Elegant Graphic Designs | Category Archives: Blog

What is Branding, Identity & Logo Design?

A simple logo is not your identity, nor is it your brand. Logo design, identity design and branding all have separate roles, but when used right all forms a comprehend image for a company or product. There has been, and always will be, discussion on the web about this topic, about your logo not being your brand. And although this may be true, we have not seen any explanation of the contrast between ‘brand’, ‘identity’ and ‘logo’. We wish to correct these discussion once and for all. Welcome to What is Branding, Identity & Logo Design?

What is Branding?

Branding is the company image as a whole. The fundamental idea and core notion behind having a ‘corporate image’ is that everything a company does, everything it owns and everything it manufactures should reflect the importance and aims of the company as a whole. Branding is the constancy of this idea that makes up the business, driving it, displaying what it stands for, what it believes in and why they prevail. Branding is not solely base on colors, typefaces, logo and slogan. Its who you are and what you can do.

What is identity?

Identity is the visual characteristics that form part of the overall brand. Identity design is based around the visual devices used within a business, usually collected within a number of guidelines. These guidelines make up an identity usually distribute how the identity is exercised throughout a selection of mediums, using approved color theme, fonts, layouts, measurements, etc. These guidelines establish that the identity of the business is kept comprehensible, which than allows the brand as a whole to be unmistakable, in other words to be clear in the public eyes.

The identity or ‘image’ of a business is made up of many visual platforms:

A Logo (The symbol of the whole identity & brand)
Stationery (letterhead, business cards, envelopes, etc)
Marketing Collateral (flyers, brochures, folders, websites, etc.)
Products & Packaging (products sold and the packaging in which they come in)
Apparel Design (clothing items that are worn by the employees)
Signage (interior & exterior designs of the office)
Messages & Actions (messages transmitted via indirect or direct modes of communication)
Other Communication (audio, smell, touch, etc.) and anything visual that reflects the business.

All of these visual platforms make up an identity and should support the brand entirely. However, the logo is the corporate identity and brand that shows the identifiable mark of the business. Because of this, the mark is known as the avatar, icon and symbol of the company as a whole.

What is a logo?

A logo identifies a company in its simplest form via the use of a mark, icon or symbol. It does not sell the company directly nor rarely does it describe a business as a whole. Instead the Logo’s extract their meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes. Logos are merely there to identity and not to explain. In other words, what a logo means is more significant than what it appears like. It is also critical to know that only after a logo becomes recognized, does it function the way it is intended to do similar how we much must learn people’s names to identify them. The logo identifies a business or product in its simplest appearance.

How would you outline brand, identity and logo design? As always, comments and thoughts are appreciate. And remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

The Least You Should Know About html

The internet and mobile age is here and are essential in every day use, so with these two in place it is important to understand how to create a website so it can be shown on any mobile device. This is where the heart of graphic design is, so if you want to make the big bucks this is where to be. Welcome to The Least You Should Know About html.

What is HTML?

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. This is the code behind your website and what your browser looks for to display a webpage. HTML can be created in either plain text files (.txt) or in any other softwares such as Dreamweaver.

Hyper allows the person viewing the World Wide Web page to go anywhere, at any time.
Text is what will apply to the webpage, such as English letters A,B,C.
Markup is what to do with the letters. In other words, what will be written up.
Language is the communication of the code, so what text/code is created is what is shown on the webpage.

The Web Browser

A web browser is a software application for restoring, displaying, and traversing information on the World Wide Web. The browser reads the HTML code and based on how the designer codes each content in the HTML tags, which is how the browser displays the content of the page. Many different types of browsers application includes firefox, safari and google chrome.

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-The Least You Should Know About html-Browser

HTML Tags

Tags such as <h1> and <h2> surrounds the content in a browser and displays the title of the website, because of this the browser reads as the title of the page & shows. All HTML tag must have a opening and closing tag, the closing tag is always the same as the opening tag except it displays a forward slash before the tag name.

Mandatory Tags

Several tags must support a page in order for the browser to read it correctly. These tags include the <html> tag, the <head> tag and the <body> tag. Tags can be inserted inside of other tags, for instance a website may display this as their code.

<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<p>welcome to our site!</p>
</body>
</html>

When coding its best to place spaces before each level of tags, that way when need to go back and change an old code, the designer can easily find where the content of the website is located.

We explain The Least You Should Know About html. Now we want to hear from you and your experience with HTML. Is there something we miss? Please comment below and let us know.
and remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-The Least You Should Know About html

Thank You to HackFront for this great video on HTML Basics.

