It’s pretty intense what I’m doing, and I often find myself overly emotional—not in a negative or positive way really, but I think it’s my way of processing the general instability of this way of life. Everything around me is either constantly in flux or constantly unfamiliar, and it would be easy to become unbalanced by it.

One month in, here are my tricks for staying sane. Nine months (and two or three more continents) in, I’m checking back with this, to see how much of it stays the same.

1. Realize that sometimes a day will be a wash.

Some days, you’ll be sick. Some days, you’ll be tired and jetlagged. Some days, you’ll be melancholy and homesick. I struggled with this with my recent trip to México City—I was only there for eight days, and I wanted to absorb as much of the city as I possibly could. It’s fascinating, chaotic, and a challenge to comprehend, and I castigated myself for being asleep or working at ten am. I should have been out exploring! Then I realized that running myself down just doesn’t work long-term. I’m not on holiday for a week, I’m living my life in a foreign place. Not every day will be productive work-wise, and not every day will be revelatory travel-wise. Some days will be neither. That’s okay.

Some days, you get totally lost for hours, because all the streets in Mexico City go in circles and have six different names. But then you accidentally bump into beautiful old buildings covered in graffiti, and everything works out.

2. Stay in touch.

My biggest fear is loneliness. This is my first time travelling for more than five weeks by myself, and I know that I’ll miss the social structures, and the people I care about, more than anything. Luckily, the internet is a magical thing, and it affords me roughly a thousand different ways to keep in contact with people. So I use Facebook and Twitter more than I would normally. I send texts to my litttle sister via WhatsApp. I send emails and make phone calls. I had a Skype date with my roommate, in which we both drank wine, talked, and made faces at one another for two hours. I send stories written on the back of postcards. Keeping in touch with the people who made my “stable” life so rewarding (and in fact were pretty much the reason I stayed in Halifax as long as I did between trips) goes a long way to keeping me sane and bridging the old life with the new. When everything around you changes, you change immeasurably too. Keeping grips on your alternate self helps you realize the things that remain constant and true throughout, and help you to be more assured of who you are, even when sometimes it feels as though everything’s been torn out from under you.

3. Make new friends.

While it’s important to stay in touch, if I didn’t make new friends, I’d be horrifically lonely and homesick. This was the biggest mistake I made in Argentina, when I wasn’t travelling alone, and it contributed greatly to the deterioration of my relationship with my travel companion, as well as my own sense of self.

I didn’t make friends with a baby jaguar, but I really wish I had.

I tend towards being a hermit. I’m a bit of a misanthrope to begin with, and I work by myself all day, so it’s easy to spend a day in which I don’t talk to anyone. So I’ve actively been working against that, knowing that while yes, sometimes I just need time and space away from humans, but more often it’s healthy for me to meet new people and make new connections. I live with a roommate, I couchsurf a lot again, and I make it a rule to generally say “yes” when someone asks if I want to go out. As a result, I’ve met a ton of awesome, intelligent, varied people, and I’ve learned more about the culture and hidden undercurrents of this country than I ever would have if I’d isolated myself. Sure, sometimes I end up stuck at a party where everyone’s speaking Spanish and I feel lost and uncomfortable, but most of the time I find myself having a great time, making new friends, and learning new things. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a more valuable part of travel than seeing pyramids.

4. Focus on the little things.

I find, the more I travel, the less I care for typical touristy things. Sure, lots of these things are famous attractions for a reason, but I no longer beat myself up if I miss one or two (or sixteen, depending on the place). Usually, the guidebook attractions are swarming with people (this becomes especially true in Europe), and, while impressive, can feel like a one-hit-wonder. It’s nice to see, but then it’s over. I’ve seen so many tourists storm through an attraction, taking photos every two seconds, not stopping to consider anything or even look at the thing they’re photographing so enthusiastically. (Watch people in the Vatican if you don’t believe me.) It feels empty.

Really gorgeous graffiti in Colonia Roma. As much as I like museums and such, I think outdoor art installations (whether “legal” or not) are far more interesting. Art should be contextual and integrated into daily life. México City is full of great museums, but I liked the series of coffee cups installed outside the museum better.

