The Line Between Inspired By And Copied From And How To Stay On Its Right Side - Vanseo Design

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The Line Between Inspired By And Copied From And How To Stay On Its Right Side Posted: 30 May 2013 05:30 AM PDT As an artist you are only a link in a chain, and whatever you find or whatever you do not find, you can find comfort in it. Note: This post includes an audio version. If you don’t see the audio above, Click here to listen. We all draw inspiration from the works of others. At the same time we want to stay away from outright copying those works. Sometimes without intention we cross into the latter. How can we avoid copying, while still taking something from the designs that inspire us? Earlier this month a case where inspiration crossed into copying came to my attention and perhaps yours as well. Jeremy Keith published a humorous conversation he had with the head of another design firm who’s site showed a strong resemblance to Jeremy’s Clearleft site. When I started listening I initially thought the payoff would be that the second company was simply lifting Clearleft’s work and would be outed for doing so. However, by the time I reached the end of the audio I had a different opinion. I don’t think this was an attempt to copy, but rather a case of unintentional drawing too much inspiration from a single source. Usually when this topic comes up, I’m reminded of the quote from one Vincent van Gogh’s letters at the top of this post and how artists are links in a chain, building on what came before and leaving behind something for others to build on after. Copying is part of the tradition for how art evolves and how design evolves as well. Copying There are circumstances where it’s ok and even advisable to copy the work of someone else. Generally it’s when you’re learning. Copying from the masters is an accepted part of the learning process. To better understand how something was created you copy it as close as you can and learn from the experience of doing. The act of copying helps train your technical muscles. Musicians learn to play the riffs of others exactly as they hear them. Painters create variations of the masters and copy brush strokes or color palettes. Developers type out all the code they find in a book or a site they come across. Designers mimic the type, grids and color of those that inspire them. While it’s ok to copy to learn, it’s not ok to copy someone’s work and pass it off as your own for commercial purposes. I think we’d all agree that’s wrong and it’s in part why copyright laws exist. However, every industry has a certain mentality where some lead and the rest copy. Design is no different and most designs are at some level a copy of another design. There are other connections between drawing inspiration and copying as well. When starting a design it’s not uncommon to ask clients for a list of sites they like and why they like them. I’ve had clients insist on wanting to use colors similar to another design or suggest the layout of one site was exactly what they envision for their own. Even when it’s not a client we might take something from another design or designer for ourselves. There are a number of designers who’s work I admire and I tend to pay attention to what they do and say and seek to incorporate some of their work into my own. There’s always a danger though, when drawing inspiration that we might cross over into complete copying. How do we stay on the right side of the line? Inspiration that Avoids Copying There are a number of things we can do to ensure we avoid copying that which inspires us. It begins with where we draw inspiration. The further away from the finished design you draw inspiration, the less likely the end result will be a copy. Instead of drawing inspiration from the design of a website try drawing inspiration from different industries. Be inspired by the design of a car or a piece of furniture. Take inspiration from the layout of a magazine article or the colors of a painting. Even if you out and out copy something from the car, furniture, magazine, or painting, it’s unlikely your design will be seen as a copy since the source is far enough removed from the finished design. For those times when you are drawing inspired from the design of another site look deeper into what inspires you. Try to understand what specifically is giving you inspiration and why. If you like the color scheme of a site don’t just grab the hex values and use them. Think about what in the scheme you like? Look to the relationships of the colors to one another. Are you inspired because the palette makes use of neutral colors? Then develop your own palette of neutral colors. Do you like the contrast between hot and cold colors or light and dark colors? Then choose different hot and cold or light and dark colors you can contrast. Instead of taking directly try to understand what’s going on at the core of what’s inspiring you. The less you copy directly, the further away you again are from the