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About marinaduque

Hey! My name is Marina, and I'm a Toronto based Web & Graphic Designer, Artist and Illustrator with over 20 years experience.
15 May 15, 2017

Design 101 ~ The Design Grid

2023-05-02T14:43:08+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Illustrator, Marketing, Photoshop|

Design 101 ~ The Design Grid A Design Grid is an invisible grid on your art board. If you follow the rules of a Design Grid, then your design won't look like this. I have overlaid a grid on top of it and if you look at the ad closely, you can see that NOTHING lines up anywhere. There are several things gone wrong with this ad, like use of color, typography and of course, there is no Design Grid. Why are Design Grids so important? There are several reasons: Final design will be aesthetically pleasing. Changes will be easier. Your content will [...]

11 May 11, 2017

Case Study ~ Creating a Product Label Design

2023-05-02T14:39:29+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Illustrator, Website Design|

Case Study ~ Creating a Product Label Design Going back to my last post on where I ask If Your Ads are Effective, this post will now show you how to bring your message to life through design. Taking the product label from my previous post, I am going to redesign the front of the label only. As mentioned, the problems with this design was complete information overload . This needs to be streamlined and alot of the information should be housed on their website and is not necessary on the product label. So, what are the most important pieces of information? Front [...]

9 May 9, 2017

Is Your Ad Design Ugly?

2023-05-02T14:36:43+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Illustrator, Marketing, Photoshop, Website Design, WordPress|

Is Your Ad Design Ugly? Is your ad design ugly? What truly makes a great design? An effective design or ad is not just all about looks. There are 3 main components when designing anything whether it be a simple web banner, a lead sales page, a corporate brochure, or even something as simple as a business card. Message Delivery Aesthetics Message Define crystal clear what message you are trying to convey. Do not leave anything up for assumption. Why? Because people don't have time to waste and by 8 seconds, they would already have moved on. Is this sad? Yes. But [...]

4 May 4, 2017

Design 101 ~ The Psychology of Color

2023-05-02T14:34:02+00:00By |Art, Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Home Design, Illustrator, Photoshop, Website Design, WordPress|

The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding If I were to play a song for you that you listened to while growing up, there is no doubt that you would remember all the words AND the feelings and emotions that were associated with it. For example, assuming you are my age, and I say "INXS, Never Tear Us Apart", what fond memories do you have? OMG! I remember when I slow danced in Grade 6 to that song! Am I right? Well, imagine that with color. We know that Red is Love, Purple is Royalty, Blue is Calming and [...]

25 April 25, 2017

How to Effectively Design a Web Banner

2023-05-03T23:50:13+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Illustrator, Marketing, Photoshop, Website Design|

How to Effectively Design a Web Banner In my previous post, I discussed which Web Banners are Considered the Top 5 Most Effective Sizes according to Google. In this post, I will show you how to effectively design a web banner that is both eye catching and one that will get your message across. Seeing that you have very limited real estate when it comes to your web banner given by the sizes, you need to keep it really clean and simple. What is the purpose of your web banner ad? Is it a promotion that is going to expire? Is [...]

21 April 21, 2017

Top 5 Most Effective Web Banner Sizes

2023-05-04T00:22:04+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Marketing, Photoshop, Website Design, WordPress|

Top 5 Most Effective Web Banner Sizes Below are the standard web banner sizes that you can implement on any website. The ones that are highlighted in Pink are considered the top 5 most effective web banner sizes according to Google. Leaderboard (728 x 90 pixels) Large Rectangle (336 x 280) Half Page Banner (300 x 600) Medium Banner (300 x 250) Large Mobile Banner (320 x 100) Full Banner (468 x 60) Half Banner (234 x 60) Vertical Banner (120 x 240) Wide Skyscraper (160 x 600) Skyscraper (120 x 90) Button 1 (120 x 90) Button 2 (120 [...]

13 April 13, 2017

The Importance of a Client Design Brief

2023-05-04T00:42:06+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Illustrator, Marketing, Photoshop, Website Design|

The Importance of a Client Design Brief Grab my free resources which includes a Client Design Brief! Enter your email on the right sidebar. In my previous post, I spoke of the Importance of a Client Agreement and Policy. The next thing to do when starting a design project is to have your client fill out a Client Design Brief. A Client Design Brief lets you know who your client is, what their main goal of the design project is, what design style they like, what functions they want to see on their website (if you are doing one), who their competitors are, and most [...]

11 April 11, 2017

A Must have for any Designer: Client Agreement and Policy

2023-05-04T00:42:37+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Marketing, Website Design, WordPress|

Client Agreement and Policy Grab my free resources which includes a Client Agreement and Policy! Enter your email on the right sidebar. As with any type of service related job, it is only common sense to have a client agreement and policy. This ensures that both parties understand what is expected to make sure that the job gets done. With freelance design, here are 2 things you need to do before you start any job: Client Agreement and Policy Get a deposit Why I Stopped Doing Design Contracts I use to be really adamant in making sure that contracts get [...]

31 March 31, 2017

Why is Fiverr Bad?

2023-05-02T14:06:46+00:00By |Entrepreneurship, Graphic Design, Marketing|

Why is Fiverr Bad? I just paid $5 for this horrible logo at horriblelogos.com. This guy gets paid $5 to design ugly logos to feed his beer habit. I think the premise of his site is to make fun of other sites that charge $5 for logos. Ahem Fiverr. And this is the best $5 that I have ever spent. I remember several years ago, my snooty design friends and I were scoffing at the idea of crowdsourcing and logo design contests. How dare they! How dare they devalue us designers! We were always taught to turn away spec work. But let's think [...]

27 March 27, 2017

How to Determine your WordPress Sidebar Width

2023-05-04T00:42:32+00:00By |Graphic Design, Marketing, Photoshop, Website Design, WordPress|

How to Determine your WordPress Sidebar Width Here's a quick video where I show you how to determine your WordPress sidebar width so that you can design all of your banner ads with a consistent width. For a more in-depth post on how to design and add a banner to your sidebar, I offer a video tutorial here. Step 1: Go to your WordPress Dashboard / Appearance / Widgets Step 2: Type in 2-3 sentences of dummy text Step 3: Print Screen (MAC hit Command + Shift + 3 / PC hit the print screen button) Step 4: Bring that screen shot [...]

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