If you want to see an example from a live site, check out my other blog, StampPaperScissorsInk.com for all things crafty.  Note the custom header, background, and buttons as well as the addition of a completely installed typeface.

If you get stuck, let me know and I can help you out too!  I enjoy blog modifications on both Blogger and WordPress!

One of my favorite things about the holidays is all the beautiful things to see and look at.  Try sending friends and family a simple ecard, if you haven’t already sent out your holiday cards.  You can get some beautiful stockphoto images at iStockphoto.com that you can add your own message to.  I recently choose a lovely AI image and created a flyer for my church Christmas Social.  I love the AI files because I was also able to take the elements in the file and create a few more things for church at no additional expense.

If all else fails, get out your camera and find a spot on your christmas tree that looks pretty and snap away!  Digital Film is guilt free!

I offer Custom Blogger and WordPress Headers, Template modifications, Custom backgrounds, Signature buttons, sidebar buttons, and other help with blog modifications.

Contact me to get your blog looking it’s best today and take advantage of a great deal!

I learned how to write a “SEO friendly” title, keywords and description, and how to check my website grade. Sadly I found an incredible free website that gave incredibly valuable info, but did not bookmark it and can’t find it again. My current favorite grader is www.websitegrader.com. They also grade your blog and twitter pages. Facebook should be coming soon.

Bottom line that I learned, it can be done yourself, but takes work, and methodical testing. If you hate that, seek help. And keywords are really tricky. I left the other company since I hoped they would write my keywords, but they didn’t. They told tell me to keep them to a set length, same for descripion and title, and make sure my title and description I used were used verbatim in my HTML page. That is apparently the key. Also don’t plan on optimizing your page for all your keywords, have a keyword focus for each page. I am still working on everything, but by making a few changes my website jumped 30 points. I hope to make it jump 20 more to have a really fantastic score.
Websitegrader.com also had a great section where it went into h tags, don’t have multiple H1 tags, images-must have alt tag info, and links- basically a deal breaker if you don’t have good inbound
Links. Also having a blog really helps your site since you will have free content regularly and you can target those posts to certain keywords.

Happy Optimizing!!

Instead of coming up with an imaginary company, we used a real one. Her sister-in-law has a small papercraft business we could use as the foundation of the project.  The company had a logo and a blog that we could use as the basis for our design project.

In my opinion, the existing logo was not cohesive.  The words Studio and Paper Creations were dwarfed by the giant flourishes and the  “A”. I also thought that Studio seemed to be floating on top of the Logo and was not connected to the logo. We found a typeface and type treatment that made the “Studio A ” come across first with “Paper Creations” following.  I also wanted to see some color introduced into the logo and felt that the Paper Creations would be a good spot for color.

The final logo looked like this.  We kept the A and the flourish, but tweaked the rest. Using a Script typeface for “Studio” helped to unify it with the A and the flourish. Paper Creations also was put into Small Caps, then spaced apart slightly to give a feeling of a base for the logo to rest upon.  Changing the color also lightened the weight and gave us an extra element to bring into the rest of the business identity pieces.

My favorite part about working on a set of materials for one company is establishing a cohesive flow from one image to another.  The logo sets the tone for all other marketing materials.  The business card should have the same feel as the advertising,  brochures, and website, etc.  If you look at one piece from the company, the others should feel like they are part of the same package. To accomplish that keep typeface treatment, colors, and other elements in common.  we used splashed of pink in each piece, and used similar layout and spacing in the other pieces.

This phrase was repeated to me numerous times throughout my classes at the Art Institute of Boston (which now has a much longer name, but I will always think of it as AIB)  Professors wanted us to learn restraint.  Just because we had the ability to make a something Bold, or red, or Red and Bold, or perish the thought, Bold, Red, and Blinking with the click of our mouse was not good enough. We had to have a rock solid reason for the use of Bold.  I will be forever grateful for that lesson.

I became a design major because Illustration majors (my major at the time) were required to take at least 1 design class Sophmore year.  When I took the class, I realized I loved it!  I switched over to a double major program the next year.  It put me behind the other design only students, but I did my best to keep up with my classmates. It also meant I got to go to school for an extra year!

I developed my passion for making printed things beautiful in college.  I realized how many unattractive signs, logos, and other material bombarded us everyday.  My goal was to make the world a more beautiful place, even if I only did it business card at a time.  Over time, I have sent some truly lovely cards, brochures, and other material out into the web.  I have also made some lovely websites.

The internet is an amazing place.  Almost anyone can get a website up and running.  It shows.  Some websites are so unbelievably tacky that they should be banned from the internet.  On the other hand I have come across many more fantastic websites that were not only beautiful but functional!  What a concept.

This blog will be devoted to things lovely, and not so lovely.  I hope it is a fun read, and that you might learn a lesson or two to help you with your DIY design projects.  I understand most people don’t even think of hiring a designer to do their business card, or website, or brochure, or even their PTA newsletter, and my goal is that after reading a few articles, I can at least help those people come up with a better product!