Anchorage Alaska Web Design: November 2013

Friday, November 15, 2013

How to Create a Facebook Cover Photo

Facebook cover photo is like our account representative. We would like to have nice and aesthetic in order to draw attention from audiences. These are some processes to help you to create the nice one.

1. Select image

Your photograph needs to have high resolution so you can work on it with Photoshop or your favorite software photo editor. I usually use Photoshop to adjust brightness and contrast before uploading, also when I play around with saturation can get more interesting look.

2. Dimensions

Cover photos are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. If you upload a smaller size image it will be stretch to fit these sizes. For the best result is having your image with the exact same size of Facebook’s dimensions.

It’s a little bit tricky sometimes when the image sizes don’t fit. I always resize the width first to be the exact number I need. Then I crop the image by using the width number I already got and the height I need. So I’ll get the width and height with those numbers.

For the profile picture sizes are 180x180 pixels. If you want to have a white space around the image, you can design it to be smaller but sit on white background that have the profile size need.

NWDS logo

3. The design

Please keep in mind when you design the cover photo. On the bottom left corner will be hidden by profile image. So it’s better to avoid to put something important or text on that area.

To add or change your cover photo:

Log in to your Facebook page
Go to your timeline
Click Add a Cover if you haven't have a cover photo yet, or hover over your current cover photo and click Change Cover
Choose a new photo from your computer
Click Save

Please check out our Facebook page

About NWDS - founded in 2003 by six software engineers, NorthWest Data Solutions (NWDS) provides custom computer programming and systems design services. NWDS creates many types of software, including e-commerce, financial, defense, engineering, logistics, aviation and more. www.nwds-ak.com

5 Things We Need to Know Before Designing Your Website

The early process before starting to build your website is gathering requirements. The more we know about your requirements the best we can build website to suit your needs. These are some basic information we expect to get from you.

1. What is the purpose of your website?

The first question we would ask you is the purpose of your website. It is crucial since it will determine how we will develop it. If your website is for selling products online, you will need ecommerce website that needs a shopping cart.

2. Target audience

Target audience is to decide how your website will look and feel. If your targets are children, we will design to have different appearance than website for adults. Different colors have a significant effect to visitors. Web designer can choose the colors according to your target audiences’ flavor.

3. Your logo

The logo of the website is the element that has to be created first. If you already have your logo, you should submit it to your web designer before web design process starts. The logo is another key element of colors and the whole design will be created around it.

4. Your content

Content is the important part of your website. Your visitors will come back again if they get what they look for. It is all about what you are providing and what you should say to your visitors. We cannot write your content but we can help guide you to write the effective one.

5. Your keywords

The web developer will need keywords while programing your website. Your keywords should be defined as you want your website to appear in search engines.

SMS Pro Logo - Airline/Airport SMS Software Logo

SMS Pro logo in different sizes and color.

This logo is available for airlines and airports using Web based aviation safety management system software called SMS Pro.

1. Size 200 x 39 px.

Color.

Black

White

2. Size 265 x 52.

Color

Black

White

3. Size 370 x 72.

Color

Black

White

Thursday, November 7, 2013

How to Create Geometric Graphics in Adobe Illustrator

I’ve seen many images made out of geometric shapes and really like this idea. So I decided to create one for SMS Pro to use on Google+ and Facebook.

1. Import photo with File-->Place (choose photo) then lock this layer.

2. Create new layer.

3. Zoom into the spot to start working.

4. Choose the Pen tool and make the fill transparent (none), the stroke has weight of 1 pixel with any color.

5. Start creating the shape with pen tool. These shapes should surround an area of the photo that has same color. Make sure that each geometric shape has its own outline so you can fill in color later.

6. Draw the geometric shapes cover the entire photo. It takes time and be patient.

7. Now it’s fun part, I use Eyedropper tool get the color from photo layer in a geometric shape then fill inside the shape on the working layer.

8. Change the stroke to be none.

9. After filling color, you can delete or hide the photo layer.

10. It's done!