Mandar Apte

UI/UX Designer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Category: Art And Design

Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, usually involving imaginative or technical skill. Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams and sewing patterns). Design has different connotations in different fields. In some cases the direct construction of an object (as in pottery, engineering, management, cowboy coding and graphic design) is also considered to be design.

  • Why we don’t do Pilot Projects or so called Free Mockup Designs? & Why Pilot Projects & Free Mockup design doesn’t work?

    Few collection of thoughts from my experience of design freelancing & pursuing design processes & doing design oriented business for living for last more than 4 years.

    When somebody asks for Mockup before starting any paid & finalised project,

    Following situations can be seen & felt by designer

    • Client is unsure about prospect of project
    • Client has unpractical approach towards project
    • Client lack proper investment & money
    • Client is hesitant about future of project
    • It’s just real waste of time if you are not going to paid for it
    • There is confusion in conversation of respective parties client & designer
    • Time is blocked by unpaid Mockup design process
    • Designer can’t take more interesting & paid work because he is occupied by just making Mockups
    • Mockup has no value for showcasing in real world because people want what is more sellable content & design & finished product

    Now you can understand why we don’t do Mockups for any clients or any prospective client.

    Thanks & Regards
    Mandar Apte

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    Mandar Apte
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  • User Experience Notes from implementation of Google Adsense in website

    I have realized after implementing Google Adsense in my blog with right background with borders while matching it to style of Adsense ads they are surrounding to,

    CTR i.e. Click Through Rate is increased now with 100%

    I am getting good results & comments offline & online, Nobody feels presence of ads distracting or useless or nobody asks about why I am using Google Adsense.

    Simple answers I use to give that to monetize my blog & fund my online projects with website’s self-sufficiency.

    But I now can tell you that use right CSS Backgrounds in Website’s HTML & Color Styles in Adsense Templates your CTR will increase & you will find difference in few days or two.

    Best Luck… Design Buddies…!!!

    Thanks & Regards
    Mandar Apte

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  • Using large font size for web content which is what works in real situations in daily website browsing life

    Designing Websites through CMS – Content Management Systems is big business nowadays.

    Designing Website themes with Font that seems right to eye than seems more readable to eye & become eye candy of viewer is big challenge for designer.

    Designing website with font variation from font size from 5px to 25 px is big trend that captured the whole designer community world wide.

    What I think readability & getting attention of reader through large or more readable font size should be criteria. Using font size of 14.5px to help reader to concentrate & not irritate his eye to read small font size of so called ‘content’ area.

    Using large font size & grading content on basis of maximize of 14.5px font size should be right direction to move forward.

    Large font size for content like 14.5px helps communicator to convey message to reader & gain effective result of making him frequent visitor to website to which he loves to read the content from.

    Here are Pros of using 14.5px font size or more

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  • Sex Don’t Sell Product or It’s Just Communicates a wrong message, Here is why…!!! A Story of Airline called Kingfisher, ‘King of Good Times’.

    There is or there was one airline in India called ‘Kingfisher’, Who tried to market it’s airline through bikinis’ & girls on bitches. This will give you hint what I mean.

    Kingfisher started it’s work in Year 2005 & Today in Year 2010-11 It called itself bankrupt of INR 7,000 Crore of Debt.

    All marketing strategies were based on girls with less cloths or just so called bikinis, Which practically did not worked for them as it seems. They are unable to pay their employees’ salaries for last three month…

    Then what’s the use of showing beautiful girls with less cloths on bitches & showcasing them & selling them as New Years Kingfisher Calendar girls when Product doesn’t seem to be survive in market for even more than 5 years.

    It shows misconduct of investing money in word called ‘SEX’ than product it has to sell.

    It proves the point that, ‘Sex Don’t Sell Your Product!!! & It’s Communicate Wrong Message with that…!!!’

    Thanks & Regards
    Mandar Apte

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  • Is Photography is an Art? or Just a technique?

    When camera was first invented & made available to public at large to buy,

    It was caught up with the idea of capturing the moment in still image, or preserving the moment in film.

    But as time progressed GUI – Graphical User Interface enabled computers were started to use by public with introduction of Macintosh in Year 1984.

    With Macintosh came Photoshop. And it changed DTP – Desktop Publishing Industry, Graphic Design, Print Design Industry & it had large impact on an Art called Photography.

    Because it introduced ‘Post Production in Photography through Photoshop touch-ups’.

    & then through my point of view Photography doesn’t remained the Art Form at all.

    With Faster & Smarter Photoshop came Quad Core Mac that runs in blazing speed, Then Hand Held Digital Point & shoot cameras introduced by companies like Canon, Nikon. Point & shoot camera are so cheap & with higher mega pixel with higher density it became household thing to own Digital Point & Shoot camera.

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  • Windows 8 & OSX 10.8, The Design Similarities & Differences

    Some of My Observations About Design of Modern PC Operating Systems:
    After watching OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion Preview & Windows 8 consumer preview, Here are few of my observations about their design…

    Windows 8 Preview Video

    OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion Preview

     
    Similarities

    Gestures
    Now All Mobile or PC (Desktop & Laptop) Apps & OS has built in Gestures support.

