Category: Graphic Design

5 Reasons Why Great Imagery is Key

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Graphic Design, Marketing

When we browse through an Instagram profile, whether it’s Architectural Digest or Condé Nast Traveller, we suddenly long for the coziness of home or encounter wanderlust scrolling through images of Italian vineyards. Without a doubt, the beautiful, crisp, clean imagery evokes a good feeling and has an undeniable impact on our brain. Images are a powerful tool to build your brand. And when great imagery is combined with digital marketing, that’s when the magic happens. Why is that? What is the science behind it? It’s simple. Research shows images are processed 600,000 times faster than text! Without imagery, digital marketing won’t strike an emotional chord among your audience. Visual imagery resonates, connects, and inspires. Let’s explore the reasons why great imagery is the key in your marketing efforts:

1. The right imagery will attract an audience. It’s true. In an age of visual culture, if you want to create the biggest impact from the get-go, imagery is king. Written content will only take you halfway. If your goal is to stop your audience in its tracks when scrolling through hundreds of posts on their Instagram feed, focus on your visuals. The right tone, resolution, and even subject matter are things that should be at the forefront of your marketing strategy. In fact, imagery is 10 times more likely to generate audience engagement than content without images.

Build Your Brand

2. Imagery boosts engagement and connects. Research shows posts with imagery cultivate more engagement than links, videos, or text-based updates. And more engagement means more leads. On Facebook, posts featuring imagery account for 93% of the most engaging posts. That’s a pretty big deal! If your engagement is dropping and you’re scratching your head at what you’re doing wrong, take a look at your visuals. It may be time to rethink what you’re posting on Instagram and break your visuals down to even color science.

3. Your imagery reflects your brand. Do you want your brand to stand out and be memorable? Focus on your visual strategy. It’s not just about the brand logo. New companies and brands struggle to build your brand identity through imagery. Being mindful of the color tone and how it flows through your digital efforts, is something that should be considered. Use visuals that reflect the mood of the content. Pro tip: Lean on color theory and psychology.If you’re trying to convey happiness, use imagery that evokes joy: bright colors. Remember, you’re aiming for emotional impact. Connecting with your audience is key and the formula is simple: great imagery.

Build Your Brand

4. Your audience will remember your message. Text-based content is inefficient on its own. You can write a paragraph of content on your skincare brand, but users will struggle to connect if it’s just that. However, if you include a great on-brand image with your material, people are more likely to remember you and refer back to your product. According to the Social Science Research Network, 65% of people are visual learners, including myself. Want to captivate me? Tell me a story through a passionate image!

5. The digital world’s platforms are image-centric. It’s not rocket science to figure out why Instagram and Pinterest are taking the world by storm. What do they both have in common? That’s right. It’s Images. Image focused platforms are becoming increasingly popular. I think we can all agree pictures have become the universal language of the world. If you haven’t considered Instagram or Pinterest vital in the health of your brand, hopefully, you learned an important lesson today: a picture is worth a thousand words.

Great imagery comes with great responsibility. If done right, a picture inspires, evokes emotion, and engages people. Most importantly, it tells a compelling story when text may otherwise fail to personally resonate. Humans are wired to need visuals. How often have you become distracted or bored? Imagery is your chance to grab someone’s attention! It’s time to harness the power of visual imagery.

If you’re struggling to tell a compelling story and feel your brand is not performing to its full potential, hey, it happens. It’s natural to feel frustrated because you’re not getting any or enough engagement on your content. You’ve worked hard to introduce your business to the world and sometimes a little more push is just needed to unlock your brand’s full potential.

At The AD Leaf ®, we’re here to help study and build your brand, strategize, and offer solutions for your digital media portfolio. Feel free to give us a call at 321-255-0900 or you can email us to info@theadleaf.com. Let’s make great things happen together.

Content Marketing

Making Creative Content with Results

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Content Writing, Email Marketing, Graphic Design, Marketing, Social Media

Content marketing is a tried and true method of grabbing your audience’s attention. However, this has its downfalls because you have to compete against your peers. You want your content and blogging to stand out. This is why giving your content a creative spin is so important. There are a number of ways you can help your content give an extra twist.

Decide What You Want To Market

Before you get into the nitty-gritty of making your content, you first need to decide what exactly you want to market. Perhaps you have a new service you want to announce to your customers, or maybe you just want to amplify a service most of your customers did not know you offered. Whatever it is that you want to market, make sure that your marketing focuses on this product or service. You want to make sure that its usefulness and benefits are still the main focus.

