Our team has thrown together some Christian Desktop Background images for all to enjoy!

What is an illustrator you may be thinking well an illustrator is an artist that creates illustrations and illustrations are two to three dimensional images that represent a story or idea that needs to be marketed for public viewing. A hand rendered imagery with the ability to convey feeling and emotion.

In the Design world, Illustrators are toned down as if they are to wait in the back round to assist the graphic designer. When in fact Illustrators do as much as the graphic designer. Now a days we are ARTISTS! doing freelance work, being as such, because graphic design has replaced much of the old work illustrators used to do in the corporate landscape. Truly if you can master illustration and graphic design you have the best of both worlds. A highly valuable asset in the design world.

As Ed Fella, a man with both of his feet in graphic design and illustration noted: “where as graphic design is more anonymous, all illustration is sold for its particular and individual style.

We use from a wide range of medians like paintings drawings photography or any other type of graphic art work. Even though Photography placed with words sign posting us to buy! buy! buy! has taken over our visual world, illustrators still have an upper hand in design and are not going anywhere, we do illustrations and page layouts are printed materials such as books, magazines, and other publications. Children’s books require many illustrations much like magazines which are laid out and given a creative touch from an illustrator. Other publications could be from mailers, business cards, greeting cards, stationary, and commercial products; such as Identity branding (logo’s). This is the outward expression of a brand; it’s name trade mark. It is like a reflection of how the owner wants the consumer to perceive the brand by its brands image with is the illustrators dub. It takes a keen ear to understand the employers wishes and wants for a logo and an artists intuition to create such a trademark to enhance a products appearance and sell! sell! sell!  illustrator’s will consult with clients in order to determine what illustrations will best meet the story they are trying to tell, or what message in which they are trying to communicate.

In conclusion, many times Illustration is partnered up with graphic design, many projects consist of both. Don’t be so quick to underestimate the value of a good illustrator, and what they can do. even type with drawings could be an amazing design for a future product and or add. Experiment.. its needed in any art field graphic or not, and is the source for greatness for any product.

Creating a color palette for your design is fairly simple but if your not careful can completely ruin your design. Or choose the right color palette could take your design to a whole new level of amazing. We are going to discuss how to choose the colors, Blacks and Whites, light and dark, and the uses of color in a design. And I will also touch on the marketing value of choosing the right colors.

1. Choosing Colors

You must begin with you photo or photos you are using in the design. For the purpose of this post I will be speaking mainly about Photoshop, and photo-composition design. What I am going to do is step-by-step us through this process. Below is a sample photo that we are going to reference.

You have two major colors in this photo and a couple of minor ones. most color palettes consist of one, two, three, four, and five colors. Never more than five colors. This photo has a orange-yellowish color, a brownish color, some white, some black, and a little bit of blue. This is a great photo with lots of white space that will come in handy later. This is going to become a Custom Church Invitational Postcard. So to get our colors we use the eye drop tool in Photoshop to sample the various colors. There are darker and lighter versions of each color all throughout the picture. The color you need is dependent on what you are doing with it.

Black and White

These two basic colors go with just about anything. These two colors are used mainly for type added to your design. The rule of thumb is dark pictures require white text and light colors require dark text.

Dark and Light colors

You can also choose dark or light colors out of the picture itself. For Example below I chose a dark brown color out ou the bottom for my text over the yellow area.

The color for your text comes from the picture or else its black or white. If you introduce a color that is not in the picture it increases the cheese factor greatly. Now this is not always true when you add a picture to the comp. For example:

Here I introduce a blue colored texture to a basically all brown design. What makes it work good together? If you simply added a blue color it would be cheesy. But when the design is very earthy and you add a earthy blue texture it just goes. Plus you can have three colors in a design. In this design before I added the blue texture only had two colors. Which can be ok, but many times adding that third color adds pizzaz to the overall design. And then notice the color of the words is  a gradient going from the dark brown to light brown then till white. And the brown colors are sampled out of the design.

One last thing. You can use a sample of the color in the picture to enhance the picture. Here is how: 

I will sample a light blue/gray out of this and lay a square shape over the top of the picture and set it too overlay. As you can see it enhanced the picture.

I hope this has bee of help to you.

Benjamin Smith has been a graphics designer with IFB Design for four years and has worked with many other organizations. Ben is a graphic designer who loves a challenge. He is a highly creative and multi-talented Graphic Designer with extensive experience in multimedia, marketing and print design. accustomed to performing in deadline-driven environments with an emphasis on working within budget requirements. Creative experience in the following: Brochures & Newsletters, Logos & Business Cards, Posters & Post Cards, Stationery, Banners, Book Cover Design and Layout, Magazine Design and Layout, Catalog Design and Layout. In addition Ben is an talented web designer, videographer, and editor, DVD Authoring, CD/DVD Wrap and Label Design

What is good Design?

