Category Archives: printing

Low Cost Clip Art & Image

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Digital clip art collections provide a great source for designers to obtain inexpensive (sometimes even royalty-free) images. If you’re considering purchasing a digital clip art collection, here are some questions to ask:
  • Are the images in this collection compatible with my operating system and the software I use?
  • Is the file format (EPS, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, etc.) versatile enough for my needs?
  • Are the images of a high-enough resolution and quality?
  • Are the images bitmapped or vector-based? (Vector-based images are better if you’ll need to enlarge them.)
Other Sources to Check
As you search for images, don’t forget to check the Library of Congress web site. In addition to copyrighted images, their online catalog of prints and photographs even includes a number of quality images in the public domain, as well.
Old magazines and books are another potential source for images. Any that were published before 1923 are in the public domain. Those published between 1923 and 1963 might be in the public domain, unless the copyright holder renewed their claim. Anything published after 1963 is still under copyright, so you’ll need to obtain permission before using it.
And finally, our print shop has a number of print-quality clip art collections on file, too, which you are free to browse.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct mail, graphic design, marketing – 318.868.3351

Liquified Lettering

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Type effects are a good way to turn a headline into a visual element. One popular type trend, known as liquid or “aqua” lettering, is easy to reproduce in Photoshop using the steps below:
  1. Create a 300dpi image in Photoshop, with dimensions that are large enough to fit your entire headline text.
  2. Set the foreground color to R=0 G=51 B=222. This will provide the color for your text.
  3. Select the type tool and choose a serif font, such as Garamond or Times New Roman.
  4. Set the font size at 72px, and type the text you want to use in the headline.
  5. Control-click (Mac: Command-click) inside the type layer to select the shape of the letters.
  6. Reduce the selection by seven pixels, by choosing Modify > Contract from the Select menu at the top of the screen.
  7. Create a new layer (with your selection still in place), and change the foreground color to R=31 G=82 B=255.
  8. Using the fill tool, color your selected area with this new color.
  9. Once that’s set, deselect the selected area, and duplicate the layer you just created, so you now have two copies of it.
  10. Name the first of these layers “Color1” and the second “Color2.”
With all your layers in place, you’ll now need to make the following adjustments:
Color1 — Set the Blend Mode to Multiply

  • Double-click the “Color1” layer on the layers palette to bring up the Layer Style dialog box.
  • Set the Blend Mode to Multiply, and hit OK.

Color2 — Add a Gaussian Blur
  • Highlight “Color2” on the layers palette, and choose Blur > Gaussian Blur from the Filter menu at the top of the screen.
  • A dialog box will appear. Set the radius to 5px and hit OK.
Color2 — Add an Emboss Effect
  • Double-click the “Color2” layer on the layers palette to bring up the Layer Style dialog box.
  • Highlight and select the Bevel and Emboss style.
  • For the Style setting, choose Emboss.
  • Change the Depth to 441% and the Size to 10px.
  • Set the Highlight Mode to Normal, with an Opacity of 100%, and the Shadow Mode to Color Dodge, with an opacity of 40%.
  • Press OK to continue.
Color2 — Adjust the Curves
  • With the “Color2” layer still highlighted on the layers palette, choose Adjustments > Curves from the Image menu at the top of the screen.
  • Another dialog box will appear.
  • Insert stop points at the following coordinates (input/output): 50/160, 200/90, and 233/180.
  • Once you have these coordinates in place, click OK.
  • Text Layer — Add a Drop Shadow
  • Right-click (Mac: Option-click) on the text layer in the layers palette.
  • Select Blending Options from the dropdown menu that appears.
  • Highlight and select Drop Shadow in the Layer Style dialog box.
  • Set the color (the swatch next to Blend Mode) to R=0 G=32 B=186 and the Opacity to 75%.
  • Choose a Distance of 5px, a Spread of 0%, and a Size of 9px.
The effect is now complete.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, graphic design, direct mail, marketing – 318.868.3351

Painting with Light

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Adding Dramatic Lighting Effects to Your Photo
With a bit of selective lightening and darkening in Photoshop, you can make a dull, lifeless photograph pop off the page.
There is nothing wrong with the original image, although the “before” picture lacks the dramatic mood that the change of lighting adds to the “after” picture. By using Photoshop to accentuate the darks and the lights, the viewer’s attention is now focused directly on the couple.
Here’s how to do it:
  • First, add a new layer and fill it with 50% gray with 100% opacity.
  • Change the layer’s Blending Mode to Color Burn, which will darken the image and make it look over-saturated.
  • Then decrease the layer’s opacity to your taste. (Opacity in the range of 50% to 80% usually works well.)
  • To create the ray of light, use a large, soft-edged, white airbrush at 2%–3% opacity and paint on the gray Color Burn layer to create a new light source.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct mail, graphic design, marketing – 318.868.3351

What is a Creative Solution?

