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7 Characteristics of a Broken, Undefined, and Unhappy Life

2010-02-22T02:23:00.001-08:00

from Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life by Henri Junttila

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We all have some characteristics that hold us back from the life we truly want to live. Motivational gurus constantly claim to have the answers and aren't shy about telling us to do this and that.
If you’re reading this, then it's quite possible that those things haven’t worked for you. The problem isn’t that these motivational teachers aren’t good, because most of them are. The problem is that most of us walk around with unresolved core issues and beliefs that are keeping us stuck.
I’ve gone through many of these characteristics myself. I have by no means overcome them, but I have progressively minimized the impact they have in my life. This is not a contest, there is no rush. As long as you’re taking small steps to improving yourself and getting closer to your goal, all is well.
This list is by no means complete, so when you’ve finished reading it, I want you to share your thoughts in the comments.

Following the Rules

We all have this reflex to follow the rules. As we grew up, our parents, friends and teachers kept telling us to follow the rules. If you broke a rule, you were bad. I’m not talking about robbing banks or stealing kittens, I’m talking about breaking the rules that truly make a difference in your life.
Can’t quit your job because it’s “impossible” and even "irresponsible"? Rules impose a lot of can’ts and should’s into your life. Why are you accepting them? Just because everyone else is following the rules and saying farewell to their dreams doesn’t mean you have to. You are responsible for your life.

Definition of Success

What’s your definition of success? Have you even thought about it? Allowing society to define your definitions can be dangerous and often leads to a broken and unfulfilled life.
When will you be successful? Who says you have to wait for anything? Why can’t you be and feel successful right now? My definition of success is following my heart and doing what I love. It’s tough to do. I know, because a few months ago I was in that boat. I was afraid, but I did it anyway, and the payoff has been amazing.

Letting Fear Enslave You

Humans are hardwired to feel fear. It’s there to tell us something, both physically and spiritually. If you’re afraid to do something, try doing it anyway. There will never be a perfect opportunity to do anything, so if you’ve been putting off pursuing your passion, start now.
What can you do today that will take you one step closer? Even if it just means writing down your goals and visualizing what you want, start now. The importance is taking action. When I started pursuing my passion and started my blog, I was constantly afraid, but I did it anyway.
I realized something interesting when I did this: the fear went away as I kept going forward. You won’t always have a clear path in front of you. Hell, you will almost never have a clear path in front of you. With each step you take, you gain just enough clarity to take the next one. That’s what happened to me, and I’m more than happy with it.

Being Greedy

I was a professional poker player for almost five years. During that time I realized the choke-hold that money had on me. However, greed doesn't only apply to money; you can get greedy about anything.
The simple point is this: don’t let money or anything else get in your way. The things that truly matter in your life cannot be bought, such as doing what you love, being in fulfilling relationships and being happy for no reason at all. Greed sneaks up on you though, so you constantly have to be aware of what is happening.
Don’t fall into the same trap I did. I started out playing poker to pay for my travels, but I ended up back home playing to make more money for no reason at all.

Destroying Your Body

There’s delicious food all around us. At any given moment, we can eat a pizza, hamburger or even buy some candy. These foods will ultimately lead to the destruction of your body. Being healthy requires eating healthy foods and moving your body (a.k.a exercise).
It isn’t easy. I know I have phases where I eat amazingly healthy, then I fall into a rut where I eat unhealthy foods here and there. The important thing is to relax. Don’t get mad at yourself just because you couldn’t follow a specific way of eating.
If you want to have a pizza once a month or even once week, that’s fine. The important thing is eating healthy most of the time.

Having Fuzzy Goals

Without clear goals you’re going nowhere. And it’s not just about setting goals, it’s about setting the right goals. This all comes back to your definition of success. What matters to you? What do you really want from life?
I used to love money (and I still do to some extent), but I realized that I don’t need a lot of money to do what I want. Within a year of this realization, I sold most of my stuff and moved from Sweden to Spain with my girlfriend.
You do not have to wait for the perfect circumstances. You can do what you want, but you have to realize it first. If your first reaction is to come up with excuses as I say this, then you have some stuff to work through, and that’s okay.

Being Comfortable

When you have enough, it feels easy to just maintain what you have. By now, I think you’ll know where that will lead you. Imagine the elderly people that are sitting on their death beds right now regretting their life. Sure, they were comfortable, but did they truly LIVE?
For all you know, you could die tomorrow. For some people it takes a near-death experience to realize that you have to live in the now and take responsibility for your life. Let’s make it easy for ourselves and jump over that nonsense. Let’s just start following our passion and purpose right now.

The world needs you to do what you love. There are people out there waiting for you. I am here to remind you that you can do what you love. Sure, you might fail a few times along the way. You might not know what you want, but so what? You’ll never live a fulfilling life without getting off your ass and facing your fears.

Written on 2/21/2010 by Henri Junttila. Henri is addicted to living a free and passionate life. He runs the Wake Up Cloud, where he shows you how you can learn how to find your passion and live consciously.
Photo Credit: liber

Blast from the Past: Vintage Technologies That We No Longer Use

2010-02-19T18:55:00.001-08:00

Most of the technologies that we have used in the past have been eclipsed by the remarkable technology that we use today.

Advances in their design have occurred in tandem with the advances in technology in this digital era, with many large products being redesigned and miniaturized into amazingly small sizes.

While we may laugh at the fact that anyone ever found this technology to be cutting-edge, we can’t discount its place in history as a forerunner for all of the technology that wouldn’t exist today without its dinosaur ancestry.

Here is a quick look through history at vintage technologies that we no longer use.

1. “Super 8/8mm” Handheld Video Cameras

Kodak invented the Super 8/8mm video format in 1965. Soon after, handheld video cameras flooded the market and the living rooms of people everywhere were filled with families watching the hi-jinks at Freddie’s sixth birthday party.

2. Betamax

Betamax was developed by Sony in 1975, a year before the ultimately more popular VHS format was invented as a response to Sony’s attempt to control the format of the industry.

3. VHS Format

Invented by JVC, VHS was the predominant video format by the 1980’s, despite what some argued was the technical superiority of the Betamax format.

4. Laser Disc Players

Initially marketed as “Discovision”, laser discs were the format choice of tech enthusiasts who had the money to put together a collection until the DVD format came out.

5. Phonograph

The phonograph, or gramophone, was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877 and was on the mass market by the turn of the century. The gramophone was replaced by the considerably less bulky record player in the latter half of the twentieth century.

6. Turntables

Record players are still in use in DJ booths, recording studios, and radio stations all over the world.

