Border collies are known as herding dogs, especially sheep. They are excellent watch dogs, love children and they are often described as the most intelligent dogs.

According to some information, a border collie had learned 1,022 words – reacting to them when spoken! Watching our inventive hooligan’s non-stop activities all day long it doesn’t surprise me… and tons of exercise and mental stimulation they definitely need, and this on an ongoing basis. It’s really a continuous dialogue – and a very endearing one as Holly has a very attentive and loving nature.

With one of her eyes being a clear blue – due to heterochromia (multi-colored eyes) – she catches everyone’s attention anyway!

Actually, Holly from Noordhoek lives in Cape Holly Road as you can see here, taken early this morning before our walk up into the Silvermine Mountains:

She will always make sure I follow and comes back to see that I’m fine – that’s just her nature:

Definitely lots of space to run – :

That’s our favorite morning run… tanking fresh air and energies before getting back to the computer and… Web Design with Passion!

Related posts:How to shoot the Moon with a Point and Shoot CameraFlowers from Vouliagmeni BeachImage Editing and Post EditingYcademy Online Seminar January 2012Ycademy Online Seminar Photo Publishing with Evo for WordPress

This indicates that in a so-called economic crisis Art still seems to be a hot commodity, although the Press often paints a very different if not sinistre picture.

Being an artist myself and having created Artist Portraits for television, I work on ways of presenting Art online in a way that everybody can encounter this fascinating medium that envelops us in energy fields that connect us to our inner truth. And it exercises our thinking muscle and maybe – just maybe – encourages to break free. Some Artwork resonnates, others doesn’t – however, there is a quiet dialogue, unencumbered by the treachery of the spoken word… so often abused to this very day.

Exactly that was captured by the Art Exhibition “The Human Abused” by German sculptor, Guenther Uecker, in February 2011, in The District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa. I had come to see my friend and his latest work after so many years – and spontaneous snapshots turned into a website featuring an Art Documentation.

While I reported extensively on this Art Exhibition at the time, what interests me now while designing my new Web Design Showcase – and obviously including Art Exhibition Websites – is the performance on search engines. While nothing much can be said at this early stage and given the massive search returns as per above, what is quite astounding is the fact that we already feature right at the top of page 2 in terms of Images for Art Exhibitions Website – see the screenshot below.

While most artists are represented by galleries, there are many artists who wish to be in control and present themselves on the Internet. So the question is: What does an Artist need online?

Here as in most of the other chapters where products and/or services are being sold it’s about presenting the artist’s oeuvre in an appealing way on one hand… but most importantly the artist’s website needs to be visible on Google where people would look for it.

Of course, artists normally brand their name and people interested in their work would look them up under that name – so they don’t need Google for that. However, why then is there such fierce competition  among Art Exhibition Websites?

If you are an artist, think about it and consider what you could do yourself and your career. Branding your work under your own name and in your own style should be conducive to building your reputation online. And while we do no longer work in Flash since the rapid evolution of the mobile web where Flash does not show, we have adapted the latest technology to make your work stand out and be found – even on an iPhone!

Astir Beach Mist

Touch up your Photos with a few clicks and transform the Astir Beach Vouliagmeni image to what I like to call now Astir Beach Mist.

Final Astir Beach Mist

astir3-final-mist

Astir Beach Mist

To get to this result, 3 filters or actions have been used in Photoshop CS4.

Astir Beach Kaleidoscope

Starting with the original image of an Astir Beach Sunset, the kaleidoscope filter by Mehdi was doing the trick to mirror and flip the image.

The Original Astir Beach Photo

astir2-base

Astir Beach Vouliagmeni

The Kaleidoscope filter produces the following image, which needs to be cleaned with Wire Worm on 4 spots where the Kaleidoscope filter produced stains:

astir-clean

Astir Beach Clean

The Clean Astir Beach Image

astir3

Astir Beach Clean Image

To finish the Image, we just add a simple frame using the Angels Glass Action:

Astir Beach Framed Image

astir-beach-framed-image

Astir Beach Framed Image

This results then in the surprising image as shown on top.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Valentine’s Day Gifts

Here’s wishing everybody a “Happy Valentine’s Day” on 14 February 2010!

