Articles
of Interests
Tips
on how to keep costs down
How
our design process works
Client
briefing notes
Bitmap
and vector images
Preparing
for a new website
Copyright
Disclaimer
Tips
on how to keep costs down
The
best way to keep costs down is to prepare well
from the start - in whatever project you wish to
proceed with. Ask questions if you are unsure about
anything and research.
If
for example you require a new logo, think about
what you will be using it for, not only now, but
down the track. You can potentially save a lot
of money in printing costs if it is designed so
that it can be resized and scaled for large printing
purposes such as signage and banners - even if
you don't need this in the beginning stages. You
often have to pay extra artwork fees to the signage
companies, if your logo is not designed to accommodate
these variations from the start. In some cases
the logo needs to be recreated from scratch. Therefore
think twice about getting work done at the cheapest
possible price as you may end up paying more in
the future. You will avoid these outcomes when
using a professional designer.
See vector and bitmap Images for
further information.
Its
not always necessary to use CMYK (full printing
colour spectrum) when creating logos - or any artwork
for that matter. Often a logo contains one, two
or three colours. This is because printers charge
by the colours contained in your job - which is
a good thing, as they charge less for using less
colours rather than charging the same full price
on all jobs. Just because you use only a few colours
for a logo does not in anyway cause it to be less
effective. Often simple is best and you will save
a lot of money in printing items such as business
cards, letterheads, envelopes, pads etc. for the
duration of your business if your logo and business
stationery are designed well from the start.
Size
can also make a difference with printing and we
are aware of things like this. Eg. an A3 poster
has to be printed on paper larger than A3 to avoid
having a white border around the edges because
the majority of print machines are not designed
to print to the very edge of the paper. You pay
for the paper size you use, but if the poster is
designed slightly smaller than A3 - or designed
so the white border fits in with the design, there
is no need to pay more for oversized A3 paper (SRA3).
The same goes with DL brochures, flyers and other
print material. Sometimes these little tricks can
come in handy and save enormous amounts of money
when printing in large quantities.
When
using Rommie Corso Design for
your project requirements, we always inform our
clients of issues like this - as it can potentially
save a lot of time and money that can better be
spent elsewhere. By choosing a professional, qualified
designer for your graphic design work, you will
save money as an attentive designer is aware of
these little issues, that can turn out to be big
issues for you down the track as your business
progresses. As in most cases you only pay one fee
for design work, yet you will be paying printing
fees for the duration of your business etc.
Rommie
Corso is a qualified designer, having achieved
a Bachelor of Visual Communication from the University
of South Australia. She also has valuable industry
experience, having worked for various graphic and
printing firms as well as running her own design
business.
How
our design process works
1.
Client/Project briefing.
2.
Research, idea generating, initial drafts.
3.
Presentation of artwork.
4.
Once artwork is accepted, production as required
takes place.
5.
Artwork supplied to client once payment has been
processed.
1.
Every job starts with client briefing. Sometimes
a client has this prepared, but in most instances,
we will prepare this for you after we have assessed
what it is you require and how best to go about
fulfilling your ideas, goals, requirements and
finished results. This discussion happens either
over email, phone, in person at an initial consultation
or a combination of these. See
client briefing notes for more information.
2.
The next step is that we will come up with ideas
and initial drafts. A lot of this process is about
refining our own research into your project, idea
generating and choosing from our most effective
ideas and drafts to further develop. We then present
to you the initial drafts, our thought processes
about the design and how it relates to achieving
our common purpose as defined in our client briefing
discussions.
3.
It is at this stage that we get the green light
or the orange light from you to either go ahead
with finalising the initial artwork, or to adjust
anything that needs changing. Red lights don't
exist! as we are prepared to change the artwork
until you are completely satisfied with the finished
results. All clients are different in their requirements
and some require no changes at all, whilst others
need a few. Its no problem either way - its all
part of the process.
4.
Once the initial artwork has been accepted by you,
we then go about applying it in various formats
relating to the job eg. files for print, web etc.
If the job entails finishing work - such as printing,
signage, screen print, pad print, embroidery, web,
shopping carts etc, we will organise all of this
as required.
5.
Once we have received payment for the work we have
undertaken, we will supply you with your finished
artwork. If it is digital artwork you will receive
files by way of email, C.D or both.
Client
briefing notes.
Obviously
all jobs are unique but a general idea of what
is involved in the client briefing process and
ideas for your own preparation are as follows...
What
do you want the design work to achieve?
Eg. create awareness of your business or services,
promote a project, sell products, create a unique
visual identity - new logo, business style guide,
advertise products, services, ideas etc...
We
require information about your business, products,
ideas, your approach etc.
So that we can create an accurate visual representation
based on who YOU are.
What makes you (your business, product etc.) stand
out - what is unique about you as opposed to your
main competitors. If you look at mobile phone companies
for example - they all do the same thing, but they
all have a different 'look' and business personality
traits in order to attract their share of the market.
Some give off a youthful feel like 3 Mobile, whilst
Optus Mobile have a more mature look. Different visual
personalities enable them to attract a specific audience
or customer base. Sure there may be slight differences
in what they provide and the costs, but essentially
both companies provide 'the same services'. Yet it
is in the 'look' they choose that attracts the customers
to them over others and if they are treated well,
they will come back.
Who
are your main competitors and how are you different?
Who
is your target audience/customers if known?
Do
you have a budget and a specific time frame?
How
do you intend to use the design or artwork at
present and possibly in the future?
Do
you require finishing services and how would
you like the artwork supplied to you?
