Sunday, November 21, 2010

How to get awesome photographs for your projects!

Have you ever seen an amazingly designed blog or website and thought, "I can't do that, I'm not a photographer." ? You might be surprised to know that they probably didn't take that photo either. Here are a few tips to make your website more creative with just a few stock photos.

This site is super easy to use and has so many photos to choose from.  My images in my header are from the site. Thanks Free Range Stock! 

This site is set up a little different making it very interesting to use.  The photos are all sorted by color.  If you are creating something with reds, just click the red box and pages of red type photos are there for you to use! I found myself stuck in the site as my curiosity had to see what photos were under the green page and the yellow page and the orange page... yes I had to click them all.

This site also has a lot of fun photographs ready to use in your blog.  This site allows you to crop the image and provides you with the html to add to your blog for convenient blog posting.

Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com

Texture King is awesome! This site provides many images of all kinds of textures for free! I've used texture images of concrete, wood, rocks and even fabric patterns.  This is a great place to find those cool images for backgrounds and brush textures in photoshop.

These sites are all very helpful, as there are many sites out there to help those of us who might not be talented in the camera department.  I use these sites all the time, they help me save time and help give me inspiration!  Thanks to those sites who help us come together as creatives and designers!

Don't forget to read the rules and how the sites each want the photos used.  Most of them are free for the designers to use, but are not there for us to abuse.  These are not for resell and if you have any questions most the sites can answer if you can use the photo for your project or not.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to add some color to your life!


Friday, November 5, 2010

About Nico Graphics

I am so excited to finally have my blog up and ready for the world to see!  I started Nico Graphics in 2008 and it has been a blast! My passion for designing and creating grows more and more each day.  As a graphic designer there are endless possibilities to what you can do and I only wish there was more time in the day to accomplish everything.  Nico Graphics (short for Nicolette) is a business dedicated to helping small businesses with all their marketing needs.  I understand what it means to be a small business with the need of branding and marketing on a budget.  I have helped many small businesses come up with promotional plans and graphic ideas without large costs.  After talking with the business owners and assistants I help strategically plan to help bring attention to their business, event and promotions.  Different businesses need different things, and I am here to help your business or event look professional and creative.  Stay posted to see what businesses I've helped and what businesses are creating on a small budget!