I started reading a tutorial called “How to Deliver a Marketing Message On Your Website” written by Jarry Bader. After I read the first paragraph which was a great introduction to the article, I read the second paragraph. I quickly realized that the author was on a rant with his opinions and views on the how the world is right now and I think it’s well said!

Look around. Things are nuts, the economy stinks, politicians are goofy, people are addicted to cell phones, businesses are obsessed with Twitter and Google and Facebook; everything is made in China, and it’s all CRAP! You’re lucky if anything you purchase works the way its suppose to and god help you if you complain. You’ll spend hours on the phone with some clown who doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and doesn’t get paíd to really help you. They are the purveyors of frustration and creators of cynicism. Athletes pretentiously thank God for their base hits and million dollar contracts, and we watch in astonishment. Trust me, God doesn’t give a damn about who wins the next Nascar race, or that you get an even bigger flat screen plasma for your birthday. He’s got bigger fish to fry like global warming, child starvation, and deadly pandemics. You’re on yóur own fella. So get use to it. – By Jerry Bader (c) 2010

You can find the full article by clicking here.

If you have never heard of the Carl House located in Auburn, Georgia, then you are missing out. This 100-year old antebellum home has been restored and renovated with a ballroom, third floor, tons of interior lighting, professionally landscaped southern gardens, large open spaces and more. The Carl House has consistently won awards as a venue to host a wedding in Georgia. It’s near Atlanta approximately 6 miles from Dacula, GA.

Better yet, the Carl House and staff are very friendly and accepting for gay weddings. I had the opportunity of photographing a gay wedding here at the Carl House. This place truly is a wedding photographer’s dream place to shoot offering great scenery with lines and textures for good composition shots, great mixture of outdoor natural lighting options and tons of indoor lighting to make interior shots much easier, large open spaces easy to move around in and more. Most of us who attended this wedding had never heard of the Carl House but we were all impressed how beautiful and accommodating this place really was!

Here are some of the wedding photos I took at the Carl House:

Last December 2009, I posted 6 places to find  Atlanta Restaurant Coupons of all ranges to hundreds, maybe even thousands of Atlanta Restaurants and even other major cities. Since then, I have personally discovered more. If you are paying full price to eat out these days in Atlanta, then you are paying too much!

Here are 6 more websites to get Atlanta Restaurant coupons, deals and discounts from restaurants all over Atlanta and metro Atlanta areas.

Scoutmob Atlanta

Scoutmob Atlanta is one of my favorite Atlanta discount programs in the area saving me up to 90% off local places, for several reasons. First reason is you do not have to pay for discount coupon upfront. The way it works you have 2 ways of claiming the coupon for later use (without paying a penny, nickel, dime, etc) out of pocket! Claim Scoutmob discount way #1: print, text or email the daily coupon to yourself through their site in which you simply take in with you to the place offering the discount when you want to use it. You have 24 hours to claim the coupon this way – this is very similar to how Groupon works. After 24 hours, the discount is replaced by a new discount for the next 24 hours. Claim Scoutmob discount way #2: the mobile way – download the mobile app for your iPhone or droid phone. Using the apps, you do not need to print, email, text, etc yourself the discount. You just pull up the app, use your local location mapping to tell app where you are, and app will show you all the places surrounding you offering Scoutmob Atlanta discounts. Simply walk in to the designated place and show your coupon code directly from your phone. Either way you claim your Scoutmob Atlanta discount coupons, be sure to sign up to receive the daily eblast so you are always informed of the discount of the day.

Second reason Scoutmob is one of my favorites is because it offers more than just local daily discounts. Every day, learn about your community and the people living around you through weekly Scoutmob set topics. Keep in tune with what to do on the weekday nights with Monday’s “Out On a School Night”. Get to know artistic peeps offering creative abilities through Tuesday’s “Creative Eye”. Win free stuff with Wednesday’s “Recognize This”. Learn about other services, good deeds, nice peeps in the area with Thursday’s “Local Mug”. Give your own input with Friday’s “Caption This”. So go save money and become a local curious Scoutmobee at the same time!