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The Creative Process
Graphic design brings together two different things: artistic creation and the practical world of commerce. Put simply, it is intelligence made visual. A designer is a creative artist who deals with the realities of planning, from assessing client needs and crafting a solution to selecting appropriate materials (papers, inks, glues, and varnishes), maintaining strict budgets, and understanding visual communication.
Creative Solutions
A designer must make connections in the mind between creativity and process in order to successfully communicate a message to an audience and answer a client’s needs.
What Is a Creative Solution?
At its core, a creative solution solves a client’s problem through the design medium/language. It is…
  • appropriate for the client’s product, spirit, and objectives.
  • communicated clearly.
  • functional. A package has to open. A pictogram has to identify. A map has to direct.
  • impactful.
  • memorable.
  • original.
  • fresh, stimulating, exciting, and stunning.
  • executed appropriately and well.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct mail, graphic design, marketing – 318.868.3351

Eye-Teasing Design

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When working in graphic design, making things look good may seem like the right thing to do, but perhaps making things attract attention should be your goal. Attracting attention can often be done by creating tension in the eyes of the viewers. Tension is defined as balanced relation between strongly opposing elements, or the interplay of conflicting elements. This tension or conflict will cause viewers to stop and take a closer look at your design in hopes of uncovering what is making them subconsciously uncomfortable. Here are a few tension creating tips to intrigue your viewers:
  • Barely touching elements tease the viewers. Their eyes are drawn to this point of almost intersection, and they keep checking to see if the items really touch.
  • Design decisions that appear tentative, such as elements that are off-kilter, can cause conflict because the viewer will naturally want things to be straight and orderly. Deliberately placing images off balance, as long as it isn’t overdone, can help capture a viewer’s attention.
  • Using complementary colors next to each other, especially when there is a shared edge, can cause a vibration in your design. This is because each color is vying for dominance in the eyes of your viewer. Choose your colors to attract attention.
Using these techniques at some of the focal points of your piece, such as the center, and the corners, will retain the viewer’s interest as they digest all that your piece has to say.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct mail, graphic design, marketing – 318.868.3351

When Color Matters

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You’re designing a new brochure, flyer, or newsletter and want to make sure it looks great. You’re considering printing it full-color, but aren’t sure if that’s the best option to choose, considering your budgetary needs. Here are some tips to help you decide how many colors to use and how to make the most of the colors you choose.
When to use spot colors…
  • You only need one or two colors for the printed piece.
  • Your project doesn’t include any full-color photos.
  • Your corporate colors need to be reproduced to exact specifications and cannot be reproduced faithfully enough by combining cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK)… the four “process” colors.
  • Your project calls for fluorescent, metallic, or other special inks.
When to use process color…
  • You need more than two colors.
  • Your piece includes full-color photos.
When to use both…
  • You want to enhance the colors by including a “bump” plate (an extra printing plate set up in one of the four process colors and meant to enhance that tone).
  • Your project includes full-color photos, but your logo or corporate colors don’t reproduce well with process color inks.
  • Your project includes full-color photos and also requires metallic, fluorescent, or other special inks.
No matter what color combination you choose, there are some things you can do to ensure your project goes more smoothly. For example, as you’re preparing your artwork, make sure you aren’t “duplicating” any colors. Look through the color palette in your page layout software. Remove any duplicate colors you find, and reassign the corresponding objects and layers accordingly.
Also make sure you give your colors the same names in each application you use for the project. For example, make sure you give the color the same name in InDesign as you give it in Photoshop and Illustrator. This will help reduce confusion and ensure the colors separate properly when preparing the piece for print.
And finally, if you decide to go with process printing, use your design software to convert any spot colors you have to their CMYK equivalents. When doing so, double-check the values the software assigns, to ensure good printability. For example, if Photoshop gives a color a 1% magenta value, you might want to do some tweaking to eliminate the need for that value. We’ll be happy to help you optimize your files for print and answer any questions you have while producing your files.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct mail, graphic design, marketing – 318.868.3351

Typographical Terms

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The following is a short list of common typographical terms:

  • The baseline is the invisible baseline that type sits on.
  • Body copy, body text, and sometimes just plain body or text refer to the main block of text that you read, as opposed to headlines, subheads, titles, etc. Body text is usually between 9 and 12 points in size.
  • A bullet is a little marker typically used in a list instead of numbers or between words. This is the standard bullet: •
  • A dingbat is a small, ornamental character. You might have the fonts Zapf Dingbats or WingDings, which are made up of dingbats.

