Web or Print Design: A Graphic Designer's Perspective

Design comes in all shapes and categories. Web and print design are the most commercial aspects used in the media and entertainment industry. Other aspects like product design are bent towards the manufacturing industry rather than the media. The media also utilises design elements in cinematography, art, sculpture, game design, cartoons, and comics.

Focusing on the differences between web and print design, one of the foremost and crucial aspects is the kind of work a designer can expect to do. A print designer is expected to work on magazine advertisements and layouts, product design and packaging, logo design, business cards and stationery, and so on. A designer working on the web will focus on standard HTML websites, flash websites, emails, e-newsletters, banner advertising, and so on. The basic difference being with print design, the finished product is something you can hold in your hands whereas with web design, your piece will be viewed on a computer display.

One of the common elements of web and print design are clear and effective layouts. The usage of space and negative space plays a vital role in both aspects of design. The measures of the space utilised in each are different print uses inches to measure the final product which can be a business card to a highway billboard whereas web designers use pixels to design websites. The challenge for web designers is to create web pages that look the best on all monitors sizes and resolutions.

Another aspect to consider is the use of media -- static and dynamic. For example, a menu in a restaurant uses static imagery, item lists, and prices. Restaurant web design however can be dynamic with links leading to further content, flash animation and page content which is essentially static. Hotel web design is the same except that the content is dynamic in the sense that users can use websites to reserve rooms before they travel. Hotels also use a variety of brochures which are the forte of print design.

Colour is a tricky subject to deal with in both web and print design. In print, the colours on screen need to match the colours in the final output. Colour palettes and codes are very handy in print design. A proof can ensure that you get the desired results in print.

In web design, colours change from monitor to monitor and also with brightness and contrast settings. These are things to take into consideration RGB shades are used for the web whereas print uses the CMYK palette.

One of the final aspects to consider is the career aspect. Print designers can expect to start as visualisers, and advance to become art directors at ad firms, package designers for manufacturing companies, or even designers at t-shirt companies. Web designers typically work in online marketing firms or technology firms.

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Enhanced Web Design Solutions For Business Marketing

Every business needs a marketing plan to enhance its growth. Website design solutions offer a promising avenue for restaurants, hotels, retailers, and other businesses to market their products and services without spending a large amount of money.

Most advertising agencies offer many communication services including creating print communications, designing brochures and ads, web design solutions, logo design, menu creation, and printing. These services are also offered by professional freelancing designers and consultants who can do the same or similar work and also charge much lesser than any organisation. Most small businesses take advantage of working with such independent contractors to build up a customer base through online and real world marketing efforts.

Website design solutions encompass a wide range of elements like graphic design, web content, search engine optimisation, and web marketing strategy. One of the key elements of website design is figuring out what the website has to accomplish whether it is an information delivery website or a corporate website or one that demands extensive interaction with the clients. Any website can be a base for information gathering and dissemination. But when it comes to marketing businesses, websites have to deliver far more than information. For example, a business built on selling spare parts of automobiles can have a website that allows customers to search for and reserve a certain part or even purchase it online and have it shipped to them or alternatively, pick the part from a physical location after purchasing it online.

Restaurant web design is made specifically to cater to customers who are looking for a good place to eat. In fact, most people search for businesses locally and restaurants can take advantage of this fact when it comes to a website design solution. Mapping the restaurant online can be a great way to attract a new customer base. Putting sample menus and pricing on the website is another way to seek out new clients. Attracting clients by maintaining your local business status and using search engine marketing to emphasise this status has worked wonders for small businesses. Most web design firms offer these services and help local businesses thrive. Posting links on the local chambers of commerce website also helps search engine marketing efforts.

Hotels also use hotel web design efforts to ensure high occupancy rates. Whether it is business travellers or vacationers hotel websites seek to attract customers and use online reservation systems to ensure bookings. The website design solutions for hotels include these systems as well as keywords for search engine optimisation.

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Watch Out For Website Obesity

Internet being so popular, its hard to find a person who does not use it. All sorts of blogs and sites are launched daily and no wonder everyone wants to be a part of it. And why not? After all so many sites offer free blogging tools, with a methodical approach thrown in, it has become so very easy.

I entered this bandwagon roughly four months back. I wanted to create a site, put my designer skills on display, and longed for recognition. I also had a reason, a much compelling one. I wanted to contribute something to humanity, to promote well being and safe life. I named it accidentinsuranceforfree dot com, and outlined my concept.

