I’ve been working both in-house and with advertising agencies/companies to produce e-mail newsletters for a while now. Sometimes I’ll be working from an existing template or graphic standards, or a layout file, and simply write the code for the e-news. Other times, I’ll be designing as well as coding. Either way, there’s a lot of little technical things to keep in mind when producing an e-newsletter. In this article I’ll try to outline what I’ve learned, and I hope it will help you if you have to produce your own! (If you’re gonna send junk mail to your customers, at least do it right.)
Archive for June, 2010
The trials and tribulations of royalty-free stock photos
Posted on June 14th, 2010 by emdash in WorkRecently, I was approached to create a website for a new staffing & events planning company. Because the staffing/events division is brand new, they didn’t have any existing photos to demonstrate their services – the site also didn’t have a lot of content – and they needed images to help flesh out the site.
They also had barely any budget for stock photos.
I’m getting frustrated with the photos on the old standby, istockphoto.com, and decided to try an alternative. I went with bigstockphoto.com for inexpensive, royalty-free photographs for the project. I find that site easier to look at than istock, and on the surface, the quality of photograph generally seemed higher.
Well, I found the perfect image for the front page of the site. Or at least, it was perfect in my head… in reality, it needed a bit of post-production work.
I knew how I wanted the image to look, and this was the closest thing I could find to an image featuring helpful, happy, friendly and professional staffing. The price was right for my client, so I went ahead and bought the image.
I did notice a bunch of stuff once I got the high-resolution version. This photo is actually two stitched together: the pretty girl in the foreground is pasted over top the out-of-focus people background. This isn’t a problem as such, since the depth of field is faked well enough in this photographer’s work that you won’t notice it’s actually two images. However… the girl was cut out of her own photo in such a way that she’s got a white halo.
Naturally, I had to go in and fix this. Not just because I’m a perfectionist, but also because the image was going to be fairly large on the finished site, and the white outline would be visible!
Then there was the girl’s outfit. On closer inspection, she wasn’t wearing business at all… she was in a black corderoy fashion jacket with brass features, and a skirt more suitable for a nightclub.
Okay, so the skirt had to be lengthened, and that side lacing had to go. (I ran out of time, but if the project had more budget and a friendlier timeline, I’d also have fixed her salon-length fingernails and eliminate the sleeve zippers.)
Lastly, the corporate colour for this staffing agency is a businesslike royal blue, not red… so those folders had to be recoloured.
All in all, the changes made to the image were perhaps subtle to the average viewer, but they made the difference between an obvious stock photo and something harmonious with the website and the company image.
The moral of the story? Stock photography is a matter of getting what you pay for. In this case, a lower budget meant I used a photograph that needed a bit of work to bring it to an appropriate level… however, a good designer/production artist can make this happen.
Tags: bigstockphoto, design, photography, Photoshop, stock photography, web design, Work | No Comments »
dot tel: organized and up-to-date contact info
Posted on June 9th, 2010 by emdash in ReviewsParticipants at the Freelance Camp 2010 received a voucher for a .tel domain through webnames.ca – naturally, I wanted to set it up asap because I apparently don’t have enough websites.
Dot tel is an interesting idea: rather than a domain for any hosted website, it uses DNS records to display the information you input. The concept: you’ll use it to keep up-to-date contact info, rather like a digital business card. Rather than reprint contact information on your stationery or email your entire address book when you change your phone number, you’ll point everyone to your .tel address for the latest methods to reach you.
I chose meganseely.tel for my domain, and treated the account like a directory of what I do and ways you can pester me on the internet. I’m not sure how useful I’ll find this (or annoying,) but at the very least it gives me one place to look to see which social media I haven’t logged into or updated in months.
In a sudden fit of fancy, I added all my Second Life details. (How I’ve managed to run a virtual business in Second Life is probably a useful topic for another blog post, or twenty.) Both of my design companies are listed with all their contact details. My personal link includes my birthday, in case strangers feel compelled to buy me a drink or present on August 25th.
I found the interface for the .tel setup more than a little confusing. For example, there’s a section for keywords. This is for search engines, it claims. But the keywords section includes space to write your address, hobbies, nicknames, etc… and shows up on the page itself. (Note there’s no way to add an address under your general contact info.) I always thought keywords were… well… keywords.
I’d also have liked to see a bit more thought put into the themes for .tel. Now, I realize with an annual price tag of $20 and no hosting fees, it’s not going to be a full-fledged website, nor should I expect it to be. I’d like to have been able to change my font colours as well as my background colours, though, since the text defaults to white on several of the page design options and I use a pale silvery grey for everything Em Dashy.
I was a lot happier once I figured out I could have subdomains on .tel for all my information types. I’ve split it up by company, but you could easily do: Work, Personal, Social Media or Day Job, Freelance Company, Personal, etc. The subdomains worked quite well for me, since I’ve got more than one thing on the go.
Overall, for the price tag, I’d recommend getting a .tel for anyone who uses online networking for their business. More than just an online business card, it can serve as a one-stop spot for potential clients/customers to learn everything about you. Think LinkedIn without the boring resume reading.
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Postscript: The generational gap is showing here: I’m young enough to see the “V-Card” link on the dot tel page, and think that if I click it, it means I’m no longer a virgin.
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from emdashcreative on flickr