How to Create a Great Motion Graphic Video

People today prefer visual and video than simple text, so with video becoming more important motion graphics has never been so critical to any business. But what makes a great motion graphics video. Here are some key elements that will enhance your project from being a average video to a more professional presentation. Welcome to How to Create a Great Motion Graphic Video?

What is Motion Graphics?

Motion Graphics is a digital skill that uses a variety of different techniques such as pictures, typography and audio all in one. Movie films like James Bond introduction scenes are perfect examples of how motion graphics are being used. Another great example is in this quirky yet excellent video called “Dumb Ways to Die”

How are Motion Graphics Executed?

Motion graphics can provide an overview that is appealing, illustrative and explanatory. For this reason, many motion graphic videos are used at the beginning of a live presentation to lure in the audience and display an introduction of the business or project. If your main objective is to make a statement and get an audience attention, then motion graphic is an terrific option to get your message across.

Designers frequently use programs like Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D to create a motion graphic video. At the same time, designers distribute the video by using video distribution sites like YouTube, Vimeo and HTML5 video plugins. Here is a screenshot of a video project using After Effects.

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-How to Create a Great Motion Graphic Video-After Effects Screenshots

How to Build a Motion Graphic Video?

In the end, creating a motion graphic video is very similar like creating an animated movie. Here is how its done.

Story: before you do anything, you need to decide what the story or message you’re trying to deliver.

Script: concentrate on having a conversation about all or a portion of the story. That is, you must know where the conversation will begin and end. In other words, what you expect people to know coming into in the video, and when leaving it.

Storyboard: once your script is completed, the design portion starts. A storyboard is produced based on the script with relevant visuals designed to back up what’s being said.

Production: after all the planning has been finalize, create the final visuals and get audio clips or sound bites and stitch it all together into the final cut of your video.

All in all, storytelling is essential in every motion graphic project. So a great motion graphic will tell a compelling narrative, with the visual elements backing up the story & reinforcing the message. We mention key factors in creating a great motion graphic video, now we want to hear from you and your experience with it. Is there something you do differently? Please comment below and let us know.
and remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-How to Create a Great Motion Graphic Video

Here is another example of how motion graphics is being used perfectly.
Thank you to White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for this great video!

What is a Vector and Raster Graphic File?

Most of the time graphic designers are not experience enough or educated to know the difference between a Vector Graphic file and a Raster Graphic file. In fact, many designers don’t even know what they do nor what they are. So to apply these tools correctly, it’s crucial to understand the difference between the two and how each are applied into design. Welcome to What is a Vector and Raster Graphic File?

Vector File

Vector graphic file are made up of paths, points, curves and angles which are established by a start & end point. A path can be a square, triangle, line or a curvy shape. These paths can be used to design simple illustrations or elaborate diagrams. Paths are even applied to describe the elements of specific typefaces.

Since vector-based images are not made up of a particular number of dots, they can be scaled to a bigger size and not lose any image quality. In other words, when a designer blows up a vector file, the edges of each object within the graphic stay smooth, clean and right. Because of this, vector files should be used in a logo for it will be small enough to be shown on a business card, but also enlarge and scale on a billboard without any problems. General types of vector files include Adobe Illustrator (Ai) and Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) files.

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-What is a Vector and Raster Graphic File Comparison

Raster File

Many images you see on your computer screen are raster graphics. Photos you import from your digital camera and images found on the web are raster graphics. They are made up of grid of pixels, known as a bitmap. The bigger the image, the more disk space the image file will take. Lets use a digital camera as an example, if you had a 640 x 480 image it will require information to be stored for 307,200 pixels, versus a 3072 x 2048 image which will require a whopping 6,291,456 pixels. So the bigger the image, the bigger the pixels it will become.

Because raster graphics store so much information, large bitmaps need large file sizes. Thankfully, there are several image compression formats that have been established to help reduce these file sizes. JPEG and GIF are the most common compressed image formats on the Web. Raster graphic files can normally be scaled down with no loss of quality, but increasing a bitmap image causes it to look blocky and pixelated.

We explain what Vector and Raster Graphic Files are, now we want to hear from you and your experience with the two. Is there something we did not mention? Please comment below and let us know.
and remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-What is a Vector and Raster Graphic File

The Key Factors to Graphic Design

Buying a computer is straight forward, taking a class is no problem but becoming an impressive graphic designer takes alot of time, effort and study. Whether you are highly experience or just a beginner designer, the following tips and tricks will help you design the best artwork project. These design theory tips are often missing key factors, distinguishing a talented designer from a trained designer. Welcome to the Key Factors of Graphic Design.

