Colorburned » Articles

Identifying Facebook Spam

Grant Friedman — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:30:24 +0000

Recently Facebook added a new feature that publishes a link to your profile whenever you like something on a webpage. Spammers took quick notice of this new feature and have created ways to trick you into liking their links. What happens is that when you click on a link like the one shown below, it will then take you to a page that looks similar to a Youtube video. When you click on the video, it will force you to like the page on Facebook. This will post a link on your wall to Facebook that will show up in your friends’ feed. The cycle then goes on and on tricking your friends into liking the same video or page.

This spamming technique is tough to identify and I will be the first to admit that I have been tricked as well. The problem is that the spammers often come up with provocative headlines that draw people in. Once you like something like this it can often be embarrassing when your friends see what you’ve been clicking on.

There is an easy way to get around this however. Just look at the URL (shown below) if it looks shady. Just mark post as spam.

I hope this helps you guys out. I’ve just seen too many of my friends get tricked by this and it was annoying me.

Is Facebook a Virtual Gravestone?

Grant Friedman — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:00:57 +0000

Lately, it seems that Facebook is always in the news. We’ve all seen the headlines explaining that Facebook is now worth more than $50 billion, how its founder, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world, how Facebook affects privacy and law enforcement, and on and on… While all of these topics are certainly open for discussion and interesting in their own right, many of them miss the mark. Facebook isn’t just a service that can connect the world, it can also connect generations. In this article, I’d like to talk a little about how Facebook may grow in ways that very few of us are talking about today but may in the future.

With over 500 million members, and a market valuation of over 50 billion dollars, it seems that Facebook is here to stay. Over the years, corporations come and go. Most companies, even large ones don’t last much longer than 100 years, and no one knows if Facebook will be one of them. With that said however, it’s important to ask ourselves how it will affect the world if it does.

Facebook Babies

If you were one of Facebook’s original members, some one who joined while in college, using your .edu email address. You’re probably at the stage in life where all your friends are having children. Some of you probably already have children. If so, it’s likely that either you or your friends have already posted photos of your children on Facebook. In fact, a recent study says that 82% of kids under 2 years of age already have an online presence. This means that if Facebook were to make it to 100 years, this generation would be the first to have been Facebooked about their entire lives, from birth to death.

This is important because Facebook has not yet addressed some of these concerns. What happens when these children grow up? How can they take charge of their pre-existing online persona? What happens if they decide they don’t want to be on Facebook? While these decisions are still about 10 years away, these are all the privacy concerns that as parents and users, we should be concerned about.

As our children grow and start to become more and more interested in Facebook, how do we as parents interact with them? Do we really want them to see how we interact with our peers? To see how we interact with people that we have been friends with on Facebook for decades? Do we want our children to see updates from our youth? Will Facebook develop tools to not only protect our children from others, but to also protect us, as parents, from the prying eyes of our children?

The Virtual Gravestone

As our generation ages, it’s inevitable that many of us will pass away over the next few decades. During this time, the number of deceased members of Facebook will inevitably grow larger. How will Facebook handle death and what will Facebook look like when millions of its members are no longer with us?

Death on Facebook is a sad but interesting topic to talk about because in a way, it provides us with a way to live forever. Not it a physical sense, of course but when we die, our thoughts, photos, memories, and actions on Facebook will live on. For those of us who have been unfortunate enough to have a friend or family member on Facebook pass away, you may have noticed that those accounts come alive with activity on birthdays or special events, as friends stop by to pay their respects. In a way, Facebook becomes a virtual gravestone so to speak, where friends and family stop by to leave a message or just to reminisce.

In addition, Facebook can do more than just to help us mourn the passing of a loved one. It can even provide our children and grandchildren insight into who we were, what we did and thought, it will become a historical database of millions of people who were once members. This could become a resource that none of us had growing up and something our descendants might grow to treasure.

Most businesses that last the test of time start out doing one thing and ended up doing something else. AT&T started out providing telegraph service, now they are in the mobile phone business. While it’s too early to say what Facebook will look like in 100+ years, it’s safe to say that a company that started out connecting friends and family could end up not only connecting the world but also connecting generations.

