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Sandy’s Great Graphic Find: typoGenerator

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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

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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

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Sandy’s Great Graphic Tip: Re-sizing Graphics in an Editor

Filed Under Design, Successful Blog, Tips | 1 Comment

What Happened to that Picture?

Sometimes you see photos on websites that look funny - too wide or narrow, tall or short. In other words, out of proportion. Some other terms used are scale, perspective and aspect ratio. One common way to re-size a graphic is using a WYSIWYG editor. WYSIWYG is pronounced wiz-e-wig and is short for what you see is what you get.

Hover over the corner of a graphic, click and drag. Depending on the program, it’s possible to lose perspective, so keep this little tip in mind.

Hold down the shift key while clicking and dragging. It will keep the picture looking square.

Another Option to Re-Size a Graphic

Another option is to right-click the graphic and choose format. In the window, you usually have a choice to re-size the graphic by pixel size or percentage of original. You will probably see a check box for preserve aspect ratio or uniform scale. Selecting the box means when you enter the horizontal or vertical size, the other dimension is automatically selected to keep the graphic in perspective.

Here’s a visual example of what I mean:

Re-size Graphic Sample

It’s also a good idea to re-size and edit graphics before uploading them. When you upload a large graphic and only want to display a small graphic, it can increase the file size and make the page load slowly. Let’s talk more about that another time.

Remember, a good-looking graphic makes your webpage look interesting and professional.

See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

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Sandy’s Great Graphic Tips: Selecting File Types

Filed Under Design, Successful Blog, Tips | 4 Comments

Which graphic file type is best? It depends . . .

A lot of people wonder what the difference is between file types. Here’s a quick description of three common types. To learn more, follow the links for examples and detailed explanations.

.jpg or .jpeg = Joint Photographers Experts Group

.gif = Graphics Interchange Format

.png = Portable Network Graphics

How do you know if you have the right file format?

If it’s too grainy, too fuzzy, or the file size is too large, you might want to review the descriptions above or check out Pat Kalbaugh’s GIF vs JPG page at The Sirius Web. Experiment a little - save it as a different file type and see what happens.

See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

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Sandy’s Great Graphic Tips: Why Use Graphics?

Filed Under Design, Successful Blog, Tips | 8 Comments

What Does Learning Style Have To Do With Graphics?

We each have a different learning style. The three basic styles are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (VAK). Approximately 60-70% (depending on the source) of the general population are predominantly visual learners. They need visual aids to fully grasp a concept or idea.

Graphics are a huge reason people flock to the web. Humans are generally more receptive to things we see compared to things we hear. That means a well-placed graphic on your post can make a world of difference to their experience.

The term ‘graphic’ describes visual elements like photographs, drawings, illustrations, diagrams, charts, maps, symbols, fonts, etc. Graphics can be a very effective method to express a concept. Remember the proverb, “a picture is worth a thousand words”? Sometimes you can use a graphic to express an idea that may otherwise take pages.

Graphics:

What’s Your Learning Style?

What type of learning style do you have? Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic? Find out with the Learning Style Survey.

Here’s my results. The graphic says it all…

Learning Style

Stay tuned… in upcoming weeks we’ll talk more about graphics. Let me know what you think. If there are specific things you want to discuss, feel free to leave a comment and we’ll start there.

Here’s some ideas I thought of:

See you next time!

–Sandy, Purple Wren

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