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- Vehicle Wraps: Design Tips and Considerations
- What to Consider When Making a Mobile Version of Your Site
- Winner of 250 Die Cut Business Cards
| Vehicle Wraps: Design Tips and Considerations Posted: 31 Jul 2012 03:00 PM PDT Vehicle wraps are graphics printed on vinyl that are designed to partially or completely cover different types of vehicles like buses, cars, trains, trucks, vans, and even helicopters. As a graphic designer, you can transform anything that rolls either into a ride that is worthy of being featured in car magazines, or a marketing machine on wheels. Since automotives are meant to be driven, your design will be showcased on the road and can be seen by thousands of people while the vehicle is cruising and even while parked. Vehicle art used to be done by paint, which is expensive and time-consuming. The advancements in large format printing technology have made it possible to easily create works of art without using paint. Well-designed and properly-installed vehicle wraps can achieve the same look provided by paint. When properly maintained, these graphics can last up to five years and protect the original paint job of the vehicle.
Designing Vehicle Wraps If you are preparing to create your first wrap, here are some design tips and considerations: Do Your Research Check out classic vehicle art designs for inspiration. Browse the sites of top graphic companies that specialize in wrapping vehicles so you can familiarize yourself with the process. Call the printers in your area to learn about their requirements. Preparing Your Vehicle Outline After choosing a vehicle model that you want to wrap, go online to check if you can find existing vehicle templates. If you are unable to find any, you need to take pictures of the vehicle and measure the dimensions. Use a vector graphics editor like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, which allow you to create designs that you can scale without losing clarity. After taking a good side profile picture of the vehicle, bring the photograph into Illustrator or Photoshop. Designing Your Wrap Sketch a few ideas first before jumping straight into your computer. It would help if you print several thumbnailed copies of your vehicle so you can visualize your design better. After finishing a couple of designs, use Illustrator or Photoshop to create your drafts. Considerations for Advertisements If you are designing vehicle wraps for advertising purposes, keep the message simple because the ad is basically a moving signage.
Avoid making the design too text heavy and include only the most important details like the business name, contact information, and a tag line. Use a font that is readable while the vehicle is moving. Make the message stand out by carefully choosing your color scheme. The images you choose should support the message. Recreating to Scale and Printing Preparations Once you are done with your mockups, create it to scale on your outlined version and send it to your printer, who will then create a 2D format of your design that is ready for printing. Installing the Vehicle Wraps
After printing your design, you can apply the wraps yourself or ask the printer's installer to do it for you. Applying wraps is simple if you are good with your hands and you will learn how to do it by watching the installer.
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| What to Consider When Making a Mobile Version of Your Site Posted: 31 Jul 2012 01:48 AM PDT The changes in and acceptance of mobile technology has changed the web in more ways than we could ever imagine. Your web design checklist for building a mobile website might in some ways be similar to your desktop version but there are some notable differences that you need to consider as well. Most notable is the fact that mobile devices networks cannot provide the same speed as that of broadband services. You will also need to consider the screen through which your site will be displayed. It will definitely be a far cry from even the smallest desktop screen. Some business owners resist the development of a mobile version of their site thinking that there's still time. If you're serious about keeping your audience the time for that mobile design is now.
Keep It Simple Strip your mobile site down to the bare minimum. That means no unnecessary images, design elements, Flash or anything that adds clutter to the site. Every bit of space is important and the little that you have should be dedicated to providing the things that your customers need most. Go From Clickable to Tapable The site's navigation, links and buttons need to be designed for tapping rather than clicking. Remember all the fancy hover features will be pointless for fingers so leave them out. By designing for the tap and not the click you will decrease the risk of the visitor accidentally leaving your site. Use Vertical and Collapsible Navigation It is easier for mobile users to scroll from top to bottom so eliminate any horizontal scrolling from your mobile web design. As much as vertical scrolling will be easier you should also keep this to a minimum. A collapsible navigation where site visitors can expand the information block they need and hide the ones they don't is a great idea for layout. Use A Single Column Layout A single column layout for a mobile website is the most user-friendly. This type of layout instantly helps with the problem of limited space and makes it easy for the site to be shown on devices with different resolutions. Mobile users tend to flip between landscape and portrait screens so a single column will display best in this instance. Responsive web design makes moving a multi-column site to a single column site easy and practical. Interaction Feedback Is Important
You will need to find a way to let users know that specific actions have been completed. For instance whenever a user taps a button to complete an action they need confirmation that the "tap" has be registered. Visual feedback is important and you can provide this by having colors change when an action is being initiated. This is often obvious on desktop browsers but with mobile browsers it is not as obvious so have a plan for interaction feedback in your mobile design. Test Your Mobile Website Once your site is complete invest some time and effort to test your design on as many devices as possible to ensure that it displays the way that it is supposed to. If you have any other useful tips for mobile web design please contribute them below.
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| Winner of 250 Die Cut Business Cards Posted: 31 Jul 2012 12:23 AM PDT Two weeks ago when we launched a cool giveaway in partnership with Uprinting.com, one reader have the chance to win 250 die cut business cards. Today, we are going to pick the lucky winner, but before that, let us have a look at our generous sponsor. UPrinting.com, a leading socially responsible online printing, marketing and technology firm, has established itself as a major player in the industry with its distinct vision and clear approach to helping small businesses grow. It serves thousands of on-demand business printing and graphic printing orders online daily, using high-quality press printing and a robust yet simple and easy-to-use online ordering system, resulting in high-end printing services and reliable color printing at discount printing costs.
Here is a list of people who have participated:
And the lucky winner is…
Congratulations to David Millar Winner will be contacted by a representative from Uprinting.com on how to claim your prize, to all who viewed and participated thank you for your support
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