Print

Founded in 1923, it's now hard to remember just how pervasive and powerful a presence TIME magazine once was. While the publication has struggled in recent years, it has still managed to retain a readership of 25 million, the largest of any weekly news magazine. As part of its 90th anniversary celebrations, TIME is emphasizing its cover designs, in part by allowing visitors to vote for Which TIME Cover is Cheesier on its site. Hard to choose between the two above, for example.

Print publishing is far from dead but there's little doubt that the digital flow of information poses a relentless threat to something as quaint as ink on paper. But what if those static pages could serve as a frictionless gateway to additional digital content — wouldn't that provide the best of both worlds? Startup firm Layar is betting the proverbial farm that that's indeed the case and recently introduced its rather ingenious Layer Creator.

Amongst the many truly terrible providers of online printing services, MOO is something of an exception. Founded in 2004, it now cranks out millions of business cards, postcards and minicards each month, all while retaining a special place within the design community. I've used it myself on several occasions and always found both the print quality and customer service impeccable. Which makes its latest initiative, The Luxe Project, that much more intriguing.

Dyslexia is a broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and spell.

Only a few weeks after the announcement that it had been acquired for $180 million by X-Rite, the color mavens at Pantone have announced a major update to the industry-standard Pantone Matching System, the Pantone Goe System.

In the link below is an informative detailed explanation of the basics of colors and profiles.

If you ever sent a job to press and at one point or another said: "Why did these cards turn out so bad? They looked looked great on my monitor" then this is a must read.

Hope this is informative and let me know if it helped anyone!

Look out next week for "Resolution Issues in Printing"

Enjoy!

http://www.4over4.com//infofiles/colors.pdf

In the link below is an informative detailed explanation of what bleeds are and why we need them in PDF format.

This is basic knowledge that every graphic designer should know before submitting their files for print.

Hope this is informative and let me know if it helped anyone!

Look out next week for "Basics of Colors and Profiles"

Enjoy!

http://www.4over4.com//infofiles/bleeds.pdf

During a project for the American Institute Of Graphic Artists the creative team, John Neerland and Nina Orezzoli, discovered that many graphic design terms have an inherent dark side to them. They then quickly decided that this could become a fun ad, poster and interactive tool online to test the knowledge of students and young designers across the world. Oh yeah, you can buy some cool t-shirts, too.

Short version:
For print work you want your images at 300 dpi (dots per inch).
Lineart: 1200 dpi
For web design you want look at the pixel dimensions.

Long version: Are you seated comfortably? Then let's begin...

The topic of resolution has long been a stumbling block for many designers. "How do I know my image will look good on such and such device?", "What should I scan a line art image art to prevent jaggies?", "Why is your office so messy?" are questions I hear over and over from my clients and students. So lets have at it.

Client comes in,
wants business card,
doesn't have the company's logo,
points you to company website,
icky low res garbage on website,
you notice company has downloadable brochure in pdf format,
you download said brochure,
notice that the company logo is present in brochure,
hey that logo looks pretty damn good,
open pdf in Illustrator,
wipe tears of joy from eyes when you see company logo sitting there in all its vector splendor,
dump vector logo into business card layout,
present to client,