6 Tips to Making Great Flyers

Grant Friedman — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:00:57 +0000

In the modern world, we are constantly bombarded with media messages. To capture our attention a good flyer therefore needs to be attention-grabbing, succinct and memorable, all of which is easier said than done! Designing flyers can be subsequently be a daunting activity but breaking the task down into a series of smaller steps it can be far simpler than previously thought.

1. Most importantly, make sure that you are clear about the flyer’s purpose, as this will directly impact its design and layout. Resist the temptation overload a flyer with too much information. It is more effective to focus on highlighting one or two special offers or events, ensuring that relevant contact information such as website, address and telephone number are clearly displayed for the customer to find out more.

2. Always have your target audience at the forefront of your mind during the design process and design using fonts / colours / imagery that will appeal to that audience. Whatever the style, try to use no more than two different fonts. Using bold or italics of the same font can be far more effective than using ten different fonts.

3. Images can prove particularly valuable for flyer where there is very limited space. Consider using one large image to make a stronger impression than several smaller ones.

4. Flyers come in lots of shapes and sizes and a wide range of paper types. If budget is an issue, you can usually pay less for more popular flyer sizes. These include amongst others A5 (210mm x 148.5mm- half a sheet of A4 paper), DL (210mm x 99mm- a third of an A4 sheet) and slightly smaller flyers often use A7 (105mm x 74mm). If you really want to stand out from the crowd, consider using a different format – a good printer will offer a range of different shapes to use. To help prepare the artwork, you can use free flyer templates.

5. Ensure that your flyer is printed on quality card, a professional design can be lost if printed on flimsy paper and it will feel cheap. 350gsm card is regarded as the standard type for flyers.

6. Before you commit to print, make sure you have proof read the flyer several times (and get as many people to read it as possible) as it is all too easy to miss typos and errors in the flyer design.

Don’t be afraid to adopt the ‘less is more’ philosophy and remember that you need to grab attention very quickly and make sure that your key message / offer is going to be very clear and memorable.

This article was sponsored by Solo Press.

Working With Writers: Some Insight From the Other Side

Michelle Krasniak — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:00:27 +0000

I think it goes without saying that one of the only things that writers and designers have in common is the fact that we both have to “create.” I could break it down to “right brain” (you) and “left brain” (me) stuff but that’s a little too scientific for me. The bottom line is that for the most part we are a different species of creative. And many times in our careers we need each other in order to accomplish something. C’mon admit it… you need us sometimes!

There are sweeping generalizations and stereotypes for each of us, some true, some not. What follows is some insight (albeit slightly tongue-in-cheek) into what makes us tick in the hopes of creating- or furthering- a symbiotic relationship between writers and designers.

Give feedback to us as you’d like it to be given to you

This kind of goes along with the whole “do unto others” saying that gets thrown around a lot. Feeback is great…everyone needs it. And like designers, most of us are not overly-sensitive. But throwing something back to us with a huffy “yaaa…NO” doesn’t get either of us anywhere. And it makes you look like a jerk. So if you’re the point-of-contact with the client and have the clearest idea about what they want copy-wise, steer us in the right direction…with a smile.

We aren’t basing characters on you for our “All-American Novel” (all of the time)

Ha! This is my favorite one because I’ve been asked this a number of times. So many times, in fact, that when I came across a “Be careful or you’ll end up in my novel!” t-shirt I had to pick it up. The truth is, like you, we draw much of our inspiration from everyday life. So if we happen across you, and you happen to be a colorful character (whether positive or not), your “type” may crop up in a future piece. Have no fear, though. Names and identifying characteristics will be changed to protect the innocent-and the guilty.

We appreciate flexibility

This one can be a bit tricky. We know your work is pretty labor-intensive at times and involves many moving pieces. But you sometimes change things after the fact, right? It’s the same with us. There are times when we write something and once you put it into the design, it just doesn’t feel or sound right to us anymore and we want to tweak it. As long as we’re not over-doing it, please grin and bear it.

We don’t know HTML and chances are we don’t have Photoshop so everything we do that is picture or graphics related is in a (yikes!) Microsoft program

Maybe some writers do and I would love a lesson! I consider myself to be pretty proficient in blogging platforms but I’m mighty thankful that the “kitchen sink” dashboard exists because if it didn’t there wouldn’t be anything but miles and miles of 12pt Times New Roman text. In fact, I was once asked to submit something in HTML and I copy and pasted it into WordPress, formatted it as needed, clicked to the “HTML” tab on the dashboard and then copy and pasted that back into a Word doc. I’m sure I was the laughing stock of their office for a long time.