Typography

Typography is one of the significant key factors of any graphic design project. For a skillful and spectacular design, use contrast between text blocks and surrounding empty spaces, this will ultimately give a depth and strength of a artwork. You can also create magnificent visuals using contrast between one font and the other. Check out our “What Font to Use” article for more information on fonts.

Grid

When designing print projects and websites, a designer must make sure they are using a grid system to have a clean & simple look for their audience. Learning the basic of the grid system will help you to create a structural balance to your art and will make your designs look extraordinary and professionally. So if you want to create a stunning design, grids are a must.

Clean and Simple

The essential tlesson in designing a project is to keep it clean and simple. If a designer makes the project too complex the design will not attract your audience and the message will get lost. So creating a simple and clean design will make your project look attractive and help engage audiences. In other words the more audience you get, the more attention and business you will acquire.

Balance

In graphic design its important creating a balance between text and design for your project, for it will create excellent readability. For instance, if your design fails to keep a good balance, it will be considered a poor and untrained design consequentially giving you a bad reputation.

Audience

Knowing your audience is another key factor when designing a project. Remember you will be creating a design for your audience and not for yourself. So when you know your audience, you will be able to target them in your artwork. For example, say you work on a fashion advertisement, you wont design an ad that is intense and chaotic; No! you will make it rich and exquisite because thats the way the fashion world is. So knowing your audience can either get you the job or loose your job.

Color Theory

Understanding the basic factors and methods of a color scheme, or color theory, will help you create a excellent design. In order to achieve this simple yet frustrating technique you will have to learn about basic color schemes and understand how to set moods with colors. This skill will require many practice and attempts so be patient and research other designs to get influence. If your design is done right, you will attract attention, change modes, and even make statements using only colors. In the end, if you learn how to use colors properly, you will have more control in the design and its impact to your client and audience.

Review

Just because you are done with your design does not mean you are completely finish. One of the simplest yet critical part of any artwork is the revision portion. Before you submit your design be sure to ask for people opinions, especially those with no knowledge in graphic design for they will critique your work honestly. And if you don’t ask anybody, step back from the design and come back to it later so you can revise any graphics and improve if needed, you be surprise how many mistake and/or changes there will be.

All in all, its paramount to use all these key factors in any graphic design projects. Make it a habit so you can better yourself as a designer and it will show as you continue along on your graphic design carrier. The more practice and experience you take, the better designer you will be become. There is nothing more amazing and satisfying than seeing your old work and saying to yourself “I design that?” for than you will truly understand what it takes to become a trained and elegant designer.

We listed the key factors to graphic design, now we would like to hear from you. Is there something we did not listed that you use in your designs. If so please comment below and let us know.
and remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-The Key Factors to Graphic Design

What Font to Use?

Ever have the problem of not knowing what typeface to use for your project? New typefaces are being created every day and it becomes harder and harder to find the right one. New designers always get lost but eventually they use the ones they are more comfortable with, but how did they did they get comfortable and more importantly, how did they know What Font to Use? We break down what you should ask yourself when choosing the right font.

Serif or Sans-Serif?

To decide which one to use, a designer needs to what they are. Serif is a slight projection finishing off a stroke of a letter such as Baskerville, Caslon, Garamond and Times. In contrast, San-Serif does not have the small projecting features (serifs) at the end of strokes. The term Sans-Serif comes from the French word sans, meaning “without” and “serif” from the Dutch word schreef meaning “line.” Examples of Sans-Serif are Arial, Futura, Century Gothic and Helvetica. To better understand the typefaces, below is an image that shows the difference between a Serif and Sans-Serif.

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-Serif-Sans-Serif

Choosing which font to use depends on what type of design you are creating. For example, if you’re designing a print piece, the best choice is to use a serif font in the body of the work for they make the individual letters distinctive and easier for our brains to recognize faster. Than pick a sans-serif font for headings and captions for a profession look. Keep in mind not tow overdue your font choices, the best practice is to use only one font family and keep it simple.

For website projects its always best to use a sans-serif font all the time. The reason is because printed works generally have a resolution of 300 dpi; whereas a computer screen has 72 dpi. This resolution can make very small serif fonts harder to read than the equivalent sans-serif font because of their more complex shapes. And the more harder to read, the more likely audiences will turn away from the website.

What is Your Main Objective?