I’m finding more value in taking a six-hour walk through a city, getting lost and finding interesting signs, buildings, or things happening. I’ve discovered that I love urban parks of all shapes and sizes and beautiful, multi-level bookstores (I’ve been to #4 and #6!). I really enjoy finding a perfect little café to work away my day in. Long-term travel isn’t so much about the awe-inspiring or the impressive as it is about the everyday.

5. Remain flexible.

This is, above all, my most important rule when travelling, living, or navigating relationships. Things will always fail in unexpected ways, especially when you’re in constant motion. You need to be super-flexible in order to make it work. Every time I embark on another long strange trip, I change the rules up, adjusting the formula until I hit on something that works.

If you want stability, stay home. If you want adventure, learn to adapt.

This doesn’t properly capture the chaos of Mexico City, but imagine that there are a few million people jammed into tiny streets overflowing with street vendors and old buildings. I’ve left the orderly world I lived in behind; there’s no room for rigidity here!

Sometimes everyone really is happy, and the end result is beautiful and usable and made of design-love. Other times, though, one of us is going to end up miserable, and the design can end up so off-target, messy, awkward, or downright ugly, that your designer won’t put it in his portfolio. That’s a bad scene. In order to make the feedback process as efficient as possible, I’ve rounded up a few tips from years of going through this process with a rather substantial number of clients—of both the dream and the nightmare variety.

1. Don’t micro-manage…

This is, bar none, the fastest way to quash your designer’s spirit. I’ve gotten to the point where, if I suspect someone’s going to micro-manage me, I’ll walk away from the project. It’s one thing to give your opinions; it’s another thing to tell me exactly what to do. Usually when this happens, I’ll argue for a bit, citing rational reasons why the particular edit isn’t a good idea and backing my objections up with stuff I’ve learnt in school or elsewhere about design theory. The micro-manager client generally knows better, and eventually my spirit dies, and I become an unskilled, untrained monkey who happens to own a copy of Photoshop. “You want that font in 60pt lime green Comic Sans for your investment banking brochure? … fine.” If I’m not arguing with you, you’re not getting my best design work.

2. …but don’t macro-manage, either.

The converse of this, of course, is the client who says “just do whatever you feel is right.” In theory, that would be lovely, except that I always feel as though I’m cheating these clients out of really getting what they want from the work. You have an opinion; I’d like to hear it. I want you to be happy with what you get out of the process, and I really can’t read your mind (yet)!

3. Be specific.

Design is highly subjective. You can tell me that you don’t like something, but I oftentimes don’t know how to fix it for you—chances are good that I put it there because I like it, after all! What element don’t you like? Is it the type style, the colour, the juxtaposition of elements, the spacing between those two lines?

Snarkiness courtesy of the charming (and sometimes rather gruesome) the Oatmeal.

It’s true, designers do often need to design from a feeling and other vague, hard to define concepts. While it’s true that it’s our job to translate an immaterial concept into a material(ish), visible entity, the more specific you can be, the easier it’s going to be for us to figure out what you want. Which leads me to my next point:

4. Know what you want.

If you don’t know what you want, there is no way in hell I will ever figure it out.

5. Realize that design is about solving problems.

Not like “world hunger” sort of problems, but visual problems. You’ve got something you want to communicate to your audience, and you need it to be easy to read, and to communicate your brand messages, and to make the audience feel a certain way. You want to be able to lead them into bits of information, guiding them through your information in a very particular manner. While I often trivialize design by saying “I make pretty things” (which is true), I also make stuff that works, and stuff that takes into consideration your goals for the project.

Therefore, when I make suggestions for ways we could make the overall design better, take them into consideration. If I don’t immediately do everything you ask for, this is because I’m keeping your aims and needs in mind, not because I’m obstinate. (I mean, I am, but that’s something altogether different.) To make a design truly great, we need to work together to solve your problems—that means that I need to listen to your feedback, and you need to consider my advice.