Give us specific space limitations

It helps to know ahead of time how much room we have to work with. Don’t just say “you have 4 inches for text.” Give us an idea of the number of lines based on the font and the size of everything. That makes a big difference.

Politely listen to any “look” related ideas we may have. We will do the same.

Do we expect you to incorporate everything we suggest? Of course not…you’re the expert. We acknowledge that in most cases we have no idea the amount of time and work that goes into something that looks fairly straight forward to us. But we’re not morons either and we’ve been around the block a few times (be careful with that one!) so we’ve seen our share of designs. We may surprise you and actually have an artistically, feasible idea!

We aren’t as different as you may think. We’re both artists…we just create with words.

We appreciate and recognize your talent. That is all I will say about that one.

Conclusion

Whew! I hope I cleared the air! Did anything I’ve written above surprise you? Maybe or maybe not. What it comes down to is that we’re both working towards the same goal: to make the world look –and sound- better, one project at a time.

What’s With All the Jerks?

Grant Friedman — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:00:31 +0000

Over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to observe the design community from a unique perspective. For the most part, I’ve really enjoyed it. Most of the people I have met have been incredible. The design community is filled with so many generous individuals who freely donate their time, knowledge, and spirit without asking much, if anything in return. I suppose in a lot of ways, the design community is much like the rest of the world; filled with kind and generous people; but like the rest of the world, there seem to be a few bad apples that consistently make hard for the rest of us. I only say this because recently, I’ve noticed the number of overly critical, unhelpful, and sometimes-insulting comments increase dramatically on articles and tutorials.

I fully understand Internet culture. I know that this sort of thing is commonplace. For the most part, I’m pretty laid back. I don’t let much bother me. I know the Internet is filled with jerks; it’s just the way things are. For many years I tolerated them; even cheered them on, but lately, it seems, that the jerks are getting the upper hand.

I read a lot of different design blogs. I most always read through the comments. It’s a great way to see how the community feels about a particular topic. It used to be that when you read through them that you would see a lot of positive comments, a few questions, some constructive criticism, and maybe a couple negative remarks. Today, it seems like the negative remarks are really starting to dominate the discussion and it’s ruining the atmosphere of the community.

I will admit that we rarely receive negative comments on this site. We get a few here and there but nothing that really shocks the conscience. What I have seen however is the tendency of a few people on some other sites to unfairly, and unnecessarily attack an article, tutorial, or author for no good reason.

Sure, there are tons of poorly written articles, and ugly tutorials out there, but does that make it ok to publically flame the article, or in some cases personally attack its author? I think not.

I fully support a public discourse. I think it’s great to voice your opinion and I encourage it on every site I maintain. There is a huge difference however between civil public discourse and malicious, unfair, and insulting statements often made by anonymous readers.

I don’t have any illusions that these types of people will ever stop what they’re doing. I know that they are here to stay. What I will ask however is that the next time you decide to flame an article or tutorial that some one wrote, stop and think before you write. Try to be constructive in your criticism, don’t insult the author personally. Treat them the way you would like to be treated. Remember, we’re not discussing controversial social or economic issues. If we were, I might understand. This is design that we are talking about here. It’s supposed to be fun and educational. There is no need to get upset about a tutorial that some one wrote. If you don’t like it, that’s ok. If you want to voice your opinion, do it. Just be respectful, that’s all.

Is Facebook Getting Boring?

Grant Friedman — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:00:49 +0000

Remember when Facebook used to be fun? Do you remember how you used to feel before you logged into the site for the day? Do you remember the wonder and excitement of who you might discover? I sure do. I used to love Facebook. Logging in was like going on a treasure hunt. You never knew what you might find. For me, making connections was really what drew me to Facebook. I really enjoyed reuniting with old friends, interacting with them, and seeing what they were up to.

