BEFORE

The voice mail at Apostle Construction Company greets callers with a cheery, “Could your project use a miracle?” That question encapsulates both the Christian underpinnings and the can-do attitude that Apostle would like its logo to project.

Apostle Construction was founded as a roofing company in 1996 by Robert Brooks, a minister who wanted to create more than just a business. According to Brooks’s wife, Monica, he wanted Apostle to be a business that operates with integrity and honesty and that gives back to the community. Now licensed in six states, the Maryland firm takes on such jobs as doing all the roofing and siding for a school or a hotel; the company also handles complete construction jobs, such as houses.

Apostle’s current logo was put together by the sign company that made the signs for the company trucks. Brooks specifically requested they use the familiar praying hands picture and his favorite color is blue, so the design of the logo pretty much took care of itself. Monica Brooks says the logo works in that it catches people’s eyes and starts a conversation, and it gives the business a chance to convey their belief system along with their competence.

There are issues with the current logo, however. For one, its appearance and presentation is inconsistent, as a comparison of a business card to one of the company vehicles will show. For another, the praying hands image is so familiar that, by itself, it doesn’t uniquely identify Apostle Construction. So we asked three designers to perform a minor miracle and create a logo that would maintain a religious connotation while still communicating the other qualities that distinguish the company. According to Monica Brooks, it’s not too big to give personal service, but not too small to take on a big job; the attitude that “the job’s not done until the customer is satisfied;” and a commitment to do what they say they’re going to do.

AFTER

DESIGNER: Jeff Cook
My primary goal in reworking the Apostle logo was to not only update the concept but also give it a sleeker, less bulky appearance. My issue with the original logo was that all the words had the same weight—nothing pulled for attention. When I designed my updated version, I made sure that the word “Apostle” was a primary graphic, while the word “Construction” played a secondary role.

I also swapped religious graphics, as I felt that the praying hands image was the most outdated element of the logo. I updated that graphic with what seems to me to be the most recognizable imagery when it comes to religious items: a cross. I placed the cross graphic inside the “o” of Apostle, where it’s contained within the overall structure of the logo—unlike the praying hands, which were floating loose on the side. This new element gives the logo a polished and finished appearance, without looking dated.

The original logo used the same font for all text, but mixing serif and sans-serif fonts in logos with multiple words is a treatment that’s always more appealing to the eye. The word “Apostle” obviously has a religious connotation; therefore, I decided to use a serif typeface (Aviano from Insigne) to convey a professional, yet historical look. The word “Construction” should have a masculine quality, so I set it in the sans-serif version of Aviano. The sans-serif version lends a strong appeal, while remaining sleek and refined.

For reasons of personal preference, the main color choice for the original logo was blue, so I stayed on the same path for my redesign. Instead of the flat royal blue of the original, I opted to use a more slate-like blue and applied a gradient effect. Taken together, the approach helps modernize this new logotype.

I placed the cross graphic inside the “o” of Apostle, where it’s contained within the overall structure of the logo…

ABOUT THE DESIGNER

Jeff Cook –Jeff was born in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago in 1981. As a young child, he loved to color and constantly won community coloring contests. As he grew older, he recognized that he was fascinated by logos, so he started studying layout and composition. A 2003 graduate of the Illinois Institute of Art, Jeff holds a degree in Visual Communications. Shortly thereafter, he gained four years of graphic design experience at Brian Keith Advertising, the midwest’s largest and most respected real estate agency.
He currently resides in Arlington Heights, Illinois, and works as a graphic designer for the in-house creative department of Camping World, a nationwide chain of camping and outdoor stores. He also strives for greatness with his at-home, freelance company, JC Design. Jeff also loves spending time with his niece and nephew, who love to color just as much as he does. He can be reached at Jeffcook88@yahoo.com.

APPLICATION USED: Adobe Illustrator CS2

AFTER

DESIGNERS: Don and Amy New –www.newslandingdesign.com

NewsLanding’s brand redesign methodology always starts with a client survey of the existing mark. We want to know what the client likes about the current logo and why they’re motivated to change at that point. Graphically speaking, the client expressed only one requirement—that the final treatment clearly portray the owner’s faith—and one preference: the owner’s favorite color is blue. It’s a wise design principle that if the guy writing the checks prefers the color blue, at least one iteration in your presentation should use blue.

Our next step in the re-branding process is usually to write a creative brief with the client. For this makeover, we just used the notes provided us from a conversation with the owner’s wife.

After all that, we go someplace quiet and simply write out words. With Apostle, we created categories and under each, listed as many words within those categories as we could come up with before hitting the old Google button or going to our favorite online thesaurus. In our “religious icons” category, we ended up with such terms as cross, Star of David, crucifix, olive branch, fish, dove, robes, candles, halo, praying hands, steeples, and so on.

Armed with the list of words, we selected several candidates that could be treated graphically. Next, we began combining appropriate typestyles with sketched icons—the dove was a combination of several dove shapes I had in my scrap files. Everything at this point was being done in black and white. Once all the assets are in digital format, we can work very fast with combinations, overlays, transparency, typography, and color.

With Apostle Construction, we ultimately rendered the dove in Adobe Illustrator and selected a font that reinforced the fine craftsmanship so important to the client. We set “Apostle” in Linotype’s Herculaneum and used Adobe’s Orator Std for “Construction Company” and other text. The result was a ligature/icon that would show as well on the side of a construction trailer as on a golf ball.

