How to Create a Style Guide

July 31, 2010 by Mark Currey · Leave a Comment
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How many times have you dispatched business cards to print and obtained yet another version of your corporate colour? Ever been fired up to see your advert in the latest newspaper and then noticed that the crucial tag line is not present or your logo has been wrecked.

There is only one way to avoid this from happening and that is to use a style guide. Not only will a style guide help you direct the reproduction of your logo - it will also help you fortify your brand recognition – which many argue is one of the strongest selling tools.

We have placed the below steps together for you as a starting point.

Step 1 : Define the audience for your Style Guide. Is this for staff to use in-house or is this for suppliers and contractors to refer to?

Step 2 : Define what your output uses are. This is important because you will want different logos and file formats for example, black and white publication adverts in comparison to vehicle graphics.

Step 3 : Define the tone for the copy and content required. For example you may requirecopy rules for printed content and then copy rules for website content.

Content rules cover all punctuation rules and how to attribute to the business and team.

Step 4 : Make sure you layout all the design templates so it is clear how and where the logo and branding lies on all the different pieces of collateral that may be repeated.

Step 5 : Make sure to accommodate any contributing logos or logos of business that are affiliated with you. It’s also important that you send a copy of the layout to these companies to insure they approve the layout of their logo as they too may have their own Style Guide and hierarchy layout rules.

Step 6 : Assure that grammar, spelling and contact details are correct.

Step 7 : Assure that when suppliers are using the Style Guide they understand~know~discern~apprehend} that a proof needs to be dispatched~sent~mailed~commissioned}to you to be confirmed as correct.

Make your Style Guide finished and as secure as possible. Then have it saved in an email friendly file format and have a couple printed. Once this is done we strongly advise a training session – whereby your design studio arrives and trains your staff on how to utilize the Style Guide and most importantly your brand.

For graphic design Brisbane, logo design Brisbane and web design Brisbane, contact Bydaughters today. We help your brand build business.

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Projectors: LCD Verses DLP (The downfall of DLP technology)

July 19, 2010 by Mark Currey · Leave a Comment
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The most common question heard when buying a new projector for the home, office, or classroom is: do I purchase an LCD projector or a DLP projector? LCD, short for ‘liquid crystal device’ and DLP, an acronym for ‘digital light processing’ are the two most popular projector imaging technologies. With so many different brands and different types available, it can be difficult for the buyer to make a decision between the two technologies. It comes down to the fact that LCD projectors offer far superior image quality and colour accuracy. The next paragraph explains why DLP projectors struggle with reproducing an equal level of image quality.

Think of a set of blinds in your room covering your bedroom window. By twisting a rod you can turn the shutters open or closed, depending on if you want to let light in or not. This is exactly how an LCD projector behaves. Each pixel operates like a unique shutter on a set of blinds to either send light through or to block it. DLP on the other hand is created of millions of microscopic mirrors or ‘pixel elements’ as the experts like to call them. Each pixel element operates to either reflect light or block it.

How the light source is processed from when the projector is switched on to when the content reaches your screen is absolutely important for image quality, brightness and colour accuracy. LCD projectors shine white light from the lamp by cutting it into red, blue and green components, by three mirrors which project the coloured light to 3 stand alone LCD panels. The 3 LCD panels make the elements of the image by switching each pixel on and off. The pixels are then combined in a glass prism to create the projector image. An important point to realise about LCD projectors is that all three colours are directed onto your projector screen simultaneously. The way a DLP projector operates is widely different and even the produced image looks is not the same. With DLP, white light from the lamp is processed through a rotating colour wheel with transparent red, blue and green segments, at speeds up to 11,000 rpm/s. This method of making an image forms a sequence of red, blue and green light. The millions of micro mirrors mentioned above reflect the coloured light on the pixels to construct the image elements. The elements of the image are sent in sequence on the screen, one colour at a time. The viewer’s eye will then put together each coloured element of the image into the single full image. With LCD projectors, all colours are available all the time to create top brightness and great colour accuracy. In DLP, just one colour is available at once, resulting in lower colour brightness and accuracy. Some developers have placed a white segment into the colour wheel to improve all over brightness, but this goes and damages colour accuracy.

