Vector files at your fingertips with Powerpoint

I seem to be writing a few posts about Powerpoint these days, and I think it's mainly because I had a very limited choice of software to work with at the office for a while, so I was force to work with what I had. To my surprise, recent versions of Powerpoint are quite powerful and offer a lot of nice features for arranging or transforming graphics.

One of the great features that I have discovered lately is the ability to modify vector files directly in Powerpoint. For those of you not knowing what a vector file is, please read this post where I explain the difference between a vector file and a rastor file, or photo. The important point to know about a vector file is that it can be scaled without losing resolution, and it can be easily modified in terms of shape or color, as long as you have the right software to do so. Well that's what I thought until I learned about Powerpoint's ability to do so.

But before I show you how it works I just want to state why I think this is a really cool feature.

The reason why I love vector files is that they are drawn. You can customize them to be the right color, to match your style, to look like an icon, etc.. Options are infinite. And they are a much better looking option than cliparts when you need to illustrate a presentation or any other document. Finally, they are available in many places on the web, either for free on websites like Vecteezy or for a small price on Istockphoto.

Quick tip: how to add effects to your photos with Powerpoint

In this post I will share a quick tip that I learned not long ago for adding effects to your photos by using only Powerpoint. I find this technique very practical since it doesn't require any other software than powerpoint, meaning that I can edit photos on almost any machines I work with.



The types of effects that you can apply to your images are basically all the "styles" that Powerpoint offers, like changing colors, adding a border, adding some shadow, adding some 3D effect, etc.. They are very easy to apply and can be customized reasonably well. So let's take an example and see how it works.

Imagine that you have a nice landscape picture to display on your site, on which you want to add a nice border and drop shadow effect. You could choose to work with Photoshop, but it would require quite a few steps and manipulations, let alone the skills to do it. Instead, you can quickly choose a style in Powerpoint like for example here "Metal Frame" and customize your photo instantly.



Once the effect is applied, all you need to do is to right-click and select "save as picture". You can save your photo as a .png file and it will keep the border, the shadow and even the transparency around the shadow.



Your photo is now ready to be used on your website.


photo credit: Werner Kunz via photo pin cc

How to design promotional calendars

Last week I wrote about promotional calendars and shared my view on why I think they are useful and should always be considered as part of one's promotional toolkit. This week I will share some ideas on what type of calendars you can create, and other practical tips to consider before making a final decision.


photo credit: skyseeker via photo pin cc

Choosing the right format.

There are many types of calendars that you can create depending on the shape you choose or the way the dates are displayed. You can create a wall calendar, a desk calendar, a yearly planner, a pocket size calendar or a more creative calendar like monthly cards displayed in a CD box. Here is a quick review of the types of calendars I have experimented with:

The life cycle of the coffee cup [infographics]

This post is a little bit off topic but it's about something I had fun designing and a story we can probably all relate to. We have a couple of coffee machines at work and used to have disposable cups that people would throw away after drinking their coffee. A little while ago, we became a little bit more eco-friendly and replaced the disposable cups with real cups that we could reuse. We even have a dishwasher so that people don't need to wash their cups if they don't want to.

But what we find is that people are just lazy, messy and disrespectful of their colleagues and their worplace: we continuously find dirty cups in the sink, clean dishwashers that nobody wants to empty or dirty dishwashers that nobody takes time to start. We tried displaying a couple of signs in the kitchen, sending a message in the staff newsletter, to no avail, no change happened. We then started brainstorming on how to make it change and thought that a bit of humor might work, so we came up with the idea of designing a flowchart showing people what to do after they drank their coffee.

Here is the flowchart, illustrated in the shape of an infographic: The Life Cycle of the Coffee Cup.

If this story is familiar to you (it might even be the same in your own house), feel free to use it, or share it!

5 reasons why you should send a promotional calendar to your clients

It is probably that time of the year when you are planning for your Christmas cards and corporate gifts. Actually, if you are not planning them yet, get moving because these things take time to get prepared and comes first of January it's too late to send them! One option you need to consider is to create a customized calendar as a gift.



photo credit: Seattle Roll via photo pin cc

Here are my five reasons why I think you should send a promotional calendar to your clients.