Armed with the list of words, we selected several candidates that could be treated graphically.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER

Don and Amy New NewsLanding Design
As a graduate of the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture and Allied Arts, Don founded his first firm, Graphic Media, in 1980. This company grew to a fulltime staff of 65, held the top position for marketing communications firms in Portland for 10 years, and during that time, Don was the runner-up for Inc.’s Entrepreneur of the Year for the Pacific Northwest region.

Don sold Graphic Media to his partners in 1995 and in 1997, joined Portland’s Creative Media Development (CMD) as Corporate Creative Director. He was named Chief Creative Officer the following year. In 2001, CMD garnered more than 30 regional and national creative awards.

In 2004, Don and his wife Amy formed NewsLanding in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Their current clients, who consider NewsLanding to be an extension of their marketing staff, range from real estate firms to a biofuels refinery. NewsLanding is also committed to pro bono work for several nonprofits and a great little Christian-based orphanage in El Salvador.

APPLICATIONS USED: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator

AFTER

DESIGNER: John Webb –www.jweb3d.com

In re-creating the Apostle Construction corporate identity, I wanted to maintain the religious aspect of the logo but give it a more professional look. The sketched praying hands have been overused, so I didn’t feel that image offered the individual identity a company would benefit from. They also had two different variations of the logo, so I wanted to give them a consistent brand mark that can be used on all of their collateral. I felt the font was very plain and that the black and blue color choices weren’t aesthetically pleasing.

The first thing I wanted to do was find a Christian symbol that was powerful, could relate to the company, and wasn’t seen on every Christian building and book. That ruled out a fish, cross, sacred heart, etc. Through my research, I came across the winged lion, which is a symbol for Saint Mark, representing faith and a connection to God. The wings represent a messenger of God, which I felt was symbolic of a company that does charity work, such as offering aid to Hurricane Katrina victims (as I read on their website). I also thought the winged lion would be a strong, trustworthy mascot (for lack of a better word) to represent a Christian construction company. I found a photo of a winged lion statue online, traced over it in Adobe Illustrator, printed out the sketch, drew over it by hand to add detail and modify some of the shapes, scanned my drawing back in, and manipulated it until I was satisfied with the result. The final image looks something like a gargoyle, which suggests the roofing aspect of the company’s services.

For the word “Apostle,” I chose Clairvaux LT STD Roman from Linotype, which has a biblical look. And for “Construction Company” and any text that would accompany business material, I chose Adobe Garamond Pro because it’s easy to read, fits well with Clairvaux LT STD Roman, and is a professional-looking font.

To top it off, I felt a cool gray and an eye-catching blue gave it a nice modern color scheme.

I also thought the winged lion would be a strong, trustworthy mascot (for lack of a better word) to represent a Christian construction company.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER

John Webb John is a multifaceted artist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, offering a wide range of services—from graphic design to fine art and airbrushing. Born in 1980, John has been drawing since childhood, using mostly pencils, pastels, Pantone markers, and ink. To this day, much of his work is inspired by graffiti and by the comic books he enjoyed as a child. During his high school years, he excelled in art classes, which led him to pursue a career in this field.

In 2001, John began airbrushing and creating T-shirts and tattoo designs for his friends. Then he started creating and selling custom T-shirts in a store he partially owned in West Philly. The following year, he began to try his hand at fine art, with a focus on acrylics. His work in computer arts, primarily graphic design, began in 2003. At present, John is refining his knowledge of the Adobe Dreamweaver, After Effects, and Flash programs. He attained his Associate’s degree in Graphic Design in June of 2008.

APPLICATIONS USED: Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Illustrator CS3

Get Your Video Online
Everyone should jump on the online video bandwagon as soon as possible. I know that’s a bold statement, but to say that online video today is exploding in both business and consumer spaces would be the understatement of the year. Photographers are making musical slide shows of their photos and posting them online to both inspire others and get themselves more work. Videographers are filming behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes and posting them online to both educate young filmmakers and draw new audiences to their work. Businesspeople are using video to introduce their companies and show off their products, while both parents and kids use video to stay connected with extended family and friends.

Powerful Promotion
Does that mean that you should abandon your still camera for a video camera and never look back? Absolutely not! What it does mean, however, is that even if you’ve never shot a single second of video, you should at least package your best images into a compelling slide show, add a little music, save it out as a video file, and then distribute it on the Web. Every decent program that can create a slide show also has the capability to save out that slide show in Apple QuickTime, Windows Media, or Adobe Flash format. And this is all you need to upload your work to a potential audience of millions. At worst, your video slide show is an inspiration to someone else aspiring to do the same thing. At best, you’ve just doubled your marketing and picked up a wealth of new clients for your business (whatever it may be).

If you’ve ever seen a slide show presentation set to music at Photoshop World by a world-class photographer such as Moose Peterson, Vincent Versace, Jim DiVitale, John Paul Caponigro, Eddie Tapp, Laurie Excell, Joe Glyda, Ben Willmore, or any of the many, many others, you know just how powerful it can be for both inspiration and for sales. Just ask any one of them how many more books, DVDs, or seminar tickets they sell after a showing.

So the next step would be to upload your video to one of the many video sharing sites that have exploded onto the Web in the last couple of years, but which one? Everyone’s heard of YouTube, but is it the best choice for you? Well, for the last year I’ve been researching and answering those exact same questions for my clients who hire me as a consultant and as a distributor of their online content. In that time I’ve compiled a list of the top 12 sites I like for distributing video online. It’s a lengthy report I usually only share with clients, but I’m going to share some of the key points with you today.

Rod’s top 12 video distribution sites

This list also includes a little bit about each site’s Web traffic and audience demographics (compiled from Google searches and TubeMogul analytics) so that you can decide if the video distribution site is a good fit for you.