  • Elements are the separate objects on the page. An element might be a single line of text, a graphic, or a group of items that are so close together they are perceived as one unit. To determine the number of elements on a page, squint your eyes, and count the number of times your eye stops to see each separate item on the page.
  • Extended text refers to large amounts of body copy (see above), as in a book or long report.
  • Eye flow refers to the way someone moves their eyes around a page. Designers need to become more conscious of this flow and design accordingly.
  • Justified type lines up flush on both the left and the right edges.

  • A rule is a drawn line often used under headers.
  • White space is the space on a page that is not occupied by any text or graphics. Beginners tend to be afraid of white space. Professional designers use lots of it.
  • Trapped white space occurs when the white space (see above) on a page is seemingly “trapped” between elements (such as text or photos), with no space through which to flow.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct mail, graphic design, marketing – 318.868.3351

Color on Color

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Two-color printing adds life to a printed piece without draining the budget. Now you can make those two colors work a little harder by using a technique called overprinting. Overprinting involves the layering of two ink colors to create a unique third color. By doing this you can create many new possibilities for creative design. Not only will this process intensify the colors you are already using, you can often achieve a third color at no additional printing costs to you.
A quick glance at how to overprint:
Shown here is an example of how you might use overprinting to achieve the effect of a third color. The color PMS 299 and PMS 233 overlap, producing a third color similar to PMS 268.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct mail, graphic design, marketing – 318.868.3351

Stationery Paper Basics

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With so many papers available, how do you decide what papers to spec for your business stationery? Here are a few basics to keep in mind. For more advice, talk to one of our customer service representatives. We’re experts at choosing the perfect paper for every job.
  • Start with the basics. Letterhead is typically printed on an uncoated, 20 to 28 pound bond paper. For business cards, consider an uncoated, 80 pound cover stock. If your design includes photos or other fine touches, choose a coated stock instead, for better print quality and clarity.
  • Know your limitations. Check your office laser or inkjet printer’s specifications before selecting a stock. You don’t want your letterhead’s weight to exceed the limitations of the office equipment you plan to use it on.
  • The color of paper you select will affect how inks appear when printed on it. Even different shades of white can affect print quality in different ways. Make sure you select a paper that will complement the ink colors needed for the design.
  • In the same way, it’s generally a good idea to avoid darker colors or distracting background images. Otherwise, your correspondence may be difficult to read when printed on your letterhead.
  • Study the samples. All of the major paper companies provide sample books filled with examples of the various papers they have to offer. Many even show how different inks appear when printed on the page. Visit our print shop to take a look at these sample books and to get our advice for selecting a paper that’s right for you.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct marketing, graphic design and marketing – 318.868.3351

The Risk of Over Designing

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Simplicity is often seen, but it s a concept that is not easily explained. For some graphic designers, it’s second nature. For others, it involves much forethought. Today’s designers are trending toward more simple, clutter-free designs, as they return to simplicity. Here are some examples of how the traditional theme of less is more is used:
Advertising
  • Not only can simple ads grab attention, but their short and to the point messages are also easier to comprehend. The concept of “less is more” is especially effective when writing ad copy.
Catalogs and Brochures
  • Catalogs and brochures are expected to be a vast source of information, yet readers appreciate when they are simplified, organized, and easy to read and comprehend. Simplicity is often its own reward since it encourages increased use.
Packaging
  • Like a poster, a package needs to attract the eye within seconds of its initial viewing. In recent years, shelves have been jammed with products whose designers have attempted to out-design one another. This gives simple package designs featuring primary colors, bold copy, white space, and clean design the ability to effectively break through the clutter.
Identity
  • Not only do logos convey the personality of a company, but they also offer a memorable impression. Simple designs that incorporate a company’s complex ideas are the root of a logo’s power.
One of the perks of being a designer is the ability to develop a personality or character for a company or product. For designers, simplicity means a return to basics, but not at the expense of creative design.

http://www.ParagonPress.net – #1 in Shreveport, LA for printing, direct mail, graphic design, marketing – 318.868.3351