Some time ago I held a talk at my company regarding print Ads. Because of the world-wide recession Ad budgets dropped. I wanted to know: Is anyone still buying print-ads? If so, who? Why do they choose to advertise in newspapers? This information might help the new business team. Anyway, hope you enjoy the SlideShare presentation. Read more

Everyone loves free fonts. There is one major problem with free fonts though. Suppose you’ve created a nice looking design using a free font like say, the Adorable. Nice font right? But after your client approved the design he sends you the actual text and suddenly you know why the font was free… Read more

Het blijft voor een CS3-migrant opletten bij het exporteren van je PDF in InDesign CS5. Ditmaal betrof het een PDF gemaakt voor print, maar mét knoppen er in. De gedachte was om -naast de prints – het rapport ook als PDF te verzenden. Een interactieve PDF met knoppen naar Youtube-films welteverstaan. Knoppen maken is een makkelijk zat in InDesign. En een interactieve PDF, die had ik ook al vaak genoeg gemaakt. Echter… geen van de knoppen bleken ‘klikbaar’ in de PDF. Wat was er aan de hand? Read more

Back in 2008 Frederik Ruys and others set up the very first Infographics Congress. At the time Professional Illustrator Frank De Man and I were present and Frank wrote a very good article regarding Infographics. With the help of Frederik I was able to set up a short in-house presentation regarding Infographics for the company I work for, VosLibert. I’ve now uploaded it to SlideShare for you to read. Read more

I was asked to do a presentation for one of our clients, the ROC Friese Poort (a Graphic Design education) some time ago. The topic they’d like me to talk about was “what are Certified PDF files and how do you create them. I stumbled up on the Keynote files a few weeks ago and decided to put them up on SlideShare. I talk about the basics, the costs of ads in newspapers and what the main advantage of Certified PDF is. Read more

I’ve been working with InDesign CS5 for some time now and there are several small things that drove me nuts at first. (I’m a Creative Suite 3 migrant, so some of you CS4 users might already know about these things). First thing I noticed right away was I now need to pay close attention as to where exactly I click when I grab an InDesign image frame. Why? Well ,I didn’t know this but I tend to always grab an image frame in the center. When I work I pick up and move stuff around at lighting speed but I started noticing empty image frames. Now I knew I filled that frame and I also noticed the outline frame when I released it and jumped to another part of the page. But why was it empty now? Read more

Oh yeah. I just finished my very own Flavors.me and it only took me about 30 minutes from start to finish. The Flavors service is very good. It basically allows anyone to create their own online profile that will show all of their online interests. If you want to add, include or modify anything (like say the layout, fonts, colors) it can all be done using just your browser. Very nice and totally free. (The 20 bucks full-service allows for much more customization and extra’s like custom url, favicon, inserting movie-clips and more). Check it out. The photo I used was made by Photographer Henri Vos.

By Enfocus: Enfocus launches Instant PDF 09, the latest version of its easy and reliable tool to produce press-ready Certified PDFs. By preflighting and automatically correcting PDF files after creation, Instant PDF 09 brings unprecedented simplicity and standard compliance to the desktops of designers. The latest release comes with support for Adobe CS 5 and QuarkXPress 8 applications, as well as the latest industry standards. Read more

Hoi Marco,
Een tijdje terug heb jij getwitterd,
en niet eens heel erg verbitterd,
dat men doodleuk had besloten
jou VosLibert uit te stoten.

Dat verbaast mij uiteraard,
want jij was elke euro waard.
Maar ik ga, tot mijn grote spijt,
niet over VL’s personeelsbeleid.

Je vindt ongetwijfeld heel snel weer
een baan als ‘digital engineer’.
Jouw gedicht was toen een mooie geste,
mede daarom wens ik je het beste!

(Jouw gedicht heb ik helaas niet meer.
Die heb je toen intern verstuurd en daar
kan ik al heel lang niet meer in.)

Wim Platje, NetCopy, de online tekstwinkel.

(Mijn hart-onder-de-riem gedicht aan Wim indertijd is helaas verloren gegaan).

By Richard Kelly: I’ve been in this business just long enough to remember when art directors did marker on paper comps. My memory is slightly romantic, but it seems to me that the alternative using stock photography for comps is in a way “F*©king with the magic*” of the creative spirit of custom photography. Read the rest at his own website. (Via Wouter).