YouTube (www.youtube.com): The Mac Daddy of all video distribution sites.
Traffic averages: Nearly 70 million monthly unique visitors; 74 pages viewed per person; 0:55:52 minutes spent on site.
Demographics: Evenly female/male audience; largest age cluster in 20–40 year-old range.

MySpace (www.myspace.com): Primarily a social networking site. The video component is not promoted, but is widely used.
Traffic averages: 12.5 million monthly unique visitors; 12 pages viewed per person; 0:07:03 minutes spent on site.
Demographics: Surprisingly, the audience only slants slightly younger; roughly even male/female; relatively less educated.

Revver (http://revver.com): This site employs an ad sharing revenue system similar to Google’s AdWords, but for video.
Traffic averages: More than 8 million monthly unique visitors; 16 pages viewed per person; 0:08:07 minutes spent on site.
Demographics: Slightly more male viewers; age slants relatively older.

Dailymotion (www.dailymotion.com): Popular video sharing site out of Europe.
Traffic averages: Almost 5.5 million monthly unique visitors; 10 pages viewed per person; 0:04:49 minutes spent on site.
Demographics: International audience; high age and income level; slants white male.

Veoh (www.veoh.com): Focused on full-screen video programming for anyone with a broadband connection.
Traffic averages: 3.6 million monthly unique visitors; 30 pages viewed per person; 0:41:29 minutes spent on site.
Demographics: Slightly more male viewers; even distribution across age categories.

Metacafe (www.metacafe.com): Popular worldwide video destination. Prides itself on quality over quantity.
Traffic averages: 3.5 million monthly unique visitors; 15 pages viewed per person; 0:07:10 minutes spent on site.
Demographics: Almost 3:1 male-to-female ratio; relatively even education and income.

Yahoo! Video (http://video.yahoo.com): A sleek, entertainment-oriented video site. Not yet fully integrated with all of Yahoo!’s community destinations.
Traffic averages: 3.2 million monthly unique visitors; 4 pages viewed per person; 0:02:76 minutes spent on site.
Demographics: Slightly more male viewers; slants older in age.

blip.tv (http://blip.tv): Publisher-friendly video sharing and distribution site.
Traffic averages: 1.3 million monthly unique visitors; 3 pages viewed per person; 0:02:43 minutes spent on site.
Demographics: Slightly more male; educated and higher income.

Vimeo (www.vimeo.com): Hip, user-generated content.
Traffic averages: 1.3 million monthly unique visitors; 5 pages viewed per person.
Demographics: 2:1 male-to-female ratio; high income and college educated.

Google Video (http://video.google.com): One of the first video sharing sites to offer ad revenue sharing with publishers.
Traffic averages: 436,000 monthly unique visitors; 3 pages viewed per person; 0:02:34 minutes spent on site.

Viddler (www.viddler.com): Newer site with cool features like comments tied to a particular time in the video and automatic webcam sync.
Demographics: Slightly more male; college educated.

Facebook (www.facebook.com): Another major social networking site with more than 100 million users. It’s also the fourth most trafficked website in the world. Need I say more?

So what can online video do for you?

Online video can expose your art, personality, business, and product to a whole new audience that might otherwise not see it. It can inspire others as it inspires you. It can encourage collaboration with people from other disciplines. And it can increase your business and sales so that you can continue to do whatever it is that you love most. Now doesn’t that sound like a good reason to get into online video distribution?

One of my YouTube clips has more than 127,000 views.

In the world of imaging, one of the most important things to consider is that lighting sets the mood. The composition and subject matter are one thing, but how a scene is lit tells the story. The time of day, the light source, and the subsequent shadows all come together to form the image. This is a crucial consideration, especially when you’re compositing multiple images into a single image. All the elements must relate to each other and cast shadows that conform to the overall lighting of the scene.

The importance of shadows
Shadows add dimension to an image; without them an object will appear flat. Both Illustrator and Photoshop are two-dimensional programs, but shading a scene properly will give it the illusion of a third dimension.

Composition-wise, lights and shadows will determine the relationship of one object to another and their place within the total scene. When you’re compositing multiple objects into one scene or adding an object to an existing scene, it’s crucial that the light intensity, direction, color, and shading for each object match correctly. Even an untrained eye will be able to spot a discrepancy. For instance, an object sitting under a lamp can’t have a shadow on its top.

Light travels in a straight line. As it meets an object, it casts a shadow that falls within that straight line. If you were to add an object to an existing image, the first thing you’d need to do is determine the light source and direction. This example shows a platform of an elevated train. If you were to place on object on the platform, it would have to cast a shadow onto the platform that matches the shadows in the rest of the scene. In our next example, a briefcase has been placed onto the platform—it looks off. It’s too bright and casts no shadows, making it appear as a pasted in object.

Match placed object to scene
Study the overall scene and you’ll see that the sides of the structure on the platform are in shadows and appear darker. The first thing to do is to match the shade for the side of the briefcase that’s facing the viewer. This is simply a matter of selecting the side of the briefcase and applying any of the methods for darkening that Photoshop has to offer. Here you can see how the side of the briefcase has been darkened.

Now it needs a shadow to set it in its place on the platform. To do this, it’s necessary to determine the direction of the light source (in this example, it’s the sun). Unfortunately, the sun is out of the field of view in the image. This isn’t a problem because the effects of that light source are clearly visible in the scene. To determine the position of the sun, draw a line in a layer from the edge of the canopy top to where the shadow first appears against the railing below. Following this line tells you precisely where the sun is in the sky.