6. Never, never, ever use the phrase “you’re the designer.”

In theory, this would mean that you trust my decisions, value my input, and recognize that, since I’m a professional that you’re paying to do this work, I must know what I’m doing. In actuality, it means that you’re going to be the epitome of a Difficult Client: you’ll constantly say the designs I present to you are no good, but you won’t give any concrete explanations of why; you’ll insist that I make every single tiny, micro-managing alteration you request, then complain when the design starts to erode and the whole thing ends up a giant mess; and you’ll ignore all of my advice and opinions.

This makes me crazy.

We spend so much time complaining about the bad clients that it’s sometimes easy to overlook the good clients. Lately, I’ve been working with a few really great clients, and I’ve been so happy because of it. Where a bad client can make you feel as though you’re losing your soul, a good client reminds you of why you fell in love with design in the first place and makes you feel as though you’re doing a good job. It’s the sort of warm-fuzzy feeling I associate with boys who bring me flowers and strangers complimenting me on my shoes.

Winning your designer’s love, regardless of any other factors, will mean that you will receive a level of service and quality that surpasses that most Troublesome Clients receive. When I love a client and feel that my client respects me as a professional, I invest more of my mental energies into their project. A good client makes you want to do an amazing job, where a bad client experience will often just make you want to finish as fast as possible and get the heck out.

So, how do you go about making sure you’re the greatest client ever, and ensuring your designer feels as passionate about your project as you do? Here, a few tips culled directly from my Dream Clients:

1. Pay your bills as fast as humanly possible.

Nothing says “you’re not worth much to me” like a leisurely bill payment. Freelance designers suffer so much stress about unpaid bills and cash flow—it’s hard when you don’t have a regular stream of income—that late-paid bills are a major problem.

I have one client in particular who sends me a full payment, via electronic means, within 24 hours of receiving an invoice. Every time it happens, I am utterly delighted. The rapid work-reward cycle means that I feel more compelled to finish work rapidly, knowing that I’ll be rewarded immediately upon completion. If, on the other hand, it takes more than a month to put a cheque in the mail (there is a due date on there, you know!), I’m going to feel much less inclined to speed through the project.

Freelance designers are not the power company—if you don’t pay us, we can’t eat (or buy pretty shoes)! Pay your bills promptly, please.

2. Know what you want.

It’s your designer’s job to gently guide you and to help you figure out what you want, then create a visual representation of your needs. If you approach a project without knowing what you want, the whole process goes to hell. Essentially, if you don’t know what you want—and you don’t need to have every detail planned out, but you do need a rough idea—I can’t figure out how to build it for you. It’s like if you were to hire an architect to design you a house; you’d want to figure out how many bathrooms you want before asking for blueprints.

Beware the phrase “you’re the designer”, as in “Well, you’re the designer, you figure it out!”. While I think usually this is used with good intentions, it will make the vast majority of designers cringe. To us, it sounds like you’re saying “you’re the magician!” (See also: “Can’t you just Photoshop that?” Design is not magic; Photoshop is not a magic button. It’s mostly work, training, and lots of patience.)

3. Understand that I probably know what I’m doing (and that’s why you hired me, right?)

This directly contrasts the “well, you’re the designer!” mindset, and clients usually tend towards one extreme or another, where a balance is really preferable. A micromanaging client, however, will almost always be less popular than a hands-off client. This is an almost guaranteed way to make your designer want to throw himself off the nearest bridge, skyscraper, or touristy landmark.

Of course, there’s a fine line between giving feedback and micro-managing. How to tell the difference? If you’re into the sixth round of revisions, and all the revisions read something like so: “Make the logo 40% bigger, and move it 3 inches to the right. Make the text all white, and the background purple. Headings should be right-aligned and in 4pt red Comic Sans. Can we add a few animated gifs throughout the page in order to make it ‘pop’?” (Please note: often these sorts of phrases are then followed by “Well, you’re the designer! Can’t you just make it look better?” and then repeated ad nauseum until all gadgets that receive email or phone calls are smashed into little bitty pieces.)

Remember: you hired your designer (I hope!) because you think they do great work and know what they’re doing. They’ve probably been building websites longer than you. While ultimately the final judgement call is yours, realize that a good designer will work with you to give you a final product that both suits you and your business and looks good. Remember that we have your best interests in mind, and give us enough freedom to create something beautiful for you.

