As a web and print designer I know the choice of type faces can dramatically change the look of a project ..from dreamy and soft ..to hard and down to business.
Like everything in life we have favorites .. and my type face of the moment is Gill Sans.
A clear a modern type, it was created by Eric Gill(1882-1940) and is still very much in use today.
Graphic design both in web and print is a tool for conveying a message, creating a mood evoking a feeling.
Ever thought about secret messages that can be hidden in designs? Check out this site on secret messages for kids ..grown-ups will enjoy it too!
Now here’s something refreshing.
A few years back I discovered that a certain company that, shall remain nameless, “stole” a huge chunk of a web site content we created including custom illustrations and posted it on their own site as their own work.
Annoyed is the only polite phrase I can use here, but to suffice to say the problem was swiftly dealt with!
Ever since I have been on the lookout for similar happenings and it comes as refreshing suprise when we are actually contacted about the use of a piece of work. Today for instance I have had a request from someone wanting to use a piece or art posted on one of our sites… we have contacted the artist to ask permission … so we will wait and see!
As indicated last week our own site was undergoing some design modifications to improve usability.
These modifications are now complete and were made live this morning!
The changes were primarily driven by our expanding portfolio and the need for better presentation in this area, but we took the opportunity to update navigation and add a section on our methodology.
Visit us at www.indigoimage.com
How’s this for a piece of great driveway art done by a young budding St Louis artist!
An Indigo Image client, Bob Stockdale, recently went down to volunteer in the Hurricane Katrina disaster zone. He took an amazing set of pictures and we have created a web gallery which is linked through his web site.
Check them out at www.bobstockdale.com
I was recently asked by a local business newspaper ( St Louis Small Business Monthly) to give my thoughts on the best gift I’d been given that had help my business grow.
My mind immediately turned to a fantastic cordless mouse which has made me more productive and less fatigued in front of my machine.
I recently went back to working with a corded mouse while I set up a new machine.. it nearly drove me crazy and within a day my wrist and whole arm ached. The ergonomics of my work station directly relates to how creative I can be..if I am uncomfortable those creative juices dry up.
I recently came across a great illustration of how powerful Cascading style sheets are in in web site design.
The following site links to eight seeming differnt site designs..however the HTML code for each of the pages is exactly the same. The only difference is the style sheet linked to them.
Check it out and see Click here
As a web designer keeping my designs fresh and avoiding the “formula trap” where everything I create looks the same is very important.
Inspiration comes from many avenues but it always starts with the client .. interpreting their ideas, listening to their goals and objectives, gaining an understanding of their business and market position.
But inspiration comes from more suprising avenues too:-
– flicking through a magazine
– a particular song
– I even once had a flash of inspiration while filling my car up with gas..was it the smell of the gas or something else!
As a web designer and business owner it is important to keep the hardware of my company up to date. Computers over three years old are gracefully retired and replaced.
I recently purchase a new Dell and selected a flat panel monitor when customising my options. It arrived in record time and I am now in the process of loading it with software and generally getting it ready to “go into production”
I have to say when I first got it all hooked up and turned it on I was very disappointed with the monitor. I had it set at my usual monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 but the text was fuzzy, blurry and just not good at all. I fiddled with the setting of the monitor, I fiddled with the setting in “control panel” but nothing I did improved the situation.
I did a Google search and it looked as a lot of people were in the same boat. I was ready to call Dell.
But comparing my old monitor with my new one I noticed that the screens were not the same dimension. My old monitor had an aspect ratio of 4:3 while the new one has an aspect ratio of 5:4. This explained my problem. You have to match the aspect ratio of the monitor with the aspect ratio of the dispay settings. No wonder I was getting distorted text.
The more common aspect ratio is 4:3 but it appears that many of the new flat pannel monitors have the 5:4 aspect ratio…. which expains why there seems to be so many people having the same problem as me.
A 4:3 aspect ratio monitor will dispay properly if the control panel(dispay) is set at one of the following
While a 5:4 aspect ratio needs the dipay set at
I am glad to say my problem was fixed by setting my monitor display to 1280 x 1024 through my control panel.
