Atraktor Studio

Logo animation for a multimedia company

Nebojsa — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:10:57 +0000

This is an animation I did a while ago for a multimedia company. Just a short intro that can be used on the beginning of different movies, animations and other multimedia work. Atraktor Studio was responsible for creating the logo, 3D model, animation and background music.

Free Stuff: Animals

Nebojsa — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:13:53 +0000

Since we have started the free stuff section today, we decided to add one more set of free photos!

You can download and use the photos in any imaginable way you want to – as long as you don’t resell them and make millions without sending something over to us. All the photos are free to download and use in both personal and commercial projects (I sound like a parrot – but it feels good to give something for nothing)

Free stuff: Rocks, Stones and Walls

Nebojsa — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:44:11 +0000

The first photo set in our free stuff section is up!

Rocks, Stones & Walls

Hi resolution textures for download and use in any of your projects, both personal and commercial.

Announcement: Free stuff section – Photo resource

Nebojsa — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:48:31 +0000

For all designers, graphic artists, illustrator, enthusiasts, lion tamers, coal workers and everybody else: Free stuff section is going live today!

We are starting small, very small, with selected free photographs, but hopefully the free stuff section will grow and be able to provide you with the best library in the universe. And beyond.

All of the photographs are free to use for both personal and commercial projects, with or without modification and all copyleft rules apply.

If you want to share your own photos, vectors or psd files with the world, feel free to contact us. We will put your photos in the resource section, too. Maybe. Well, very possibly.

WordPress: Why and How to Use It

Nebojsa — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:08:13 +0000

WordPress is one of the most used publishing platforms on today’s web and there are many reasons for that. I will try and explain some of them and get into the process a little bit deeper. I hope this will help potential clients get a better understanding of the power of WordPress and how it can be used to take your business to a higher level, increase brand awareness and help you position yourself better than the competition. On the other hand, for all of you starting a web design venture of your own, it will clear up a few things and hopefully help you with choosing the right tools for the trade and the means to handle them without losing valuable time.

Today’s living and working pace is definitely hard to keep up sometimes and thus you don’t want to lose time over things that you can do faster and more effectively. One of the most important things in that sense is a web presence. I am not going to go into all of the reasons why it is like that – there are many articles around the web that explain this in detail. It is a fact that small and big businesses alike need an effective way of creating and updating their website – keeping their name and thoughts alive in the virtual world – and this is where things have changed over the past couple of years. Static HTML websites are the thing of the past. Dynamic, engaging content took over the web by storm. One of the most important things that made this possible is the very existence of Content Management Systems – software for managing large amounts of HTML and other data. Basically, a Web CMS is the backend of a website. It allows you to manipulate content, categories, tags and add new features to site to make it even more interactive.

Blogging platform or a CMS?

Woprdpress started out as a mostly blogging platform, but in time, due to it’s ease of use and powerful free tools that can be implemented, gained momentum as a CMS for creating any kind of a website, large or small. First of all – it is completely free – all you need to do to try it out is to get an account at wordpress.com, take a few minutes to set things up and youre ready to start writing! If you know how to use Microsoft Word or any other similar product, making an article on WordPress is going to be a piece of cake.

WordPress is also very search engine friendly. The whole system is setup with SEO in mind, enabling you to concentrate on what you do best. Whether it is writing or design, you can take care of your own work, and not worry too much about the things you’re not interested in, or don’t have the time to deal with. If you have quality content, WP will make sure that it is optimized to give you the best possible results and rank your site as high as possible. Of course, I am not saying that SEO can be done out of the box – but it is really helpful to be able to set some of the major things up with a click of a button and in a very intuitive way (like writing descriptions and excerpts in a text box of their own, setting up permalinks to a SEO-friendly, canonical URL, etc.). Search Engine Optimization is more and more important every day, and became a science of it’s own, so on-site SEO is just a part of it. More on on-site and off-site SEO techniques will be published in the future articles.

Free themes and plugins

Since its start in May 2003, more than 200 million websites are using WordPress (data from Wikipedia). There is a large community with new WordPress themes designed every day. In the backend of your website, it is enough to click a tab, go through the repository of available themes, preview and activate a theme in minutes. Or, you can upload a zip file downloaded from anywhere on the web and to the same.

Depending on the theme you choose, it will take some more time to set everything up just the way you want it, so it is a good idea to ask yourself: “What do I need a website for?”. Usability is a key feature of every website -whether it is going to be a one-page-contact-info site, a blog, e-commerce site or a multimedia magazine, you have to keep in mind the very purpose and choose the theme based on that. You don’t the bells and whistles that have no function for you or your business and even if it is top-notch state-of-the-art technology or a flashy animation, always think: “Does it add any real value to what I am trying to accomplish?”. It is a trap that one can be easily caught into. Trust me, when I started using WordPress, one the most attractive things to do was go to the repository and preview all the possible themes, only to find out I lost more than a few hours testing and a previewing all sorts of different designs. And I didn’t even have any content!

There are two types of themes for WP – free and premium. More and more theme creators are turning to a free model with premium support and there are really nice themes out there.

Another important part of a good WordPress-powered website are plugins. These are extensions to the core functionalities that can be installed and manipulated independently and are used to improve the overall performance, design, tracking, etc. WordPress plugins are also mostly free, but there are also premium plugins, although so far I have used only one or two premium plugins that were really worth the money (usually most of the premium themes and plugins cost below $100).

There is a real danger lurking in the background of the plugin usage, not just on WP, but also on other platforms. Do not overuse them. Only use the plugins you really need, or consider finding hooks or filters that are more light-weight and just the functionality you need. every plugin installed results in a longer loading time, more server requests and can significantly slow down your website. Users are not patient. They will go away and never come back again, if the load time takes a few seconds more then they expect.

Widgets

Another improtant part in wordpress development is the usage of widgets. Widgets are basically plugins used mostly in the sidebars or other widget-ready areas. They can be easily arranged through a drag-and-drop interface and usually have settings of their own, ao you can fine tune and improve the overall look and feel of you site.

As I am primarily a designer, WordPress really filled in the gap that I needed desperately. Finally I am able to make the design and implement it quickly and effectively with all the features that I need and do it all with just the knowledge of HTML, CSS, wordpress conditional tags and the usage of Google for everything else I don’t know about.

The appearance of frameworks and child themes made this process even better and more exciting. Frameworks are basically themes that give you a lot of nice functionality and speed up the design and coding process. They make it easier for the developer to complete the repetitive tasks and keep the code clean and nifty at the same time. They give a nice starting point and usually have a large community ready to help out if you run into problems. Some of the best WP frameworks are: Thematic, Hybrid and Sandbox.

This is just the basic information that should be enough to get you started with using WP, or at least consider using it in the future. Please let me know your thoughts – I will be adding new article to the wordpress category on Atraktor Studio website, so any suggestions, questions and comments are welcome.

Animation: U pravu si! Online

Nebojsa — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:44:26 +0000

A short animation for U pravu si! Online, a guide through law and other regulations in Serbia, mostly aimed at young adults. It is the second one in the series of 3 animations we did over the last couple of months. This one is about inheritance.

Logo animation for a multimedia company

blog.bizcloud.net – Small Business blog

Nebojsa — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:16:29 +0000

Check out the most informative blog about small business in the US. Atraktor studio is responsible for graphic design and administration, and we are proud to say that we are attracting more and more people to read about issues related to small business, as well as get some real-life tips and advice on how to improve their startup company and help the local community at the same time. The blog is powered by the excellent Atahualpa theme framework, one of the best WordPress tools out there.

Atraktor Studio at Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Nebojsa — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:03:37 +0000

Vahid Razavi and Atraktor Graphic Studio are proud to announce their participation in this year’s 14th Los Angeles Times Festival of Books taking place Saturday and Sunday, April 25 &26, 2009, at the UCLA Main Campus. They will be presenting a book called The Age of Nepotism, a unique fusion of written word and highly artistic graphic work, crafted to cary the authors universal message to the readers through a new format of media. At the country’s largest and most prestigeous book event, „Nepotism“ will reveal its secrets to the american reading audience.

About the book:
How can a simple traveler contribute to a positive change in the world that we live in? Can we all enhance our consciousness and stop the prejudice towards people that we consider different? What should be a new face of entrepreneurship concerning small businesses? Author, Vahid Razavi, answers these questions and many more in The Age of Nepotism.
The Age of Nepotism is a story in which the author presents his experiences, both work related and personal, he is showing us a glimpse into a better future through a subtle change in the way we look at travel, economy, war, conflicts, censorship, dating and other.
This book is a profound statement about similarities that connect what at first seems impossible to even consider as similar. It explores consequences of narrow-mindedness, ignorance and closing eyes in the face of conflicts. The Age of Nepotism is a positive prescription for improving our relations with fellow men, wherever we find our selves visiting!
Going from travels to politics and current financial situation, discovering stories behind the stories, questioning our sense of justice and our consciousness as global citizens, at its very end, this book makes us wonder if in todays world everything really comes down to one question: Who is your daddy?

Belgrade Pops Orchestra in Concert

Nebojsa — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:22:17 +0000

Some time ago, I wrote about creating a visual identity for Belgrade Pops Orchestra. Now their first concert is fast approaching, and thus I have a lot of things to define. Here is a sample of the billboards, to give you a taste of how it is all going to look. Feel free to comment and suggest ideas. I will be adding new designs as I make them. ~~Also, check their site at bro.rs~~

TatjanaTat.com – Fashion design

Nebojsa — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:59:22 +0000

UPDATE: Tatjanatat.com has been updated and the design is not done by Atraktor Studio.

I just setup a wordpress website for a dear friend and a long-time collaborator Tatjana Tatalovic. She is a fashion designer based in Belgrade, Serbia and has some really cool wardrobe to show. Nice models also

Photographs are taken by Marko Sovilj, models are Marina Djordjevic and Katarina Lazarevic, make up by Ana Acimovic and hair by Ivan Trujic. Nice work people!

I used a WordPress theme by Greg Johnson called Wp Coda Blue , a really interesting one.

This is quite the simplest site, consisting only of several pictures from the new collection, but more stuff will be coming there soon and the ones that are there are really worth seeing.

blog.bizcloud.net – Small Business blog