Creative Corner

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Danielle Spiewak — Tue, 24 May 2011 21:13:10 +0000

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LOGOS

Danielle Spiewak — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:53:58 +0000

Send me your logo. Those four words sound like such a simple request, however the results I get after making that request are so varied, I thought it was worth a conversation.   Send me your logo. I get a tiny square with some pixels in it with a resolution of 72 dpi in a jpg format. The client took her own logo off her website and sent it. She can’t remember where the original file is.   Send me your logo. I get an envelope in the mail with a piece of letterhead. Centered at the top is the 2 color logo with a nice note on the page that says: use this.   Send me your logo. I get a beautiful 4-color hi-res jpg file, but the client wants a spot color logo for a postcard mailer.   In every case above, I have to recreate the logo, and I won’t do that for nothin’! Like my building contractor tells me: it’s harder to rehab a broken logo than it is to build a brand new one. OK, I paraphrased.   When your cousin’s brother-in-law’s neighbor offers to do your logo for you, this is what you should demand, even if it is free. 

The logo should be done in a vector format with spot colors for maximum flexibility.
It should be saved as a .jpg and an .eps for almost every application you will ever need it for.
It should be saved as color, black and white , and reversed out of solid. That’s three versions.
It should be accompanied by a basic graphic standard statement, explaining the usage, the brand colors and the fonts.   Anything less than that and your logo is going to cost you later no matter how free it was in the first place.

This article was originally posted in January of 2011 in Dan Monge's Mac IT Pros E-Newsletter.

The Printing Process Reviewed. It really isn't magic.

Danielle Spiewak — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:52:42 +0000

I have a client ("Joe") who asked me to do an oblong card the other day and was annoyed when I asked too many questions about it. He told me he needed a bunch. I asked him what size, and he said he didn't care. I asked him how many colors and he said to make it pretty. He hung up before I could ask about stock, finish, folding, mailing, and where he wanted them delivered.

So for Joe and everyone else who needs to understand that the printing medium is not the same as a medium with a crystal ball, lets talk facts and figures and understand what they mean.

Quantity and color. They actually go hand in hand. If, like Joe, you want to get the cheapest price, black ink is cheapest. If, like Joe, you want it pretty, there are 4 color printing systems for short runs (a few hundred up to a few thousand) that make color printing economical like never before. It is ok to ask for comparisons on black vs color, but you have to ask for a specific number. A bunch is not a number. Like cookies by the dozen, the more you buy, the less they are, so if you can get your numbers higher, the per piece price drops. Sometimes a bunch!

Size.This goes with the above hand in glove. Different presses print things in different ways. Joe may think 8.5 x 11 is the only size paper comes in, but, in fact, even his finished newsletter on 8.5 x 11 may have been printed on a piece of paper much larger. The trick is the printer puts several newsletters on one piece of paper and then cuts them down after the piece is printed. To illustrate: Imagine business cards. I can get 8 business cards on one letter-sized sheet, but I can get 16 on one 11 x 17 sheet. So if my press or printer can run 11 x 17, I get twice as many cards on each pass through the press. This is how printers estimate jobs. It is a science to figure out how many pieces fit on a press at one time with the least amount of paper wasted. So when Joe changes his mind and wants his oblong piece to be 9 inches instead of 8 inches, it throws the entire estimate off-may even change the press the job runs on, and how much paper is wasted on the job.

Stock.This is the brand, the weight, the color and the finish of the paper you are running. Printers often have house stocks that are affordable and available so ask about those first. The next question to ask is if the piece will be mailed. The stock has to be heavy enough for postal standards (7pt). After that, let a professional take you through the different stocks and finishes available. That is a forest you don't need to get lost in. TIP: err on the side of heavier, whiter, and non-glossy decisions when in doubt. Take it from me, the problems usually arise if the paper is too thin, not white enough, and too glossy to write on.

Even Joe knew he didn't need folding on his oblong card, but if you do want something folded, plan for a small increase in the price and the exact way you want to have it folded, yes there is more than one way.

