Internet – The Graphic Mac

How to create engaging images for social media

James — Wed, 31 May 2017 17:00:21 +0000

David Ogilvy, the father of advertising, was famous for spending an inordinate amount of time on headlines.

Back then, social media didn’t exist. If it did, Ogilvy would probably give equal time to creating the perfect complementary image.

The Buffer.com blog has some great tips for creating social media graphics. The article is meant for non-designers, but if you’re new to social media marketing, it’s worth the read.

Find out what font a web page is using

James — Tue, 30 May 2017 15:00:37 +0000

I recently came across an awesome browser extension that allows you to hover over text on a webpage and have the name of the font appear in an overlay. It’ll even show you the font size, leading and spacing amount.

FontFace Ninja takes it a step further by allowing you to click the “Mask” button to hide all the images, ads and bothersome clutter to allow you to see only the text on the page. The website has a great intro video to show you exactly how the extension works.

Rounding-off the feature list is a button that allows you to purchase the font you’re interested in with (this feature doesn’t work with all fonts, but they have a pretty good collection of providers for the feature).

FontFace Ninja is free and works with Safari, Chrome and Firefox. It’s perfect for web designers and developers!

Amazon Prime coming to Apple TV this fall. Maybe.

James — Sun, 07 May 2017 02:00:15 +0000

The tech giants, who are increasingly competing for customers’ time, eyeballs and money, are close to an agreement to bring an Amazon video app to Apple’s Apple TV set-top box, according to people familiar with the two companies.

Ahhhh the famous “people familiar with” source. Those people seem to know everything. Accurate or not, this would be a huge win for Apple. HUGE. Perhaps even enough to move the Apple TV out of the “hobby” category.

Here’s hoping.

Latest Apple ID spam/scam just not quite up to standards

James — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 15:00:42 +0000

Riiiiiight. I received this beauty yesterday. Imma get right on this secure my account thing… since you know, they said please!

“Outside the box” header design

James — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 15:00:17 +0000

Everyone expects to see an image header at the top of an email or website. You can spark interest by breaking out of the boxy design. Take a look at these non-rectangular headers for some inspiration.

The case for vertical video

James — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 15:00:31 +0000

Does your business record vertical videos for social media?

In years gone by, recording and uploading video with the camera held vertically was looked upon with ridicule, producing big black bars either side of the picture and a narrow viewing angle, guaranteed to turn viewers off.

But times are changing.

While horizontal is the way to go on web pages and other presentation methods, social media is (and probably always will be) a vertical format. It makes no sense to fight it. SocialMediaToday makes the case for shooting vertical video.

Carpool Karaoke: The Series — official trailer

James — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 15:15:57 +0000

Based on the segment that has become a global, viral video sensation on The Late Late Show with James Corden, the new CARPOOL KARAOKE series features 16 celebrity pairings riding along in a car together as they sing tunes from their personal playlists and surprise fans who don’t expect to see big stars belting out tunes one lane over.

Season 1 guests include:
James Corden, Will Smith, Billy Eichner, Metallica, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Ariana Grande, Seth MacFarlane, Chelsea Handler, Blake Shelton, Michael Strahan, John Cena, Shaquille O’Neal, and many more.

What’s the best size for fonts in email, web & TV?

James — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 15:00:28 +0000

Just because it looks great and is readable on YOUR screen, doesn’t mean that’s the case for your viewers. I like to stick with 14-16 point text for emails and web, and about 28-32 for PowerPoint/Keynote presentations being viewed on large-screen HDTVs. Anything smaller and you run the risk of your carefully crafted text being unreadable. There are exceptions, of course—but I almost always stick with those sizes.

Font sizes for the web: It’s all about the x-height

There’s actually a science behind the best font size for the web. There’s a lot of geeky gibberish in the article (which I personally found interesting), so if you don’t care about all that just scroll down to the bottom of the article and you’ll find a chart of recommended sizes for desktop, laptop, phone and TV viewing.

Free OS X Security Tools

James — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:00:03 +0000

Grab a number of security apps for Mac OS X (will probably work with macOS Sierra as well), absolutely free. Some are useful to the average user, others may require you to know a bit about what you’re doing.

adJelly: Your social media image/ad guide

James — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:00:54 +0000

You may recall that I’ve written about Advise in the past, but they’ve changed their name and domain to adJelly.

If you missed my previous write-up about them, adJelly offers a fantastic collection of specs for all the most popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. You simply select the social media site you’re creating ads, images or graphics for in the left column and you’re presented with all the specs you’ll need.

The site is particularly useful for designers because sites like Facebook offer numerous options for sizes. For instance, Facebook offers sizes for single image ads, carousel ads, video ads, video slideshow ads, cover and profile images, post images, event images and more. Plus, specs change frequently, and some sites don’t make it easy to find the specs (I’m looking at you, Facebook!).

You can also download PSD and Sketch Packs to use in building your graphics.