I'm doing a series of designs for 33"x80" retractable banners (the ones that roll up into their stands, and you can carry them around in a gym bag-ish case). There will be a banner for each of the college's "mission critical" dimensions: Research, Patient Care/Community Service, Education, Continuing Education, and Alumni, as well as a general UF College of Dentistry banner.
We are going to make them available for faculty members going to conferences, alumni events, college events, basically anything where we can open them up and get our name out there, so they need to be usable in a variety of situations, hopefully without being generic. They should also be able to be used together or separately, which is why I'm developing a common theme for them.
Any comments/suggestions are appreciated, as well as technical advice on designing for print. A couple of the issues I've run into so far:
Finding high-quality photos (preferably free) that are large enough Fighting the urge to over-use photos of Century tower and alligators Adding texture and depth without using photos (drawing is not my strong point)
Thanks! Sarah Zachrich Jeng (Webmaster, College of Dentistry)
"Finding high-quality photos (preferably free) that are large enough" - Check out http://sxc.hu (create an account) for free high quality stock images, graphics, and photos. I love that site and the service it provides. Make sure you read over the terms and conditions just to familiarize yourself with the rules.
Things to consider: 1. Use scaling of "design elements" to your advantage (small, medium, and large design elements). 2. Textures and shades of color.
"Adding texture and depth without using photos (drawing is not my strong point)"
You can use photos/images as texture(s).
1. Find whatever texture(s) you like. Example textures: http://tinyurl.com/cah5l6 2. Open whatever texture file you find in Photoshop 3. Copy/Paste it to a new layer above whatever it is your trying to add texture to. 4. Play with the layer effects (overlay, darken, screen, etc) until you find the desired effect your looking for. 5. Experiment with layer transparency 6. Mask out or erase any overlapping of the texture layer as you see fit.
Another example is the graphic on the CDG home page. http://ufcdg.com/ Notice the paper texture over the name tag.
In my office, we design these banners all the time at 1/4th the actual size. The plotter printer do not pixelate the image when blown up 400%. This way you can use a smaller image and get a better result. We use FedEx Office for the printing. For a banner 33" x 79" they only charge $124.45. Renaissance also will print them for $115, but they aren't as familiar with our format.