ALWAYS have a written quote and make sure you understand what it says. Hopefully this review will help the next time you want a bunch of pretty things printed.

This article was originally posted in August of 2010 in Dan Monge's Mac IT Pros E-Newsletter.

Developing a brand identity. Who Am I to You?

Danielle Spiewak — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:50:04 +0000

For those who spend time with marketing professionals, you know the lingo: branding, identity, visual messaging. Here is a primer on what it means for your business and why you should care about it, no matter how small your budget or your company.

Companies need identities just like the people who work in them. Think about all the organizations you come into contact with, whether they have thought about branding or not. Sports teams, corner gas stations, big corporations, your bank, not to mention clubs and non-profits, politicians, even schools-all have an identity of some kind, not always what they wish their identity was. For instance, all the local BP gas station owners are wishing they had a different logo over their pumps at the moment. That "branding" is the psychological sense that customers hold of the organization or business. When a company brands itself, it chooses to control it's own identity through verbal and visual messaging rather than letting the customers "figure out" what the company is all about. There are obvious limits to what you can do to change or create a perception, but those limits are pushed through good brand identity planning and implementation.

Let's take a local car repair business as an example. They had a nondescript identity. It was the "corner garage" and their customers came primarily from referrals. They asked JonesHouse to help them with their "marketing" in the sense that they needed a simple website. We could see they needed an identity even more. We helped them to define themselves with the use of classic/collector automobile images and bits of chrome and custom paint to convey a fun sense of "Auto as Art" in their visual branding. This gave the psychological feel of quality and attention to detail we all want when we have our cars repaired. The psychological message we intended to convey was "If they can appreciate a classic car, they will do a good job on mine." Because we know how to make things "look good" the identity of the shop improved-we tapped into a cultural love for a beautifully restored vintage car. But the verbal messaging emphasized the affordable aspect of the shop. "We provide high-end car repair at inexpensive rates." This new sense of who the company is can be incorporated into all aspects of marketing, from business cards, to website, to radio spots. The consistency of identity gets the company noticed.

We think it is amusing how often we need to defend the value of a good visual marketing plan. Too many businesses think they don't need one. A quick glance at the marketing budgets of large corporations should convince even the smallest business that image matters. We accept that first impressions count when we meet a new client and we spend money on our own "imaging" every time we go to the barber, the mall or the salon. What your Brand Identity says about you can be a powerful tool to improve your business both from within and without. This is more than having a logo, it helps define your company for yourself, your employees and your clients. Regardless of size or budget, you need to Brand and you need an Identity Plan.

Want another example of a terrific brand identity plan? APPLE!

This article was originally posted in July of 2010 in Dan Monge's Mac IT Pros E-Newsletter.

Using The Right Program

Danielle Spiewak — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:48:55 +0000

There is tremendous confusion in do-it-yourselfers who think Microsoft Word can do it all. It can not. And if you force it to be a layout program to make your document look "nice," it sometimes bites you. Word documents can do any number of things that you never intended. Fonts will change, graphics will drop out, and formatting will differ from the original once you send out a Word document from your computer, especially across platforms. And you won't even know it unless you see it on another computer with different fonts.

If the design and layout of a document is important, consider using an industry standard like InDesign or QuarkXpress and save them as pdf files for press or email. There are many cheaper layout programs as well, and, if you are using the document as email attachments or desktop printing, they'll work just fine. If you are investing money in printing on press (offset or digital), use a professional layout program or a graphic designer to get the job done right. Printers will sometimes offer this service just to avoid the headache of trying to wrangle your document into a press-ready job. This is no place for a Word document.

If you are stuck with Word, one trick is to create a pdf from your Word document using Adobe Acrobat to keep formatting and fonts behaving as you intended. Adobe saved the day with their free Reader program years ago. Virtually everyone has Adobe Reader, and if not, its a free download. But you will need to have the more expanded Adobe Acrobat, in order to save your document as a pdf. Adobe offers FREE trials. If you insist on using Word for your layout program, do not waste your time making it look "nice."

