design advice – Streamline Print & Design

Expert Tips for Logo Design

The right logo for your business can be a tool that generates awareness and interest for your goods and services. The wrong logo can drive your potential customers away because it tells them the wrong story, is hard to read, or reminds them of your competitors’ brands. It is easy to think of effective and attractive logos, but harder to pinpoint what makes them that way. Our expert designers want to share with you four simple tips for excellent logo design: keep it simple, make it unique, remember versatility, and pay attention to messaging.

Keep it simple – The first tip is first for a reason: if you get this one right, you’ll have an easier time with the rest. Simplicity in logo design means you limit the total number of elements in your design, and arrange them so that they don’t interfere with each other. It also means that you avoid complex pictures that require a lot of different colors to look right. Mona Lisa is a classic painting, but makes a poor logo.

Make it Unique – This tip is easier said than done, but basically it requires that you do your homework before you sit down to design your logo. Look at examples of other people’s logos, especially logos for companies that share part of your name, or who do what you do. Without too much effort, using an online image search, you will find examples of what others have done, which can help you decide what to do, or at least what not to do.

Remember Versatility – For most businesses, your logo will need to look just as good on a 3.5 x 2 inch business card as it does on the side of a truck, or even a building. You may want to have it embroidered on a shirt or posted online for the world to see. It helps to have a logo where the written elements, words or letters, are close to the same size, so that they are all readable at any size. Also, it helps to keep the overall shape of your logo compact, to avoid creating awkward wasted space when you put it on a page with other text or pictures.

Pay attention to messaging – Perhaps the single most important value of your logo is the symbolic power it has to teach other people – at a glance – what your business is all about, and to give their brain a simple way to remember you. Even though this is our fourth tip, really it should be the first step in your design process. Start with a concept, a message that you want to portray symbolically, and you’ll be on your way to making a logo that stands out. But remember it will need to be versatile, so keep it simple.

Speaking of simplicity, if you sit down to design your logo and you’re still drawing a blank, remember that we’re here to help. Our expert designers would be happy to work with you to create a logo that is just right for your business.

-Dennis

Perfecting Your Printed Pictures

“A picture is worth 1000 words”—that is why we use pictures whenever we can to describe our business. Pictures enhance the words we use to name our business. Pictures catch the eye so that potential customers will give us a second look. We want your prints to look sharp, not blurry. That is why we ask for high quality pictures, like this artwork used on a banner to promote the Fun Farm corn maze in Kearney:

By now most of us are familiar with “pixels” (the many tiny dots of color that make up a picture) and “pixilation” (when a picture looks grainy or blurry). A high quality image has a high-density of pixels per square inch. We call that dpi, or dots per inch. The size of the file—how many megabytes the picture file is—is a good indicator of the quality of the picture; the larger the file size = the more dpi = the better the quality. As you can see, a picture will pixilate more and more the closer you zoom in, or the larger you make it:

Raster vs Vector (web)

When we create or edit a photo for print, we save the JPG at a minimum of 300 dpi. When you take a photo, put your settings at the highest quality for maximum use. The higher the quality the better the picture will look when it is printed.

We can use lower quality pictures for some printing, such as business cards or small post cards, because the printed size is very small. Where the quality of the file really makes a difference is in printing signs, banners and posters.

Typically lower quality pictures are found when searching the internet. Always pay attention to the file size when you download a picture from an internet search. If you are purchasing artwork from a website, be sure to check the size of the file; often the larger the file the more you will pay, but if you need a large print it will be worth the price.

When a picture is sent by text, the texting program automatically reduces the dpi. If you want to print a picture taken by your phone camera, you will need to send the file by email.

Pictures downloaded from Facebook are often lower quality, and can only be used when printing small pieces.

For more tips on how to get a nice photo for print, just give us a call! 816-459-7552

-Linda & Peter

Design Formats: Why does my printer ask for “vector” graphics?

If you have ever had your printer or designer ask for vector graphics, and you had no idea what they meant, this article is for you. Here is a brief overview of vector and raster graphics.

