Vitamin Blog

Metalman Brewing Alternator

2011-08-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

Much design fun was had with this one, the name alone had me drooling ideas and inspiration. As always with Metalman Brewing identities, we started with a mood board to gather inspiration before pencil sketching out the visuals in a somewhat crammed layout pad (reminder - order new layout pads!!). The artwork was then worked up in Adobe illustrator before being imported into Photoshop layers for final texturing and shading. Now, where's my samples?!?!??!

How to work with a designer....

2011-05-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Client provided content comes in is all kinds and in all types file formats. 99% of the time it's perfect and we can work with it no problem, but there are a few points which seem to come up time & time again. I'm gonna add to this as I think of more, so very much a work in progress! Feel free to leave comments! None of the stuff below is intended to be legal advice, our client T&Cs take care of that, but hopefully, it'll come in handy! If you're reading this wondering where you can get hold of an experienced designer, come and check us out...

Logos: We need these ideally in a vector format (.ai or .eps etc...) or failing that in high-resolution image file format (TIFF, JPEG etc..). We can easily reduce and reformat a nice crisp, clean .eps logo for an email footer or web banner, but we sure as hell can't blow up that 3kb GIF pulled from an email signature to fill an exhibition banner!! Rule of thumb... logos pulled from websites aren't suitable for commercial printing.
Images: Same applies, pretty much any file format is OK, but as a rule, pics pulled from your website won't be good enough for that full-page brochure spread! We love TIFF and PSD files as they are lossless, meaning that the quality isn't compromised by compression like JPEGs. JPEGs however are generally OK, but as a very loose guide, if the size of that JPEG is less than 150kb, it's likely gonna be problematic.
Text copy: Don't waste your time filling that Word doc with fancy formatting, leave that to us. Plus, when we import your text copy from that heavily formatted word doc, we often then have to go through it with a fine toothed comb removing all the extra glyphs etc. that Microsoft assumes we want! Trust me Bill, we DONT! Feel free to drop images into your text copy to show us where they go, but please, please give us the pics separately too. This will save lots of time and improve image quality. While that list of bullet points might work well for you to get your point across, they will seriously restrict layout options. The odd bulleted list is fine, but if your publication is 90% lists, you'll be seriously restricting the layout options and your publication will suffer!
Proofing: Remember, we charge our hourly rate for work whether that's designing something new and lovely for you or going through the job we've just designed correcting typos. Save yourself time & money by proofreading and correcting your text copy before you give it to us! The most important thing to get right is the AMOUNT of text/images you're gonna give us. If we're doing a multi-page brochure/magazine etc. and you decide that you need to take out a page when it's designed, the knock-on effect means that every single page from there on has to be re-designed! That will blow the budget and lead-time out of the water. We don't want that because then we get it in the neck from all our other clients who're expecting their work on time! We certainly don't like having to request fee/deadline renegotiation halfway through a job!
Be honest with your designer: If you don't like what your designer has come up with, tell them! We're trained professionals and don't take it personally. We'd rather know that we're on the wrong track early so we've time to correct our course! Be honest too when it comes to your deadlines. You'll find that any professional designer worth his/her salt will have no problem burning serious midnight oil to get your job in on time. But don't ever, ever put your designer under unnecessary pressure thinking that it'll get you your job a little quicker or buy you a margin for error. When your designer gives you a lead-time, it will include that margin for error.
Don't be afraid to tell your design what you do like! Feedback is a 2 way street, if you only ever tell your designer what you don't like, you'll never get the best out of them. Designer/client relationships are developed with feedback, communicate your likes as much (if not more than!) you communicate your dislikes and you'll probably find your designer's success rate, productivity and enthusiasm grows exponentially!
Make sure your content is legal!! Probably the most important point. Your designer is not a lawyer. It's your responsibility to make sure the content you provide is not gonna leave you open to anything nasty. Most designers will probably have an issue if you want to use obviously offensive text/images (we certainly would!). But no designer can be responsible for checking the that your content isn't gonna provoke a lawsuit for defamation! Your content is your responsibility!
Sign off is final! When you approve your artwork, be sure you're 100% happy with it. After this, amendments are probably not gonna be possible and if you do spot a mistake, there's nothing your designer can do about it if it's blasting its way through a press at 12000 impressions an hour! Most designers, Vitamin included transfer all responsibility and liability to the client on sign-off. It's very important to check your proofs carefully!

MetalMan Windjammer

2011-04-14T01:48:00.000-07:00

We've just finished working on the latest seasonal brew are good friends over at MetalMan Brewing. The new brew is called Windjammer, a nautical theme conveniently timed to coincide with the arrival of the Tall Ships in Waterford. Inspired by the beautiful art deco travel posters of Cassandre etc., the artwork evolved from pencil sketches through to flat Illustrator vector artwork and finally into Photoshop for the texture and relief. For more info, check out our website or check us on Facebook (please 'like' our page while you're there :)

MetalMan Brewing Co.

