Flash, Design, Vector, Photoshop, Adobe Tutorials | GraphicMania.net

How to Pick the Right Color for Your Brand

Christian Vasile — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:46:07 +0000

Building a brand takes a lot of years before it is establish and is not a simple process as many think. You will not only have to consider a bunch of variables, but you should also know how to make good and rational changes to your brand only when needed.

If you manage to build a powerful brand, whether on the internet or not, your business will be part of the suite providing good services to happy customers.

You can sell cars, be a freelancer, sell cups or repair watches, etc. Having a powerful brand can’t harm you; instead, it will always increase your chances of success a lot.

When designing a brand, you will have to take a lot of things into consideration. One of this is the color. You can have a monochromatic logo, a double-colored one or even have more colors on it (look at Windows or the former Apple logo). Each color says something about the respective brand. Subconsciously, it transmits different kind of messages. We will now take a look at the basic colors and give examples of powerful brands using that choice.

Red

Red is the color of blood and fire; associated with war, strength, power, but also passion, love and desire. It is a very emotional color and offers powerful and emotional messages. It is very easy to see. Stop signs, stop lights and fire equipment are most of the time red. Many flags have the red colors on it. It is indeed a popular choice because it stimulates people’s passion and always stands out.

Examples: Red Bull, ESPN, Coca Cola, Yamaha, Red Cross. Moreover, McDonalds, Shell, Lego, Superman, YouTube and Windows are among many others using the red color, together with other choices, in their logos.

Orange

The orange color combines the energy of the red with the joy of the yellow. Orange means happiness, sunshine, and it represent enthusiasm, fascination, creativity, attraction and stimulation. Though it is not a stimulating color as red, it still offers powerful impulses and messages to the human brain.

Orange gives the sensation of heat but without being aggressive. It is also associated with healthy food. It has a high level of visibility and is very effective for promoting food products and toys. Therefore, it is used in many commercials

Examples: Orange, Fanta, ING and GE Money Bank, but FedEx and ZDF use it as well, among other colors. It is widely used for orange juice. I have only named Fanta, but a simple Google search will bring you hundreds of orange juice brands using this color.

Yellow

Yellow is the color of happiness and joy because it is associated with the sunshine. It produces a warm but cheerful effect. It stimulates mental activity and generates muscle energy. As the fellow orange, yellow is often associated with food too. Statistics state that yellow used in a big amount, provokes disturbing effects to the human brain and in our behavior. Yellow is used for advertising children products, summer vacations or food, and is very effective when having to attract attention although not as much as red and orange because it is a little bit brighter. It needs a darker background to be more powerful. It is not recommended to be used with serious brands, because it is a cheerful color that does not suggest professionalism.

Examples: McDonalds, Batman, Yellow Pages, DHL, Best Buy and Smart Buy use it. Windows, Shell, Nikon and Ferrari use yellow in combination with other colors.

Green

Green is the color of nature; this is why it’s always used to offer fresh and natural senses. It symbolizes growth and harmony and gives a strong sense of security. Dark green is associated with money, thanks to the American Dollar.

It is the most restful color for the human eye and brain; it helps vision and imagination. It suggests stability and endurance, and this is why sometimes it’s used for strong and powerful companies. It is also used as the green light to offer cars free passage in traffic. Safety is the right word for this color.

Though it is often associated with money, it is mostly used to promote “green” products.

Examples: Animal Planet, Greenpeace, Greenday, Greelabs and Land Rover use green almost completely, while Starbucks, Xbox 360, Windows, eBay and StumbleUpon use green as well among other choices. The recycling sign is also green.

Blue

Blue is probably the most used color in brands. It’s the color of sky and sea; associated with stability and professionalism. It symbolizes trust, confidence, intelligence, truth, faith, heaven and loyalty. As a bottom line, it symbolizes everything you would want your brand to be. That’s why it’s so used.

Blue is considered as beneficial for the mind and body and produces a calm effect. It gives a sense of calmness and tranquility. It is a masculine color that’s why it is so used with powerful brands. It is also highly accepted among males. But mostly blue is used for promoting high-tech products. You’ll see in the examples.

