Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
What a fake invoice can teach about color perception and graphic design best practices
Below is a fake invoice that was sent out in the hopes that the receiver - likely a secretary in a large business - would pay, since it appears legitimate and is for a relatively small amount.
Click on images to enlarge
Note that all the commands to pay use colors that have a strong tonal contrast with their background – white against dark blue, black against light blue or white. However, the disclaimer that reveals that this is not an actual invoice but a solicitation to accept an advertising offer is printed using color contrast rather than tonal contrast – yellow lettering against a blue background.
The designer of this "invoice" has effectively leveraged an aspect of human vision that puts a priority on tonal contrast rather than color contrast. By making the tone of the yellow disclaimer virtually identical to the screen tint of the blue background – the text effectively disappears, or at best becomes very hard to see/read.
Less sophisticated designers usually, and wrongly, believe that color contrast is a way to make text stand out from its background, i.e. they typically believe that the color contrast of yellow against a blue background should make text stand out and be more readable.
Interestingly, the give-away, in this example, is that a slight misregistration of the yellow text against the light blue background has increased the contrast of the letter edges slightly and made the disclaimer, just barely, more visible/readable.
Note that all the commands to pay use colors that have a strong tonal contrast with their background – white against dark blue, black against light blue or white. However, the disclaimer that reveals that this is not an actual invoice but a solicitation to accept an advertising offer is printed using color contrast rather than tonal contrast – yellow lettering against a blue background.
The designer of this "invoice" has effectively leveraged an aspect of human vision that puts a priority on tonal contrast rather than color contrast. By making the tone of the yellow disclaimer virtually identical to the screen tint of the blue background – the text effectively disappears, or at best becomes very hard to see/read.Less sophisticated designers usually, and wrongly, believe that color contrast is a way to make text stand out from its background, i.e. they typically believe that the color contrast of yellow against a blue background should make text stand out and be more readable.
Interestingly, the give-away, in this example, is that a slight misregistration of the yellow text against the light blue background has increased the contrast of the letter edges slightly and made the disclaimer, just barely, more visible/readable.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Creating crazy custom halftone screens
In a previous post (HERE) I described how to make a custom halftone dot shape. In this post I'll show you how to apply a pattern to an entire image to halftone it. In this case the halftone pattern will be very coarse so as to give the final result a strong graphic look. Click on the images below to enlarge them and eliminate any moiré caused by your monitor display.
First select an image to work with. The best images for this treatment are ones that fairly contrasty and have simple, easy to recognize, image content like this one:
Then create the pattern you want to use to halftone the image using a vector illustration application like Adobe Illustrator. For this example I've created a concentric circles graphic.
Note that the black and white line thickness of the pattern are about equal. As usual, you will need to experiment to get the right combination of image and pattern resolution to achieve a good effect – there are no rules.
In Photoshop, open the image you want to halftone. Then open the pattern that you've created and copy and paste it into a layer above your image. Make sure the image is in greyscale mode. Create a new layer below the pattern, fill it with white and then merge the pattern with the white layer. At this point you will have two layers; one layer with the original image and above it one layer containing the pattern.
Apply a Gaussian Blur to the pattern. In the below image the original pattern is on the left side and the Gaussian Blur applied pattern is on the right:
What you are trying to do is maintain the integrity of the pattern while creating a "threshold array" of about 256 levels of grey.
Next, if the pattern needs to align with any image content then position the pattern accordingly. In this case I've centered the circular pattern over the woman's eye. Then set the pattern layer to "Hard Mix" - the result will look something like this:
At this stage, if the results are too contrasty or flat, select the image layer and use the "Curves" menu to adjust the original image's contrast to get the effect you like:
Finally, when you are happy with the result, merge the two layers. Then convert the image to "Bitmap Mode" (using "50% Threshold") to make sure there are no grey levels left that might get screened by a RIP. Your result will look somewhat like this:
...and ready to place in a page layout.
You can use any pattern your imagination comes up with.
For example, this one uses wavy lines:
While this one uses a hexagon pattern instead of concentric circles:
First select an image to work with. The best images for this treatment are ones that fairly contrasty and have simple, easy to recognize, image content like this one:
Then create the pattern you want to use to halftone the image using a vector illustration application like Adobe Illustrator. For this example I've created a concentric circles graphic.
