Print a Poster on Any Printer With the Avery Poster Kit

From :Jacci Howard Bear
Your Guide to Desktop Publishing.
A few weeks back I picked up an Avery poster kit. I was curious to see if the "3 Easy Steps" described on the box were really easy. Print preview of poster created with Avery Poster Kit. The edges overlap to create almost invisible seams on the finished poster.© J. James Turns out, it is. Step 1, design, can be quick (using templates) or take as long as you need. The software is really easy to use. Step 2, print, is simple -- especially with the printer calibration sheet they provide. Step 3, assemble, is the trickiest part but not difficult.

Designing, printing, and assembling a nice-looking poster took only minutes (not counting the time spent browsing through every single folder of clip art). Even with the very slight misalignment in my finished poster, (my fault) even up close you can barely tell that it was printed on four different pieces of paper. Very cool. Makes me want to get some more of the label pages and create lots of artwork and funny posters to frame for my walls or give as gifts.

The poster I created uses only clip art and backgrounds that come with the software -- with almost no manipulation -- plus words taken from my page on Yellow Color Meanings.

Tuesday April 29, 2008 permalink comments (0)

Try Before You Buy:
Trial Software for Desktop PublishingProfessional level desktop publishing software is expensive. Reading reviews and getting the opinions of others are great tools to help you decide where to spend your money, but hands-on experience is even better. Fortunately, many software publishers make it easy to testdrive their products through free trial versions (which usually have some features disabled) and fully-functional time-limited copies. Before you start downloading all those free trials, get some tips on evaluating software with trial versions then go download. Trial software is a great way to get a feel for what programs work best. Generally I like the ones that just have a function or two disabled. For some reason those 30-day trials (such as for QuarkXPress) make me feel pressured although if you're in a hurry they are a good option because they are fully functioning.

Sunday April 27, 2008 permalink comments (0)

Every Color in the Crayon Rainbow
Did you know that there are currently 120 Crayola crayon colors? Box of 64 Crayola Crayons (with sharpener)Photo by Andy Melton; Creative Commons License And most of the Crayola crayon colors comes from a book called "Color: Universal Language and Dictionary of Names." Fun facts by themselves but the Color + Design blog also offers a cool list that lets you grab the Hex and RGB codes for your favorite crayon colors so you can reproduce them in your design work. Wednesday April 23, 2008 permalink comments (0)Magazines On-ScreenI've been reading a lot of PDF books lately. It's a lot easier to multitask when I read at my computer -- between chapters I can check email, play a round of hangman, or look up some word or concept that I just read and didn't quite understand. Over at Smashing Magazine they've rounded up a collection of what they call Inspirational PDF Magazines. It starts with Adobe Magazine and continues to list and describe other publications available in PDF that contain articles, artwork, interviews, reviews, and tutorials on graphic design, desktop publishing, and other visual arts topics. There's plenty to keep you going weeks on end. Much of the content for these PDF magazines consists of displays of the work of various artists -- fun to look at and gain inspiration from for your next project.Wednesday April 23, 2008 permalink comments (0)Sketching to Find ImagesThis has been around a while but I'm just now finding it. Retrievr is (was? doesn't appear updated) a experiment in image retrieval. screenshot from retrievr Using a simple, somewhat crude drawing app you make a little rough sketch that echoes the shape and colors you want in a photo and it searches a subset of Flickr photos for matches. Considering how imprecise the drawing tools are it really does a nice job of coming up with somewhat related photos. Draw a simple yellow flower, and you get a lot of yellow flowers, feathers, and similar images. Fun to play with and it's another way to dig up that elusive perfect image for a project. Very simple sketches with few colors seem to work best but feel free to try some more complex drawings and see what happens. I can see it as being useful if you're searching for, say, a black & white photo with a splash of red or perhaps an image that contains strong curved lines. Give it a try.

Saturday April 19, 2008 permalink comments (0)

When Repeating Yourself is a Good ThingI was mildly chastising my husband the other night because he kept repeating himself over and over turning a 5 minute conversation into a marathon. "Affirmation #416"© J. James But in some things I like repetition. In design, for example. Flipping through my art journal today I picked out a few pages that nicely illustrate the principle of repetition in different ways. Coincidently, unlike many of my journal pages, these particular pages were ones that were created entirely on my computer utilizing fonts, my handwriting, clip art, my photographs, and some fills and patterns from my image editing software. Look at each composition (click on the full size image link below each one) and see if you can identify the use of repetition before reading my description of each page.
Repetition: "Affirmation #416" Repetition: "5 things i do every day" Repetition: "Patterns in my life" (2 pages) Wednesday April 16, 2008 permalink comments (0)A Better Way to Present Identity Design PiecesFound this great collection posted by Ivan over at creativebits. When you design a logo you may think about how it will look in different formats -- on a business card, on a sign, on a product package. But these clear, blank images let you present realistic mock-ups that help you and the client better visualize how that logo or other material will look on a variety of objects. Just put your graphics onto the surfaces of these images to see how they might look on an envelope, coffee cup, CD case, or other object. The identity image collections (4 large zip files) include letterhead, envelope, and business card sets, corporate gifts, multimedia, and outdoor advertising.Friday April 11, 2008 permalink comments (1)Bad Typography Hurts and Other Ways Type Affects UsI dipped into some recent YouTube video uploads and found these... Here's a short (3:34 minute) video showing how typography surrounds us. Bad typography affects communication. Nothing earthshattering here, but sometimes we can use a little reminder. Then, there is this Herb Lubalin Digital Study Project video (2:47) described as a "mini-homage to a New Yorker who created the image of the American era." Finally, here's a very quick (1:08) video titled Typography - McKee Speech in Adaptation, where powerful words and a powerful delivery combine with typography (explicit language warning). Politicians who don't feel they are getting their point across forcefully enough might want to try this approach in some of their speeches.Tuesday April 8, 2008 permalink comments (2)

Go Green This Week

I know St. Patrick's Day was last month but this month is a green month at my house. My daughter is trying out a very green (vegan-like) eating style -- each month it's something new, January was no soda. We're trying to implement more green things (energy efficiency and such) into our home. And I've painted the ceiling in my kitchen a combination of celery green and almost aloe (somewhere in the apple green and lime green family -- at least it's all edible sounding).

Green signifies growth, renewal, health, and environment.How are you using green in your designs?Monday April 7, 2008 permalink comments (0)Font TimeHow much would you pay for a dozen fonts? $450-$1880 perhaps? Here's a gift idea for the type lover in your life: The last page of the April issue of domino magazine included a tiny blurb about the "font" clock. Available from mattermatters.com, it comes in small, medium, and large and features a dozen different typefaces. Not something any of my family would shell out money for but kinda cool nonetheless.

Thursday April 3, 2008 permalink comments (0)