Category: Tips & Tricks

Read tips and tricks about a broad range of digital topics such as web design and branding

10 Tips for Creating the Perfect Animation

An animation is a form of art whereby the artist expresses stories through drawings to the audience. The animation part means that the artist has to use characters that are in motion in order to give the storyline life which is an important factor in any animation.

The characters you choose to use are essential in shaping your story as well as captivating your audiences’ empathy for the animation to pass your story the way you intended. Animation can be used to pass a complex message in a simple way that is interesting and easy for your audience to remember. You should ensure that the characters and the stories in your animations are relevant to the audience you are targeting.

The motion of the characters is important in animation because it gives it life. This makes it necessary for you to understand the behaviours and motions of the characters you are using in the animation. Another thing that is important to any animation is the quality of the pictures that you make. A high-quality animation will always captivate your audience in watching and appreciating your work more.

Below are the tips you should always have in mind when creating animations.

Use your hand to draw

You can choose to use the design tools to give out a refined product but you should always remember that your hand is much needed in the drawing. The design tools should only be used to enhance your animation. For best animations, ilustra website is a great one in giving life to your animations. You can always use your hand to differentiate your work from that of others and this gives it originality.

Be educative

An animation is a great way of telling stories and passing important messages. It is good to know your audience well for you to develop a story that is relevant to them. Animations give life to a story which makes the human mind to be captivated to the story. An image that has a life makes it simple to remember a story and hence, it is important to develop characters and stories that relate directly to your audience such as good old memories.

Connectivity

Remember to always keep your audience captivated by having a good flow of the story. A good flow will always raise the anticipation of the audience of how the next piece will be. Connecting your pieces well will also make your story easy to follow.

Timing and spaces

Timing and spaces are important factors in giving your animation authenticity because you want to make the characters as real as possible. You should know when the characters have to move fast or slowly according to the flow of the story.

Block to make work easier

Blocking allows you to see how the animation will be like in the final product which can simplify your work. You can be able to plan the poses and breakdown in the animation in a stepped way which makes it easy to edit when necessary instead of having to delete the whole story.

Keep it simple

Animations should be simple preferably with light colors to make it easy for the audience to capture enormous details at a glance. The characters use should also be simple and familiar and to top it all, the story should relate to the audience.

Include your style

This is where your ability to draw applies best. Different people can tell a story but the way you will present it can give it uniqueness. Although it is important to keep animations simple, do not forget to add your own style that will make it stand out from the rest.

Exaggerate

The characters you use should have a motion that identifies with them naturally, but you should make it interesting to watch by exaggerating. This will make your characters to be lively and much entertaining as opposed to the usual motions which the audiences are accustomed to seeing.

Use curve editor

The curve editor can be used to clean up your animation after blocking it. You can use it to guide the controllers in the right way and smooth out kinks and breaks in key poses.

Use the principles

Always use the well laid out principles to make your work easier when making an animation. The guidelines are meant to make it look lively and natural and this produces high-quality work.

 

Spring Cleaning: Five Ways to Improve Your Ecommerce Site

Spring is on the horizon, so you know what that means. Spring-cleaning time is coming soon too. This yearly refresh is more than just a reminder to dust your home; it’s also a chance to revitalize your ecommerce business, attract new customers and delight loyal shoppers. Here are five easy ways to improve your ecommerce site during spring-cleaning season.

1. Putting Old Goods on Clearance

You know the saying, “out with the old and in with the new.” That’s what spring is all about. So, take a moment to review your product offerings. Find the outdated merchandise on your site and offer it a discount. Be sure to promote these sales over social media and email marketing. As this stuff is sold off, you will have more room to add new items. This is also an opportunity to generate new interest in your e-store, especially as consumers come off the holiday hangover and start shopping again.

2. Switch to the Cloud

Are you still hosting your ecommerce site from an at-home server? If so, you are likely missing out on some of the benefits and functionalities of the cloud. Cloud-based ecommerce allows storeowners to scale their sites to accommodate more traffic. Even better, most cloud platform providers are plug-and-play, meaning you can change certain elements of the site without having to take a deep dive into coding. Many cloud-based ecommerce platform providers offer free website templates. Among other benefits his makes redesign a breeze! Especially if you want to change your website at will to match certain holidays and seasons—which brings us to…

3. Update Your Design

It’s a new year. Shouldn’t you have a new store design to match? Try updating your e-store design to attract customers. But don’t just change things willy-nilly. That won’t do anybody any good. Instead, take a moment to see how you can improve your store. Perhaps you need to update your checkout process to make it quicker and easier to use. Maybe you need to consolidate your FAQ, contact and about us pages for greater ease of use. Try putting yourself in a consumer mindset to see what needs to be changed and why.

4. Revamp Your Logo

Another idea is to give your logo a facelift. It’s entirely possible that your brand identityhas changed over the past year. You might have gone from a fun and fresh ecommerce page, to something a little more professional. Yet, your logo is still mired in a bubbly and silly history. If this is the case, try swapping your logo for something a little more mature, with muted colors and sleek lines. It could be the evolution you need to attract your target audience.

5. Prep Your Yearly Schedule

We all like to believe the New Year will be full of changes and surprises. To make it happen, take some time now to prepare for the next 12 months. After all, our calendar is cyclical. You already know when the big holidays will arrive and when the seasons will change. So, in a way, you already know when your hottest sales will occur and when your seasonal slumps will crop up. Lay in the groundwork now by writing down these occurrences and beginning to prepare for them. For example, you can anticipate your summer blow out sale and your holiday bundle deal long before they ever happen. By doing so, you can get ahead of your competition and set yourself up for success.