To set up a guide to create the shadow, move the line depicting the angle of the light source down so it touches the top of the briefcase. The line shows where the shadow will fall against the platform. Using the Pen tool (P), create a path to represent the shadow. Create a new layer to contain the shadow, then fill the path with black. Lower the Opacity for the shadow layer so it matches the intensity of the rest of the shadows in the scene. The result makes the briefcase appear as if it belongs there.

Considerations
There are many factors to consider when creating lighting effects for your scene. Among them are:

• The number of light sources
• The position of the light sources
• The strength of the lights
• The color of the lights
• Do other objects block the light?

This last point brings up an interesting problem: What if the briefcase is closer to the railing? If this is the case, then the shadow will travel along the platform floor as before, but it will also travel up the railing. As you can see here, the briefcase is closer to the railing, thus casting a shadow up the side of the railing. This was accomplished by duplicating the layer containing the shadow. The duplicate shadow was rotated 90° clockwise (Edit>Transform>Rotate 90° CW) and flipped horizontally (Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal) to match the angle. Layer masks were then applied to each of the shadow layers to conceal the areas where the platform and railings end.

This is not a formula; it’s what worked in this instance. Things may vary in your particular situation. The direction of the light source determined how high up the railing the shadow would travel.

Do your homework
It’s not as complicated as it seems. You might say, “This is fine but my situation is different.” The solution to all problems lies within your grasp. It’s a matter of looking in the right places for the answers. I never guess at what something should look like. I study the world around me for the answers. When it comes to complex shading situations where I have no sources that I can refer to, I create models to study how a shadow will look. What if you need to have a shadow traveling up a staircase? What will it look like? Here you can see a staircase that’s simply a sheet of paper that was folded to form the steps. An object is lit in front of the makeshift staircase and the shadow falls into place, giving you a reference from which to create your shadow.

Shadows are crucial. They add life to an image. Study them. Use them. They will make your images come to life.

ALL IMAGES BY BERT MONROY

Professional photographers who focus on people photography and portraits never leave home without a reflector, a handheld diffuser, and a flash diffuser. I’m in that crowd. I take these accessories with me to control the light both indoors and outdoors when it’s not right, and when I simply want more creative lighting.

In the studio, pros use reflectors and diffusers in combination with accessory flash units (the kind that fit in the hot-shoe of a camera) and wireless transmitters for professional studio lighting effects. Again, I’m one of ’em.

I’m going to cover all that stuff in this column. Let’s get started.

Reflecting and diffusing light
A reflector does exactly what its name implies: it reflects light. The opening photograph for this article was taken in Papua New Guinea during one of my 2008 photography workshops. Check out the catch light in the subject’s eyes. See how his face is nicely illuminated. And note the contrast and detail in the image.

Now compare the opening image to this one. It’s the same subject, same setting, but the only difference is that in the first photograph I asked our guide to hold a reflector so that the light from the sky was reflected onto the subject’s face. The reflector made all the difference in the world, turning a flat shot into a striking shot with more detail and contrast.

Our guide holds a reflector for one of the workshop participants, Bev Sanchez. The reflector collapses and fits neatly into the tote that the guide is carrying over his shoulder.

Let’s move on to diffusers. A diffuser is made out of a translucent material that softens harsh light as it passes through. Compare these two pictures of a woman I photographed in Mongolia. I know which one you like better! It’s the softer, more flattering portrait of the woman—the one where you can better see her eyes and in which her skin is softened. For that image, I had my friend, Jack Leggett, hold a diffuser between the sun and the subject.

CREDIT: JACK LEGGETT Here, I’m demonstrating the effect of a diffuser to workshop participants.

Many choices
Diffusers and reflectors are available in all sizes and shapes, and are sold separately and in kits. Many reflectors have a gold side to bounce a warm quality of light, and a silver side to bounce a cooler and stronger quality of light.

Some kits come with a zip-on cover with a black side and a white side. Use the black side to cut down on light falling on a subject, and the white side to bounce a very soft light onto the subject.

For photographers who do mostly head and head-and-shoulder shots, small reflectors and diffusers do the job. The kit you see here, actually the Rick Sammon Light Controller and Tote from Westcott www.fjwestcott.com, includes a handheld diffuser, a reflector, and a diffuser that attaches directly to a flash via supplied Velcro.

I use the diffuser attached to the flash all the time because I don’t want my flash pictures to look like harsh flash pictures, which was one of my goals when I photographed this “warrior” in Mongolia. Not only does the diffuser soften the light, but it increases the size of the light source, which is beneficial when taking group photographs. Compare these photos to see the big benefit of using a flash with a diffuser outdoors.

For professional jobs, larger reflectors and diffusers are available. As the size of the reflector increases, the size of the reflected light source increases. Large diffusers are used for full-length portraits and when two or more people are in the photograph. During this photo shoot at Lake Mead, Arizona, our team of photographers used a large reflector to illuminate this model.

Reflectors and diffusers can be used in the professional and home studio as well. I use stands and arms from Westcott to support my reflectors and diffusers, and stands and flash holders from Bogen (www.bogenimaging.com) to support my flash units.

Using flash with reflectors and diffusers
When you fire a flash into a reflector, you increase the size of the light source tremendously for more even lighting. Fire it through a diffuser, and again you increase the size of the light source—in this case for beautiful soft lighting.

To fire the flash units off-camera, you’ll need a wireless infrared (IR) transmitter, which fits into the hot-shoe of your camera. With an IR transmitter, you can fire several remote flashes at once, creating true professional-quality results.

When using a flash with a reflector or diffuser, keep the flash at least 3′ away from the reflector or diffuser. At that distance, the size of the light source is increased. Any closer and you’re not getting the full benefit of the reflector or diffuser because you’re not fully increasing the size of the light source. This is an important tip.