7. HAM Radio

An estimated six million people are still involved with this hobby that began at the start of the 20th century. HAM radio operators communicate with each other over short wave radio. HAM radios have been featured in many popular movies, including The Shining and Contact.

8. Reel to Reel

The first tape recorders were reel to reel and were the preferred technology for professional sound designers until digital formats rendered them obsolete.

9. Cassette Tape Recorders

These devices were considerably less bulky then their reel to reel ancestors, and were used mostly for transcription.

10. Transistor Radios

Transistor radios typically only picked up on the AM band and were a ubiquitous sight in schools and businesses in the seventies.

11. Cassette Tapes

The compact cassette was originally developed for transcription purposes, and its users quickly realized that they could use it to record music and make “mixed tapes”.

12. Boom Boxes

Associated with hip hop, break-dancing, and other aspects of eighties culture, the boom box was introduced in the late 1970’s as portable, all-in-one music devices. Earlier models took huge quantities of batteries and were very heavy.

13. Telegraph

The telegraph was the precursor to telex and fax machines. Used by shipping operators and for military uses, the telegraph required a skilled operator to transmit and receive messages.

14. Telex Machines

These machines used radio and/or microwaves to transmit information over the airwaves. Variations of them are still in use today for communications by the hearing impaired.

15. Wang Calculators

No, we didn’t pick that just for the headline. In the seventies, Wang manufactured mini-computers that were a cut above your standard accounting computer, with exciting features like a FORTRAN IV compiler.

16. Analog Telephones

While exactly who invented the phone is a topic of debate, the first patent was awarded to Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. They have evolved from rotary dial models to smart phones that we can use today to surf the internet.

17. PDA’s

Considered one of the biggest tech flops of all time, the Apple Newton was sold at a huge price point compared to other Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) that were on the market. Personal digital assistants were electronic timekeepers for the times when you couldn’t fit a computer in your pocket. The Newton’s development laid the groundwork for Apple’s hugely successful iPod and iPhone. Who’s laughing now?

18. Portable Televisions

Portable televisions, such as Sony’s Watchman, were an idea that came a little before the ability of the media to catch up to it. With a limited selection of channels, they never really caught on.

19. Walkman

The Walkman was invented for the co-chairman of Sony, Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to his favorite operas on plane trips. It was initially marketed as the Soundabout in North America, but the “Walkman” name was used for the product up until the present day.

20. Discman

Two years after the mass production of the Compact Disc, Sony released its portable player for it. While they were popular with audiophiles, who appreciated the quality of recording, earlier Discmans would skip and didn’t allow for the popular “mix tapes” until it became possible for computers to “burn” CD’s.

21. Pagers

Pagers were commonly used from the seventies to the nineties, when widespread adoption of cell phones rendered them obsolete for mass market use. They are still used by emergency responders as they are not subject to network outages or similar disruptions in communication.

22. LED Watch

The watch pictured is the Pulsar, the first LED watch. The watch’s designer was inspired by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, having worked on the timepiece props for the movie.

23. TV Watch

While the concept of this watch was attractive, it faced the same lack of channel availability issues as the Watchman.

24. Seiko Wrist Computer

The smartphone of 1984: this took the idea of the “computer watch” to a whole new level. Think this is too much? Consider the nuclear watch, whose invention was rumoured in this Time magazine article. Be very glad that never happened.

25. Calculator Watches

The eighties saw watches infused with more gizmos than ever before. The most ubiquitous watch in geek culture was the calculator watch. Since most of us now have computers attached to our hips, it is no longer necessary. Unless you’re Dwight Schrute.

26. CRT Monitor

Just when you thought you were done with vacuum tubes in your computers, they put them in your monitors in the form of cathode ray tubes (CRT).

27. Massive Mainframes

While mainframes still exist, they generally don’t take up entire rooms or store information on magnetic tape.

28. Typewriters

While some writers still swear by them, most writers remember when they swore at them and have happily moved on.

29. Dial-Up Modems

The dial-up modem was used everywhere until cable internet and DSL became available to the masses. While they are still in widespread use, everyone who has one wants to upgrade.

30. Zip Drive

This short-lived technology was the bridge between 3.5″ Floppy Disc and CD storage.

31. Slide Projectors

These were classroom and office standbys for years, and were replaced by digital projectors and smartboards.

32. 8″ Floppy Disc

If you wanted to save one or two word processing documents, you could do it on these. Their smaller relatives are still in widespread use.

33. 3.5″ Floppy Disc

The 3.5″ Floppy took over from its bulkier cousin with larger storage and a less destructible design. It had largely been replaced by the late nineties by CD’s, DVD’s, USB drives and other more convenient computer storage methods.

34. Polaroid Cameras

While these cameras were largely replaced by digital cameras, the trademark has recently been purchased and the buyers are trying to breathe new life into the brand by hiring Lady Gaga as a spokesperson.

35. Home Movie Projectors

Super 8 home movies and educational films were shown on these simple projectors. While they are still used in some schools, they have been largely replaced by digital projectors and the fact that you can now burn most home movies to a DVD.

36. Vinyl Records

Vinyl was the dominant music format for the 20th Century. From your grandmother’s old 78’s to the single 45 format, vinyl was perfected over the years to be as acoustically correct and cheap to press as possible. While they are still in use by DJ’s and radio stations, records have for the most part been relegated to the garage sale heap.

37. CRT Television

The first widespread use of television was in Germany beginning in 1929, and the German Olympic Games of 1936 were the first to be broadcast on television. Televisions remained out of the reach of the middle class until the 1950’s, when their ownership boomed globally and television shows became more popular. Cathode ray tubes gave way to the technologies that we use for television now, making sets less bulky and furniture-like.

38. Tape Drives

Remember when backing up the computer meant changing the tape in the tape drive and letting it back up overnight? We’re so glad those days are gone too. The clunky old tape drives of the past didn’t store a lot of data and it would often take multiple tapes to back up important data. Old-school programmers started out as “tape-apes” doing backups as junior programmers.

39. 8 Track

Stereo 8 was more commonly known as the eight track tape. It was the portable format of choice for a brief period in the 70’s before cassette tapes took over.

Disclaimer: This is not a complete list. Among others, we have purposely omitted featuring vintage computers, game consoles and others as some of these would merit their own post and we may cover them in future posts.

Compiled exclusively for WDD by Angela West.

Have we missed your favorite piece of vintage technology? Feel free to post it in the comments section below.

