06-04-2010
Pyramid take top spot |
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Following a great achievement last year where we gained the runner-up prize for the TARGETjobs 'The... |
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Resolving The Resolution Revolution |
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One of the most common and vexatious issues that bedevil the client-designer relationship has come about, ironically, because of greater client involvement and their increased confidence in using images. Many clients now have digital cameras and are familiar with emailing their pictures as .jpg files to friends and colleagues - and to their design companies.
So, in the spirit of clarity and mutual interest with which it is intended, lets try and explain a thing or two about the 'R' word: Resolution.
Designers generally use two production methods to produce logos. The first is to use a programme like Photoshop, which is essentially about 'pixels'. Similar to the photographic process, its mostly about controlling and manipulating subtle graduations of tone, like the continuous tones in photograhic prints - but in this case the tones are represented by varying sizes of dots, or pixels.
If you go up very close to a billboard at the side of the road, or take a magnifying glass to a newspaper picture, youll see how the image is made up. Stand back from the image and your brain makes sure you see the whole smooth image and not the dots.
These digital images are what clients usually supply as .jpg files. They are photographic and depending on what 'resolution' (the amount of information it contains or the number of dots/pixels) the image is, this will dictate how much you can enlarge the picture without seeing the pixels.
A one inch square picture at 100 dots per inch resolution will contain 100x100 pixels, 10,000 pixels in total and will be approx 38K in size. If the same size picture has 300x300 dots per inch resolution it will contain 90,000 pixels (nine times more information/image detail).
Digital cameras usually allow you to alter the 'resolution' of the pictures you take. The higher the setting, the better the quality of the image and the more it can be enlarged because it contains more visual information. So this also means the file size is larger (more megabytes) and therefore less images can be stored on the memory card in your camera.
If you download a logo or picture off a website to give to your design company it will usually be a file that is 72dpi (dots per inch) resolution. Files that are used for litho printing need to be 300dpi. So if a file 100mm square (approx 1") is supplied at 72dpi and is then converted to 300 dpi by the designer for litho printing it will only be useable at 2.4cm in size, and if you use it any bigger the pixels will show.
The second method uses a programme like Adobe Illustrator to draw outlines of logos, lettering, in fact almost any shape at all, to create the finished design. These are called 'vector' graphics because when you draw on screen, the programme stores the information you create (your drawing) as mathematical formulas, not pixels. Because vector graphics are mathematical representations of the design, you can scale your information (the design) up as large as you like and the programme will helpfully alter the formula as you do so. Hence 'vector' illustrations of logos are preferred because you can use the same logo for a business card, signage or an exhibition project.
In essence, they are what's called 'resolution independent'. These are saved not as .jpgs (photos) but, as an .eps file (which stands for encapsulated postscript).
So don't forget - it's true, size really does matter!
If youd like to know more about this subject, please speak with a member of the Pyramid creative team wholl be pleased to answer any questions you may have. |
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