source in your finished work. Every design inevitably has some things in common with designs that have existed before. We’ve all created designs with a header at the top and a footer at the bottom, but all those designs aren’t the same. In each we put enough of ourselves into the work to make the design unique enough. I think what it ultimately means to be a link in a chain is to see the good in another’s work and do your best to understand why you think it’s good. Don’t copy that good thing you find outright. Seek its core goodness and filter it through yourself. Incorporate the ideas of others so deeply within yourself and your work that they mix with your voice and become something different and unique to you. That’s how it becomes an inspiration and not a copy. Use what inspired you, build on it, and leave something behind to inspire someone else. Summary We learn and grow in part by copying others. That’s not a bad thing. What is bad is trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own. By all means copy as much as you want when learning or to help develop your voice as a designer, but stay far behind the line that separates being inspired by and copying from when doing real work and charging someone for it. To stay behind that line separate your source of inspiration as much as you can from your finished work. Start by looking to things that aren’t web design. When you do draw inspiration from the design of a website think critically about what inspires you and why. Take indirect inspiration instead of copying the end result directly. Pinpoint what inspires you at the core and ignore the rest. When you finish your design revisit any sites where you drew inspiration and really look at the inspiration and your work. Be honest. If they appear to be too much alike make some changes in your own work or start again. No one should ever look at your work and think it’s a copy of another design. If they connect your work to the original inspiration that’s ok, but they should never even think the word copy. The post The Line Between Inspired By And Copied From And How To Stay On Its Right Side appeared first on Vanseo Design. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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Develop Better Color Palettes Using Different Aspects Of Color - Vanseo Design

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Develop Better Color Palettes Using Different Aspects Of Color Posted: 28 May 2013 05:30 AM PDT When we think about the meaning of color, we sometimes think only of what one particular hue communicates. Red is impulsive, blue is calm, purple is luxurious. While individual colors do communicate certain feelings, thinking about them in combination can communicate more. Last week I talked about how we describe color in terms of hue, saturation, and lightness. Today I want to consider how we might combine these characteristics and what the relationships suggest and convey. Instead of looking at colors in isolation let’s consider different aspects of color that expand on the descriptions of hue, saturation, and lightness. What is Meant by Aspects of Color? The term “aspects of color’ was unknown to me prior to reading Design Elements: Color Fundamentals. It refers to combinations of hues, saturation, and lightness values that provoke a certain response or have predictable characteristics. For example a color palette that only uses bright colors leads to colors that are always in competition, which can become overwhelming. A palette that includes bright colors should be paired with paler colors for balance. In thinking about color combinations instead of colors in isolation, we’re on our way toward developing more successful color palettes for projects. The choice of which aspects of color dominate a palette should come from the specifics of the project, but an understanding of these aspects can make for a helpful starting point in choosing that palette. Let’s consider the following aspects of color. Light and dark Pale and bright Hot and cold Neutrals Again these aspects aren’t about color in isolation, but rather the relationships between certain pairings and groupings of colors and their descriptive properties. Light palette (left) and dark palette (right) Light and Dark Lighter and darker colors naturally come about from different values of lightness. Light colors have more white (above 50% lightness) and dark colors have more black (below 50% lightness). As 2 colors become lighter the contrast between them decreases. Similarly as 2 colors become darker the contrast between them also decreases. In thinking about color combinations instead of colors in isolation, we’re on our way toward developing more successful color palettes Because contrast is important we need to balance lighter and darker colors with each other or with brighter or more saturated colors. The lightness of the environment also plays a role. In a well lit room it might be easier to read dark text on a light background and vice versa. Consider