Note that the black and white line thickness of the pattern are about equal. As usual, you will need to experiment to get the right combination of image and pattern resolution to achieve a good effect – there are no rules.In Photoshop, open the image you want to halftone. Then open the pattern that you've created and copy and paste it into a layer above your image. Make sure the image is in greyscale mode. Create a new layer below the pattern, fill it with white and then merge the pattern with the white layer. At this point you will have two layers; one layer with the original image and above it one layer containing the pattern.
Apply a Gaussian Blur to the pattern. In the below image the original pattern is on the left side and the Gaussian Blur applied pattern is on the right:
What you are trying to do is maintain the integrity of the pattern while creating a "threshold array" of about 256 levels of grey.Next, if the pattern needs to align with any image content then position the pattern accordingly. In this case I've centered the circular pattern over the woman's eye. Then set the pattern layer to "Hard Mix" - the result will look something like this:
At this stage, if the results are too contrasty or flat, select the image layer and use the "Curves" menu to adjust the original image's contrast to get the effect you like:
Finally, when you are happy with the result, merge the two layers. Then convert the image to "Bitmap Mode" (using "50% Threshold") to make sure there are no grey levels left that might get screened by a RIP. Your result will look somewhat like this:
...and ready to place in a page layout.You can use any pattern your imagination comes up with.
For example, this one uses wavy lines:
While this one uses a hexagon pattern instead of concentric circles:
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Quality printing versus production efficiency
Quality, in terms of meeting customer expectations, and production efficiency are often seen as incompatible. It is either/or, you can’t have both. However, the fact is that quality is achieved by improvement of the process. Improvement of the process increases the uniformity of production, reduces mistakes, increases production effectiveness, and reduces waste of effort, time, and materials. Reduction of waste and inefficiencies, in turn, transfers work and machine hours from the manufacture of defective materials – with their associated reworks – into the manufacture of additional good products. In effect, production capacity is increased. The benefits of better quality through improvement of the print manufacturing process are therefore not just better quality, and the long-range improvement of competitive market position that goes along with it, but greater productivity and better profitability as well. Enhanced employee morale is another gain as increased pride in their work and a greater sense of security result from seeing their efforts improve the success and competitive position of the company.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wisdom from Yogi Berra - the greatest Zen Master baseball has ever produced
Some Yogiisms to keep in mind as we approach Print 09:"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
"You've got to be very careful. If you don't know where you are going you might not get there."
"Take it with a grin of salt."
"We made too many wrong mistakes."
"I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn't my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?"
- Yogi Berra (Born: May 12, 1925)
Effective purchase decision-making
Effective purchase decision-making on, for example, investing in new equipment, can be helped if you start by looking at the problem as a four level hierarchy of needs. Make sure that each level of the hierarchy is addressed, understood, and agreed to, in order from one to four, before proceeding on to the next. Don’t confuse the levels.The four levels are:
1- The desired impact on your business you wish the purchase will make. E.g. Increased profit, competitive advantage, attract new clients etc.
2- The benefits to your business the purchase will need to have in order to deliver the desired impact. E.g. Shorter makeready, less waste, faster turnaround, better print fidelity, etc.
3- The features of the proposed equipment or process that will lead to the benefits. E.g. Fewer steps, greater accuracy, automation, etc.
4- The technology behind the features. E.g. Laser technology, media technology, thermal compensation, etc.
In most cases, the features and especially the technology are only useful for helping to understand and prove how the benefits and the net impact will be achieved.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Secret Shopper
Large corporations often use “secret shoppers” – employees posing as customers – as an objective way to see just how well their customer service is actually performing. Why not ask one of your customers to be your secret shopper? Create a list of print buyer processes, from sales, quotation, prepress, proofing, presswork, bindery, finishing, etc., right out to final delivery. Ask your secret shopper to evaluate your company’s performance (below average, average, above average) in each area. In particular, ask them to note how your performance compared to their expectations, as well as your competition, at each phase of the process. A gift certificate for dinner or a modest discount on their next print order might prove an effective incentive.
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