While it’s a bit late to start looking into preparing more sophisticated Valentine’s Day Gifts today, it’s never too late for Valentine’s Gift Ideas that go beyond buying a red rose, a pack of funnily formed chocolates or a bottle of Schnaps!

Valentine’s Day Gifts – Elegant DVD Packaging

Why not consider some Elegant DVD Packaging for your Valentine’s Day Gifts next year? Or for any other upcoming occasion like a Birthday, Promotion, Easter…?

In my example here, I wrapped up a collection of beautiful digital pictures I took this year – my most precious moments on Noordhoek Beach South Africa 2010. I added some “unaccomplished music” that fits this spectacular high tide scenario perfectly – if you know which one I mean -  and dedicated it to “My Valentine” in the Title.

Quality is obviously always the most important criterium. Firstly of the photo or background image and of course the typography. There are free fonts and those we pay heavily for – and the difference becomes especially obvious once we leave the virtual world and go into the Printing process! I was quite pleasantly surprised how well the two free fonts came out here.

In the detail above I took a screenshot of the original Valentine’s DVD Packaging Image I created and rendered at just medium quality (40) to keep the loading speed down. It’s all part of the ongoing learning process; experience – sometimes pretty painful – and attentive observation are my best teachers… and of course I have an absolute admiration for the real “Masters” !

Just click on the images and they will open in a bigger format in the overlay… takes just a few seconds.

Valentine’s Day Gift Packaging

Valentine’s Day Gift Packaging is just another product item that will grow over time and feature in my SHOP for anyone to choose from.

I so much enjoy doing any form of Graphic Design or Digital Artwork… and letting my ideas hijack my creativity and refine my skills!

Photoshop Ycademy Workshops

Here I present the original and untouched image as well as a black and white version. Depending on the atmosphere, ambience or mood we want to achieve to suit the special occasion, the color can be easily adapted and changed and even manipulated or wrapped around another shape, ebook, box or jewel case for instance.

Being well equipped with the right Graphic Design Tools and the knowledge and skills taught in Photoshop Ycademy Workshops there is no limit to our imagination in pampering those we love with something personal and special – even on Valentine’s Day!

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more…

• Best Affordable Advertising
• Affordable DVD Packaging
• Presenting Web Design Graphics
• Landscapes Photography
• Transparent Fonts

Font Design Image on Google Top 10

Google Top 10 Ranking for an image called Font Design. There is no text in the post.

font-design-image

Google Top 10 for Font Design Image

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Font Design Image

font-design

Font Design Image

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Innovation Street on Google Top 10

Time to check the performance of my WP based Semiomantics website – so let’s see whether I find yesterday’s brief article on Innovation Streeton Google Top 10?

Yes – we do! Spot 10 on an incredible 226,000,000 search returns!

When checking before turning the lights off, I noticed it on spot 12… this morning it was on Google Top 10 – the place it deserves and captures, sooner or later and – guaranteed! On some very competitive keywords it can be a little longer, meaning it needs a few ‘shots’, however, eventually we get there! As I said to the CEO of Innovation Street today: the Formula 1 race today takes place on the Internet and the desired target is Google Top 10. Noone looks further, especially not on an iphone!

Innovation Street on Google Top 10

Innovation Street is on Google Top 10 not only as an article, but we also find the current placeholder image “under construction” I added to the article – a whopping spot 11 on 187,000,000 image search returns and… funny enough… quite a number of my other images feature here.

What is truly amazing is to reach these top rankings without help in terms of the domain name and no previous material posted.

