You can learn how to determine your own target audience for any Web Page in just a few easy steps.

What is a target audience? Relevance?

Target audiences are a group of consumers whom your product is aimed towards. Once you have a goal in mind, or even before it is important to think of who is it that you want to reach. Having this in mind, you can begin separating it into a list of potential consumers.

• Separate by demographics(size,structure,distribution of population)?
• Separate by location?
• Separate by annual income?

Once you have them in separate categories, you can begin to organize your thoughts as well as making sure they reach their intended purpose. 

How can this be applied?

Let’s imagine this scenario; you’re designing an advertisement for a popular sports brand. Who would be your target audience? Athletes and teens who are involved with sports, What do you think they would like to see? What would entice them to buy the product?

If you think of things this way, then you’re much closer to understanding how to determine your own target audience, whether it be a web page or something else.

Understanding common misconceptions

Too often than not designers and entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that their target audience is ‘everyone’ when that is certainly not the case. A consumer who can’t afford or who doesn’t live within shipping distance cannot be considered as part of your target audience. Another common misconception is that “target market” and “target audience” are the same thing. A target market is people who may or may not be interested in your product, while a target audience is who you’re trying to directly influence. This does not mean that they should be separated, your audience is a part of your target market.

Why is it so important?

You want to make sure that your design or ad meets the needs of the people you want to reach. You wouldn’t recommend business strategies to a child would you? When your audience comes to your web page you want them to say “Oh this relates to me” So they will want to learn more instead of scrolling away. You want resonance.

Following these steps, I am sure you will be able to get the results you want. 

It is of the utmost importance that I explain to you the rules and regulations regarding the copyright of fonts. Copyright is a protection provided and given exclusively to the creator of that work or product so it is important that we respect this. Especially if you are a designer who wishes to use certain font in your published work. 

Fonts tend to make or break your website or product, I’m not saying that fonts are all there is to design, but a good font could really bring out the best in your work. Until today, I had no idea there were so many rules, and you might be the same way. The fonts that come with Microsoft Word are safe to use as far as I know, they have all the proper licenses aligned with the software itself so no worry there. 

Onto the more costly portion, buying fonts. I prefer not to buy fonts because of how expensive they can be but that is just a personal preference. Every font that you purchase and or download comes with an End User License Agreement, read every word! I’m not joking! Ever heard of the saying read the fine print? Well read it, there could be a restriction on the font. That being said you’re probably going to ignore what I said anyway, so I probably just wasted my time. 

Moving on, I’m going to explain the difference between fonts and typefaces. I’m not sure if any of you noticed but I didn’t switch between the two, I actually haven’t mentioned typefaces at all, that’s because they are different. A typeface relates more to the actual design of the letters and the font relates to the size and heaviness.Typefaces come in a group known as ‘font families’ which is basically when you have bold letters, italic letters, semi-bold, condensed letters, etc but they’re all the same font. It’s pretty simple in reality, and that’s it. Today you’ve learned a little about the rules and regulations of font copyright and typefaces, see you next time!

Spot colors( solid colors) are colors created by pure or mixed ink that always provides a consistent color when pressed. Now you might be staring at the screen in total confusion, and that’s completely understandable considering that the definition sounds like word garbage. So I will try to explain it to you in plain english to make this process of learning as painless as possible. 

Spot colors, contrary to the name are not made of spots, they are completely solid colors that come from a pallet and are mixed according to the formula of the color you wish to develop. It’s similar to fingerpainting in kindergarten, we learned that to get purple paint you would mix blue and red, it’s pretty simple.

Uses and Systems

Spot Colors are great for company logos and brands that are very color specific about their things. The interesting thing about Spot Colors is the possibilities that come along with it, such as metallics and fluorescents. 

Pantone Matching System (PMS) is one of the most common spot color systems that people tend to work with. They have a base of 18 in which they work off of and develop their inks to create their unique range of colors. Their inks have a code that includes numbers and letters, the letter C standing for a shiny glossy coat and U standing for uncoated which gives a matte finish.

Softwares

Spot Colors are accessible through Adobe software in:

• Illustrator
• Photoshop
• Indesign

Illustrator- If you look at the table located at the top of your screen once you open illustrator you will see a tab labeled ‘windows’ click on it and select swatches. Once you’ve done that locate the dropdown menu on the right side and click Open swatch library>Color Books>Pantone

The same process can be followed on the others, Adobe tends to use a similar format for all its programs. And that is basically a summary of what spot colors are, if we can review for a second in case you forgot. Spot colors are not made of spots, they are solid colors, they are utilized best in branding/logos, and they can be accessed on almost any Adobe software. Thank you for reading!