Every design project is different that means choosing the right font matters. For instance, are you designing a banner, a website, or a magazine ad? What is the mood you want to express? An intense look, a pretty look, or an elegant look? Type is emotional on a hidden level because of the connotations it sends.

Choosing a font is not like choosing a wardrobe for the day. Like clothing, there is a contrast between typefaces that are powerful and stylish versus those that are useful and relevant to many situations. Typefaces can reinforce your portrayal as a brand or an individual. Below is an example and comparison of how typefaces can convey two different emotions.

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-Serif-Sans-Serif-Comparison

Research!

Fonts alone are projects of its own, so do your research and look at other designs that catches your interest. Social medias are great source for searching the right font. Ask questions while you are there, you will be sure to get a reply and advice in what to do. Search the web and see what you can find, we recommend this diagram by Julian Hansen to help you pick the perfect font for your project. All of these tips a good starter points, but ultimately the decision is up to you to select what font to use.

We gave tips in what font to use, now we want to hear from you, do you have a font you like to use most often? What do you usually do when selecting the right font? Comment below and let us know, we can’t wait what you have to say.
and remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-What Font To Use

Why Responsive Websites are Important?

Many people today, if not all, use mobile devices like smart phones and tablets for their daily use, from browsing social medias to checking emails and shopping. So with mobile viewing increasing steadily, it’s extremely important that websites are mobile friendly and responsive. So why is responsive websites important? Lets start from the top.

What is Responsive Web Design?

According to Ethan Marcotte from alistapart.com “Rresponsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach to web design aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).” In other words, RWD is where the visual and content of a website is easily seen and read in any screen devices. That means looking at a website on your desktop screen will look differently on your mobile screen, but still have the same look and user friendly function. Good responsive websites wont change much but poor websites will, so its up to web designers to create a responsive website that look great on all platform devices.

Why Responsive Web Design is Critical?

According to John Rampton from huffingtonpost.com, mobile usage is rising, so much so that more than 20 percent of Google searches are now being performed on some sort of mobile device, and 25.85 percent of all emails are opened on mobile phones, with another 10.16 percent being opened on tablets. In other words, mobile Internet usage has taken over desktop usage. Websites today has become where a site can look good on a desktop, but look even better on a mobile device. That is why you see so many companies change their websites because they want to look great on your mobile devices rather than on your laptop. Below is an example of how our website looks on a desktop and mobile device.

Elegant Graphic Designs-Responsive Web Design-iMac iPhone

Responsive Web Design is Easier for Everyone

Google is the most popular search engine today and they prefer responsive web design because of its mobile configuration, so why do they like it? Google likes responsive design because it’s more efficient for Google to bot crawl the site and then index and organize all the content that is online. In other words, responsive websites make its easier for them to collect information on a site. Responsive websites are also easier for viewers/users because they get a chance to share, engage and interact with the content on that site versus a site that has different pages for mobile and desktop users. In other words, responsive websites can intensify conversion rate on a website. The more people talk about a website, the more business the site will grow.

We mention why responsive websites are important? Now we want to hear from you, do you like responsive websites? Do you like how many websites look ok on a desktop but look better on a mobile devices? Comment below and let us know, we love to hear what you think. And for more information on RWD please be sure to check out Ethan Marcotte’s “Responsive Web Design” article.
and remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

Elegant-Graphic-Designs-Why Responsive Websites are Important

Thanks to teamtreehouse.com for this great video!

SEO 101

Getting a high rank website on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing needs a lot of work and time. But not everybody knows how to do it. So here are some key components and video that will help you get a higher rank for your website. Welcome to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) 101.

What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is a library that gets all the contents such as text, links, videos and images of a website and stores it in its database like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Here are some key components to a successful SEO.

Meta Title & Meta Description
Meta Title is the headline about your page or post that will show on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Meta Description is the description about your page or post that shows up on search engine result pages (SERPs). So it very important for every website to have this so that people get a better understanding of what they will get in a page or post.

Keywords!
Keywords are the most significant part of a whole post because this tells people what they are searching for when they type it in a search engine. Most of time people think highly competitive keywords will help optimize your website, page and post, wrong! You should try to make low competitive keyword or key phrase to make it easier not only for search engines but for the people as well. Remember the simpler it is, the easier it will be shown.There are some resourceful tools that provide you information about keyword competition such as wordtracker.com, moz.com, seobook.com, raventools.com and keywordplanner by google.