On the downside, blue can’t be successfully used with food and cooking because it suppresses appetite. It can create a powerful impact but not by itself. Blue needs yellow or red to offer an even more powerful sense.

Examples: Nokia, HP, Intel, Samsung, Dove, Nivea, Facebook, Dell, Lenovo and Ford use blue as their main and only color. Windows, NASCAR, Pepsi, Carrefour, MySpace, MSN and Volkswagen use blue as well.

Purple

Purple is not a very popular choice among logo designers. Although it combines the stability of blue and the energy of red, it’s just not used that often. It is associated with royalty and symbolizes power, nobility, luxury and ambition. It is a color for extravagant people and is often associated with wisdom, dignity and independence. It is also a feminine color.

Examples: Yahoo! and LA Lakers are few of the powerful brands using purple.

White

We know white is a non-color but we have to insert it here as well. It is associated with light, innocence, purity and virginity. Though it is the color of perfection and offers way more positive senses than any other color, it is not widely used. Probably because white is impossible to use without any other color. Every logo in the world can be white. Just put it in Photoshop and desaturate it, you’ll most probably end up with something white on a dark background.

It is not a popular choice in brands but is very popular to use in web designs. But aside from that, there are some other else where you can use it.

Examples: Toy Machine and Hot Wheels – both used with black. White just can’t be used by itself.

Black

As its fellow non-color, black is not a popular choice among logo designers either, though it offers powerful messages. It is associated with power, elegance, but with death, evil and mystery as well. It denotes strength and authority. This is why diplomats drive around in black cars only. A black tie and a black costume offer a sense of importance and seriousness.

Examples: Photobucket, ABC, JVC, Sony, Agent 007, RCA, Mercedes and sometimes HP. Swiss Air, NBC, Daytona, Amazon and Cartoon Network use it as well, but in combination with other colors.

Picking the right color for your brand is an important step in building a powerful message. You will not only satisfy the customer, but you will also show them that you have a powerful and serious image to display to the market. When you pick the colors for your newly-founded brand or for your redesign, take a look at those guidelines because they might help you make the right choice.

35 Amazing Apple iPad Wallpapers

Graphic Mania Editorial — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 12:58:33 +0000

iPad wallpapers are one of the first items to search for when you would like to personalize your own Apple iPad.

Along with your favorite applications, the iPad wallpapers give your iPad the the theme you like to see while you use your iPad instead of seeing the same default iPad wallpaper again and again.

In this post, I would like to share with you some beautiful Apple iPad wallpapers categorized based on its type such as cartoon wallpapers, Apple wallpapers, abstract wallpapers, natures wallpapers, 3D wallpapers and space wallpapers. You can click on the wallpaper title to go to its original page and download it.

Do not miss to check the other wallpapers collections below:

Funny Cartoon iPad Wallpapers

Here, you can find some cute and funny cartoon iPad wallpapers.

Hello Kitty

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Hanging In

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Happy Star

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Green Dinosaur

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Snow Leopard

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Anime Headphones

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Calvin and Hobbes

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Apple iPad Wallpapers

Since you are using Apple device, you may like to give your iPad an Apple new theme through the below Apple iPad wallpapers.

Apple Finder

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Brushed Metal Gears

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Green Apple iPod

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Apple Color

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Color Burst Apple

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Apple Stripe

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Apple Aurora

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Abstract iPad Wallpapers

The below part includes some beautiful abstract iPad wallpapers.

Abstract color

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Fire Flowers

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Fire Magnifier

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Abstract texture by jenschapter3 iPad wallpaper

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Bokeh

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Space iPad Wallpapers

You can find here some amazing space iPad wallpapers

Star Cluster

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Orion Nebula

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Moonshine

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Ringed Planet

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Nature iPad Wallpapers

The collection below includes nature iPad wallpapers for free download

Flotsam by Jared Earle iPad wallpaper

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Queen of the Night – Tulip by Jared Earle iPad wallpaper

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Nodes by mattly iPad wallpaper

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Ladybug

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Sand and Shells

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

White flowers

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

3D iPad Wallpapers

These are amazing 3D iPad wallpapers for free download.