2011-01-05T10:10:00.000-08:00

It seems the art-deco inspired logo we recently designed for Waterford newest and most wonderful to work with artisan brewery - MetalMan Brewing Co. (see them on Facebook) has been getting a few approving nods from those in the know and has even been awarded 'Best Pumpclip or Label' in the Golden Pint Awards!!. Check out:

http://thebeernut.blogspot.com/2010/12/not-home-for-christmas.html

http://www.taleofale.com/

We loved working on this, especially those late evening approval meetings/sampling sessions/sing songs (in that strict order!!!)

St. Patrick's Day 2011

2011-01-05T09:48:00.000-08:00

Our new visual ID for the Waterford City St. Patrick's Day Festival has just been unveiled! Take a look here for more info on the festival which, if previous years are anything to go by, should be a blasht!

Solar Taxi photoshoot

2010-07-30T05:20:00.000-07:00

We've just finished the post-production on a great fashion shoot with Aisling of Solar Taxi: See the gallery here. The pics were shot at Beauty Team's studio in Tycor, Waterford with styling, hair and makeup by Sarah Jane Hanton and Terence Murphy.

www.cheevers.ie live!

2010-07-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

After a fairly tortuous month of server, database and techie gremlins, the new www.cheevers.ie site is live on it's brand new shiny webserver and is running like clockwork! Go check it out and let us know what you think!It was built using lovely clean CSS and is run via Joomla CMS. We've had great fun integrating flash flip-books, youtube vids and are gonna be adding loads more exiting groovyness in the coming weeks

www.cheevers.ie

Facebook!

2010-07-14T02:42:00.000-07:00

We've finally succumbed to the temptations of Social Media! Feel free to check out our page, 'fan' us or just leave a message. We're all ears!

Vitamin | Promote your Page too

www.theclothesline.ie

2010-03-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

Well done to Tammy at theclothesline.ie for getting a feature on this morning's Ian Dempsey Breakfast show on Today FM! If ya haven't checked out the site, do it right now! Designer kids and maternity clothes for a fraction of high-street prices! An absolute winner!

2010-03-18T07:11:00.000-07:00

TLC - The Limo Company

We've just finished a shoot for the lovely people at TLC - The Limo Company. We even got to help them drive their cars back to the garage!! Their new site is being worked on at the moment, but I'm sure they won't mind us giving a sneaky peek!

gruaig na seachtaine

2010-03-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

And the winner is....

Shamrockery and Leprichaunism

2010-03-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

From all at Vitamin, a very happy St. Patrick's Day to you and yours. We'll speak to you (very softly, we promise) next week when we're back in action. Have fun and raise a glass or 20!

We've been too busy with Biodiversity Ireland to produce any Paddy's day silliness this year, but here's a poster we did back in 06 for our good auld pals in Dakota, Wexford.

Please drink responsibly and take plenty of Vitamin

Biodiversity Ireland

2010-03-08T06:15:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again! We love working with the National Biodiversity Data Centre, they're lovely people and the work is always impeccably briefed and supplied with excellent resources (even their own digital photos are excellent!). Biodiversity Ireland is their periodical that covers the excellent work they do in documenting and recording our environment. In this issue, they have a great feature on the humpback whales recently spotted off Hook Head, Co. Wexford. Contact them via their website for more info!

It's coming!!!!

2010-03-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

Our new website is currently in testing and should be live by the end of the week, so thanks to all who've been on my case to get it sorted (in particular Tammy at The Clothes Line!). Here's a sneak peek... We have some funky Joomla based image modules and jquery sliders that should keep Tam quiet for a day or two... now, what was that Facebook thing I was supposed to do????

We're shortlisted!

2010-03-08T05:55:00.000-08:00

As those who know us will tell ya, we don't really bother with awards, we're too busy looking after our clients! But after being persuaded into doing so by our good friends at Island Lane (we'll soon be re-designing their website, we didn't do their current one!), we put in an entry to the Marketing Institute of Ireland awards 2010. Lo and behold, we've been shortlisted for the small business marketing award!

The entry is on the back of a hugely successful opening advertising campaign for Summerhill Jewellers, Tramore including direct mail, press and outdoor advertising. They're running at around 150% of their best case-scenario sales projections, so they're delighted and so are we! We also built a nifty little feedback/response metrics idea into the campaign (our own secret recipe), so we can directly monitor the success and ROI of the campaign, and it's defied all our expectations! Watch this space (which will soon need to be expanded to fit Dave's head if we win!!! ;)