Define Your Audience

You want to make sure that both the concept you are marketing and the marketing you plan to execute revolves around your target audience. Who do you believe will benefit the most from this product or service? 

For example, if you are a roofing company that wants to market your shingle repair services, you want to market yourself towards homeowners. If you want to go further, you may want to research online search trends to see further demographics who might be interested in your services, such as gender and age.

Types of Creative Content

Now that you have decided what to market and who to market to, here is the fun part: deciding how to creatively market your product or service. There are some different methods and mediums you and your business can utilize. Here are just a few:

We will be walking through the benefits of using these types of creative content for your marketing, as well as why you should choose The AD Leaf ® for whatever creative content production you decide upon. 

Videos For Content Marketing

Videos are great for easygoing and quick bites of information. Your customers can use these videos to gain a basic knowledge of your service or product. Furthermore, videos can be easily accessible to your consumers, as they are easy to share onto multiple platforms. The AD Leaf ® can help you create the perfect marketing videos using the best equipment and software on the market.

Blogs For Content Marketing

Blogs are perfect for customers who want a more in-depth and intimate explanation of your services and products. They are also a great way for your audience to get to know your business on a personal level through blog posts on your employees and your company’s culture. The AD Leaf ®’s team of content marketers will be able to guide you through the blog-writing process in an easy and efficient way.

Electronic Media For Content Marketing

Electronic media marketing can apply to anything from television advertisements to email marketing. This can result in new customers finding out about your services or products and older customers coming back to you for repeat results. Whatever your electronic media marketing needs are, The AD Leaf ®’s team of experts will help you decide what is the best course of action for your company.

Print Media For Content Marketing

Even in an environment populated by digital media, print media marketing is far from dead. Print advertisements are more flexible to promote, as you are able to choose where you want to publish your advertisements. The AD Leaf ® will help you determine the right course of action for your print media to make sure you are reached to as many potential customers as possible. 

Infographics For Content Marketing

For people who want the basics of your business and products, infographics are a great way to share your information. The effectiveness of infographics has been scientifically tested, with researchers at Thermopylae Sciences and Technology discovering that people “[process] images 60,000 times faster than text”. With this in mind, let The AD Leaf ® help you condense your important information into an easy-to-digest infographic with our graphic design

Social Media For Content Marketing

Finally, social media is perhaps the biggest source of creative content marketing on the market at the moment. It is so effective because you can create your own campaigns centered around your service or product while also promoting your other campaigns; for example, linking your blog post on a social media site can increase traffic towards that blog post. The AD Leaf ® can help you create the perfect social media strategy for you and your business.

Contact Us

Here at The AD Leaf ®, we are committed to providing you with the best and highest quality services possible for your business. We specialize in various different types of marketing, from video production to social media. Call us at 321-255-0900 or visit our website to schedule an appointment today.

You Want Me to Design What?

You Want Me to Design What?

Posted on | by Daniel Combs
Graphic Design, Marketing

What separates good graphic design from great graphic design? You will get many different answers to this question, but is there a single definitive response? Yes, there is: Having an eye for what works and what doesn’t. This is what takes graphic design from good to great. It’s looking at a project from many different angles and weighing it against the industry you’re designing for to produce a piece that pulls someone in and causes them to want to take action on it.

Think of it this way, graphic design skills are the tools, but the eye is the “hand” that wields the tools. Below are 8 design principles that make up having a great “eye” and can mean the difference between someone just looking at your design or a great project that draws people into your message and causes them to act on it.

“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for” – Milton Glaser

Elements of a Great Eye

Alignment

Every element of your project should flow together seamlessly: text, shapes, imagery. Each part should align to each other and not look like it was just “thrown” together. There is a place for everything. Alignment is critical to give the reader/viewer a “path” to follow in the design.

Visual Hierarchy

The primary focal point is the message you’re relaying to the reader/viewer, so you want to make your message stand out. What you want people to see first needs to have the most attention in your design. Big, bold, fonts; colors based on the industry, etc. This will go a long way to getting the reader’s attention.

Contrast

This plays well together with visual hierarchy and can help your message stand out even more. Contrast simply means opposites and doesn’t just apply to colors only, it is the opposing of thick vs thin, modern vs traditional, and many other things. It will assist in navigating the viewer to where you want them to go.

