Author: Hilary Baumann

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Your location privacy and photos from smartphones

I’m seeing a video go around about your photos from smartphones posing a privacy risk.  This video was published back in 2010 and many of the social networks have since started removing this location data from photos as they are uploaded because of this privacy concern. HOWEVER….

HOWEVER what I DO want to point out is that this might not be the case if you are uploading photos to your business websites and other places on the web.

Before any of my clients panic – I do have you covered (no need to change your phone settings) because there are ways to remove this data when being uploaded to a website as well.

This isn’t as big a deal if your business address is published and you’re taking photos at that location, but what if, for example, you are an artist taking photos of your art in your home studio? Or maybe you even simply took some products home to photograph?

For WordPress there are several plugins but my favorite is Smushit because it ALSO reduces file size and increases performance: http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/

Related Testing Tools: For anyone interested in checking to see if their website photos are showing their location, the data talked about in this video is called “Exif data” and there are browser plugins that allow you to check to see what information is showing on your photos.

To make sure the tool you are using shows Geo Location Exif data, here’s a photo you can test with: http://www.summitpost.org/test-this-image-contains-exif-data/769474

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Change out a logo on an ad …
without the original psd and layers

Sometimes the things that seem mundane and quick for me are actually things that would wow someone else.

Someone mentioned that their brand department had “erased” the logos from bourbon barrels in a photo and replaced them all the with different logos and how cool that was. Meanwhile I’m thinking “Photoshop clone tool” or some form of “content aware photoshop tool” and that I had just done something similar the other day.

I had an advertiser for the National Co-op Directory that needed their new logo in their old ad. Problem was that the available ad file did not have their old logo as a layer in an original psd file (this ad was not my original creation.)

Seward-Co-op-ad-before-and-after

Final ad size is intended to be 4.9″x4.9″ – click on image above for a closer look

So what did I do? And how did I change out a logo on an ad quickly?

  1. First I started with what I would call a sloppy job of erasing the old logo using a combination of the content aware tools and the clone tool (it was not an instance where any content-aware tool would magically make it look like the old logo had never been there.)
  2. Grab a copy of that area of the image and make a new layer.
  3. Gaussian blur the new layer to hide the sloppy erasing a little more (remember we’re going for speed here.)
  4. Add a new layer that was a rectangle of white and set it to 25% opacity. (More hiding.)
  5. Toss the new logo on top, apply a white stroke to the logo to match the previous ad and we’re done.

Yes, if I had had the budget and the time we could have probably properly erased / recreated that section of the photo so that blurring and the white layer were not needed.

Honestly the original ad really needed more contrast so the logo would stand out so I think this was the best possible outcome while working with the existing ad even if I had been given the option for a larger budget and more time.

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Elmwood Stock Farm business card update

Elmwood Stock Farm Business Cards 2013

New Elmwood Stock Farm business card on top, old business card on bottom in the photo. (Click photo for a closer look.)

Visual update that’s a crisper, cleaner, stronger look from an old design. The colors are similar but we can make other marketing look a little more modern. Also not a drastic enough change such that existing materials won’t look out of place.

Text is also easier to read. (Cell phone numbers and address blurred for the web because they don’t use them on most other materials.)

Design was a recreation with only the logo available as a digital file.

The new colors I think look a little more like a farm as well.

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Yoast SEO with JetPack Publicize –
don’t forget to set the default meta description

The WordPress JetPack plugin allows you to publish blog posts to a variety of social media sites. As a designer I tend to customize my meta description per post but I had forgotten to set a default meta description for a client in the Yoast SEO plugin. This is not only an important setting for SEO reasons but also for how posts can show up when they go to facebook or anywhere else that uses the description meta data.

the importance of meta descriptions and facebookYou can see in the “old” post that facebook grabbed the first text it saw which was associated with the comment field without the default meta description.

In the new post, the default meta description had been changed out so that if the client didn’t create a custom meta description for the post, it would at least show the default which is nicer.