Portraits
Here’s a portrait of Emmy Award winner David Leveen taken with a three-flash, two-reflector set up triggered by a wireless transmitter. I positioned one flash and reflector setup to my left to illuminate his face, and placed another slightly behind him and to my right to create side lighting. Then I positioned a single flash unit (with no reflector) directly behind him for what’s called “Hollywood lighting.”

For this portrait of my friend Kristen, I used my accessory flash units as my light sources, firing them into and through my reflectors and diffusers. I also had her hold a gold reflector on her lap, which bounced light onto her face, filling in shadows that were created by overhead lighting.

Reflectors and diffusers can be used together, both indoors and out. And they can be positioned in many different locations around a subject. Experiment and have fun! Play with light.

ALL IMAGES BY RICK SAMMON UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

For anyone following a creative pursuit, the notion of obeying rules that determine proper aesthetics for an image seems nothing short of ludicrous; however, such rules can prove incredibly helpful as you work to improve your photography. Just remember, rules are made to be broken. It’s important to understand some key rules of photographic composition, but equally important that the final image is what really matters, so don’t hesitate to break the rules if you feel it will improve the photo.

Say More with Less

Perhaps the best thing you can do to improve the composition of your photographs is to include less in the frame. It’s only natural to try to include too much in a photographic image. After all, you’re in a wonderful place having an incredible experience taking in a beautiful sight, and you want to capture a photo that will convey your emotions. This often leads to a photo with so much going on that the viewer feels overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to look.

Practice simplifying the composition for every photograph. As you compose a scene, think about how you might be able to zoom in or move closer to the subject to effectively crop out unnecessary elements. Also, think about how you might be able to move to view the subject from a different angle to provide a less cluttered background. You’ll quickly discover that when it comes to photography, quite often less is more.

No Points for a Bull’s Eye

The rule of thirds is one of the best-known tenets in photography, but being well-known doesn’t mean it should always be followed. Quite simply, you should generally not place the main subject of a photograph in the very center of the frame. It may seem that the most important element of a photograph belongs at the prominent center of the image so nobody will mistake the reason you took the photo, but in most cases you should resist that urge.

The idea of the rule of thirds is that you should place the key subject one-third of the way in from the edge of the photo, rather than at the center. Imagine the photo divided into thirds horizontally and vertically. Align your subject with one of the dividing lines, possibly even at the intersection of two of those lines.

Of course, placing the subject off-center shouldn’t be done without giving it some thought. For example, if you’re photographing a sunset, you might arbitrarily lower the camera so the horizon falls at the upper third. But if part of the reason you’re photographing the sunset is the incredible clouds in the sky, you should favor the sky and instead raise the camera so the horizon is at the bottom third. The point is that you want to think about how to follow the rule of thirds (and when to ignore it) so you’re producing the best result in the final image.

Room to Move

When you follow the rule of thirds, the key subject is naturally going to be off-center in the frame. I mentioned that it’s important to consider where in the frame you’re going to place the subject, and this is particularly important when there’s a directional element to the subject. For example, if you’re photographing moving subjects, such as cars, surfers, or cyclists, leave some room in front of them so they appear to have somewhere to go.

In the case of a portrait, that means giving the subject somewhere to look. When following the rule of thirds, this will become obvious to you but it’s worth thinking about. Generally speaking, when you break this rule, it will create a certain sense of tension within the image. That might be a good thing—just make sure you’re doing it intentionally.

Get Some Perspective

When you present a subject in a unique and interesting way, you’ll have a better chance of gaining the viewer’s attention. The trick is to find a unique perspective that actually makes a better photo, not just a photo with a weird perspective. Think about how you can get higher or lower, or find a unique angle. Lens choice can be key here as well. With a wide-angle lens, for example, you can get very close to the subject but still have a strong sense of place with the background information that gets included. Or you can compress a scene in an interesting way by backing up and using a longer lens, including only a couple of key elements in the frame

Don’t be afraid to experiment, as that’s how you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. Look around you and see what you can get on top of, duck under, stand beside, or otherwise put to use to create a new way of looking at a subject.

Get Angular

Everywhere you look, it seems there are lines. Sometimes those lines are the reason you decided to take a photo; other times they seem to get in the way. Regardless, they can always be used to great effect in a photographic composition. Horizontal or vertical lines tend to convey stability. Sometimes that’s what you’re aiming for, but more often you’re looking for a dynamic energy. Diagonal lines are very effective at providing that energy, so see if you can put strong lines on the diagonal. Also, thinking about perspective, see if there’s a way to get the lines in your image to lead into the primary subject. Lines can be a powerful part of your photos, so leverage them in your compositions.

Cropping

While it’s best to get the image perfect in camera, don’t forget there’s much you can do after the fact to greatly improve many photos. Cropping an image in Photoshop after the capture allows you to apply some of the rules of composition presented here, even if you didn’t get it quite right in the camera. For example, a cluttered scene can be cleaned up by cropping out unnecessary elements. A subject placed in the center of the frame can be magically moved off center by cropping the image accordingly.

Part of the beauty of digital photography is that you can continue to improve your images with tremendous control, even after the picture has been taken. And doing so will help give you a better understanding of what you might want to do differently the next time you’re out taking pictures.

ALL IMAGES BY TIM GREY

Too often, when companies are approaching a redesign of their website, they’re centric to one thing only: “We need a fresh, new look,” or, a designer’s favorite words, “Make it pop.” But in my experience, the happiest website owner/manager is the one who has figured out that having a great-looking website is only one component to a successful presence on the Web. For true success, you must entertain the notion that there are three main components: branding, usability, and visibility. Whether you’re designing a website for yourself or for your client, it’s your responsibility to take part in forging a synergistic relationship of these three factors—no matter how big or small.