A good design will follow the basic rules of Design but also have a spark of creativity. There are a lot of well trained designers out there who have no creativity, but they know the programs, and the rules of design. I like to call these trained monkeys. Without creativity you get what is commonly called “corporate design” which is ok but very plain.

Stock Photo Choices.

A lot of what makes a good design is the choosing of the right stock photo’s. And no a photo of your favorite pet does not count as a stock photo. A stock photo is a photograph of a subject taken for the specific purpose of resale for the use of designing. You want to choose a photo that is relevant to the topic or subject of what your designing. For Instance a book cover I did for a Dr. George Crabb was on Anger. I used a photo of a lady shouting with a cell phone and a finger pointing. Very dynamic and eye-catching. A good place to get relevant and dynamic stock photos is www.istockphoto.com.

See my article on How to Choose a Stock Photo
Font Choices. There are two types of fonts. Serif and San Serif fonts. Serif fonts have little ends such as Times New Roman. San Serif fonts have solid ends like Ariel. San Serif fonts are useful for titles and main points. Rarely would you ever use a San Serif font for body text. A Serif font is used for body text because the ends are designed to help the eyes flow. Sometimes you might use a Serif font in a title.

Does the Design convey the message? Can the perspective designer convey your message? Is it Clean and Crisp? These questions can be answered by the designers portfolio. All  designers will have a portfolio of work they have done in the past or if they are new work they have comped up. Things to look for in a designers portfolio are designs that immediatly tell you what the message is. Also look for examples of many different kinds of work. Some designers spend their entire careers on one type or style of design. You want a designer that is willing to branch out.

To Choose a Freelance Graphics Designer? Pros? Cons? A freelance designer is usually available and willing to work on whatever schedule you need. The other advantage is they are usually willing to work with you on cost. One con is that they may lack in professionalism.

Graphics Design Studio? Pros? Cons? The advantages of a Design firm is that you have a professional staff willing and able to provide you with customer service and support. They may still work with you on price but not on hours.

How to Choose A designer? Your needs? Your Budget? Does the Designer have the ability to take your idea or product from start to finish? What kind of Experience does he or she have? All these are great questions you need to ask when choosing a Graphics designer. One final thing is a good designer can take your product from the design phase all the way to the Market phase.

At IFB Design we will work with you on cost. We are used to working with low budget design projects and as a result we are one of the most inexpensive design companies available. Because the message matters our designers are willing to work all hours of the night to get your project done. We have a professional staff willing and able to provide you with customer service and support. And we have an advanced portfolio of previous work. Choosing a Graphics designer will make or break your product or cause. Choose well!

Benjamin Smith has been a graphics designer with IFB Design for four years and has worked with many other organizations. Ben is a graphic designer who loves a challenge. He is a highly creative and multi-talented Graphic Designer with extensive experience in multimedia, marketing and print design. accustomed to performing in deadline-driven environments with an emphasis on working within budget requirements. Creative experience in the following: Brochures & Newsletters, Logos & Business Cards, Posters & Post Cards, Stationery, Banners, Book Cover Design and Layout, Magazine Design and Layout, Catalog Design and Layout. In addition Ben is an talented web designer, videographer, and editor, DVD Authoring, CD/DVD Wrap and Label Design

Choosing a graphics designer is important to bringing your branding and product to the Marketing stage.

What is Graphics Design?

Graphics design is the art of conveying concepts through imagery. It is visual communication by a skillful combination of text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, books, etc. If you stop and look around, you will likely see the work of a graphics designer. Think about this if you were to walk into a grocery store every product on the shelf that has a label or packaging was at one time created and manipulated on a computer by a graphics designer.

The Art of Conveying Concepts through imagery

Weather a product or a cause you have to find a graphics designer that can convey your message through imagery. I spent four years working for a non-profit faith based addictions program where the founder wrote many books and created many teachings on addiction. These teachings were very original and very conceptual. Finding graphics to convey these messages proved to be difficult task. It required some very creative thinking. A good example would be one book title “Discovery of Recovery”. There are the usual Recovery concepts of doors, plants representing growth, windows, and the classic hands in the air. I chose to base this design off the subtitle which better represents the subject of the book “Rekindling God’s Claim to your Flame.” Below is what I came up with.

You have a concept, a message, a product and you need a design that translates that visually to the consumer. The flame on the front of this book says two things.

