Online with Design

A special mother’s day card

A special mother's day card

A client came to me about a week before mother’s day with a couple of old photo albums under her arm and a look in her eye that told me I was about to get a really fun challenge. The oldest photo’s were nearly 80 years old (some very old black and whites of her mother as a baby). She’d chosen a couple of images of herself as a child that without giving her age away too much were probably over 40 years old. Obviously they were in grainy black and white, but there was also quite a bit of fading and in the one we chose, there was some staining that made it look as though the young girl had spilt her dinner!

My client had also seen the sample cards I’d created a couple of weeks previously and loved the idea of adding a couple of flowers to her original picture. So, I got to work enhancing the original image, cleaning up her white dress, removing the dark background and adding a couple of pretty pink tulips into the little girls hand. The biggest problem was the tulips. I had to alter the image ever so slightly so that the hand was at the right angle to be able to hold flowers. The result of all this hard work you can see above. I love the contrast between the bright pink tulips and the original black and white photography.

I presented the card to my client the following day, and she was really happy with the results. But the person that really counted of course was her mother. How would she react to receiving such a personal card? The verdict came in yesterday:

“She [the mother] was absolutely blown away by it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thinks you’re a total genius and will never ever ever throw it away!! In fact thinking of framing it!!!!”

It’s her mother’s 80th birthday coming soon, and I’m really looking forward to working with my client again and having a good look through those old photo albums to find just the right photo to create some unique birthday invitations, and maybe even a canvas or watercolour as a present as well.

A card like this one including image enhancement and superimposing tulips on top, costs £3.50. Contact me through my website, my blog or facebook for more information.

March 17, 2010 , 9:53 am | Products | Tags: Bespoke Cards, customised cards, Customised Stationery, Gemma Dawks, Graphic Design Services, Online with Design, photo enhancement, Printing |

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How to add a “follow me” twitter button to your website

Many people now use twitter for business as well as personal networking. But, how do you add a “follow me” button to your website? It’s very straight forward, especially as twitter has done all the code for you, you just need to know where to find it!

1. Scroll down your twitter page (can be your home page or profile page, just make sure you’re logged in), and find a row of links at the bottom. Click on “goodies”

Click on goodies at the bottom of your twitter page

2. You’ll now see a page showing you 2 options, widgets and buttons. Today we’re talking about a “follow me” button, so click on the button image

Click on the buttons section

3. You’ll now see a table with all the different styles of twitter button. Just pick your favourite and click on it!

Click on your favourite twitter button

4. A small pop-up window will appear with some code highlighted. You need to copy this code and paste it into your website code where you want it to appear. To copy you can either press the ctrl button and C at the same time (my preferred shortcut), or an easier technique is to use the right button on your mouse and choose copy. You can even use the edit option at the top of your web browser then choose copy from the drop down menu… so many choices! The code should resemble something like:

<a href=”http://www.twitter.com/yourusername”><img src=”http://twitter-badges.s3.amazonaws.com/follow_bird-b.png” alt=”Follow yourusername on Twitter”/></a>

with variations for your username and the badge code depending on the style you chose.

Copy the code in the pop up box

5. Now you just need to paste that code into your website. Make sure you select an editing option that allows you to change HTML code. If you don’t paste it into an HTML section, it will appear on your website exactly as it does in this post. One way to know if you’re putting it in the right place on the page, is to put some text in the normal editor, that is clear to find in the html editor. Such as “PUT CODE HERE!!!” then just hunt that section down in the html editor and replace it with the copied code. To paste, you can do the shortcut “CTRL button and P button” or right button on mouse and choose paste.

Hope that didn’t confuse you too much, step 5 is the only difficult part. Let me know how you all get on and if there’s any other little how-to’s you’d like

March 16, 2010 , 5:47 pm | Uncategorized, Web design, business integration, how to | Tags: business integration, how to, Online with Design, twitter button, twitter follow, twitter on website, Web design |

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How to add an external blog to your facebook fan page.

So far my blog has been completely about my printing. However, before I owned a printer, Online with Design was all about web and graphic design. One of the things that is necessary in this online world of ours is to be able to present ourselves to as many people as possible in as many different places as possible.

