If you are stuck and don’t know where to start, I have tried to provide plenty of information on the website to help. I would suggest looking at our portfolio and perhaps reach out to us through the contact us form with any questions you may have.
I would then suggest a Design Consultation perhaps. This is a meeting where you can ‘pick my brains’. I can get to know your situation and needs, and throw out some ideas and suggestions to see how you like them, along with a rough price, so you can decide if you want to move forward.
Yes, we do offer maintenance for a limited amount of time after site is built depending on what package you bought. If you wish us to continue with maintenance of your site after the time limit with packages have run out this also is possible please visit our Maintenance page on our website.
We will do my best to help, but the jobs we have scheduled in at any time have often been booked weeks and sometimes months in advance. These jobs have design orders and have been given projected deadlines that I will faithfully adhere to.
Existing and new clients of Unzipped Design LLC benefit from my ongoing commitment to meet their needs and are given priority. I will often go out of my way to produce an effective solution for a tricky deadline, but there are rare occasions when I can’t allocate the same commitment to a one-off project.
My advice is to always plan and work backward, bearing in mind design time, print and production lead times, and allow enough time for distribution when dealing with time-sensitive material (e.g. for a date or event).
It is definitely simpler to redesign an item rather than create one from scratch. It makes it much easier for me to determine what you are trying to do with the document, logo or website, and how best I can enhance or improve it.
It is also much easier as most of the content has already been collected for the original design. Some of this may be out of date and be in need of an improved image, but the basic framework is there and that can save a lot of time and money.
Redesigning websites is a little more involved, so I need to assess these on a job by job basis. There are limits to how much I can polish something, and sometimes it is cheaper and easier to go back to the drawing board and start again. For the most part, I like to take advantage of an existing design presence and improve on that.
Hosting is the location where your website will reside. It is a space on a computer that is permanently connected to the web so that when you type in the address in a web browser the user is then forwarded on to visit your site.
For my own site designs, I can provide hosting on Unzipped Design own servers. It is feature-rich and easy to use, or we can use your existing hosting plan. Depending on what type of site you have will determine where the site is hosted.
I will always do my best to help, but I cannot generally create the website content for you. To undertake this would greatly increase the cost of the website design and make it uneconomical to produce.
I can, however, guide and advice on the type of web content required for your site and expected by your users.
Bear in mind that this content for your site is for your benefit as well as your users. It is possible to reduce the repetitive tasks of conveying information by telephone, reduce brochure/postage costs, and limit time-wasting inquiries by directing customers to your website for the details.
From a technical point of view, yes, I can use any images that you have shot on your digital camera and try to do something with them. I can do a lot in Photoshop to tidy these up, but sometimes it is more cost effective just to re-shoot the images properly than to undertake extensive photo-retouching.
In most cases, I will need to assess the quality of the images for the purpose we are intending them for. Inadequate images will only end up doing your marketing more harm than good, making you look amateur and shoddy, and this is not something that I would let pass.
The saying goes ‘A picture can say a thousand words’ but the most important aspect is what the ‘thousand words’ actually are, and what they are saying about your business.
The second issue on this is Resolution; if the resolution of the images is too low the images will be ‘jaggy’ and unattractive. For more information on this, read what is resolution and why is it important?
If you have obtained high-resolution stock images off the web and have a copyright license to use them, I can do so by all means. Just copying 72dpi images from other people’s websites or Google Images onto your hard disk is not acceptable though. Not only from a production point of view (they are too low resolution) but from a legal perspective also.
You can use https://wetransfer.com To send images easily if needed.
Resolution is the amount of dots or pixels that make up an image. It is traditionally measured in DPI (Dots Per Inch) it is now mostly referred to as PPI (Pixels Per Inch).
Resolution is quite important, as the wrong resolution in the wrong circumstances can look terrible.
For web images, for instance, the resolution for the same size image on the screen should be 72PPI, and images must be pixel perfect and the right size in order to line up correctly. If the resolution is too high, the images will be too big and it can break the page layout.
For photos in print it is advised that the resolution is a minimum of 300DPI, as this is broken down with a ‘screen’ (a pattern of dots to simulate the photograph), take a look at a magazine photo under a magnifying glass and you will see what I mean. When the resolution is too low it will look fuzzy and will have that telltale stepping or look ‘jaggy’.
For solid areas in print like black type and black panels, the resolution should be much higher, as there is no screen and we want to avoid jaggy edges or broken text.
When supplying flattened artwork I will tend to compromise and generally artwork at 300DPI, but wherever possible I will produce PDF/X artwork that overcomes this issue. In print, it doesn’t hurt to overdo resolution and the results are always pin-sharp
If some of the jobs provided have the use of Royalty Free images please check with the provider for their license agreements on their terms of use in most cases it is fine for print and advertising but these images cannot be register trademarked. If the items are designed for you by Unzipped Design with exception to Royalty Free images used then you retain all copyright after payment in full.
The source artwork files for all jobs are retained by Unzipped Design. They are internal files and the tools that I use to create your final artwork. If for whatever reason, you require the source artwork files, this will need to be negotiated on a job by job basis. Most cases this kind of job the files are given once final payment is made.
