Clarified Butter

Free WiFi Abounds

2008-05-31T11:03:00.000-07:00

So here I am, writing my first post away from the office. I am on a short break during a video shoot for a wedding. It will be a long day (started at 6:00am and will go 'til 10:30pm or so). There is a particular place I like to visit when I shoot weddings: Schlotzsky's. Why? FREE WIFI (and excellent food)! It's hard to visit a general region and not find a hot spot. The problem is finding a free connection (such as at Schlotzsky's). McDonalds has not caught on yet, as they have affiliated with AT&T to offer Pay For service at outrageous prices. Haven't they caught on by now that their sales will increase exponentially by offering it, mainly from geeks and business heads that can't go 30 minutes without the internet? All Peter Piper Pizza locations that are owned by corporate offer free wifi, and are adding it to franchises slowly. I've seen them popping up at Subway locations as well. Apple's Retails Stores also have free wifi. While it's not technically offered as an open network to hitch onto, it's there, and works well from the comfy mall chairs just outside the entrance. Heck, they won't even mind if you browse the aisles wirelessly (as long as the device is an Apple).

I guess (in all fairness) we have come a long way. I remember grabbing those AOL CDs for the free minutes (only to cancel days after my trip). It's interesting how easy it is to cancel with AOL when you give the reason, "I was just using you for the free dialup."

I offer a free wifi connection from my office to anyone sniffing. While I am sure my ISP wouldn't like to hear that, I don't have many connectors. From my office I can pick up 7 or 8 connections... 2 or 3 of which have WEP. I am sure glad they are there for those times that my cable goes out (which is not too often).

So. If you have a wifi router... open that thing up. Share your connection (just make sure you have a good firewall). I run all Macs, so that's an easy thing to accomplish. One day we will have a massive web of free wifi that acts very much like the current cell phone network. Until that time comes, give your 300 foot circle of radiating internet goodness to the sniffers. It will pay you back in the long run.

This has been today's clarified butter.

That looks great... now off to press!

2008-04-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

So here we are. We've created a great design for our client. Whether it is a spec sheet, stationary, brochure, flyer, catalog, manual, etc... it needs to get printed.

Now, when we first started those many years ago, we used to handle a lot of that printing (being middle-men). Professionally we hated being responsible for any foul ups caused by the printer. Personally, I hated collecting sales tax.

For the past several years I have worked solely with a company based out of California. They are a great high end, high run full color offset outfit. Their prices are phenomenal, and their quality immaculate (kind of sounds like ProGravix, I know). The best part of it all is that any customer not in California saves the sales tax (which sort of offsets the shipping, which can get pricey for huge heavy orders).

Now, while we take no cut or kickback on the order, we still provide our client all the support they need to get their art to the shop. This California outfit, Print Runner, allows customers to submit their orders, charging it directly to their credit cards. After the order has been submitted, we upload the necessary artwork to their servers.

So take a gander at Print Runner's prices. I'm sure you will be highly surprised. If you find some great prices, give us a shout to create that great art (at a similarly great price).

This has been today's clarified butter.

What economic downturn?

2008-03-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

I must first apologize for the long delay between posts. I've been consumed with a fairly complex project for Tad Inoue, who manages www.tadthedietcoach.com. This site relies heavily on PHP, mySQL and several HTML tricks to pull it all together. The site features a store, forums, photo gallery, blog, and many other static pages.
It's a type of site with a theme I've never worked on before, and not my cup of tea, to say the least. It was certainly a daunting task, but well worth the results, and the client seems to be happy as well.

So, that's what I've been up to for the past week. Sure, we've had other projects sprinkled in-between. A few ads, some fabric banners, a logo design. Seems like things don't seem to be slowing down.

Which brings me to the precise content of this post.

Certainly we are seeing the impact our economy is having on our personal lives, and on the local cost of goods we need to keep things rolling. But, the good thing about having a web based business is that your income is not determined by any one local economy. ProGravix works with hundreds of clients around the world, diversifying our income across many continents. Obviously we have seen a slow down with our video services, but this is generally a result of local families being impacted by the crunch.

