Summer is just around the corner. Are you ready for shorts and relaxing by the lake on the weekends? Maybe you are, but is your body?

Eating healthy at work can be hard, and even at times, seem down right impossible.
All too often people at work grab a quick greasy lunch from that place nearby, snack on junk food, or skip lunch all together. All of which are equally heinous on the waistline. You are short on time, and maybe don’t even know where to start. Believe me, I get it! That’s why I put together this little guide to help everyone out a little, just in time for summer!

First things first – EAT BREAKFAST. I know you are in a hurry, but just do it. It sets the tone for the whole day. It can keep you more focused and productive through the morning. Grab a piece of fruit and some raw nuts if you’re in a rush. Just eat something! Those donuts in the break room won’t look as tempting and your body will thank you!

Now onward to lunch. It’s easiest to keep on the healthy track if you pack your own lunch. You never know how much salt, sugar, or fat is being adding to the foods you buy when you go out. You have control over what you put into your body, so let’s make some good choices!

When you pack your lunch, keep these things in mind:

Packin’ Protein

Pack high quality, low fat proteins. These will keep you fuller and more satisfied for longer.

• Skinless chicken breast
• Tuna (in water)
• Beans
• Hummus
• Tofu

Veg Out

Bulk up your portions with fresh veggies. A lot of the time, we just want something to chew. Adding volume to your meals with low calorie vegetables can trick your brain into thinking you are eating a ton of food, without excessive calories.

• Broccoli & cauliflower
• Lettuce & cabbage
• Jicama
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Snap peas
• Cherry tomatoes

Snack Time!

Pack some pre-portioned snacks. Keep your metabolism revved up all day long by eating multiple times a day. It’s great for your metabolism to eat a little something between breakfast and lunch, and when you start losing focus in the late afternoon. Healthy foods can be a total pick me up!

• Apple slices & 2 tbsp almond butter
• 20 almonds & a grapefruit
• Carrot sticks & guacamole
• Whole wheat pita slices & hummus
• Low-fat whole grain popcorn
• Fat free plain greek yogurt with berries and honey

Stay Hydrated

Drink water! And I do mean WATER. Not soda, not juice, not some fancy latte—WATER. Not only is drinking water important for overall health, it’s also important for keeping trim. People mistake being hungry for being thirsty quite often, and end up eating more food when their body just wants some water.

Now that you have the basics down, time to pack your lunch!

Blanking on ideas? I got you covered. I put together a list of 18 easy, healthy, and most importantly delicious lunches you can make at home the night before.

• Spicy Pinto Bean & Tuna Salad
• Curried Chicken Salad Pitas
• Mediterranean Wrap
• Lentil & Roasted Pepper Salad
• White Bean & Tuna Salad
• Southwestern Quinoa Salad
• Tuna Salad Lettuce Wraps
• Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps
• Cauliflower Couscous
• Shrimp & Avocado Spring Rolls
• Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich
• Chicken, Avocado & Black Bean Salad
• Asian Chicken, Spinach & Mushroom Salad
• Thai Style Spicy Cabbage Slaw
• Spicy Chicken Wrap
• Turkey & Farro Salad
• Chicken, Mango & Avocado Salad
• Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps

Chow Time

So now you know the ins and outs of packing a healthy, satisfying lunch. You maybe even have some ideas for tomorrow! Find healthy foods you like, and incorporate time into your every day life. You don’t have to fall victim to greasy foods that make you feel sluggish all day long. Pack that lunch yourself! Go forth and chow with purpose.

The post 18 Healthy DIY Work Lunch Ideas appeared first on Black Dog Education.

Typography is crucial for all kinds of design; website, signage, advertising, newsletters, business cards, everything! Typography has an important, but most times unrecognized impact on the visual aspects of your business’s branding.

Nothing irks me to the core more than seeing a piece of marketing with bad typography. If I have to see one more ad or business card using comic sans or papyrus, I am going to LOSE it.

There are so many free font resources out there nowadays, there’s just no excuse. If you’re a 5th grader making a Mother’s Day card, fine. But professional literature and advertising—step up your game!

Another thing that can be tricky is kerning. This refers to the spacing between the letters. If you don’t pay attention to this, you could have a laughable disaster on your hands. Let me show you what I am talking about.

Yikes! Not only are these letters WAY too close together, they also seem to spell out a word I’m quite certain that sweet lady did not intend for.

