“…but Dave.” you say.  “I don’t have the time or money to build a website.  Isn’t that the only way I can get my own .com email address?”

The answer, quite simply is.  No.  With pocket change, Trifox Designs can reserve the .com of your choice (based on availability of course) just for email!  If a website is not on your short term “todo list” but you still want a credible email address for your business, look no further.  We here at Trifox Designs can have you setup in minutes.   For $5 a month (less than a value meal at McDonalds)  you can go from:

JoePoolMan@gmail.com

to

Joe@PearlandPools.com

It’s a no-brainer really.  Bring your business up to speed by contacting us here.  You’ll be glad you did!

One such instance is the “Broadcast email”.  Most people in this industry are familliar with services like “Campaign Monitor” and “Constant Contact”.  These are services that will parse your html written code into beautifully rendered emails and then blast them to a defined client list.  These services are great because you can use html and static images to portray your ad to the world.

Recently I had a client ask for a broadcast email with FLASH in it.  Not linking to it, but actually IN the email.  Unfortunately this is still not widely supported (if at all) especially with Microsoft Outlook.  Like many emails out there, I suggested making a broadcast email with a link to the animation, but that wouldn’t cut it with the client.

That’s when I brought up the Idea of using an animated gif in the email to represent the animation they crave.  Their first thoughts were “Eeewww.  Why would you do such a thing” because their first thoughts of an animated gif were the following:

Sure when animated gifs were made painstakingly frame by frame in fireworks, this is the garbage that gets kicked out.  As repugnant as they are, I assured them the animated gif I was refering to was more of a professional animation, but just in that file format and they hesitantly agreed.

“So Dave, how do I make professional looking animated gifs that can still bring impact to my design?” you may ask.  Here’s how!

Step 1 - Build the animation in FLASH just like you would any other Flash (swf)

Once your done making your animation don’t go the fools way and export the Gif from flash.  To this day Flash still does a cruddy job at exporting Gifs.  I’m talking UGLY!!!  Instead goto File — Export — Movie and under file type, save as AVI .

After you hit OK, then the compression dialogue comes up.  For the best quality change your compression to Full Frames (Uncompressed) as shown below and hit OK.

Step 2 - Import AVI into Photoshop

Photoshop can work wonders when it comes to exporting animated gifs, so why not use it?  Open Photoshop and goto File — Import — Video Frames to Layers.  (Note you may need to install the latest version of Quicktime to use this feature.)  Select your newly created AVI using the options below.

Once imported you will see something new in your Photoshop screen…. the Animation panel (as shown below).  On the bottom-left portion of the panel you will see your animation controls.  Including play, rewind etc.  Next to that you will most likely see the words “Forever”  this means your animation will repeat it’s cycle over and over agian.  If that’s your style, then keep it as it is.  I prefer my animations to only play once, so I click onthe word “Forever” and it brings up the option for “Once”.

After everything checks out goto File — Save for Web and Devices to pull up the export dialogue.  To properly export the animated gif you need to (1) make sure your format is Gif and (2) make sure the animation controls show up on the bottom right (as shown).  For the best quality I use 256 colors, with a selective color table and diffusion dithering at 100%.  It’s never JPG quality but it gets darn close if you use the setting I’m showing below.

This would be a good time to note that a 600px wide animated gif can be HUGE.  If your using these for a broadcast email like me, host the file on your webserver and have the html template pull the image from there.  It makes for a cleaner email.

When it’s all said and done Photoshop will crunch out a genuine animated GIF at the best possible quality.  100 times better than what Flash alone will give you.  Below is a sample of what can be done with a little work around like the steps above.  As you can see Animated Gifs are still not extinct.

We all have had the client that pushes for a photo that they only have a low res version of, and with enough kicking and screaming their once beautiful website or brochure now has an ugly pixelated image right smack dab in the middle of it all.

So how do we tackle this issue without breaking the golden blowup rule?  We BEND the rule a tad.

Using Photoshop alone may work, but for those special cases, you need to bring out the big guns.  I’m talking about “Genuine Fractals“.  Whenever you absolutely need to blowup an image past it’s original capacity and keep it as sharp as possible, accept no substitutes.  This snazzy Photoshop plugin will run you $300, but is well worth the price.

Check out these side by sides to see Genuine Factals vs Photoshop alone!

Up close you will still see some impurities, but if you’re making a billboard, then who is going to be up close anyway?  So keep this in mind.  When all else fails try Genuine Fractals.  I’ve been using it for about 4 years now and it seldom lets me down.  When I do get let down, it’s usually because I’m trying to blow up an image that is waaaay to small.

