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Easily_Design_Your_Own_Graphics_for_Your_Business
| Easily Design Your Own Graphics for Your Business
Copyright 2005 Barrett Phillips
Perhaps you have a website, but you’re just not totally happy
with the graphics, or you haven’t any graphics at all. 'How do
great looking graphics improve my business?' 'Aren't
professional graphics expensive?' 'How do I create graphics
myself?' You may be asking yourself any of these questions.
Well, let's start with the benefits your business will reap by
having a professional-quality graphical identity. When visitors
enter your website, before they even start to read the text they
will see the graphics and subconsciously make a snap judgement,
be it good or bad, on the quality of the product they are being
pitched, regardless of its actual quality. This is simply a
shame, because so many people have superb products but they are
held back by their not-so-superb graphics. I personally have
made many internet purchases on the basis of a nice looking site
combined with good copy (without a well written sales page, even
great graphics will not help you) simply because a great design
and welcoming images instills a feeling of trust into its
viewers. It's very likely that you have done this as well, even
if you didn't know you were making a judgement at the time.
So what do you do about this? Having a professional designer do
it for you is a possibility, but the good ones will put craters
in your bank account, and you always have to pay for future
graphical updates to your site which is a hassle, not only
financially, but if you need important changes made immediately
there's a good chance it's going to happen on the designer's
schedule.
Perhaps you don't think you have the "artist's touch" or the
patience to learn a piece of graphics software. But the truth
is, you can have no artistic ability at all and still create
great looking graphics. All you have to have is the ability to
discern between nice looking, and not nice looking. What I mean
by this, is that if you can spot a great logo and study why it
is a great logo, you can incorporate the positive qualities of
it into your own works, just one step at a time. Think you can
you do that? I think you can! Let's take a look at actually
creating something for ourselves.
If your website has a name, it should be given logo to support
it, to create an identity that visitors will remember and
ingrain in their minds. And that’s precisely where you should
start designing so you can build the rest of your site off its’
theme and concepts.
Creating logos can be a surprisingly simple process, and very
often the simpler the logo, the better. This makes it very
possible to drop in some text with a proper font and color and
leave with something of commercial quality that you didn't even
have to draw anything for! Just think of H&R Block. Their logo
is a green square and text! I’m not saying you have to go this
simple, but you most assuredly have the option.
If you wish to surprise yourself, boot up your graphics
application (if you don't have one, try one called Gimp - It's
Free, and actually good! http://www.gimp.org/) and place in some
text (the tool labeled 'T') like your site name and perhaps your
slogan (if you've got one), but in a smaller font since it is
less important than the title. Try to find a font that fits
*perfectly* with the theme of your site (since there are so few
elements to your logo thus far, make sure that every bit is as
good and relevant to your site as it can be) and adjust the
color to one that seems to fit your arena. Say if you own a toy
store, you’re likely going to want lots of bright colors and a
playful, childish font, whereas if you own an insurance company,
you’ll want something more like a dark blue or burgundy with a
'strong' font, one that instills strength and dependability onto
its viewers. Also try playing with the font width and font
spacing (space between letters) to create further visual appeal.
Just experiment with everything you see and you'll likely find
something you like. Don't be afraid to click buttons, because
there's always control-z (undo) if you mess something up. If you
become stumped, go surfing the web to see what others are doing
right and wrong, so you can use other people’s concepts to form
ideas of your own! This way you will always have fresh ideas
flowing about that you can pick from whenever you've got
designer's block. And if you're not sure of how to do a certain
task in your graphics app, simply search for a tutorial on it
specifically on google, as there are tons of websites more than
willing to help people in a position just like yours! Remember,
take everything one step at a time and you'll be creating great
graphics faster than you'd have ever thought possible!
I hope you have come away enlightened and with inspiration, now
get out there and make some killer graphics! :)
About the author:
Barrett Phillips is webmaster of Baphi.com and Author of "Simply
Design - Aesthetics That Sell". His book offers tutorials on
Ebook Cover Design, Logo Design, and Web Page Design geared
towards entrepreneurs. Also check out his free weekly PDF
newsletter! http://www.baphi.com/
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