the conditions your design will be viewed under and think about matching the lightness or darkness of your background colors with the lightness or darkness of the environment. Lighter colors are paler and can even appear transparent at times. They tend to be associated with more positive feelings, at least in western cultures. Darker colors add drama and mood to a composition and at times can be used as neutrals. They tend to be associated with more negatives in western cultures. Either light or dark colors can be used as accent colors or background colors, though not at the same time. Light backgrounds would be balanced with darker or saturated accent colors and dark backgrounds would be balanced with light or saturated accent colors. Bright palette (left) and pale palette (right) Bright and Pale Bright colors are based on saturation. Brighter colors are more saturated and are a purer form of a given hue. The purest colors have no black, white, or gray added and are instead all hue. Bright colors are good at attracting attention. Because of this, they are often used to highlight products or other important information. However, too many bright colors in a palette can be irritating and annoying as they all compete for attention. The competition for attention can lead to a reduced ability to comprehend what’s being communicated. Paler colors are hues with more than 65% white added. We refer to them as pastels and like many colors they may have specific cultural associations. They’re gentle and approachable and sometimes thought of as feminine or even childlike. They tend to be associated with weddings and newborns. Paler colors make for excellent accents even against white backgrounds as they can be used to highlight subtle color relationships. As with light and dark, think balance. You likely wouldn’t use an all bright or all pale color palette. More likely one of the two would dominate and be paired with another aspect of color to provide balance and contrast. Hot palette (left) and cold palette (right) Hot and Cold Warm colors are based on red. They advance into the foreground, especially when paired against a cool color and they’re seen as more dynamic and active. Cool colors are based on blue. They recede into the background, especially against a warm color and they’re seen as dependable and calming. You can make a cool color warmer by adding red to it and conversely you can make a warm color cooler by adding blue to it. Because warm and cool colors can appear warmer or cooler based on the colors they’re set against, you can enhance the message of an element by setting it against a color that enhances the temperature of the initial color. For example to make a product warmer and richer you can place it against a cooler color. To make an element seem more trustworthy you can place it against a warmer color. Hot colors are warm and bright. They make a statement and can give energy to a composition. Because they add energy and convey excitement they can be useful for product promotions. Cold colors are cool colors based on the primary blue. The closer to the primary blue, the colder they appear. The effectiveness of secondary colors can often depend on how warm or cool they are. A small amount of warm on a cool background will work best given the advancing and receding properties of each. However, a cool color on a warm background can attract attention and create tension. Neutral color palettes (left and right) Neutrals Neutral colors are those those that have a large percentage of brown or gray. They make for good all-purpose tones of color, but are often overlooked and are an underutilized category of color. They tend to be free from cultural interpretation and other distractions. Hence, the neutral description. Because of this they can make it easier for visitors to navigate through content. Nuetrals can work well when a project is aimed at a sophisticated audience or where the content is trying to communicate feelings of calm and peacefulness. They work well as secondary or background colors with brighter, more intense, and more saturated colors used as accents. Summary Choosing a color palette has to be based on the specifics of the project and perhaps a little bit of trial and error. However a large amount of color choices can come from rational decisions such as contrasting a dark color against a light color to help differentiate them. The aspects of color in this post are about different pairings or groupings of different characteristics of color and they can be used to help with those rational decisions as we begin building a color palette. They tend to generate predictable responses and we can match these responses to the concept of our design. Once you know the message you’re trying to convey, you can seek light, dark, bright, pale, hot, cold, or neutral color combinations that help support your message and complement the aspects of color you use. The post Develop Better Color Palettes Using Different Aspects Of Color appeared first on Vanseo Design.