We're happy that we are not affected too bad by the increased price of gasoline (seeing only a slight increase in the cost of supplies). Personally I am in the market for a new vehicle, and while I hardly travel great distances by car, I don't see that justifying the purchase of a much desirable SUV. For the time being, I roll a Chevy HHR. I like it. It's retro, and gets great gas mileage.

I just hope that I may one day replace my totaled Jeep Liberty.

This has been today's clarified butter.

iPhone and the SDK

2008-03-06T17:43:00.000-08:00

Apple, Inc. today released a beta version of their Software Developer Kit for iPhone. I always get excited about Apple events, and news about great new releases and developments from Apple.

Now, you are probably wondering how this relates to design, or more specifically, ProGravix.

Well, it doesn't.

Okay, so maybe it does a little. Developers (in most cases "programmers") and designers are two completely different breeds. It's almost impossible to find someone that is a very creative designer that also has a rich knowledge of programming and back-end environments. I for one have always hated programming (and by rules or polarity, love design).

The great news about this SDK is that it gives these developers all the tools they need to create robust, enterprise grade applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. (This would be like asking Dreaweaver to create all your graphics, and code in HTML, as well. Just won't happen.) So, hopefully in June we will see hundreds, if not thousands, of applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. I'm personally excited for an AIM client.

So, getting back to how this relates to ProGravix. Well, we always shied away from anything involving programming... so much so that we turned down very lucrative offers. We always believed that we were designers first and foremost, and that we should focus purely on that. Our customer's thought differently.

I personally have taught myself PHP, mySQL, Java, JS, and enough ASP to cause trouble. It was a daunting task, but turned out to be very beneficial. Now, I won't be calling myself an expert anytime soon, but at least my toes are slightly damp. We've already revamped our online billing and estimating system using PHP. Hopefully we will be able to translate this all into a richer proofing and artwork accessibility program. In the meantime, I think we are doing pretty well (and much further along) than any of our competitors.

Email signature faux pa?

2008-02-26T15:38:00.000-08:00

I'm the kind of guy that prefers to receive plain text emails. I know, sounds odd right? You'd expect a creative-minded person to want to receive the all frills version. I'm more into getting to the meat of the email, and don't care to wait for the cute little images and backgrounds to load.

It's been a general email faux pa to use images (be it logos or that cute little animated bunny you're so crazy about) in signatures. The problem with email is that all clients render the email differently. It might look neat on your end, but what does the recipient see? Usually a mess.

As you can see, my plain text email signature is very clean. I like my clients to be able to get the info they need, and in an uncluttered, very clean way. This is not to say that I will not design someone an email signature with logos. It's very possible to get away with a little bit of customization, but just don't go crazy.

Another tip is to not attach the images that you use within your signature to the email. This is tacky. Make sure these images are posted on a web server, and you modify the signature code to point to these locations. This will speed up the download time, and increase your recipient's readability of the email. So have fun. Just don't go crazy.

This has been today's clarified butter.

The new breed of designers (and their practices)

2008-02-22T09:46:00.000-08:00

When I first started in the graphic design business I was fresh out of my Junior year of high school. By chance I applied for a position with AlphaGraphics in their lasergraphics department. I was paid minimum wage, while they took in $75 for every hour I worked.

Now, mind you, this was several years ago... even before the advent of America Online. Customers would physically drive to our store, bring hard copies of logos, photos, content, etc. for us to paste up (I actually was trained by a seasoned AlphaGraphics employee who was very skilled in the lost art of paste up). We would advise them that their proof would be available within 24 hours, which would require them to drive back to the store to follow up. We would generally make changes while they waited, but this would depend upon the current customer load in the store at that time. Artwork would be provided to the customer or our printshop in hardcopy "camera ready" artwork.

Boy have things changed.

ProGravix receives orders via our website, email or other electronic method. Very rarely do we receive requests via phone (nor do we follow with changes via phone). Once the order comes in, we begin working on it as soon as our schedule allows. Generally within a few hours an initial proof is developed, and made available through our online proofing system. Changes are requested via email, with those changes being made within an hour, and made available for online proofing again. Once the artwork is approved, artwork files are made available via an easy to use download service. Certainly we can mail you artwork on CD (or DVD) if you prefer, and that service is free. A very small percentage of clients actually need artwork delivered via mail, and is usually indicative of projects where the final artwork files are several hundred megabytes.

