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Service Professional Referral Service
I’ve recently signed up with Thumbtack, an online referral site for service professionals. I’m looking forward to exploring the options for my posting and pointing customers to my website, blog and email.
Pet Peeves
OK, this wouldn’t be a bona fide blog if I didn’t air my grievaences once in a while.
I really enjoy the show “How It’s Made” on the Science Channel. But every once in a while when referring to something really small they say it’s “8000 times smaller than a can of peas” or whatever. C’mon, you can say 8000 times larger, but “times” is used for multiplication, not division. How about saying “1/8000th the thickness of”?
Whew, I’m glad I got that important topic off my chest.
Social Media
I haven’t posted on this blog much in the last few weeks, but I have been spending a lot of time on Facebook. My wife had open heart surgery in November, and I created a Facebook page to keep our family and friends updated on her condition. (She’s doing quite well now.) It’s a reminder that social media is more than just a playground; it’s a useful tool to stay in contact with family and friends, and even … {gasp} … clients.
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Tagged Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Management, Twitter
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I’ve been busy
Sorry I haven’t posted for a week or so. My wife has had surgery and she is my main focus right now.
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Rich Black
We’ve talked about how printers use Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK (CMYK) inks to reproduce color. The black ink used is more of a really dark gray. If there’s black text in the document 100% black is just fine. But if you want a really dark black for a graphic element, 100% black will look kind of muddy. So add a new color to your color palette. Build it from 100% Black, 20% Cyan, 30% Magenta, and 30% Yellow. That’ll give you a nice, rich, neutral black.
Here lies the body of Lester Moore
Here lies the body of Lester Moore,
Two shots from a forty-four,
No Les, No Moore.
Less can be more. Lots of white space is eye-catching. If you want someone’s attention, whisper.
Yeah, yeah, that’s all good Moderne Marketing and all that, but sometimes more is more. A lot can be said for the detailed sales letter with lots of information, testimonials and a killer call to action.
In Dan Kennedy’s “NO BS” books, he makes a strong case for letting go with both barrels, then monitoring the results to determine the best way to contact your potential clients. Then you can spend your marketing dollars most efficiently
Tri-Fold Brochure
When designing a tri-fold brochure, don’t make all three panels the same size. The panel that folds inside the other panels will be a little smaller. If you haven’t allowed for that in your layout, the copy on each panel will not look centered once you get the brochure from the print shop.
So plan ahead. Ask your print shop if they have panel dimensions they prefer to use. Their answer may depend on the weight of the paper used in the brochure.
As a rule of thumb, I use 3 23/32 for the two outside panels, and 3 9/16 for the inside panel.
I use vistaprint.com (@Vistaprint ) for some of my printing. They do good work and their prices are very good. They have templates available on their website for laying out many different printed pieces.
Posted in Design, Layout
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Eiminate Widows and Orphans
A sure sign of inattentive typesetting and layout is a single word on the last line of a paragraph, or the the last couple of words of a paragraph at the beginning of a page. One of those is a widow; the other is an orphan. For the life of me I don’t know which is which. But fercryinoutloud use your soft return or kerning to eradicate them!
RGB vs CMYK
OK, Here I am jumping into the color model fray.
How come there are so many ways to define colors? Isn’t color just color?
I remember back in grade school that when I mixed red and blue paint, I got purple paint. And yellow plus blue equals green. That’s the basis of the CMYK color model used in the printing industry. If you look at a magazine photo through a magnifying lens, you’ll see the image is really made of little blue, red, yellow and black dots.
The colors are Cyan (light blue) Magenta (kinda pink) Yellow and Black (the “K” in CMYK. K stands for Key. Go figure.). Light colors are used because when you mix inks (or paints) things tend to get darker. Black is used to add definition and contrast.
On the other hand, computer monitors and TVs use colored light (rather than pigment) to create images. The more light the brighter the image. So they start with darker Red, Green and Blue (RGB) and mix them to get the color desired.
When all three colors are shown in equal parts, white is displayed.
I’m sure any physicist can give you an accurate explanation of this stuff, but this is the way I understand it.
So how does this affect a designer? When you scan a photo or take a digital picture it’s created in RGB. That’s because you’re working with light. There isn’t any pigment involved. If you’re going to have your image printed on a press, somewhere along the line it’ll have to be converted to CMYK. PhotoShop does an excellent job of this conversion. But your print shop may need a different conversion formula than PhotoShop’s default. SO TALK TO YOUR PRINTER. They may want you to give them the images in RGB so they can convert it in-house. Or they may give you a custom profile to apply to your images.
Posted in Design, Photography
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