4. Communicate effectively.

The client-designer relationship is much like any other relationship: emotions are involved, everyone’s a little nervous to begin with, you need to make sure everyone’s happy and nobody’s being taken for granted, etc. This is why, of course, good designer-client relationships generate brilliant work, and bad ones leave all parties unhappy. So, like with any other relationship, good communication is vital. Make sure you’re being clear about how you feel and what you want, and treat your designer with respect and consideration. (This means no phone calls at 2am, no matter how dire you think the emergency is, right? In theory, I am sleeping then.) Your designer needs your feedback in order to know that they’re on the right track—make sure that you can give useful, constructive feedback in a timely manner.

And when all else fails, sending presents works, too. I once had a client who mailed me a box of chocolate brownies when my computer died, in order to “aid the recovery process”, and another client who made me a heart-shaped chocolate cake. Chocolate generally engenders love and loyalty, but really, all that’s required is a polite thank you for a wonderful job, and I’ll move mountains for you.

1. More whitespace!

Every time I give someone feedback on designed pieces, I find myself repeating this over and over and over. (Programmers are notoriously bad about this, for some reason.) Consider the look and feel of a store layout—generally speaking, those with higher-quality merchandise tend to have more space between displays. The same is true for design; more whitespace will give an impression of higher quality. Move related elements together; decrease the spacing between lines of text, don’t butt text against a solid shape, and don’t be afraid to leave empty space. This gives the eye a chance to rest and prevents your design from looking like an ad for a car sales lot.

2. All hail the 66-character line!

The ideal line length, in terms of legibility, is widely believed to be around 66 characters long. Of course, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but generally speaking, your text will be far more readable if the lines measure somewhere between 50 and 70 characters. I’m pretty good at eyeballing this now, but I still always check my line lengths with a simple character count tool to make sure they’re good.

3. Go left of centre.

Unless you’re designing a wedding invitation, avoid a centred alignment, which generally gives a highly classical look to any design piece. It can work nicely for old-styled invitations, frontispieces, or labels, but generally it just looks overly formal. A left-hand alignment of elements makes for a more readable text (unless you’re working with a right-to-left language, that is.)

4. Keep it in the (font) family.

Typically, two fonts is all you need for a well-balanced design. Too often people try to use too many “fun” fonts and end up with a chaotic mess. Select two fonts—one serif, one sans—and stick with them. (If you pick fonts with a variety of weights and styles—bolds and italics and such—you’ll have more options in terms of formatting.) A serif font has little sticks and stems on the ends of the lines, which help guide the eye from one letter to the next. Accordingly, they tend to be better suited for long passages of text.

A serif font (Mrs. Eaves) compared to a sans-serif (Gotham).

Stay away from the following fonts: Comic Sans, Papyrus, Trajan, Arial, Times New Roman, unless you have a really great reason for using them. FontSquirrel has a great selection of free and well-crafted fonts you can download and use for anything you’d like.

5. Get up in your own grid.

Using a grid will magically help your design look cohesively and professionally-designed, even if it isn’t. A grid will also lend the whole thing an overall sense of order and structure, particularly useful when working on a design that contains lots of information. While there’s quite a lot to grids (and they’re something I plan to touch on in more detail in another post), basically this involves aligning your elements to an “invisible” grid pattern. 960.gs has excellent templates available for most design programs as well as a number of great tools for websites.

This website makes use of an underlying grid structure!

6. Become a feedback monster.

My roommates and the people around me are probably more than a little tired of this habit of mine, but I ask everyone who’ll listen to me for opinions of my work. It’s easy to miss things when you’re working on something, and other people will often perceive your work in unexpected ways. You don’t need to use every crackpot suggestion, but taking them into consideration will improve your work.

7. Microsoft Word = The Devil.

Above and beyond any of its varied other failings, it is very difficult to make anything look nice in Word. Use OpenOffice if you really like word processors, or the range of (also variably flawed) Adobe products created for professionals, or their equally powerful freeware alternatives.

