Sometimes Stock Photos Just Don’t Work…Then What?
By · CommentsIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I'm a subscriber to several stock photo sharing sites like iStockphoto, Shutterstock, Dreamstime, BigStockPhoto and Crestock. And every so often, I just can't find a good photo for a particular blog header.
This was one of those times. A client was developing a site for the owners of obese dogs. I searched the web for photos of fat dogs and there were some amazing images out there, just not royalty free ones.
Look at this poor dog, I couldn't find out the original source for this image as it is shared on several blogs without attribution, but this is one fat dog.
This poor guy doesn't look like he moves around too well and while he was grossly overweight, I just couldn't figure out how to use it in her blog header.
I was sent this image of an overweight pug but I couldn't figure out how to use it.
I tried several options, but I just couldn't find a typeface to carry the theme. I needed something else.
While looking through more weight loss images, I got the idea of a fat dog on a scale.
I literally spent several hours looking for just the right picture, which was clearly proving to be a very unprofitable use of my time and the only pictures I found with dogs on scales weren't fat dogs at all.
I was at my wits end and even considered refunding the client. I clearly needed to think outside the box.
Anyway, a few years ago, my family and I ventured into breeding German Shepherds. They are by far my favorite breed and I was the proud owner of a beautiful male we called Moses.
One of his offspring was a beautiful giant my daughter couldn't part with she called Wilhelm. Willie has grown to be about three inches taller than his father and probably 20lbs heavier.
He's a really big dog and a good subject being well over 100lbs, in fact, I think he weighs more than my photographer daughters boyfriend, but that's another story. 
I asked my daughter, the photographer, to see if she could get Willie to cooperate and get me some pictures of his chest looking down at his feet. That proved to be quite a task, because he's not called Wilhelm von Schtupithound for nothing.
We tried to get him standing on a scale, but that was impossible. His father would have obeyed, but this guy had too much of his mothers psycho genes flowing through his veins.
Anyway, I managed to get a shot that I could crop and put on a scale, like so.
I know its not perfect, but I thought it was great. And so I put it on a header.
The client was happy and I was totally glad to be finished with this one.
So when you can't find a stock photo, just take your own.
Roy
.jpg)
January Free Blog Header Drawing Winner
By · CommentsI drew a winner for the Free Blog Header Drawing for January.
Dave Gricunas from the Arizona High Country is our winner. Dave has a local portal http://www.4local.org/ Online Advertising & Marketing Made EZ
I'm looking forward to helping Dave out with his next project.
I'll be posting it when I'm finished.
Congratulations Dave.
Roy
Free Blog Header Drawing Tonight!
By · CommentsTonight will be the first drawing of 2010 for my monthly Free Custom Blog Header drawing.
Every month, I give away a free blog header design to a lucky winner.
If you've signed up already you'll in the drawing, but if you haven't now's your chance to get in on the action.
Why I don’t rank on Google for Blog Headers …
By · CommentsFor whatever reason, Google dropped my PR to 1 after I thought I was doing pretty good with a PR2 after only three months. So, I had a friend do an SE optimization evaluation on the blogheaderguy.com site and you know what I learned?
He says that I say b**g he**der too often and that's probably what's keeping me on page two of Google SERP's and the lowering of my PR. Apparently, I need to have more articles that don't actually say bl*g h**d*rs, even though my site is all about bl*g he*d*r design.
It's a good thing I don't care. I was just curious about what I did wrong.
But maybe he's right, I should tone down all that chatter about bl*g h**d*rs and talk about tiger woods or angelina jolie or their love child. Yeah, you heard it first on bl*ghead**guy.com and Brad is pissed.
Back to the search engine thing, I've actually been doing what I call "dancing with the googly bear" and can find my site anywhere from #1 to #14 for the term blog header and out of 23,000,000 pages I think that's pretty darn good.
Oh well, I may have gone overboard with the asterisks and it may have a negative impact on my future page rankings if the googlebot figures out my code.
Just something to keep losing sleep over.
Watch for my new ebook "The Blog Header Guy Conspiracy".
Till next time,
Roy
Dressing up a logo for a new custom blog header design.
By · CommentsA friend from the Local Biz Builders forum has used me to do several blog headers this past year for her clients. Because I've had some real fun with her projects and she's a joy to work with, I asked her if I could showcase this project.
Last week she asked me to do a header that had what I thought was a pretty tired logo with boring clipart and some crazy font that was probably trendy when it was done.
As an old signguy, I lived and breathed lettering and the illumination of the letters for almost thirty years and I have strong opinions on what looks right, but I was also a little hesitant to say anything.
I mean why rock the boat, just do the header and go on to the next one.
I did a quick layout and decided I could freshen up the logo with some new graphics and type face changes. I needed something to write about, so I suggested that I tweak the artwork and offered to do the logo changes for the header for free.
I liked the overall layout, I just didn't care for the treatment of the typefaces or the clipart. This is the before image.
I wanted to keep the logo kind of the same so I started with the sun.
I liked the radial gradient for the yellow, but thought I should do something with the red.
Next I wanted to mess with the "easy day" copy. I kinda like welding letters together that overlap unless it makes them less legible. In this case I used a Bodoni clone and gave the letters a little dimension.
Now it was time to tackle the clipart. I have several GB of vector art that I've collected over the years and spent a few hours sorting through them looking for something I could use. The dolphin was easy, the marlin was a little elusive. Kind of like fishing for them.
Now we're talking. I chose a bold serif font for the rest of the copy and this is what I came up with.
Well, that does it for this article. What do you think of the changes I made to this?
Till next time.
Roy
Wow another year has blown by.
Looking around, we all know it's been a tough year for a lot of people. Not exactly the change we were hoping for.
In the spirit of the holiday season, I just wanted to offer up my sincere wish that the next year finds us a nation that is strong in kindness and mighty in our desire to help one another.
Do what you can to help, its not hard if we take the focus off ourselves and what's ours.
I'm looking forward to the new year, how about you?
Roy
PS. Watch for the new site layout coming soon, going for a less cluttered look with more tutorials and site makeovers.
Blog Header Design Makeover- Blogger Header Design
By · CommentsYou know how when you're surfing the net and you come across a blog header where you say.."hey, a little tweak and I could make this site look great."
Really? You don't do that? Oh.
Well, sometimes I can't help myself.
Blog Header Guy Makeover- Curly Girl's Crochet etc.
It's time for another of my guerrilla blog header makeovers. Since I don't I don't really have much to say, I'll keep this one short and sweet.
Stumbling my way around blogcatalog.com I visited a site where the owner does some really cool crocheting. I'm not into crochet, not that it isn't manly to do it, but I love seeing creative people do what they love to do. And Sonya clearly loves to crochet.
She actually crochets little dolls using a Japanese technique known as amigurumi. It's really cool to see what she can do with some yarn.
I can appreciate the minimalist style of the Minima blogger template and have written about it before. I just thought I could make an improvement by adding some personality.
I got the idea for this blog header redesign from this button Sonya has on her site. I wanted to maintain some design continuity using the Curlz typeface and floral elements.
Well, there it is. I think it brings her blog header to life, but what do you think?
I just sent her a message and can't wait to hear what she thinks, but I've learned that sometimes the response is not always what I imagine.
Your comments are appreciated.
Roy
