Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites

by John Tarr | Oct 13, 2020 | Graphic Design, Newsletters & Magazines, Web Design | 0 comments

Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites

As a graphic designer I was drawn into designing websites because of the similarities to laying out newsletters.

I had become quite good at designing newsletters and magazines for companies and non-profit organizations, so when I started to explore ways for me to show my work on-line, I began to look into websites.

While in school pursuing my graphic arts degree, I took a couple of classes designing websites the old-fashioned way, inserting code via HTML and using an Adobe software called Dreamweaver. It was interesting but not my cup of tea.

I am a graphic designer and not an IT person working in code.

After discovering WordPress, I realized I could have the best of both worlds. You see, WordPress is the platform that allows you to design more visually, but you can also use code if you wish.

It has many drop-and-drag features that help the design move right along and let me do what I do best — create my visual magic in Photoshop and Illustrator.

To really make WordPress websites hum, install a theme. When a theme is installed into a WordPress website, it gives far more functionality, depending on the theme you use.

I use a premium theme called Divi made by a company called Elegant Themes.

This theme allows me to use my graphic art abilities to the fullest without getting bogged down in code. Now that is music to my visual ears

A good theme is critical to the success of a WordPress website.

Think of it this way:

1.) The WordPress Platform is like the foundation of a house. Everything about the house rests on the cement foundation. The walls and roof are completed with electric and plumbing installed within the walls of this house.

2.) A WordPress Theme allows you to install carpet, paint the walls, hang photographs on those walls and bring in furniture to customize this house into a home. This allows you to create a custom business storefront.

Now back to Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites.

When designing newsletters, I use a program by Adobe called InDesign. This software allows me to design multiple pages and many tools for different creative features for designing this publication much like WordPress does.

It takes a healthy learning curve to become proficient at both of these design tools and make custom, professional products to be sold to the business world.

The building-blocks of both WordPress and InDesign are very much alike in many ways.

Photoshop and Illustrator

I use both of these software’s to help design both a newsletter and a website. I do not know what I would do without them. They allow me to become very creative in both fields of publication.

Because InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop are all made by Adobe they play together very well.

I was a photographer for 40+ years before becoming a graphic artist so I was used to using Photoshop.

I could make many adjustments to my own images as well as those I retrieved from a photo stock agency and photographs that customers would send to me for their website or newsletter.

Illustrator is a one-page design platform that allows you to design logos, social media memes, sliders for WordPress and much more.

Many times, I will have all four programs open at once as I go from one to the next on my different monitors. It allows me to be very efficient and improves my creativity tenfold.

Blogging on a WordPress website is a lot like a printed newsletter, but in a digital format that connects to the internet.

I have designed a newsletter that will be printed and at the same time used as a blog that will reach two very different types of people with the same information.

Of course, you do not use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on a printed newsletter but it is very important when designing your blog like you would do with a website page.

Search engines like Google and Bing require it.

You can then share this blog on social media to reach the whole internet world.

Paper is still in demand

Many people do not have access or do not want to use the internet, and that is where a printed newsletter is a big deal.

Programs to be handed out at a performance or at churches before a service or one made as an inhouse publication in a large business are still very much in demand, as well as advertisements that come in the mail.

We do both of these types of publications for people and businesses.

In fact, when someone hires us to design a website, we insert a blog into it if they wish and then teach them how to use it.

Go here if you would like to know more on how we Design Websites and Newsletters for Business.

Why Designing Newsletters is Like Building Websites

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Saluting the United States Military on Memorial Day with Two Photographs

by John Tarr | May 27, 2019 | My Personal Photo Stories | 0 comments

Saluting the United States Military on Memorial Day with Two Photographs

What does this image invoke in you?

I found myself working very late last night (until 5am) on images for my new stock photo agency. Images that I have taken over the years. I ran across one photograph I took back in 2004 in San Diego at the military cemetery on the bluff overlooking the harbor. Every time Monica and I visit San Diego we go there. For some reason the place draws me like nothing else. I was never in the military. I have had controversial views about our country and its role in the world but that is all beside the point.

I have always wanted to take a photograph that would do justice to the peacefulness and beauty of its location but more importantly what it represents. I had forgotten about my images of that place until now. After studying this photograph I decided to use a photographic technique called HDR. I then applied it to this image.

The result was totally unexpected. All I could do was stare at it. As I began to adjust the controls to tweak the image further I found myself being drawn into it like no other photograph I have ever done before. I found myself going back to it over and over as I worked on other images throughout the night.

The first color photo was taken using High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography to bring out the colors and high lights.

Saluting the United States Military on Memorial Day with Two Photographs

I found myself crying and a number of occasions. Why I asked myself? What is it about this image? When you go to the location itself your are immediately over whelmed by the size and scope of the place and sheer numbers of grave markers.

On more than one occasion I have found myself walking among the markers and reading the small short story of that person’s life. I try to imagine what their life was all about and who they were.

Not all that are buried there died in combat but a great many did. What does that say to me? So very many!

The second B&W photograph was taken with a digital camera that was set to shoot infrared.

Many more cemeteries like this one dot our country and different locations in the world. So many! What price did they pay? As I think about that, I think about the condition of our country today and what they would think? Would they say it was worth it?

I am sad today because of the scope of the question and their ultimate sacrifice. It does not matter if you are Republican or Democrat. Liberal or conservative or any shade in between. The real question is what have we become as a nation at this moment in time. Who are we and where are we going. What does the future bring as I look out over the past of this photograph?

Only God knows. This all is not a surprise to him. That, I take much comfort in.

What do these image invoke in you?

Both photographs were taken at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego on the same day in 2004.