These are just some very basic suggestions and tips; if you’re serious about making things look better, pick up a copy of The Non-Designer’s Design Book. Or, hire a designer.

It’s amazing. News stories break on Twitter before the newspapers even have an idea what’s going on. You can see real-time photos of Stephen Fry stuck in an elevator. If you complain about a product, its manufacturers will help you out. But most fascinating are the conversations: it’s like what I imagine The Crysalids was like. Someone makes a comment about the colour of the sky, and people respond; threads of conversation begin spidering off in different tangents. Anyone can jump in at any point and drop out just as easily, and nobody dominates because every response is limited to 140 characters. It’s the digital representation of the collective unconsciousness. And it’s searchable!

Social media, I’m sure you’ve heard, is changing our world. If you’re late to the party, like me, it’s time to get involved! Rather than give you a bunch of information that may or may not be true, I’m going to point the way to some resources from more credible experts than I.

Please note that I’m only addressing here the aspects of social networking that I use myself or find most useful… there are a great many other tools that people are using, and there are a great many tools that will rise to the forefront as the internet changes & progresses.

General Information

• a long, but excellent overview of the merits & business implications of social media
• another great overview in pdf/eBook format

Write a blog

Everyone and their goldfish has one. Why don’t you? Blogging will generate more hits to your website, will provide your users with valuable content, and will allow you to interact with your visitors.

• why have one
• getting started
• RSS feeds

I can help you set up a blog and develop a custom template for it (you don’t want to look like everyone else now, do you?), along with a whole range of customization options! I like WordPress myself, but I’ve also used Moveable Type, Livejournal, Blogger, and other platforms.

Twitter: not just for twits

Twitter is the most-used “microblogging” platform; ie, blogging for the lazy. It takes 20 seconds to post a microblog post, and that’s only if you’re really thinking about it.

• beginner’s guide
  
• sign up
• follow me!
• etiquette

Facebook: the workplace productivity vampire

In a business context, you probably want to avoid posting photos of yourself doing jello shots, but otherwise I’d advocate being as open as possible. Any time I receive an email from a prospective client, I look them up on Facebook to get a feel of who they are.

• reasons to use it
• ways to use it
• sign up
• add me!
• become my fan!

LinkedIn: Facebook without the poking

LinkedIn is sort of like the professional version of Facebook.

• video overview
• sign up
• add me!

Monitoring Tools

Find out what people are saying about you. If they’re not saying anything, find people who are talking about the things you can help them with, or the companies with whom you compete.

• technorati
• twitter search
• & more

Remember!

• Keep trying! You will see an ROI, but it may not be immediately measurable. Social media is about forming relationships, first and foremost.
• Help out other people as much as you can to be seen as an expert and a valuable asset to the community.
• Be authentic and open.
• Upload your photograph to your profile if you do nothing else… people will trust you about 100x more if they see a face. We react personally to a face in a way that we don’t react to words. (Same goes for your website.)
• Interact with others–if you’re communicating in a void, you aren’t communicating.
• Respond to negative feedback instead of suppressing it.
• Find your audience & join them.

If you’ve any resources to suggest, or comments, please feel free to leave them!

Do note that I’ve not been ferociously good at following all of these guidelines myself—but it’s certainly given me some better ideas about where I ought to be taking my website!

1. Provide valuable content.

You’ve heard it before: content is king. A gorgeous website will do you absolutely no good if your content is poorly written, irrelevant, or outdated. To this end:

• be sure to spellcheck, or have someone proofread your writing
• make sure to update your content regularly (a blog is good for this)
• use humour judiciously; keep your tone casual
• be sure to give some information about who you are in order to engender trust
• remember to KISS (Keep it simple, stupid)

Be aware that writing for the web is a whole different ballgame. Users are impatient, and nobody wants to skim through a dense chunk of text in order to find what they’re looking for. A few guidelines for writing web-specific content:

• pages should contain no more than two screenfuls of text
• articles can be longer, but should contain no more than seven screenfuls of text
• use short sentences
• break content up into small paragraphs, or make use of point form

You should also consider writing short articles about your area of expertise. This is a great way to provide valuable, relevant content for your website. For example, if you’re a tax specialist, write an article about how to use the quick method of accounting to file your GST/HST. If you’re a mechanic, write an article about how to do your monthly maintenance check. While you may think that you’d lose customers by providing this “inside information”, what you’re actually doing is establishing yourself as an expert in your field. Visitors will begin to see your site as a resource, not just an advertisement. You can also publish your articles elsewhere on the internet to drum up further interest in your site.