Check out my Scoutmob features: Kim Wolfe on Scoutmob (as an Atlanta City Limits collage artist) and Beer Brew Girls on Scoutmob (Beer Brew Girls featured on local mug).

The Green Half

The Green Half connects provides discounts for restaurants, shopping,events, home care, and more from companies committed to becoming more green. Plus, The Green Half  donates 10% of net certificate sales to various local nonprofit organizations. So you get great deals while helping to support local businesses, non profit organizations, and our environment, all at the same time. I just personally used this coupon website service to buy $18 for $40 at Feast Atlanta restaurant certificate. I ordered and then received a printable certificate through my email. The Green Half seems to feature restaurants I haven’t seen these the discount coupon sites I’ve mentioned. I also like this particular coupon site since they don’t email me every day. I only receive an email when there is a new deal which seems to be weekly or less.

8 Coupons - Deals Near Me

8 Coupons is a coupon website I stumbled upon. I instantly liked this website because it showcases the deals from many of the individual coupon discount websites I’ve mentioned, here in one place. You can see local discounts and deals that are close to you by area and on a national scale as well. One thing I dislike about this website is that is rather cluttered with tons of discounts but if you can get over this, this is an easy one stop Atlanta shop discount place.

Coupall Atlanta

Coupall seems to work like Groupon in which there is a daily coupon and you have 24 hours to claim. By the number of claims, it seems that Coupall is not as well known as Groupon but seems to have some great past deals including free cupcakes from Caroyln’s, $3 for $10 at Fatburger, $10 for $20 at Twains, $7 for $15 at Thumbs Up Diner, and more. I have not personally used this site but decided to sign up for the daily email based on the past coupon features.

U Daily Deal Atlanta

U Daily Deal seems to work just like Groupon as you have 24 hours to claim the daily deal and enough people have to purchase the deal before it becomes available for the day. However, this discount coupon site in Atlanta is targeted to college students. The coupons offered are around colleges in Atlanta and offer everything from food, shopping and such at very low prices. Today’s deal is $3 for $6 at Baba Louz Cafe in Atlanta. The offers do have to be purchased before hand and you can redeem the offer by print or by mobile phone.

Living Social Atlanta

Living Social is similiar to Groupon as well. You have 24 hours to claim the discount deal with offerings from 50 – 90% off local Atlanta restaurants, retail shops, venues, and more. Sign up to receive the daily email so you are in the know of the daily discounted deal. If you refer the deal to 3 friends who buy the daily discount, then you will get your deal for free.

Hey ya’ll! Just tootin’ my own horn! (Hope it’s ok that I do this!) I was mentioned on Scoutmob this week under “creative eye”. Read the history, inspiration, and all goofiness behind my popular “Atlanta City Limits” digital collage art piece.

Read all about it here: Kim Wolfe on Scoutmob

Smiles

Kim Wolfe aka Kimmie

When Accounting and Consulting Solutions originally came to me for business card design and printing needs, I reviewed the original logo of the company had been using. The logo was created in word or similiar word processing program with the use of clipart. The logo had proven sufficient for the company’s needs when it was originally created. However, in reviewing the logo for printing, I was concerned about the quality of how the logo image would print. So it was suggested to allow our team of creative professionals at Absolutely Right Brain to redesign the logo using some simple printing design techniques to provide the cleanest printing quality.

Here’s what we came up with:

Accounting and Consulting Atlanta Logo Redesign Before and After

Here’s the business card layout:

ACS Atlanta Business Card Design

The cards have been printed and clients are very happy of how professional their cards look.

Allow me to do the same for your small business!

1. Text in Black Ink Only:

CMYK 4 Color Process Printing Colors

In 4 color process offset printing, 4 inks, known as CMYK, are used to print your piece.