With Semiomantics websites – setup and prepared by a handful of Semiomantics experts worldwide only – customers may have to swallow a fair yet solid initial investment – and everyone knows with the fast moving web there will be updates to always be on top of the latest technology. However, it’s good to know that this is a great way of reducing or even saying ‘good-bye’ to expensive daily, weekly and monthly online advertising budgets. A smart website like Semiomantics XO 2012 does it all… Of course, it means posting regular original content, it doesn’t quite fall from the sky – yet! But if it was your website… that’s exactly what you would like to do – tell the world what you have to offer, or?

Photoshop Ycademy

When 10 days ago we started the Photoshop Ycademy for YORGOO and Ycademy members, the program outline looked like a huge task. Today we see, how much can be accomplished within little time by ordinary people making extraordinary efforts. Tonight’s training will be a clean up session to finish up with some basics and the implementation of more action scripts, namely to accomplish more day to day tasks.

Book Covers, CDs, DVDs and more

Last night’s session was dedicated to product wrappers; it’s all about the look! Great stuff was created and I am looking forward to see some of it on Google Top 10 Images. While we have shared with participants some impressive actions, we are preparing two Photoshop Packs containing some interesting stuff I have on my computer and which I find useful for professional use of Photoshop. Here below a gallery of some sample images I did in just a few minutes; hope you enjoy! See you tonight at 7 pm London at Yorgotalk!

Yorgotalk

Yorgotalk

Bianca

Bianca's Book

Brenda Baker Tourism in NZ

Brenda Baker Tourism in NZ

Gene Line

Gene Line's secret passion

Laetitia Paris Hit Parade

Laetitia Paris Hit Parade

larrie1

Larrie Perkins Best

Nikos Advertizopoulos Ycademy Head Master Course

Nikos Advertizopoulos Ycademy Head Master Course

SquYYYze Page

SquYYYze Page

Toni Leuenberger Computer Security

Toni Leuenberger Computer Security

Ute Schaedler Affiliate Bible

Ute Schaedler Affiliate Bible

Healthy Eating with Ute Schaedler

Healthy Eating with Ute Schaedler

yorgo1

Fine Art by Yorgo Nestoridis

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Thumbnails on WordPress

There are two kinds of thumbnails produced on your XO site: the native WordPress thumbnails and the thumbnails generated by XO for the purpose of display throughout the theme where the WordPress thumbnails don’t fit.

WordPress Thumbnails

Thumbnail sizes are set in your dashboard under Settings > Media.  When we change the thumbs’ sizes, the change will apply only to new content. These thumbnails are used by default in the XO Basic Home Page Layout.

In order to modify thumbnails created previously to a change in WordPress settings, we use the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin; install from your dashboard and then just run it: this will create thumbnails corresponding to the new WP Media settings for all images in the library and galleries.

The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will have no impact on syndicated posts unless you also pull in the images to your library when syndicating.

XO Theme Thumbnails

When we upload an image from our dashboard in XO, XO creates 12 thumbnails adapted to the needs of the site and stores them in the default uploads folder for faster loading. If we change the layout settings in XO advanced home page settings, or if we change thumbnail sizes under the layout settings, the previously created thumbnails may not fit anymore.

Using the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will create a new set of thumbnails corresponding to the new settings. Syndicated content will not be altered by the plugin, unless you pull in the images while syndicating and store them in your library.

Styling Image Display in XO

Basically we are looking at two elements: the image and the caption.

Also XO allows for different styling of images

Yorgo Logo

inserted into a post and galleries or images and thumbs used in Custom Formats, such as Images and  Gallery Posts.

The example shows XO default style which sets borders with rounded corners, a background and some padding.

These settings can easily be modified with custom CSS, for example by adding and customizing a CSS3 property, such as some shadow:

.storycontent img{border:1px solid #666666;padding:5px;box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9) inset;padding:10px;}
.storycontent img:hover {opacity:0.7;}

This example uses inset box-shadow and a hover effect decreasing opacity by 30%.