Stylish Vinyl Decals for your Mac

2010-02-19T18:51:00.001-08:00

Vinyl decals are a great way to customize your computer, to give it your look, your personality! With them you can change the look of your loyal partner from time to time so you can never get tired of it... besides being cool, of course. It's nice to have your own customized computer, to have something different then other people, to be creative and put together a unique style to 'pimp your comp'.

Yesterday I was browsing around and found some cool mac skins at macstyles.com and @eduardosasso suggested me etsy.com, a site with a great collection of vinyl decals. They have amazing decals not only for your mac but also for your walls, so pass by it to check out some really cool stuff!

So enjoy the selection, pick the ones you like most and change the look of your machine! Already have a cool decal to show us? The comments are open for you. Enjoy! :)

From etsy.com

And some skins from macstyles.com

About the author

Someone with a bachelor degree in Foreign Trade that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. A person ‘digging’ a new way as a ‘geek apprentice’, blogger 'wanna be' and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil
Twitter user: gismullr

100 Ways To Live A Better Life

2009-12-15T04:19:00.001-08:00

You don’t like your life? Change it! Change your life for the better! Don’t have any clue on how to do it? Here’s a list of 100 ways in which you can improve your life. Feel free to add yours in the comments. This post is a response from a challenge I got from from Mike King in this great post 100 Ways To Be A Better Leader, which in turn got inspired by this one Tackle Any Issue With A List Of 100 , from Luciano Passuello. [Later edit: you may also be interested in this sequel 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life.]

Without further ado, let’s go.

1. Accept Your Mistakes

You’re human. We, humans, are making mistakes. Accept what you did wrong and try to do better next time. No need to punish yourself forever. In fact, accepting your mistakes is the only way to make them disappear.

2. Accept Your Friends Mistakes

Maybe you got hurt by somebody. Happens. Just accept it and deal with it. People are making mistakes and if you can accept that for yourself, accept it for your friends too. In the end, all you need from them is their love.

3. Create A New Habit

We’re doing a lot of stuff on autopilot. Try to integrate in this category new things you want to attract into your life. Habits are powerful. Harness their energy for your own good. Start by creating a habit in 15 days.

4. Build Self Discipline

Don’t wait for other people to impose discipline on you. Start early. Create your own discipline. Although it sounds a little bit harsh, self discipline is a facilitator for many things in your life. It’s hard to get but great to have.

5. Make New Friends

Reach out. Don’t be afraid. Establish new contacts. The worst thing that may happen to you is to be rejected. Well, if that’s the case, move on. The reward of having true, long-lasting friendship is worth all the potential rejection.

6. Get A New Job

Shaking your comfort zone will often create a lot of value in your life. If you’re not satisfied with your job, just get a new one. The pitfall of not having money for a limited period of time is temporary, get over it.

7. Start A New Diet

You are, in a vast proportion, what you eat. Trying a new diet would often be the only needed change for a dramatic boost of your health and energy. Don’t necessarily have to be raw food, or even vegetarian, whatever works for you.

8. Keep A Journal

Write down you feelings, your ideas, your goals, your activity. Journaling is by far one of the most useful things I’ve done to change my life for the best. It works in such a silent, yet effective way. All you need is pen and paper.

9. Create And Keep A Morning Phrase

Whatever you say to yourself in the morning, it will most likely come true during the day. Why not taking advantage of it? Create a simple morning phrase and say it to yourself first thing in the morning. Is that simple.

10. Travel Far Away From Your Home

Traveling long distance is incredibly rewarding. It’s so exciting and full with unknown events. I only recently started to travel really far away from my home, but I do wonder how could I ever made it until now without this.

11. Learn To Take Risks

Your life may be so boring and fade because… err, you made it like this? When was the last time your tried something really difficult? When was the last time you challenged the odds doing something risky? Do it now.

12. Start Your Own Business

Be your own boss. Work your own hours. I know, it sounds so shallow, for you, who hate your job but still have to stay there because of that mortgage. Well, unless you make the first step, nothing is going to change. That’s for sure.

13. Change Your Work Space

Clean up your desk. Re-arrange furniture. Add some color to that space. Make the place where you work really enjoyable. So enjoyable that work there won’t be perceived as work anymore. It will be something you love to do.

14. Learn A New Language

Challenge your mind. Constantly. If you’re going to do number 10, you’re going to learn some new languages too. From my experience, learning a new language is a fantastic mind opener. Sometimes you don’t even have to travel there.

15. Find Reasons To Agree

Rather than disagree. We have this mindset of competition which makes constantly arguing over things. Well, stop that. You don’t have to force yourself into agreement, if it’s not the case, just trying to find some reasons will be enough.

16. Pay Yourself First

You can’t give something if you don’t have it. You can’t spread light onto others if you don’t have light from within. You can’t give wealth to others if you don’t have it for yourself first. Make yourself a service and pay yourself first.

17. Wake Up Early

This is not a habit, this is a lifestyle. Don’t just wake up early without a purpose. Be early. Be there before others. Look for opportunities and embrace them. Waking up early means keeping your eye open to every available opportunity.

18. Train Your Focus

Your focus is in fact your reality. Use it wisely. Train it constantly for it will enhance your reality in ways you never imagined. Keep your focus sharp as a razor blade and be prepared to experience life in fantastic shapes and colors.

19. Start A Blog

On whatever topic you want. Not only it will give you the opportunity to create something new and valuable but it will also bring new people into your life. Blogging is far more than a hype, is a personal development tool. A very good one.

20. Write An Ebook

You may think you don’t have a talent, but that’s completely wrong. And the easiest way to prove it wrong is to start writing an ebook. Any ebook. You pick the topic. It might be something you know or want to learn about. Write it. It’s fun.

21. Be Better, Not Perfect

Striving too much for perfection will ruin your life. It will wipe out all those little imperfections which are making you… human. Being better, on the other side, is rewarding. Look back at the yesterday you and just say: I’m better!

22. Stop Self Sabotage

You’ll be surprised by how much of a burden you can be to yourself. You are literally self sabotaging. Most of the time, unconsciously. If you have a long history of failure behind, that could mean you’ve become your worst enemy. Stop it.

23. Find Reasons To Love Your Life

Maybe life wasn’t fair with you. Yes, I know, I’ve been there: life is never fair. But it’s fantastic. It’s unique, unrepeatable, one of a kind, beautiful, simple, challenging, sweet, hard… Just take a step back and find reasons to love your life.

24. Try Something New

Maybe you’re sad because you’re bored. Have you ever thought about that? Just reach out and try something completely new. Go for a challenge, learn a new sport, pick a different restaurant or go for a comedy movie (if you’re the drama type). Just try it.