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A Simple Color Tool Built For Learning [Screencast] - Vanseo Design

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A Simple Color Tool Built For Learning [Screencast] Posted: 23 May 2013 05:30 AM PDT As I’ve said on a few occasions, I don’t consider color one of my strengths as a designer…yet. It’s one of the reasons I set studying color as a goal for this year. On Monday I began sharing my new exploration of color and I mentioned working on a color tool to help me. I also said I would show it to you today. I decided the best way to do that was with a screencast and so in addition to the simple tool I built here’s my very first screencast. Note: This post includes a screencast. If you don’t see the screencast above, Click here to watch. Don’t get too excited about either. The tool is very basic and meant as a learning tool for myself rather than something to use for choosing a color palette and the screencast is likely rough given it’s my first attempt at one. Hopefully you’ll find something worthwhile in both. Why I Built a Color Tool Generally, it’s not a problem for me to make some color decisions. For example I usually know in my head what I want to use as a dominant color and I even have a sense of what colors to pair with it as as subdominant and accent colors. What turns out to be somewhat problematic for me is finding that exact color I’m looking for with so many possible choices. Why settle your cursor in exactly one spot on a color picker and not a nudge to the left or right just a bit. Naturally part of the reason relies on an eye for color, but I’m looking for deeper understanding about why you would make one choice over another. Right now I tend to choose an initial color with what I hope is an improving eye and then use my tool of choice (ColorSchemer Studio) to point me to the rest of the colors I’ll use in a palette. The end result is usually something that works, but never quite what was in my head. I also have a tendency to rely heavily on various grays and use color sparingly. It’s a safe way to work with color, but I’d like to have the skills to do more. I thought building a tool that would only include a few things I’m currently learning about would help me learn those things. As I learn and explore more about color I’ll add more to the tool. The Color Tool If you want to see what I built the screencast is the best way to see it. If you want a quick version of what it does read on. At the moment it’s 4 simple blocks in the center of the page, each with a default background color. Adjacent to each are a series of sliders and inputs to adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness of the block. There are also RGB and hex displays so you can see their resulting values as you make adjustments to the hue, saturation, and lightness. One reason for this set up is so I can see the mathematical relationships between colors. I’m curious to know things like how would I increase saturation only by changing a hexadecimal color value. Another reason is so I can quickly find things like the complement of a specific hue and see how it looks against the initial color or how a single hue looks over several different saturation or lightness values. Again it’s all very simple and basic at the moment, though I do have ideas for how to expand the tool and develop what I think will become a more useful learning tool. Watch the screencast. It’s about 13 minutes long and it’ll walk you through the tool and why I think it’ll prove helpful. Let me know what you think of it and any suggestions you have for improving it. It’s not currently online, but if you think it would be useful for you or would like to play with it that can easily change. Also let me know what you think of the screencast. I made a couple of mistakes when recording that I managed to correct well enough during editing, but I could certainly use some feedback to help me make the next one better. Thanks. The post A Simple Color Tool Built For Learning [Screencast] appeared first on Vanseo Design. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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The Fundamentals of Color: Hue, Saturation, And Lightness - Vanseo Design

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The Fundamentals of Color: Hue, Saturation, And Lightness Posted: 20 May 2013 05:30 AM PDT If you can remember as far back as January, one of my goals for 2013 was to learn more about color and share some of what I learn with you. I’ve talked before about how I feel my skills working with color are lacking and I said at some point this year I would grab a few books about color with the hopes of changing that. One birthday, a somewhat generous brother, and quality service from Amazon later, and an assortment of books (including a few specifically about color) are here waiting to be read. Thanks David. I’ve finished reading one of the color books, Design Elements: Color Fundamentals, and thought I should start sharing. I want to start with how we describe colors in part because it’s the beginning and in part because it led to some clarity in how I understand color. Diagram of the Munsell Color System showing hue, saturation (chroma), and lightness (value) How We Describe Color There are 3 primary ways to describe a color and since the book added it, I’ll add a 4th way to describe color as well. Hue — another word for color Saturation (chroma) — the intensity or purity of a hue Lightness (value) — the relative degree of black or white mixed with a given hue Temperature — the perceived warmth or coolness of a color Let’s dig a little deeper into each. Hues are colors and what hue we see is dependent on the wavelength of light being reflected or produced. I doubt I need to tell you what a color is and since color and hue are synonymous you should know what a hue is as well. One thing I will remind you about is we all perceive color differently. The hue you see may not be the same hue I see. Saturation refers to how pure or intense a given hue is. 100% saturation means there’s no addition of gray to the hue. The color is completely pure. At the other extreme a hue with 0% saturation appears as a medium gray. The more saturated (closer to 100%) a color is, the more vivid or brighter it appears. Desaturated colors, on the other hand, appear duller. How saturated a hue appears also depends to a degree on what colors it’s next to. A 50% saturated hue placed next to a 25% saturated hue will appear more vivid than were the same hue placed next to a 75% saturated hue. Lightness measures the relative degree of black or white that’s been mixed with a given hue. Adding white makes the color lighter (creates tints) and adding black makes it darker (creates shades). The effect of lightness or value is relative to other values in the composition. You can make a color seem lighter by placing it next to a darker color. The greater the difference in value between elements, the greater the contrast between them. Because of this, lightness is a good way to show contrast and indicate hierarchy among elements. About 7 steps of lightness is the maximum variation the human eye can discern. Beyond that it becomes hard to distinguish the differences. Temperature is the perceived warmth or coolness of a color. Warm colors are red, orange, and yellow, while cool colors are green, blue, and violet. Somewhere in the green and violet spectrums the temperature changes between warm and cool. How the eye recognizes color temperature can change based on the source of light. For example the actual temperature of a computer monitor can affect the perceived color temperature. Warmer colors tend to advance into the foreground of a composition while cooler colors recede into the background. Also like saturation and lightness, temperature can be relative. Place a warm color against a warmer one and the initial color will appear cooler than if it were placed against a cool color. Color Harmony In working with color our goal is to choose a palette of pleasing color combinations (except for those times when a displeasing combination complements the message better). We’re trying to achieve some kind of color harmony. Color harmony can be subjective. What works for your eye may not work for mine. Principles of color theory aim to reduce the subjectivity by offering guidelines that help us find pairings and groupings of colors more likely to work well. For example one of the main principles holds that the eye is always seeking balance and equilibrium in color that lead it to arrive at neutral combinations like when a hue is combined with it’s opposite or complement. It’s one reason we often see after-images of a different color (but with the same saturation and lightness) when staring at any one color for too long. Color theory doesn’t always lead to predictable results. Sometimes theory and practice don’t quite mesh, which means we need to develop our eyes for color and experiment with different combinations of hue, saturation, and lightness. The Disconnect in Color Theory and Color Practice Like I said above, something clicked for me in reading Color Fundamentals. We describe color in terms of hue, saturation, and lightness (HSL), yet we typically set color values on the web using hex values and to a lesser extent RGB values. Wouldn’t it make more sense to work with the system that better describes color? Note: HSL is not the same as HSB (hue, saturation, brightness) or HSV (hue, saturation, value) found in most color tools. Hex and RGB are really two versions of the same thing. Each provides 256 possible values for how much red, green, or blue is in a given color. HSL works differently. There’s no easy way to glance at something like rgb(63, 69, 146) or it’s hex equivalent #3f4592 and easily know it’s 40% saturated or hsl(236, 40, 41). If you’d like to see the math involved in making the conversion have a look at any or all of the links below Color Algorithms RGB to HSL color conversion HSL to RGB color conversion Why is that? Why is there a disconnect in how we attempt to understand color and how we attempt to use it? If anything HSL is the more intuitive system as it actually describes the colors we see and fits with color theory. I realize color skills come from developing a critical eye for colors and asking questions about why something works or doesn’t work. And it’s about answering those questions as you observe the colors around you. It just seems like it would be easier if both the theory and the practice spoke the same language. Now that I’ve come to this realization, I’ve decided to make a commitment to using HSL values as much as possible in my code. The stumbling block is IE8 and below, which don’t accept hsl() or rgb(). They need hexadecimal values. That’s ok though, since SASS can make the conversion. You can use hsl() in SASS and have the html output be a hexadecimal value. To go along with my commitment I’ve started building a simple color tool to help me