For box-shadow to work in IE, we use the PIE support:

box-shadow: 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
-pie-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;
behavior: url("http://typography.ycademy.net/wp-content/themes/typography/PIE.php");

The example pulls in the PIE script; as done in previous examples (on the menu) make sure that you load the PIE.php and PIE.htc files into your child theme and link to the absolute or relative URI with the behavior property.

Captions

Captions can be customized by modifying the following selectors, for example:

.wp-caption,.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text, .gallery-caption {text-align:center;background:none !important;font-size:14px;}

You could of course chose a font-family, display the text with a reduced, fixed width or pull the caption into the image using a semi-transparent background and a negative top-margin. The limit is … your imagination.

Gallery Thumbnails

To style Gallery Thumbnails just customize, for example:

.gallery-thumb img,
#maincontent .pformat img {
margin: 0;
padding: 10px;
border: 1px solid #333;
background: #eee;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-khtml-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
width: auto\9; /* IE 8 Hack */
}

Related posts:

1. Meta Tag Styling on WordPress
2. XO Theme Typography
3. The Image Caption Style

Thumbnails on WordPress

There are two kinds of thumbnails produced on your XO site: the native WordPress thumbnails and the thumbnails generated by XO for the purpose of display throughout the theme where the WordPress thumbnails don’t fit.

WordPress Thumbnails

Thumbnail sizes are set in your dashboard under Settings > Media.  When we change the thumbs’ sizes, the change will apply only to new content. These thumbnails are used by default in the XO Basic Home Page Layout.

In order to modify thumbnails created previously to a change in WordPress settings, we use the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin; install from your dashboard and then just run it: this will create thumbnails corresponding to the new WP Media settings for all images in the library and galleries.

The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will have no impact on syndicated posts unless you also pull in the images to your library when syndicating.

XO Theme Thumbnails

When we upload an image from our dashboard in XO, XO creates 12 thumbnails adapted to the needs of the site and stores them in the default uploads folder for faster loading. If we change the layout settings in XO advanced home page settings, or if we change thumbnail sizes under the layout settings, the previously created thumbnails may not fit anymore.

Using the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will create a new set of thumbnails corresponding to the new settings. Syndicated content will not be altered by the plugin, unless you pull in the images while syndicating and store them in your library.

Styling Image Display in XO

Basically we are looking at two elements: the image and the caption.

Also XO allows for different styling of images

Yorgo Logo

inserted into a post and galleries or images and thumbs used in Custom Formats, such as Images and  Gallery Posts.

The example shows XO default style which sets borders with rounded corners, a background and some padding.

These settings can easily be modified with custom CSS, for example by adding and customizing a CSS3 property, such as some shadow:

.storycontent img{border:1px solid #666666;padding:5px;box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9) inset;padding:10px;}
.storycontent img:hover {opacity:0.7;}

This example uses inset box-shadow and a hover effect decreasing opacity by 30%.

For box-shadow to work in IE, we use the PIE support:

box-shadow: 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
-pie-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;
behavior: url("http://typography.ycademy.net/wp-content/themes/typography/PIE.php");

The example pulls in the PIE script; as done in previous examples (on the menu) make sure that you load the PIE.php and PIE.htc files into your child theme and link to the absolute or relative URI with the behavior property.

Captions

Captions can be customized by modifying the following selectors, for example:

.wp-caption,.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text, .gallery-caption {text-align:center;background:none !important;font-size:14px;}

You could of course chose a font-family, display the text with a reduced, fixed width or pull the caption into the image using a semi-transparent background and a negative top-margin. The limit is … your imagination.

Gallery Thumbnails

To style Gallery Thumbnails just customize, for example:

.gallery-thumb img,
#maincontent .pformat img {
margin: 0;
padding: 10px;
border: 1px solid #333;
background: #eee;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-khtml-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
width: auto\9; /* IE 8 Hack */
}

Related posts:

1. Meta Tag Styling on WordPress
2. XO Theme Typography
3. The Image Caption Style

Thumbnails on WordPress

There are two kinds of thumbnails produced on your XO site: the native WordPress thumbnails and the thumbnails generated by XO for the purpose of display throughout the theme where the WordPress thumbnails don’t fit.