25. Avoid Fighting

Fighting is the biggest energy leak of your being. Trying to prove another guy wrong is so against your true nature. You’re here to acknowledge life’s wonders, not to prove anybody’s wrong. They’re not wrong, just have different opinions. And that’s part of life.

26. Stop Wasting Your Power

Are you doing something that you think you shouldn’t be doing right now? Well, that’s wasted power. That’s meaningless stuff promoted to the honor of being a part of your life. How long are you going to approve this? Why wasting power?

27. Learn To Ignore

I think they should be teaching this one in schools. We’re so focused on so many topics and think we have to do so many stuff, that our life is literally clogged with stuff. It’s good to do stuff, but learning to ignore stuff is much better.

28. Experiment Gratitude

When was the last time you said “thank you”? With all your heart? Everybody knows that an attitude of gratitude is the key to success, but almost nobody practices it. Well, start by experience gratitude first, and take it from there.

29. Recycle Your Aggression

Don’t throw it away, recycle it! Use it for something you really want! Call out those wild forces inside of you and put them to work. Aggression is part of your being, so don’t try to reject it, because it will only grow stronger. Recycle your aggression.

30. Release Your Guardians

Don’t touch that! Don’t eat that! Don’t go for that opportunity! Those are the sentences you hear when going for something you really want. Those are your guardians, your mental constructs made to protect you. Release them, you’ll be much better off.

31. Clean Up Your House

It’s fun. And it’s good for you. Make a habit out of cleaning up your house with joy and happiness. What’s outside is a mirror of what’s inside. If your house is a mess, probably your internal life is a disaster. Neat that stuff, it’s easy.

32. Write A Personal Mission Statement

You’re here with a reason. No matter how small you feel now, how insignificant others may made you feel, you have a purpose. Take the time to write your personal mission statement. It will bring light and direction into your life.

33. Dissolve Negative Opinions About Yourself

Whatever you think you may do, it’s half of what you can really do. And that’s because you have so many negative opinions about yourself. You can solve them. Just accept the fact that you have them and then start working on them.

34. Build Different Skills

Don’t stop learning. Don’t remain stuck in a single career, it’s boring and limiting. Learn different skills, possibly from completely unrelated fields. You never know when life will ask you to use them. Besides, it’s a lot of fun.

35. Manage Your Time As You Manage Your Money

Have you ever thought what would be if you would manage your time the same way you manage your money? Just give it a try. See where you spend most of your time, what the return of investment is and how rich are you in time.

36. Exercise

You don’t have to break the world record, or something. Just make sure you exercise constantly. It will make your body healthier and your mind clearer. It’s also one of the simplest and most affordable ways to improve your life.

37. Be A Parent

Having kids doesn’t necessarily means you’re a parent, and I know that very well. Being a parent will surely change your life forever: filling it with unconditional, life lasting love, care and warm feelings. You’ll live in love. And learn.

38. Throw Away One Object A Day From Your House

Maybe your life is breathing so hard just because it’s suffocated by objects. Learn to let them go. You may donate them, give to charity or simply throw them away, but don’t let the clutter stay in your way. You’re not the objects you have.

39. Read A Book Per Week

Or, alternatively, a fine selection of blogs. That will keep your mind alert and your focus steady. Reading is like good food for your brain, without it, it will go lazy, obese and unresponsive. But with the proper food it can become your best friend.

40. Start A Monthly Challenge

Being it physical, mental or social. Intend to acquire something new in your life in 30 days. Improve your health using new methods, or your relationships by starting new things together. Make it count. And count on it.

41. Call An Old Friend

It’s enlightening to meet somebody you haven’t talk to in the last years. Go right now and call an old friend, or a relative. It will bring up memories and it will create new opportunities. Don’t let the dust settle on your relationships.

42. Follow A Coincidence

Well, there aren’t any coincidences, I lied. Everything has a purpose. If you witness something which may seem like a coincidence, then you’re very lucky, you just got a sign. Follow it with trust, it will lead you well.

43. Play A Game

Any game. Just play. Like a child. Allow yourself to do something just for fun, without any goals, pressures or deadlines. Will make you understand that everything is a game. Sometimes a little bit harder, but still a game..

44. Forgive Somebody Out Of The Blue

Don’t hold that grudge for that past insult. Grudges are heavy and tend to make the take off for a new life a little bit difficult. The longer you hold that grudge, the more difficult the take off will be. Forgiveness will lift you off.

45. Stop Solving The Wrong Problems

You are not here to witness the bad things in your life. Nor the performance in itself. You are here to enjoy a journey. To become aware, To grow. So, stop solving the wrong problem and focus on what really matters.

46. Make Peace With An Old Enemy

That’s more than forgiveness, that’s the actual process of reversing a situation. Make peace with somebody. Turn it into your friend. I’m not saying this is easy, I know it first hand. But I also know it works. Enemies count down, friends count up.

47. Make A Promise To A Close Person And Keep It

It doesn’t have to be something big. It doesn’t have to be for someone special. It doesn’t have to be difficult also. But it has to be a commitment to somebody. Just reach out, make a promise, keep it and then enjoy the feeling after.

48. Break Up With A Person You Don’t Really Like

Maybe you’re friend with somebody just by habit, chemistry being dead for a long time now. Just break it up. Tell him. Ok, let’s unfriend us, this will not work. It will bring up something you thought you lost it long ago: courage.

49. Get A Thing You Wanted For A Long Time

But you didn’t had time or money to get it. Just go out and get it. Not only it will boost your self-respect, but it will also free your desire channel, which may be a little bit clogged by having one and only one desire for such a long time.

50. Stop Being Judgmental

With others AND with you. Excessive criticism will kill your enthusiasm. And if you think this post is something you shouldn’t read in the first place, then, my friend, you really are judgmental. Lighten up. Accept life as it is.

51. Change Your Wardrobe

You don’t know how much are you tied to what you wear. If you’re on the gray loving side, put some color in your clothes. If you’re on the black and white, try some gradients. Of course, your clothes are not you. Hence, they’re so easy to change, right?

52. Smile At Least 10 Times A Day

And I mean it, start to count that. Smiling is a sign of honesty and power. Everybody can cry over a disaster but only the most powerful can take bitterness with a smile. Exercise that power. And then try to go for 20 times a day.

53. Burn Some Old Memories

Maybe the notebook from your 7th grade? Maybe the teenage dumb poetry you wrote? Whatever it might be, break up. It might be difficult, but it might also be a sign that you’re so attached to the past that you can’t advance in your life anymore.