learn and study. It’s not something you’d want to use in its present state to choose a color palette, but it lets you play around with hue, saturation, and lightness values to see how each affects one particular color and the colors around it. I’ll share the tool later in the week. For awhile I’ve suspected the mathematical relationships between colors could offer a guide for working with them and I’ve often looked for those relationships in the hex values of colors. My hope for using hsl() more and playing around with my simple color tool is they’ll help me connect the theory to the colors I use in design a little better than they’re connected for me now. Keep this disconnect in how we learn about and describe color and how we use it in mind. The realization has given me a greater understanding for how to better study color and it’s why I wanted to start this conversation with the basics of how we describe color. I’ll have more posts about color coming soon, starting later in the week when I talk about the simple tool I created to help me. The post The Fundamentals of Color: Hue, Saturation, And Lightness appeared first on Vanseo Design.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini User Agent Profile Confirms Qhd Screen Posted: 20 May 2013 04:21 AM PDT Two official pages namely the Samsung SVP Lee Keon Hyok and a support page of Samsung and a user Agent profile have now confirmed tentatively the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini. According to this user agent... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

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How We Limit Our Chances For Success, And How We Can Stop - Vanseo Design

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How We Limit Our Chances For Success, And How We Can Stop Posted: 16 May 2013 05:30 AM PDT Sometimes when we don’t succeed it’s because we prevented our success in advance. We convince ourselves that the things we might try will fail before we ever try them. We limit our chance of succeeding due to preconceived ideas that something won’t work. Note: This post includes an audio version. If you don’t see the audio above, Click here to listen. Limiting yourself is a topic I’ve written about before. I was recently reminded of it after a client let me know he was going to close one of his businesses. It’s not his main business, but one related to it and one that served the same market. We both thought it had potential and could also bring more customers into the main business. Unfortunately it didn’t happen. Remove Can’t from Your Vocabulary Nothing is impossible. Those things that seem impossible are simply things we haven’t yet figured out how to make possible. You might suggest time travel or teleportation or many other things that come from the world of science fiction are impossible and they certainly seem to be given our current understanding of the universe. I don’t believe any are impossible. We can’t envision the possibility given the context of the knowledge we have, but that doesn’t mean there is no possibility. Keep in mind that not all that long ago flying was considered impossible and yet at this very moment the skies are filled with airplanes carrying passengers from one destination to another. It’s hardly the only thing once thought impossible. Computers The telephone The light bulb Circumnavigating the globe Breaking the sound barrier Going to the moon? Mars? We have reached the limits of what is possible with computers. —John Von Neumann (1949) Nearly every important invention or accomplishment was thought impossible before it became possible. Those people who made the impossible, possible had one thing in common, which was believing it was possible. There’s a famous quote attributed to Henry Ford. I’ve seen it written a number of ways, though I’m sure you’ll recognize it. Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right. —Henry Ford When you decide in advance something isn’t going to work, you limit any chance it had of working. Believing something will work isn’t a guarantee it will, but it gives you a chance of making it work. Break Out of Comfort Zones Recently I talked about shaking things up in my routine and breaking out of my comfort zone. Here’s another quote I’m sure you’re familiar with. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. —Albert Einstein I’m not sure that’s really what it means to be insane, but I’m pretty sure if you continue to do the same things in the same way over and over you aren’t likely to get different results. If you’ve been happy with the results you’re getting, then by all means continue to do what you’re doing. If, however, the results aren’t quite what you’d hoped for, then change is in order. Comfort zones have a way of limiting us in that they don’t allow us to get different results. They keep us where we are. They usually won’t have us regress, but they tend to limit how we can grow. Again if you’re satisfied with where you are, then there’s no reason to change, but I’d suggest most of us would like to be more than we are now. Being satisfied is an enemy of progress. Be Willing to Risk for Reward It can be scary to take a risk. There’s a potential for loss and most of us prefer not to lose what we have. Limiting risk, limits loss. It also limits gain. Here’s one last quote that I don’t think is attributed to anyone, because it’s so common. The greater the risk, the greater the reward I’m not sure that’s 100% accurate as I’ve seen people take some pretty