We do not offer in-house printing like AlphaGraphics, but then again we are not a printshop. We are a digital design shop. This is a clear distinction that should be made. Everything we do is digital, which in turn allows us to provide artwork to printshops in digital form. Sure we work closely with a few printshops that we prefer, but that doesn't mean you must use them.

Obviously we create things that are intended to be shared with others, and when web design is not involved, sharing means physical media to physically broadcast. Brochures, letterhead, ads, etc. These all need to get printed. If you need helping in getting your print order rolling as well, let us know. We'd be glad to help. And oh, by the way, we don't make a dime in doing so.

This has been today's clarified butter.

Serve your community, and they will serve you

2008-02-20T21:35:00.000-08:00

We have been tapped a lot recently to share our creative skills pro bono publico. I don't mind really, I find it as a great way to get our name out. Many may not know this, but ProGravix does not advertise. At least not in the sense you think. We have a purely word-of-mouth client base, and I personally enjoy that. This means that we get a client that wants to use us, and not just because they didn't know where else to turn. Sure, we get a few stragglers from Google now and then, but for the most part, our work comes from happy clients.

For example, we did a logo for Four Seasons Photography. She liked our work so much, she shared a link to our logo design promotion on a photography forum. The result? We were almost sick with logo designs for photographers. Certainly a challenge, but a few dozen extremely creative logos came of it.

Another client I have been working with for years now has decided to share our name with some of the most forward thinking companies in his industry. The result? Dozens of water industry manufacturers, magazines, and organizations needing a purified dose of our clean creative style. Nimbus, for example, has already tapped us for two website redesigns, several product logos, labels, brochures, white sheets, advertisements and product specification sheets.

So word-of-mouth is good. Oh, and so is pro bono work.

This has been today's clarified butter.

Save a slice for me

2008-02-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, it was not my intention to create another post with a pie-esque slant, so forgive me.

One of today's graphic design projects was to create a fillable PDF. I'm sure you've experienced these before, the IRS has been using them for years to ease tax paperwork (and reduce calculation errors). They allow a user to enter field data in the form right on the computer, flushing the lost art of actual readable penmanship. The problem with fillable PDFs is that the end-user cannot save the form. They are limited to printing the form only, when using the free Adobe Reader. Certainly there is a solution, but it comes at a price. For Mac user's there is an easy (read free) solution. Since the migration to UNIX based OS X, every release of ten allowed you to print to a PDF file from any OS X application. Obviously you'd need to use Preview since Adobe Reader does not allow you "re-save" a PDF file, even if you are printing it. Your result will be a completed PDF file that you can send off via email. (Sorry Windows users, there is no such embedded solution for your platform.)

The question is, what kind of pie would a fillable PDF be? I'd guess Apple. And not French Apple either. Good 'ole American Apple Pie. Save a slice for me.

So yes. We create fillable PDF files, and you'd be surprised at just how cheap it is.

This has been today's clarified butter.

Meat and Potatoes

2008-02-18T20:20:00.000-08:00

Having recently completed another successful tax year here at ProGravix, I decided to do a little in-house research. I was interested in learning more about the income trends of our business. Not to my surprise, web development lead the pack, with over 60% of all revenues. Now, surprisingly, next in line was video services. I had assumed for many years that graphic design followed a close second to web development. Quite honestly, the majority of our web development projects come from clients satisfied with the skill of our graphic design. With over 20% credited to video services, graphic design scraped the barrel, barely eking out miscellaneous fees (such as media and burn charges).

Now, in all fairness, I didn't lump logo design into graphic design. Seems that the majority of logos I do are for websites anyways. That's not to say that the web design category took advantage, they held their own piece of the pie chart, umm... pie. In addition to that, logos have always been a promotional item (going all the way back to $18 ebay auctions). Sure, their $50 now, but I still get people befuddled by the low price, worrying that it's too good to be true. Well, I can confirm, after thousands of orders, it's possibly the best deal out there. (I know, I know... but I need to plug a little.)

By the way... my name is Drew Lamont, and I am owner of ProGravix Digital Design. This has been today's clarified butter.