Initially it was a nightmare, because writing the text was easy and done in a couple of days time. But choosing a domain, host, blogging platform, theme were itself a difficult climb. Later converting to website, identifying & digesting typographical limitations made life a bit tough. Further, whatever reactions I got made me spin and drop with disbelief. The new words discomforting me were: Search Engine Optimization techniques. The nightmare did not end there instead it had some more words for me: title tags, Tags, Meta characters, keywords etc. Still more as I learnt the hard way, I had to limit some descriptions either to 60 or 140 characters. Phew! It was a precis of a precis.

Well I managed to cross even that bridge using some plugins. The platform I chose of WordPress facilitated me to use various plugins to chart an easy path. The plethora of plugins for varied necessities confused me a lot. I tried a lot of them and settled for around 15-18 plugins and waited with baited breath for them to work as promised by their publishers.

A few days passed but to my chagrin the page ranks did not improve. To troubleshoot I visited various sites only to find my site was reported as "bloated" and on the brink of being banned (or punished). The reason forwarded was it took more than 9 seconds to load. (I didn't know what type of connection Google had, my PC gathered within 6 seconds). Now I had to find what made my site obese? And my findings were not less amusing.

My host's infrastructure was well developed and raised no objections on the theme. Otherwise, even the publisher admitted it was a complicated one. But it took a lot of my time deciding on the theme, I could not find any "lighter" replacement. The task of removing plugins was even more difficult as I had given in due to various requirements: google analytics & crawlers, xml sitemap, SEO pack, exclude pages from navigation, a backup & importer, and some others. I tried using speed enhancing plugins but could not decrease the loading time.

Since putting my site live, around two months had passed. So I decided to give Google a miss and uninstalled all related plugins and ... Lo and behold! My site timings improved drastically. So what to gather? Either the plugins were bad or the SEO fad made them bloated with unnecessary features, what else?

The search engines are doing their job, unbiased. They neither recommend any plugin or utility which we put to get their nods, but just wait to penalize any site not adhering to their standards. They behave as if they are the lords of Interent and as "Lords" have no rules to follow. If we have to live in this sea (Internet) we have to put up and bow before them, what else?

So what does my experience tell me? Bother about search engine rankings if you totally depend on advertisements or on enforced traffic needs. Else, if you have good content, pay two hoots to these lords, do whatever you feel good, traffic will find your site, come what may!

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Strengthening The Lower Body For Fast Lower Back Pain Relief

In this exercise were going to strengthen the lower body and balance the musculature of the lower body to provide support for the trunk area. So if you got lower back pain, this could be a great exercise to build the support for the area thats under a lot of strain. And thats what you want to do if you have lower back pain. If you have lower back pain the lower back area doesnt have enough support. Its lacking in stability, and the back is trying to make up for it by moving around too much. So you got to form that stability in the lower part of the body, the legs, and the pelvis and the buttocks. So the lower torso would be well supported. And then the pain will diminish. Also, this exercise will help to open up the chest, and lengthen the upper spine, the thoracic curve, which tends to ratchet down and get a little bit too tight causing a little bit more instability in the lower spine. So, what youll need for this is a sticky mat. Buy a sticky mat if you dont have one. Yo u can go to my website; you can go to Walmart, or other various places to buy them. You can get them almost anywhere. But whatever you do buy a sticky mat thats actually sticky; somethings thats going to provide you traction, because traction is critical. An expensive mat is not advisable for they may be slippery. I have seen people slide over those mats all the time. The point of doing this stuff is to change your body, and when youre changing your body, youre thinking in a very utilitarian way. You should not be worried about the design, the fashion, and the aesthetic part of it. You can do this exercise in your house where nobody can see; do this at a place where it works the best. So an inexpensive sticky mat that is actually sticky will do. The hands are going to be splayed as wide as you can splay them, the postion of the thumb is roughly below the pectoral muscle, or one inches below the breast. So theyre going to be at the side here, fingers pointing in the direction of the body. So the middle finger is pointing in the direction of the body. Often I see peoples hands not in a proper position or not very well splayed. Splay them as wide as you can; youll need a wide base for supporting for your body. And then the middle finger should be facing forward. And wear comfortable shorts. You dont want something thats going to get on the way, because youre going to be pressing your pelvis into the floor. And thats where youre going to derive the support for this pose. So I start with my face down, lying on my chest. My foreheads on the floor. Im going to take my hands down, just below the pectoral muscle of one inch below the breast, the middle finger pointing straight forward. Elbows vertical. My feet straight out; the tops the feet should be facing the floor. Its like a preparatory position for doing a push-up. Now, Im going to engage my quadriceps, and constrict and push my buttocks into the floor; the top of my pelvis pressing into the flo or, the tailbone pushing it into the floor. This is the base of my support, its critical that you do this. The legs are coming out and away from the base of the support, the pelvis. I push it into the floor strongly. I keep pushing it into the floor. My spine starts to extend, out and away from my buttocks, from my pelvis. And if my lower back starts to hurt here, I have to turn my tailbone even more, and squeeze my buttocks even more, and push into the floor even more. Make sure the legs and the feet are straight. And then youll notice Im starting to arch; my spine is starting to lengthen as I push into the floor with my pelvis not with my hands. And I keep doing this harder and harder, and push and arch myself up with my hands a little bit. My lower back is protected because my buttocks are working. Theyre really working really really hard. I take my tailbone towards my heels; I work my buttocks even harder. My legs are extending out from my pelvis. Theyre working pretty h ard. And my chest is up and lifted. And then come back down slowly and rest. This is a great exercise to provide support and stability for your lower back; youre core musculature, and the whole trunk and the back.

