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New Decal gallery slideshow on my blog

iSign

iSign

New Member
Thanks to Joe Diaz, when we reinforced my flash based website with an HTML based blog for SEO reasons, (as well as for all the social marketing benefits of blogging in general) we built a gallery page with a user friendly plug-in from "Slideshow Pro"

The plug-in makes it possible for someone like me who is not a web designer to still have a chance of updating the blog site galleries.

This week, I realized that I inadvertently left "Decals" out of my website. Decals have been a good chunk of my business for the last 10 years, so it is certainly something that should be reflected in all my marketing. Fortunately, I haven't printed any of my "Sign Planning Guide" pamphlets yet, so I'm adding a Decal page in there.

Last night I went through hundreds of decal samples, trimmed down dozens of them, & shot about 30 photos. This morning & got the best 18 cropped onto a nice black background, rotated, resized & ready for the blog gallery.

As it turned out, the user friendly plug-in was still a bit confusing, but Joe fixed everything i broke & now I have a Decals Gallery on my blog!
 
D&Tgraphics

D&Tgraphics

New Member
That's very cool Doug. I like the whole blog idea. I wish I could do something like that but I just don't have it in me. I am a man of few words usually.
 
iSign

iSign

New Member
steve b said:
sTICKER PAGE SUCKS WITHOUT CALVIN!


;)
Click to expand...

How's this?

calvinP.gif
 
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ddarlak

ddarlak

Go Bills!
one critique. the photos are too artsy. i'd like to actually see the decals, not big sheets of them, spread out like a centerfold.....

no crazy angles, straight up, nicely crop'd photo's would do it for me...

@ 41, these eye's ain't what they use'd 2 b
 
iSign

iSign

New Member
David, the decals were added to the site more as a selling point that we do decals. They are not there as a portfolio piece, so I'm less concerned with showing off any one decal.

I already have 200 images of my work in the other gallery pages, one image to a frame... straight shots, nice layouts, easy to see! (& every gallery has a "full screen" button in the lower right corner, just like every page on the Flash Site has)

For the decal pics, I wanted to have lots of variety of use & style represented. Labels for various juice, vodka, bath oil, herbal cream... as well as band logos, tropical island gift items, round, square, custom di-cut... foils, reflectives, reverse prints on clear... small, medium or large...

...so, I wasn't going to give each sample it's own photo because they are some pretty boring layouts from a design standpoint...
 
R

Red_Dragon

New Member
Hm, im getting my degree in web designing. Maybe when i get my Degree next year, i can make something as cool as that(That is awesome though props). This person must have boat loads of experience.
 
iSign

iSign

New Member
Thanks Gary & Red...

...not sure which person gets most of the credit, but I'm sure Joe will give me half the credit for dreaming up what I wanted & he knows I'll give him half for bringing my dreams to life (with a lot of dreaming up his own ways of improving it)...


...and a third half credit goes to Jon Aston, for letting me bounce all my ideas off him & allowing his ideas to influence my ideas...

I will take all the credit for the signs & designs in the gallery though :)
 
iSign

iSign

New Member
Many of you probably saw my "Sign Planning Guide" thread that I posted a week ago, about a sales tool I hope to use soon.

Anyway, I just made a decal page to add to the booklet. (and the web based downloadable file) I have been tweaking all 12 pages based on at least half a dozen or more excellent suggestions on the original thread. I will post the new 7 improved set of .pdf documents some time next week or so.

Here is the newest page:

decal_page.jpg


...or click HERE for a larger image!
 
astro8

astro8

New Member
Really nice work...great photos...if you put more work into seo you should see some gains in traffic and more importantly...job enquiries.

Flash based sites look great and are nice online portfolios but are hard work to get noticed by the seach engines...All those images bar the standalone ones on the Services page won't get indexed by Google and Bing image search any time soon and image tags are becoming more important everyday.

The question you have to ask yourself is.."Do I want to get noticed and increase my online presence to increase sales?' or "Do I just want a great looking site?"

Having both a great looking site and and a good searchable site is a balancing act...Dan Antonelli has achieved both and it ain't through luck...I'm sure he'll agree it's just plain hard work.

My own site doesn't look the way I'd like it. It's not as pretty as either of your 2 sites, Joe's or Dan's but I get the traffic and more importantly job enquiries.

Your site and blog have a lot of potential...they look great and I know you have put a lot of work into them..but I'd like to see them pushed to their full potential.

Every piece of my site is searchable, with the key words image tags and phrases that sell signs...I am constantly tweaking my site and building good backlinks which is the hardest part of seo (try getting a DMOZ link) ...they come slowly...but my site is slowly rising through the serps.

I don't pretend to be a web designer, seo expert or a 'know it all' but I know a little of what I'm preaching about....you can check my website's Alexa ranking against anybody's on this forum ( I know, I know...an Alexa ranking is neither accurate or means anything...that's said by people who have a bad one)...and I'm in Australia, not the potential US market.

Good luck with the new blog, I hope you ( and anybody else reading this) take on board at least some of what I've blabbed about and I really hope it performs for you.:thumb:
 
S

Salmoneye

New Member
Mr Diaz, you have some great looking stickers. I am new to decals. I have a roland xc-540 and I am using illustrator. I was wondering you could pass on a few tips? What utility do you use to lay our multiples of your stickers? I have just been cutting and pasting; do you use some other template? When I print on orocal 2.5 mil the solvent really eats at the vinyl and I have not been laminating them, as a result I feel like I have to pre-mask my decals but that doesn't look very nice when you hand them out. Should I be using a heavier vinyl? Any tips from any members would be appreciated.
 
S

Salmoneye

New Member
Oh I forgot my biggest question, what to charge? We charge separately for artwork but I have no idea how to charge for stickers. I am not looking for a time/materials/profit approach but more what the market will bear. What do people want to pay for decals?
 
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