Anvil Graphics Blog

YouTube is the brainchild of three former PayPal employees who, back in the early part of 2005, decided the internet needed a simpler way for users to share video with one another. The site is now the fourth most visited in the world, and consumes over $1 million of bandwidth cost per day. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in July we discussed several methods of acquiring nice photos for use in your projects. The best way to have the right photo is nearly always to hire a professional, but that can get expensive fast, and justifiably so. If hiring a professional is just not in your budget, than stock photos become your next best option.

We recently did a thorough review of the major online stock photo services and would like to report on those findings. Read the rest of this entry »

Sooner or later every Internet user tries to email a file, only to find out that the attachment is too large for the email server to handle. What to do? Well to be sure there is no lack of excellent solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

It is import to know the difference between raster and vector art. Raster images are like photographs, they are made up of many colored dots/pixels that make up the image. Vector art is like mathematical coordinates and in between each coordinate is either a line or curve. Because of vector art’s mathematical basis it can be scaled to any size without loss of quality whereas, raster images have a limited ability to be scaled up before loss of quality occurs. Read the rest of this entry »

We all know that Al Gore invented the internet in the 1970’s. The truth is that the concept of the internet was introduced in 1974, and by 1983 there was a solid working internet of governmental research and educational computer networks. The World Wide Web was established in 1989, with the first web browser in 1990. eCommerce, the ability to shop online, was introduced by Michael Aldrich in the UK in 1979, however commercial use of the internet was restricted until 1991. 1994 was a watershed year for eCommerce, with the ability to order pizza online from Pizza Hut. The following year saw the introduction of E-Bay (AuctionWeb), Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.com and the first online bank. E-commerce sales in 2008 exceeded $204 billion.

Time and again we are in the middle of a project and just don’t have quite the right photo. There are several options available to get a great picture to complete your project. 1) You can shoot it yourself. We all own digital cameras, how hard can it be? Unless you are a talented and knowledgeable advanced photographer, this is probably not a very good option. Poor lighting can ruin the best intentions, but so can blurry shots or bad exposure. Often times hobbyists do not provide images with sufficient resolution for high quality printing. 2) Swipe them from a web site. While this is fast and easy, most likely the image is copyrighted or coming from a copyrighted web site. The resolution of a typical web image is about 1/4 of that needed for a printed brochure or catalog. Also, web images tend to be cropped closely to the subject, making them difficult to compose. Read the rest of this entry »

We live in a branded world, and consumers are more brand conscious than ever. But what is a brand really? At the first level a brand establishes trust with a business, product or person. When we travel across the country we might eat at an Old Chicago because we trust that the service and the pizza will be good. We like to protect ourselves from the risk of the unknown, so we go with a brand we know. So doing things which build trust is essential. Read the rest of this entry »

Printed advertising media is very important in marketing all types of products and services. From the esteemable business card to the hardworking color catalog, we see print everywhere we go. The main challenge is to choose printing which uses sustainable practices. Read the rest of this entry »

Johannes Gutenberg developed movable type utilizing metal fonts, and combined those innovations with oil-based ink and a hand-cranked press to enable mass production of printed books. His invention, in about 1450, was truly revolutionary and is partly credited with the Renaissance in Europe. The publication of scientific manuscripts greatly expanded knowledge throughout the world. Gutenberg printed a 42 line Bible which established the superiority of his techniques and set the standard for centuries to come. His basic process is still used today in offset lithography printing. Gutenberg is widely recognized as one of the most influential people in world history.

Source: wikipedia.com