Fantasy Castle

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

3D Apple Logo

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Crazy Planet

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Music Note

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Photosynthesis

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Black Cubes

Download iPad wallpaper: 1024px x 1024px

Finally, I hope you enjoyed the above iPad wallpaper collection and do not forget to share with us your opinion about the best wallpapers in your mind.

Creative Package Design Ideas

Rafiq Elmansy (admin) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:33:32 +0000

The package design idea is one of the most important factors to attract the clients to use a specific product rather than others especially when it is part of a bigger advertising campaign idea for the product.

The successful package design idea for the product should follow many factors aside from being attractive.

For example, the package design idea should consider the user experience and how the clients will use this product otherwise; the idea may be offensive to the product clients and turn them away from the product instead of attracting them to it.

Also, the package designing idea should be environment and health friendly because these packages will be thrown after usage and it must not include toxic materials especially when it is for food or drinks. The colors and the creative idea of the package should be following the general scheme for the product and unify with it. For example, the milk packages should focus on the white color scheme and the nature light colors. It is not proper to see a black milk bottle for instance.

Our package design ideas today varies a lot by different products and creative concepts based on the above factors. I hope you will enjoy these ideas and you can check other package design ideas in the links below:

“Did she say yes?” – Wedding Invitation

Egg package

More Chocolat Factory

Soy Mamelle

Panasonic Note

Survival Item #9: Coffee Cup

Disney / Method Soap

Student Spotlight: MUG pub

Silver Spoon

Antismoke pack

Ecolean Packaging

LACK magazine

THIS toothbrush Miswak

a tooth-cleaning twig used mainly in the Middle East

Sushi To-Go Box

Office Calendar

Jewelry Packaging

Butter! Better!

Happiness Batteries

Herokid Magic Box

HosieryHaven Package

Vapur – Anti - Bottle

Kleenex

Les Tropeziennes Waters

Here! Sod Air Asia

Puerto Despertar CD Packaging

Fianlly, I hope you enjoy this collection of package design ideas and find it inspiring.

How Does a Color-Blind Visitor View Your Site?

Sonia Mansfield — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:41:32 +0000

Being color-blind is a major imposition for a number of people. While the condition itself is fairly rare, it is not uncommon.

Nearly 8% of males and 1% of women have some form of the trait. While it is manageable, it can make many things in life difficult. Especially those with more intense versions of the condition, who cannot see anything resembling the natural color scheme of any object.

When you build a website, you will be tempted to create whatever it is that matches the image in your head. Color becomes a big part of this, and some of the more interesting tricks of web design are based on shades. While it will work well for most people, there is still that 9% of the population that will find it difficult or impossible to see your website properly.

Types Of Color-Blindness

Deuteranopia/Deuteranomalia – The most common form of the condition. An absence or weakness in green perception.
Protanopia/Protanomalia - The second most common form of the condition. An absence or weakness in red perception.
Tritanopia/Tritanomalia – The least common form of the condition. An absence or weakness in blue sensitivity.

Google as seen by the Color Blind (via ColorLovers):

There are some tools that have been created that will help you to see how your site it seen by a person with one of the three kinds of color-blindness. Using both, you can understand and then filter your site, so that while it won’t appear the way you had meant it to for the person with color-blindness, it will at least be viewable.

MSDN

This page was created by Microsoft to explain color-blindness in a simple way. It provides examples of how certain colors look to someone with one of the three different types, including how text in color (especially against other shades) can become invisible. It has a color wheel that gives a visual aid to normal versus altered color schemes.

But the best are available keywords and tips for creating a color-blind friendly site, and a number of resources that you can use. Be sure to check out their other designer information, especially their downloads section.

ColorFilter

This excellent and free feature allows you to put in any URL and see it from the perspective of different color-blind types. You can select which colors you want to be affected, creating a replica of what your visitor would see. I am especially fond of the way that it lets you specify certain changes in the webpage, such as disabling image filtering, stylesheets and broken CSS colors. This is more in depth than most webpage checkers, which usually just have a simple URL load box.

Vischeck

Vischeck and their partners have a number of interesting filters to view. For example, you can see what an image looks like through the eyes of a baby at varying degrees of development. You can also see what something looks like from the point of view of someone who is color blind.

