Yorgo Nestoridis » Graphic Design

WordPress Development Seminar

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:07:18 +0000

Ycademy January 2011 Online Seminar

Back to work! After a busy 2010 and hopefully a good rest over the year end, let’s start 2011 with WordPress based Website Development using Semiomantics XO.

After multiple exercises such as the Christmas site or the personal blog, we need to go into some more detail in as much as design, presentation and production are concerned. There are 4 areas of concern we will focus on at the January seminar:

1. Typography

While XO offers a good choice of built-in fonts, each customer’s branding is different and we may have to implement existing branding elements, namely defined typefaces. The seminar will deal with the font issue and show

how we can overwrite the XO default settings
how we can use Google Fonts
how we can use any font for for any part of the website
how to define font families
where to use which kind of font

2. Menu Design

A delicate issue, but subsequent to the Apple Exercise, we have received requests to go deeper into the issue of advanced menu design. This concerns all sorts of solutions whereas we will keep the focus on easy navigation. We will start from the almost endless possibilities of the XO menu, move on to sprites and end up with advanced custom hand-crafted menus.

3. Graphic Design

Graphic Design for the Internet is different from Print Design. We will focus on understanding these differences and learn about the requirements of cross-platform readability. The Workshop will be focused on communicative graphic design with Photoshop (or any other tool of your choice). Depending on participants skills, we will do this in 2 parts: basics in January and advanced in February.

4. Selling XO

Semiomantics will present it’s new affiliate program, enabling anyone to sell XO and to earn money from doing so. The interest is not just in selling some scripts, but in selling our skills and know-how when it comes to customization, custom design and optimization.

With XO we have a great and flexible product which can serve as a base for any website. Together with WordPress, the world’s most popular publishing platform, there are hardly any limits to design, features and performance. We train you to digg out the best from WP and XO for the benefit of your customers.

This chapter will lead us into the main curriculum of Ycademy 2011: Productivity, Marketing and Project Management.

Registration

The Online Seminar will take place on January 29 – 30, 2011, from 1 pm London Time to 9 pm London Time on both days.

Please register early as we need to prepare the personal materials for each participant.

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3D Web Design Components

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:39:52 +0000

3D Design

The advantages and disadvantages of 3D Design for websites will be the topic of tonight’s YORGOO Call at yorgotalk.

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Digital Photography Ycademy 8

Yorgo Nestoridis — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:58:38 +0000

Photo Editing vs. Graphic Design

Sometimes it is difficult to draw a clear line between photo editing and graphic design or editing. The present Ycademy Sessions deal with Photo Editing and the primary goal is to improve our photographic skills.

Whether we use Lightroom or Photoshop, we can push our editing away from photography into the fields of graphic creativity, which is not the purpose of what we are doing at this stage.

Don’t just take pictures – Tell a Story

The beautifu world of Photography starts with your shot and leads to the story your picture will tell after editing. Make sure it is still a photograph for the purpose of the April Ycademy!

Vouliagmeni

Sure we can use most any pictures to tell a story by using the graphic design editors from Photoshop. But it’s a lot more difficult to come back with an optimized photograph, where subtle editing will not destroy the photo caracter of the image and yet allow us to tell a story.

You may argue, that you don’t need an optimized Photo to tell a story. True. Your output however is no longer a photography but a graphich illustration as the case may be. Whether at the base you have been using a photo or a hand designed image is not really relevant. What is relevant, is to know, which language we use to communicate and to express ourselves and how the viewer will percieve our image.

I like to clearly distinguish between photographic work and digital graphic work.

Using Filters and Presets in Lightroom

Tonight’s workshop will deal more in depth with Presets and Filters in Lightroom. Different snapshots taken during the editing proces will help to select the final version of the picture.

In order to study Lightroom in depth, you may want to grab a great piece of literature from here below.

Vouliagmeni 2

[download_box]Download eBook 20 MB[/download_box]

Adobe CS5 Rip Off Pricing

Yorgo Nestoridis — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:36:56 +0000

Adobe CS5 Pricing in Europe

Why the heck is software more expensive in Europe than in the USA? SOFTware we are talking about. Software you can download or buy on a CD. The cost of copying a CD or software is worldwide the same, i.e. next to nothing. The problem is then either the distribution or unethical pricing by the company in function of target markets … comparable to the pharmaceutic industry. Why should Greeks, earning a fraction of what an average American earns, pay about double the price for CS5?

