“A font that questions deadlocked dogmas and throws up completely new design questions, and thus has the potential to revolutionise the understanding of digital typography. More…(VIA – http://laikafont.ch)”

LAIKA from Michael Flückiger on Vimeo.

Full color print with laminate onto Coroplast sign & custom cut.

On top of how good they look, they are also all weather and can be used for sidewalk / sandwich board sign inserts.

ATV Graphics

In the past month we’ve printed banners for multiple clients, printed retractable tradeshow stand for the Eugene Symphony Guild, designed/printed/installed an awesome boat wrap for Drain Raider, created custom graphics for an ATV, and printed and routed signs for Laurelwood Golf Course.

James' XBOX Wrap

I took some time this weekend to wrap my XBOX. This just a little of what we’ve been up to. We have some other projects lined up and can’t wait to show them to you when we’re done.

If you need another follower or contact on twitter, let us know.

This post should serve as a reference to both client and designer; an attempt to articulate, in an understandable manner, the primary differences between these two graphic types and explore the areas where usage of each is most appropriate. A graphic design background is not required for understanding this post; technical terminology is defined; however, an elementary understanding of computers and graphics is assumed.

Bitmap Graphics

Bitmap graphics are the most common graphic format in use on the web and, indeed, on the computer. With the exception of Flash and the still relatively unsupported .svg (scalable vector graphic) format, every single graphic seen on the web is a Bitmap.

Bitmap graphics are composed of pixels, each of which contains specific color information. A pixel is minutely small; a single image may be composed of hundreds of thousands of individual pixels. Much like cells revealed from a piece of tissue when seen under a microscope, these pixels are only clearly and individually visible when the image is magnified (fig 1).

A graphic composed entirely of pixels each with its own color properties is ideal for photographic images where there are thousands, even millions of different colors. Complex fills, shading and gradient effects can easily be rendered. The Bitmap image offers as much freedom as an empty canvas.

Vector Graphics

If we consider Bitmap graphics as being stored in a literal fashion, then Vector Graphics, stored representatively, are their opposites.

Rather than being composed of pixels, Vector graphics consist of points, lines, and curves which, when combined, can form complex objects (fig 2). These objects can be filled with solid colors, gradients, and even patterns.

Vector graphics are mathematical creations. For this reason, the programs that are used to create them save instructions on how the image should be drawn, rather than how it looks. This is the key difference between the two types of graphics. Because the computer has a description of how the image should look, it can be redrawn at any size, in any position, without losing any quality. A vector graphic re-sized to 5 times its original dimensions is simply reproduced, exactly, at the new size. It can also be freely manipulated without losing coherence, like a rubber band that can be stretched an infinite number of ways.

The price of this scaling flexibility is that Vector images must remain relatively simple in comparison to Bitmap images. It is impossible to render a photographic image in a vector editor; as a result, illustrative vector graphics have a distinct look and feel, even when produced in detail.

However, Vector graphics are ideal for producing artwork which frequently needs to be presented in different sizes or colors. Logos especially fall into this category. A logo produced with a vector application can be blown up to fit on a billboard or scaled down to adorn a letterhead with no loss of quality.