGIN:VCARD\nVERSION:2.1\nN:<last name>;<first name>\nFN:<full name>\nORG:<your workplace>\nTITLE:<job title>\nTEL;CELL:<cell number>\nTEL;WORK;VOICE:<voice number>\nADR;WORK:;;<address>;<city>;<state>;<zip>;<country>\nEMAIL;WORK;INTERNET:<email address>\nURL:<website url>\nEND:VCARD

Back in InDesign, choose Select Data Source on the Data Merge panel options and then link the .txt or .csv file you created to this document. Draw a box as the placeholder for where you want the QR codes to print on your page. Now link that placeholder to the data by selecting it and then clicking the “qrcodes” field title in the Data Merge panel (the hashtag you put on that column in Excel will not show up in InDesign, but it does allow InDesign to recognize that data as QR code information). Your placeholder will then have a dashed border selection line around it, signifying it will create QR codes when merged.

Finally, merge your document either by choosing “Create Merged Document” (which will give you a multi-page InDesign document) or “Export to PDF” (which creates the finished multi-page PDF file). If your InDesign document is a 2-pager and you have an .txt or .csv file of 100 entries linked, you will create a 200 page PDF file.

One snag: I cannot figure out how to generate QR codes this way in any color other than black. While InDesign lets you choose a color for individual codes you create within the application, I have not been able to find out how to “colorize” the placeholder for the merge in order to generate multiple QR codes through Data Merge that are any color other than black. If you know, please tell us how. If not, then perhaps that ability will come in a future update.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

July 11, 2014

Sex and the Logo: Creative Typography in Showtime’s “Masters of Sex” Series and Beyond

This post is definitely SFW. No worries.

SEX – a loaded subject in the marketing world, and one that carries interesting choices for the graphic designer. The word itself ignites a hint of controversy when used in a headline, title or logo. While more common in song and book titles, the television and motion picture industries have used the word sparingly in project names, cautiously conscious of the line between art and pornography. Designers, when faced with a project using the word ‘sex’ in it’s title must simultaneously gauge how to temper AND excite potential reactions to the word in some way that will accurately reflect the intent of the project. That’s a touchy assignment. Good design will often push at the boundaries of acceptability within evolving cultural norms. Take for instance Showtime’s new series “Masters of Sex.”

This cable series is about the famous researchers Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson who, beginning in the 1950s, did pioneering study on human sexuality. The very name itself is a little double extendre, so it is no surprise that the logo reflects that very creatively. The slightly bawdy typographic logo features the “E” in “Sex” pushed over onto it’s back. Due to some carefully planned serifs, a new shape that just might be the groin area of a female figure appears with the help of the type’s negative space. Now the image is subtle enough that some see it as a martini glass, or a bikini thong. But that confusion in interpretation is just fine with Showtime, as it generates interest in the image and thus the show. The logo lets the viewer feel they are in on a joke, that we “got it.”

In some markets, Showtime has had to stand the “E” up, proper and respectable-like!, for outdoor billboard advertising so as not to run afoul of local decency laws. TV Guide reports that Donald Buckley, executive VP of program marketing and digital services at Showtime, said the point was to “strike a balance between subtle and salacious. ‘It’s intended to be sexy and maybe a little suggestive,’ he says, ‘but also ambiguous.'” (source)

Apparently there is a controversy over who designed the racy logo. In the TV Guide article, Buckley says a “freelancer” designed it, but doesn’t name names. French designer Abdallah Ahizoune had the original concept posted on Behance and other outlets back in 2011 – see it here – but has not been given proper credit by Showtime as of yet. Oddly enough, the Showtime trailer for the series does not show the logo with the sexy “E”, nor does the website itself, though many other print and online ad campaigns do make use of it. LogoThief is following that part of the story.

So historically, using the word SEX in a logo for TV or the movies has been, in and of itself, enough of a risk that few titles go there. Back in 1926, Mae West wrote, produced, directed and starred in a Broadway play named “Sex” – for which she was arrested and spent 10 days incarcerated on Roosevelt Island. Times have changed. Back in the 1960s, Helen Gurley Brown’s bestseller “Sex and the Single Girl” was made into a motion picture. Some of the marketing material made use of the male and female gender symbols that represent Mars and Venus – slightly shifting the focus from “sex” in a salacious sense to one more of gender roles and conflict. It was a comedy after all.

By 1989, the famously successful indie movie sex, lies, and videotape decided the name itself carried enough intrigue: the logo type was set in all lower case in a sans serif font. More recently, the logo for the popular HBO series Sex and the City chose to focus more on the ‘City’ than the ‘Sex,’ displaying the skyline of Manhattan around the words of the title. While the series certainly never shied away from sexual content, the logo design chose to steer clear of overtly advertising it.

I couldn’t find any other successful films or television shows that specifically included the word “sex” in their title. Considering it is so often a central topic, that is a telling fact. So it’s interesting to see how graphic designers have deftly handled these projects by walking a careful line when creating compelling movie posters and advertising. Isn’t it amazing what can be suggested by just the turn of one letter?

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