2. Don’t turn your visitor off.

Web surfers are a fickle breed. If a visitor arrives at your site to find anything he finds irritating, chances are good that he’ll leave immediately. You don’t want this to happen, so ensure that you don’t use any of the following elements on your site (in approximate order of Perceived Evilness):

• popup windows
• auto-loading sound
• frames or invasive Flash (because you want to be able to see the address of the actual page itself in your browser’s address bar)
• illegible text (whether due to blinking, scrolling, lack of contrast, line length, leading, or inability to resize)
• overuse of animation
• obnoxious use of advertising
• long load times

3. Make use of a statistics program.

A good statistics program is easy to install on your website, and will give you valuable information about your visitors. I’ve used dozen of different statistics programs over the years, and there’s a myriad of options. I use Google Analytics on all of my clients’ sites: it’s easy to install, and gives a wide range of statistics.

Things you’ll find especially useful:

• bounce rate: Given as a percentage, this tells you the number of visitors who leave your site immediately after visiting the homepage. A high bounce rate most likely means that you’re either turning your visitors off, or not directing them to any content that’s of interest to them.
• most accessed pages: This will tell you what content is most interesting to your visitors, so than you can create more content in a similar vein.
• referring sites: This tells you what sites are linking to yours, and which ones bring in the most traffic.
• keywords: This tells you the search engine phrases that people have entered to find your site. My top three phrases, for example, are “livejournal templates”, “graphic designer”, and “triggers and sparks”. This gives you a better idea of what people are looking for when they visit your site, so that you can provide them more relevant content. (As a bonus, you also get some really random-seeming phrases, like “clementine boxes”, “something that eats platypus”, “grunt labourer services”, and “why don’t humans hibernate”.)

4. Organize and follow conventions.

If your visitors can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave and find it elsewhere. If you structure your content well and follow the basic conventions that web users are accustomed to, it’ll be easier for you visitors to find your content.

• all content should be no more than two clicks away at any time
• provide a search bar if you’re managing a content-rich site
• menus should be in an easy-to-reach place (top or left is conventional), and should be consistent
• text that is not a link (or, in some cases, a header) should not be underlined
• links should be distinguished from text (using colour and, in some cases, an underline), and should change somehow (colour, background colour, underline) when you put your mouse over them
• do not use all caps (exceptions can be made for short headings that are all set this way; for emphasis instead use a bold or italic setting, but don’t overuse this!)
• make sure that it is easy for visitors to contact you at all times

5. Optimize for search engines, but don’t harass them.

This means: build your site so that search engines can index them properly, but don’t go overboard trying to use complicated Search Engine Optimization techniques. (Focus instead on building your valuable content!)

Tips:

• ask other sites to link to you (especially if you have linked to them!). Only request this of people you know. Building valuable content will make people link to you naturally.
• each page should have a different title, description and set of keywords (usually no more than 15 keywords are required; too many can cause you to be blacklisted)
• keywords should be repeated within the page content (but don’t force it; this should happen naturally)
• all images should have an ALT tag; avoid using images as headers or links
• submit your site to online directories (Yahoo, Open Directory, any local or business-related directory that accepts links)
• make sure your website has been semantically coded (separating content from presentation) and is standards-compliant

6. Make sure everyone knows about it.

If you’ve built a fantastic website, but nobody knows it’s there, it’s no good to you. Advertise your website address everywhere you go: use it as an email signature appended to all your emails, put it on your business card, use it as a signature if you post to online forums, paint it on your car, add it to your online profiles.

Make use of social networking sites and tactics:

• linkedin.com, facebook.com, myspace.com (in decreasing order of “professionalism”)
• create a Facebook Page for your business
• start a blog
• provide RSS feeds for your visitors, and integrate them with Facebook & the like
• use Qassia to publish your articles and get quality links back to your site

And above all, remember: if you build it, they will come. Focus on making your website a source of valuable, well-written content that’s accessible and well-designed, and you’ll be in a better position to benefit from it.