Repetition

Repetition is the overall layout of your design. It helps your project remain organized & consistent. This entails colors, font choices, layout (for certain projects), etc. At most, you should only have:

  • 2 to 3 colors in most instances (use a good color pairing tool).
  • 1 to 2 font styles, or “font family” (one family if the font has many different thicknesses, like Montserrat or Bahnschrift).
  • Consistent layout design, especially if only a certain part of the design changes like a different image or dates.

You don’t want to have all of your elements competing against each other from project to project (outside of normal planned visual hierarchy & contrast implementations).

Proximity

This is all about organization and placement and goes hand in hand with alignment and repetition. Where does everything go? How does the text go with the images? Where do I need to place the text? Grouping elements together by color, size, shape, etc., will help to keep the overall design clean and uncluttered.

Balance

Keeping your design balanced is vital. When the overall design looks messy and sloppy, it can push readers/viewers away and you’ve lost their interest. A great design is well balanced and not overpowering in visual appeal and impact. Are you portraying a message of action? Do you want people to be informed? How about bringing people joy? Keep people’s attention with a balanced design and they’ll be enticed to want to see and know more about your message.

Color

Ok, we’ve mentioned color a few times so far. There is a lot to color that most people don’t know, yet alone understand. Colorology (yes, that is a term, you can Google it) is a vast area when it comes to great graphic design. Colors can cause people to respond in certain ways. A staggering 85% of buying decisions are made just on color alone. Logos are the “frontline” of marketing. How many times have we stopped at a McDonald’s just seeing the “golden arches”? Was it a planned trip? No, we just saw the bright logo and stopped in and grabbed something to eat. Color goes a long way in portraying your message.

Oh, and by the way, Yellow is optimistic & youthful, it grabs the attention of window shoppers. Think about that the next time you stop and grab a Big Mac or walk into a store because you saw the Yellow ##% off sale sign in the window.

Spacing

Adding space to your design can help drive the focus to the area that contains your message. Most often this is called “negative space”, areas of the design that doesn’t contain any design elements. It can often be a solid color, or even blurred out parts of an image (such as part of the background image). Using this effectively when needed will make your design stand out and allow for a huge impact.

The Final Draft

In great graphic design, some or all of the above elements are used to convey a message to your readers/viewers. The most important first step is to look at graphic design as a consumer and not as a designer. Start with asking questions to yourself. What makes me interact and engage with a graphic? How do I respond to the overall design of a graphic that I’ve seen? What is it that pulls me in and keeps my attention?

Having the skills along with the eyes for graphic design in one package are hard to come by and here at The AD Leaf ®, our designers have both. They are ready & desire to take your projects to great new heights. Give us a call at 321-255-0900 and let us help you make your graphics pop! (Ok, I had to use it at least once, lol)

Digital Marketing Strategy

Why Businesses Need Digital Marketing To Survive COVID-19

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Content Writing, Email Marketing, Graphic Design, Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Website Design

Why Businesses Need A Digital Marketing Strategy To Survive COVID-19

In the coming months, businesses of all sizes are going to become extra reliant than ever on their digital marketing strategy. Without wanting to sound too much like a killjoy, in many cases, it will be the deciding factor in whether they make it through the tough times that are ahead. 

The unparalleled, and almost-total disappearance of all channels related to live events and conferences, and the increasing barriers on face-to-face business, pose an enormous challenge to any business model. 

B2B companies, in particular, rely on the annual circuit of trade shows and exhibitions to network and build customer relations. In industries that are not digital-native, they may also be less sophisticated in their digital growth and customer relations strategies. Especially in the case of smaller businesses that are used to getting new customers strictly word-of-mouth referrals or on the strength of a hard-won reputation, their loss is going to come as a shock if it hasn’t already.

Larger companies are now finding themselves in the position of having potentially lost millions of dollars from canceled events alone. They won’t claw back the hours of time and expense spent on preparations for this year, but insurance and flexible cancellation policies are going to leave them with some marketing budget to reassign. Digital Marketing in any aspect is likely going to be the clear and obvious choice here, and companies that may not so much as had a Facebook page before will need to move into social media marketing, content marketing, SEO, and even influencer-led campaigns. 

This, of course, means there are opportunities out there for the taking and a key factor in resilience is adaptability. If it’s standard in your industry to go out and meet new customers face-to-face before you do business, adapting may mean opening new channels over web or social media platforms where introductions can be made and relationship fostered. In the coming months, you prospective clients are going to be less open to the idea of letting you walk through the door and shake their hand, and no-one really has any idea how long this will last and whether this will lead to longer-term change. 