Are Web Safe Colors important? 

Not anymore. There was a time where the computer could only display a certain number of colors on a screen, the max being 256 colors. Web Safe colors consisted of a small palette of 216 colors and used a technique called ‘dithering’ that made it appear like there were more colors than the ones that were really being presented by adding ‘noise’. Dithering creates a smoother finished image and reduces bands across the screen of your device.

We are living in a more technologically advanced world than it was in the past, screens show colors using bitmaps which can hold millions of color. If you think about it we’re kind of a spoiled generation aren’t we? Games and animations with such extensive design, it’s pretty impressive to see how far we’ve come.

What Are Web Safe Colors Exactly?

Web safe colors are RGB values determined by a mathematical formula consisting of multiples of 51, and that’s about as exact as I am going to get. However if you do want to use Web safe colors then do so when your site is a single solid color or if you make a graphic with an invisible background. 

Web colors can be in the format RGB (red-green-blue) or in hexadecimal form. A hexadecimal uses specific color codes followed by a hashtag sign. There are about 24 bits that specify these.

The Updates that started it all

HTML(1-5#) are software fixers that insert certain patterns into the systems code to tweak bugs and improve on the last update. HTML5 was released in 2008, so about a good twelve years back; the goal was to add new and improved elements to the application. And that it did, language improvements and grammar corrections were made, as well as color improvements.

Thanks to those improvements there isn’t really a need for Web Safe Colors anymore; as well as many of the other things that we used in the past. But if you were to open Photoshop,  they have an option where you can choose to apply Web Safe Colors still. It all depends on the aesthetic choices that one has for their website I suppose. Like I mentioned above, there are still cases where you can use Web Safe Colors.

And there you go, pretty much a whole article of information just to tell you that you really don’t need Web Safe Colors. Your Welcome.

RGB

RGB stands for Red-Green-Blue, and these colors combine to make white. Usually digital cameras and computer monitors use the setting RGB because it helps show color.

The saying “there’s a time and a place” and that saying certainly applies here. If your project destination is digital I suggest you use RGB. The ideal format for RGB files is JPEG, they’re accessible almost anywhere and the size and quality stays virtually unchanged. But you don’t have to use a JPEG for all your projects, that’s why other formats exist.

CMYK

If you have something in motion you might want to use a GIF, If you have something with transparency then try a PNG. In order to print, all RGB color modes must be converted into CMYK. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The reason why it doesn’t have the color white is because it’s usually printed on white, and white on white doesn’t necessarily contrast enough to become visible.

A printer makes images by combining these colors to make your desired one, when all the colors are mixed together they then create black ink. CMYK is not good for monitor use, but it does show brilliant color when printed. You can use it for branding your stationary, advertising posters, t-shirts, and even restaurant menus. The ideal file format for CMYK is PDF, because this file type is adaptable to most programs.

Color Modes

If you open up photoshop and create a new document window should open, with the color mode options on it, as well as the sizing. You can work in RGB and then convert to RGB or the other way around depending on what you’re trying to do. If you can’t remember what color mode you set your image on you can always check in photoshop. If you scroll up to the toolbar and click image > mode you should be able to see which color mode is selected and which one is not.

Sadly, because of the conversions from RBG to CMYK the colors in the artwork that is created lose the majority of its brilliance and they become dulled out. A piece of artwork and a printed work will never be identical, but it doesn’t change anything other than the vibrancy of the colors, the resolution stays the same.

And now you know all about RBG and CMYK color modes, have fun messing with your settings in your Adobe Softwares! See you next time!

It’s been a while since the classic question and answer technique has been used in one of my blogs. So, I’m going to use it today as a replacement for a well thought out introduction. What is a raster image? 

Well, pictures are made of pixels, which is why when you zoom into a picture the quality drops tremendously and you’re left with multicolored squares. Raster images are the same, individually they’re just random dots of misplaced color but together they form a unique image. Raster images have pretty rich details and are usually used in printing and online graphics. 

I know it sounds great, but there is one problem with raster images, they can’t be scaled larger. If you try, the quality becomes low and all the pixels get blurry. But if your raster image was too big and you want it smaller, good news! They can be scaled down.