54. Plant A Tree

Or take care of a flower. Do it for at least several months. It will give you a sense of potential. Seeing that tree or that flower growing will make your self-confidence go up. If a flower can make it, why can’t I? Of course you can, now do it!

55. Move To Another Town Or Country

Maybe it’s time to change the environment? Take the plunge, move over. Pick another town or even another country. Like all the good stuff, it might be pretty difficult in the beginning, but you can bet it would shake everything really good!

56. Join A New Group

Go to a bikers meeting. Or, if you’re not a biker, to a toastmaster meeting. Join a group and see how you fit in. It will help if the group will be focused on some of your passions, of course. It will reveal a lot about your social skills.

57. Stop Watching TV

Television evolved a lot from the balanced news provider it was in the beginning up to the current manipulating tool. Just stop watching it for a week. And then for a month. Meanwhile, assess your psychological progress. You may be amazed.

58. Start A Totally Unexpected Hobby

Start making trains out of matches. Raise cobras. Put tiny vessels into tiny bottles. Do whatever it takes to move your mind from your problems for a while. And if you can create something nice in the process, why not doing it?

59. Randomly Hug A Stranger On The Street

Ok, this might be a little bit dangerous, but only if you think at it. If you’re doing it, chances are that you’re going to get your hug back. It will also help raising your adrenaline up to levels you never had for a very long time.

60. Set Up A Surprise Party

For your or for a friend. It’s always good for your mood, even if – or especially if – you’re down. Do a thematic one, invite friends and tell them to bring their friends. And then expect to meet new, wonderful persons. And of course, have fun.

61. Go Hiking

Do it for at least one week-end. Nature is more powerful than our human created environment. We don’t know how to channel the energy into our artificial habitats. If you want to recharge, go outside and stay in connection with the wilderness.

62. Get A Pet

Whatever works for you, a bird, a guinea pig, a dog or a cat. It will keep you alert and it will cheer you up when you’re down. Taking care of a pet is also easier if you’re overwhelmed with human interaction. Even from a pet, love is still love.

63. Write A Thank You Letter

You can send it or not, the real catch is to write it. Pick someone who helped you in the past. Start writing the letter and say everything you want to say to that person. It will make you understand what are you really grateful for in your life.

64. Meditate Daily

It’s the easiest thing you can do. True mediation acts like a mind emptier, leaving you open to the whole flow of the sensations and experiences you would otherwise ignore. You don’t even need a complicated technique, meditate as you see fit.

65. Say Something Nice To Somebody

Just like that. Out of the blue. Pick an unknown person and say something nice. After the initial surprise you’ll be amazed by the unmasked joy and gratitude they’re expressing. Admit it: you would like that too, isn’t it?

66. Say Something Nice To You

Ok, but if nobody is telling you nice things, why not start this yourself? Do it in whatever form you think it’s appropriate: send yourself emails, write in your calendar or leave yourself nice postits on the desk. With something nice just for you.

67. When I Doubt, Improvise

Being so scared for not knowing the answer, so nervouse that you may screw thins up… I know the feeling, I’ve been there too. Just go with the flow. Improvise. It will be so good for your unconscious mind. The real answer will be surprising.

68. Don’t Argue, Win Or Lose

This goes hand in hand with avoiding the fight, but it’s a little bit different. If you get caught in an argument, just accept that you can have only two outcomes from it: win or lose. Settle with one and just move on.

69. Stop Faking Your Life

It’s so easy to get caught in a flow of fakes. Society wants us to politely lie and you need to lie sometimes. Just stop it. Being authentic is the best thing you can do. No need to hide your sorrow, nor your joy. They’re both part of life.

70. Define Goals

Again, that goes hand in hand with writing a personal mission but it’s more than that. It’s the habit of clearly deciding – and, subsequently, describing – where you want to go. Do you have a goal? A passion, maybe? Go for it! And be verbose.

71. Help Others

Reach out and try to see if you can help others. You don’t have to be a Samaritan, just go out there and support somebody. The biggest trick of helping is really surprising: although it seems you’re giving, you’re in fact receiving a lot more.

72. Go Social

Mingle, interact, go out. Get used to meet new people. Make this a habit and you’ll soon get used to do new things too. The goal is not to be the best networker in the world, but to be connected to as many energy sources as you can get.

73. Spend Some Time Alone

Subsequently, make sure you set aside enough time for your own. You don’t necessarily need to recharge, but you need this time in order to get a new perspective. Stop for a while and look around. Where are you? Where do you want to be?

74. Fix Something By Yourself

Go fix a broken window, or a scratch on your car. Don’t call for a specialist, get involved, see how you can have an impact on things around you. Work with your hands, prepare to sweat. It will instantly make you feel better.

75. Create Value

Make things that others need too. Make something useful. Don’t follow blind or outdated commitments, go for what really makes a change around you. Creating value is the core of your activity here and the only thing you really have to strive for.

76. Do A Random Act Of Kindness

Doesn’t have to be in the form of a nice compliment this time. You don’t even need to communicate it to the target person. Just do an incognito service to someone. See how this makes you feel. Think how many times you received that.

77. One More Second

Create the habit of looking at things for one more second. Spend one more second before taking an important decision. Delay something. Time will follow your intention and open some unexpected window for you. Slow it down a little.

78. Understand What People Want From You

What you can do is not always what people want from you. Clearing that confusion alone could bring an immense relief to your life. You don’t have to immediately provide what they’re wanting, but if you do, you may have some big surprises.

79. Break An Old Bad Habit

Breaking a bad habit is difficult. But breaking an old bad habit will free an incredible amount of time into your life. Quit smoking or stop talking on the phone for hours. Whatever you break, it will change your life for the best.

80. Stop Complaining

Complaining is like an open invitation for troubles. The more you complain about something, the more of that something you invite into your life. Cut it out. You don’t get any comfort out of complaining, only troubles.

81. Reject What You Don’t Want

It’s so simple, yet so underrated. Society wants us to complain even when we don’t really like stuff. Like forcing us to smile when we don’t find it funny. Allow yourself to walk away from something you don’t like. Just do it!

82. Being Is Better Than Having

Too much and too often we shape our life’s fulfillment degree to the amount we possess. The fundamental mistake. If you’re doing it, stop it right now. You’re not what you’re having. Being is so much better than having.

83. Listen To Your Critics

This one might be difficult in the beginning but once you get used to it it’s fantastic. You may find out a lot of stuff about yourself that you didn’t know about. You think you are one kind of person, but others may disagree.