And what makes Adobe believe that the Greek is stupid enough to actually pay the rip-off price tag? What do we get the Americans don’t have for that additional money?

Microsoft is a similar case with their Windows 7 release which is nothing else that a finally working Vista we had paid good money for a few years ago. Upgrades in the US were 50% cheaper than over here.

In as much as Windows is concerned, I just went for the American versions since 2001. The market is global and so should be prices.

Go Buy where it’s cheaper

There is no point paying for greedy distributors, intermediaries and other “I would like to make money without adding value”-worms. So forget about intermediaries, Adobe should pay them if they need them; I don’t need them nor do the other 6.5 billion people of this globe. There is a thing out there called the Internet which allows for direct delivery online at no cost … worldwide.

There is even a globally accessible thing out there called the Adobe website which provides tutorials, download links, tips and tricks second to none, and definitely better than anything an intermediary would offer.

Yorgo Nestoridis Editing and Publishing on YouTube

So, remains the Rip off. Unfortunately I could not find any argument against this one.

Or as someone posted on Twitter: “It’s cheaper to fly to the US to buy Adobe CS5 for $2,599 than buy it in the UK”. The price gap is about 1500 Pounds!

Let’s have a look at one of the CS5 packs:

US: CS5 Design Standard $ 1299,-
Germany: CS5 Design Standard € 1699,-

The 1699 Euros correspond to about 2300 Dollars, almost double!

Oh, by the way: by buying product packages, you save up to 60% Adobe dixit on it’s site, which still boils down to the above.

Back in 2007, when adobe launched CS3, the European prices where at about 190% of the US prices; some people made a petition for the attention of the European Commission. Today, may be such a petition may have more impact. For sure, consumer protection organizations should look into the matter and use their influence to tell European people what Adobe calls them: stupids, for the least I can find in my rich 4-and-more-letter word vocabulary.

The Markets make the Price

I hate to be taken for a ride. And I am in a global market. There is Amazon and there is eBay and there are many global market places which define their prices in a global way. So, let’s look at other market places and forget about Adobe’s local rip-off outlets. We are the customers, that is, we are the market or at least the demand side of it. We say what we are ready to pay and our consumer behavior will ultimately have it’s impact on Adobe as it starts having on pharmaceuticals.

Thanks Adobe for a great product; if you would add a pitch of ethics to your pricing policy before being forced to do so, you will see many more smiling faces out there.

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QR code Art

Yorgo Nestoridis — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 03:42:33 +0000

QR code Art

Applied Art or Industrial design and Art, whatever you name it: it’s just fun! remember the creativity many artists developed around the barcodes?

As most mobile phones can read QR codes, it’s fun to code your site URL, phone number, text or SMS and to combine it with your graphic design.

QR code samples

QR code reading YorgoNestoridis.com

QR code Art and Graphic Design

QR code Art 1 pointing to yorgodesign.com

QR code Art 2

QR code Art 3 pointing to BiancaGubalke.com

QR code Art 4

QR code Art 5

Create your QR code Artwork

1. Create your code from HERE

2. Save the code and open it with Photoshop.

3. Select white color and cut to get a transparent background.

4. Add styles and layers … your imagination is the limit.

5. Load your QR code Art to a server and post the link here below into the comment field.

Enjoy!

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How to use Photoshop Actions

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:51:13 +0000

How to use Photoshop Actions

Do you know Photoshop Actions and how to use them? If you think that we may be able to share with you some new actions, join tonight’s YORGOO call at 9 pm London Time.

We will show you, how you can quickly and with just one mouse-click transform your images to have the same look as the samples below.

Photoshop Action Scripts to increase productivity

The few samples below show day to day actions you may come across and which can be reduced to just one mouse-click: tonight is the night to learn all about it and to get started with our first small Action Pack.

See you there, tonight at our Web Design Photoshop Workshop.

