Edipati

The Evolution of Web-Design

2008-08-01T12:59:00.000+06:00

by simpova

The evolution of web-design is very interesting. The web pages during the earliest days of Internet were as simple as a textual document. Tim Burners Lee, the inventor of the Internet is considered as the creator of the first web page. After that, the websites became more complicated and various complex designing tricks and codes came into the play. Even during late 1990s, the websites were developed using text effects and colors. The designs were as simple as a brochure.

Later, people understood the power of Internet and websites. With the Internet boom, they tried to change the appeal and looks of their websites completely. They tried to develop the websites that are visually compelling and attract the visitors. The websites became the info-house of a business or a company. The use of colors became more attractive and thoughtful. Though these websites did will for sometimes, people started to run away from them after a certain time.
Basically, these websites had the problems of overlapping colors, huge texts, and some eye-popping text effects.

After this, the golden period of the Web Design Missouri came. Learning from their past mistakes, people started to develop some engaging websites, which permitted the visitors to focus on the premier products or services they were offering. But then the Internet users were going through the learning curve. They started to think that a simple website is designed cheaply and used to show their backs towards the website. Observing this problem, most of the web designers started to use the interactive Flash-movies to impress the visitors.

Web designers used the techniques like DHTML, HTML, and Flash to create the websites. The table-based designs used in those days were good but they had some limitations also. In that case the designer had to write lots of codes and implementing style on each was very difficult job. To get rid of that problem the technique of CSS was introduced and the designers liked it very much. Most importantly, CSS is not a table-based web design technique at all. The designer can use the div-tag to assign the styles.

In these days, the websites are very much matured and they are optimized properly for the search engine results. Web Layouts are the latest trends in the field of web designing these days. The layouts are used to direct the attention of a visitor to the premiere content of a website, not the design. The concept of Liquid Layout is already thrown into the garbage.

The designers are now motivated to create perfect layout. They keep the background very simple and leave the outside of the layouts blank to elude the distraction. Good designers embed the videos on the Web Sites Development Missouri to provide some dynamic contents. They use the icons and the images to highlight all-important points on a website. Reflection effects and the 3-D effects are the latest trends of web designing.

http://www.articlebin.com/view-The_Evolution_of_Web_Design-146080.html

The present scenario with WEB Designing

2008-07-28T12:33:00.002+06:00

by Smit Mathur

A website is a web page or a collection of interrelated web pages that convey some common theme or sell a particular business. These web pages are made with the help of scripting tools and languages. The web pages are often made very designer, colorful, and catchy in order to popularize business better. Good web design is a very important feature of a good website.

Adequate and useful product/ service/ theme information together with a suitable
Web design is a definite asset for your website any day. Such a web design significantly improves your chances of making it big via internet, around the globe in the least amount of time.

Anyone who is creative and has the knowledge of scripting languages can easily take up web design as a career. The various tools and scripting languages used in web designing are HTML, XML, DHTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), JavaScript, and various other web languages. The website is viewed by using suitable GUIs (graphical user interfaces).

Web design lets you enrich your website with images (GIFs, JPEGs, and PNGs), display animations, videos, sounds and other vector graphics, but you are required to have additional plug-ins such as quick time, flash player, java run time environments pre-installed. With tags you can embed some plug-ins into the websites design by using HTML or XMHTL. There are two types of website design pages, namely, static and dynamic. The content and layout of static pages cannot be changed without the help of a programmer or a web master.

Web design in Australia and other parts of the world is ragingly a growing market. There is immense revenue potential as the half the world is still to go online. Small and large businesses are increasingly taking up to online face to access global markets.

Website design across Australia, US, UK and other global leaders of technology is based on state of the art technology. The countries are developed and lend a cutting edge to the global competition. As a result, web design and development services are getting cheaper and more approachable for the small companies. Not to mention, the big fishes of the commercial sea are gaining their share of leverage by developing extremely high-tech and successful websites for a reasonable budget.

5 Ultimate Graphic Design Mistakes - Things that graphic designers should avoid at all costs

2008-07-28T12:22:00.001+06:00

1. Using web graphics on printed material

With many young designers coming from a pre-dominantly web design background the transfer over from web design to traditional design for print can bring with it a multitude of design sins. Images supplied at 72dpi and crunched down to load fast on a website are going to reproduce very badly in print you can get away with small thumbnails but blowing things up to any appreciable size is going to be pushing your luck. There are a number of online sites offering free or very cheap quality hi resolution images which are a good source for suitable imagery.

2. Forgetting about or not allowing enough bleed.

A very common error is to send to print a document or flattened image that has no bleed at all. Generally speaking you should allow at least 3mm around every cut off edge. Failing to do so will give the printers no leeway and will either crop off the side of the page or give you a white border. It is always a good idea when supplying image files to save layered psd files then if things need extending or cropping you can do this on the background layer and hopefully cut down your work

3. Using obscure fonts and not embedding or outlining them for output.

We've all been guilty of this at some point and things are generally fine if you are going to be the only person accessing your artwork or documents. However if someone else needs to amend the files or use your vector logo on one of there publications. Unless you package up the used fonts, they are not going to be able to open the files correctly and some software programs may replace any unknown fonts with a default. This is a particular problem when you need to dig out stuff that was created several years previously and you no longer have your old fonts installed.

4. Supplying print ready artwork using spot colours or rgbThere are valid reasons for using spot colours in artwork, logos that need to reference particular pantone colours for example. In general design work however most print is sent through on 4 colour presses CMYK with occasional 5th colour for luminoius or metallic colour or for spot UV varnish. It is very common for lazy designers to just place rgb images into files and expect the vibrant colours seen on screen to reproduce in print.

5. Allowing design illiterate clients to lead you round the houses.
The customer is always right, goes the old adage. However it is often said with gritted teeth and a sense of patience that recognizes that these morons will at some stage be handing over a fat cheque for your troubles. It is often a good idea when first submitting visuals to throw in a couple of stinkers to hopefully get them to appreciate the design you would like them to accept. There is the very real danger of course of them loving the piece of absolute arsewipe that you knocked up in five minutes to make them think you've been earning your money. Still it's a living.

http://www.topdesignarticles.com/article36.html

Membuat Gambar Berbasis Vektor

2007-08-09T03:07:00.000+05:00

Salah satu fungsi adobe illustrator adalah mampu membuat foto (yang berbasis bitmap atau pixel) menjadi vektor. Caranya pun simpel. Cukup dengan membuka image yg hendak kita jadikan vektor. Selanjutnya ikuti petunjuk berikut ini: Object>Live Trace>Tracing Options. Setelah itu akan muncul dialog box, aturlah sampai pada hasil yang Anda inginkan. Jangan lupa mengaktifkan tombol Preview untuk melihat langsung hasil vektor yg tengah Anda kerjakan. Kali ini saya memakai ukuran dalam Tracing Options sebagai berikut:

Berikut ini hasil sederhana dari olah vektor pada program Adobe Illustrator, gambar pertama adalah sebelum diolah menjadi vektor, dan kedua setelah menjadi vektor.

menjadi

Selamat Mencoba.:)

Gud News for Indonesian Designers

2007-07-07T01:54:00.000+05:00

Jakarta, for Indonesian graphic designers, here is your chance. A competition held by Detikinet.com for simply designing a simple shirt. Some ammazing prizes are awaiting for the winners. If it is your lucky day of creativity win BlackBerry 8707v, Nokia 7360, Digicam Casio EX-Z60. Are you interested in such competition and need more details, just click here:

http://www.detikinet.com/index.php/detik.read/tahun/2007/bulan/07/tgl/03/time/094559/idnews/799389/idkanal/455

No need to worry, everything is free of cost :-). warm regards.