Doing business on the Web isn’t really all that different than doing business in the traditional brick-and-mortar sense. Most people want to walk into a store that’s well organized, clean, reflects a positive and professional image, and gives a feeling of security and trust. If given the choice of buying a product from another store that lacks any of the above qualities (and assuming that the price point is the same), a customer is most likely going to buy from the first store. Store #1 has maintained a good level of synergy in its branding, usability, and trustworthiness (which for the purpose of this example, we can equate to good visibility).

The same thing can be said for the Web. There are some scary websites out there. In fact, there are many websites that are—apparently—built only to rank in the search engines, and little more. This is also known as search engine optimization, which is usually referred to as SEO. Simply put, SEO means designing a website so that search engines can easily find Web pages and index them, which in turn increases a website’s visibility and makes it easier for people to find your client’s site. SEO is very important for a website’s visibility, but as mentioned earlier, visibility is only part of the equation.

At the end of the day, my job is not only to help my clients grow their businesses, but help them build confidence in their online presence through improved branding initiatives, better usability, and ultimately an honest and well-researched approach to being found on the Web, ergo, SEO. It’s not to stuff their website with a bunch of text and clutter up the user experience. There has to be a balance.
Think about it: If you own a store located at a high-traffic intersection, but it looks terrible, guess what—no one is going to come in. If you build the best-looking store in the state, but it’s located in the middle of nowhere—no one is going to come in. If you build a store at the right intersection and it looks very nice but you have no cash registers or workers to direct people to completing a transaction—no one is going to come in.
So to recap, there are three main components to success:

Branding: The look and feel of the website. Branding should be unique and talk-worthy so that people will want to speak about it all the time.

Usability: The equivalent of making it easy to find items in your store and making sure that completing a transaction is as easy and pleasurable as the shopping experience itself.

Visibility: Or designing for SEO, which is something you can work toward by following some very useful design tips discussed later in this article.

Now, let’s dig deeper into each of these intertwined components to gain success on the Web.

Branding is more than just a logo

Your client’s brand should be representative of everything their business stands for. It should encapsulate their attitude, while remaining professional and unique. Something that comes to mind is Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow—read it if you haven’t. The brand and all of its components should be present in the client’s collateral (the look and the copy), Web design, user experience of the website, content within the website, logo, load time of the website, interactive features, and—well—everything that has to do with the company. So as you can see, brand extends to things that you might not normally take into consideration. Here are some things to think about and discuss with your client to really take their brand and their site to the next level.

Use of colors: Research the psychological and physiological impact of certain colors and how that could be useful toward your client’s brand. Also be aware that your choice of colors should remain accessible to the color blind and provide enough contrast.

Use of language: What’s your client’s demographic? Psychographic? Ethnographic? Depending on their business, these are all factors that will impact how your client reaches their audience through the content in all of their online and off-line collateral.

Website load time: Imagine making people wait for hours to get into a store just to browse around. Unless you are Apple selling the latest iPhone, you’ll probably have a large number of people turning away at the door. The same is true of websites. Keep the page load to a minimum through the use of clean, semantic HTML and CSS; better image-compression techniques; external files for JavaScript and CSS; and a number of other factors. Consider testing your site on a dial-up connection as well.

Cross-browser compliance: Wouldn’t it be strange if 70% of a website’s visitors couldn’t see the store logo, or all the shelves were upside-down to them? Business owners want to reach 100% of their audience, not just a select few. Spending the extra time to make sure the website is cross-platform and cross-browser compatible can save your client (and you) many headaches (although it will cause a few at first during testing).

Accessibility/Section 508 compliance: Here’s a term that seems to be thrown around all too often in our industry. Compliance ranges from being completely neglected to partially fulfilled to so overdone that the site itself becomes unusable (passing the Cynthia test alone doesn’t really mean you’re compliant, you know). Being compliant for accessibility (that’s compliance for blind, color blind, and disabled) is just, well, the right thing to do. And, as it happens, a website that’s accessible is most likely going to be search-engine friendly.

Amount of quality information: This is the information age and people are no longer happy with just being told about something and leaving it at that. Through the Internet, every 5- to 65-year-old has become a researcher, and common sense dictates that before they spend their hard-earned money on things, they want to know everything about the product—see it, feel it, touch it, and know all of its pros and cons. It’s not just about providing pages of information, but rather useful information such as allowing customer feedback, ratings, a voting system, or whichever applies to help your client be as honest as they can to their customers. The more pages of quality information provided, the more opportunities for search engines to find the website, by searching for the words that happen to appear on any given page.

Case studies: Service-based businesses, enterprise service, and solutions providers take note: Case studies are one of the best ways to entice prospects to call. It also provides a measure of “transparency” that companies should maintain not only to show proven effectiveness of their products and services, but also have bragging power without the ego.

Press releases: It’s one thing for your client to release new products all the time, but it’s another to show their customers that they’re active in their industry internally and externally through press releases. If your client uses these same press releases through various distribution methods (Business Wire is an example) and uses their keywords in the anchor text of the links, these press releases can also have great SEO benefit by gaining links on other websites pointing to your client’s website.

Usability is more than just navigation

“How can I find what I’m looking for,” “What’s the price on this?” “What shoes would you recommend to go with this outfit?” “What do other people think of this product?” These are the kinds of questions that you might ask during a typical offline shopping excursion. Why is it then that so many e-commerce website managers, information architects, and others fail to ask these questions while they’re establishing the plan for what the website will be?

