I’d like to start with something of a disclaimer. Much of the work we do at Rise is in the digital realm. We strategize, design, and build primarily for the web. We will, however, have clients come to us needing a new business card designed or a logo redesigned or a mailer constructed. What all of those share in common is that they must be able to be seen, not just on a computer screen but printed out. And while we are diligent in making that translation from web to print, every once in a while the conversion is a little bumpy.

So, when that business card comes back looking red instead of magenta or dull blue instead of bright cobalt, what gives? Does the printer not know what they’re doing (assuming you use a professional printer)? Are your electronics scheming against you (sometimes I swear my computer gives me funny looks)? Are your eyes finally giving out on you?

Rest assured, none of these is likely the issue. More often than not, issues at the printer usually have to do with 2 things: the difference between the RGB palette belonging to computer screens and the CMYK palette at the printer and image resolution.

This is an early color photograph taken by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii as part of his work to document the Russian Empire. Three black-and-white photographs were taken through red, green and blue filters. The three resulting images were projected through similar filters. Combined on the projection screen, they created a full-color image. Source: Wikipedia

Let me paint a picture for you. You’ve just started working with a new designer. You sat down with that person, explained all of your dreams for the design, and left the meeting feeling like you were really on the same page. Then the next time you meet with them, they present a design that is completely different than what you expected. It’s not necessarily a bad design, but it is definitely different than what you described.

Sound familiar?

This is what I like to call a “lost in translation” moment. And it’s exactly what inspired me to create this guide on translating “design talk.”

Why is there a disconnect?

Many designers received their formal education in traditional art. Yes, even the digital artists! For example, my lead designer, Frank Candamil, has degrees in Art and Digital Media. Because of his background, I know that when he says something like “hue” or “tint,” he’s talking about the classic definitions of the words. However, when a client says a term like that, it’s unclear if they are referring to the definition or a colloquialism.

Common design terms and meanings

After talking with our Brand Mangers and Designers at Rise, I compiled a list of terms that we hear our clients say all of the time and can be misinterpreted. Let’s explore the terms and what they mean to each party.

BRIGHT
Client: Bold colors that are striking with high contrast. Not dull.
Designers: Luminous or shining.

Ah, the mailer. It is a rare business that hasn’t utilized this tried and true form of advertising. I’ve even used it at Rise and we’re a digital agency. For small enterprises looking to reap its benefits at the local level, the United States Postal Service has recently rolled out a new service that may harness the mailer’s return on investment in a powerful way. While that information is excellent, I want to also highlight the importance of effective color choices for mailers. No sense sending out an ineffective mail piece, after all. Even if it’s super easy and cheap to do.

Effective Color Choices for Mailers

When a business is ready to start sending out mailers to the surrounding areas the question then becomes: how to design the mailer? Color plays an important role here, but it’s important to make sure it doesn’t overpower.

Some things to keep in mind when choosing colors for a mailer:

If budget is a concern, good ol’ black type on white paper is practical and legible. A little plain, but not a bad choice all the same. If possible, using at least the minimum of colors (two = minimum to me) is better. It gives you an accent color to work with and can look better than going color-crazy which is both expensive and can look unprofessional.

Both yellow and gray- together and separate- have been big trends in wedding colors lately, and they're definitely going to stay that way for a long while! I love yellow because it pairs beautifully with so many other colors, which is perfect because it can be used for plenty of different wedding styles!

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Yellow paired with gray can either be incredibly chic & modern, rustic & whimsical, or of course, anything in between. The two colors are so interchangeable depending on the details, location, and accent colors involved.

Chic & Modern

A nice collection from a modern, chic yellow and gray wedding that was featured on Every Last Detail (everylastdetailblog.com) / photographed by Stephanie Williams Photography.

See the full wedding {here} on Every Last Detail

Rustic & Whimsical

And here are some rustic and whimsical yellow and gray wedding shots, photographed by Simply Bloom Photography.

See the full wedding {here} on Every Last Detail

I've created a Yellow and Gray Weddings Group so we can all collaborate on the possibilities of palettes! Go ahead and add your own version of a color palette for a yellow and gray wedding! Let's see what you've got! :) I'll be doing a lot more posts on wedding color trends, how to use colors in weddings, and also wedding planning tips and advice, so keep an eye out for my posts!

Palettes with either Yellow, Gray or both...

Both colors go amazingly with other accent colors too! Here are just a few examples...