We are going to be in some uncertain times, but with the increase of remote working and a collaborative approach, companies are going to turn to digital channels and embrace the transformation. There has already been a real spike in the last few weeks from companies wishing to create or update their websites, launch new social media channels and campaigns focused on home-workers and a real focus on using influencers and SEO to reach new audiences. 

Being confined to the office — or even the home — rather than on the road on sales visits or at events, means marketers are going to have more time to develop digital marketing strategies. This means researching where your customers can be found online, and how different approaches and tactics might impact your success. If your organization previously put minimal efforts into digital channels, now is going to be a prime time to revisit them. That could be as simple as giving your website or social media pages a refresh, or a more innovative approach. 

A key point to note is that a lot of corporate entities use up about 50-60% of their marketing budgets on events. When things go back to normal, budgets will most likely be going back to those live face-to-face events, but if organizations can see the benefits and opportunities that digital marketing can offer, they might understand the benefit of adding it to their long-term marketing strategy. 

Channels such as Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn Live are going to be crucial moving forward as the ability to connect with a targeted audience real-time is very beneficial, if not essential. 

It’s certainly true that the coming weeks, or months – or however long this situation lasts – will be a challenging time for any company that isn’t ready to think about how they will replace the opportunities that have been lost. 

As long as businesses can approach the shift to digital marketing strategically, there’s no reason why it should just serve as an emergency fill-in but could carry on providing long-term value when the world eventually gets back to normal. And of course, this would make companies more resilient to deal with any future pandemics. Do you need help with your Digital Marketing Strategy? Looking to take your social media or SEO to the next step? Contact the team at The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm and learn how you can grow with us today and weather the storm that is COVID-19!

Marketing Agency

5 Reasons To Hire A Marketing Agency VS An In-House Team

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Content Writing, Email Marketing, Graphic Design, IT Services, Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Website Design

Should you hire a Marketing Agency or build an in-house team?

In today’s digital landscape, there is no shortage of marketing options for businesses. From freelancers and marketing agencies to hiring your own in-house team, companies have more choices than ever before, specifically when it comes to online marketing. As your business grows, you will need to consider how your marketing will be handled, including whether to hire new employees and build an internal marketing team or empower your brand through a Marketing Agency.

While each has its own advantages, a full-service Marketing Agency provides substantial value to large, medium, and even small businesses. They strive to build cohesive and effective brands, put organizations in front of their customers and audience, and drive sales through awareness.

5 Reasons to Hire A Marketing Agency

1. Unparalleled Experience

Why piece together individual talents when you can hire an experienced Marketing Agency to handle everything for you? One of the major advantages of hiring a Marketing Agency is a professional experience. In fact, a good agency will have specific knowledge in a wide range of industries and markets, along with experience facing a diverse range of scenarios and challenges never encountered by many newer business owners. Having a knowledgeable and experienced staff at your side can produce immediate results for owners, helping to quickly get your marketing efforts off the ground.

2. Broader Skillsets

It can be difficult to locate suitable in-house employees with branding and marketing skills such as SEO and graphic design. By hiring a Marketing Agency, you’ll not only have the necessary tools to achieve your vision for success but a suite of creative services at your fingertips.

For example, a full-service Marketing Agency can assist clients in everything from rebranding their company image and website, developing their print and direct mail campaigns, and creating a social strategy to boost SEO and PPC campaigns. With a Marketing Agency, a client may choose to utilize one service or all them–whereas, with an in-house team, businesses are limited in what they can achieve.

3. Fresh Perspective & Inspiration

Another major advantage of hiring a Marketing Agency is a new perspective. A marketing team can help inject new life into marketing efforts, helping to identify unseen opportunities and enhance current campaigns. One example is social media marketing. With more companies looking to broaden their social reach through sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, a Marketing Agency can significantly enhance a brand’s approach to social media, including how they’re perceived by their audience.

4. Speed, Efficiency, and Consistency

As an up-and-coming business owner, you’ll be forced to wear several hats when getting your business off the ground. Generally speaking, this will almost include tackling aspects of the business you’re unfamiliar with, such as branding and digital marketing. With only so much time in the day, it’s important your marketing approach doesn’t suffer from time restraints or inexperience. Hiring a Marketing Agency can easily solve this dilemma.