84. Don’t Take It Personally

Never. Your world is shaped by your reaction to things, not by the things themselves. Don’t get upset, don’t think that somebody knows you enough to make right assumptions about you. Acknowledge and move on.

85. Laugh

This time is not about smiling. It’s about laughing. Don’t you ever miss another opportunity to laugh. Especially at yourself. The longer your laughing sessions, the shorter your misery ones. Looks like a nice deal, isn’t it?

86. Go With Passion

Don’t let your rational mind stand in the way of your passion. If you found – or at least felt, even occasionally – something that thrills you, you’re there. You don’t need a confirmation on this from anybody. Go with your passion.

87. Trust Your Emotions

Don’t underestimate your emotions. Or overestimate them. Your emotions are your feed-back system and for that they are very important. Trying to ignore your emotions is like depriving yourself from lights in a car running in the middle of the night.

88. Live It Like A Holiday

Ever observed how nice you feel during your holiday? How light, joyful and authentic? Everything is just wonderful. Well, you are on a continuous holiday here. It starts with your birth and end with your death. Live it like a holiday.

89. Make A Story Out Of It

Do you like a good story? I love it. Make everything in your life story-worthwhile. Make it as it would be a fantastic journey and you will be at all time the observer, the hero and the narrator. Create the story of your life.

90. Stop Being A Follower

Admiring is nice. But being admired is even better. Stop trying to fit in other people’s shoes. Find your own path. If that means breaking up completely your lifestyle, so be it. If you are “like” somebody else you can’t be “like” yourself anymore.

91. Watch Your Beliefs

Your beliefs are not you. But they are shaping your life constantly. You have the power to change them at any point in your existence. But in order to do that, you must first start to observe them, to isolate them, to accept them.

92. Stop Lying

To others and to yourself. Although it might ease a complicated situation, a lie is not good in the long run. The trick is that if you’re telling a lie you’re altering your reality. And a distorted reality will be impossible to handle.

93. Stop Reacting To Stuff

And start acting on stuff. Initiate things. Start projects. Predict situations and be there before the hurricane hits. Reacting to stuff is a victim paradigm. Stop being a victim and start acting. Create your life instead of being the creation of others.

94. Live Today

Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Go for what you can do today and leave yesterday behind for good. It’s not here anymore. And tomorrow doesn’t even exist yet, so why bother. All you have is today. Don’t waste it.

95. Expect The Unexpected

If there’s something unusual that happens to you, go for it. The unexpected is a signal of an opportunity. It will not always be nice, this unexpected, but whenever it’s around, magical things are happening. Wait for it. Praise for it.

96. Enjoy

Like being in joy. Like giving permission to yourself to extract joy from any situation you’re in. Even if it’s bad. Or especially if it’s bad. Joy is everywhere, you just have to let it manifest through you. Don’t resist joy. Don’t reject it.

97. Make Your Own Rules

And stick with them. Go for what works for you, not the others. Go for what you want, not the others. Including me. Make your own system and be proud of it. You may upset some people in the process, but hey, that’s life.

98. Love

Unconditionally. Totally. Constantly. Restlessly. Love is the only glue that keeps your life running. You were born out of love and you carry it deep down in your being. Love is never about the others, it’s about you.

99. Get Rid Of Labels

Things are what they are. Don’t use labels anymore, use directly the things. Your notion of “right” and “wrong” are nothing but labels. In a different country your “right” might be “wrong”. Don’t charge yourself with this unneeded burden.

100. No Regrets

Regretting something is another form of not accepting reality. What you can do about it now? It’s gone. It doesn’t exist anymore. Focus on what you can change: your present moment. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Now. Live now.

Article :http://www.dragosroua.com/100-ways-to-live-a-better-life/

Getting Clients: Approaching The Company

2009-11-17T04:15:00.001-08:00

A defining factor in any freelancer or agency’s success in gaining new business is their ability to market their skills effectively. In this three-part series, we will explore ways in which designers can strategically promote themselves to get new clients. Securing new business by approaching companies can be a very challenging process, full of pitfalls. Here, we will look at 10 steps to impressing potential clients and avoiding the most common mistakes.

Step One: Be Focused

A focused approach to work is paramount for success. Freelancers often take on every job opportunity that presents itself. Although this would rapidly expand your showcase of work, more often that not it leaves you over-stretched, with a portfolio of odds and ends instead of specialized results. Focus instead on who you would like to work with. This could be based on a several factors, such as:

Industry
By specializing in a particular industry, such as health care or retail, you build a portfolio of relevant experience. Although this could limit your workload initially, you will be actively working towards identifying yourself as someone with expertise in your chosen field.
Media
Deciding which media and platforms to specialize in is important for any firm or individual. For many, the choice is between specializing in print and digital communication. This distinction will, again, allow you to focus and build relevant knowledge that you can then to offer your clients.
Geographical location
You may also wish to focus your efforts on a particular geographical location. This could be a neighborhood, city or region. By doing so, your advertising in local media can be more personal and targeted, and you ensure easy traveling between you and clients.

Step Two: Be Insightful

Once you have established the kind of organizations you would like to work with, learn how their businesses work. Visit a range of websites in the field and ask yourself some key questions, such as:

Who do they work with?
Knowing who your clients work with will give you an indication of how you can be of service to them. For example, an insurance firm looking to target university students might need to refresh its flyer and leaflet campaign in time for the beginning of term.
What are the company’s ethics?
Most established organizations put a vision statement on their website. This will give you key insight into a company’s values, history, growth and future direction. This information is invaluable because it will help you better understand how the business operates and, thus, how you can tailor your approach to it. For example, if the company has a progressive stance on sustainability and the environment, you could approach them with ideas for paperless advertising and communication.
Does it have an advertising budget?
Although this will not be explicitly stated, by reviewing a business’ prior advertising, you will be able to estimate how much capital it typically invests in design per annum. Again, this allows you to tailor your marketing proposal to its budget.

These kinds of questions will give you important insight into the services that an organization requires and, therefore, what services you can offer.

Step Three: Be Personal

The power of face-to-face contact should not be underestimated. A common temptation for graphic designers is to manage their small empire from behind a desk over the Internet. Although work can be found online, the relationship between client and designer is often fleeting. Build strong links with your clients, which will increase the likelihood of repeat business.

One of the most important skills to learn, then, is face-to-face meetings. Meeting a client face to face forces them to give you their undivided attention. You will be able to convey your passion much more effectively and personally.