Vector Images

Onto vector images, these are made up of things called paths. If you’re familiar with the pen tool on photoshop, the curves you make are called a path and they can be followed with a stroke. Which will apply your brush along the guided line you created. Paths are interesting because no matter what situation, whether it be scaling up or down your image won’t lose its quality. Vector images are more simple compared to raster images. They look best when a solid color is used, while a raster can achieve color gradients and so forth. While this might be a bummer vectors are pretty great for logos and illustrations. You can then print them and make cool stickers or rasterize them and put them on the web.

Raster Images

Raster images allow life like color editing, lighting/shadows. Things that you couldn’t get in a vector image but rather a photographed photo. Vectors can be made as close to the image as possible but they will never have the life like color editing that rasterizing has. But that doesn’t mean you can’t combine the two, it’s just when you combine the two one is not truly one or the other but a new product. When you combine these two, the variables around them start to change as well. Things that were impossible with one are now possible with two.

Some file types for rasters are: pdf, png, gif, jpg etc. However vectors can also be made Into a pdf file.

All in all, raster’s are better for images and vectors are better for illustrations and logos. Any artwork—excluding digital drawing—that includes illustration of any kind. See you next time! 

What price should I put on my Graphic Design Jobs? That seems to be a question that always stumps newbies when they’re first starting out.But that’s what I’m here for, to do the research on this so that you don’t have to.No one wants to over price their work, but then again, no one wants to be underpaid for the hard work that they do.

I can see your student debt growing larger with every second that I’m wasting so let me just start already. First off, always get paid upfront first, even if it’s in small intervals. This is to make sure that your client doesn’t run off or cancel last minute, when you’ve already started a project. Secondly, know exactly who you’re getting involved with, because the last thing you want when starting out is bad business.

So, before we even start talking about how much you should charge discussing bad clients is of utmost importance. If you meet a client who is making false promises and refuses to pay upfront, turn them away. Don’t put up with them because you think you’re an amateur and you don’t have enough experience to refuse people. Those are lies and insecurities that will make you suffer in the long run.

Payment. There are two types of payment that freelance designers usually go by, either a flat out price for the entire design or hourly payments. At first, flat out prices might not work as well for you, perhaps your estimates for how long it will take to do a project will be off. But, with experience your estimates will get increasingly more accurate. Clients like flat out prices better than hourly payments because they feel like they’re not getting scammed.

Start off with your numbers a little low, not crumbs, but not too high either, once you get to the point where you’re completely booked then you know it’s time for a change. Raise your prices, do this again and again and slowly watch your business prosper. 

Hourly prices, that is a fun topic. It’s slightly more complicated than giving an estimated price for the whole thing, but I’m sure you can do it. If you’re going to use this version though I suggest you give a clear timeline of your step by step process for your client and don’t waste any time screwing around. This will ease any anxiety they have of you cheating them out of their money. But this all depends on your own personal style of payment, try them both. See which one you and your clients like best.

Hopefully this helped you in your freelancing journey. Thanks for stopping by!

Lots of things are permanent: marker, car-dents, broken glass, and words. Destructive editing? That’s definitely up there too. 

Destructive editing modifies your original image, saves it, and makes it impossible to return to its original state. It’s like spilling wine on a white table cloth, no matter how hard you try it’s never going to be the same, which is why you want to watch out for that. A word of advice, always make sure you’re working on a different layer. 

On the flip side, you know what’s not permanent? Non-destructive editing. That’s what we’re going to focus on, because I would have to be out of my mind if I were to teach you how to destroy perfectly good photos. 

Non-destructive editing allows you to always have the original image intact no matter the changes you make on the other layers, so you always have something to go back to if you make a mistake. There are a couple ways to do this type of operation, such as: duplicating the background layer and working with adjustment layers.

Duplicating the Background Layer

This one is pretty simple and if you don’t know how to do it by now, I suggest you lean into the screen. 
Open up your image in Photoshop, move your mouse controlling the arrow towards the right of your screen to the layers panel and right click on background, then move it down until you find the word duplicate and click one time. Or if you’re lazy like me, you can just click the background and then press Ctrl+J on your keyboard and it will duplicate your layer. It’s much quicker. 

Now, you can use the healing brush, patch tool, any of the marquee tools, whatever you want and you can always go back to your original image. 

Adjustment Layers

Adjustment layers don’t permanently change anything either. They’re also non-destructive. These layers tweak the color and tone of your image. This can be found in the task bar above in window>adjustments. Once the window pops up, you will be met with saturation, brightness, gradients, etc. After that point, all the tools you want are at your fingertips. You can edit without worry.