5. More Affordable Than Hiring In-House

The cost of hiring and maintaining a team of in-house marketers can be very expensive. For smaller businesses, this expense may be too much to afford.
One of the more surprising benefits of hiring a Marketing Agency is cost-effectiveness. Along with providing a plethora of knowledge, experience, and skillset, a Marketing Agency is almost always more affordable compared to hiring a full-time marketing team. For example, after hiring a marketing manager, web designer, graphic designer, content writer, and social media manager, the total cost can reach upwards of multiple six figures a year! And that’s not even including the cost of employee benefits.

Marketing is the heart and soul of any business. At The AD Leaf ®, we’ve spent the last 25 years working with a diverse range of clients — from healthcare and technology to governmental, law enforcement and consumer goods — to perfect our approach to marketing, advertising, and branding. From strategic creative direction to engaging digital marketing, our extensive marketing team is here to handle every aspect of your business.

Want to enhance your content marketing? Looking to take your social media to the next step? Contact the team at The AD Leaf ® Marketing Firm and learn how you can grow with us today!

Graphic Design: The Wordmark

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Graphic Design, Marketing

Within the wordmark there can be a multitude of variations and styles. Fonts variations play a huge part in the ability to individualize logos with a similar font type. Typography is king when it comes to the base of what a Wordmark logo is comprised of. Knowing how and when you use it is crucial. The type of font selected says a lot about a brand presentation. Serif fonts carry a certain feel while san serif fonts tend to present a different look even with the same wording. The same can be said when script fonts are used. There could be a clean-lined handwritten font that will give an elegant look while rough lines will present a grunge like feel.

Color, kerning, case choice, letter spacing, weight and typeface are just a few of the parameters that can be adjusted to change the presentation. Sometimes simplicity is best and less is truly more so in these instance you will see a stylized font set as a logo representation.

There are many instances where the font type is not by selection of an actual font but a custom scripted or designed font or word type. These brands have had Wordmarks custom illustrated for the brand. This helps tremendously in in building brand recognition since the Wordmark “style” is unique to the brand.

Variations of font types can be stylized in many ways. Designers can use simple type and use many different design techniques that play into the presentation of a brand. Great examples will use negative space to make up some of the lettering or maybe incorporate subtle subliminal messages.

A great example of this messaging incorporated into the logo is Amazon. In the case of this corporate giant, the message was to have everything in stock from A to Z. You can cleary see this message on the face of this logo.

 

Another Great example is Fed Ex. Within the negative space of the FedEx logo you can clearly see an arrow between the capital E and the x, emphasizing delivery.

There are tons of examples out there of companies practicing this design strategy. This can be a very powerful delivery of a message of a brand when executed properly.

With Graphic Design in Melbourne FL and by following this information, you can also be on the right track to attracting your customers and becoming memorable. At The AD Leaf ®, we can create any design that any company would be proud of. For more information about our graphic design in Melbourne FL solutions, contact us today at info@theadleaf.com or give us a call at 321-255-0900.

Social Media Marketing

How to Make Your Photos Pop for Social Media Marketing

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Content Writing, Graphic Design, Marketing, Social Media

1.8 billion photos are uploaded to the internet every single day!  In January 2019, according to Hootsuite, a social media marketing software company, there were 3.484 billion active social media users and they spent an average of three hours and seven minutes per day on social media!  That means the average social media user is bombarded countless photos and graphics each day! How are you going to make your photos stand out from the crowd and get engagement on your social media marketing platforms?

Here are five things that can help your photos garner attention:

 

FRAMING AND COMPOSITION

Social Media MarketingThe “rule of thirds” is a rule of thumb in the composition of visual images such as photography, graphic designs and painting.  It can be applied to any subject to improve the composition and balance of your images to make your design more engaging. The rule of thirds involves mentally dividing up your image using 2 horizontal lines and 2 vertical lines. You then position the important elements in your scene along those lines, or at the points where they intersect.  You want to use the rule of thirds, both horizontally and vertically by placing  your subject in the right or left third of the photo–this stimulates the viewer to spend more time looking at your photo.  The idea is that an off-center composition is more pleasing to the eye and looks more natural than one where the subject is placed right in the middle of the frame. It also encourages you to make creative use of negative space, the empty areas around your subject.

If your photo is of a landscape, avoid putting the horizon line in the middle of the photo because this tends to make the photo feel like it’s split in two.  Instead, place the horizon line along one of the horizontal lines of thirds. Make sure any focal point of the picture is placed at one of the points where the horizontal and vertical lines meet to serve as an “anchor” for the image.