1. Fire represents a rekindling of the spirit inside a person to be able to overcome their problems.

2. The flame on the dark backdrop also has the idea of the word Discovery. Like your getting ready to explore the dark regions of your soul.

The absolute best design will represent both the title and the ideas inside.

The Equipment

The equipment of a designer has changed greatly over the years. I knew a designer once who was from the era where they would cut out graphics with scissors and paste them together and use a copying machine to print the final composition. Designers today are mostly computer aided. There are various computer aided design programs out there. A professional designer will most likely use Adobe Creative Suite. This is suite of various programs for all kinds of creative endeavors. The three main programs for a graphics designer are Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign. Photoshop is more for comping photos together. Illustrator is for creating illustrations and very useful for creating logos. Indesign is for laying out the final project of pictures and text. Others might use Quark Express for layout.

We will continue this discussion at my next post.

Benjamin Smith has been a graphics designer with IFB Design for four years and has worked with many other organizations. Ben is a graphic designer who loves a challenge. He is a highly creative and multi-talented Graphic Designer with extensive experience in multimedia, marketing and print design. accustomed to performing in deadline-driven environments with an emphasis on working within budget requirements. Creative experience in the following: Brochures & Newsletters, Logos & Business Cards, Posters & Post Cards, Stationery, Banners, Book Cover Design and Layout, Magazine Design and Layout, Catalog Design and Layout. In addition Ben is an talented web designer, videographer, and editor, DVD Authoring, CD/DVD Wrap and Label Design

When designing a product, be it a book cover, CD label, DVD, ect. You have to take the subject matter into consideration when choosing what stock photos to work with. And slapping in a photo that is appealing but not relevant to the subject will confuse your customers. In this article I will explain the process that I use in choosing the right photo for a design.

STOCK PHOTOS?

Stock photography is the supply of photographs licensed for specific uses. It is used to fulfill the needs of creative assignments instead of hiring a photographer. Today, stock images can be presented in searchable online databases. They can be purchased and delivered online. Often, they are produced in studios using a wide variety of models posing as professionals, stereotypes, expressing stereotypical emotions and gesticulations or involving pets.

WHERE DO I GET STOCK PHOTOS?

As mentioned above their are a variety of stock photo sites both free and pay-per-download. I recommend:

A great pay site with the most relevant design worthy photos anywhere. Second there is a free site by the makers of istock called www.sxc.hu this site has lots of photos free for download. However be sure to check the licensing. Also a lot of them are low-res and cheesy. But you will find some gems.

SUBJECT MATTER

The subject matter is determined by the product that the design is for. You can often glean the subject matter from the title. EXAMPLE: “ANGER a misunderstood emotion” by: Dr. George T. Crabb, D.O. a book I designed in October of 2010. This is a very topical book with a topical title. So its very easy to discern from the title that the subject matter is anger. Now after discussing the cover with the author i found he wanted to emphasize anger issues among church members I came up with this design.

A composition of a photo of a woman angry a church in the background and textures and colors. This is a good representation of both the title and subject. (NOTE): For those of you who might be authors a title that has nothing to do with the subject of a book will give the designer great difficulty in creating a cover. In many cases a designer will choose to design for the title versus the book subject. For Example:

This Cover’s construction concept revolved around the word “Works”. The title does not acuratly portray the subject matter. So I created a design off of the title. This can also go the other way where the title is so generic that the cover created will be a generic cover. A generic cover is one that is a simple picture usually a nature picture, or some color texture combination.

Example:

Even with a Generic design you can make it relevant notice the bridge going over can be related to the word overcoming in the sub-title. Often a subtitle which gives the book a little more explanation gives the designer more room to design. A subtitle can give the subject or a keyword or phrase that gives the designer that golden moment idea in design to take this design to the next level.

Example:

This covers coffee theme is based off the phrase found in the subtitle “perfect blend”.

COMPLICATED CONCEPTS THAT REQUIRE A COMPLICATED DESIGN

I have had the experience of working for an faith-based addictions program whose main writer and founder loved to create rhyming titles for some very hard to follow concepts. There are two ways you can go about designing for a hard concept with a hard title.

1. Understand the Concept and create a photo-composition.

One of my strong suits is creating photo-composition. Photo-composition is where you take two or more photos and combine them together in photoshop to create a concept image. The idea being that they look like they belong for the most part as one photo. Two examples of this are:

2. Create a very nice though Generic design. (Last Resort)

Ok so you are stumped and the author won’t give you any good thoughts on what he wants. Think pretty generic picture, color, and texture. Make a simple design. Here is an example:

I really hope this article has been helpful to both designers and clients alike. At IFBDesign we want to take your project to the next level by creating graphics that are relevant to the customer. We strive for excellence in design “Because the Message Matters”.