About Flickr and Fotografer

2007-06-17T03:22:00.000+05:00

Flickr.com is a famous place to find many pictures. It is specially designed to be among the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. As there are two main goals to be achieved, viz; 1. to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them. And 2. to enable new ways of organizing photos, flicker makes all ways to it easier and simpler.

The visitors –even not a member— are fortunately enabled to explore what the site have. Specially for the members, they can easily upload and share each other their pictures by simple process available in the web. Actually many things can be done by a photographer or pics collectors, the least they did is only to keep a blog of moments containing some images captured on their cameraphone, or probably they want to show off their best pictures to the whole world in a bid for web celebrity. Flickr makes all these things possible and simple to do. Don’t you want to share photos of your kids and families so that, even probably they are far away in distance, they are still in your memory and sight.

Practically, flickr get photos into and out of the system in as many ways they can. It includes the web, mobile devices, the users' home computers and many other softwares they are using to manage their photo. Then flickr push them out in as many ways as possible: on the Flickr website, in RSS feeds, by email, by posting to outside blogs or ways we haven't thought of yet. Just visit www.flickr.com if you are not sure about this info.

As its second goal is to enable new ways of organizing photos, flickr really makes the process of organizing photos collaborative. In Flickr, you can give your friends, family, and other contacts permission to organize your photos - not just to add comments, but also notes and tags.

Looking at flickr photos, it is probably like looking at an album. Just the difference is it is made from the switch to digital. So that it is easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer number of photos you take with that itchy trigger finger.

About Fotografer.net
Fotografer.net is built by two closely pals; Valens Riyadi and Kristupa Siragih. Both are well delightfully lovers of photography. Thus, the site was build up to provide place for those minds interested in photography. The main goal of the site is to provide and to widely open chance to the photographers with their different works and styles of photography. After that, in order to know the quality of the photos they shall open for any comments and suggestions from anothers.

Fotograver.net is an Indonesian open site, so contrary to the flickr.com. However, everyone can visit, join, place a photo (or photos) and furthermore either to comment or be commented. The member will get more rating by uploading his photos and posting comments to other photos owned by another members. More rating is also possible by willingly posting some articles relating to the site. This is the essence of photographic world in which those who have same likes and interests shall promote each other to become an expert one.

Read more about flickr and fotografer in another articles.
source: www.flicker.com and www.fotografer.net

Indonesian Embassy - Islamabad

2007-06-16T00:20:00.000+05:00

Web Konjen Karachi Pakistan

2007-06-15T23:50:00.000+05:00

Perfection Meets Reality

2007-06-11T02:52:00.000+05:00

It’s easy to sit back and preach about how a web team should operate, but it’s rare that we really consider and appreciate the realities and challenges involved. We’re going to take a look at how the team behind NYTimes.com, a real team with real constraints, has learned to work together to create one of the best online news experiences in the world. While their situation isn’t perfect, it’s an impressive story of unity, balance, and communication that makes the few imperfections of the site that much more interesting.

Khoi Vinh, the team’s design director, shared some insight about how it happens, and not surprisingly there were several themes that resonated throughout our dialogue. One of the aspects of NYTimes.com that I was most curious about was the transition to a tableless layout, and not surprisingly, Khoi had nothing but good things to say about the change.

We went over to a basically ninety-five percent table-free site in April with the launch of this latest redesign. Well, it’s been great because it’s allowed us to be more flexible with the look and feel strictly through style sheets.

The more subtle point here is the “ninety-five percent.” For creative professionals, anything less than a hundred percent is often hard to swallow. However, in the context of the real world, we often have to look past that five percent, and see the bigger picture. That ninety-five percent is enough to enable flexibility and create a great experience for the visitor. The last five percent is sometimes not worth the investment.

Be Reasonable About Reality

It’s important—no, imperative—to appreciate the reality of being a creative professional and the constraints we face. Whether designing or coding, creative professionals are tasked with a responsibility to think outside of the box and create visionary solutions to every problem. At the same time, management expects us to keep it in the box of time and money.

So right off the bat, we’re faced with diametrically opposing forces, and both groups need to understand and respect that situation. At times, the creative professionals need to scale back their ideas or quality to meet deadlines. On the flip side, management needs to respect and trust their team’s advice that sometimes quality is more important than the deadline. In my experience, there are very few deadlines or resource plans that are truly inflexible, and just as few projects that couldn’t stand to launch sooner and perform some cleanup after the fact.

The point here is that reducing quality and re-evaluating deadlines are both fair options. Sometimes, the former is the correct choice, and other times it will be the latter. The predicament is that the final decision-maker is usually the one responsible for the deadlines. So, it’s important that management respects the team members and their professional opinions when making these decisions, and weighs the options accordingly. As creative professionals, though, it’s important to recognize that we, as Khoi so eloquently states, “can’t exist in a vacuum outside of the business realities.” Both sides need to be reasonable about reality, and occasionally accept practical compromises for the greater good of the project and business.

A horrible product launched tomorrow is just as bad as a perfect product never launched. Somewhere in the middle is what we should aim for, while bearing in mind that we can march towards perfection with every update and release.

Pursue a Larger Shared Vision

That march toward perfection should happen in the context of a larger shared vision. At The New York Times, Khoi points out that, “By and large, everyone at the Times wants the same thing: to continue to provide the best journalism anywhere, and to make it as useful and relevant to people as possible.” For his team specifically, their sub-vision is, “deliver the news in as useful a manner as possible,” and, “deliver the news with a maximum of elegance using a minimum of ornamentation.”

Khoi goes on to explain how they judge everything by those standards. The vision will be different for every team, but articulating a vision breeds unity and a consistent measuring stick for making decisions when perfection and deadlines are competing. Otherwise, different individuals, by the very nature of their responsibilities, will have different priorities and values.

For The New York Times, the larger vision applies not just across the disciplines, it also applies across mediums. Khoi is quick to point out, it’s about “delivering the best journalism in the world in a way that’s useful and engaging to our audience,” and that it leads to a more unified team despite lower-level disagreements. Those disagreements, in my experience, are often the result of specialization bias.

Specialization bias is the situation where, when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. For instance, an engineer implementing a specific feature might run into part of a design that is incredibly difficult to code. Without consulting the team, he might choose to spend an extra couple of hours coding a solution. In this case, the engineer specializes in programming and as such, his perception is that writing additional code is always the solution. Perhaps if he’d communicate with other team members, he’d discover that the feature isn’t worth the level of effort required and that they should cut it and move on to more important pieces of the project.

Of course, for this to work effectively, either everyone on the team needs to have a solid understanding of the big picture, or the quality of communication needs to be especially high. By sharing, discussing, and exploring different options outside of a specialty, it’s more likely the the appropriate solution will be found.