But the most interesting and useful tool on this site is the Daltonize feature, which corrects images to work for people who are colorblind, which you can then use. They have plenty of examples, downloads and links to further assist you.

Providing a well made and interesting site is as important as making it functional. But you should always take the time to make sure it works for even those who are in the minority of viewers. They are potential customers, clients or readers, and they should be able to benefit from your site.

Safe Colours

This is an excellent resource for anyone who is curious about what colors are specifically useable for color blind-friendly sites. Created by Christine Rigden in 1997, thousands of graphic designers have put her website (once also an article in the British Telecommunications Engineering Journal) to the test and used her given principles to make their own websites more accessable and viewable.

What is so wonderful about Safe Colours is that it has an extensive catalogue of color schemes. The categories include backgrounds, palette files, transforming, color choice, full palette, yellows, blues and neutrals. So you can get enough information to safely create any kind of website using shades that will at least show up – and in a pleasant way – for visitors.

VisiBone

VisiBone is a small website, but a goody. It has three different color blindness testers to see if your site will pass muster, as well as links to other resources. There are two downloadable print outs, one a small color card and one a large color chart. I would recommend getting both so you have something to reference at any given time.

ASP.Net

Another blindness simulator, this one seems to work more quickly than most I have seen. You can browse your computer for images, and you will be able to see it like someone with one of the three types of color blindness. It is amazing how much a deficiency in one of the primary colors can shift an image.

More Resources On Color Blindess

The best way to learn about color blindness in graphic design is to learn about the condition itself. Not just as a theoretical thing that may or may not be applied to later websites, but as a disability. Many designers and artists I have spoken to have actually found themselves expanding on their creative process after learning about how the color blind see the world. It offers a new opportunity to build something based on a new frontier of requirements.

STCSIG.org – http://www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/9910-color-blindness.html – A website that teaches you about accomodating color blindness in web design. They have an excellent feature on the condition and software.
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired – http://www.tsbvi.edu/instructional-resources/69-information-about-color-and-color-blindness – Amazing site that covers everything from what color blindness is with general information, to on-site software for using color on the web as a color blind person, to more resources.
MedicineNet – http://www.medicinenet.com/color_blindness/city.htm – Find local resources in your city that can teach you about color blindness.
Wikipedia Page – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness – The Wikipedia page explaining the condition. Keep in mind that this information is user generated and changed, and so there may be inaccuracies.
Kids Health – http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/color_blind.html – A resource for children to understand color blindness.

Useful iPad Apps for Web Designers

Christian Vasile — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:12:36 +0000

The iPad became in the last year a very important tool not only for non-commercial purpose, but also for webdesigners and developers. It may not come in so handy as a computer or a laptop does, but if I would have to make a choice, I would definitely design or develop something on the iPad, rather than on the iPhone.

The screen is bigger, the keyboard is easier to use, the movement is faster, the multi-tasking helps a lot and the device is really suitable for lots and lots of webdesign apps. We are going to take a look at few iPad applications that come in really handy for webdesigners and developers.

Font Book

Font Book is a great application for iPad showing the user a preview of hundreds and hundreds of typefaces. You can preview fonts, see how they look in different size and style, and group typefaces into collections and groups.

This application offers the possibility to download other fonts from different sites recommended by Apple, and the user is even able to export the typefaces for external devices, such as a PC.

The application can be purchased for $4.99 from iTunes and is compatible with the latest iOS 4.0. On iPad it requires at least iOS 3.2 to work. The app is available in several languages and has been rated with an overall of 4+ out of 5.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage platform well known all over the world. It is also available for PC, but now you can have it on your iPad as well, thanks to the app which can be downloaded from iTunes for free. All the users have a 2GB account at their disposal, and can have even more if they are willing to pay for extra storage place. However, with 2GB available all the time, the free Dropbox account should be enough for you, because it is for sharing only, not for back-up.

There is not much to say about it, Dropbox is one of the most used storage platforms in the world. If you have an iPad, go and download this application, not only it will help you a lot when having to transfer files to someone, but it will also do it for free.