Incorporate a .xml Sitemap
For any website, it’s key to submit a .xml sitemap that contains formatted list of your pages that you would like to indexed on the SERPs with faster and in an easier way. Great plug-ins to do this automatically like Google XML Sitemaps and WordPress SEO.

Social Media
For every website, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram are great way of getting loyal visitors. The more content you put in your social media the more response you will get back to your website. You can implement social sharing buttons on your website by using plugins and get those advantages as well.

Images Linked to Key Phrases
When you publish your article make sure you upload the related images with related key phrase in the “alt description” section. Along with it you should optimize images by compressing and resizing. For it will reduce the size of the image by a great extent and thus you can improve website page loading performance.

Add Fresh New Post Regularly
If you want to get a high priority on the SERPs, you should publish new post regularly. Search engines like newly updated content. For example, if you publish an article regularly in a week and stop the following week, your website will get a negative impression on SERPs. Google loves specific information and content so you should try to write a lengthy post that can describe everything about your website and article.

Links
Link other posts or articles that relate to your website to get better hits. It lets search engines know that it’s special article and thus deserves more visitor attention.

Content, Content, Content!
There are countless number of ways in having a high rank in search engines, but the MOST important component is content. The more texts, links, videos and images you put in your website the better and likely you will have a higher rank than everyone else. Don’t stop, don’t wait, put content, content and more content to your site.

We listed key components and link a video to SEO, let us know what you think and if you have a key component that was not mention please comment below and let us hear what you have to say.
and remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

Elegant Graphic Designs-SEO 101-Search Engine Optimization-Banner

Thanks to commoncraft.com for this great video!

What is Motion Graphics?

Everybody knows what web design and print design is, but not everybody knows what motion graphics is. Motion graphics is all over the television and internet, you see it in commercials and images all the time. Its a great source of how to market and sell a product or brand. So What is Motion Graphics?

Motion Graphics is…

Motion graphics is a digital skill & method that combines pictures, words, sound and video. Examples of motion graphics can be seen in credits in feature films and banners on websites. We live in a digital world where less text is preferable and more video is better. So the beauty of motion graphics is that it incorporates the languages of film, animation and graphic design all in one. In doing so, merging different creative components like typography, illustration, logos, shapes and video. Ultimately, they than animated or moved in a way that tells a story.

The Digital Age…

The digital age is here, but now we are trying to figure what grabs people attention and what does not. So with motion graphics it’s a great source & technique in getting the awareness of your audience and everyone around them. Everybody knows what web design and print design is, but few knows about motion graphics, so now its a great time to learn and work in the motion graphics field for this is the way of the digital and graphic design age.

To Us, Motion Graphics is…

For us, motion graphics is the fulfillment of achieving an idea that provokes people, in doing so getting the right combination of vision and audio that ultimately touches the emotions. We told you what motion graphics is, now we want to hear what you think it is? Please feel free to comment below
and remember… Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs. Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs!

Why Hire a Graphic Designer

Graphic design is an amazing and powerful tool from the icons and messages to the movement and feeling of the design, graphic design represents who & what we are. So with this intense statement, here are some of the reasons why everyday people, business and you should hire a graphic designer.

Don’t Have Time:

Everyone has a many responsibilities and little time, so you want to hire someone to do the work for you. Graphic design is no different from going to a restaurant, you don’t want to make the food you want someone to make it for you.

Don’t Know How:

Everyone wants to stand out when it comes to graphic design but not everyone knows how to. So if you’re not experience or educated in graphic design, you going put something that looks fine to you but in reality looks awkward, wrong and unprofessional. For that reason, you want to find someone who knows what they are doing & knows how to do it so they will take your vision and translate it correctly to the world. Material designs that are unique and stand out are the ones people will remember you by. So you wouldn’t show up at party looking unkept, you would want to look sharp, powerful and elegant.

Don’t Want to Lose Money:

Designers are creative individuals and they like to help their clients get the most out of every project. Hiring a designer is likely to mean that you’ll end up with a better finished product than you could have put together. For example, let’s say you do put something together yourself, and you send it off to the printer. What happens when the finished product comes back with problems you didn’t anticipate? In the end, fixing and reprinting will take more time and money out of you. Designers on the other hand, know what to do to in this situation and they will make sure a file prints out correctly when printed. Hiring a designer will prevent many headaches and trouble for yourself and your budget.

In short, you would not fix your own car if you had problems, you would hire a mechanic to do it for you. So the next time you need a project done hire a graphic designer & they will save you time, they know what they are doing and they will save you money.
and remember Elegant Graphics, Exquisite Designs… Welcome to Elegant Graphic Designs