If your picture is of a person, remember that the eyes are where we are naturally drawn to, so put the eyes level with one of the horizontal lines of thirds or at one of the points where the horizontal and vertical lines intersect to make a much more interesting photo and not a “mug shot” (where the subject is centered in the middle of the frame).

 

EFFECTIVE EDITING

There are a lot of filters available to use with the popularity of Photoshop and other photo editing tools.  Overall, photos with filters are 21% more likely to be looked at than non-filtered photos and 45% more likely to elicit comments.  But please don’t over use filters–remember, less is more! The filters most likely to boost images’ popularity are those that impose warm color temperature, boost contrast, and increase exposure.

Adding text, frames and emojis to your photographs increases engagement.  But again, use everything sparingly. A busy photo with too much going on will likely be scrolled past.  We highly recommend the Phonto photo editing app. It is a free mobile application that is user-friendly and easy to maneuver through.  It has more than four hundred fonts with changeable size, color, gradient and stroke color. You can also download your own fonts into the application.  You can crop the image, apply filters, add items and Phonto provides additional styling and tools to edit. Phonto can access your camera, camera roll or you can create a blank image and start adding different elements.

Facebook and Instagram have some great edits with filters, tags, cropping, text, stickers, doodles and emojis.  Both these social media marketing platforms give you lots of options to make your photo unique.

 

PUT A STORY BEHIND THE IMAGE

Draw the viewer in and keep them on your post longer by making your caption personal and appealing. Take your readers on a journey and tell them a story. Show them that you’ll help them overcome a challenge using your product.  Leveraging this type of storytelling is an effective copywriting tip that will help people relate to your product and better understand its value.

When you have a business, you need to reach out to as large an audience as possible. In order to do this, your content must connect with the masses. They need to feel that your brand is talking to them when they read it.

You don’t necessarily need to be cute, clever, or even a literary genius while writing content. You should write it in simple language. Try not to use complicated words that can make it difficult for a layman.

A majority of copywriting tips emphasize two things – improving readability and making it easier to understand.

Remember that each social media platform has limits on how much text you can use.  Keep these limits in mind when writing your captions and know that captions may have to be edited when you move between social platforms

 

CAMERA PHONE BASICS

Mobile phone photography can seem daunting, but following these simple tricks will elevate your photos:

  • Clean the lens before taking a picture.  Our phones are handled by us all day, thrown in  our purses or backpacks and set down on many surfaces.  As a result, they are covered in fingerprints, dirt, and dust.  Take the time to clean the lens with a soft, clean dry cloth.
  • Turn off HDR (High Dynamic Range) option on your phone–this tends to make photos look overdone and less appealing.
  • Don’t rely on Autofocus. Phones use passive auto-focus with contrast measurement. This means that the camera needs contrast to focus and have problems focusing on a blank wall or in low light conditions. It’s better to turn off Autofocus and take the extra time to make sure your shot is not blurry by keeping your phone steady.  The best thing is to use a tripod made for your phone.  If you don’t have a tripod, here are a few tricks for keeping your phone steady:  rest your phone on a solid surface, such as a wall or rock. Hold your phone with both hands, making sure you have a good tight grip.  Lean against a wall or tree to steady your body. Position your elbows against your body to keep your arms steady. Crouch down, and rest your phone on your knee.  
  • Avoid using the flash–oversaturation is a big problem with most photos.  Instead set the brightness on your camera before you take the picture.
  • If you are taking a photo of a person, shoot in portrait mode to create gorgeous blurred backgrounds and make the portrait appear sharp.
  • Experiment with different perspectives to get more interesting shots.  Most photos are taken from chest height while standing. Get down on your knees, hold the camera above your head or lay down and shoot straight up.  Or shoot through a “frame” such as a doorway, arch or window.  
  • Simplify your compositions for the most striking shots.The best photos are often the most simple ones. If the photo is busy, the user won’t know where to focus his attention. So, always aim to simplify by including only one subject in the photo and ensuring the background is not too busy or distracting.

By following these guidelines, you will insure that your social media images will get the attention and engagement we all want–happy posting! 

We have a staff of trained social media marketing professionals to help you improve your social media posts! Even better, we’ll help your business get the exposure it needs on all social media platforms. Give us a call at 321-255-0900 to schedule an appointment with us. 

Differences In Brand Identity

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Graphic Design, Marketing

In the world of graphic design in Melbourne FL, brand Identity the first identifying factor of any company is the logo. Logo design and design services tend to exercise different development strategies, but the result is always going to be one of 3 styles of brand.

  • An Icon or emblem
  • Wordmark
  • Combination of both

Logo

A logo may consist of just an Emblem / Icon, A wordmark or both. Your logo should encompass every essence of your business. It should evoke a certain “feeling” to an individual at a glance when done correctly. The logo is the face of an organization and it must almost have an unspoken voice and a lot to say with just visual presentation.

Graphic Design in Melbourne FL

Wordmark

A Wordmark is an element of a logo or may be a logo itself. The makeup of a work mark is just that, words. Stylized, but just words. You see wordmarks everywhere and some of the biggest corporations such as Canon and Google use just that, Stylized lettering. However, lacking in aesthetic feel brands such as these they maintain visual identity based on the company size.

Stylizing fonts may include using variations such as bold or script fonts. Some may even be handwritten not using a font set but a custom font such as Sharpie or Disney.

This would still be a Stylized Font to makeup a wordmark.

Graphic Design in Melbourne FLThe Emblem / Icon

An emblem can be an element of a developed logo that signifies an important element and summarizes the essence of the brand. This simple element can quickly be used to designate the presence of the brand without having to display the entire brand or logo.

When you see the Golden Arches you immediately think McDonald’s even if the words are not visibly displayed, the brand itself is recognized by the emblem. In the same fashion when you see the swoosh you jump to Nike, again without having to display the entire logo.

This is not the case with all brand expression. It takes a great feat for a company to reach a level of recognition in which they could drop the wordmark and be recognized.

However, there are marketing strategies that brand just the icon in a mystique an approach in stirring up curiosity. In those cases, the icon is used to promote the campaign and drive the company idea.

Graphic Design in Melbourne FL

 

With Graphic Design in Melbourne FL and by following this information, you can also be on the right track to attracting your customers and becoming memorable. At The AD Leaf ®, we can create any design that any company would be proud of. For more information about our graphic design in Melbourne FL solutions, contact us today at info@theadleaf.com or give us a call at 321-255-0900.

Vector VS Raster

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Graphic Design, Marketing

Graphic Design in Melbourne FL

In the world of design, just like any craft, Knowing what you’re working with will help you determine the best path to take when tackling a project. It may also save time and money when making the decision to use the right tool for the right job or in the case of this article, the right format for the right job.

Vector Art

Vector art, which are made of lines and curves known as paths, are composed of data and mathematical theory. Vector art is generally created with a software program. Within this program, start point curves and nodes are created using a variety of tools within the program to assign not only shape by anchor point and lines but you can also assign color to the stroke or fill. Any of the lines and curves in the image can be assigned a color value. Because the artwork is all data, it can be scaled infinitely without losing assigned detail or begin to look pixelated.

You can easily spot a vector art file as the edges are consistently crisp. No matter how large you make it or how close you zoom in, the edges will always appear sharp and smooth.

Another advantage of vector art is file size. Vector art contains no pixel data and does not have to hold the information of the entire workspace. It is due to this that vector art is generally smaller than raster art. Because it is line art the only information that the files hold are “coordinates” of where lines start and stop and what color attributes are contained on the stroke or the fill.

The flexibility of being able to be transposed into other formats is one of the reasons that designers prefer vector art when designing logos and other supporting elements. This will allow ease when transposing and scaling the graphic elements from vector source to final design piece.

Commonly used vector file types include but are not limited to: AI – Adobe Illustrator, EPS – Encapsulated post script and SVG -Scalable Vector Graphic.

There are a number of computer programs that can create and manipulate these files for use, and some have a custom extension for the file relative to the program. i.e. Corel Draw will create a .CDR file and although it is a vector file it is possible that you may need to export it to a different format in order to open or import into a different program. It is critical that you save as or export to a compatible file type when importing it into a different program.

Raster art

Raster images are often recognized as a bitmap image. This file type contains data that is composed on a grid. Within the grid there are squares that are filled with a specified color. The higher the resolution the more “squares” within a grid that are assigned color, hence more detail. This factor is commonly known as DPI (dots per inch) and/or PPI (pixels per inch).

Higher resolution means more detail and more data that has to be stored in order to render the image.

Photography is a good example of when raster art is exclusively used.

When you take a picture with a digital camera, what is rendered is a copy of the image data that is seen through the lens. The file that is created is pixel data on a grid that contains millions of squares assigned a color formula and collectively make up the image.

Conclusion

Starting with the correct file type will prevent you having to possibly rework the file at a later time. Evaluate the project in its full scope to gain an understating on the best way to compose your file.

Logos and illustrations are highly repurposed in a graphic campaign, therefore a vector format is the recommended file type. Photography, highly detailed images and background images are commonly raster format due to the ability maintain color data.

With Graphic Design in Melbourne FL and by following this information, you can also be on the right track to attracting your customers and becoming memorable. At The AD Leaf ®, we can create any design that any company would be proud of. For more information about our graphic design in Melbourne FL solutions, contact us today at info@theadleaf.com or give us a call at 321-255-0900.

Graphic Design: Hand lettering

Posted on | by The AD Leaf Corporate
Graphic Design, Marketing

Graphic Design in Melbourne FL

When most people think of graphic design in Melbourne FL, they think about keeping up on current trends, thousands of dollars in high-end graphics cards for super monster computers, not to mention the years and years of schooling it normally takes just to learn to be proficient in the graphic programs to hopefully, possibly, one day make a decent living doing what they love.

Just like with almost anything in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, if it seems too complicated, there just might be a better way… Well, there is.

Remember when we were little kids, we would spend aimlessly for hours with construction paper and big fat markers just making random circles, shapes, and maybe even signing your name repeatedly because you have no idea, you might be a famous artist one day and you will have to sign a lot of autographs.

Well, that child sitting on their bed with those dollar store markers and construction paper at this stage is closer to a lucrative career as a graphic designer than the few who believe that just by having the new Wacom – Cintiq Pro 24 Creative Pen and Touch Display, for the low price of 2850.00 will get their graphics game to the next level. It’s the artist not the paintbrush, or in this case the marker. So we are going to dive a little bit onto hand lettering and other lower-tech disciplines.

Calligraphy, hand lettering, and typography are the terms designers use to differentiate styles of the same thing, attractive lettering.

Calligraphy is a discipline like none other, hours and hours of writing letters in a specific way that demands close and unbroken attention to eventually build up a muscle memory that will allow you to convey themes and emotions through the simply the alphabet. This skill is rare and therefore always in very high demand.

Hand lettering, as with all art requires discipline, however, it’s an adjacent kind of discipline to calligraphy. Calligraphy demands strict light upstrokes and dramatic thick down strokes were in hand lettering it is more like whimsically drawing the letters as opposed to formally writing them. In the last two to three years hand lettering has virtually exploded on the scene from quotes, t-shirts, coffee mugs, and just anything else you can simply write and want to convey a sense of fun and whimsy while still being legible and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Most companies that have hired hand lettering artists pay very well for the skill that the artist has spent years cultivating.

Typography is an art solely on how you spread, change, resize, adjust the spaces between the letters, or the weight of the letters in a fun, dynamic, and interesting way to have the meaning of the words to come across with simply a typeface or font. This skill is critical for logos, once the logo is established, then the trademark can be created and you are then well on your way to a full brand. This is used heavily in advertising when attempting to convey a meaning. You will see this used well with motivational quotes on social media pages such as Pinterest or Instagram.

Type designers create the fonts in a way that when used together, in most cases, are seamlessly legible or bold. The best example of this is every word currently on your screen at this very moment. Every letter on this screen was meticulously constructed for the use of reading large amounts of these letters in a page and not be distracting or hard to read. It is not uncommon for the wrong font to be used on a paper and that paper can give the reader a headache or even feel ill. On a similar note, when using a bold font that is distractingly ornate people lose interest in the paper simply because the psychology of the font clashed with their interest of the subject matter.

No matter what font you read through, it was designed painfully and thoughtfully by a type designer to convey an emotion or to not distract from the meaning of the words used. The best type designers can help convey meaning with the look and style. Type designers make the fonts, graphic designers utilize topography and know how to use the font.

If you go this route as a designer and learn the programs needed to create the fonts the fonts can be placed on anyone, or all of the thousands of sites that sell fonts and this asset it only for the right to use it, you can sell the same font over and over again creating an amazingly fun passive income to fuel your future endeavors. Now that is fantastic for that kid sitting on their bed with some big markers and big dreams.

 

With Graphic Design in Melbourne FL and by following this information, you can also be on the right track to attracting your customers and becoming memorable. At The AD Leaf ®, we can create any design that any company would be proud of. For more information about our graphic design in Melbourne FL solutions, contact us today at info@theadleaf.com or give us a call at 321-255-0900.