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All About YOU
At least once a year, the creativepro.com staff takes stock of where the site's been and where it's going.
A very important part of that process involves hearing from you and everyone else reading this newsletter
right now.
See, you are the reason we exist. Yes, we also exist to display ads from companies that pay us. But I really
don't give a hoot about who's paying us for what. I'm only happy when you're happy — when articles on
creativepro.com answer your questions, inspire your creativity, make you laugh, make you think.
That's why I'm asking you to fill out the first of two surveys today. It's short — just 20 multiple-choice
questions — but it will give us information that will help shape the site for the next year. You'll find
that survey at http://www.creativepro.com/site/survey.
When the second survey's ready, I'll post the link in a future newsletter.
Even if you'd rather chew on the ancient floppy disk in your bottom desk drawer than answer a survey, I
want to thank you for reading. And thanks for the many emails and VoxBox responses you write all the time.
They mean a lot to us!
— Terri Stone, editor in chief
Snap-Together Layouts
Modular design makes it easy to get good results quickly. But if you place modules in the wrong sequence,
the design loses its meaning. John McWade of Before and After magazine explains how to keep your
information hierarchy clear. Read this one now! It will be on our site for 30 days only.
"No matter how distracting the material below it is, a reader will always recognize a top headline as most
important and will always know where to find it. That's part expectation and part physical, like a flag
waving atop a pole."
http://www.creativepro.com/story/howto/24875.html
Check out our archive of "Before & After" articles:
http://www.creativepro.com/author/home/1965.html
Design Smart and Avoid Mailing Surcharges
Did you know that the United States post office has 160 Mailpiece Design Analysts? It's their job to
help creative pros with issues that might increase mailing costs — and they don't charge for the advice!
They also supply free, downloadable guides with tons of mailing information. I will never complain
about the postal service again.
"It might look hip and stylish to use black envelopes, fluorescent inks, or ornate type when you design the
envelopes for bulk-mailing projects, but your client will pay the price in more ways than one."
http://www.creativepro.com/story/howto/24898.html
Read this for more direct-mail tips:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/howto/24543.html
Make Your HTML Forms Get Up and Go
One of the most confusing aspects of working with HTML forms is that they don't function
until you connect them to a script on a server. With the right programming, HTML forms
can serve as search engines, shopping carts, guest books, and more. Janine Warner tells
you how to find free, already written scripts and connect them in Dreamweaver to HTML forms.
"To keep this lesson simple, I'll use as an example one of the most common scripts
available: formmail.pl. This clever little script is designed to collect data entered into
an HTML form and send it to a specified email address."
http://www.creativepro.com/story/howto/24874.html
It's all things Dreamweaver here:
http://www.creativepro.com/software/home/1869.html
You Got Your Illustration in My Photo!
You Got Your Photo in My Illustration!
It's hot to mix illustrations and photos. Matt Kloskowski's Illustrator step-by-step and
a free, downloadable sample image will get you there.
"Now we're ready for the lips. Trace the overall outline of the lips and then add details
on top (Figure 9). Here, we traced the lips with the Pen tool and filled the path with
R: 192, G: 82, B: 82. Then, we created another path to separate the top and bottom lip.
Set the Fill color of that path to R: 99, G: 10, B: 15. Be sure to set the Stroke to none
for both paths."
http://www.creativepro.com/story/howto/24237.html
There are many more Illustrator how-to's on Creativepro
http://www.creativepro.com/software/howto/32.html
Dr. Phil for Photoshop
All relationships are complex, but there's nothing more confusing than the complicated relationship
between megapixels, file size, image size, and print size. Julieanne Kost and Daniel Brown explain
the difference and advise you on the best sizes for scanning, printing (for both a desktop printer
and a press), slideshows, and Web sites.
"The majority of people are happy printing
their images to ink jet printers at between 240 and 360 ppi. Remember, there is a trade-off when
increasing your ppi count. For example, I typically print my images at 24 x 24 inches, 300 ppi in
8-bit RGB. If the file is flat, it's just under 150 mb. Although I would like to increase the
resolution to 360 ppi for maximum quality, that would give me a file size of just under 215 mb.
Although that may not sound too large for some of you, realize that my work typically includes 15-20
layers, which would get me in the 1.5-2 gig file size for layered files."
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/24248.html
Browse this collection of Photoshop quick tips:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/howto/24748.html
Rearview Mirror: 20-20 Hindsight
Quark listens and alters licensing for previous versions of QXP
http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/24886.html
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OnOne Software announces a new version of Mask Pro
http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/24879.html
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New version ACDSee Pro Photo Manager adds more Raw formats
http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/24877.html
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Put your logo on a M&M
http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/24894.html
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Markzware releases plug-in Q2ID version 2 QuarkXPress 7 to InDesign
http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/24891.html
Wacky Web Site of the Week
Two Sentences: Give this writing exercise a try
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/23661.html
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