The bottom line is that spring is a time for refreshment. Why not rejuvenate your ecommerce store while you can? These five easy ways to improve your ecommerce site during spring-cleaning season will get you started.

Wrike for Designers and Creatives

Collaborating on an online project management software for marketing is a huge part of being a designer or a creative, and more often than not you are juggling more than one task or project at a time.

This makes managing a creative project online for creatives particularly difficult and what’s more, the line managers or bosses that approve the creative work usually have nothing to do with the design suites that creatives are working in.

Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and other marketing project management tools have been used as the primary design platforms for professionals for many years, but the lack of integration with other platforms has made it difficult to complete tasks.

Comments in Adobe, instant messaging, emails and doodling are the most frequent ways that marketing teams have been working with creatives in order to give their feedback and try and get their ideas across, however this is not just ineffective but incredibly time consuming too.

In order to streamline these administrative necessities in the creative process Wrike integrated with Adobe Creative Cloud. This allows whole teams to work and collaborate within the Adobe Apps and Wrike in the respective silos without having to communicate through dozens of different task workflows management software.

This integration allows creative teams to:

Ideate and Plan

Creative processes all start with an idea or a request from a client that is turned into a brief and then translated into a creative idea. The Wrike integration makes it easier to assign, schedule and balance the ideas, suggestions and workflows of creative teams.

Create and Perfect

Your whole team can read, reply, add comments and suggestions and upload files right within your tools, without having to leave your workspace.

Review and Approve

Proofing and feedback on both mobile and desktop means that you can work anywhere you want. The actions are all clear and it makes it easy to follow the approval trails and feedback.

Launch and Report

The custom workflows in Wrike means that project tasks are scheduled, assigned and delivered according to the deadlines and timelines.

Having a team scheduling software where you can have full visibility on all projects is the biggest advantage that the Adobe Creative Cloud’s integration with Wrike has for creative teams and the other departments that work alongside them to get their projects out to clients.

Assists in Quality Communication

No matter what line of work you are in, high-quality communication is the key to a successful project. Collaboration is only possible through open lines of communication and this is especially true for creative and design teams.

People in these roles continually get new ideas as they go along with their projects, and they need to discuss these with the rest of the team and their managers. These discussions around their ideas could change or improve the final project, and as such it’s essential that they are made possible.

The great thing about Wrike’s new integration is that it makes it possible to give feedback, request meetings and discuss ideas all within one workspace. The platform can import appointments from Google Calendar, attach files from Drive, and allows direct feedback and input into mock-ups and wireframes without the designers having to export their work or leave their workspace.

Allows Theme Setting and Clear Creative Goals

Wrike’s dashboard allows for the creation of customised workflows per project that can be shared with all the people involved across the company. Briefs can be attached through Drive, reference images will be on hand, tasks are tracked and goals are clearly set.

This all means that everyone working on the creative asset of ideation will be able to clearly see the timeline, theme and goals of the creative project and will be more likely to deliver it on time with the quality that was required.

Flexible Timelines

Not every creative project can be rushed into a timeline, good things do take time. That being said, having an open timeline isn’t an option as nothing would ever get done. Wrike allows you to give flexible due dates and buffer time into your projects that may not be able to flow exactly to a deadline.

You can meet with all the people that are involved with the project, and rather set key milestones that show how what stages of the project need to be done by certain times, this will help the creative keep on track with the project timeline.

These are just some of the important aspects that Wrike’s integration with Adobe Creative Cloud that will have a great impact on the way that designers and creatives are able to manage their projects, and share their ideas with people around the company.

Top Tips for Developing a Creative Flyer

Flyers are a fantastic way to promote your business, especially considering how easily they can be distributed among members of the public. Since you’re likely to be spending your hard-earned cash on this very effective marketing tool, it is essential to take the right steps when designing your flyer, ensuring you display your skill set effectively to get the attention of readers through stylish design. Below are some top tips to design an effective flyer, and ultimately help boost the chance of your business campaign being a success.

Focus on Visual Aspects

It is usually human nature to see images before we read the text in front of us, and this is a very important consideration when designing a flyer. It is important to use eye catching colors and intriguing designs to engage viewers as best possible, and regardless of your creative ability there is always the option of using ready-made templates such as a free online flyer maker, which allows you to customize your details effectively.

 

Promote the Benefits of Using Your Service Over Competitors

Though it is tempting to simply reel off the features of the products or services you offer, it is important to mention the benefits of your company over others, suggesting evidence as to why individuals should choose you over other businesses. It is important to answer the ‘what’s in it for me’ question that will be posted by the individual reading the flyer when they look past the initially attractive imagery on display.

 

Keep It Brief

One of the most important features of flyers is the use of short and snappy text that gets straight to the point, otherwise users can easily become bored and dismiss your flyer. To achieve this, short sentences should be used incorporating lists and bullet points which keep the attention of the individual. This has become increasingly important in a world where people’s attention spans are diminishing, and if people are keen to find out more they can do so by contacting you at your address, phone number or website.

 

Organize Your Information

Text boxes and infographics can be used effectively to organize your information into easily digestible portions, ensuring a concise read that gets your point across.

Use A Catchy Headline

Though visual imagery is arguably the most important factor in terms of captivating audience attention, another critical and often first observed aspect of your flyer is the heading. This should be something which is interesting and perfectly sums up your business, giving consumers a good idea of exactly what you do in just one or two lines of text.

Proofread Your Writing

A critical mistake made by users is their inability to check and double check what has been written, where misspelled words or incorrect contact information suggests unprofessionalism and results in individuals failing to trust the service you’re adveritisng.

 

Utilizing these tips above will give you the best chance of success when using flyers as a method of advertisement.