Of the many word-based games played on ColourLovers, one of the newest is HAIKU PALETTES & POETIC PATTERNS where Lovers create palettes and poems at the same time from the words in the color names. The group began in January 2011 and quickly grew to 20 members in its first few days. Membership has more than doubled in less than the three to four months since the group was launched.

The Autumn Queen HPP

by Luna Rose

Upon rainbow throne
Bright and bold - The Autumn Queen
A sight to behold

April is National Poetry Month - A note from the editor

The month of April has many national celebrations, one of those being National Poetry Month. Before we draw this month to a close, we want to feature one of our most recent, popular groups, the HPP, managed by ketisse, a COLOURlover who is very passionate about writing and poetry. I personally think that it is amazing how she has invented a way for COLOURlovers to work with color, pattern and palettes to create poetry - the process is truly intriguing!

Today, the group currently boasts:

• 178 COLORS
  
• 179 PALETTES
  
• 184 PATTERNS
  
• 67 LOVERS

I hope you enjoy learning about the group itself and learning how to create a Haiku through palettes. ketisse has put together a very through guest post about her group and the creation process.

- Molly Bermea / Community Curator & Blog Editor

Another simple but useful feature has been granted an update on COLOURlovers. If you haven't discovered it already, check out your Identities under your Profile.

Login to COLOURlovers.com and Go to: Account (located on the top bar next to your mail icon). Your Account page defaults to the Profile section of your Account.

Scroll down the Profile section past the General Information. Your identity section consists of an avatar, main picture and Identities and IM Screen Names. These have been updated to easily link out to your social networks and other types of sharing networks as well as your chat contact if you so choose. Hey, Spoonflower is even on there!

Big thanks to the COLOURlovers code geniuses!

...but wait there's more!

How the Identity Feature Works (in detail):

When you put your identities in to most sites, they make you copy/paste the exact link of your profile from whatever source for your identities. The problem here is that most sites grow over time and change happens in their code and the way things function. If the code isn't dealt with nicely, your identities may link to a dead Error Page and that's no good at all!

What we have done for the COLOURlovers Identities is made it simple - but might seem a little confusing at first. All you have to do is include your username or in some cases, your screen name for sites you are associated with that you want to include identities for.  Some examples:

facebook:

Facebook might be a little confusing, so I'll cover it first.

• - Go to Facebook.com and log in if you are not already so.
• - When you are logged in and go facebook.com, you will land on the main page for the News Feed of your friends and pages you are connected to. Click on YOUR name (top LEFT right next to your avatar/mini profile photo).

• - You will then be viewing just YOUR updates on YOUR Wall and YOUR personal information to the public. Look at the top link in the browser, it will have changed to either your custom set URL on the tail-end or a numbered one. For example, my full facebook profile link reads facebook.com/mollybermea and I will ONLY need to use the green highlighted area, "mollybermea" in the COLOURlovers Identity field for facebook.

twitter:

Twitter is pretty simple. Your username on twitter is your Identity - this can be tricky because some people change their screen name to something different. If you want to double check, just go to your twitter page in a web browser... see my image (below). The green highlight is your account username name and what you will put in to the COLOURlovers Identity field for your twitter account.

flickr:

Flickr.com is pretty simple too. After logging in, you will see on the TOP RIGHT who you are logged in as... or you can view the browser link (see below image, green highlights) by going to YOUR Photostream.

I could go on, but I just wanted to show a variety of ways to do a few. If you are having trouble finding the correct username to use for a certain Identity, please feel free to send me a love note and I will help. We will have this information also available in our soon to come, FAQ with EACH Identity addressed.

If there is an identity you would like added to the drop-down list, make sure you let us know.

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If you haven't noticed, we've made some site updates you may really want to know about!

.The Site.

ACTIVITY FEED + NOTIFICATIONS

So what is your Activity Feed and how does that relate to Notifications?

Everything you do at COLOURlovers.com and how you know what everyone else is doing in regards to what you're interested in. It will really enhance the social aspect of COLOURlovin, I know it has for me ten times more than before - I finally feel a sense of community going on.

Just like Facebook, you can choose to be notified by "real" email about palettes, swatches or patterns that have been loved and/or fav'd, love notes, responses, blog comments and responses, etc.

The settings do not automatically take effect, you must be logged in, then go to your ACCOUNT (up top between your mini avatar and love notes)...

Then go to your NOTIFICATIONS and have at it. Features used to only be available in-site or not at all, so this is a pretty spiffy and much needed update! Thanks CL Developers!