And as my client put it, with no default meta description, it looks like “my petticoats (are) showing!”

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Scheduled Facebook posts / Twitter Tweets

A great easy example of how I use scheduled facebook posts / tweets using hootsuite would be for the Southland Association and Southland Jamboree as pictured.

Hootsuite scheduled posts / tweets

I agree that not all posts/tweets should be automated but there is also a time and place for automation. Some social media experts would argue with me on this because social media should be social! I agree, but that doesn’t mean you can’t automate certain things!

You DO need to remember that you scheduled posts and adjust where needed. Example scenario: rained-out outdoor event. If you know early enough you should delete the automated post and post about the cancelation.

If say you aren’t sure, it might be wise to add a post about when the rain-out will be called. Example: “We’ll post by 6pm whether the event is rained out or you should bring your rain boots with your chair to catch some great bluegrass music!”

Scheduling can be a great tool, just don’t abuse it. 🙂

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Logo Trademark Takeaways

There’s a lot of talk right now in Lexington about trademarks because a local brewery has a larger brewery going after them.

I figured this might be a good time to dig out an old article that’s very relevant regarding logos and trademarks:
http://www.creativepro.com/article/sometimes-a-logo-is-just-a-logo

Some key trademark takeaways from the article:

  • a trademark in one category does not necessarily provide protection in another category, especially if there is little or no overlap in the goods or services.
  • The main concept at work in trademark law is likelihood of confusion.
  • In very high-profile cases, with brands like Apple or Nike, there is another concept at work, that of dilution.
  • Many identities that face infringement issues are those with a simple graphic symbol, often a geometric shape, slapped up next to a simple type treatment of the name.

Trademark Takeaways

If you were a graphic designer back in 2005 you probably remember the interesting conversations being had because of a high profile company, Quark, doing a logo redesign that ended up looking like many other logos already in existence. Being used in other industries of course but it still created a lot of valuable discussion on the topic of logos and trademarks.

 

Related to the local debate (external links):

  1. Independent Brewers United says they own sixes and nines: http://boingboing.net/2013/05/22/independent-brewers-united-say.html
  2. Magic Hat lawsuit: Social media explodes after legal challenge that 6 is 9: http://www.aceweekly.com/2013/05/magic-hat-lawsuit-social-media-explodes-after-legal-challenge-that-6-is-9/

 

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Can you design something for less than the “typical” pricing shown on this site?

Yes, in particular instances it’s possible given your project details for your pricing to be less. It’s also possible for your project requirements to be more than this. As noted, what’s shown is “typical” pricing and this is why we have a process for initial meetings, projects and estimates.

Exceptions are the listed hosting and email packages which are fixed. And yet there are still instances where a custom hosting package may be needed to accomodate large sites with heavy traffic or unique needs. We’ve posted the hosting and email packages because they are what suites most of our potential clients.

ALL projects are reviewed on a per project basis and recommendations given based on your needs. Please see our PROCESS page. 🙂

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Great Diagram of How Merchant Services works

Step-1

Recently I started the process of setting up a merchant services account. However Authorize.net’s standalone reseller page mislead me into believing they were packaging together the merchant gateway with the processor which I thought was an excellent deal. However, I quickly realized that this was not the case when I started being led through payment processor applications finalized with lists of more fees.

Authorize.net’s main website clearly depicts however, they are only the gateway service so you will also need a payment processor, it’s just the standalone reseller pages that don’t clearly depict the services offered. Which is where I found this excellent diagram of the payment process.

There are a few merchant service providers out there that do in fact package processing and gateway together, but they don’t always work with all ecommerce systems. Authorize.net is still one of the most universal payment gateways available for online. Just keep in mind that they are only part of the equation and without other components, they can’t process credit cards for you.

Click the below thumbnails for a tour of the process. The “Authorize.net” icon in the graphic can be replaced with “Merchant Gateway” as the same process occurs for other ecommerce transactions.

Source: http://www.authorize.net/resources/howitworksdiagram/