stupid risks where it was hard to see any potential reward, however, I feel confident saying that great rewards usually require great risks. You have to be willing to take a chance. If you read about some of the more successful people on the planet, you’ll find many of them took chances and failed many times along the way. Successful people tend toward being risk takers. I’m always struck by some people who join my business forum seeking advice on a business idea. They won’t share the idea out of fear someone will steal it. They spend most of their time and energy trying to protect an idea from being stolen and in the process spend no time or energy developing the idea into something that can be successful. It’s true if the idea is out there, the possibility exists someone else will see it and work on it and be successful with it. It’s a chance you take, but one you inevitably have to take. In order to start your business you have to release your idea and once it’s out there anyone can copy it. Most people won’t take an idea until after you’ve proved it can be successful and if you’ve managed to prove that, you shouldn’t have to worry about competition. You’re already ahead of them. What Could Have Been Coming back to my client, I can’t help but wonder what could have been. Perhaps he’s right and there isn’t any way to save this business. He certainly knows the business better than I do. Still I keep thinking back to many suggestions I offered over the years and the many times my suggestions were returned with a “that won’t work, because…” This particular client has some very good ideas and is willing to try things to improve his business. He also has a way of making up his mind in advance of any information and once made up, little can change his mind. I won’t go into the specifics of why he thinks this business can’t go forward or any of the things I thought he could have tried over the years. He knows his business better than I ever could. Maybe my suggestions wouldn’t have made a difference. Perhaps this was a case of not having the means to realistically compete. And yet I can’t help but wonder what might have been and whether or not self imposed limitations are ultimately the reason the business is closing its doors. The post How We Limit Our Chances For Success, And How We Can Stop appeared first on Vanseo Design. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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Samsung Galaxy Note III to pack Exynos 5 Octa, 8-core Mali-450 Posted: 16 May 2013 05:09 AM PDT Are you a fun of Samsung Galaxy phones? If you love Samsung Galaxy Note III then there is good news for you as the flagship will be powered by the Exynos 5 Octa platform. This will make the best... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

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Are Compressive Images A Good Solution For High Resolution Displays? - Vanseo Design

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Are Compressive Images A Good Solution For High Resolution Displays? Posted: 13 May 2013 05:30 AM PDT One of the challenges with responsive design is how to handle images. The issue gets more complicated when we consider images optimized for retina and other high resolution displays. Ideally we’ll use vector graphics or icon fonts where possible and even better replace images with code where we can. However, sometimes we need to serve bitmapped images. One of the interesting techniques that’s been proposed for delivering bitmapped images to retina devices comes from Daan Jobsis. The technique is being called compressive images and I recently had a chance to run an unscientific test with a client and thought I’d share the unscientific results. Compressive Images First in case you’re not familiar with compressive images the general idea is that the quality of compression of a .jpeg image contributes more to its file size than the physical dimensions of the image. Consider two identical images that differ only in their physical dimensions and quality of compression. 800x600px and 0% compression 400x300px and 100% compression The theory behind compressive images suggests the first, while being physically larger, would ultimately have the smaller file size. If you take that image and reduce its dimensions in the browser you have an image that downloads quicker and has the additional px needed for retina and other high resolution displays. It’s an appealing solution because it’s relatively easy to implement. However, it’s hardly a perfect solution as the comments to Scott Jehl’s post about compressive images point out. I was curious what, if any, difference in file size and quality there would be between images of different dimensions and compression and set up a test for a client. I’ve also set up a couple of tests you can check out, which I’ll get to in a bit. The Client Test This particular client is a photographer and her site will naturally feature a lot of bitmapped images. At their largest the images will need to be 800px on the longest side. Thinking about the compressive images technique, I’ve had her send me every image at 1600px on its longest side. Ideally we’d us media queries to serve high resolution images to particular devices, but time and budget make that unfeasible. Since I want to optimize the images for both quality and performance I wanted to test the compressive images technique to settle on the best way to save the one version we’ll use. I took one of her images and saved it 