Bitmap
and vector images
Bitmap
images are made up of a series of dots - commonly
referred to as pixels or dots per inch (dpi) that
together form a picture, like what you see in a
photograph or T.V screen. The most common bitmap
based program is Adobe Photoshop and common bitmap
file types are jpeg, gif, tiff, bmp. Bitmap images
are perfect for high detailed imagery such as photographs
and they certainly have a wide range of graphic
benefits because of the detail they achieve. The
drawback with bitmap images are that they tend
to lose quality when scaled, or blown up. As you
have no doubt seen the effects of an image that
seems to be blurry, grainy or has jagged edges.
This is because when you try to scale a bitmap
image - all the little dots get stretched and therefore
your image loses its crispness when it is stretched
too much.
Vector
images are not based on dots bunched together,
but rather on mathematical values known as 'wireframes'.
To put it simply, its like a series of lines from
A to B, that together form an image. Vector images
can be blown up or scaled to any size without losing
quality. Common vector based programs are Adobe
Illustrator, Indesign, Freehand and Quark Xpress.
Vector images are usually simpler in that they
have fewer details than a photographic image. All
text for example is originally vector based and
these type of images are perfect for logos, animation
and more simplified artwork.
Preparing
for a new website
1.
What would you like your website to do?
2.
Research similar sites
3.
Planning - page names, text and imagery
4.
We take care of the rest!
It
is important to think about what you would like
your website to do? Is it to promote
your business or products? locally or internationally?
Is it a personal site for family and friends
etc. There are different options that need to
be taken into consideration depending on what
you want your website to do. Of course we will
help you with this - all you need to do is think
about what you want and we will then provide
you with options as to how we may go about it.
An example is; a website that wants to promote
a service to international clients may need more
work in a behind the scenes way - so that it
is better picked up by the search engines. Thereby
becoming more accessible for people looking for
the service that you offer. Whereas a local site
that is promoted for local clients only may not
need this extra work.
To
put it simply there are two main types of website's. One
is a brochure style website - that acts similar
to a printed brochure with the exception that
you click a button to turn the page and on the
web, you can have as much text and imagery as
you want without space limitations. The other
type of website is what is commonly known as
ecommerce. These website's allow you to sell
products on line, by way of online shopping such
as shopping carts, buy now buttons etc. Ecommerce
website's are able to accept payment by credit
cards. You may start out with a brochure style
website and upgrade it to ecommerce at a later
stage.
Research
similar sites. Leave the graphics up
to the web designer - as it is our job to make
your website look different and unique so that
it stands out amongst your competitors. But it
helps to look at the way pages are used, how
people name the pages and then you can better
assess what you would like to name the pages
on your website and the type of information you
can then put on these pages to serve your website's
purpose.
Planning
your page names, text and images
In order to minimise the time involve in
building a new website or even updating an existing
website, the two main things that the designer needs
from you to begin the process of building your site
are; text information - including page names and
images, such as a logo, photos of your products,
etc. Whilst Rommie Corso Design is
able to help you with text and imagery if needed,
we still need you to begin the process, as you are
the one that knows most about what you do. Once
you have decided on your page names, we then need
you to supply the text information that will go on
each page. We prefer you to supply this information
to us as a simple text file or rich text file (rtf).
Word is also accepted and over email is o.k too.
Images for web are o.k to be supplied as JPG, PDF
- anything really as the images on screen don't need
to be high resolution like they do for print. Some
clients are happy to prepare all of this themselves,
whilst others use our experience to help them with
this.
What
is most important in the beginning stages is
just getting the page names organised and the
other details can be added later on.
Generally
a website will have at least one main navigation
field - which are the main pages that are made
into buttons that the viewer can click on. Then
within these main pages you have sub pages as required.
An example would be a 'Services' page. When someone
clicks on the services page - they can see the
services you offer, or click on links that open
further pages to view a specific service that you
offer. You can add more sub pages in this section
as your services grow. This is a cost effective
way of adding to or updating your website.
Of
course you can always add to the main navigation
- adding more main pages that are shown on every
page of the website, it just costs more for you
to do so. As every page of the website in most
cases must be updated to accommodate the 'new page'.
Which will obviously take more time for the designer
to do for you.
This
is why planning for your website is crucial. Get
your page names right! Or make them so that they
are like group headings that can encompass sub
pages belonging to that group. Obviously things
like contact us pages don't need sub pages! But
common pages that do require sub pages and links
are services, products - or groups of products,
locations etc.
Copyright © Rommie
Corso 2008
This
website and all information and images within
are protected by international copyright
laws. To
steal from the artist is a federal and international
offence. It is
illegal to reproduce, copy,re distribute, transmit,
sell or print in anyway, anything contained in this
website without prior written consent of the author/artist. Thank
you for respecting our rights.
Disclaimer
Whilst
with our best efforts we have endeavoured to provide
all information as accurate as possible on this
website, we do not give any guarantee of the accuracy
or completeness of the content. All text and imagery
distributed on this website by Rommie Corso Design
are an information source only on matters of interest.
All information on this site is subject to change
without notice. Rommie Corso makes no representations,
statements or warranties about the completeness,
accuracy or the results obtained from the use of
any material contained in this website or any website
you may access through this website. We provide
links to other sites for your convinience only
and we take no responsibility for the accuracy,
information or results obtained by you upon visiting
those sites.
Rommie
Corso disclaims all responsibility and all liability
without limitation for all expenses, losses, damages
and costs you may incur as a result of the material
published on this website or any linking website,
it is the users responibility to ensure that you
have the appropriate precautions in place to avoid
computer and software damage due to destructive
viruses, worms or similar whilst visiting our website
or any linking website.
Please
feel free to email any
questions you have in relation to our services.
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