An excellent way of supplementing this information is by sending along a screenshot. I’ll often request this of clients when I can’t replicate a reported bug—if you’ve sent one to begin with, I can be that much more effective.

Here’s how you do it.

On a PC:

• Make sure your screen is showing what you’d like it to.
• Find the “Print Screen” button on your keyboard. It should be to the right, above the arrow keys and the “Page Up” and “Page Down” keys, and will probably be marked “Prnt Scrn” or somesuch. If you use a laptop, it will probably be up along the top, sharing key space with a function key.
• Once located, press the button! (If it’s on a function key, you’ll probably need to hold down your function key while you’re doing it.)
• Open up a graphics editing program. Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, and Paint will all work equally effectively for this. Open a new document the size of your screen.
• Select “Edit » Paste” from your menu, or press Control-V. Your screenshot will appear in your new document.
• Save this document (“File » Save” or Control-S) to your computer.
• Open up your email program, attach the file you just saved, and send away!

On a Mac:

• Open a Finder Window.
• Browse to “Applications » Utilities”. Launch Grab.app.
• Select “Capture” from Grab’s menu. Select one of the options according to your preferences (“Screen” will do quite nicely!) or just hit Command+Z.
• Follow the on-screen instructions. Your Mac will make a clickity-camera noise when it takes the screenshot.
• Back to Grab. It will contain a new document that is a picture of your screen. Save it to your computer (“File » Save” or Command-S).
• Open up your mail program of choice, attach your saved file (it will be saved as a .tiff file, which is perfect), and send to your happy web-person!

Black and white: for use in fax machines and newspapers and other print mediums that don’t use colour. The black and white version contains no shades of gray for maximum legibility in any print scenario. “Black and white” is a bit of a misnomer — all that will be printed in this case is 100% black ink.

CMYK: for use in any process colour print job. In most cases, unless it’s an extremely large print run, your printer will be doing a process (CMYK) job and will require this version of the file. Colours are slightly less saturated than their RGB counterparts, but have been adjusted to maintain as much consistency as possible. Use this file in your home printer and to send to a print shop. (Tip: before running a full job at the print shop, ask for a proof. Different printers, like different monitors, output colours differenly. You want to be sure the colours are to your liking before you print 10,000 business cards.)

RGB: for use in websites, emails, presentations, and anywhere else the logo is to be viewed primarily on-screen. You can print an RGB file, but you’ll find there will be a greater disparity between what you see on-screen and what your printer spits out. Keep in mind that different monitors display colours differently — these files have been prepared on a colour-calibrated machine in order to maximize consistency across different machines, but there’s no way to guarantee how someone else will see a colour.

Pantone: for use in large print jobs using Pantone inks. Pantone inks are specific colours produced by Pantone and purchased by a print shop. Unless process (CMYK) jobs which mix four different colours of ink in order to reproduce any range of colours, Pantone jobs are run with very specific ink colours. This means that there is an additional charge for every extra colour used in the print job (black is considered a colour), but you can guarantee that every time your logo is printed, it will appear with the exact same colour scheme (barring some variation caused by the print stock). Pantone colours are still used by large corporations but are falling out of favour for small print runs due to their increased cost.

Vector (EPS): Vector files are infinitely scaleable. You could take an EPS and print it on a grain of rice, then scale it up and print it on a billboard without any loss of quality. If you need to print your logo, whenever possible, use an EPS. Any print shop should be able to handle an EPS.

Raster (GIF/PNG & Tiff): Raster files lose quality when scaled — as a result, these files are provided at three different sizes. If you need a different size, scale down whenever possible. If you need something larger or substantially smaller than the files provided, open the included EPS file in any image processing program and create a larger version directly from this. GIF/PNG files are provided for use on websites and on any on-screen presentation — they are compressed for speed of download without any loss in quality. Tiff files are provided for print purposes — use these if you can’t use the EPS and need to print your logo.