I always make an allowance in all our costings for one or two sets of amendments, as we all know that things just don’t always go right the first time.
This is normally to cover typos and other problems that arise during the design process and is not an allowance for the copy (text) to be incorrectly supplied or not checked properly.
Corrections to copy and pictures supplied are known as Authors Corrections and cannot reasonably be forecasted or allowed for, so these are charged on top of the price estimated originally.
This will depend on how the website was built. If it has been built as a static website, then no, you can’t update it yourself, you will need a professional website designer to do this for you.
If, however, you have chosen a website that is dynamic and the content is controlled by a Content Management System (CMS) then yes, you can update the information yourself. In fact, that is why it is designed and built this way. You will need to inform me at the very beginning of the design process if these kinds of updates are required and if training will be needed. In some cases, you may want the designer to maintain the website for you regardless.
Static and Dynamic are terms that you will hear a lot and are basically the two main approaches when building a website.
Static simply means that the information or ‘code’ that makes up the website doesn’t change, and they can be built more cost-effectively than dynamic websites.
Static web sites are crafted to work more like a printed document and to be referred to on the web. You will find a lot of brochure sites are constructed this way.
Dynamic means that the data or content can change ‘dynamically’.
The content (text and images) is usually fed from a database or Content Management System (CMS) so when the data is updated, the content on the website are also updated. This method opens up a lot of options on the flexibility and functionality of your website.
Shopping carts and information sites work this way as their content changes frequently and needs to be constantly up to date. The additional functionality also creates a lot more variables to consider.
In my view, if you are not intending to update the information on your website more than three times a year, it is not really worth investing in making the website dynamic.
It hasn’t happened so far, but at any point in the design process you can cancel your order, and you will only be charged for the work undertaken.
If a deposit has been taken to secure an order you will be only charged for the work undertaken less any deposit pre-paid. You will need to provide a written cancelation of order within 30 days of first placing your order or a refund will not be issued.
RGB is an additive color model in which red, green and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue. RGB (red, green, and blue) refers to a system for representing the colors to be used on a computer display. Most images created for the web are RGB whereas Print images are CYMK.
When the design is finished and ‘signed off’ (officially approved by the client) I will then go on to compile the artwork or document for print.
This involves creating flattened, print-ready files or PDF/X documents that are provided for you to forward to the printer/magazine/signage company, etc.
If you do not have a preferred supplier for your print and signage, I can suggest a reliable supplier for you and deal with the hand-over process of the artwork with no fuss. For this service, I do not mark-up the production costs and allow you to deal directly with the supplier at their standard rates.
All artwork will be delivered in industry standard formats to ensure that whichever supplier it is presented to, they are able to find a compatible document format in order to produce your goods. I will also produce JPG small and large format for social network sharing if needed.
If you require your artwork to provide in a specific format, for example; to be used in-house in a software application or to be printed on an office printer, I will need to be notified in advance as this will often affect the finished design.
Absolutely! When you have had a logo designed completely by Unzipped Design, you will own an original and custom designed piece of artwork that is unique enough to be established as a trademark for your business, product or service.
There are different levels of trademark and protection, and straight away, just by paying for the design you have copyright over it.
You can claim that your logo or brand as your trademark by simply applying the ™ symbol alongside it, and is a public declaration that you wish this to be recognized as such. It is not bulletproof, and depending on the level of protection you require you may want to consider registration.
Registering your trademark means that you can use the symbol ® and affords you a statutory right and support from the registration office. For more information on registering your trademark.
If your Logo is designed using images provided from a Royalty free image bank or other please look at their terms and Agreements. Most Royalty Free images cannot be trademarked. Unzipped Design does not take any responsibility or liability for these images. They in most cases are fine for use on advertising, brochures, flyers, letterheads, etc. but cannot be trademarked. So please check.
The difference between spot colors and process colors is simple.
Spot colors are mixed to a specification like paint, you can still specify Pantone colors for print, but when they are printed as spot color, PANTONE 151 C is a bright orange ink that is printed as it mixed.
Process colors are not solid colors at all, but an optical illusion that is mixed in the eye when you are looking at them. If you look at a colored panel in a magazine under a magnifying glass you will see that the color is made up of a pattern of varying sized dots:- cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK).
In this case, PANTONE 151 C is made up of 0% Cyan 62% Magenta 75% Yellow and 0% Black dots and isn’t quite as bright as the spot color version.
Pantone colors are an agreed, industry standard set of colors that can be matched to accurately over a variety of processes, equipment, and materials.
They are identified as a series of numbers instead of names (except with fashion colors), so you will hear the reference PANTONE 2985 C instead of Sky Blue. This helps a great deal as one person’s idea of what Sky Blue is may be very different to another person, but with a number, you can refer to the chart and you know exactly what you are getting.
Keeping colors consistent is a big issue with Infiniti Mixed Media and is very difficult to do over different systems like print and the web. A certain amount of color shift is inevitable, but I work hard to try and keep this to a minimum.
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