Actively seek out opportunities to meet potential clients face to face. Cold-calling or emailing can be a tiring and disheartening experience and may give you limited results. Instead, when approaching a business for the first time, find out the name and contact details of the marketing director, which you can often find on the company’s website. If it’s not there, make a quick phone call to to ask for it.

Before making your first contact with a client, do your research. Familiarize yourself with their business and understand of what they do. When you’re ready to make contact, have a few short sentences prepared that summarize the specific information you wish to communicate. This should include your:

Introduction
Explain who you are and why you are calling. Although this may seem obvious, establishing these facts is crucial to presenting yourself clearly and memorably. This could be as simple as: “Good afternoon. My name is Peter Smart, and I am calling on behalf of Roam Design…”
Hook or pitch
Once you have established who you are, engage your potential client. Mentioning that you specialize in their particular industry and that you offer a range of tailored services is an attractive proposition and good way to begin. Alternatively, you could begin with a hook. A hook is a one-off special offer that makes your services more attractive. This could be offering 50% off the cost of design work in November or a free hour of consultation.
Call to action
Establish the next step your client should take. Offer to meet them and consult in person, at a time and location suitable to them.

Step Four: Be Prepared

Once you have arranged your meeting, research the company more extensively. Make notes on key areas of interest to develop later. For example, you could look at the company’s:

Advertising
The company’s media presence is a good indication of its capacities in communication. Look at where it advertises, how it does it and where it doesn’t advertise. If it does not advertise online, you could present this as a possibility.
Branding
If possible, source a variety of the company’s marketing material. Examine it and note anything you would do differently.
Website
Does the company have a website? If not, this could be a great opportunity to expand its online presence. If it does, look at the structure, content and presentation. Note areas for improvement and, more importantly, why they could be improved.

Having an informed opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of the company’s current marketing and perceived identity allow you to guide it to services that would benefit it. You may also find it helpful to compare its advertising to that of its competitors.

Also, prepare your “elevator pitch,” which is a brief summary of your business, its aims and how it helps clients. Being able to explain what you do concisely demonstrates that your business goals are clear and your approach targeted.

Step Five: Be Unique

Standing out from the crowd is difficult, especially if you are an emerging talent. To stand out, come up with original ideas on how the company can market itself. Suggest options it may not have yet considered, such as viral marketing, Web-based promotion or targeted leafleting, and demonstrate how they would improve business.

Impress the client and exceed its expectations. If you are going to propose a website redesign, take time before your meeting to produce a few drafts of what it could look like. You could present alongside a concise wireframe showing how the information could be better presented. Alternatively, if you will be proposing to refresh the company’s branding and identity, bring some visual stimuli to support your argument. Don’t present a whole new identity, but rather suggest colors, layouts, typefaces and advertising formats that could guide the conversation.

The client will want evidence of your skill to deliver on your ideas, so bring your portfolio along to impress them, along with references and endorsements from previous clients.

Step Six: Be Professional

Your first meeting with the potential client is of paramount importance because it will determine whether you gain their business. To make a good impression, be meticulous in your preparation. Research and plan you presentation well so that you are confident in your delivery and can support your proposals with facts. This means you should have a firm grasp of the figures and costs associated with your proposal.

For example, if you will be proposing an inner-city billboard and bus-stop marketing campaign, know the costs involved in producing large-format printing and renting advertising space. Find out the number of people who will see the advertisements daily. This will give the client a balanced appreciation of both the outlay and the benefits of your proposal.

Equally important is your appearance. Invest in a suit or smart business-wear. This will impress upon them that you are serious about what you do, which will make them take you seriously, too.

Step Seven: Be Attentive

Listen to the client. This step is often missed by designers who are overly keen to explain their innovative ideas.

Listening is a powerful tool. It shows you truly care about what the client has to say. Take notes on any information they offer about the company, its plans and immediate requirements.

Step Eight: Be Resourceful

Every meeting with a client is an opportunity and should not be taken lightly. Approach meetings resourcefully and demonstrate your professionalism. You could even prepare a package of materials to leave with them, including:

Business card
Always have a business card on hand. It should have your name, contact details and, ideally, a website where they can see samples of your work.
Samples of work
You might also want to leave a mini-printed portfolio of some of your best and most relevant work. Even if you don’t win that particular project, your details and experience will be in their file for future reference.
Curriculum Vitae
A CV is a useful record of relevant work experience and is a good place to list your previous clients and technical competencies.

Remember, the decision about which freelancer to hire may not rest with one person in the organization. By adhering to this simple step, you allow others who are involved in the process to see your work at their convenience, making your application even stronger.

Step Nine: Be Committed

If you do not hear from the client immediately, don’t panic or give up hope. Wait a few days, and then send a polite email, thanking them for their time. In the email, reiterate in brief your proposal and mention how you would love to work with them. Then wait. If you receive no response within three weeks of your meeting, you may wan to re-inquire by telephone. Chances are, they have not forgotten about you; moreover, your call will demonstrate your enthusiasm and commitment.

Step Ten: Evaluate

Whether or not your meeting was successful, you can learn something from it. Evaluate your performance, what you did well and, importantly, what you could improve. Learn from your mistakes, and rectify them for your next venture. Your ability to do this plays a vital role in your future success.

Conclusion

These are just ten of the key steps to consider when approaching a company. Remember: be bold, be proactive and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Every person has their own methods of finding work, but learning these steps could be the difference between realizing a dream and settling for second best.

How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism

2009-10-05T01:05:00.001-07:00

Winston Churchill once said: “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” Regardless of where you work or who you work for, being able to take criticism is part of the job description. Whether you’re getting feedback from your boss or a client, having a proper perspective on criticism and a sound understanding of how to use it effectively is important.

Unfortunately, not many people enjoy criticism. In fact, many have developed a thick skin and take pride in their ability to brush it off and move on. However, despite its negative connotation, criticism often presents an excellent opportunity to grow as a designer. Before you can respond effectively, you need to understand what those opportunities are.

Let’s take at some important aspects of getting constructive criticism:

Uncover blind spots
Doing your own thing is easy, but your habits will eventually become deeply ingrained and hard to break. Criticism gives you a vital outside perspective on your work, uncovering potential areas for improvement that you are unable to see by yourself.
Challenge yourself
Feedback challenges you to be a better designer. Rather than settle for your own standards, you are pushed to take your work to the next level.
Develop communication skills
If nothing else, dealing with a critic can dramatically improve the way you communicate — an essential skill for any successful design career.
Outside motivation
Constructive criticism often gives you the kick in the butt you need to learn a new design skill or technique. Self-motivation is great, but everyone could use a hand from time to time.
A lesson in humility
Never underestimate the importance of humility. Although criticism can bruise the ego, it keeps you grounded, making you easier to work with and more open to learning from others.