Action Frame for Bianca

PS Action Frame for Bianca 2

Photoshop Action Recognition for Bianca

PS Action Script Rounded Corners

PS Action Drop Shaddow

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Book covers and Jewel Cases with Photoshop

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:48:47 +0000

Book covers and Jewel Cases with Photoshop

Learn how to create Book covers and Jewel Cases with Photoshop at this week’s Ycademy Pro calls.

Additional optional Materials: $10, free for Ycademy Pros, get the coupon from Bianca.

Advanced pack: $30, discount $10 for Ycademy Pros.

(Information about the content of the packs at Monday’s YORGOO call.)

Professional Presentation of your e-products

The presentation is of the utmost importance when you sell a product. Creating clean wrappers and marketing materials is a must. Today’s screens render images with a high resolution. For this reason you won’t get away with images from second zone. The same applies to marketing materials.

Photoshop quality is a must.

At Ycademy we will this week dig into an important application of Photoshop: create Book covers and Jewel cases with Photoshop to present your digital products.

Please find here below two examples of the quality you will be able to produce after this weeks trainings. To keep white clean is the most difficult task; the samples below demonstrate quality, even if you look at them with the magnifier.

The Ycademy Trainings

Sure, we will show you step by step how to create a book cover right from scratch using your Photoshop skills. But there is no reason inventing the wheel; we will focus on learning how to use one of the most popular plugins to create efficiently professional looking wrappers. For this reason we have prepared two packs of commercial action scripts for Photoshop which you may grab for as long as available.

Check it out at the YORGOO Pro Shop.

Ycademy E-Wrappers Basic

Ycademy E-Wrappers Pro

Ycademy DVDs

Ycademy Seminar DVD

Ycademy Books

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Christmas Cards Personalized

Yorgo Nestoridis — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:12:25 +0000

Christmas Cards Personalized

The yearly returning Christmas Season offers a nice opportunity to create personalized Christmas Cards. Here below some samples from our friends who either created a card or personalized an existing design.

Personalized Christmas Card by Toni Leuenberger, Switzerland

Personalized Christmas Card by Toni Leuenberger

Building Authority, trust and confidence is a permanent effort we carry over into 2010.

Christmas Card Personalized by Laetitia Paris, France

Christmas Card personalized by Laetitia Paris

Campaign on Laetitia’s personalized Christmas Card … simply a Must!

Christmas Header personalized by Ute Schaedler, Germany

Seasn Greetings on Ute Schaedler’s website:

Christmas Header personalized by Ute Schaedler

Christmas Card Personalized by Bianca Gubalke, South Africa

Christmas Card personalized by Bianca Gubalke

Personalized Christmas Card by Bianca Gubalke using her Photoshop skills.

Personalized Christmas Card Hacks

Personaized Christmas Card Hack by Yorgo Nestoridis

From the Sphere to the Cube:

Hack 2

Hack 3 based on Toni Leuenberger

Hack 3

And while it’s so nice:

Christmas Card Hack 4

Laetitia Hack:

Hack 5

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Your Brand on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

Yorgo Nestoridis — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:07:02 +0000

Brand Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and your Website

Branding your online presence is an essential part of building your business and optimizing your visibility. Here is a sample of an integrated brand image throughout social networks based on a personal website.

The Branding Elements on the Website

The base for our sample is a Semiomantics XO Framework based on WordPress.

Grunge Web Design by Yorgo Nestoridis

As I write this site is HERE.

The background and grunge fonts and elements are the main branding elements on this transparent blog.

Backgrounds can be imported into many social networks, such as Twitter and YouTube. This is probably the easiest way to adapt the look and feel of your social network pages to your preferences.

Branding Twitter

Twitter lets you import your own background which will change the look immediately:

Grunge Background on Twitter by Yorgo Nestoridis

My Twitter is HERE.

Branding YouTube

You tube customization allows even for transparent backgrounds:

Grunge Design on YouTube by Yorgo Nestoridis

Check out my YouTube HERE.

Branding Facebook with a Customized Profile Picture

Facebook Profile Picture by Yorgo Nestoridis

Facebook is still very limited in as much as customization is concerned. However, we will show a few more ways to re-look your Facebook to taste, just follow our posts.

Join tonight’s online Workshop to customize your Facebook Profile Picture at 8 pm London Time on YorgoTalk.