A good way to build authority and search engine rankings for your site is through article directories. They usually don’t generate a lot of traffic, but they do provide quality one-way links back to your site, and there’s always the possibility of the articles becoming popular and generating direct traffic. The two biggest directories are www.goarticles.com and www.ezinearticles.com. These are the best in terms of quality and what they allow, but there are hundreds of others to choose from. If you’re interested, you can check out this list of about 2200.

So what are the benefits, and what do you have to do? First of all, Don’t submit any article that aren’t quality. You don’t want your name on something that isn’t good work.  Another thing you DON’T want to do is submit duplicate content, especially stuff you haven’t written. This is bad for your article, and just bad all-around. So don’t just copy other’s material. One useful technique that I’ve found and utilized when I don’t have the time or I don’t want to take the effort to write an article from scratch is this: Find an article that looks good, read it over and make sure it has some good content. Then you cut and paste the article into Google Translator, and translate it into German (you don’t have to do German, I’ve just made a habit of using it because I’ve found it goes back into English smoothest). Once you’ve got it in German, copy it again, and translate it back to English. Go through the article and clean it up, because translator doesn’t always do a great job of going into smooth English.

Make sure that in all your articles you link back to your site, preferably with a hypertext link. If the article site doesn’t accept HTML, then just paste in your URL. This will ensure you get at the least a quality one-way link back to your site. And as any competent Internet Marketer knows, quality one way links are what paves the road to number one Google listings.

IFB Design contracted with Dr. James R. Beller to create a WordPress blog for him and to then increase his influence through social media. We created chainthebeast.org and linked it with rss feeds to twitter and facebook. And through a trade secret of IFBdesign we built in 3 days over 600 friends for Dr. Beller’s facebook. This has since snow-balled to over 1,000 and it continues to grow. An IFB Social Media Success!

1. Invest In General Directories:
   Directory links are authority links, and can be foundational to a link building campaign. Submit to the following directories in order of importance: DMOZ, free; Yahoo Directory, $299 annually; Best of the Web, $99.95 annually; Business.com, $299 annually; GoGuides, $69.95; and JoeAnt, $39.99. Though many people have minimized the value of directories they are still solid links from authority sites.
2. Submit to Niche Directories:
   Niche directories are a source of authority links that are more tailored to your niche, and thus making them very valuable links. Try search “your keyword phrase directory” and see whats available in your niche.
3. Create Social Media Profiles:
   Social media profiles can quickly show up in SERPs for your keywords making them very valuable. While most social media site do not pass on page rank they are nevertheless valuable marketing tools to drive visitors to your site.
4. SERP Link Building:
   Pages that rank well for specific keywords are some of the most important links you can get. Search your keyword phrases and look for ways to get a link. Some things to consider do they have a submission process, can you guest blog for them, comment on their site, ask them for a link.
5. Write Authority Articles and Market Them:
   Using the Google Keyword Tool research what people are looking for in your area of expertise then write an authority article on that subject. Next look for places to submit the article to. Consider Squidoo, Ezinearticles.com, articlesbase.com, and helium.com. Don’t forget to broadcast the article to all your followers in the social media realm.
6. Submit Press Releases
   Submitting press releases remains one of the quickest ways to gain links quickly. Writing a successful press release requires some planning. Don’t just write about your product or service, but what about your product, or service, or you is newsworthy. Find a newsworthy angle make sure it is polished, spellchecked, etc, and submit it to services like: PRWeb, BusinessWire or PRleap.com.
7. Submit to Dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites
   There are still alot of social bookmarking sites that provide dofollow links. We at the Masters use http://socialmarker.com so sign up for all the services on it, and it allows you to submit your posts one after another.
8. Become a Guest Blogger:
   Looking for high PR links craft some well written post, and contact high traffic, high PR blogs in your niche, and pitch your post. This will do two things first it will gain you visibility on an authority site giving you street credit, and traffic. Secondly it will gain you links on high PR blogs in your niche.
9. Share Your Insights Through Commenting:
   Share insightful comments is useful on a variety of levels. First of all if its a dofollow comment you will get a good link from that site. In addition to that though a well worded comment can build relationships with other bloggers, and drive traffic to your site which will eventually lead to more links.
10. Contribute Something Useful
    Contribute something useful to the internet community, and they will bless you with links. Write a Joomla or WordPress plugin and submit it to the plugin directories. Write an extremely useful boilerplate template for instance a sample seo proposal and give it away to sites that have templates. Design a free template for WordPress or other platforms, and put your link in the footer.