Cringeworthy! Come on Walmart, I know you can afford a decent graphic designer! Enough of my ranting, let’s get to the 5 simple mistakes you need to avoid.

1. Don’t Go Overboard

So you might be thinking, “If I just put a bunch of different looking fonts together, my stuff will look super elaborate and fancy!” Not so fast!

Mixing fonts can be a great design tool, but there is certainly a limit. Things start to get busy pretty quick when using different fonts. Try a bunch, but only use a few.

2. USING ALL CAPS

USING ALL CAPS TOTALLY GETS PEOPLE’S ATTENTION SO I AM GOING TO WRITE THIS WHOLE PARAGRAPH IN CAPITALS TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE ALL PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT I AM SAYING. Just kidding.

That was super annoying, right?

I think people are more likely to completely ignore blocks of text that are all capitalized than they are to focus in on it. Caps can be fun to play around with in small doses (like in combination with other fonts in a logo) but using them in long descriptions is a big no-no.

3. Careful with your colors

Color choice is just as important as font selection. If you’re going the route of using colorful font and backgrounds, make sure it’s easily readable. Make sure the lettering isn’t too close to the color of the background, but also make sure it isn’t too much of a contrast. You don’t want people straining their eyes trying to read about your business!

4. Don’t Use Comic Sans & Other Heavily Used Fonts

For the love of God, please just don’t. It’s an overused, completely unprofessional font. You will instantly look amateurish to anyone who has already learned this lesson. It doesn’t matter how awesome your product is, if this advertisement is all they have seen from you, you won’t be taken seriously. It also has uneven kerning (spacing between the letters) as a default. Just stay away from it, please…promise?

What other ones should you avoid?

So to help you get started with sexy typography, I’ve put together a little sampling of my favorite fun fonts to use for design, and link to where you can download them, for free!

• Wisdom Script
• Vintage One
• Sketch Block
• Society Editor
• Liberator
• Mensch
• Lavanderia
• Xiomara
• Governer

Those should get you started! Download a couple, browse around, and try having some fun with them!

The post 4 Common Typography Mistakes To Avoid + Free Fonts appeared first on Black Dog Education.

She was at her gym using their Wi-Fi to send out some work emails from her laptop while she waited for her husband.Someone actually hacked her computer, at the GYM!

She had to frantically cancel all of her credit cards, change all of her account information, and worst of all, she had to email all of her clients letting them know that their information could have been jeopardized.

She was clearly under a tremendous amount of stress over the whole ordeal. I remember thinking—stuff like that actually happens?! If it could happen at the gym of all places, where else are we vulnerable to this kind of invasion of privacy?

Unfortunately, being hacked isn’t really something we think about until it happens. And the ramifications of being hacked as a small business owner are tremendous.

Here are a few simple steps you can take to protect yourself, and your clients!

Make sure you have protection for your laptop.

Your laptop should have the same level of anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall protection that you give your home computer. It’s probably even more important to have protection on a device you use when you are out and about.

Don’t access accounts linked to your credit cards or bank information.

Do not EVER use your credit card or check your bank statement online while connected to a public hotspot. Even if a bank uses extra precautions to keep that information encrypted and safe, hackers can still get enough information to create a convincing phishing email.

Beware of networks that don’t require a password.

Wi-Fi networks that require a password or network key are typically more secure than open networks. This means that not just anyone can access the network.

Keep an eye out for “dummy networks”.

Sometimes hackers will create almost duplicate networks to ones that appear locally. For example, let’s say you’re working on your latest genius project at Fancy Café Coffee & Junk. Their network is Fancycafe. The hacker sets up a network called Fancycafeguest.

If you join their fake network, you can use the Internet, but you’re also opening yourself up to whoever created the network. They can trace your keystrokes, access your computer and accounts. The risk here is pretty big, so make sure you’re connecting to the right network.

Be conscious about what you email.

Don’t write anything while using a public Wi-Fi network you wouldn’t mind everyone else seeing. Don’t email confidential information or sensitive data, especially if it’s a client’s information. Think of your Wi-Fi sessions as being public, not private.

Stay off your personal accounts.

I know it seems near impossible, but resist the urge to check Facebook or other personal accounts. Hackers can easily jack your information by using sites that appear to be Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Amazon, etc. They can also track your cookies (how your computer remembers your passwords) and steal your login information.

This allows them to sign on as you and access anything on your account. If you can’t handle not checking your Facebook, do so on your phone, not your laptop. Let’s face it, all you’re going to see on there is a bunch of pictures of cats and other people’s babies. It isn’t worth it!