Over the years, however, Facebook went through a number of changes; new features such as the suggestion tool made the process of finding long-lost friends much easier and Facebook’s incredibly fast growth allowed us to make those connections faster than ever. At first, I thought this was great but what I found however, was that the larger my friend list grew, the less accurate that the suggestion tool became and the fewer friends I ended up finding in the future.

This was because the number of people I knew in the real world was limited and friending a new person on Facebook was no different than crossing them off of a list. For me, Facebook was more about making connections than communication and as I started to make fewer connections, Facebook just started to get boring.

Today, Facebook is more of a chore than something fun to do. Instead of feeling like a treasure hunt, checking my Facebook page seems more like checking my email; more like something I have to do than something I want to do. I log in, quickly browse my feed, maybe check out a photo or two and then log off.

So how does Facebook make the site exciting again? Facebook should start by giving us a way to make new and interesting connections with people we don’t already know. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Facebook to be Twitter, with photos, nor do I want Facebook to become a dating site. Facebook needs to think beyond existing relationships and introduce a way to meet new people that helps build meaningful and positive relationships like we might make in real life.

I don’t pretend to know how this might work but what I do know is this; if Facebook doesn’t do something drastic soon, even the newest members will start to tire of the service. Once that happens, Facebook will start down the path of all the other failed websites.

What do you think? Are you getting bored by Facebook? Let us know how you might fix it.

3 Ways to Satisfy Your Thirst for More Followers on Twitter

Grant Friedman — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:00:13 +0000

Are you looking for a quick and easy way to get hundreds, thousands, or even millions of followers on Twitter? In my time on Twitter I have seen a lot of elaborate schemes that claim to produce a lot of followers. While some of these techniques have merit, most are scams. This is because there are no shortcuts. Building a large following is not easy and requires a considerable amount of time, hard work, patience, and sometimes, money to show any real results.

In this article, I will explain 3 ways in which one can attract a lot of followers. While I am sure that there are exceptions, for the most part, the Twitter Elite fall into 1 of 3 categories; only 2 of which are attainable by most. It is my hope that you guys will use this article not as a roadmap to gain more followers but instead use it to develop realistic goals and benchmarks for your account. That way you can stay focused on your message and your audience, not your popularity.

Celebrities, Major Brands, and (Some) Politicians

If you joined Twitter because you want to be the most-popular user, chances are you’re going to be disappointed. For the most part, the most popular users on Twitter are celebrities, major brands, and occasionally politicians. There are several reasons for this but this is mostly a result of their already high name recognition and popularity. Celebrities, major brands, and politicians have the advantage of huge advertising budgets and mainstream media outlets to help push traffic to their profile page. This is an advantage that the average Twitter user will never have.

Examples

Journalists and Bloggers

On Twitter, people tend to follow users that have something interesting and unique to say. Journalists and bloggers are really good at finding and distributing information. So naturally, these types of people attract huge amounts of followers. If you’re looking for a way to attract a lot of followers, starting a blog is probably your best bet. A blog will give you credibility and a home base to build a following. Once you start writing articles and posting them to Twitter, you will find yourself being retweeted more and more often. Eventually, you will find that your follower count will begin to increase. While this process takes a lot of time to reach critical mass, it is probably the most effective way to build a large following.

Examples

Retweeters

The third type of person with a lot of followers is the Retweeter. Good Retweeters are hard to find, mostly because because it takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and time to find interesting articles and retweet them all day. If you want to become a great retweeter, find a topic of interest, then find some great people to follow; after that, just start retweeting. Don’t fool yourself however, retweeting is exhausting and you may find this role to be tedious at first; but eventually people will start to notice and your following will start to grow. The toughest hurdle you will have to overcome will be distinguishing yourself from a bot. You can do this by being friendly, helpful, and most of all by engaging with other users. Don’t just retweet people, reply to them as well, try posting your own thoughts every now and then to put your retweets into context. This will show your followers that you actually read what you post.

Examples

@mayhemstudios

In Conclusion

The longer you use Twitter, the more you will realize that it’s not a horse race. Twitter is more than just about how many followers you have. Twitter is about distributing information, engaging others, and most of all, having fun. Most Twitter veterans can spot a person who is just looking for followers a mile away so try not to look desperate in your attempts to build a following. Your first step should be to relax. Then focus on being a responsible member of the community. Once that is done the rest should all fall into place.

