Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: The One Million Masterpiece

Filed Under Design, Great Finds, Successful Blog, Tips | 2 Comments

There’s still time to join in the creativity!

Great Find: The One Million Masterpiece

Permalink: http://www.millionmasterpiece.com/

Target Audience: Everyone!

Content:

This project has been underway for some time. There’s artistic contributions from almost 24,000 people in 174 countries. And they have raised over $17,000. Check out the charities that will benefit and the sponsors and supporters.

Here’s a picture of what it looks like.

And this is a close-up of my square. It’s a ‘work in process’ with just the eye and beak of the Purple Wren as a placeholder.

Why are they doing this? You have to browse the site and find out. Follow the news on the blog.

You can zoom in on any of the squares to get a close-up view. There are some amazing works of art out there – and some that are very simple. You can send the artist an email. This is our community.

So don’t worry about how artistic you are. Just join in!

I still get goose-bumps when I’m part of the larger projects going on with the new web. The ways we can connect with others is truly powerful.

Check it out and spread the word. If you can and you feel moved to do so, contribute a little cash.

I found this project quite awhile ago and have had it on my ‘to blog list’ ever since. This is good timing because they are now about to release a new version of the site with "significant upgrades."

Here’s a few random links you gotta see:

Some of the graphics are posted with a live replay feature so you can see how the picture evolved. It’s like an art lesson! And it’s fun to see the profiles – age, location, and about the author.

There’s so many great things about this project that I can’t stop talking about it – but I will. Go check it out yourself.

Don’t be shy – leave me a comment and let me know what your favorites are and where your square is.

See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Related
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: CoolText
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: Pixel Ruler
Great Find: PictureTrail

Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: PictureTrail

Filed Under Design, Great Finds, Successful Blog, Tips, Tools | 11 Comments

Create Photo Flicks with PictureTrail

Great Find: PictureTrail

Permalink: http://www.picturetrail.com/

Target Audience: Anyone with photos!

Content: This growing public photo community boasts a number of features that you are sure to enjoy, including image hosting, photo sharing, print ordering, and Flash slideshows called Photo Flicks, available in more than 30 formats. Most allow you to add descriptions and control the speed and color.

Here’s a couple Photo Flicks that I made. Click on the pictures to view.


Cool Slideshows



Cool Slideshows

Try it today and let me know what you think. These were easy to create and post to this site. What a wonderful way to share your favorite pictures.

This community is a great place to connect with others, and the services I tried out were free. When you upgrade to a premium membership, you have access to time saving functionality – like a utility called ‘Batch Move’ that enables you to move more than one image at a time.

Have fun with this great find . . . and send me links to your creations.

See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Related
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: CoolText
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: Pixel Ruler
Great Find: PDF Online — Free

Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: typoGenerator

Filed Under Design, Great Finds, Successful Blog, Tips | Leave a Comment

Create typoPoster with typoGenerator

Great Find: typoGenerator

Permalink: http://www.typogenerator.net/

Target Audience: Anyone – just for fun!

Content: Here’s a generator that creates random graphics just for fun. It searches images.google for backgrounds and images according to the text you enter. And you can manipulate the results and change up the text, images or colors.

This generator was a student project. I’m curious what Katharina is doing now.

Here’s a sample that I made.


Let me know what you create and how you use it.



See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Related
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: CoolText
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: Pixel Ruler
Great Find: PDF Online — Free

Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: CoolText

Filed Under Design, Great Finds, Successful Blog, Tips | 21 Comments

Create Logos and Buttons with CoolText Graphics Generator

Great Find: CoolText

Permalink: http://cooltext.com/

Target Audience: Computer users who want to create buttons

Content: Every now and then I need a button. Sure, I have all the programs to create my own, but why spend the time when there are tools out there that can finish the job quickly.

There are a lot of button generators, but this one caught my attention because it worked so well. Recently a few people told me the ‘hire me’ on my site doesn’t look like a link, so it seemed like a good time to try out CoolText. Here’s what I created.


Hire Purple Wren



Then check out the logo designs. I’m not crazy about the terminology and would prefer banner, or something more descriptive. But it doesn’t really matter what they call them, there’s a great selection. Remember to save the image files on your computer because they don’t store them.

It took longer to write this post than to create the buttons/banners.

Joy



Here are six things I like about CoolText:

  1. You can create an account to save your designs
  2. There’s more than 1200 fonts available
  3. It’s easy to use
  4. You can edit your button until it’s just right
  5. There are several file types to choose from
  6. It’s free!

Click the screenshot to go there.

Cool Text: Logo and Graphics Generator



Let me know how you use CoolText!

See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

Related
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: block posters
Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: Pixel Ruler
Great Find: PDF Online — Free

Above the Fold: SmartWealthyRich.com

Filed Under Design, Successful Blog | 37 Comments

Couldn’t Resist SmartWealthyRich

ABOVE THE FOLD

I met Jonathan Phillips when he left a message with me at MyBlogLog. I took a side trip to his blog, before I replied. When I got there I saw something I couldn’t resist — the title of his blog.

Smart, Wealthy, Rich [dot] com

But that engaging title was in tiny typography . . .

So I invited Jonathan Phillips to get tweaked Above the Fold. Here’s how the Above the Fold Tweak Process works

  1. I make a “before” screenshot.
  2. We talk through some changes for readability.
  3. The blogger makes the changes.
  4. We talk while the tweaks are in process.
  5. I take an “after” screenshot and share the results in a post.

Tweaking Smart, Wealthy, Rich

The blog: SmartWealthyRich.com
- How to create wealth, keep it, and make it grow!
URL: : http://www.smartwealthyrich.com
Blogger:: Jonathan-C. Philllips

Before

This is SmartWealthyRich.com before we started. Click to enlarge.

Smart Wealthy Rich

Three Tweaks that We Agreed Upon

In this series, we’ll concentrate only three important tweaks for each blog that is featured. On Jonathan’s blog, those three tweaks were these.

  1. His feed button was overpowering.
  2. The title is too small.
  3. The main body text block is too wide. A reader needs transportation to return to the next line.

Jonathan and I discussed how in a blink test, the feed button wins. We decided that it would be a much stronger presentation if the title got that first attention. Folks would remember where they were and where they wanted to return.

When choosing text the type size needs to match the line length. If they don’t match, the eye has trouble doing the “return sweep” to the next line correctly. Jonathan’s line was too long for the size of the type in the body text. We shortened the main body copy block and increased the type size.

We made other changes. Can you see them?

For the results, turn the page now. Read more

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