• C = Cyan, a light blue
• M = Magenta, a pink – purple color or a mauve
• Y = Yellow
• K = Black

When printing text on a business card, postcard, flyer, etc., you want to make sure any text 12pts or lower is set to print with black ink only. Otherwise, your text will be printed with all 4 colors overlapping each other. If the registration of any of the 4 colors is off even slightly, you risk the chance of ending up with fuzzy text with hints of colors showing on the edges of the text. When text is small, this makes your text harder to read.

2. Difference between a Raster Image and Vector Image:

Raster Image with Pixels

The difference between a raster image and a vector image is how the image is constructed on the in the file.

A raster image is constructed with tiny little boxes called pixels which is also referred to as DPI (Dots per inch). Each box contains a small portion of your image and all of the little boxes put together make up your entire image. Photographs (from your camera, phone camera, etc) are usually raster images. Any image with the file extensions: .jpg, .png, .tiff are raster image files.

• The (+) to using raster images: Raster images are best used for photographs. The boxes or pixels do a fantasitc job of showcasing all of the hundreds of thousands of different colors used to make up an entire photograph image.
• The (-) to using raster images: Raster images can not be enlarged without distorting the piece of image in the pixel unless you adjust the DPI (Dots Per Inch) number. Otherwise, dragging the image to enlarge it does add more pixels, just makes the pixels (your image pieces larger) which creates a pixelated (boxy) look.

A vector image is constructed of points based on a mathematical equation rather than pixels. Each point is connected to another point and all of the points compose your image or design. You must design in a vector format friendly program in order to create vector files. Some of the popular programs to create vector art with are: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign and Corel Draw.

• The (+) to using vector images: Vector images can be enlarged just by dragging the handles and not distort the images because the mathematical format just recalculates to add more points to the image. Logo designs and text are best used in vector format which produces the clean edges providing a cleaner look (than pixels) and in some cases, easier to read text.
• The (-) to using vector images: You must have a vector program, which can cost $$$ in order to create a vector image.

3. Don’t Print Web Pics:

Do not use web images for printing

Offset printing and most printing methods require a high pixel resolution also known as DPI (dots per inch) so your printed piece does not look pixelated or boxy. Your computer monitor, cell phone monitor, etc. only displays images at 72 DPI therefore which is much lower than 300 DPI.

You can’t take your logo or a photograph / image from your website image of 72 DPI and just enlarge it to be 300 DPI without distorting the image. You must start from an image that was originally taken from the camera with a high MegaPixel setting and use it for printing. Then copy that same image, reduce the DPI to 72 DPI for web and use that special “web” image for the web and the web only.

4. Embed Your Imports:

When you import images, sometimes they can be linked to your layout file which means if you don’t include the image with your layout file, the image won’t show up on another computer that doesn’t have that linked image on it. The same thing can apply for fonts. So when you are printing, you need to embed all of your fonts, images, anything that was imported to the layout image you are sending so everything will print inside your layout.

5. Bleed it if you can:

A color bleed is where the color, image or color box is printed all the way to the edge of your piece. The print machines can not print to the edge of the paper like that. So what you do is extend your photo, image, color box out pass the trim line / edge of your piece in which it’s printed on larger size paper and then cut down to the size you order. Usually the standard bleed amount is 1/8 to 3/16 of inch pass the trim line / edge or your piece regardless of what it is: a business card, postcard, flyer, brochure, etc.

5. CMYK Color Format

No RGB color for printing Yes CMYK color for printing

CYMK is the color format your files need to be for 4 color process printing. RGB is used for the web, your phone, your monitors etc.

• R = Red
• G = Green
• B = Blue

The images you take with cameras, phones, etc are usually in RGB format.

What else do you want to know about printing?

Or does this all sound too complicated? Then hire a professional. Contact me, Kim Wolfe

Do you know how to embed an image in Microsoft Outlook Email? For example, you can embed  flyer image within the body of your email instead of attaching as an attachment. Here’s your step by step instructions to do so.