Making your client’s websites more usable will also cross the lines of making their website more search-engine friendly and also assist in presenting the best brand. Here’s what I mean…
Usability takes many forms. If a website doesn’t abide by Section 508 compliance, it’s not very usable for blind people. If a website has virtually no content, it’s not very useful to visitors and it’s not search-engine friendly. If a website has no call-to-action, or a clear path of helping visitors complete a desired action (sales, leads, more information, webinar registration, newsletter sign-up, etc.), you’re not helping your targeted audience or helping your business grow.
Lab-based usability testing will only catch so much. More often than not, the usability testing firm will get 100 or so folks who are the “target audience” and stick them in an environment where they can surf the site. They’ll be asked some questions: “What do you expect to see on this next page?” “What do you think of the way this content is being provided?” “What do you think of the colors or text?” “Where would you expect to find contact information?”

Usability testing firms will not be able to tell you if a website has enough textual content to ensure that it ranks in the major search engines. When people use search engines to research products and services, they’re usually looking for something to read. So, too, do the search engines. The more relevant content you have surrounding a particular topic, the more of an authority that the search engines believe your site to be, and the more your visitors will appreciate the user experience—you gave them the content and research material that they were looking for: it’s a win-win situation.
Wait…make that “win-win-win” (good for the brand, good for the user experience, and great for search-engine optimization).

Ten things to avoid

Here’s a list of usability no-no’s that you want to avoid in your design:

1. Small text sizes: The minimal look of tiny text is long gone. If nobody can read your content, you’ll quickly lose site visitors.

2. Splash pages: The homepage is the most important page of your site for both your visitors and search engines.

3. Low contrast: Avoid using light-colored text on white backgrounds and avoid stark color contrasts as well. A good way to test for this is to proof your design in black and white.

4. Hidden navigation: Don’t hide navigation or make it undecipherable. If you want people to browse a site and eventually contact you for services, don’t make it hard.

5. Flash: I’m not saying you shouldn’t use Flash; just don’t use it on elements like navigation or anything that someone without Flash wouldn’t be able to see.

6. Horizontally scrolling sites: While some people like to put their entire site on one page and then use AJAX to navigate between the different sections, one of the worst usability experiences is horizontally scrolling websites.

7. Broken links: Once your site is up, use a link-checking tool to identify any broken links on your site.

8. Cramped layouts: Use the rule of thirds or a layout grid to properly space all of the sections of your pages and make them easy to see. This will work wonders even in graphics-heavy sites.

9. Superfluous background images: Try to use backgrounds that can be patterned or repeated easily. This will also help decrease load times.

10. Lack of calls to action: A call to action is exactly what it implies; a simple and easy-to-see element on a page that calls on a site visitor to perform an action such as contact you, check out the latest products, etc.

Designing for SEO

Designing for SEO may be one of those items where you, the designer, may ask yourself how that could possibly involve you. As mentioned before, websites are very technical in nature and your design has to reflect not only the appearance of that functionality but also its behavior and layout.

Homepage content: For starters, your design should contain sufficient space for at least 150 words of content on the homepage and more for interior (secondary) pages.

Blogs: If blogs are to be a part of the Web strategy, try to locate your blog at www.nameofwebsite.com/blog. Set up Categories for the blog post that correlate to the main business areas and blog about those topics. This “content theme” will be picked up by the search engines and they will see the website as more of an authority on the topics. Be sure to include a way for visitors to subscribe to an RSS feed in the design.

Headings: A heading 1 and heading 2 tag (a.k.a. H1 and H2) should be accounted for in your design. These are like the topic headings of a page and are picked up first by search engines. Be sure that your design allows for these to either be rendered as HTML text, or use an inline Flash text replacement technique such as sIFR.

Subnavigation: For interior pages, or subsections of your site, a series of subnavigation is not only beneficial for usability, but also for SEO, bescause it allows search engines to further drill down into a site.

Breadcrumbs: Another navigation item of similar nature that can be included is so-called “breadcrumb trails.” These are the navigation links often seen at the top of a webpage that show the hierarchy and present location of a visitor’s path in the site. For example: Home>Rec Room>Darts>Accessories.

Optimize and name images: As you’re getting ready to prepare your design for development, keep in mind that images should be optimized for better performance. Also, use a descriptive nomenclature for your image files—this can save time during development.

URL structure: Now, more than ever, search engines place a great degree of weight to having keywords within the URL string. A good URL would be www.nameofsite.com/Category-Keyword/Specific-Keyword/.

Permanent redirect: If you’re preparing for a relaunch of a website, here’s a tip that will save your client a lot of money, time, and heartache. Too many times, websites are relaunched without any thought to redirection. For every page that existed on the legacy (old) website, a redirection should be put into place to account for the “change of address.” This takes little time, but can truly save the day.
Any 301 redirects are for permanently redirecting a page/URL. When you do this, you’re telling the search engines to pass along any SEO value that the old page/URL had to the new page/URL. Many times, there’s a misunderstanding here, and 302 (temporary) redirects are used, which do nothing to help SEO and may actually hinder any search-engine optimization efforts.

Sitemap: Finally, create a sitemap to help direct visitors and search engines to the most important pages of the website.

If you have addressed each of these items, it’s all systems go and you’re ready to help your client launch a website that should be successful on all levels.

Good typography comes from paying attention to scads of tiny details, the glorious whole being the noticeable consequence of many seemingly inconsequential actions. The tiny detail under the lens this issue is the ligature, a single glyph created from the fusion of two or more letterforms. These “weddings” are usually performed to head off the unattractive collision of adjoining characters. It’s up to ligatures to restore peace and harmony.