Don’t automatically connect to public Wi-Fi networks.

This is great to use for your phone, but when you automatically connect on your laptop, you risk connecting to a hackers network. They’re sneaky little jerks, and will give their networks generic names. Make sure you look through all the networks and chose the right one.

Long Story Short

The best practice is of course, just to avoid using public Wi-Fi all together. But we know sometimes that isn’t and option. Just follow these tips, and keep out of trouble! Your customers, and your cortisol levels will thank you.

The post Public Wi-Fi Is Totally Legit, Right? appeared first on Black Dog Education.

Case and point—5 Twitter disasters we can all laugh at, and learn from.

1. Susan Boyle’s Party

Susan Boyle’s PR team set out to the twitterverse to promote her new album event. They clearly did not spend much time coming up with this beauty of a hashtag: #Susanalbumparty. See anything a little off there? Yeah, I laughed like a seventh grader too. This unfortunate hashtag creation spawned a large amount of joke invites and general mockery. The hashtag was hastily changed to #SusanBoylesAlbumParty.

Lesson:

Take the time to re-read your hashtags to check for spelling errors, casing errors, and any unwanted double entendre.

2. Sharing #McDStories

McDonalds created the hashtag #McDStories in the hopes of introducing the world to “some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McD’s with quality food every day.”

What could possibly go wrong?

The posts were relatively unsuccessful at first, but soon the hashtag went viral, just not in the way McDonalds would have hoped. What happened next was one of the most unfortunate PR blunders in Twitter history.

Lesson:

There’s no controlling the Twitterverse. Use foresight as best you can. Consider the different meanings and uses of your hashtag before you set it loose into the world.

3. KitchenAid

This one pretty much explains itself.

Oh KitchenAid, really? First of all, hey home appliance company, stay the heck out of politics. This tweet was completely off topic. I hope hey fired whichever employee was responsible for that one. Regardless of political preferences, this one is in bad taste. Really, REALLY, bad taste. Who ever didn’t consider the possible backlash of this little gem certainly had a few screws loose.

Lesson:

Don’t give stupid people access to your Twitter account … or Facebook … or even telephones.

4. Urban Outfitters

Where most people would look to Hurricane Sandy, and feel a deep sense of empathy and concern, apparently companies like Urban Outfitters see a marketing opportunity.

Oh and, #ALLSOGGY? Nicely done.

We can’t be too hard on these guys. The truth is, a ton of retailers made light of this catastrophe.

Or can we?

I vote yes because tasteless, inconsiderate tweets like these that make people think of slimy, no good people when they think of “marketing”. So knock it off and stop giving us all a bad rap!

Lesson:

Exercise sensitivity when it comes to natural disasters, duh.

5. Snickers

Snickers hijacked Katie Price’s Twitter account, and posted a series of tweets about the Eurozone debt crisis calling for ‘large scale quantitative easing in 2012’. This left her followers confused and rightfully suspicious. The tweets were then followed by another tweet that read, “You’re not you when you’re hungry”. They also posted a picture of the model holding a Snickers bar.

Okay, I’m not going to lie, this one was pretty clever. But just because something seems like an awesome idea in theory, doesn’t mean it is in execution.

The people over at Snickers should have considered who they were directly speaking to—people who LIKE Katie Price. Maybe making fun of her intellect directly to her followers wasn’t the best choice.

They did receive a good amount of press for the stunt, but also managed to piss off a lot of people. Katie Price’s followers also didn’t appreciate being tricked into reading a marketing message. I would say the successfulness of this little stunt could be up for debate.

Lesson:

Consider who you’re advertising to. It’s probably not the best idea to associate your product with deception, trickery and making people mad.

Long Story Short

So there you have it, 5 Twitter disasters. They were all completely avoidable given some foresight, and attention to detail. But let’s be real, we’re glad they didn’t think it through.

Besides just paying attention in general, which seems to prevent most Twitter disasters, here are some extra tips for preventing a Twitter #fail.

• PAY ATTENTION — Many problems come from people just not reading what they wrote, or taking time to consider possible repercussions.

• Consider Your Audience — What kind of content do they respond to? What will make them laugh? What will catch their interest? What will their response to your tweet be?

• Consider Current Events — This one should be obvious, but it clearly needs to be said. Be sensitive to what’s going on in the world.

The post 5 Twitter Disasters: What Could Go Wrong In 140 Characters? appeared first on Black Dog Education.