Subscribe to These Excellent Design-Related RSS Feeds

Grant Friedman — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:00:08 +0000

Last year, I published an article that listed some of my favorite websites to subscribe to using RSS. That article quickly became one of the most popular articles on this site; making it to the front page of Digg. As a result, most of the sites listed in that article saw an almost instant jump in their number of RSS subscriptions. As time went by however, I realized that it was time to update that list. That is why today, I am publishing an updated list of 30 excellent design-related RSS feeds to subscribe to.

One of the biggest complaints from my last post was that there were simply too many RSS feeds listed and that it was a bit overwhelming. With that in mind, I decided to keep this list down to a more manageable number. If your website, however, was left off the list, please feel free to add it in the comments.

Download OPML File

Subscribe to these RSS feeds all at once by downloading this OPML file and importing it into your preferred RSS reader.

Colorburned – Website | RSS

1st Web Designer – Website | RSS

Abduzeedo – Website | RSS

Creative Nerds – Website | RSS

CSS Tricks – Website | RSS

Design Bump – Website | RSS

Design Informer – Website | RSS

Design Instruct – Website | RSS

DesignM.ag – Website | RSS

Design Newz – Website | RSS

Go Media Zine – Website | RSS

Inspiredology – Website | RSS

Instant Shift – Website | RSS

Line25 – Website | RSS

Naldz Graphics – Website | RSS

Noupe – Website | RSS

PSDTUTS – Website | RSS

Six Revisions – Website | RSS

Smashing Magazine – Website | RSS

Spoon Graphics – Website | RSS

Spyre Studios – Website | RSS

The Design Cubicle – Website | RSS

The Die Line – Website | RSS

Tutorial9 – Website | RSS

UX Booth – Website | RSS

Vandelay Design – Website | RSS

Vectips – Website | RSS

VECTORTUTS – Website | RSS

We Are Not Freelancers – Website | RSS

Web Design Ledger – Website | RSS

Web Designer Depot – Website | RSS

4 Tips to Help Promote Your Website Using Facebook Fan Pages

Grant Friedman — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:00:31 +0000

When it comes to promoting a website through social media, a lot of people clump Twitter and Facebook Fan Pages into the same category. Most people see them as similar tools to help promote their brand; and while there are some similarities, they can be used in different ways. In this article I would like to point out 4 tips to help you promote your website using Facebook Fan Pages.

Use Facebook for Interaction and Conversation

Facebook’s threaded comments make it a much better tool than Twitter for interacting with your fans. Having all your replies in one place makes conversations much more natural. Try posting general comments or questions on your page; you are likely to see an increased response from your fans.

Don’t Import Notes to Facebook Pages Using RSS

There are a lot of websites that import their site’s RSS feed as a note onto their fan page. This is so Facebook will automatically post new articles as soon as they are published. DO NOT do this! When you import an RSS feed as a note to your Facebook page, it keeps your fans on Facebook rather than sending them to your website. This actually reduces traffic to your site, rather than increase it. The solution is to post links manually into your feed. Unfortunately, there is no automatic way to do this that I know of.

Don’t Overwhelm Your Facebook Fans With Content

Your Facebook Fans are likely to follow fewer people on Facebook than they do on Twitter. This means that your fans can easily be overwhelmed with content from your feed. Try to limit your Facebook Fan Page to 3-5 updates per day.

Sync Your Facebook Status to Your Twitter Account

Facebook will allow you to sync your fan page with your Twitter account; and even though the connection only goes one way, it is a great way to save time if you post identical content on both sites. To link your Facebook Fan Page to your Twitter account click here.

Conclusion

There are many ways to use Facebook to promote your page. Feel free to share any ideas, techniques, or strategies in the comments below.

22 Fantastic Animal Character Tutorials for Illustrator

Stanley Diaz — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:00:47 +0000

If you love animals, you’ll love this round up of 22 Fantastic Animal Illustration Tutorials. These tutorials will take you step-by-step through the process of creating a professional-looking character or mascot in Illustrator and will help you fine-tune your character illustration skills. We highly recommend that you take a moment to review some of these excellent character illustration tutorials.

Conclusion

That is it for these tutorials. If you know of any other animal illustration tutorials that we failed to include, feel free to share the link in the comments.