WordPress Thumbnails

Thumbnail sizes are set in your dashboard under Settings > Media.  When we change the thumbs’ sizes, the change will apply only to new content. These thumbnails are used by default in the XO Basic Home Page Layout.

In order to modify thumbnails created previously to a change in WordPress settings, we use the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin; install from your dashboard and then just run it: this will create thumbnails corresponding to the new WP Media settings for all images in the library and galleries.

The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will have no impact on syndicated posts unless you also pull in the images to your library when syndicating.

XO Theme Thumbnails

When we upload an image from our dashboard in XO, XO creates 12 thumbnails adapted to the needs of the site and stores them in the default uploads folder for faster loading. If we change the layout settings in XO advanced home page settings, or if we change thumbnail sizes under the layout settings, the previously created thumbnails may not fit anymore.

Using the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will create a new set of thumbnails corresponding to the new settings. Syndicated content will not be altered by the plugin, unless you pull in the images while syndicating and store them in your library.

Styling Image Display in XO

Basically we are looking at two elements: the image and the caption.

Also XO allows for different styling of images

Yorgo Logo

inserted into a post and galleries or images and thumbs used in Custom Formats, such as Images and  Gallery Posts.

The example shows XO default style which sets borders with rounded corners, a background and some padding.

These settings can easily be modified with custom CSS, for example by adding and customizing a CSS3 property, such as some shadow:

.storycontent img{border:1px solid #666666;padding:5px;box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9) inset;padding:10px;}
.storycontent img:hover {opacity:0.7;}

This example uses inset box-shadow and a hover effect decreasing opacity by 30%.

For box-shadow to work in IE, we use the PIE support:

box-shadow: 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
-pie-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;
behavior: url("http://typography.ycademy.net/wp-content/themes/typography/PIE.php");

The example pulls in the PIE script; as done in previous examples (on the menu) make sure that you load the PIE.php and PIE.htc files into your child theme and link to the absolute or relative URI with the behavior property.

Captions

Captions can be customized by modifying the following selectors, for example:

.wp-caption,.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text, .gallery-caption {text-align:center;background:none !important;font-size:14px;}

You could of course chose a font-family, display the text with a reduced, fixed width or pull the caption into the image using a semi-transparent background and a negative top-margin. The limit is … your imagination.

Gallery Thumbnails

To style Gallery Thumbnails just customize, for example:

.gallery-thumb img,
#maincontent .pformat img {
margin: 0;
padding: 10px;
border: 1px solid #333;
background: #eee;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-khtml-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
width: auto\9; /* IE 8 Hack */
}

Related posts:

1. Meta Tag Styling on WordPress
2. XO Theme Typography
3. The Image Caption Style

Enjoy Your Valentine and Make it a Great Day!

Enjoy Your Valentine and Make it a Great Day!

Enjoy Your Valentine and Make it a Great Day!

Related posts:
Happy New Year After Effects
How to Customize your WordPress Typography
12 Principles of Animation with After Effects

Related posts:

1. Happy Valentine Gals and Guys
2. Happy New Year After Effects
3. How to Customize your WordPress Typography
4. Happy New Year
5. 12 Principles of Animation with After Effects

Related posts:
Happy New Year After Effects
How to Customize your WordPress Typography
12 Principles of Animation with After Effects

Related posts:

1. Happy Valentine Gals and Guys
2. Happy New Year After Effects
3. How to Customize your WordPress Typography
4. Happy New Year
5. 12 Principles of Animation with After Effects

Related posts:
Happy New Year After Effects
How to Customize your WordPress Typography
12 Principles of Animation with After Effects

Related posts: Happy Valentine Gals and Guys Happy New Year After Effects How to Customize your WordPress Typography Happy New Year 12 Principles of Animation with After Effects

WordPress Font Styling on XO by Semiomantics

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