A delightfully absurd take on everything from superheroes to office humor, twisted relationships, huggable animals, and more.
Click to view...
An adroit mixture of everyday settings and extraordinary events.
Click to view...
A compendium of strange-but-true recent events as reported in the legitimate press.
Click to view...
The world of business and finance gets skewered, as Bottom Liners tackles subjects such as foreign takeovers, office policies, getting a raise, and the fast-paced world of Wall Street.
Click to view...
A wry look at the absurdities of every day life.
Click to view...
With a daily readership of more than 95 million, Dear Abby is the symbol of a caring heart for millions of people around the world.
Click to view...
In today's complex world of family issues, learn from Dr. Dobson's lifetime of practical experience in dealing with family problems.
Click to view...
|
|
|
A tense situation...
|
|
2010 Graduation Banners
|
A Penny Pincher's Best Friend
|
|
Talk Nerdy to Me
|
 |
Idea of the Week |
|
|
|
Creating Tension
When working in graphic design, making things look good may seem like the right thing to do, but perhaps making things attract attention should be your goal. Attracting attention can often be done by creating tension in the eyes of the viewers. Tension is defined as balanced relation between strongly opposing elements, or the interplay of conflicting elements. This tension or conflict will cause viewers to stop and take a closer look at your design in hopes of uncovering what is making them subconsciously uncomfortable. Here are a few tension creating tips to intrigue your viewers:
 Barely touching elements tease the viewers. Their eyes are drawn to this point of almost intersection, and they keep checking to see if the items really touch.
- Design decisions that appear tentative, such as elements that are off-kilter, can cause conflict because the viewer will naturally want things to be straight and orderly. Deliberately placing images off balance, as long as it isn’t overdone, can help capture a viewer’s attention.
- Using complementary colors next to each other, especially when there is a shared edge, can cause a vibration in your design. This is because each color is vying for dominance in the eyes of your viewer. Choose your colors to attract attention.
Using these techniques at some of the focal points of your piece, such as the center, and the corners, will retain the viewer’s interest as they digest all that your piece has to say. |
See more great ideas like this!
Click here to visit the Superior Imaging Services, Inc. Ideas Collection.
Send this article to a friend
|
|
|
|
Marketing Tip |
|
|
The Profit Power of Coupons
With most consumers looking for ways to save money, an enticing coupon offer is a great way to overcome slow sales and woo penny pinchers. Here are a few tips on how to include coupons in your next marketing promotion:- Staple coupons to receipts during purchase transactions which offer savings on their next purchase. This builds customer loyalty by offering a reward that encourages customers to return again.
- Track the response rate of promotions by including a special code on each coupon campaign.
- Include reasonable expiration dates that encourage a timely call to action.
- Feature coupons on your web site. Customers often research companies online, and are more likely to make an initial purchase with an enticing coupon offer. Request the recipients e-mail address in exchange for future promotions.
- For promotions with short time cycles, send coupons via e-mail to your prospects and customers in your database.
- Integrate coupon promotions with your overall campaign by including with information requests, sales packets, or designing as part of your mailer, such as a tear-away postcard or business card.
- Offer considerable discount coupons to customers who refer your business to others.
- Post your promotion on coupon web sites. Coupon sites are growing in popularity and are often a great way to drive consumers to your web site to learn more about your company.
- Create special promotions that advertise your first 100 customers will receive a 30% off or valuable buy one, get one coupon at the door.
- Support your community by encouraging customers to donate food, clothes or toys to local shelters, and reward them with discount coupons to your business.
- Learn from other coupons. Start paying attention to coupons you receive in the mail or view online, and think about features that catch your attention or motivate you to purchase.
- Offer an opportunity for those who redeem coupons to enter a drawing for a prize (include space for the customers’ contact information on the back of your coupon). It is a way to track recipients who have purchased from you.
Overall, coupons are a win-win for everyone. Customers get the deal they're looking for and you benefit from extra sales and the opportunity to promote your local business information. If you’d like help creating coupons your prospects and customers enjoy using, stop by today!
Send this article to a friend
|
|
|
|
Tech Tips |
|
|
Technobabble
Because computers and technology are such a significant part of our society, a new technology driven language seems to be emerging with it. If you’ve ever had a conversation with a techy and felt like you needed a translator, here are just a few words and phrases to help boost your tech savvy fluency before you are dubbed “404”:- 404: A term meaning clueless, inspired by the error message when a browser cannot find a web page
- Add-on: Hardware added to a computer after purchase to enhance the computer’s ability
- Apps: Applications or programs that run on a computer
- Architecture: Basic design of a computer’s hardware.
- Ex: MAC and PC have different architecture and cannot run each others’ programs
- Backbone: The main or primary system used by a network
- Bang the board: Do a lot of typing (writing program code, data entry, etc.)
- Bang out: Spend long hours trying everything to test software or hardware
- Big red switch: The on/off switch
- Boot (re-boot: Start up or restart a computer
- BSOD (Blue Screen of Death): The blue screen Windows jumps to when it can’t handle program errors
- Bug: Program error that was missed in testing
- Cooked: Something that has been ruined or corrupted
- Cookie: A small data file stored on your computer by a web site to “remember” your preferences and pages you’ve viewed
- Dinosaur: Very old computer
- Dilbert: A geek or computer nerd
- Egosurfing: Scanning the net, databases, and media to find mention of your name
- Emoticon: A group of symbols used to depict emotion, such as the smiley face :-)
- Freeware: Software you can download from the internet that is free
- Fry: To ruin by overworking or connecting hardware incorrectly
- Gopher: Type of search and retrieval tool
- Hotspot: Location where a computer can connect to a wireless network
- Phishing: An identity theft scam in which spammers use an authentic-looking e-mail to trick recipients into providing personal information such as credit card or social security numbers
- Trojan: A program similar to a virus disguised as something harmless (like a game), but when launched actually sabotages the computer on which it is running
- Wired: Connected to the internet
While every industry seems to have its own technical jargon, you can rest assured we’ll use easy to understand printing terms when you come to us for your important print projects!
Send this article to a friend
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