Good luck fellow designers!

In Adobe Illustrator there are only two color types.  Spot and Process.  Making a custom process color is easy, but you don’t want your printer cranking out 4 extra plates and charging you hundreds of dollars for one little mistake.

While I’m at it, I’ll insert the following:

Press Check! PRESS CHECK! PRESS CHECK!

Ahem… moving on.  So, if you can’t use a process color to represent your spot varnish or custom color, then what?  PMS Color?  Yeah right!  The last thing we want is for our printer to actually order PMS1794 and print with it because that’s when the phone calls start.

So what can we do?  Enter the custom spot color.  You read right, CUSTOM SPOT, and it’s easy as pie.

As an example let’s take a look at a standard folder design.  As indicated we are wanting to put a spot varnish on the bottom right.

Although it looks nice, we should change it, so the printer doesn’t think we’re wanting a screen of the background.

Step 1

Create a process color of your choosing.  I usually pick a very bright/neon green or hot pink so it really sticks out.

Step 2

Open up your swatches pallet and in the side menu click New Swatch…

Step 3

Then the new swatch dialogue will pop up and behold, it already has the color you picked in it.  Change the swatch name to whatever you like (I called mine Spot Varnish).  Then change the color type to spot color and hit OK.

Step 4

Double check that the newly created swatch has the little white triange with the dot in it as shown.  That indicates it is a spot color.

Then, on your document select the area that you want to dedicate to varnish, and while selected, click on the newly created spot color in your swatches pallet and that’s it!  It may look bright green on your screen, but when your printer sends it through his RIP server, it will dedicate only 1 plate to the varnish area!

It’s a prime example of the adage “what you see isn’t always what you get”.  The applications of this can also be used on T-shirts and other silkscreening jobs too!  Remember that if you are printing on a dark T-shirt, you’ll need a flood coat of white first, and making a custom spot color just for that plate puts more control in your hands and less in the printers.

So how do we solve this dilemma? In the old days of design we only had two options.

• Upload the photos to a FTP site
• Burn off a CD of the files and use a courier

Thank goodness it’s 2009 and we now have more file transfer tools at our disposal.  Want to know an easy way to get those source files from your client?  Here’s how!

There are many large file sharing sites out there these days, so what is secure?  What doesn’t require a doctorate to use?  There are many, but only one has made the grade for Trifox Designs.

RAPIDSHARE.COM

This easy to use tool allows for anyone to transfer a single ZIP (or RAR) file up to 200MB to anyone!  Just goto the site, upload your file, and they spit a URL right out to you that you can email your client.  All your client needs to do is follow the link and within minutes they have the files they need without the frustration of trying to email all of those files.

I mentioned the RAR format above.  For those who aren’t familiar, RAR files are just like ZIP files, but they can take files BIGGER than 200MB and break them up into 200MB chunks.   For example:

If I have a 600MB file.  So I divide it up into 3 files that are 200MB each.  Then I upload all three files to Rapidshare.

My client downloads all 3 RAR files.  Then when he/she opens the first RAR it will extract and put together all 3 files to make 1 single 600MB file!

Genius!

Some people may want privacy with their files.  They may not want anyone to be able to open their ZIP or RAR without a password.  With the click of a button you can ‘encrypt’ your ZIP or RAR with password protection so if someone get’s ahold of your file that shouldn’t, they won’t be able to open it without the secret password.

Using the solution above covers security, ease of use and more importantly allows for a higher degree of telecommuting.  So, next time you need to send a client a 50MB proof, send it via Rapidshare!

Your inbox will thank you for it!

“For the same price as 1 full color ad in a magazine,  I can run a grayscale ad for 3 months!”

If you’re a designer, most likely not.  So why is it that this train of thought is so popular among clients?  In their mind all ads are equal, so the cheaper the better, and we all know that is not often the case.

A few years back I had a great client, but he loved to get as many ads in as many magazines as possible, so all his ads were grayscale.  In his mind he was saving $600 by not using color.  After some major convincing, he now understood the real reason why full color ads cost so much, and more importantly, why they have more of an impact than their grayscale bretheren.

When you have a client that is hellbent on getting 6 ads for $1000, this could make for some frustrating times.  You could just make the ads for him and be on your merry way, or you could do what’s best for your client, and inform them of the psychological impact a full color ad can have.

Grayscale:

(1) First thing you should inform your client of, is that most grayscale ads get printed toward the back of the magazine, severely limiting their audience.  Think about it, if you spent $400 on an ad that only 100 people actually read, that’s $4.00 per impression!!!  Now that’s one expensive ad that does not hold up it’s end of the bargain.