One which seems to be causing a lot of people problems is how to get your business blog to feed automatically into your facebook fan page. Shouldn’t be too complex you think to yourself, it’s pretty straight forward when you’re doing your personal one! Alas, facebook in all it’s glorious wisdom thought it would be far more fun, to complicate things!

1. First go to your fan page and click on “edit page” under your logo/picture on the top left.

Click on edit page

2. The page you’re now on shows all the backstage settings for your fan page/business page. If you scroll down the page, you should find a section for notes. Click on the edit button in the notes section:

Click on edit under notes

3. You will most likely see it saying “yourpagename hasn’t written any notes… yet”, or you may see a list of notes that were written directly into facebook. To the right of the page there is a double box with note settings and subscribe to notes. Click on the import notes links under note settings:

Click on import notes under note settings

4. In the next part you need to enter the web address to your blog. It doesn’t need to be the RSS feed or anything technical. Just the full address of your blog as if you were give it to a colleague to find. For example mine would be http://www.onlinewithdesign.co.uk/blog Don’t forget to tick the box that says you have the right to reproduce the content, and then click on start importing.

Enter your blog address, tick the box and click on import

5. 2 things could happen here:
a) it will show a preview of your blog posts showing it’s worked, in which case, click on the confirm import and move onto part 6.
b) it will show import failed. There are several reasons this could happen. 1, you didn’t put your address in correctly. Check your typing, try putting what you’ve typed directly into your web browser and check it takes you to your blog. If it does, then check it’s feeding correctly, by going to the facebook suggested feed validator: http://www.feedvalidator.org/ If it’s showing as working in the validator, then it’s facebook glitching, which has been happening a lot recently! If it’s facebook then stop pulling your hair out and come back to it in a couple of hours, maybe facebook will be working by then

6. Your posts should now be showing on your pages, you just need to be able to allow people to read your notes anytime they like, not just when you have a new import. So you need to add the tab on the home page of your fan page. Just click on the + tab next to your other tabs (such as wall, info, photos) and in the drop down box, select notes.

Select the +tab and click on notes

If you can’t find the option for notes in the drop down menu (it’s only happened to me once), then go back to the edit page link at the top of the page (as in part 1) and find the notes section. This time click on application settings, in the new window that opens, in the row for Tab: click on the (add) link after it says available. When you return to the main fan page, it should now show your notes tab, and any important blog posts

One final word of warning, although facebook says it will import update with any new posts within 4 hrs, this isn’t always the case, it has been known to take as much as 24hrs! This may only be a temporary hiccup or it may be an ongoing issue, it’s hard to tell. I hope this post has been of some help to those of you looking to integrate your various online personas, do let me know how you get on and and also if there’s any similar things you need help with!

March 15, 2010 , 9:00 am | Web design, how to | Tags: business integration, facebook, linking blog to facebook, Online with Design, Web design |

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Faded old thing to work of art!

It’s mother’s day today, and for my mum, I stumbled upon a picture of myself that she didn’t know I had. With everything in stock for my canvas printing, it seemed the perfect present for her. The biggest problem was the quality of the photo I’d found.

The original photo

As you can see, it wasn’t in the best shape and the years have turned me a kind of faded yellow. There were also several scratches and blotches on the surface of the image and a strange red glow in my hair! Well, after I’d spent several hours carefully enhancing the image and removing defects, I added my trusty watercolour texture and ta da:

The finished product

The final size is a 12″ x 12″ canvas from the original 6″ x 4″ photo. I added more watercolour texture to the image than I have in previous projects, as I rather like the almost blotchy look, it creates a more artistic image, not to mention helps to hide some of the ageing!

Obviously I couldn’t just hand it over like that and as my mum hadn’t seen the packaging for my canvases yet, I thought it would be great to show her how I package all my canvases:

All wrapped up and ready to go

My mum is always polite when I give her a present she doesn’t really like (that’s who I learnt it from after all), and she will always be grateful for the thought, but on this occassion she was actually lost for words!

Happy Mother’s Day mum
xxx

March 14, 2010 , 5:42 pm | New Products, Products, canvas prints | Tags: canvas prints, Gemma Dawks, Graphic Design, Graphic Design Services, Online with Design, Printing |

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Sparkly Princess

After doing some large scale printing, I felt the need to get back to the smaller things and rummaged around in my design portfolio for a design suitable for some sparkles!