In the end there are many ways to non destructively edit on Photoshop and by using google and gaining plenty of experience you will find new ways to edit. But, as I explained above and hopefully as you know now, all nondestructive editing is about is working on new layers rather than the image itself. If you haven’t worked with layers it might seem messy, and organizing them into files may not even help but you’ll get used to it.

One day when you make a mistake you’ll be so glad to remove the layer you were working on and not have to worry about your beautiful high definition image getting ruined. You’re welcome!

We’re back with another look at one of Adobe Softwares, Photoshop. I won’t be exploring everything today, because then that would be an excruciatingly long article to read and nobody wants to learn about photoshop terms that much. If you disagree, I’m flattered you enjoy my writing that much. 

Moving on, we are here to talk about dpi and how it matters. Dpi represents dots per inch/pixels per inch. Basically, when you zoom in to a picture, and I mean really zoom into a picture you can almost see what looks like little dots. Those little multi-colored dots are your dpi’s and the more you have the higher quality your image will be.

So, going back to the main idea what’s the difference between 72dpi and 300dpi? The main difference is one is better for web design and one is better for printing. 300dpi has a high resolution(5000×4000) and is better for printing graphic designs and business cards, while 72dpi is a lower resolution(640×40) and is better for staying on a screen. Changing these settings  does not make an already low or high quality image look better or worse. 

Anyhow, open up your photoshop in your mind or on your computer because I’m about to tell you how to change your dpi. First! Open up your image in photoshop and select image in menu and go to image size. But, you might want to go grab a photo first, so I suggest you go do that, I’ll wait. Ok, great. Now that you’re in image size you’re going to want to type the number 300 for resolution and make sure pixels/inch is set as the unit. Then in order for photoshop to adapt to the new dimensions you’ll want to click the checkbox that says re-sample.

If you’re still not sure what those little dots are I’ll try to describe them even further. Have you ever taken a picture of a computer screen? There’s a whole bunch of waves and weird lines that mess up your image. Look even closer, there’s the dots! Do you see them now? There they are, that’s all it is. Tiny little things that your eyes collect and put together as a photo. And for all of you math wizards out there, I have a website that explains the dpi in measurements.  That might suit your fancy a little more than all this imaginative stuff. Thanks for reading, see you next time.

Terminology, a word that is a ticket straight back to the school desk you so willingly left behind after you graduated. And for those of you who haven’t graduated yet, then it’s a ticket straight back to your English class. 

Teachers constantly remind students to use proper terminology, so what exactly is terminology? And what does it have to do with presentation? Well, terminology is a proper word used to describe a particular subject or field. Good terminology is key because it establishes a relationship and it helps you have a better understanding of presentation speak. Here are a few of the most common terms used in a presentation.

• Animation
• Action Button
• Slide/slideshow/slide view 
• Bullet
• Design template
• Task pane

Animation

Animations are an effect that can be applied to your slide in order to make it more interesting. You can place it on nearly everything in your slide; images, text, bullet points etc. Animations can make words on your slide suddenly jump in or appear. This brings some sort of interest from an audience instead of them having to listen to a person who drones on and on and has a really plain presentation.

Action Button 

The action button is simple, and not as exciting as it sounds. Basically, the action button is the button that’s clicked in order for the presentation to move forward. Like the right arrow key, or space bar.

Slides

Slides have different styles and layouts. Layouts meaning how it is presented, whether your info is on the left or the right or even the middle. There are a few options that PowerPoint— or whatever presentation device your using— will offer. There are title slides, slides for your information, picture slides, charts, slides, and normal empty slides.

Bullet 

That list that I created above is called a “bullet list”. It’s not called a list because those little dots on the left are bullets. It’s not to say that it only comes in round shapes, because it can come in a wide variety of forms. A bullet can come in a diamond form, in Roman numerals, in ABC’s, etc. And they are used to highlight points or topics in your slide. A slide with full paragraphs is hard to read, but a slide with bullet points provides the general idea while the rest of the information is presented by you.

Design Template

A design template is the overall scheme of your presentation. When you click a new design, it changes everything in your presentation. On the right side it will also offer design ideas, in case the route that you want to go in terms of the look of each of the slides.

Task pane

This pane pops up on the right side of your monitor and offers you options that are accessible to you. For example, when you are applying animation to your slides it will display the options on the right task bar.

And that is it for most common presentation terms. Bye.