2 ways. Full 1600px size with 0% quality compression Reduced 800px size with 100% quality compression The file weight of the latter image was about 5 times as large as the former. That’s quite a lot of extra file weight. I placed both images on a web page and set each to the smaller dimensions letting the browser resize the larger of the two. Then I sent her a link to the page and asked her to have a look and to ask her friends to have a look as well. This was highly unscientific, but the results were split about 50/50 between those who couldn’t notice a difference and those who could. All who did think one of the images looked better chose the smaller image with the higher quality compression. Unfortunately most of the people responding aren’t the tech-savvy type and I wasn’t able to get them to include the resolution of their monitors. Those who couldn’t tell the difference reported first and initially I thought I’d use the technique. Later when those who could tell the difference all reported the smaller image as being of higher quality I wasn’t so sure. When it came time to actually add some images to the site I tested again with more realistic compression settings included. 1600px image was saved at 10% and 20% 800px image was saved at 60% and 100% When compression on the smaller image was 60% (as high as I usually save images by the way) the difference in file size wasn’t worth using the larger image. In fact it had a smaller weight than the larger 0% compressed image. In the end I’m using the smaller images on her site, since they aren’t noticeably heavier in terms of file size, but I wanted to conduct more tests to make sure the results I saw weren’t due to the specific images I chose to test. What Do You Think? Instead of testing my client’s images this time around, I thought I’d try one of my own. It’s an image I took last summer while eating lunch at Montauk and it’s the one you see at the top of this post. I’ve set up two pages comparing the same image over different sizes and compression settings. 1600 x 1200px vs 800 x 600px (9 images) 800 x 600px vs 400 x 300px (8 images) If you peek at the file names of each image you’ll be able to tell it’s dimensions and compression settings. The files have been names with the same format of length-height-compression.jpg Each image was compressed (and resized) using Pixelmator and then run through Image Optim to further compress them. This has become my typical workflow and I wanted to keep the test as close to what I normally do as possible. If you don’t mind taking a moment, have a look at both tests and look over the images to see if you think one or a few look better than the others. Also, of you don’t mind, let me know the resolution of your monitor. Thanks. My Observations I’ve made a few observations while setting up these two test pages. First, I can see a difference in quality. It’s generally located in one specific part of the image, but it’s there. However, had I not been specifically looking for differences in quality I wouldn’t have thought the lowest quality images looked bad. I don’t currently have a retina display Mac and it’s possible on a monitor with higher resolution I would be more put off by the lower quality images. In comparing the file sizes of the saved images I noticed The larger image saved with a compression quality of 10 has a near identical file size to the smaller image saved with a compression quality of 80. With a compression quality of 60, the smaller image weighs about 2/3 the size of the larger image compressions at 10. Rarely do I save images with a compression larger than 60, which suggests the compressive images technique isn’t going to work well for me. For the most part the smaller dimension image ended up with a smaller file size. That had me wondering why, since the articles I’ve read suggest the opposite should happen. Then it occurred to me what the difference might be. I’m using Pixelmator to compress the images and I suspect those who’ve written before me used Photoshop for compression. One of the things I’ve learned since I started using Pixelmator is that Photoshop’s compression algorithm needs improvement. It doesn’t compress images as well as it could. I suspect the technique isn’t quite as effective as first thought where file weight is concerned, though it may still make sense for delivering images with more px density to high resolution displays. Granted everything that’s led me to this conclusion is far from scientific. Once again if you don’t mind check the two test pages and let me know which of the images, if any, look better. I’d also encourage you to run some tests for yourself. I’ll leave you with a table showing the difference in file size between Pixelmator and Photoshop at various compression settings over 3 different images sizes. The numbers below are after compressing each image in the specific editor and then running each through Image Optim. Above 10% and below 100% the files weigh more when compressed with Photoshop than when compressed with Pixelmator. Compression File Size Pixelmator File Size Photoshop 1600 x 1200 0% 57kb 54kb 10% 76kb 78kb 20% 93kb 110kb 30% 108kb 134kb 800 x 600 0% 17kb 16kb 10% 23kb 23kb 20% 28kb 33kb 30% 32kb 39kb 40% 36kb 49kb 60% 47kb 82kb 80% 73kb 144kb 100% 299kb 298 400 x 300 60% 14kb 25kb 80% 22kb 42kb 90% 31kb 60kb 100% 90kb 86kb The post Are Compressive Images A Good Solution For High Resolution Displays? appeared first on Vanseo Design.

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