Open the Lines of Communication

One of the easiest ways to work toward a balance is to create open lines of communication between the different disciplines. This includes management, technology, and user experience. If you have three groups with different criteria for measuring success, you’re going to find conflict. The more those groups share their problems and look for joint solutions, the more productive the team will be.

The NYTimes.com team, not surprisingly, embraces and encourages many of the easiest ways to open the lines of communication. The designers and technologists work hand-in-hand. Khoi does his best to build a team as “specialists each with a generalist’s open-mindedness to getting the job done,” and management respects the team’s professional opinions enough to provide the right amount of time and resources to do things properly.

On any team, that kind of respect and trust isn’t innate. It’s earned and nurtured the same way as any other relationship. It takes time, sharing, listening, and compromise. For example, in meetings or at every opportunity, team members can take the time to explain the why. That is, team members, particularly across disciplines, should make an effort to explain not only what they’re working on, but why. Khoi does this with his team through weekly meetings, but taking the time to more thoroughly communicate decisions can happen anytime.

Finding the Right Balance Across Disciplines and Mediums

Another benefit of explaining the why is that it implicitly helps team members see where to find the balance and make compromises when conflicts invariably arise. This why isn’t just important across disciplines, it can also come into play across mediums.

One of the cross-medium challenges we discussed was how a company traditionally grounded in one medium handled and responded to the rapidly changing environment of a new medium. Khoi admits that there is “discomfort with online practices from time to time,” but was quick to point out that they don’t encounter resistance or stubbornness, emphasizing that the process involves balance and compromise every step of the way.

In fact, he felt that the diversity of opinion across disciplines, under the right circumstances, creates a healthy atmosphere of debate and discussion. For instance, everyone may not agree with the translation of a print medium concept to the online medium, but the open-mindedness and ensuing discussion lead to a happy resolution for everyone.

Creating the Environment

Unfortunately, the environment for that discussion, debate, and sharing doesn’t just happen; it takes work—lots of it. Ideally, the environment in which high-quality user experiences could grow and evolve would just exist naturally. We wouldn’t have deadlines, equipment would be top of the line, and budgets would be unlimited. While that environment may never exist, the pursuit and creation of that environment, or one similar, can easily become a full-time job.

Khoi puts it best: “Design groups really need a strong, diplomatic leader who can help engender a climate for good design. There’s very little that can be done without that person, and it’s what I strive for every day in my job.” Performing that job and getting management buy-in requires building trust and respect. It’s about growing an understanding and educating the design and development teams—as well as management—so that all of the groups understand each other.

Maintain a Commitment to High Quality Code and Design

One of the areas that management may have difficulty understanding or valuing is that of investing time in writing good—or even great—code. Yet, high-quality code is critical for creating a site that can easily evolve. Thus, it behooves us to educate management so they understand that that creating better code engenders agility and flexibility, especially in terms of lower costs and quicker turnaround times on future updates.

Of course, the need for flexibility tomorrow comes at the cost of speed today. Balancing the present and the future becomes a constant, but valuable, struggle, and that struggle doesn’t end with code. Khoi makes an excellent point that it’s also important to create modular designs that not only translate nicely into code but have inherent flexibility for handling content changes elegantly, without requiring significant rework.

The job isn’t over for them though, and—as Khoi emphasizes with the team—setting aside time to go back and re-factor code that was launched on a deadline is often a lucrative investment. In fact, Khoi said they have gone to enormous lengths to do so. In some cases, it’s best to communicate with management that launching sooner means the team will need additional time afterwards to go back and make amends for any shortcuts that were taken to get the project out the door in time. Other times, as we’ve already discussed, it’s best to get that time up front.

Of course, merely writing good code isn’t always enough. In a good team, knowledge-sharing and communication often occurs through documentation. In the case of the NYTimes.com team, they make a concerted effort to fill a team wiki with their standards and guidelines to help streamline future work. This not only serves as a reference for current team members, it can help get new team members up to speed more rapidly.

A topic that isn’t limited to code is that of reuse. The NYTimes.com team is no stranger to reuse. Consistency in design, when appropriate, not only makes the experience more predictable for users, but enables modularity and encourages innate flexibility when that design is translated into code. However, as with any other aspect, the need for consistency must be balanced with the value of contextual relevance, and finding the sweet spot there is as challenging as anywhere else.

Summary

Good design and user experiences are extensions of the quality of the underlying team. The seamless integration of design, technology, and business realities doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when teams work together, communicate, and find the right balance to make everyone happier. It requires humility, respect, and an insatiable hunger for knowledge and understanding. Create or nurture these qualities within your team, and you’ll be on your way to more successful projects. It’s that easy.

Finally, in order to create an ideal user experience, many of these ideas assume that the team has a high level of pride and investment in their project. That pride has to be balanced with humility, but when combined with the incessant pursuit of the higher vision, it can lead to great things.

source: http://www.digital-web.com/articles/perfection_meets_reality/

History of Graphic Design in Indonesia

2007-06-10T15:25:00.000+05:00

In Steven Heller’s book entitled Graphic Design History, he wrote “”…it is necessary for designers to have the grounding provided by historical knowledge to avoid reinvention, and plagiarism.”” Based on that synopsis, the history writing part in this thesis becomes very important to analyze the graphic design style which exists today in Indonesia. Some obstacles occurred during the investigation, for instance the non-existence of books about Indonesian graphic design and its history, and the inadequate number of Indonesian graphic designers who have no interest in doing research on such topics. Before the 1980s, not many people in Indonesia knew the term ‘graphic design.’ Instead, they were more familiar with ‘advertising art.’ It was the Dutch who introduced it in the archipelago. The following annotation will explain a brief history of the art of printing, advertising and graphic design according to its time line.

The art of printing was introduced into the archipelago in the 1600s. The two factors that brought about the establishment of the printing press under Dutch rule were:

• To multiply the legal regulations contained in official proclamations on a large scale by printing them, since this saved both time and money.

• The Dutch Reformed Church, to pursue its missionary work among the natives, had urgent need of books and tracts for educational work, while one of its chief aims was a vernacular translation of the Holy Scriptures.

The deployment of advertising to promote was also used by merchants to bolster up their sales. In 1825, advertisements of traditional medicines were found in the pages of Tjabaja Siang, a local newspaper in Minahasa. Tjabaja Siang was the first publisher owned by the native people. Its advertisements were also published in some media in The Netherlands.

First Brochures
The growth of advertising during the Dutch Indies period had a lot to do with the growth of the economy in the region. In 1870, many Dutch investors came to invest their money in plantation and mine industries. The situation forced them to form a research foundation in order to extend and accumulate their capital. Suikersyndicaat, a sugar association, was one of them. They were the first organization that made promotional brochures to attract prospective investors. Another organization was the Javaasche Bank which also used printed materials as the media of promotion. The brochures and booklets were mostly printed by G.C.T. van Dorp & Co, which was located in Jakarta, Semarang and Surabaya.

First Product Advertisements and Advertising Agencies
The entrance of private investors in the plantation industry also started the growth of other new products. The nonelectrical lamp was one of the modern technologies at that time. The first printed ad for such products appeared in a newspaper called Reclame en Reproductie. It was an ad for Optimus Lamp made by an advertising company, which was translated in three different languages; Indonesian, Arabic, and Chinese.