The pesky f hook
Most ligatures involve the lower case f, with its pesky hook, which has the habit of overlapping ascending characters to its right. The theory behind ligatures is that if these characters are going to overlap anyway, they may as well be designed to overlap aesthetically, by creating the f and its neighbor as a single glyph. The most common two-character ligatures are fi, ff, and fl. Common three-character ligatures include ffi and ffl.

Set in Adobe Garamond Pro with no ligatures (top)—the is look like water drops hanging off the f hooks; (bottom) Standard fi and fl ligatures as well as the OpenType discretionary ffi and ffl ligatures.

Although sans serif faces contain at least some of these ligatures (they’re part of the standard glyph set for most fonts), by tradition they’re rarely fused together visually as they are in serif faces. Rare exceptions include Matthew Carter’s Verdana (which has fused fi and fl forms) and Erik Gill’s Gill Sans (only fi).

Of the Adobe CS3 applications, InDesign has the best support for ligatures, as it can automatically insert ligatures from any font that contains them (most have at least fi and fl). To do this for PostScript Type 1 and TrueType fonts, simply select Ligatures from the Character panel flyout menu. To get InDesign to insert ligatures from OpenType fonts, choose OpenType from the Character panel flyout menu and select Discretionary Ligatures from the submenu.

Photoshop and Illustrator can only insert ligatures from OpenType fonts. In Photoshop, choose OpenType from the Character panel flyout menu, then Standard Ligatures from the submenu. In Illustrator, turn on ligature insertion from the Window>Type>OpenType panel (Shift-Option-Command-T [PC: Shift-Alt-Ctrl-T]). In general, you want to have automatic ligature insertion turned on at all times.

Smart ligatures
Although these compound characters are represented by a single glyph, Adobe programs cleverly keep in “mind” that they represent separate letters. So, when the word “waffle” appears near the end of a line, InDesign is smart enough to remove the ligature and hyphenate the word properly: waf-fle.

The same thing occurs when character spacing is altered. For instance, if you open up the tracking of a text passage containing ligatures, InDesign will drop the ligatures in favor of their constituent characters and open their spacing accordingly. The same thing happens when tracking is tightened, because otherwise the fixed spacing between the component elements of the ligature would stand out in contrast to the spacing of their neighbors. Ditto for justified type, where spacing has to be stretched or squeezed to fit type into fully filled lines. When a certain, rather small, spacing threshold has been crossed, InDesign will revert to handling the ligatures’ constituent parts as independent characters. Hand kerning can also cause ligatures to disappear.

You can’t assume that this automation always assures perfect results. Clearly, if your type program can break ligatures to justify type, you won’t have consistent ligature use throughout your text. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as aesthetic spacing is more important than consistent glyph selection.

A key exception is when justification or tight tracking causes adjoining characters to collide (loose spacing isn’t a problem). It’s most likely with the fi combination, as the “ear” at the end of the f’ s hook overlaps the dot of the i, making a noticeable dark knot in the text. And it’s one reason why some typographers—especially those who come from a tradition of metal, handset type—frown on squeezing character spacing to justify type. The fastidious should look (with the help of their trusty proofreaders) for cases in which ligatures should be restored where the program has removed them. The fix: Select both letters and open the tracking of the letter pair until the ligature reappears.

Ugly display
The bigger problem is in display type, even in sublines at sizes down to, say, 14-point. At this size, the inconsistent use of ligatures (now you see them, now you don’t) in a passage of type can become obvious. In these cases, make an effort—by manipulating kerning and/or tracking—to force the use of ligatures throughout (the preferable alternative) or eliminate the appearance of ligatures altogether.

Worse, though, are ligature problems in large type, such as titles and headlines. Tight tracking in headline type is the norm these days, often carried to extremes. When it comes to ligature situations, you can get away with tight spacing when using sans serif faces, primarily because the hook of a sans serif f tends to be narrower than in a serif face, so it’s not as likely to overlap an ascending character to its right—not so with most serif faces.

Unintentional ligatures—collisions between characters—are ugly in display type. Assuming that the troubling sequence of characters is unavoidable, the best solution is to use ligatures and adjust the rest of the type’s tracking to match the ligatures’ spacing as well as possible. Where house style mandates tight headline spacing, this may mean that the spacing of the ligature elements will look a little too loose. But this is better than having the ligature break up and its constituent parts engage in an unseemly “wrestling match.” When tight tracking is the order of the day, use manual kerning to open up the spacing of the would-be ligature characters until your program restores the ligature.

The dotless i
If tracking is so tight that the ligature’s internal spacing is distractingly loose, there’s one other alternative (editors willing): the dotless i ( ı ). This obscure character is included in nearly all fonts, principally as a building block for accented characters (ì, í, î, ï), but it can be used in display type when overbearing fs insist on mugging the dots of the is that follow them. This is most commonly done in ad type (where it’s normal to play fast and loose with the rules of composition and usage), but even in serious work, it’s occasionally just the right tool for the job.

On the Mac, the dotless i can be typed simply by pressing Shift-Option-B. On the PC, it’s more complicated: Open Character Map, check off Advanced View, and with Character Set set for Unicode, type 0131 (the Unicode ID number for the dotless i) in the Go to Unicode field. The dotless i will be highlighted in the character grid, and you can use the Copy button and your program’s Paste command to get it into your text. In any Adobe program’s Glyph panel—which has no search tools—you have to browse visually for this (and any other) glyph—something that really needs fixing.