Princess Party Invitation by Online with Design

Tiara included

Princess Chloe won the draw, an image perfect for pink and purple glitter and I even found the perfect place for that extremely cute black polka dot button! Printed on 275gsm silk fine art card, this single sided embellished postcard style invitation retails at £4.25 individually or £12.50 for a pack of 6. They are 13cm x 13cm big and quality envelopes are included. Part of the service included in this price is to personalise the invitation, I will edit a digital image that you provide me with, to fit your child nicely into the pink tower and add a little tiara for that finishing touch. Not forgetting your choice of text and the number on the flag.

Get in touch on here, through my facebook page or through my website if you’d like to place an order or to discuss your requirements.

Keep a look out for more pre-designed cards and invitations coming soon, it’s got to be the boys turn next!

March 4, 2010 , 4:04 pm | New Products | Tags: Childrens Stationery, customised cards, Customised Stationery, Gemma Dawks, Girls stationery, invitations, Online with Design, Printing |

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The Magic of Montages

Ever had so many beautiful photos that you couldn’t think how to display them, and didn’t want to just put them all up on your fridge? Maybe this is what you need:The montage is printed onto professional quality photo paper with a satin finish ready for you to display or frame. This particular montage was arranged for A2 size (roughly 40cm x 60cm), with the individual images at size 2″ x 3″. This portrait style can also be sized at A1 (roughly 60cm x 85cm), with 25 images at 4″ x 6″. It really is a stunning way to present all those precious memories and at only £30 for the A2 size and £50 for A1 it could make a perfect present too.

If you’d like more information, or would like to discuss a montage in a different size, just get in touch either on here, through my facebook page or via my website.

, 9:40 am | New Products | Tags: gifts, Online with Design, Printing |

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Canvas Creations

Premium printed canvas of Westonbirt by Charlotte Bellamy

I have been doing many test prints over the last few weeks and one of my favourites, is this canvas printed using an image by Charlotte Bellamy Photography. The image is naturally beautiful with strong colour variations from the sunlight streaming through the top left corner and a variety of textures in all the undergrowth and soil. I thought it would be a real test to my printer and materials.

I used a 100% cotton ink jet suitable canvas and finished it with a special coating to ensure quality printing. Many people don’t give much thought to the materials used in canvas framing, and nor had I until I was looking into making them myself. A cheap canvas from a high street store, would often be on a polyester canvas, which is still a good product for colour representation, but doesn’t give the clarity or depth that a cotton canvas can.

Close up of Westonbirt canvas

Here you can see a close up of the premium canvas. You can see the quality of the reproduction in the way the light is shining through the leaves and also in the textures in the soil.

For my premium canvases, I then use stretcher bars made from Tulip wood, stretcher bars are the wooden frame that the canvas material is stretched around. The Tulip wood is sourced from suppliers that adhere to FSC and PEFC policies. It is classed as a moderately lightweight wood, but in a stretcher bar it’s pretty heavy, this gives the end product a quality feel. A great feature of these stretcher bars is that they use spring loaded blocks to ensure perfect tension, so no more saggy canvases.

The combination of the right canvas and the real quality in the stretcher bars makes this finished canvas really stand out from the crowd of standard high street products. A premium canvas of this size (12″ x 16″) retails at £45.00. If you like the image however, you’ll need to talk to Charlotte Bellamy through her facebook page or her website!

I also do a standard range, which still use the same 100% cotton canvas, but a cheaper stretcher bar made from fir. As with the premium range, a lot of sizes can be catered for, but I keep several sizes in stock: 8″x12″ retails at £20, 12″x12″ at £25.00 and 12″x16″ at £30.

March 3, 2010 , 4:35 pm | New Products, Products, canvas prints | Tags: canvas prints, Online with Design, Printing |

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Mother’s Day Inspiration

Mother’s day is fast approaching, and while creating a card for my own mum, I thought it might be worth creating a couple more to inspire other sons and daughters out there!

It was easy getting him to hold the flowers, especially when you add a little computer know how!