Attaching an image means it will come as an attachment with the sent email and you have to manually open attachment by double clicking on it. Embedding an image means that the flyer image is visible in your email when you open the email without having to click on the image to get it to open.

Just remember, Microsoft Outlook does have a minimum of emails you can send out at once. If you are trying to use Outlook as your mass email campaign program, you may have to break up your email list in sections for the emails with your embedded images to go through. Here we go!

How To Embed an Image in Microsoft Outlook - Open New Email

How To Embed an Image in Microsoft Outlook - Click Curser In Email

How To Embed an Image in Microsoft Outlook - Choose Insert Picture

How To Embed an Image in Microsoft Outlook - Choose Browse

How To Embed an Image in Microsoft Outlook Email - Select Image and Choose Open

How To Embed an Image in Microsoft Outlook Email - Alternate Text

SIDENOTE: Why is it important for you to include alternate text? One important reason is – if the email receivers email is set not to automatically view pictures – the text will appear instead of image. In this case, the receiver just has to click on the image and choose to show the images.

How To Embed an Image in Microsoft Outlook - Image is Embedded

Viola! Happy Embedding!

If this helped you, let me know by leaving a comment!

Beer Brew Girls officially has it’s own website now at Beer Brew Girls .com. For a while there, I was posting all of our beer brew stuff here under my personal website blog. Since it is a big interest of mine, it was appropriate to put it here until I found the time to give Beer Brew Girls its own place. I found the time and Beer Brew Girls .com is officially up and running. The best part is the Beer Brew Girls website is built on the WordPress platform!

Beer Brew Girls .com

For the latest in Beer Brew Girls news, beer batches, homebrew tips, beer events and more, stay tuned to Beer Brew Girls.com!

This weekend is the popular Atlanta art festival – Inman Park Festival 2010. I’ve personally gone to the festival for the past few years now and I always love the diversity of artist and vendors of this particular festival. As a fellow artist, I love to be inspired by other artists works and I usually am very inspired by the time I leave the Inman Park Festival! So here’s all the details you should know before you go!

• What: Inman Park Festival 2010
• When: Saturday April 24 and Sunday April 25, 2010
• Where: Inman Park
  • Atlanta, Georgia
• Days and Times:
  • Saturday, April 24, 2009 – 11 am to 8:30 pm
  • Sunday, April 25, 2009 – 11am to 7:00 pm
• Admission is Free For General Festival
  • Special Events may have a cost
• Parking is Limited! Take MARTA
• Arts & Crafts Show and Street Market
  • 11:00 am to 6:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday
• Parade Saturday, April 24, 2009 – 2:00 pm
• Free Shuttle Bus on Tour Route noon to 6:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday

I can not take credit for this information which I learned from “Graphic Design Do’s and Don’ts for Your Real Estate Blog” session by Dina Gunderson at RETechSouth. Dina Gundersen of Creative Thunder Design provided some great tips and useful information to help you with your blog.

1. Do add visuals to your blog
   • Utilize photo / clipart sites
   • Use your digital camera
   • Create headlines with thematic fonts
   • Don’t be afraid to pick up things and scan them in to use as an image
   • Don’t borrow or steal images from other websites – it’s illegal
   • Don’t use cheesy clipart
2. Places to find free stuff for your blog
   • Royalty free image sites
     1. www.thinkstockphotos.com
     2. Mircrosoft Office Online Clip Art
        • You need to have a legal copy of Microsoft Office
     3. www.veerimages.com
     4. www.istock.com
     5. www.123RF.com
   • Free and Shareware Font Sites
     1. www.fontfreak.com
     2. www.dafont.com
        • You can preview your word or words in the font choices
   • Image Editing Site
     1. Microsoft Picture Manager
     2. www.Picasa.Google.com
        • Free but mostly for image organizing
     3. www.Picnick.com