Sinister Visions News & Updates

Artwork Resolution : Screen vs. Print

2009-06-14T02:06:00.003-04:00

This has come up a couple of times in the last few weeks, so I figured I'd better post about it. If you hire Sinister Visions to create a website for you, the artwork/graphics will be created specifically for the website, for screen usage. They WILL NOT be suitable for print usage, period*.

In other words, if you only hire SVi to do a website, don't think you're getting flyer art out of the deal unless you SPECIFY that AHEAD OF TIME, and it's built into your fee. SVi is happy to create your marketing artwork at high resolution for you to use however you need, but you gotta pay for it.

If you come back after the website has been launched and ask for the artwork to use on a poster or something, please expect to pay an artwork re-creation fee, as the work will have to be remade from scratch at a print-quality resolution.

Remember, there is no magic wand, here. Photoshop is not powered by fairy dust. The graphics SVi creates are pains-takingly built, layer by layer, and can't just be "blown up" 300% without serious image degradation.

*As a frame of reference, your screen uses 72 dots (pixels) per square inch to show you an image. Something printed will be a minimum of 300 dots per inch. If you've ever seen something printed from a website, you've noticed how blurry, blotchy and blocky it looks - that's because it's screen-resolution, not meant for print. If you still don't understand the concept, take a magnifying glass and look at a magazine cover - you'll see the dots; printing screen-rez images lets people "see the dots".

Haunted Houses - Where to Spend for Ads Online?

2009-06-04T15:14:00.002-04:00

I've had a couple of clients recently ask my opinion about where they should be spending their money online for featured listings and ads for the upcoming 2009 Halloween season. My first response is: I'm not the one to ask. Since I don't own a haunted house, your best bet is to ask other haunted house owners.

Having said that, however, I spend most of my day on the internet working for the haunted attraction industry, so I do have some thoughts and insights on the subject, which follow.

First, and most importantly: There is no one place you can buy an ad or featured listing that is guaranteed to work for you - different markets and geographic locations get different results from the same websites. National-level haunted house finder sites may work well in some areas, but will rank behind localized haunt finder sites in others. Take HauntedHouseChicago.com, for instance - do a search on Google or Yahoo! for pretty much any combination of the words "haunted" "house" and "Chicago", and HauntedHouseChicago.com will be the first link you see - national-level haunted house finder sites don't even rank in the first 10 results.

Obviously, not every market has a site like HauntedHouseChicago.com; many of them rely on the national-level sites for their internet traffic, and so should avail themselves of those sites.

Probably the best way to determine where you should focus your online advertising dollars is to do some test searches on Google.com and Yahoo.com. Put yourself in the headspace of the people that you want to find you online - you want people who (a) want to go to a local haunted house and (b) DO NOT already know about yours*. What words would they use to search for haunted houses in their (your) area? Do those searches yourself and see what websites come up in the top five results - those are probably where you should be buying your featured listings and ads.

Also, if you aren't using FREE sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social networking sites to promote your haunt, you're behind the curve - but I've already covered that in a previous post.

*When it comes to featured listings and ads, the name of the game is NEW customers - don't worry about the people who already know about your haunted house. They'll find you. Focus on the people who DON'T know about your haunted house - that's where you'll maximize your ad budget.

SinisterVisions.com 2009 Updates

2009-04-08T02:58:00.002-04:00

SinisterVisions.com has been significantly updated / upgraded for 2009. Besides a much simpler navigation system, the site now features a variety of helpful explanations, tutorials and links to help you, the end user, make the most of your marketing materials, websites and social media accounts.

First, there's the Define Terms page, which helps you determine the difference between a number of services/elements Sinister Visions inc. offers.

Second, there's the Help Yourself page, where you can find software and tutorials that will enable you to take command of your own web/print marketing assets.

Third, there's the new site layout and upgrade, which makes it much simpler to view SVi's previous work and inquire after your own project via the new Project Request Page.

Your Web Presence Is More Than Your Website

2009-03-10T03:32:00.005-04:00

You'll spend $5,000 - $10,000 on a radio or newspaper ad, but you're not using FREE web promotion?

A few years ago, having a website was enough. You advertised your site's URL and swapped links with other sites, and in time you could be reasonably sure your customer base would find you.

In 2009 your website is still a great start, but if you're serious about drawing people to your website (and, by extension, your event), you have to go further. You need to get your event/brand in front of people more aggressively. One of the best ways to do this is through Social Networking & Media sites.

Millions of people are logging into MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and other similar sites daily (even hourly), looking for the things that interest them, things to do, and (most importantly) things to share with their friends. One of the driving forces behind these sites is the fact that people are able to share and discuss the things they find fun or interesting; with some strategic setup, you can make it very easy for people to find, save and share information about your business, event or attraction.

While most of these sites are free to use, expect to invest heavily in terms of time. You must provide relevant and timely information and content to them, build Contact/Friends Lists, and stay on top of messages, requests and approvals. If you are unwilling or unable to do this, there is no point in reading further.

Sinister Visions can help you set up a solid presence on key Social Network & Media sites, help you cross-wire them to each other and your website, and help kick-start your presence on the web *beyond* your website. Specifically:

http://www.myspace.com : SVi can help you create and format a MySpace page to match the look and feel of your website
http://www.facebook.com : SVi can help you set up a Facebook account and Facebook Group or Fan Page for your attraction
http://www.twitter.com : SVi can help you set up a Twitter account that feeds information and updates to your website, Facebook & MySpace
http://www.blogger.com : SVi can help you set up a Blogger.com account that feeds posts to your website, Facebook & MySpace
http://www.youtube.com : IF YOU HAVE VIDEOS TO POST, SVi can help you create and configure a YouTube page, which will allow you to post your videos to your website, Facebook & MySpace page
http://www.flickr.com : IF YOU HAVE PHOTOS TO POST, SVi can help you create and configure a Flickr photostream to feed photo content to your website, Facebook & MySpace page

These sites represent the most popular and widely-used Social Network/Media sites available, and provide a set of online publishing tools that can significantly expand your presence on the internet. All 6 of the above options have the added benefit of being able to lead people back to your website, directly and indirectly.

All of the services listed above are free to use; Flickr.com has a maximum image cap that can be removed for $25/year.

Contact Chad Savage at Sinister Visions inc. to discuss how you can put the power of Social Network & Media sites to work for you! Additional services available include setting your site up with Google Analytics, Google Friend Connect and making your site mobile phone friendly!

DISCLAIMERS: Sinister Visions inc. WILL NOT run these accounts for you. SVi will help you in account creation, configuration & customization; once they're set up, it is up to you to (a) populate them with information/video/images, and (b) expand your contact list on each service. You MUST be willing to invest the time required to build your network and content on these sites; otherwise, there's simply no point.

MySpace.com is a social networking website with an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos for teenagers and adults internationally.

Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.[1] Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service. It enables its users to send and read other users' updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Users can send and receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS (receive only), or through a number of 3rd party applications.

Blogger.com is a web log (blog) publishing system owned by Google.com.

YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips.

Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository.

Artwork For Sale

2009-03-01T04:27:00.003-05:00

The server crash last month killed DarkArtStore.com; However, the Chad Savage original art/prints that were for sale on that site are now available at http://www.chadsavage.com.

Help me out, folks - if you come across dead or non-functioning links, PLEASE contact Chad at savage@sinistervisions.com and let him know.

Rebooting 2009

2009-02-26T04:13:00.002-05:00

After weeks and weeks of dead computers, deader servers, the flu, crappy economy and the cancellation of Pushing Daisies, things are starting to even out a bit. I've posted a few recent sites to the portfolio, with more on the way pending completion.

The Dark Art Store is still offline, and the eCard gallery doesn't seem to like the new server, but most of the Sinister Sites are back up and running.

If you're in or around Chicago, there's a lot of spooky stuff going on in the near future. Head over to the recently-launched DarkChicago.com for a quick overview of upcoming creepy news & events.

Sinister Visions Banner Exchange

2009-01-23T02:19:00.004-05:00

The Sinister Visions Banner Exchange data files were severely damaged in The Great Crash of January 9th. If your site is a member of the SVBX, please go to http://www.sinistervisions.net/bp/ and rejoin. If it tells you your username is in use, then that means your account is fine; if you are able to register, then you'll need to replace the code on your site with the new account HTML code you're given.

Sorry for the trouble!

Progress

2009-01-17T14:33:00.002-05:00

I'm surprised by the number of site owners who have not moved to update their site info and/or not responded to my notification emails from Sunday/Monday. Most of those who have are already back online. The rebuilding continues apace.

Catastrophic Server Failure

2009-01-11T19:18:00.002-05:00

On Friday, January 8, Sinister Prime, the workhorse desktop computer that was the heart of the daily work of Sinister Visions inc., unexpectedly shut down with no warning or indication that anything was wrong. It has not started since, locking up at the boot screen after 2 recovery attempts ended in failure.

On Saturday, January 9, SinisterHosting.net, the dedicated server leased from HostGator.com, did effectively the same thing. After 9 hours of tech support emails and phone calls, HostGator.com informed me that the server was dead and they "would not" attempt data recovery.

So my computer and hosting server are dead. The odds of these 2 events happening less than 24 hours from each other are staggering, but happen they have.

Sinister Visions inc. is what I do for a living, all day, every day. To say that this sucks or is a setback would be a serious understatement, for both myself and my web hosting clients.

Now, having said that, I'm not an idiot. I backed up Sinister Prime every night and, thanks to that, I haven't lost any critical files. I have a powerful laptop that I bought last summer (THANK GOD). While it will take some time, I'll get all the sites back up and running, although in many cases it'll be like starting from scratch.

I will be in direct contact with hosting clients on a site-by-site/case-by-case basis to make new hosting arrangements.

I'm posting this to answer the inevitable questions that something like this will generate, and also to say that Sinister Visions will use this setback, in the long run, to make improvements and upgrades across the board. SVi is still very much open for business.

The last few weeks have seen some heartbreaking tragedies in the lives of many of my friends and colleagues; in spite of the last 48 hours, I count myself lucky that the problems I'm experiencing are with equipment and not loved ones.

Chad Savage

FRIDAY AVALANCHE OF FAIL

2009-01-09T15:37:00.003-05:00

The primary desktop computer for Sinister Visions experienced an as-yet unidentified system failure today shortly after noon, and all attempts to start or diagnose it are failing. Thankfully, I back up all my client data and resources religiously, but I now have to (a) migrate fully over to my laptop while (b) trying to repair and revive the desktop. Please bear with me for the next couple of days - this is a serious setback if I can't get it figured out and fixed sooner rather than later. :(

2008-12-25T19:56:00.001-05:00

Have a Scary Christmahannakwanstivus and a Frightful New Year!

Interview on TerrorTube.com

2008-12-15T02:51:00.002-05:00

There's a brief interview with me up on TerrorTube: http://www.terrortube.com/html/Interview-with-Chad-Savage-of-Sinister-Visions.html

Daily Deviant

2008-10-31T15:59:00.003-04:00

Looks like "And Hell Followed With Them" is a featured Halloween (10/31/08) Daily Deviation at deviantART.com - sweet!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

2008-10-31T08:11:00.000-04:00

Happy Halloween from the Savage Family & Sinister Visions inc.!

ADS.PL

2008-10-29T01:39:00.002-04:00

Yes, I know about the "ads.pl" that is trying to download when you open this page. It's not a virus; it's an ad rotator script that that has forgotten it's a script; working to rectify it, sorry for the inconvenience.

TWO DARK ART EVENTS, ONE NIGHT : OCTOBER 25TH IN CHICAGO

2008-10-23T23:56:00.003-04:00

I have 5 new paintings being exhibited at two different shows Saturday night.

HALLOWEEN ART EXHIBIT CLOSING RECEPTION
COSTUME BALL/ MUSIC BY THORN FETISH 7 - MIDNIGHT

A decade of fine Halloween art! The 10th anniversary of The Annual Halloween Art Exhibit Oct. 18th - 26th, St. Paul Cultural Center - 2215 W. North Ave, Chicago.

If you missed the fabulous opening of the 10th Annual Halloween Art Exhibit, you have this Saturday to dress up, come out and play with us in the eclectic atmosphere of the most haunted gallery in the nation! [DIRECTIONS]

Costume Ball - Closing Reception - Saturday, Oct. 25th, 7pm - Midnight. Music performed by Thorn Fetish, 9:30pm. $5 admission.

visit www.halloweenartexhibit.com for more information

GALLERY PROVOCATEUR
ANNUAL HALLOWEEN EXHIBITION

Artist Cocktail Reception
8:00 pm - 12:00 am
Meet the Artists, Book Signing by John Abrahamson
Costumes & Creative Attire Encouraged

Visit http://www.galleryprovocateur.org for more info

Thoughts & Prayers for Texas Haunters

2008-10-22T11:04:00.003-04:00

Send your thoughts, prayers and good juju to John & Alyssa Cook and the Rotting Flesh Factory in Harlingen, Texas, whose haunted house burned halfway down just before they were to open for the season. Nobody was hurt, thankfully, but as you can imagine, this is a tough pill for them to have to swallow. The Cooks are great people and have been friends and clients of mine for years - here's hoping they're able to get back on track and open for 2009.

Chad Savage : Expert Guy

2008-10-09T02:54:00.002-04:00

Time Out Chicago tapped Yours Truly as a Chicago-area haunted house expert for a highlight article on Chicago Haunted Houses for 2008. With HauntedIllinois.com's Adam Drendel and Rusty Nails, I'm in good company! Check it out!

Halloween Art Exhibit : 10th Anniversary!

2008-10-08T13:13:00.001-04:00

A decade of fine Halloween art! The 10th anniversary of The Annual Halloween Art Exhibit™ Oct. 18th - 26th, St. Paul Cultural Center- 2215 W. North Ave, Chicago. The "National showcase of Halloween art" returns with a brand new bag of goodies sure to raise the living & the dead! Live music, spooky magic, and children's interactive workshop guarantee a hootenanny in this much anticipated 10th anniversary edition! [DIRECTIONS]

Opening Reception - Saturday, Oct. 18th, 7 - 11 pm.Sorcerer Supreme Ron Fitzgerald performs his all new "Extreme Halloween" magic show. Dark & Sticky vampire fun! 10pm. Music performed by Rusted Halo, 8:30pm. $10 includes exhibit & performances. [RESERVE TICKETS]

Costume Ball - Closing Reception - Saturday, Oct. 25th, 7pm - Midnight. Music performed by Thorn Fetish, 9:30pm. $5 admission.

HAE Children's Interactive workshop - Sunday, Oct. 26th, 2pm. $8 includes craft materials & snacks.

visit www.halloweenartexhibit.com for more information

Costumes For Kids Charity

2008-09-25T17:01:00.001-04:00

Costumes for Kids is program designed to collect new or used costumes, make up, and more for disabled and disadvantaged children to give them the Halloween they deserve.

The program has officially launched and we are looking for haunted attractions, individuals, Halloween enthusiasts and more to donate old or unused costumes, make up, decorations, etc. These items will be distributed to children who are less fortunate, and children with disabilities requiring hard to find/fit costumes.

All we ask is that you contact us, and ship your costumes to us so we can have them cleaned and sent to the families in need to give the children a very special Halloween every year. All sizes are acceptable from infant on up.

Don't let the name fool you. We also accept make up (must be unopened), Halloween favors and decorations and such to bring the whole Halloween experience to these children and families. For more look at our Items Wanted or Needed page.

We will also have posters available to download that you can put up and start your own drive to help this cause. Not every child is able to celebrate Halloween as they should so let's give them that chance to escape hard times, disabilities and special needs by bringing them some simple joy.

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT THE PROGRAM IS ALL ABOUT AND HOW TO GET INVOLVED

Chad Savage : 3 Halloween Art Shows & Counting!

2008-09-22T12:40:00.001-04:00

The MF Gallery in New York launched their 2008 Halloween Art Show this past weekend (sneaky pants!), in which I have a piece hanging - http://www.mfgallery.net/

I'll have work hanging in the Gallery Provocateur Halloween Dark Art Show opening October 25th - http://www.galleryprovocateur.org

And, of course, I'll have artwork in the 10th Annual Halloween Art Exhibit opening October 18th at the St. Paul Cultural Center in Chicago's Wicker Park - http://www.halloweenartexhibit.com

Speaking of the HAE, the Call for Artists is out and waiting for YOU:

The 10th Annual Halloween Art Exhibit Call for Artists! Deadline for entries October 6th, 2008.

We invite artists everywhere and beyond to submit art for the 10th Annual Halloween Art Exhibit! We are currently accepting applications for the 2008 show in Chicago this October. You need not live in the Chicago area to participate, display and promote your work with the HAE. See the Call for Artists page at www.halloweenartexhibit.com to download the application and all the necessary details!

There is limited space in this exhibit so submit your materials today!

HauntedHouseChicago.com - All-New for 2008

2008-09-21T21:20:00.000-04:00

HauntedHouseChicago.com is all new for 2008! HHC is under new management and ready-to-go for this Halloween/haunted house season!

Add HauntedHouseChicago.com on MySpace.com and Twitter.com to stay current on the latest Chicago haunted and Halloween updates, events and news!

We lost our entire mailing list in the recent move, so if you'd like to be kept up to date on HHC-based promotions and giveaways (Yes! Giveaways!) be sure to sign up (or re-sign up) for the HHC Mailing List.

We also lost our message board; we've merged it with the ChicagoHorror.com board in order to bring more horror/haunt/Halloween fans together in one place - http://chicagohorror.com/?q=forum/15.

HorrorFind Weekend Horror Art Show

2008-08-03T13:10:00.001-04:00

Hello, Dark Artists –

Just a reminder that there’s still time to show/sell your artwork and prints at the HorrorFind Weekend Horror Art Show, August 15-17.

If you didn’t already know, we dispensed with the traditional convention Silent Auction system and now deal in straight-up sales; it’s basically a Dealer’s Room for art. This saw a dramatic increase in sales at March’s show.

If you’ve already been juried, you can just go ahead and register for your panels and/or Print Shop space. If you haven’t been juried, there’s still time!

For full info: http://www.horrorfindweekend.com/artshow.html

The deadline for mailed-in artwork is August 10.

Hope to see you or your work in a couple of weeks!

Chad Savage
Organizer Guy

Original Chad Savage Artwork for Sale... Again

2008-07-20T13:18:00.002-04:00

The owner of the original drawings "Fear" and "Cabal Asylum" finds herself needing to sell them ASAP. They are pictured below. Contact Rachel at rrstrickler@gmail.com directly if you are interested in purchasing either of these ORIGINAL artworks. Note that the original artwork does NOT have all the text/watermarking.

Sinister Visions inc. Facebook Page

2008-07-09T23:23:00.002-04:00

A few people requested a Sinister Visions page on Facebook, so Voila! Here you go!