I find in forums all the time that DLP provides a higher contrast ratio and therefore must be superior quality. For those unsure, the contrast ratio is a measure of a display system defined as the ratio of the luminance of the brightest white to that of the darkest black that the system is capable of. DLP projectors do offer high contrast specifications when compared to the majority of LCD projectors. At a glance, this must be an advantage, however, in real life, the true black level is determined by the ambient light in the room where the projector is in use. Do not be fooled by contrast specifications on websites and in brochures.

When the content you plan to bring to life requires moving images, DLP projection technology can also have image errors, or ‘artifacts’. The most common artifact that a DLP projector displays with moving images is colour break up. Colour break up is to be expected in DLP systems because moving images keep changing between the time red, blue and green colours are displayed. LCD projectors do not have this disadvantage because every colour is delivered with the others. DLP designers have formed 3DLP solutions using 3 chips to solve the colour break up artifacts, but the expense of these projectors make them almost impossible for the majority of businesses and consumers.

Another difference between LCD and DLP is how they match the balance for the refractive qualities of light. Remember back to high school science, and remember when they taught you how the various colours of light refract different amounts when shone through the same lens. The problem with DLP projectors is that they use the one same panel for the same lens to project Red, Blue and Green. All 3 colours are obviously not the same and refract light differently. Usually with a DLP projector, a spill of yellow colour will come through above and a spill of blue will show below something as simple as a single black line. During manufacturing LCD projectors can be fixed to reduce these effects on the projected image, because each colour is refracted on isolated LCD panels.

The isolated true plus (excluding price) with taking a DLP projector is its smaller total size and weight. However, this is only relevant with regard to mobility and must be traded off against the image advantages of LCD projectors. If the outcome of the picture quality is vital to you, then the decision is a no-brainer. Take an LCD projector! LCD projectors will definitely create bright, colourful images with fewer image imperfections. If you desire to know more about LCD technology in more detail, check out this spectacular resource website: Explore 3LCD. If you have any further questions, jump onto Projector Central and send me an email.

Jonathan King is the sales and marketing manager with Projector Central, Australia’s top online store for projectors. Based in Brisbane, Projector Central has been servicing Australia for 15 years. For data projectors in Brisbane and Interactive Whiteboards, contact Projector Central today.

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Yachting and Yacht Clubs

July 16, 2010 by Mark Currey · Leave a Comment
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As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a leisure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting rose as classy for the affluent and nobility, but after that point the fashion did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other societies, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some ordered manner on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been started at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal sponsorship made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the continued site of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great stakes were held, and the social life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English gained dominance. Sailing was largely for pleasure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. The style of bigger yachts was initially greatly impacted by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with merely a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such science had previously done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats had to be individually built, there was a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be done on an even par with no handicapping required. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting was an activity largely for the aristocracy and the affluent, expense was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller yachts occurred in the later half of the 19th century in the sailing of the Englishmen R.T. McMullen, a stockbroker, and E.F. Knight, a barrister and journalist. A trip around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of less sizeable craft. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to take the place of sail power in public boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure craft. Large power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance cruising was a favoured occupation of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

During the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the design of large steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of more than 150. The Mayflower, purchased by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and was used in active service in World War II.

As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. In the decade following that, big power-yacht creation blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of larger power craft declined after 1932, and the fashion from then was for smaller, less costly yachts. After World War II, a lot of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and maintaining their own small recreational boats. The number of yachts and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

Looking for boat cleaning Gold Coast ? Talk to Elite Yacht Services. We do great work at competitive prices.

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Proportional, Progressive, and Regressive taxes

July 8, 2010 by Mark Currey · Leave a Comment
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Taxes are categorized by the impact they have on the placement of income and wealth. A proportional tax is one that places the same relative liability on all the taxpayers—i.e., where tax liability and income increase in equal proportion. A progressive tax is characterizable by a more than proportional increase in the tax burden relative to the rise in income, and a regressive tax is recognisable by a less than proportional increase in the comparative burden. Hence, progressive taxes are viewed as taking away a lack of equality in income distribution, whereas regressive taxes are found to have the effect of an increase in these inequalities.

The taxes that are normally believed to be progressive include individual income taxes and estate taxes. Income taxes that are categorically progressive, however, may become less so within the upper-income group—in particular if a taxpayer is able to lower his tax base by declaring deductions or by removing some income aspects from his taxable income. Proportional tax rates when applied to lower-income classes can also be more progressive if such personal exemptions are declared.

Income measured over the course of a given period does not necessarily offer the best measure of taxpaying requirements. For example, transitory rises in income can be saved, and within temporary declines in income a taxpayer could opt to provide for consumption by decreasing savings. Thus, if taxation is compared along with “permanent income,” it should be less regressive (or more progressive) than when made comparable with annual income.

Sales taxes and excises (excepting luxuries) are mostly regressive, because the dissemination of own income consumed or spent for a specific good lessens as the amount of personal income rises. Poll taxes (aka head taxes), levied as a set amount per capita, obviously are regressive.

It is hard to dictate corporate income taxes and taxes on business as progressive, regressive, or proportionate, principally due to the uncertainty regarding the ability of businesses to shift their tax expenses (see below Shifting and incidence). This difficulty of nominating who bears the tax burden rests fundamentally on whether a national or a subnational (that is, provincial or state) tax is being considered.

In assessing the economic effect of taxation, it is important to distinguish between several points of tax rates. The statutory rates are those dictated in the legislation; generally these are marginal rates, but occasionally they are average rates. Marginal income tax rates denote the fraction of incremental income taken by taxation when income is increased by one dollar. So, if tax liability rises by 45 cents when income grows by one dollar, the marginal tax rate is 45 percent. Income tax statutes commonly contain graduated marginal rates—i.e., rates that grow as income grows. Careful analysis of marginal tax rates must take into account provisions apart from the formal statutory rate structure. If, for example, a particular tax credit (reduction in tax) reduces by 20 cents for each one-dollar increase in income, the marginal rate is 20 percentage points more than indicated by the statutory rates. Since marginal rates specify how after-tax income changes in response to changes in before-tax income, they are the important ones for considering incentive effects of taxation. It is even more complicated to realise the marginal effective tax rate applicable to income from business and capital, as it may be dependant on considerations including the structure of depreciation allowances, the deductibility of interest, and the provisions for inflation adjustment. A basic economic theorem shows that the marginal effective tax rate in income from capital is nothing under a consumption-based tax.

Average income tax rates determine the fraction of total income that is taken in taxation. The pattern of average rates is the one that is necessary for considering the distributional equity of taxation. Under a progressive income tax the average income tax rate increases with income. Average income tax rates usually grow with income, both because personal allowances are granted for the taxpayer and dependents and because marginal tax rates are graduated; on the other hand, preferential treatment of income received mostly by high-income households may swamp these effects, forcing regressivity, as indicated by average tax rates that lower as income increases.

For MYOB Brisbane expert advice, contact Stone Consulting today. Stone Consulting also runs MYOB training in Brisbane.

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Tangalooma Island Resort Holiday: One of the Best Holiday Destination in Australia

July 1, 2010 by Mark Currey · Leave a Comment
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beach-front-21-300x225Tangalooma Island Resort is a paradise that can be found in Tangalooma, Queensland in Australia. It was formerly a whaling station and was made into an island vacation hotspot because of its distinctive flora and fauna and its wonderful views. Couples or families seeking a good vacation destination would undoubtedly cherish a Tangalooma Island Resort holiday.

This earthly haven is found on the west side of Moreton Island, right near Moreton Bay. It is known for its rare white beaches and having been a whale reserve since the year 1962, when the whaling station closed down.

When taking a Tangalooma Island Resort vacation, you can expect to be greeted by friendly and helpful staff while being left breathless by the fabulous white sand beaches. You can also participate in a range of activities from wreck diving to feeding and playing with the dolphins. You will fully love every minute of your vacation.

Tangalooma has a very tiny population of 300, but its tourist industry has allowed this small township to grow and keep the scenic and spectacular glory of the island. Over 3500 travelers stay at the resort each week, and even more during peak seasons. The local government has also formed a Centre for Marine Education and Conservation, to instruct and train the local population and travelers about the urgency of keeping up the marine life in the area. The centre has employed marine biologists to offer information awareness drives and programs, which is part of the nature tour package for tourists.

During a Tangalooma Island Resort vacation, everyone will definitely cherish their getaway when they have over eighty activities to choose from - but perchance the best part of your time away might be the chance to enjoy the beauty of nature. You can go sight-seeing and experience the stunning sunrise and sunset on the beach, or play with the dolphins that inhabit the sea around the resort.

Want to visit Tangalooma Island? For Tangalooma Island accommodation or Moreton Island accommodation, check out Moreton View.

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