Keynote

Keynote is also well known for being available on any Apple computer. It is used for creating professional presentations, and the app has been developed for iPad as well. It allows creating world-class presentations very simple, by only touching and tapping. Animations, charts and transitions are all available on the iPad app, which can be purchased for $12.99.

It is, indeed, a bit pricey, but webdesigners and developers need to present their ideas and results in a great manner, otherwise they will not be successful. It is well known that, for a webdesigner, the presentation of the product is sometimes as important as the product itself.

Adobe Photoshop Express

This app designed for both iPhone and iPad is not as complete as its big brother is – the version for PC. But it offers some great features which might come in handy at some point in time. Though the app is free, the “Adobe Camera Pack”, which is a very useful add-on to this application, can be purchased for $3.99.

Once you have the Adobe Camera Pack, you will be able to reduce the noise of a picture, set a self-timer when taking a shot, and edit photos taken in poor light conditions. But even without the add-on, Adobe Photoshop Express is a free app that you should have on your iPad. The quality of the pictures you are using in your designs has to be high, and if not having a computer around, this application will try to do its best and ensure you provide high-quality pictures.

Wikipanion

This application easily allows users to scroll through Wikipedia pages. This is not good for webdesigners only, but for basic users as well, because Wikipedia becomes more and more popular each day, and having to use Google to land on different pages might become slow and annoying.

Wikipanion is a free application which can be downloaded from iTunes. It features a search bar and allows users to save bookmarks, keeps the history visible all the time and lets you hide languages you do not want results in. You can resize the font and even access the Wiktionary to look for terms without leaving the current page.

This Wikipedia application is great and moreover, it is free. The only answer to the “Should I download it?” question is “Yes, you most definitely should!”.

Dictionary and Thesaurus

Use this application for finding out what different words mean, or for browsing for synonyms and antonyms. The words database is large, with almost one million words in the dictionary, and almost 100.000 synonyms and antonyms entries.

As a developer, you might not need them too often, but you never know. Sometimes you may have to create the content of a page, write an e-mail or any other thing involving words. CSS and PHP won’t help you communicate with the others, so go and download this totally free app from iTunes, you never know when you will need it.

Analytics HD

This is the iPad version of the reputable Google Analytics. With this $6.99 app, the user will be able to access lots of statistics in a Google Analytics account. There are 55 reports featured in this app, showing data up to 100 rows. You have full screen charts, reports, dashboard, secure connection to Google and free updates. You can easily switch accounts, view multiple metrics for most reports and customize your data range.

You can almost do it all with this app. There is nothing yet I needed at some point in time and didn’t manage to find it on the iPad app.

FTP On The Go PRO

The FTP on The Go PRO is an application which allows you to view and edit HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, ASP and other languages with the built-in editor. You can update files on servers and even download files on your device. This application offers the whole range of features a desktop FTP offers. Though the app is available on both iPhone and iPod Touch, it works the best on an iPad.

With the large screen available, it will be easier to scroll through files and features. The app requires iOS 3.0+ to work, and has been reviewed as flawless by hundreds of users. If you need an FTP program on your iPad (and if you are a webdesigner, you most definitely need one), go for the FTP On The Go PRO. It is a bit expensive, I have to agree, but you will not be sorry for paying the $9.99 for it.

Those are only eight applications for iPad I reviewed today. However, there are hundreds (or maybe thousands) of other suitable apps for webdesigner. At a simple Google search, you can find millions of page results, so just go out there and find the applications you need. Maybe you are not making all of your designs on the iPad, but managing to work while on the go might help you reach deadlines with ease.

Flash, Design, Vector, Photoshop, Adobe Tutorials | GraphicMania.net

How to Pick the Right Color for Your Brand

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

Purple

White

Black

Related posts:

35 Amazing Apple iPad Wallpapers

Funny Cartoon iPad Wallpapers

Apple iPad Wallpapers

Abstract iPad Wallpapers

Space iPad Wallpapers

Nature iPad Wallpapers

3D iPad Wallpapers

Related posts:

Creative Package Design Ideas

Related posts:

How Does a Color-Blind Visitor View Your Site?

Types Of Color-Blindness

More Resources On Color Blindess

Related posts:

Useful iPad Apps for Web Designers

Related posts: