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Color selection is a very important element in your branding. The colours you use can have an effect on your clients before you even get a foot in the door. For this reason it is important for you to consider your target audience, the psychology of color, and the corporate image you wish to project BEFORE designing your logo and branding.

When color is used correctly, it can add impact and clarity to your message and highlight important points. When color is used incorrectly, it can compromise your message and confuse your target audience.

Color can work for your web site and printed materials in various ways:

Color emphasizes, highlights, and leads the eye to important points or links.

Color identifies recurring themes (i.e. titles and subtitles are usually the same colors).

Conversely, color can differentiate, such as different colors in pie charts and bar graphs.

Color symbolizes and triggers emotions and associations.

The interpretation of a color depends on culture, profession, and personal preference. In general, the colors red, orange, and yellow are "exciting" colors and the colors purple, blue, and green are "calming" colors.

When discussing paper sizes, sometimes it can get confusing unless you are familiar with the standard paper sizes. When you are thinking of marketing ideas that not using standard paper sizes you also need to consider this will mean stock wastage and is not cost effective. Paper is produced to a standard A1 size around the world. An A4 size paper (your standard photocopy paper) goes eight times into an A1.

You can also purchase other standard paper including A6, A5, A3 and C5, C6 (mainly used for envelopes) and DL. Choosing a paper size closest, or the same as, your finished product reduces wastage and eliminates guillotining and die cutting, making it more cost effective. When selecting a customised shape, be mindful that if a die (the shape of the knife that cuts the paper) is not a common one or one the printer already has, you will be required to pay for this to be set up also.

Once you have decided on your paper size you will need to consider GSM. GSM stands doe metric grams/per square metre but basically means paper thickness. Paper comes in numerous thicknesses from approximately 80gsm to 420gsm.

As a guide a copy paper will normally by 80-90gsm, an A4 fold to DL brochure 150gsm, a business card or postcard 300-420gsm.

All paper can come with a gloss or matt finish. Different finishes give a different look to the end product. A gloss finish will feel slightly thinner than a matt finish as it is like a polishing technique that will remove the surface slightly. Gloss finish also gives colours more intensity and has a sharper dot gain.

You also will hear the word cello/e-glaze/laminate all thrown around when you order printed material. What does this all mean? Basically, they are all a laminate. They will protect your product, increase the longevity and give your product a professional finish. As these are applied after the print, they also can add the feeling of a bit more weight to your product. These are highly recommended and usually standard for items like business cards that need to stand the test of time with wear and tear.

If you need any information on any items relating to how to get the most out of paper stock, paper weight and paper finishes, contact us at Sass Design. We are experienced in all aspects of paper and printed products and can help you achieve professional-looking products.

Looking for that perfect image that represents you and your company? Not every business can afford (or has the time) to plan and execute a successful photo shoot. The cost of a photographer, model(s), studio time - not to mention the turnaround involved - is simply not practical for a lot of small businesses.

There is however, an alternative...

Graphic designers, as we do here at Sass Design, use Royalty Free images everyday in design. We have access and are members of numerous online stock libraries and can usually choose the best image to use in your design.

Online Royalty Free Stock Photo Libraries can take the stress out of sourcing that perfect image for your next flyer or brochure. Online stock libraries allow users to browse through thousands of images and illustrations from a variety of photographers and artists. 'Royalty free' basically means you pay a one off fee for the image. This fee is usually based on how big you are going to print the image, the number of times it will be reproduced on a flyer or marketing item and for what purpose it will be used. Fees can range from about $10 and image up to hundreds of dollars.

When using Royalty Free images cost is not the only thing you should consider… Think about what your using the image for. Is it landscape or portrait? Also think about who you are trying to target. For example, if you are promoting a fitness club images of healthy, young, fit people doing sport would be suitable rather than people sitting on the couch or indoors. Basically if the person looking at your promotional piece can connect with the people/scenes in the photos, then you are already a big step along the way to getting them into your place of business!

Placing text onto a background image is a great idea to liven up your pages and design. It is a simple technique but it can, as with all design techniques go wrong.

Perhaps create a semi – transparent box under text to ensure text is easy to read.
Place contrasting text onto dark (or vice versa onto light) aspects of the image behind it.

Ensure the text is bold or large enough to be legible on the background image – maybe don’t use narrow fonts unless the background you are placing them on is fairly smooth or solid in colour.

Most photos will not be 100% right for what you want but don’t trash the idea if you love the image. Think about what you are trying to achieve when picking an image but send the image to your designer and ask them if they think they can make it work, sometimes they will have programs that can alter the image to fit or ideas you may not have even thought of!

Whether scanning a document or choosing a digital camera and supplying images for use in publications, many people are confused about how many pixels they need in an image. This is just a quick little guide to image size and how to ensure your printed material is always of professional quality.

When we supply print files to printers, all files are sent at 300dpi. This is the resolution printers print at. Supplying images with less quality or small images that need to be blown up in size will result in poor quality printing.

When you put the image on your computer and re-size the image , the software adds or takes away pixels (it is called resampling) and results in a loss of quality. A good analogy I often use is to imagine lots of little dots - all so close together you cannot make out where one finishes and the next starts as they are so small and compressed together. This is what make s up and image. If you make the image larger, you are pulling those dots further apart or spreading the pixels and making the gaps in them larger. This will result in loss of quality for your image.

Images displayed on your screen will display at 72dpi. The naked eye cannot see the poor quality that will be evident once the image is printed. These images are great for the web. Smaller file size makes websites run fast and efficiently and, hence, web images are re-sized to 72dpi.

So what does this all mean?? Well, put simply, print and web image resolution is very different. Just because something looks OK on your screen does not mean it will print the same. Any downsized images taken from the web will print poorly and be very obvious once printed.

At Sass design we always check your images and advise before printing if images will not be an adequate file size. A good measure is file size - if something is not larger than 1MB it's almost always guaranteed to be a downsized image and not print qualit. If we are using it very small or resizing it to be very small, then in some instances this will be OK.

We realise that sending large images via email can take time or not send at all. Try zipping two images together or sending large files in separate emails to ensure files are received. Alternatively, a disk can be sent via post.

Where do you get your inspiration? Every field of work requires a certain amount of creativity stemming from inspiration. So what do you do when you feel you are lacking inspiration or hit a wall?

Look at magazines/ books/ paintings/ films. Take in the colour, layout, and design. Even if what you are looking at does not relate at all to what you are working on your sure to have some new ideas pop into your head. With all of these suggestions please note we don't mean to copy anyone's work ever, but in viewing others work we are be inspired to create ourselves.

Listen to Music. Great motivation for creativity! Or even to see you through that boring paperwork or housework!

WWW. Visit websites and read articles, view images and artwork and get loads of new ideas of your own.

Take a Break. While getting overseas and experiencing new cultures and customs is always inspiring for me, sitting by the beach, taking a walk, exploring city laneways and scoping new pockets of a city or places such as China Town can be a source of great inspiration.

Talk to People. Whether you find the old lady in the corner shop or Richard Branson inspires you it doesn't matter. Getting out there and talking to people can give you ideas just hearing what others have done also sparks motivation and ideas you can vary and utilise in your own work.