TIPS
Rule of Thumb: Photoshop is for photographic images; Illustrator is for logos, graphs and line drawings; InDesign is for layout; Word is for word processing; Adobe Acrobat is for everybody. Mixing these up can cause big problems down the road.

This article was originally posted in June of 2010 in Dan Monge's Mac IT Pros E-Newsletter.

Hi Res Images

Danielle Spiewak — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:47:27 +0000

So often I am given images that are unusable for print publications. I am always requesting hi-res jpgs from clients and they sometimes are confused how to get their images into a higher resolution, or what that means. They will tell me they took it off their website and the image looked great there. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

To begin, a rule-of-thumb for a high res image is 300 ppi at a reasonable size (close to the actual printed size). PPI refers to how many pixels, or tiny digital fragments, make up one inch (pixels per inch). The more fragments or pixels the crisper the image, the less pixels, the more blurry or "pixelated" the image. To check image resolution, open image in Preview or Photoshop. In Preview go to Tools>Adjust Image Size, and check the resolution. In Photoshop go to Image>Image Size. If the resolution seems low, check the overall dimensions above. If they are very large, like 34 inches by 28 inches, you will be able to reduce the overall size and increase the ppi of your image enough to be considered high res. Conversely, if the image is 300 ppi but 1 inch by 1.5 inches, you will not be able to increase the overall size without decreasing the ppi. If the original image does not exist in hi-res, you can't make it so by simply increasing pixels. However, if you have an even higher resolution than 300 ppi, do not despair. You have a great image that can be blown up larger, cropped in, or just look very crisp in your publication. Always save hi-res images and create a new down-sized low-res image for web applications or emails, if necessary. Use the highest res images for press printing.

TIP: If the image is less than 700 KB, it is unlikely that it is high enough res. If the image is 1MB or more, it is probably good for press. This is not always an accurate measure but if I receive 100 KB file (or smaller), I don't even bother to look at it.

This article was originally posted in April of 2010 in Dan Monge's Mac IT Pros E-Newsletter.

D-I-Y Sinners

Danielle Spiewak — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:31:39 +0000

Often when clients show me their do-it-yourself newsletters and web pages, asking for a critique, I find a multitude of design sins, some so shocking I blush. So here are three of the greater sins to avoid in your do-it-yourself publishing.

Do not use too many fonts.
If you want a professional newsletter look, use a maximum of three fonts. A good mix is to use one san serif bold font (ie. Helvetica Bold) for headings, a regular serif font (ie. Times) for body copy and a "fun" font (ie. Comic Sans MS) sparingly for a highlight only where a larger size can help legibility. Do not ever use "fun" fonts for body copy or headings throughout a publication. They are very hard to read and lose their appeal quickly.

Keep away from the edges.
Using boxes to offset a side-bar, special information, or an ad, is a great design element to break-up a page of type. However, I often see the box frame up against the type or page frame. There should be a comfortable space on either side of a box frame. Adding the box element can be done in numerous ways, here is one: In InDesign, draw a separate text box, select, Menu: Options> Text Frame Options > inset. Try 0.125". Always align the text frame with the copy above and below. Use the text wrap tool if you are placing the box in the page copy.

Do not hyphenate unless you are using justified columns.
Hyphenation is unnecessary and makes legibility difficult. Turn-off hyphenation in InDesign (paragraph> uncheck hyphenation) throughout a document unless you need to justify a column. Justification also reduces legibility, though is often the preferred look, where both margins are aligned. It is a more formal and traditional approach to typesetting, a hold-over from manuscripts and early movable type which often appeared in a two column format on the page. Words are forced to space apart or jam together to keep the margins aligned. Allowing hyphenation lessens the forced spacing. Increasing the column width also helps justified columns keep hyphenation to a minimum. Avoid justifying single column formats.

TIP: The most readable column is ideally less than 5 inches wide, ragged right and unhyphenated.

This article was originally posted in March of 2010 in Dan Monge's Mac IT Pros E-Newsletter.