Its so easy to do this exercise. Its hassle free, it doesnt require much space, and you can do this in the privacy of your home. Whats more this exercise relieves lower back pain, upper back pain, neck pain, all sorts of back pains fast. Try it, and see for yourself. To get the free video of todays featured exercise visit Register, and grab the video and all the other videos absolutely free, no hidden charges whatsoever. What are you waiting for? Grab one now, and take your first step to a newer, healthier you.

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Body Design Rx Lite Works?

We all know that many supplements that are out there do not always help you create a leaner ripped look, rather you become more bulky then lean. But for those that already have a considerable amount on body mass and are looking to just get more lean and muscular then Body Design Rx Lite can be of assistance.

Here are some nutrition facts on Body Design Rx Lite:

Also this product contains some vital weight management nutrients such as chromium picolinate and citrimax.

These two nutrients play a vital role in reducing body fat to create more muscle, but before we go more into that you might want to take note of the following. Body Design Rx Lite alone will not give you the lean muscular results you may be seeking, for real success comes from following a routine or simple guide directing you exactly what diet to have and workout routine to follow in order to get leaner and or course more ripped.

(You can check out a simple guide as such within the website below)

About chromium picolinate and citrimax:

To go into detail what these nutrients does exactly chromium picolinate aids weight loss, claimed to melt fat, drastically reduce appetite, increase metabolism, and increasing protein synthesis thus increasing muscle growth. And citrimax AKA hydroxycitric acid (HCA) has become a popularly known as a "carb blocker," meaning that it prevents carbohydrates from turning into fat.

Overall this product seems legitimate and worth the risk, so if it interests you in any way you may want to give it a try.

To receive a simple guide for the needed steps to get lean and ripped with less effort with or even without Body Design Rx Lite, be sure to go here-How To Get Ripped Fast.

If you would like to leave a response please do so within the original article-Body Design Rx Lite, so that I may reply back. Thanks!

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Top 25 Websites

Top 25 Websites are 1.Google google.com Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company's focus is developing search technology.2.Facebook facebook.com A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.3.Yahoo! yahoo.com Personalized content and search options. Chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager. 4.YouTube youtube.com YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!5.Windows Live live.com Search engine from Microsoft.6.Wikipedia wikipedia.org An online collaborative encyclopedia. 7.Blogger.com blogger.com Free, automated weblog publishing tool that sends updates to a site via FTP.8.Microsoft Network (MSN) msn.com Dialup access and content provider. 9.Baidu.com baidu.com The leading Chinese language search engine, provides "simple and rel iable" search experience, strong in Chinese language and multi-media content including MP3 music and movies, the first to offer WAP and PDA-based mobile search in China. 10.Myspace myspace.com Social Networking Site. 11.Twitter twitter.com Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.12.Microsoft Corporation microsoft.com Main site for product information, support, and news. 13.RapidShare rapidshare.com Users can upload up to 100 meg files for sharing. Provides downloads of 100 megs per hour on the free service. Premium service also available.14.WordPress.com wordpress.com Free blogs managed by the developers of the WordPress software. Includes custom design templates, integrated statistics, automatic spam protection and other features.15.Bing bing.com Search Website. 16.eBay ebay.com International person to person auction site, with products sorted into categories.17.Amazon.com amazon.com Amazon.com seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Site has numerous personalization features and services including one-click buying, extensive customer and editorial product reviews, gift registries, gift certificates, wish lists, restaurant and movie listings, travel, and photo processing. 18.Flickr flickr.com Picture galleries available with chat, groups, and photo ratings.19.AOL aol.com America On Line's portal, offering search, shopping, channels, chat and mail.20.hi5 hi5.com One of the world's largest social networks21.The Internet Movie Database imdb.com Features plot summaries, reviews, cast lists, and theatre schedules. 22.Go go.com A searchable directory, news, stocks, sports and free e-mail. 23.Photobucket image hosting and photo sharing photobucket.com Provides image hosting for auctions, live journals, blogs, message boards, personal websites a nd online photo albums. Reliable, fast and very simple to use. 24.Orkut.com. orkut.com Very Popular Social Networking site. 25.BBC Newsline Ticker bbc.co.uk Headline ticker will automatically update throughout the day with the latest news, sport, travel, finance and weather from the BBC. Available for multiple OS platforms.

