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Promotional Materials that Make You Look Good: Graphics File Formats for Beginners
Do the graphics on your website or promotional materials look sloppy? Unprofessional? Blurry? How does this reflect on you and your biz?
Your promotional materials are often the first impression people get about your business. Your website is your store front. The image you project affects how people think of your business.
In order to build a successful business, you need to be considered professional and trustworthy. How do you perceive businesses with sloppy, unprofessional websites and promotional materials?
When I see sloppy graphics out there in the world, I know that it's usually because the client, and/or designer didn't know enough about graphics file formats to remedy the problems.
In this article, I'd like to share some ideas on how to help your graphic designer get the best results for you, so you don't have to settle for sub-par materials to represent your business.
Whether you're giving your designer existing graphics files to modify or appropriate for your promo materials, or requesting new graphics, it will be helpful to be informed about graphics file formats.
There are too many graphics file formats to mention all of them here, so I'll cover only the ones you're most likely to come across.
GIF files are used mostly on web pages. Their file sizes are small, so they load quickly on the web, and don't use a lot of bandwidth. However, the compression technique for GIFs allows them to only have up to 256 colors. Therefore, GIF is the format used mostly for logos and simple graphics. Photos or graphics will complex gradients won't look good in GIF format.
GIF is NOT the format to give a designer if you need the graphic resized or modified. It's always best to give her/him the original, uncompressed file.
JPG is also used for web graphics. While file sizes are a bit larger, this is a good format for photos and complex graphics with shading and gradients.
Again, giving a designer a JPG file is not ideal, if you also have the original. However, if you have a high resolution JPG file, the designer may be able to work with it.
ai (from Adobe Illustrator) is a vector format. Vector graphics are based on mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics. I use Adobe Illustrator to create logos, illustrations, simple graphics, business cards, and any other one page promotional materials.
The advantage of vector graphics is that they can be re-sized and manipulated without losing quality, and will give you the best possible quality for print.
Vector graphics formats are complementary to bitmap graphics (also known as raster graphics). Bitmap graphics are made up of pixels, with each pixel containing its own color information. Photos, and images with complex gradients and shading work best as a bitmap. However, when you resize a bitmap graphic, the number of pixels changes, and your image loses clarity.
A TIF or a PSD file might be a photo or a complex graphic from Adobe Photoshop (or similar graphics software).
Giving your designer a high resolution, uncompressed TIF or PSD file with layers - where each element in the graphic is in a separate layer - will make it much easier to modify, and you will get better results.
May all your promo materials inspire confidence and interest!
About the Author Copyright 2009 Emilie Nottle. As web developer and online strategist at Zooop Design, Emilie helps entrepreneurs to establish an effective and profitable web presence. If you're ready to get the most mileage from your website and online marketing, sign up for her free monthly eZine, and receive the free eBooklet, "Three Surefire Ways to Increase Targeted Traffic to Your Website."
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