The involvement of advertising agencies in the creation of ads during that time was also an indication that they already had big influences in trades and promotions in the Dutch Indies. This reflected the fact that the Dutch Indies had made an adaptation to the marketing methods of Europe. The effect of it was similar; to force a tight competition between merchants. The situation was confirmed in a detergent ad, Ofi, in Reclame en Reproduktie. The ad displayed not only utilized text but also the use of attractive illustrations. It contained a persuasive message promising that the detergent was affordable and the best.

The early 20th century was also an era when advertising agencies emerged. These agencies were categorized in three groups of sizes (large, medium, and small) and ownership. The Dutch people owned mostly the large ones. N.V Algemeen Reclame Bureau Excelsior made some ads for Wilmelmina Hotel, Homann Hotel and Peugeot Motor, while the Chinese and natives owned the medium and smaller agencies such as N.V. Tjong Hok Long, Liem Kim Hok, Biro Lauw Tjin, Bureau voor Indische Agenture & Reclames and Algemeen Advertentie.

N.V. Tjong Hok Long was the first ad agency founded in 1901 by the Chinese. In the beginning they created many ads for comic books which were also printed by the agency. Later, they created ads for other products such as batiks, soaps, cigarettes, and medicines. The ads they produced were mostly handwritten and very plain.

In 1905, Aneta, a news agency was founded. The agency had its own advertising department and was very advanced not only in facilities but also in the manpower that came from Europe. Some of its creative people were F. Van Bemmel, Is. Van Mens and Cor van Deutekom who did advertisements for big clients such as Bataafche Petroleum in Surabaya, General Motors and Koninklijke Pakevaart Maatschappij in Batavia.

Pre-Japanese Occupation
The world economic depression in 1929-1930 had a big influence on the advertising industry in the Dutch Indies. Many foreign companies had to stop their campaigns and big agencies lost a lot of money. But many smaller agencies still survived because most of their clients came from small industries like cigarettes, soaps and powders.

The situation got better in the years 1930-1942. Industries were back in shape. Many products were imported from Europe and US like Ford cars, Philips radios, and several other brands from watches, milk to health products. Many advertising agencies were keen again. Some of them even started to apply a ‘new method’ to their ads which is now called product/brand positioning. Success Advertising, for example, positioned its client, Philips, as a brand for economical products. And so was the Listerine ad, which positioned itself as the toothpaste to cure any dental problems. The ad used a Caucasian male model, smiling widely, showing his healthy, clean, white teeth.

Until 1940, manufactured products dominated the Dutch Indies market. Most of them were everyday products or home appliances imported from Europe, Japan and US.

Sales Promotional Advertisements
Based on some products produced by European, Chinese or natives, it was shown, that there had been some attempts to make product segmentations according to the target audiences. This was shown in the type of people appeared in each advertisement. For example Fuchs & Rens Ltd which imported Chrysler, employed Success Advertising to make its ad. The agency knew very well that the Europeans who were living in the Dutch Indies were the target market for this automotive product. And they had already known Chrysler’s reputation. As a result, the ad was very efficient in communicating the message. The copy was ‘Chrysler, the best automotive for a long trip’ along with an image of the product.

Other ads for European imported products such as watches and radios also appeared very simple and clean. They mostly used illustrations to attract the audience. For example a Tawiza watch ad showed two kinds of watches, round and square, complete with the hours, minutes and seconds. Another ad with similar looks was an ad for a Philips radio showing an illustration of the radio box.

The simplicity of Chrysler, Tawiza and Philips ads were far different than other European products made for the natives like Bier Itam Serimpi, a beer product produced by Archipel Brouwerij in Jakarta. European people in the Dutch Indies were the only ones who basically consumed this product. But starting from the early 20th century, it was also enjoyed by the natives. The ad for this beer was very long and descriptive using an illustration of twelve serimpi female dancers.

The introduction of new methods and techniques in Indonesian advertising had made many smaller-scale agencies grow bigger. Most of them acquired new knowledge that was brought from European countries who were more advanced in the field.

Japanese Occupation
In March 1942, the Japanese arrived in the Dutch Indies and took over the whole archipelago. This invasion had frozen the business and economic activities in the region which had been basically managed by the Dutch Indies Government. Instead of economy development, the Japanese policy concentrated more on building facilities for defense. Not only physically but also
mentally. Commercial ads were shifted into politic propaganda to support the regime. Such ads appeared in daily newspapers Asia Raya and Djawa Shimbun, saying that Japan is the older brother of Indonesia and will protect all of Asia from western colonialism. These ads were released by the Japanese Department of Communication in Indonesia.

When the Japanese came and conquered the Dutch, many natives perceived it as the moment to gain back their dignity as Asian people. The Japanese, who called itself ‘older brother’ were believed as heroes for the Indonesians and was very well accepted by the people. The Japanese, who were also advanced in art and culture, were expected to help the local artists develop Indonesian art.

In April 1942, at the request from Lt. General Imamura, Indonesian and Japanese artists were gathered to introduce themselves. A year later, ‘Keimin Bunka Shidoso’, an art center was founded in Jakarta by the Japanese government. The objective of this organization was to have a place to teach local artists and to develop Indonesian art.

Behind it all, the Japanese had its own agenda. They actually needed human resources, which were artists, for making their propaganda materials such as posters and billboards. The instructors came from Japan, and they taught the local artists the technique of drawing, coloring and layout. But the themes were always about the greatness of the Japanese kingdom, and how it could lead Indonesian people to a better life.

One of the Japanese instructors was Saseo Ono (1906-1954). Ono, who was apainter, came to Indonesia as a soldier. He arrived in Banten, West Java in March, 1942.

During his stay, Ono painted many walls on people’s houses he found in Banten. The themes of his paintings were of course Japanese propaganda with slogans saying ‘Asia for Asia’, ‘Nippon and Indonesia are best friends’, and ‘Asia in unity’. In 1944 a book containing of his sketches was published by Djawa Shimbun newspaper.

When Keimin Bunka Shidoso was founded in Jakarta, Ono became one of the figures who made the concept and mission of the Japanese propaganda poster organization’s activities. His thinking and art techniques had influenced and opened the way of thinking in Indonesian painters and artists at that time, like Affandi, S. Sudjojono, Henk Ngatung, Otto Djaya, Dullah, and Hendra Gunawan.

source: http://desaingrafisindonesia.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/indonesia-graphic-design-%e2%80%ba-create-new-post-%e2%80%94-wordpress/

Type Design

2007-06-08T00:58:00.000+05:00

Type design is the art of designing typefaces. Although the technology of printing text using movable type was invented in China, and despite the esteem which calligraphy held in that civilization, the vast number of Chinese characters meant that few distinctive, complete fonts could be afforded by Chinese printers. The applied art of designing pieces of type thus became primarily a Western practice whose market increased with the coming of mass advertisement and steam-powered printing in the nineteenth century. With the advent of desktop publishing (and internet web pages, which use different technologies), the marketplace has demanded ever more varied typefaces merely for the purposes of variety to get the customers' attention. Finally, the ease of this new technology has resulted in the hobby or money-saving option of amateur type design.

Type Foundry Design Procedure

For many centuries, creating type started with cutting punches, which acted as the masters. The material that was cut formed a prototype of the character from which type was cast by various means from an alloy usually containing lead. Type design accounted for the limitations of the printing process, such as the splashing properties of ink or the wear on the type itself. In many countries, though not the United States of America, type design could be copyrighted typeface by typeface. The USA offered (and offers) design patents as an option for typeface design protection.

For the American Type Founders Corporation, and a few others using their technology, each character was drawn in a very large size, over a foot (~30 cm) high. The outline was then traced by a Benton pantograph-based engraving machine with a pointer at the hand-held vertex and a cutting tool at the opposite vertex down to a size usually less than a quarter-inch (~6 mm). The pantographic engraver was first used to cut punches, and later to directly create matrices.

Computerized Design Process

With the coming of computers, especially those on artists' desktops, type design eventually became a subdivision of computer graphics, employing a drafting program of some sort. Each character design can be traced by a stylus on a digitizing board, or modified from a scanned drawing of somewhat smaller size than that once used for the pantograph, or composed entirely within the computer graphics program itself. Each character is then made into a digitized form to be reconstructed within the graphics display program of a display screen or printer. The copyrights were extended to this method, but have developed the caveat that a given digitization of a typeface can all too easily be modified by another type designer so as not to pay for the use of the typeface. Hence the copyright of the original typeface now includes all incidental alterations.

Principles Of Type Design

Regardless of the method used to specify type design, characters of different sizes have slightly different shapes for improved clarity and, above all, artistic consistency. There are many subtleties of shape so that no character looks too small or large.

As a Profession

Type design is performed by a type designer. Although recently there have been many amateur typefaces available on CDs in batches of hundreds, type design remains an artistic profession of applied art comparable with architecture.

Type Design As An Industrial Art

In fact, with architecture, type design is one of the arts which the concept of postmodernism best figures. The "modern" period of type design was the mid-twentieth century, during which sans-serif typefaces were supposed to be superior to all others due to their stark rationality. But later, scientific study revealed that people could read serif typefaces faster and with greater accuracy. Suddenly, in the 1960s, professional typefaces started to appear that were not intended to be supremely readable, just in a style that was fashionable. The best example is Aldo Novarese's 1971 typeface named Stop, which was used in various science fiction movies in the 1970s.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_design

Become an Idea Collector

2007-06-06T03:42:00.000+05:00

By Kevin Eikenberry

Have you ever gotten a really great idea – one that you knew would solve a problem, but when you went to apply it, you couldn’t remember the idea? Have you ever read a book and then six months later needed some information or an idea from it, but can’t recall which book or exactly what the concept was?

I’ve found that people collect just about anything from McDonald’s Happy Meal toys to rare coins to cars. Ebay was founded because the creator wanted to make it easier to buy and sell collectable Pez dispensers.

While I collect tractors, both life size antique tractors and toys, I also collect something much more applicable to my personal and professional growth. I collect ideas.

Ideas are the lifeblood of improvement in any area of our life. But we can’t always implement the ideas we get the minute we get them – and sometimes these strokes of genius get misplaced or lost in our minds.

Get Your Ideas Down

Any collector knows they need a place to store the things they collect. Idea collectors are no different. I collect ideas in several places and have tried various approaches over the years. I now have two major collection locations.

A journal. I keep my journal near me most of the time. I have tried big books, small books, and used to try to capture ideas in my Day planner. For me I have found that a relatively small book is the answer. Experiment with form and type of journal, but make it something that you use frequently. When the form becomes comfortable for your style you will keep it with you and collect more ideas.

Computer documents. I have a Journal folder on my computer with a variety of files inside it. Each file is a journal or clip file in a particular area of my life. For example, I keep story ideas for writing, speaking and training in one folder, leadership ideas in another, etc. These files act as a place for me to cut and paste ideas I read online and in emails. While I always capture the source, so that if I want to use directly I can reference the author, often these files are referenced for additional ideas, not the specifics of what was saved there.

Note: I used to keep idea folders in a file drawer. I have found that I was usually filing a whole article for one nugget. Now I discipline myself to put that nugget in my journal and delete the rest! And since I do more and more of my reading online, my computer files serves as a replacement for the file drawer.

Idea Collection Strategies

Here are seven strategies to collect your ideas for use when you need them most.

Write them down! I carry note cards so I can jot down an idea anytime. I write ideas on a flip chart or a whiteboard. I know that ideas are fleeting, so I get them down.

Make lists. Do specific brainstorming on a topic, project or program to boost your collection. Capture all of the ideas. When doing this personally, I don’t cross any off when I find them impractical. By leaving them on my list I have the chance to spur other ideas when I reread or review the list.

Hold a meeting. Every Friday in our office we have a learning and idea meeting where we review the key concepts we have read and the ideas we have generated for the week. By having a scheduled meeting we generate more ideas that may have application to our work, but it also keeps us focused on generating or finding great ideas.

Keep notes from reading. When reading any book (especially non-fiction) capture ideas you get when reading. Jot notes in the margins, use your highlighter. Then go back and transfer the gems to your journal. That extra effort will exponentially increase the value you receive from reading the book.

Keep notes in meetings. When I am in meetings or a participant in a training session, I am always searching for ideas. This keeps my mind sharp. I continually ask, “How could I use this?” and put those ideas in my notes. I always draw a little light bulb on the page to help me separate out the ideas from the notes. I also find this process keeps me more focused on the meeting or training as I know I haven’t lost the idea and I can stay more focused on the topic at hand.

Refer back to them. Review your idea lists. You never know when one of those ideas you wrote down will have application. This is one of the reasons for collecting them in the first place!

Take action. The collection becomes valuable to the degree that you try some of your ideas out. Set a timeline, make a plan, and try something out! It is with this final step that your ideas truly become valuable to you.

Conclusion

You won’t apply every idea you capture and not every idea you capture will be good. Cast your net wide and collect as many as you can in as many ways as you can. While you will never be able to display your ideas on the wall of your home, your collection and the results gained from application of selected parts of your collection will be among your most prized possessions. Get started now – a happier more productive future awaits.

Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved, Kevin Eikenberry and The Kevin Eikenberry Group. Kevin is Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group (http://KevinEikenberry.com), a learning consulting company that helps Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services.

source:http://www.innovationtools.com/Articles/ArticleDetails.asp?a=264

About Advertising Tools

2007-06-05T17:38:00.000+05:00

Media

Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, shopping carts, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human directional, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, stickers on apples in supermarkets, the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.

Another way to measure advertising effectiveness is known as ad tracking. This advertising research methodology measures shifts in target market perceptions about the brand and product or service. These shifts in perception are plotted against the consumers’ levels of exposure to the company’s advertisements and promotions.The purpose of Ad Tracking is generally to provide a measure of the combined effect of the media weight or spending level, the effectiveness of the media buy or targeting, and the quality of the advertising executions or creative. Ad Tracking Article

Covert Advertising

Covert advertising is when a product or brand is embedded in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character Tom Anderton owns a phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by Will Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them "classics," because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi and Mercedes-Benz logos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles, respectively. Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Omega Watches, Vaio, BMW and Aston-Martin cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably, Casino Royale.

Television Advertisement

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format and this is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as much for its commercial advertisements as for the game itself, and the average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached $2.7 million (as of 2007).

Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrops or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote broadcast audience[3]. More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the background where none existing in real-life. Virtual product placement is also possible.

Newer Media And Advertising Approaches

Increasingly, other mediums such as those discussed below are overtaking television due to a shift towards consumer's usage of the Internet as well as devices such as TiVo.

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.

E-mail advertising is another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is known as "spam".

Some companies have proposed to place messages or corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising (see mind control), and the pervasiveness of mass messages (see propaganda).

Unpaid advertising (also called word of mouth advertising), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun ("Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, "Vaseline" = petroleum jelly, "Hoover" = vacuum cleaner and "Band-Aid" = adhesive bandage.) -- these are the pinnacles of any advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the use of their brand name to label an object.

SMS (Short Message Service) text messages have taken Europe by storm and are breaking into the USA. The addition of a text-back number is gaining prevalence as a www address of yesterday. Used as part of your companies 'how to contact us' these can be very effective. These can be a (rented) keyword on a short-code or your own system on a standard number (like Mojio Messenger). The benefit of SMS text messages is people can respond where they are, right now, stuck in traffic, sitting on the metro. The use of SMS text messages can also be a great way to get a viral (word-of-mouth) campaign off the ground to build your own database of prospects see Viral marketing. Interstitial advertisement is a form of advertisement which takes place while a page loads.

From time to time, The CW airs short programming breaks called "Content Wraps," to advertise one company's product during an entire commercial break. The CW pioneered "content wraps" and some products featured were Herbal Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero 2, Cover Girl, and recently Toyota.

Measuring The Impact Of Mass Advertising

The most common method for measuring the impact of mass media advertising is the use of the rating point (rp) or the more accurate target rating point (trp). These two measures refer to the percentage of the universe of the existing base of audience members that can be reached by the use of each media outlet in a particular moment in time. The difference between the two is that the rating point refers to the percentage to the entire universe while the target rating point refers to the percentage to a particular segment or target. This becomes very useful when focusing advertising efforts on a particular group of people.

Global advertising

Advertising has gone through five major stages of development: domestic, export, international, multi-national, and global. For global advertisers, there are four, potentially competing, business objectives that must be balanced when developing worldwide advertising: building a brand while speaking with one voice, developing economies of scale in the creative process, maximising local effectiveness of ads, and increasing the company’s speed of implementation. Born from the evolutionary stages of global marketing are the three primary and fundamentally different approaches to the development of global advertising executions: exporting executions, producing local executions, and importing ideas that travel. (Global marketing Management, 2004, pg 13-18)

Advertising research is key to determining the success of an ad in any country or region. The ability to identify which elements and/or moments of an ad that contributes to its success is how economies of scale are maximised. Once one knows what works in an ad, that idea or ideas can be imported by any other market. Market research measures, such as Flow of Attention, Flow of Emotion and branding moments provide insight into what is working in an ad in any country or region because the measures are based on the visual, not verbal, elements of the ad. (Young, p.131)

Integrated marketing communication (IMC)

In practice, the goal of Integrated Marketing Communications is to create and sustain a single look or message in all elements of a marketing campaign. “[It] permeate[s] every planned and unplanned communication at every contact point where the customer or prospect may receive an impression of the company.” http://www.octgroup.com/articles/im.htm. Although integrated marketing communication is more than just the ad campaign, the bulk of marketing dollars is spent on the creation and distribution of the advertisements. Advertisers will be called upon to create images and moments that can cross media boundaries.

Other

With the dawn of the Internet come many new advertising opportunities. Popup, Flash, banner, advergaming, and email advertisements (the last often being a form of spam) abound.

Each year, greater sums are paid to obtain a commercial spot during the Super Bowl, which is by most measures considered to be the most important American football game of the year. Companies attempt to make these commercials sufficiently entertaining so that members of the public would actually want to watch them.

Another phenomenon is the recording of shows on DVRs (ex. TiVo). These devices allow users to record the programs for later viewing, enabling them to fast forward through commercials. Additionally, as more seasons or “Boxed Sets” come out of Television shows; fewer people watch the shows on TV. However, the fact that these sets are sold, means the company will receive additional profits from the sales of these sets. To counter this effect, many advertisers have opted for product placement on TV shows like Survivor.

Particularly since the rise of "entertaining" advertising, some people may like an advertisement enough to wish to watch it later or show a friend. In general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their ads to anyone willing to see or hear them.

Another significant trend regarding future of advertising is the growing importance of niche or targeted ads. Also brought about by the Internet and the theory of The Long Tail, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach specific audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies' marketing products. Among others, Comcast Spotlight is one such advertiser employing this method in their video on demand menus. These advertisements are targeted to a specific group and can be viewed by anyone wishing to find out more about a particular business or practice at any time, right from their home. This causes the viewer to become proactive and actually choose what advertisements they want to view.

In freelance advertising, companies hold public competitions to create ads for their product, the best one of which is chosen for widespread distribution with a prize given to the winner(s). During the 2007 Super Bowl, Pepsico held such a contest for the creation of a 30-second television ad for the Doritos brand of chips, offering a cash prize to the winner. Chevrolet held a similar competition for their Tahoe line of SUVs. This type of advertising, however, is still in its infancy. It may ultimately decrease the importance of advertising agencies by creating a niche for independent freelancers. [citation needed]

This article is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising

15 Tips to Choose a Good Text Type or Fonts

2007-06-05T01:39:00.000+05:00

Many people have asked me which text type is best for a magazine, a newspaper, a poster, a newsletter, a publication, etc. In general, I tell them which to use, but I know that this is not the best answer, because they won't learn to do this by themselves.

Today, I want to take time to analyze how to choose correct text typography design in different cases. It is very important to understand that these tips are not final word, but they can be good help at the moment of choosing a text type. In any case, it depends on what do you want to convey with this type, because many times legibility is as important as the character of the type. Try to be very careful and take in account the following points:

1. The Letterform
The ‘ductus’ represents the framework of a type. It is very important. For legible text we need typographies with a simple ductus without complex details. Those details distract from the reading process and we need the reader to pay attention to the content and not the text.

2. The Weight
When we discuss the ‘weight’ of a type, we refer to a consistent relationship between the characters themselves, and the light of the page that flows around them. If you use a light version of a type for a lot of text, reading of this text will probably become tiring and nobody will want to read it.

3. The Contrast
The contrast refers to the thickness difference between vertical and horizontal strokes. The difference between the thicker and the thinner part of the character. Bodoni and Didot are very contrasted type designs. Try to read the photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of text layed out in Bodoni. You will probably see only vertical strokes. Good type design should be able to resist a lot of copies. It must be strong, solid, but not coarse.

4. The axis
In my view, the axis of a type design could affect reading. Vertical strokes prevail in a text type and if the axis is diagonal, the eye will have trouble following that line of text. If the type uses more than one axis, a line of text will appear as if dancing which makes is harder to read. If we use an orthogonal axis, the characters can't dance.

5. x height
The area between baseline and x height contains most of the readable information (75% of the lower case letters). It is a very important area at the moment of reading text. Long ascenders and descenders require a small x hight. If we compare two types of designs, one with long ascenders and the other with short ascenders, we can see that the x height of the second one will be larger, so it will obviously be more legible. Look up for the difference between Times New Roman and Mrs. Eaves.

6. Capital letters height
Older typefaces designs consider the same height for the ascenders and the capital letters. In any cases capitals are bigger… But the appearance of a word in upper case between lower caps is usually ugly. When I write the word ‘Garamond’ I feel the ‘G’ as a dinosaur and the ‘a’ as its prey…

7. Endings and details
When we use a font in a big size (for example in a poster), we enlarge everything. All the small details of the type design become evident, as well as the mistakes. A lot of typographies are badly drawn. As designers, we should not accept this.

8. Text and texture
A block of text looks like a texture from a distance. This texture must be uniform, without thicker characters or spots that could attract the attention.

9. Degree of the Counter Opening
In many type designs, the counters are too closed. It could cause legibility problems, because somebody could read 'o' instead of an 'c'. So, if the internal counter is too opened (as in Frutiger), it will start to mingle with the external counter, generating a lot of white (and it looks ugly).

10. The Fish Effect
This effect becomes evident when the internal counter is bigger than the space between characters. It looks very strange where round and straight characters join.

11. External counter
There are small details that make a text type design more legible. A carefully designed external counter leads to better text understanding. Think about the connection between the vertical stroke of the ‘n’ and its curve, or the difference between ‘rn’ and ‘m’.

12. Internal counter
A small eye in an ‘a’ or an ‘e’ character will probably disappear, especially in small type sizes. These are the most used characters in most of the languages, that is why this becomes a very big problem.

13. Is the set complete?
How many times do we note that the font we are using lacks a character? It always happens when our design is almost finished. Terrible! We must change the type and check out the complete text again. Many type designers don't design some characters such as ñ, written accents, tildes, points, commas or numbers… It is better to check the font out before using it.

14. The family
It is important to verify that the type family is plentiful, with variations in weight, black, whites and italics… Check out that the italic is as legible as the regular version. Sometimes they have a lot of rococo details.

15. Letter spacing
There are fonts with bad or non-existent letter spacing and obviously, they don't work well. A good designer will try to correct the letter spacing that he (she) considers bad, but it is too much work when all the spacing looks bad… There are software packages that can help, but it is not the same as good typographer work. Try to use fonts with correct letter spacing and metrics…

taken from http://typies.blogspot.com/2006/11/15-tips-to-choose-good-text-type.html

What is Image editing?

2007-06-05T01:04:00.000+05:00

Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they be digital photographs, traditional analog photographs, or illustrations. Before digital scanners and cameras became mainstream, traditional analog image editing was known as photo retouching, using tools such as an airbrush to modify photographs, or editing illustrations with any traditional art medium. However, since the advent of digital images, analog image editing has become largely obsolete. Graphic software programs, which can be broadly grouped into vector graphics editors, raster graphics editors, and 3d modelers, are the primary tools with which a user may manipulate, enhance, and transform images. Many image editing programs are also used to render or create computer art from scratch.

Basics of image editingRaster images are stored in a computer in the form of a grid of picture elements, or pixels. These pixels contain the image's color and brightness information. Image editors can change the pixels to enhance the image in many ways. The pixels can be changed as a group, or individually, by the sophisticated algorithms within the image editors. The domain of this article primarily refers to bitmap graphics editors, which are often used to alter photographs and other raster graphics. However, vector graphics software, such as Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape, are used to create and modify vector images, which are stored as descriptions of lines, Bézier splines, and text instead of pixels. It is easier to rasterize a vector image than to vectorize a raster image- how to go about vectorizing a raster image is the focus of much research in the field of computer vision. People like vector images because they are easy to modify, containing descriptions of the shapes in them for easy rearrangement, as well as scalable, being rasterizable at any resolution- to rasterize a vector image is simply to render it, while scaling a raster image up involves guessing at data that isn't there (see aliasing and other articles on information theory for more), and even scaling a raster image down involves guessing unless the scaling factor is an integer.

Editing programsDue to the popularity of digital cameras, image editing programs are readily available. Minimal programs, that perform such operations as rotating and cropping are often provided within the digital camera itself, while others are returned to the user on a compact disc (CD) when images are processed at a discount store. The more powerful programs contain functionality to perform a large variety of advanced image manipulations. Popular raster-based digital image editors include Adobe Photoshop, Corel Photo-Paint, Paint Shop Pro, Visualizer Photo Studio, Pixel image editor, PixBuilder Photo Editor, Fo2Pix ArtMaster, the GIMP, MAGIX Foto Clinic and Paint.NET. For more, including free programs, see: List of raster graphics editors.

Digital data compressionMany image file formats use data compression to reduce file size and save storage space. Digital compression of images may take place in the camera, or can be done in the computer with the image editor. When images are stored in JPEG format, compression has already taken place. Both cameras and computer programs allow the user to set the level of compression.

Some compression algorithms, such as those used in PNG file format, are lossless, which means no information is lost when the file is saved. The JPEG file format uses a lossy compression algorithm- The greater the compression, the more information is lost, ultimately reducing image quality or detail. JPEG uses knowledge of the way the brain and eyes perceive color to make this loss of detail less noticeable.

Image editor featuresListed below are some of the most used capabilities of the better graphic manipulation programs. The list is by no means all inclusive. There are a myriad of choices associated with the application of most of these features.

Selection
One of the prerequisites for many of the applications mentioned below is a method of selecting part(s) of an image, thus applying a change selectively without affecting the entire picture. Most graphics programs have several means of accomplishing this, such as a marquee tool, lasso, vector-based pen tools as well as more advanced facilities such as edge detection, masking, alpha compositing, and color and channel-based extraction.

Layers
(Digital image editing) Another feature common to many graphics applications is that of Layers, which are analogous to sheets of transparent acetate (each containing separate elements that make up a combined picture), stacked on top of each other, each capable of being individually positioned, altered and blended with the layers below, without affecting any of the elements on the other layers. This is a fundamental workflow which has become the norm for the majority of programs on the market today, and enables maximum flexibility for the user whilst maintaining non-destructive editing principles and ease of use.

Image size alteration
Image editors can resize images in a process often called image scaling, making them larger, or smaller. High image resolution cameras can produce large images which are often reduced in size for Internet use. Image editor programs use a mathematical process called resampling to calculate new pixel values whose spacing is larger or smaller than the original pixel values. Images for Internet use are kept small, say 640 x 480 pixels which would equal 0.3 megapixels.

Cropping
Cropping an imageDigital editors are used to crop images. Cropping creates a new image by removing a desired rectangular portion from the image being cropped. The unwanted part of the image is discarded. Image cropping does not reduce the resolution of the area cropped. Best results are obtained when the original image has a high resolution. A primary reason for cropping is to improve the image composition in the new image.

Histogram
Image editors have provisions to create an image histogram of the image being edited. The histogram plots the number of pixels in the image (vertical axis) with a particular brightness value (horizontal axis). Algorithms in the digital editor allow the user to visually adjust the brightness value of each pixel and to dynamically display the results as adjustments are made. Improvements in picture brightness and contrast can thus be obtained.

Noise
removalImage editors may feature a number of algorithms which can add or remove noise in an image. JPEG artifacts can be removed; dust and scratches can be removed and an image can be despeckled. Noise tends to invade images when pictures are taken in low light settings. A new picture can be given an 'antiquated' effect by adding uniform monochrome noise.

Removal of unwanted elements
Most image editors can be used to remove unwanted branches, etc, using a "clone" tool. Removing these distracting elements draws focus to the subject, improving overall composition

Selective color change
Some image editors have color swapping abilities to selectively change the color of specific items in an image, given that the selected items are within a specific color range.

to read more just visit the site below
taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_editing

Which Site Suitable For Graphic Designers

2007-06-05T00:09:00.001+05:00

If you search through internet, there will many sites related to graphic designs. It depends on you which one is appropriate to the skill you have. Just an example. If you are a specialist in image aditing –or retouching—you are may visit website which will help you in such field such as planetphotoshop.com. Or if you are an image collector then you may go to flickr.com from which you will get much benefits in getting what you desire. You will find such beautiful image collections with hich recolution and pixels and you can download it without any cost. In case you further want to improve your skills and talents, just take a trip to the sites like tutorialized.com. etc. or Linda product which in recent days become very familiar in video training tutorials. For Indonesian, moreover, there is a site which gives special attention in specific field such as retouching. Just come in http://www.fotografer.net/. But you are required to become member first to have full access in such web. The benefit from forografer.net is that beside you have full acces to see bulk of ammazing retauched images, you can also upload your own pictures to be seen by another members. Some advices and suggestions you receive definitely will improve you creative sense and look.

Graphic Design Tools

2007-06-04T23:37:00.000+05:00

Actually, the tools used for graphic designers include all necessary element without which the design could not reach the maximum level to the communicant. Thus, these tools are broadly described as the mind, eye, hand, traditional tools, and computers with its necessaary items which some may be called programmes. Many experts say that a creative concept is not usually considered a design unless it is given a tangible or visual form. However, since the design consists of ideas, the most important and only tool that is required in the design process is the mind.

Computers are generally and primarily considered to be an indispensable tool used in the graphic design industry. Computers and software applications are generally seen, by creative professionals, as more effective production tools than traditional methods. Nowadays, computers is seen to be the most used tool to enhance the creative process of graphic design.

The followings may help you to know deeper with regard to the commonly used softwares in the world.

Graphics include:
• Fireworks
• Flash
• Gimp
• Illustrator
• Paint Shop Pro
• Photoshop
• Corel Draw
• Freehand

3D Graphics include
• 3DS MAX
• AutoCAD
• Blender 3d
• Bryce 3d
• Cinema 4D
• Lightwave 3D
• Maya

Web Design & Development include
• Adobe Flex
• ASP
• ASP.NET
• ColdFusion
• CSS
• Dreamweaver
• HTML
• Java
• Javascript
• MM Fusion
• MS FrontPage
• Perl and CGI
• PHP
• Python
• Ruby on Rails
• SEO
• Web Design
• XML

Business Applications include
• MS Excel
• MS PowerPoint
• MS Word
• QuarkXPress
Video Editing
• Final Cut Studio
• Premiere
• Ulead

To know more about this programmes, visit www.tutorializedcom

Three Elements in Graphic Designs

2007-06-04T23:27:00.000+05:00

There are three elements while we speak about graphic designs, in which these three will interact each other in order to achiece the target of designing art or visualisation:
1. Communicator. This coomunicator can be called as informan by which he will communicate the matters (the designs) to some targetted persons to which such matter is made.
2. Communicant: this is the object to which the matter is delivered. Then
3. Media: that is the tool by which both communicator and communicant can succesfully interact each other and achieved the target through such tools.

This is the basic concept on which a graphic designer shall keep in his mind before he make some steps forward in field of graphic designs. Dont forget, move forward in other orticles. Enjoy your improvement.

Lets Become a Graphic Designer

2007-06-04T23:23:00.000+05:00

Many people say that art, design, challigraphy and other similar names to it, are the monoply of a talented one. Means those who are not never be suitable to claim that they are graphic designers. The fact is absolutely not. You may look at a logo, an advertisement, or perhaps a website and wonder how it possibly have been made by non-talented persons. What I believe is that every one can become a graphic designer as long as he is seriously involved in that field and never underistimate his ability to become such person. Unfortunately this hope is quite opposite to many people. Before a person acts and explore his ability he stops to act and prefers to first think that he is not suitable and proper to become such desired person due to his different inner talent.

Everyone has his own individual style and view on every fields including that particular field of designs. However, not everone can become a designer, but at least he is sure he can become a desiger in some specific filed and not a graphic designer.

In one article that I have read, few points have been described on how it should be considered to become a graphic designer, here are the points:

1. Education
To become a good graphic designer, you should first think about your education. There are many online graphic design courses and degree programs that you can learn more about and decide whether or not they are right for you. If you don’t feel an online degree program or course is right for you, and you are really serious about becoming a graphic designer, then here is a list of graphic design schools by state. Most community colleges offer daytime and nighttime classes that will teach you the basics of most graphic design programs. This is a great way for you to learn, if you are a person who needs someone by your side to help you.

2. Try To Teach Yourself
If you are a creative person and think that you can teach yourself the skills that I graphic designer needs, then you like everything else in life, you will need to practice to get better and this goes for graphic designing as well. To get started you will need to get the proper software for creating your designs. If you want to be a graphic designer in the printing field, at the minimum you will need Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia (now Adobe) Freehand, and QuarkXpress or Adobe Indesign. However, if you want to be a graphic designer in the web field (a web designer), at the minimum you will need Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia (now Adobe) Freehand, and Macromedia Dreamweaver. The above software is software that I recommend, but I am sure that there is other software that will work for you. If you are a student, you can pick up this software at a discounted rate, so make sure that you take advantage of this. Also, many times you can download the full version of this software for a trial period of 30 days.

3. I have the basics, what’s next?
Now, you need to perfect your style. Follow tutorials ranging in all different categories. Knowing what the tools do will not make you a great designer, knowing how to use them in sync will. Once you have your own unique style, you are ready to offer your services, and put all your hard studying to the test. I also recommend finding other graphic designers like yourself, such as a community of graphic designers. A good way to do this is by joining a graphic design association or by joining an online graphic design forum such as our graphic design forum. Here is a list of other graphic design message boards as well. I also recommend looking at successful designs to learn what style of design you like.

4. How if you want to make money
Of course you want to make money, you wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t. The best place for up and coming designers to start out and get their skills seen is by becoming a freelancer. There are many freelance websites for you to choose from, which will allow you to bid on the projects you desire. Being a freelancer is no walk in the park though. You will be competing against many other designers looking for the same customers that you are pursuing. One issue you will have is that when you start out, you will not have a portfolio yet. This works as a huge disadvantage for you. Potential employers will want to make sure their money is being spent well, and rely on portfolios to help sway their decisions. For you, the best bet is to create mock-ups for all of your bids. If you bid on a project for a logo, create a mock-up logo for them. This will help show the service provider that you have what it takes for the job.

5. You need a website or online portfolio
In this age, a website is a wonderful tool. Graphic designers utilize websites for a variety of different reasons. One reason is to host your portfolio online, and the other reason is as a place for potential clients to find you. Another reason to have a website is for file storage reasons. Graphics professionals work with files that are very big and servers are a handy place to store those files. Having the ability to upload your files to your own server will make your client feel more secure, and will make the overall experience better.