This is my favourite, it’s a photo of my son from when he was a baby, however, he would have probably eaten any flowers we’d have put in his hand at that age, so the flowers were added with a little graphic magic. I also added a watercolour texture to the image, to create a really arty feel. Here’s a close up:

Close up showing the watercolour texture

This next card used one of the many images taken by my photographer friend during a recent photoshoot. It’s a beautiful image that didn’t need any editing:

Simple but beautiful Mother's day card

A simple “I love you” is sometimes all we want to hear as a mum.

The final card, is the card I created for my own mum, so look away now grandma!

Cheeky chappy!

My son watched me creating this card on my computer and loved it right up until I added the flowers into what was previously a clenched fist during a super fast run shot! It was a photo taken from the same photoshoot as before in our garden, so to keep it light, I had to remove all the background. Then for the final touch, I had to force my son to hold those flowers, again a lot easier when I can make him do it on my computer! The end result, as you can see, has turned out rather effective.

I’m sure nobody else would want pictures of my son on their mothers day card, but if you have an image that you’d like me to ‘enhance’ then the cards shown above could be created for you from as little as £2.75 + p&p depending on the complexities of the enhancements you need. If it is something you’d like to consider then get in touch quickly to ensure you receive your card in plenty of time for mother’s day!

February 24, 2010 , 2:19 pm | New Products, News | Tags: Bespoke Cards, charlotte bellamy, customised cards, Customised Stationery, Gemma Dawks, Graphic Design Services, Online with Design, Printing |

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Adventures in Printerland

At the begining of the week, I was finally able to move the printer to my ‘petit’ office. I have to admit that I was a little concerned as to whether I’d made the right decision, as it definitely dominates my office now, in fact, there’s barely enough room to push my chair back! Pushing negative thoughts to the back of my mind, I spent tuesday getting the printer running correctly and produced my first card:

Birthday card for Anna.

Editing the image didn’t take long, and was a lot of fun! However, the perfectionist in me decided that the images I was initially getting weren’t good enough and perhaps it was something to do with the drivers. So I installed more drivers from the epson website. I then spent approximately the next 6 hrs uninstalling them! It was at this point that I realised there was setting that would reduce speed of printing in favour of quality. This was all that was needed to produce these amazing prints.

So today, I thought I’d see what the printer could do with some photographs. I have now fallen in love with my printer and can’t believe how good these images are. Unfortunately my photography doesn’t do them any kind of justice, but to give you an idea, here is a photo of the 30cm x 40cm print I produced on watercolour paper:

Photo reproduction onto watercolour paper

This is a picture of my son taken from the one and only photo shoot I or my son have ever been involved in. The image is printed on watercolour paper, so I added a slight watercolour filter in photoshop, which gives it the slight blurry finish. I honestly think this picture is amazing, and in all likelihood what started out as a test image will in fact end up mounted and framed on my wall as a stunning piece of art. To give you an dea of the quality I also took a close up:

Close up of watercolour image

The detail is incredible (look at those eyes) and the colours are so vibrant!

I also printed an image on canvas which looks stunning, unfortunately I haven’t been able to take a picture which does it any kind of justice except a close up:

Close up of canvas print

Here you can see the texture of the canvas and the quality of printing.

I really love these images, admittedly they were great photographs to begin with, but they look like something so incredibly special now.

February 17, 2010 , 8:06 pm | News | Tags: Bespoke Cards, charlotte bellamy, Gemma Dawks, Graphic Design Services, Online with Design, Printing |

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Caption Competition

I have 2 beautiful images by Charlotte Bellamy Photography that are in desperate need of captions! If you think you’ve got a great (or perhaps not so great) caption to go with either of these images then get it in touch, you can reply on my blog or on my facebook page, the choice is yours. By the way, I am intending to give the images the designer touch once the captions are chosen

Is this Henrietta or Peck Peck, I can never tell?

Dog Days?

The winner for each best caption will receive a 10% discount voucher which can be redeemed against any of my graphic or web design services. It can only be redeemed once, you can only use one at a time and it can not be used in conjunction with any other offer.

I love Charlie’s work and look forward to working with her again, if you’d like to see more of her photography have a look on her website or on facebook!

February 12, 2010 , 2:00 pm | Competition, special offer | Tags: charlotte bellamy, Customised Stationery, Gemma Dawks, Graphic Design Services, Online with Design |

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