Raster Graphics (pictures)
Common file extensions: .jpg, .png, some .pdf

Most digital pictures are made up of pixels. If you enlarge any picture enough, you will begin to see the pixels – square shapes with a uniform color. The smaller the pixels are the more that fit per square inch, and the smoother the picture looks when printed.

People often want to print a photo at a larger size than it was originally intended for. On TV, its a simple matter to “enlarge and enhance” any given photo (or video!). If you’ve watched CSI or similar shows, you’ve probably seen them “enlarge and enhance” a license plate, face, or other details. In reality, while you can enlarge a photo as much as you want, all this does is increase the size of the pixels. A small, blurry image will thus become a large, pixilated, blurry image. There is no “enhance” function. Similarly, printers cannot reduce the blurriness of your pictures. We can only use what is already there.

If your picture is good enough for the size you want to print it, your eyes will be unable to detect the pixels at 100% magnification. Another way to check your photo resolution is to view the file size. Most printed photos look better with a bigger file size. 20 kilobytes (kb) is generally too small for print at any size; photos larger than 1 megabyte (mb) are generally large enough to print on a 24”x36” poster with reasonable quality.

Of course, no matter what size your photo is, there is a size of printing at which you will see pixilation. That’s one reason we have vector graphics.

Vector Graphics
Common file extensions: .ai, .eps, .svg, some .pdf

Vector graphics don’t bother with pixels at all! Vector graphics are made up of lines and shapes. Using complex math, vector format files instruct your computer to draw a series of lines and shapes. Here are some benefits of vector graphics:

You can make them any size, and they won’t pixilate. 100% crisp, clean images.

The file size can be quite small and still have perfect clarity – easier to email.

Vectors can be used to create cutting instructions – for vehicle lettering, contour cut stickers etc.

Vectors can be used to create digitized logos for embroidery.

Vectors can be used by screen burning software for screen printed shirts and signs.

So, why would we ever use raster (picture) graphics? Well, cameras can’t generate vector graphics. Pictures of people and other complex color patterns cannot be made into vectors without loss of complexity. Also, vectors can be more difficult to work with without the right training or programs.

I hope this explanation helps – the more you understand about printing and design, the easier it will be for you to get what you want from your printer.

How Perforated Window Vinyl Works

Perforated window vinyl, or “see-through” vinyl is used to make signs that are solid, bright, and opaque when viewed from the outside, but are transparent from the inside. When I hear about something like this, I have to know how it works to believe it. So–how does it work?

Perforated vinyl is exactly what the name says, a sheet of vinyl material with a pattern of tiny holes cut through it. There are so many of these holes that a significant amount of the material is removed. The amount of vinyl removed usually ranges from 30 to 50%. For example, 60/40 vinyl, is 60% vinyl and 40% holes.

Light-colored perforated vinyl signs are opaque when seen from outside a window because our eyes naturally focus on a bright, well-lit surface rather than on the holes and the relative darkness of whatever is behind the surface. The inner side of perforated vinyl, however, is dark colored. Here the eye naturally focuses through the dark vinyl to the light and motion outside the window. Because of this, people inside a store, home or automobile see through the back of the sign to the world outside.

Designing for Perforated Signs

A good understanding of how perforated vinyl works will help you design better one-way vinyl signs. Because the printed surface of the perforated vinyl must be brighter than the space behind the sign, it is best to avoid large areas of black, blue, purple or dark brown in the design. Lettering and small areas of a design can be dark, but use light or bright colors–whites, pastels, red, yellow, orange, light blues and greens– for the large areas of your design.

As you design, remember also that a large fraction of the sign surface is missing. Avoid intricate detail and small fonts. Design instead with broad brush-strokes and fonts of 30-point or larger.

Like filmy curtains, perforated vinyl signs are opaque when seen from the outside during daylight, but transparent from the inside. Like filmy curtains, however, these sign becomes transparent at night when viewed from the outside into a lighted space. When you plan to use the perforated vinyl inside, pay attention to the lighting on both sides of the sign.

One-way vinyl signs offer a lot of intriguing advantages. Next time you’re thinking about a sign for your car, store or home, make it big, make it bright, and perforate it.

Owen Decker