    Apps Centered
    With popularization of concept of ‘App Store’ & it’s success they switch to App Centered OS i.e. Replicating iOS (iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch) experience on Desktop & Laptop

    Touch
    With introduction ‘Magic Trackpad’ for Desktop ‘Touch’ OS & Apps are hot favorites of all consumers

    Intel based
    Now Macintosh & Windows are intel based architecture with Multithreading & Multicore technologies.

    Mobile Operating System
    As Apple calls OSX a Mobile operating system as they sale more laptop macintoshes than Desktops like iMac & Mac Pro

    Multitouch
    Multitouch, A Touch & Gestures with more than one finger is hot property on OS market now a days

    Differences

    it’s Windows
    After all Windows 8 OS is after all ‘Windows’

    Tablet Or PC
    W8 Works on Tablet & Desktop & Laptop but OSX 10.8 only on Laptop & Desktop

    Finally I have to admitt that I am writing this on my iMac, So for me Mac OSX is right choice Operating System & Personal Computer. Like Apple nobody designs hardware & software & integrates it as fluently than Apple itself.

    So I choose OSX as my present & future Operating System…!!! What About You? Do let me know with comments….!!!

    Thanks & Regards
    Mandar Apte

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  • What is Adobe Photoshop & How to use it?

    Introduction

    adobephotoshopcs5-620x402

    Adobe Photoshop is a Modern Image Editing & Manipulation Program.

    This programs dominate the Market by large margin that any other software is finding it difficult to be competent to stay in market & compete against it.

    With Photoshop CS5, It now supports 3D. It has plugin supports. So Versatility of Photoshop has evolved around by big radius. Now photoshop is utilized by Photographers, Digital Painters, 3D Artists, Web Designers, Video Editors.

    Photoshop Story
    Photoshop Story is interesting that all it started with concept of GUI – Graphical User Interface with Macintosh & it was revolutionary. As Wikipedia States – In 1987, Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended Thomas turn it into a fully-fledged image editing program. Thomas took a six month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program, which had been renamed ImagePro. Later that year, Thomas renamed his program Photoshop and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner; a “total of about 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped” this way.
    During this time, John traveled to Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of the program to engineers at Apple and Russell Brown, art director at Adobe. Both showings were successful, and Adobe decided to purchase the license to distribute in September 1988. While John worked on plug-ins in California, Thomas remained in Ann Arbor writing program code. Photoshop 1.0 was released in 1990 for Macintosh exclusively.

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  • How to get Inspire to learn to do great animation

    Here are few ideas that I use to get inspire to learn more about animation & do lot more animation in my work time…

    Idea No. 01: Read Blogs & Subscribe to RSS feeds

    1. “How to Learn Animation?” – While Browsing a web & while doing Social Networking
    2. My List of Animation Books an Animator should buy
    3. Animation Film Making Notes
    4. Indian Animator Chetan Sharma’s Blog
    5. Animation Mentor Blog, Animation Tips & Tricks

    Idea No. 02: Watch Movies

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  • Typography & Steve Jobs

    You can get Inspiration from anything, even leaf coming out of broken wood.

    Here is a speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford’s 2005 Commencement.

    Every time I listen same speech again & again I realize it’s nothing but Verbal Typography by Steve Jobs Himself, You get to see & hear verbal full stop, comma, exclamatory mark in his speech. Words chosen for speech is like a brilliant job of copyrighting to inspire & motivate people about their work or Karma, which is brilliant.

    ‘Even Type laughs & whispers in his speech.’

    Steve Jobs’ Speech is just a play in it self, He give speech as somebody with many many years of stage experience will perform in his favorite theater.

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  • Design Inspirations: Getting Inspired…!!! to do design & finally learning from it…!!!

    Today with broadband connection on my iMac & connected to the World Wide Web fearlessly with my own website & design blog… Switching from one website to another, reading blogs, going through Twitts, reading Facebook updates… Sometimes I feel It’s really easy to get inspirations through web if you do it right…

    Not like olden days when you only have to visit art gallery exhibition to see art & get inspired with…

    Here are few links that I find as inspiration to learn & do design…

    Apple Developer
    A website dedicated to Apple Mac, iOS & safari developers. Registration is free & site is loaded with deleopment learning videos & ebook learning resources… So happy Learning…!!!

    Adobe Developer Connection
    Adobe’s website do feature developer resources to develop for their adobe products or just learn to design using thei products like Photoshop, Illustrator etc.
    Adobe Developer connect is do present on iTunes Podcast Directory… You can find it here.

    Adobe TV
    Adobe TV is like adobe’s version of YouTube but all gathered to learn & get inspired about designing & learningthrough their products.

    Animation Mentor Blog
    You may know ‘Animation Mentor’ as an Online Animation Training school for learning Character Animation. But they do featured their own blog which is worth reading & bookmarking. Here is link for ‘Animation Mentor Webinar’. Here is link for ‘Animation Mentor Podcasts’

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