House Tools

Need a special kind of Image for your next promotion? Perhaps an Illustration or cartoon? The Wizarts can draw up anything, tailored just for you.

A simple stock image or fully bespoke graphics or location photography, we will always identify the best imagery!

At The Wizarts we maintain access to an unparalleled range of stock imagery, both royalty-free and rights-managed. We will always find the right photograph, graphic or animation to meet your requirements. For exacting requirements, where stock photography and graphics are not suitable, we can design original artwork specifically for you.

Extensive use of your existing digital data is made possible by our ability to accept source material in most common formats (and some uncommon ones).

Typography is an Art form in itself, in fact in early printing techniques it was and is certainly still a craft. It is extremely important to have a good understanding of its fundamental characteristics and creative rules of use.

Because of its wide variety of uses, from web base pages to signage to publications and press advertising. A good understanding of typography and the knowledge of its creative and functional uses comes from years of experience. Its one of those things that is often overlooked but truly influential and can lift a design message vastly without the audience ever considering what effort has gone into the precise task of utilising it.

Choosing the right font for the message you want to communicate needs considerable visual understanding. It is important to know the structure of letterforms, how to deal with spacing (letter spacing, word spacing and leading) and also type sizes. Even if it appears on a computer screen and not on a printed document, the content should still be pleasing to look at and easy to read. Making for a lasting impression to help people to want to read into the purpose of the device.

Designing for a computer screen has its own set of problems. The elastic nature of a web page, which has to work across different platforms and screen sizes, is a task for any graphic designer.

It is The Wizarts job to understand these issues and to address them – to maintain control when everything else is shifting. Within web pages, most of the text has been “poured” into areas on the page, any current browser will take a block of text and display it on the computer screen in a reasonable typeface and size but with considerably less control than an ancient typewriter. This is why we sometimes use graphics to control the general look and feel of a website, whilst still maintaining content for SEO.

Some simple steps for a better understanding of typography

Measure

The Measure is the name given to the width of a body of type. There are several units of measurement used for defining the Measure’s width. The three basic units are:

• One point = 1/72 of an inch
• One pica = 12 points
• One em = The distance horizontally equal to the type size, in points, you are using. Eg. 1em of 12pt type is 12pt.
• One en = half an em

But, with the advent of modern desktop programs and web site design the following are also now used:

• Millimeters
• Pixels

Leading
A simple rule is your leading should be wider than your word spacing. This is because when the balance is correct, your eye will move along the line easily instead of down the lines. If your measure is wider than the guidelines for optimum legibility then increase the leading, or line-height as it’s some times wrongly called. This will have the effect of increasing legibility. Your leading should increase proportionally to your Measure. Small Measure, less leading. Wide Measure, more leading. It’s a simple but effective rule.

Reversing
When reversing colour out, eg white text on black, make sure you increase the leading, tracking and decrease your font-weight. This applies to all widths of Measure. White text on a black background is a higher contrast to the opposite, so the letter forms need to be wider apart, lighter in weight and have more space between the lines.

Tracking
The general rule of thumb in tracking your words (not the characters) is that the shorter the line length the tighter the tracking, the opposite is also true.

Following these simple rules will ensure your bodies of text will be as legible as they can be. These rules come from a typo graphic craft back ground which unfortunately, for our industry in particular, are not being taught as much as they should be in the art schools around the world. As a result they are not being practiced and correct, well-considered typography is basically taking a nose-dive.

It’s our responsibility, as designers, to embrace the rules which are born of a craft which goes back hundreds of years. It’s quite a shame to see so many bad cases of typography around, especially now that desktop computing is everywhere.

The security of your data is of the utmost importance to us at the Wizarts

Data protection is crucial for protecting your business’s continuity. If your only data backup is on a computer, and the hard disk fails or is damaged, or is stolen, your business data is gone. Having printed paper copies of data isn’t adequate data protection; what if the business premises was to burn down or experience severe flooding? Once again the data you need to carry on your business could be irretrievably lost forever.

At The Wizarts we have automated procedures in place for the backing up and Archiving of all our data. We also have stringent measures in place for file security to ensure that there is no question of that security being compromised.

Each customer has specific requirements, but our basic measures are:

• Secure destruction of media
• Strong firewall implementation
• Raid Drive Systems
• Regular automated backup and off site
  archiving of all data

Some simple tips and guidelines for adequate data backup of work

• Archive data regularly
• Use reliable media
• Store backups in a secure, off-site location.

Think about what would happen if you lost a particular section of data and if it would interfere with the daily running of your business? If so, then back it up!

Archiving Critical Business Data

Archiving and backing up data is more than a matter of good housekeeping, it could be a matter of your business’s survival.

Always identifying the critical data that needs to be archived and using a data backup method, back it up on a regular basis. Software programs, don’t need to be backed up because you can reinstall them quite easily. However, all of the files that you’ve created and/or modified should be regularly backed up. For many businesses, this includes everything from daily working files, accounting files and email files. You may like to simplify your backup and archiving procedures by keeping all the files that will need to be archived on a single drive.

Once you’ve selected the critical data to be archived, it’s a simple matter to install and use a backup software program to archive your business data on a regular time schedule. It’s recommended to back up your data nightly. There are many backup software programs available that allow you to set a schedule that will archive your data automatically. Look for backup software that zips and encrypts files to save disk space and increase data security. If possible, backup over your computer network, keeping your data backup files on a separate hard drive from the original files.

For more information on our tools of the trade
Email us or call today on 8833 7225
or visit us personally at our Graphic Design Studio in Ringwood East, the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne.Contact us today and see just how easy we are to work with.