Category Archives: Photos

Picture Perfect Photos for Print and Web

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Our world is visual. From the images you see on screens to the things you read every day, photographs play an important role in conveying emotion, illustrating a point, or explaining a concept. Photographs improve our comprehension and add to our enjoyment. Because of this, they are an integral part of printed material and web sites.

As camera technology has advanced, the quality of the photography we see every day has reached new levels. Couple that with the ease of using a digital camera, and we now see businesses and organizations becoming comfortable with handling their photographic image needs without the services of a professional photographer.

Our job is to reproduce those photographs in printed brochures, sell sheets, marketing material, newsletters, direct mail pieces, signs and banners, and even business cards. Since we want the photographs to reproduce in the best possible quality, we’re offering some technical tips on the characteristics of digital photo files to use for printing and web applications. These aren’t tips on how to take photographs, but rather what to do once the image is captured and you’re ready to submit the photo file to us.

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Content Marketing: What’s Old is New Again

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marketing-cmyk“Content Marketing is the Only Marketing Left”        Seth Godin

Content marketing is certainly not new. It is generally accepted that one of the first businesses to use content marketing effectively was John Deere in the late 1800s. In 1895 John Deere started publishing the magazine titled The Furrow in order to provide farmers with a resource of practical information that would increase their success. At the same time, it helped establish John Deere as the expert on all things related to farming. The magazine is still printed today in 12 languages and distributed in 40 countries.

For the same reason, companies both large and small are now embracing the concept of content marketing to deliver practical and relevant information to their customers. The emphasis on useful and relevant information means that customers and prospects are becoming increasingly sensitive to bias and deceit, demanding transparency from businesses. Rather than relying on advertising alone, customers are reading reviews and comments of those who have a personal experience of the product, service, or the business itself – often without knowing much about the reviewer.

All this leads to the need for today’s businesses to adopt a new marketing strategy. Content marketing consists of focusing on creating and distributing information that a specific target audience will find pertinent and engaging. Rather than emphasizing the features and benefits of a product or service, content marketing is communicating without direct selling. It is providing information that educates your customers and prospects so they can make better buying decisions. It is giving control to customers rather than businesses.

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Picture Perfect… Photographs for Print and Web

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photosOur world is visual. From the images you see on screens, to the things you read every day, photographs play an important role in conveying emotion, illustrating a point, or explaining a concept. Photographs improve our comprehension and add to our enjoyment. Because of this, they are an integral part of printed material and web sites.

As camera technology has advanced, the quality of the photography we see every day has reached new levels. Couple that with the ease of using a digital camera, and we now see businesses and organizations becoming comfortable with handling their photographic image needs without the services of a professional photographer.

Our job is to reproduce those photographs in printed brochures, sell sheets, marketing material, newsletters, and direct mail pieces; on signs and banners; and even business cards. Since we want the photographs to reproduce in the best possible quality, we’re offering some technical tips on the characteristics of digital photo files to use for printing and web applications. These aren’t tips on how to take photographs, but rather what to do once the image is captured and you’re ready to submit the photo file to us.

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Picture This… Using Images in Documents

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Imagine a page of text describing a product offered for sale. Now imagine that same page with images of the product added. Even in your imagination there’s a difference – the image adds interest to the page and improves its appearance.

That’s the power of images, whether they are photographs, clip art, illustrations, charts, graphs, or symbols. To attract attention and improve reader comprehension, nothing beats an image.

An image has maximum effectiveness when it satisfies these four criteria: the image is worthy of being printed; it is of good quality; it is relevant to the text; and it is consistent with the design and layout of the document. In this issue of Printips we will focus on what makes a good quality digital image for print.

http://macgra.com/0912Printips.pdf

Taking Stock: How to Find & Use Stock Photos

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One of the best ways to enliven your sales, marketing or instructional material is to incorporate photographs with the text. A well-composed and correctly-lit photograph can effectively augment the text message by creating an emotional connection to the reader. And readers can more quickly comprehend what is being said if a visual image is added to the words.

http://macgra.com/0209Printips.pdf