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A Rose Is Still A Rose No Matter How You Photograph It

by John Tarr | Jun 24, 2018 | Photography, Cell Phone Photography | 0 comments

A Rose Is Still A Rose No Matter How You Photograph It

“O wow! We gotta stop.”

My wife sounded the alarm as we were driving on a very wet and cloudy spring day. We had just passed the rose garden at Mesa Community College. The colors were just bursting out and jumping out onto to the road that made us stare in disbelief as we whizzed by.

“Pull over or we are going to hit someone.” She cried out again.

“We do not have any of our camera gear with us,” I said, as we pulled into the parking lot next to the garden. Waiting for the down pour of rain to stop we planned our next course of action as we viewed this amazing site from the car window.

A Rose Is Still A Rose No Matter How You Photograph It

Everything was perfect. Cloudy overcast day with rain is just what the doctor ordered when it comes to photographing flowers. Those days are rare in the deserts of Arizona let me tell you.

My wife and I have been professional photographers for many years, so we know what it takes to capturing great looking images in many different elements.

We decided to have some fun and take our time dodging rain drops and just use our cell phones. We both have been wanting to experiment with the built-in camera on our iPhone’s.

It was cool out and rain drops were on all the roses and best of all we had very diffused lighting because of the cloud cover. The light was very even and gives a delicate feel to whatever you photograph.

Cell Phone Photography

No one else was in the garden because of the rain so we had the whole place to ourselves. When it got heavy we would get back in the car and marvel over the images we just took (isn’t digital just grand) and, when the rain let up, out we would go again.

This cat mouse game with the elements lasted for a couple of hours. We did not want to stop and would squeal back and forth to each other at the next colorful rose we each just discovered.

I am a photographer at heart but I am also a graphic artist. I love taking images and combining them with text to tell a more complete visual story. These are small packets that infuse a couple of human senses at once.

When we arrived home…

…that late afternoon we were both tired but happy campers. One thing I have always loved about photographing in the elements was that it gave us an excuse to get back outdoors and explore God’s creation.

Capturing a little sliver of time on this planet so we can revisit it over and over again is precious to us both.

And of course, the most beautiful rose of them all is my wife. She is my life partner, fellow world explorer through our love of photography and most of all, seeker of the truth in God and Jesus.

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A Rose Is Still A Rose No Matter How You Photograph It

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Reinventing Myself Through Graphic Design

by John Tarr | Jun 12, 2018 | Graphic Design | 0 comments

Reinventing Myself Through Graphic Design

I was a professional photographer for 40+ years when I became disabled with a hip replacement that went south. I no longer had the mobility I once had so going back to school for graphic design was the next logical choice.

The same layout and placement of elements is very similar in many ways. Now, I design behind a big computer screen instead of a small digital computer called a camera.

I also have found the graphic art principles also apply to designing websites.

I always admired the people in the graphic arts field because I saw the result of what they did swirling all around me in the world.

From labels on boxes to ads on TV, printed flyers to movie credits.

The ordinary street and store front signs and deep into the internet world of websites, social media, graphic design is all around us.

Learning new software was the biggest obstacle when I first started graphic art school. It was a struggle at first because computers were not my strong point. I was very old school in many ways.

I had learned photography back in 1969 in high school using a 35mm camera and developing B&W film, and printing images in a darkroom the old-fashioned way. I was very hands on in a manual sort of way, like many people from my generation that started before computers came on the scene.

I think back on those computer and software struggles and it’s hard for me think of me having a hard time with them because I live and breathe with them now.

Finding Myself Through Graphic Design

Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign

They are the three big engines that drive graphic design and are all made by Adobe. All very different from each other but, also very similar in many ways.

A.) Photoshop, to work on images and photographs to make them the best that they can be through cropping and image manipulation.

B.) Illustrator, to design individual pieces as in logo’s, individual flyers, ad’s or even adding text to images as a visual graphic for social media.

C.) InDesign, the software that designs multi-page newsletters, magazines or PDF’s for print and digital distribution. I will, many times make a main template for an organization that will be used for future designs with this program. InDesign is the hardest to learn because it can do so many different things on many different levels all at once so my schooling in this program was well worth it.

After I started school I realized website design would become part of this mix. My graphic art skills would be used to make websites look great in addition to functioning as they should.

The Software Design Process

I use Photoshop and Illustrator to design specific pieces, then bring them all together in to InDesign for a multi-page book or newsletter layout.

All the programs by Adobe play together extremely well and let me cross platform to each other easily and efficiently.

Drop and drag is the name of that game when work with them all at the same time.

That is the benefit of having three software programs that are made by the same company.

Learning Graphic Design

Many times, I will have all three open at the same time on three different computer monitors so I can be as efficient as possible. When working on a website I will have both Photoshop and Illustrator open with InDesign being the odd man out because WordPress is taking the place of InDesign as digital layout software.

I enjoy and love what I do now because it’s like using different elements of the same puzzle when I am in the designing mode. Graphic art and website design is a combination that allows me to branch out creatively in a couple different directions when the need arises.

I also like the fact that I help people, companies, churches, nonprofits and different organizations grow and become more successful at what they do with my creative skills.

This really is my idea of having fun.

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Family History Cell Phone Style

by John Tarr | Apr 24, 2018 | Photography | 0 comments

Family History Cell Phone Style

I love that little gadget in my pocket called a cell phone. The built in camera takes some remarkable images in the hands of a trained eye. Lightweight and always ready it is.

As I have gotten older and somewhat disabled, hauling out heavy camera gear is no longer an option. This little guy does just fine thank you very much. I also love the fact that I can down load the images and make adjustments in Photoshop.

Life in photo world is still very good and I might add, alive and clicking.