(2) Grayscale ads, give off the feeling of “cheap” when only a few pages before everything had the vibrance of full color.  This can lower your demographic’s opinion of your company.

Full Color:

(1) Psychologically, we as human beings are drawn to vibrant colors like moths to the flame.  Our eyes almost draw themselves to the ad no matter if we are in the market for “said product or service”.  This allows for many more impressions since people tend to read them automatically!   If a full color ad cost your client $1000 and they had 1,200 people read it then that very full color ad only cost 83 CENTS per impression!!!  A much better deal than $4.

(2) Color ads usually are in the front and main content areas of the magazine!  More exposure!!! (That’s where I got the 1,200 figure from above.)

Remember, that color ads may be more expensive at first sight, but have a higher visibility rate than grayscale ads at the back of the magazine.  It just makes sense, and your client will be thanking you!

Too often I see websites (and website templates) that are pure flash, with little or no html content.  Most of these sites have beautiful motion between ‘pages’ and look exactly the same on every web browser.  What’s not to love?  To the normal human, flash is great.  To the search engines, however, flash can be a real nightmare.

I’ve had some clients request a site created entirely in flash, only to come back months later and ask me to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on their site because it’s not getting enough hits.  It is at this exact time that I fear the most.  That is, the task of informing the client that their website is in no way search engine friendly.

This is where Designers and Developers go their separate ways.

Designers:
To the average designer, flash is a Godsend.   It allows them to create a whole website with limited or no traditional web programming.  It allows them to use fonts that normally cannot be seen in standard websites.  Flash literally is a blank canvas with few (if any) limitations.  It allows them to create a website that otherwise may not be replicable in the traditional sense.  Designers love the ability to break outside the box of standard web design.

Developers:
To the average developer, flash is a great tool, but not the ‘end all, be all’.  Developers treat flash files much like image files or photos.  Great for a spritz of style, but bad if used to paint the whole page.  This is because most search engines cannot read, or see any content housed inside a flash file.  Google is one exception.  Google can currently crawl certain types of text in flash, but it’s still in it’s testing stages.

So you may ask, “How can Coca-Cola get away with a full flash website and I cannot?”  Simple.  Coke doesn’t need to advertise like most businesses do.  Most people in the world already know what Coke is.  In essence, Coke doesn’t need to worry about search engine optimization, because everyone knows about them already.

Have you ever wondered how Google sees your website?  It surely doesn’t have eyes like a human being, but it still sees it.  Try this on for size.

(1) Goto http://www.christinemeeker.com/index2.php

Notice the site is pure flash.  To the human eye it looks fantastic.

(2) This is how Google sees the same page. CLICK HERE

If you didn’t know better, would you be able to tell what kind of website that was.  Is it a business, or a rock band’s website?  Google doesn’t know either.

At Trifox Designs we create custom websites that not only utilizes Flash’s beauty but also takes SEO into account.  If you would like a quote on redesigning your current flash site to be SEO compliant, fill out our Quote Request Form.

Until then, Drink Flash Responsibly.

Why is this bad?  Take that PSD (Photoshop Document) to a T-Shirt printer, or a Business card printer and you may find out the following.  Photoshop makes what designers call “Raster” files.  Raster files are pictures that are made up of many tiny dots (or pixels) that when seen from far away make up a picture.  Photography for example is “Raster”.

Why is making a logo in a raster format bad?  Think of how many promo items, billboards and advertisements you may want to do with your new corporate identity.  Baseball caps, T-Shirts and Business cards.  They all vary in size.  With raster files,  if you scale the original size of the picture too big, then it gets grainy, or blotchy.  Meaning you would have to build a logo roughly 20 feet wide in Photoshop, on the off chance that you may one day want to put said logo on a billboard.  Who want’s to do that?

So How do I build a logo that can scale 500 feet wide and not lose quality?  The answer is “Vector” graphics.  Unlike raster graphics, vector files can scale and shrink on an infinite scale and still be as crisp as it ever will be.  Instead of pixels, vector art uses plotted points to graph out the logo.  Enter “Adobe Illustrator”.  An Adobe quality product that is literally “Vector” in nature.  Yes, this program was actually built for the purpose of logo design!

Designing a logo doesn’t have to be rocket science, but the output format could make or brake your company.  I leave you with this thought.  A raster file usually uses 4 colors to print with.  A vector file uses as many or less as you want.

Long story short, a Photoshop logo could cost 4 TIMES MORE to print than it’s 1 color Vector counterpart.