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How to Design Web Graphics That Display Faster?

A proverb says, A picture is worth a thousand words. In the communication of information specifically via an online medium, such as the Web graphics help present the content in a powerful and effective way. Further, images reduce the text and create and sustain users interest. In the dial-up era, slower display of graphics was a bottleneck. Today, even though speed is not an issue, thanks to broadband internet access, its still a good practice to use web graphics design techniques for the faster display of graphics. Why? One, it helps conserve bandwidth; two, you can further enhance users experience. Here are a few tips:

1. Optimize the Graphics

When you optimize graphics, they download faster. What is graphics optimization? It means compressing the graphic file size while maintaining the quality at a reasonably good level. Optimization almost always involves a trade-off between quality and file size. However, you can control the compression, based on your quality needs. You can use image editing software, such as Photoshop, to optimize graphics.

The graphic file formats used in web pages that can be optimized include GIF and JPEG. Whereas the GIF file format is used for flat images, such as type, artwork, illustrations, and logos, JPEG file format is used for continuous-tone images, such as photographs.

When you optimise a JPEG graphic using Photoshop, you can set the quality level to one of Low, Medium, High, or Maximum. A setting of Low gives the lowest quality image and lowest file size. In contrast, a setting of Maximum produces the best quality image and highest file size. The four quality levels can also be set by dragging the Quality slider having the range of 0-100.

Heres an illustration on how the quality-level setting affects the quality and file size. Notice the highlighted area:

- The original graphic file size is 49.4K in TIF file format.

The original, uncompressed graphic

- When JPEG compression was applied with quality level set to 0 (Low), the file size was drastically reduced to 1.256K. The graphic takes about one second to download at 28.8Kbps. Notice the sharp degradation in the quality of the graphic.

JPEG compression applied to the graphic; quality level = 0

- When the quality level was set to 20 (Low), the file size increased to 2.229K, but takes only about two seconds to download. Notice the improvement in the quality of the graphic.

JPEG compression applied to the graphic; quality level = 20

- By increasing the quality level to 50 (Medium), the quality improved significantly while the file size increased to 4.198K. However, the download time increased to about ten seconds.

JPEG compression applied to the graphic; quality level = 50

So, there are really no standard guidelines for the quality level you can set the quality level should be set based on your requirements.

2. Use Fewer Graphics

Use only few graphics in each page of your website. Note each graphic add to the time the browser needs to display the page. Furthermore, use only graphics that are relevant and that add value to communicate the information.

3. Reduce the File Size of Graphics

Reduce the file size of a graphic by reducing its width and height. The file size of a graphic is proportional to its dimensions, colors and resolution. Heres a tip to reduce the file size: Say a photo you want to use in a web page is of post card size. Rather than use the entire photo, first scan it. Next, crop the photo so it has just the area you like to use. Again, you can crop an image using an image editing software like Photoshop.

4. Reuse the Graphic

Use the same graphic, if feasible, at several places in a web page and or across the pages. For example, if youre using a bullet to highlight a text point, reuse it for subsequent points also. The browser needs to retrieve the graphic from the web server only once. Because the graphic is already in the browsers cache, any reference to the same graphic makes the browser display it faster.

5. Use Low Resolution Graphics

Specify a low-resolution graphic, for the high-resolution graphic, using the LOWSRC attribute of the IMG tag of HTML. A low-resolution graphic will have a smaller file size and, therefore, make the web server transmit it to the browser faster. A low-resolution graphic can be, for example, a black and white image. How does this technique work? First the low resolution version displays when it is first referenced in the web page. Thus theres no wait time for the user to view the image. Next, the high-resolution copy of the same image displays over the low-resolution one.

6. Slice the Graphics

Slice a graphic image into smaller parts using an image editing software, such as Photoshop. Each slice is saved as a separate graphic and has a smaller file size. For this reason the graphic downloads fast. You can also optimize each slice with a different value, if you wish. For example, certain areas of the source image may contain only flat colors. When these areas are sliced, each slice can be optimized as a GIF image. Likewise, when continuous-tone areas are sliced, each slice can be optimized as a JPEG image.

How to combine the slices into a composite image? You can align the slices by placing them in the cells of a table without borders or using a cascading style sheet (CSS).

Another advantage of slices is that each slice can have a different hyperlink and or a rollover effect. For example, a photo of a printed circuit board (PCB) can be divided into slices, with each slice representing an important component of the PCB. Each slice can have a hyperlink to a page with more information.

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