.The Blog.

RSS FEED

While the Activity Feed and Notifications my have been pretty obvious, I bet you didn't realize we made a small change, but big improvement to the blog channels RSS functionality.

You can now subscribe to each channel separately! Because our topics and readers are so diverse, this should help out a lot.

You can still RSS to the entire channel list by using colourlovers.com as your feed link in say Google Reader, or by using the RSS subscription tools to the right of each post (see the yellow highlighted area):

BUT....if you're like most people, you might only want to follow the PRINT channel - let's use that as an example.

I use Google Reader. There's just one little step to getting the correct link to put in to your subscription feed. The easiest way to get it, is by selecting CHANNELS from the top navigation menu, then select PRINT (or whatever channel you wish to follow independently)....

Next, grab the link from the browser bar. For our example, it should read clean, "http://colourlovers.com/print" (see the yellow highlighted area below).

Paste this link in to your Google Reader, "add a subscription button"...

And you're done! Do this for each channel you want to follow independently.

~~~~~~~~@@@~~~~~~~~

That wraps up the latest changes pushed out in the last couple weeks.

Enjoy!

*Header Pattern:

Let's face it, looking at your upcoming wedding expenses can be daunting. As you may know, this past June, my younger brother, Sam got married to his lovely wife, Emily. My mom and I were in charge of mostly everything; decor, food, planning and coordination, and I can say, a bit of planning helped them move through the major expensive decision so that they made it to the wedding day with everything, including the budget, in order. Things like invitations, cake, flowers and such, can all be expensive but one of the bigger expenses is always the cake, which I will focus on here.

The Backstory.

When it came down to the nuts and bolts of the getting the cake, Sam and Emily really couldn't care less about having a lavish 8-layer tower extravaganza. However, they did want gourmet flavors as opposed to the standard buttercream frosting, bleh. They wanted the divine Tiramisu with silky, melt-in-your-mouth cream frosting; the Chocolate Chip layered chocolate cake with yummy chocolate whipped cream frosting, etc., etc. You get the picture. They were all about flavor vs. presentation. Which was fine, but left me trying to make their budget work with the gourmet price.

I could easily have fit one of the available wedding cake packages in to their budget, but it meant they were only going to have either a 2-tower (10" bottom and 6" top) gourmet wedding cake, plus two smaller side sheet cakes for around $300, or a 3-tier (10"-8"-6") and no side cakes for about the same price. Not really much for your buck, and we needed more cake than that. This is when Sam and Emily told me that maybe we could do something different with the cake rather than ordering one of the wedding packages, because they didn't really care about having a tower-style cake arrangement.

Planning & Comparing Cost Saving Ideas.

Here's where the creative part had to work. I came up with a brainstorm after Emily mentioned that a regular order for an 8" gourmet cake was only $18-26. All I needed was an attractive and inventive way to lay out the cakes. There are plenty of bakeries doing these sort of designs but using lots of floral (more floral ups the expense so I kept thinking). The goal was to do something that would present the multi-tier the cakes in a nice presentation.

DOT: A tiny round mark made by or as if by a pointed instrument; a spot. - thefreedictionary.com

This is such a simple method that I always think everyone already knows how to do it, but I think that's just me, who comes from a crafty background. Growing up we were constantly exposed to art, painting and crafts of many variety so things like this come by second nature without a thought. But then the thought did come to me that some of you may not realize how fast and easy a project can be when you're adding painted dots - which you might be dreading. Dread no more!

image credit and copyright raysto on flickr.com

Back when I did this original post Reception Tent DIY: Coffee Filter Pom-Pom How-to, I had promised some pictures of the pom-pom's at the wedding. Unfortunately, the lighting at the time when we did setup and had time to take our own pictures, was a little sharp. These were the dreadful tents we had to work with, but it worked out.

The reason for the revisit is that I had many many people contact me via COLOURlovers, facebook and twitter for more detailed information to assemble these things. I dumbed it down and made a process that worked great and pretty efficient I must add. I have omitted the details of dying the filters (to add colour) because that's something in itself and was covered a bit in the last post. I will also do an immediate follow-up post on different variations on what I found worked, to add colour to the pom-pom's.

Getting the Scrunch Right.

Trust me when I say that this step matters. Prepping your filters for scrunch is highly important as they will just turn in to floppy filters within an hour (or less) after ONLY hand scrunching. I spent an entire afternoon with trial and error to nail down the best method for best final results in the most time-efficient manner.