Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
ragging
every bit of it is as intentional as the location of the client
logo or the menu item names, and you can
-
'
tforgettobuilditinto
the site the same as it appears in the design.
Speaking of typography, another asset to collect is fonts, and
you
ll need to get your hands on any that the artist used in the lay-
out. If you don
'
t have a place on your servers where you store fonts,
ask the artist to get you the fonts you need to build the site. Because
the artist used the fonts in the design, he or she should be able to
get them for you. Be sure to get exactly the right fonts too. Most
fonts have different sets even for the bold or italic versions. If you
only get the
'
version of a font and then try to add bold or
italics inside Flash, you may end up with a font that appears slightly
different than the one you should actually be using, and that could
make enough of a difference in the end product that you may not
get creative approval (or client approval for that matter).
Any imagery within the design will need to be exported from
the layout for use in your site. A lot of times, there can be a mix-
ture of both raster and vector art. Looking back at Chapter 3, you
“
regular
”
'
ll
remember that raster images are defined as images that are a
rectangular grid of pixels with individually defined colors. Although
raster graphics are generally larger than vector graphics in file size,
they will be required for many parts of your work such as photo-
graphs of client products. Again referring back to Chapter 3, when
cutting raster images from Photoshop, you should give yourself
about three pixels of cushion between the edge of the object in the
image and the edge of the crop area if you can.
Vector graphics are different than raster graphics in that they are
not based on a set grid of pixels. Instead, vector graphics use mathe-
matics with primitive shapes like points, lines, and curves. Vector
graphics also scale much more gracefully than raster graphics. As a
matter of fact, you can scale a vector graphic indefinitely with no loss
to the quality of the image it creates. Try that with a raster image and
you
ll end up with a poor-quality, pixilated picture that looks more
like a piece of blurry mosaic art than the image you started with.
Any time you have a piece of the design that can be built with
vector art, you should do your best to build it that way. If, however,
the artist on the project has already built it as a vector graphic, you
should be able to export it from Photoshop, Illustrator, and so forth
and bring it directly into Flash. This will ensure that you are keep-
ing exactly to the layout as it was originally designed.
'
Building to Standards
As I covered in Chapter 3, it
s a good idea to find a naming conven-
tion and stick with it. Whether it
'
'
syoudevelopingthesiteonyour
own or a team that you
'
re a part of, a good naming convention just