A positive view of criticism isn’t enough. You also need to know how to respond effectively when it comes. Here are eight tips you can use to start making the most of criticism today.

1. Have The Right Attitude

Design is subjective and, like any art form, has no rulebook. No one can tell you what is “right” and “wrong” with your work, but that doesn’t mean you can completely ignore your boss or client’s opinion either. However, by taking criticism and feedback with the right attitude, you can use it to your advantage and even enjoy it.

Everyone looks at design through a filter shaped by personal experience, and this filter is usually very different from your own. While you may have a degree in design and 10 years of experience, not everyone will agree with your “expert” opinion, so don’t expect them to. The important thing is to have a proper attitude from the beginning. Expect others to disagree with you, and be open to new perspectives. Align your expectations and understand that criticism is part of the process. While harsh criticism can cut deep and even scar, it can also motivate, instruct and do all of the good things mentioned above.

Last, but not least, try to remove yourself from the criticism and view it as a commentary on your actions or work and not a personal attack. While easier said than done, this distinction is key to responding effectively. If you can rise above the criticism and respond calmly and effectively, you will not only earn the admiration of your critic but feel better doing it. Set the right expectations, understand the benefits, remove yourself from the equation and, remember, attitude truly is everything.

2. Understand The Objective

Clearly identifying the goal of a design before you share it with others is always a good idea. Are you showing it off to mom for some fridge time? Is it a client who’s trying to solve a business challenge through design? Or perhaps you’re consulting a friend with no experience or stake in the project. Regardless, a vague or confused objective will always elicit off-target feedback, so make sure everyone involved “gets it” before taking action. To respond effectively to criticism, you need to be sure that the critic understands your goals. Be specific. Present your objective in clear and concise terms; the criticism you receive will be targeted and actionable as a result.

3. Check Your First Reaction

For most people (me included), the first reaction to criticism is to get defensive or even lash out. If this sounds like you, take time to develop the habit of taking a deep breath and counting to 10 before responding. This simple yet effective method gives you a chance to regain composure and allow logic to prevail over emotion. The last thing you want to do is get overly emotional and give a response that you will later regret. Remember, in most cases, your critic is only trying to help you.

Despite the initial sting, you need honest feedback to become a better designer. This is especially important for enthusiasts or beginners in the trade. All visual arts have an intrinsic reward mechanism: the more you create, the more you sense the progression of your skill. It’s a loop that keeps all artists going, and when this euphoric moment is crushed by accurate and much-needed criticism, recovering may be difficult. Keep in mind, though, that your skill and perceptiveness in this field will mature over time. If you have the right attitude to begin with, the proper response will follow.

4. Separate Wheat From The Chaff

Unfortunately, not all criticism is constructive. Some people are in a bad mood, bitter or just plain negative and will take any chance to put others down. Some are also inexperienced or unqualified to give you valuable feedback. While design is subjective, being able to separate useful feedback from cheap shots and misinformation is important. However, this is not an excuse to ignore comments that you don’t like. Unless you believe a critique was given in malice or ignorance, don’t be quick to dismiss it.

Here are a few tips to distinguish between the two:

Specific.
Valuable feedback is always specific. It is clear, logical and defined. “The logo is ugly” or “I don’t like the color choice” are examples of useless criticism (if you get a lot of this, see #7 below).
Actionable.
Constructive criticism should enable you to take immediate action. You should come away with a clearer idea of how to improve the concept and the path to follow.
Objective.
Useful feedback is unbiased. It gives you a unique perspective without an ulterior motive. Objective criticism will always be even-tempered and appropriate.

5. Learn From It

This step is possibly the hardest one in this learning experience but by far the most important. For criticism to serve its purpose, you need to act on it! Don’t just go back to business as usual; make an effort to improve. The great thing about criticism is that it uncovers our blind spots, weaknesses that only others can see. When you’re confronted by criticism, don’t let the opportunity pass: write it down and do whatever it takes to change for the better.

If someone criticizes your copywriting skills, start with baby steps. Read a relevant blog once a week. Buy a book. Practice writing headlines for 10 minutes each day. Small victories are often the quickest path to success. Eventually you will improve and have your critic to thank.

6. Look For A New Idea

If you can’t learn anything new, look for a new idea. A different perspective gives you a chance to examine your work from a viewpoint that you would never have considered otherwise. Just as you get inspiration from a gallery or another talented designer, you can find ideas and inspiration in constructive criticism; seeing it just requires you to step back. Be curious, and approach the criticism objectively; it could be incredibly useful.

Criticism is sometimes the cold shower you need to wake up and hit the “Reset” button on a project. Remember, your work is based on your own preconceived notions of what the client wants, and you should always be open to the possibility that you have missed the mark. In the event that you do need to start over, discuss the objectives and expectations right away. Clarifying this information in the first place could have prevented a re-do altogether.

7. Dig Deeper When Necessary

At some point, everyone has received vague, unclear or unactionable feedback. It’s a part of life. Unfortunately, unless you take the initiative, this type of feedback is more or less useless to everyone involved. However, if you’re willing to dig a little deeper, you may uncover things that no one else was willing to tell you. Start by asking open-ended questions that get to the core of the issue, questions like, “I want to understand your point of view. Could you please provide more detail?” or “How can I improve?” Ask for specifics and, above all else, honesty. These kinds of questions will help keep communication lines open and allow you to walk away with practical and concrete advice.

If you feel uncomfortable asking your critic for more detail, or if they are unwilling to provide it, approach someone you respect or trust and ask them what they think. Do they agree with the criticism? Why or why not? Assuming this person is honest and knowledgeable, you should be able to get the answers that you need to move forward.

8. Thank The Critic

Whether the criticism you receive is genuine or downright rude, make a point of saying “Thank you.” Thanking even your harshest critics can create a lasting impression, keep you humble and open the door to additional feedback in the future. Expressing gratitude will also make you feel better about the experience and help you alleviate any innate avoidance of feedback and criticism you may have. If you have followed the guidelines above and recognize the true value of the criticism you have received, saying “Thank you” shouldn’t be too difficult.

If you respect the person and their opinion, go one step further and develop a long-term mentoring relationship with them. Much like in the old days of craftsman and apprentice, an individual whose opinion you value and hold in high esteem can go a long way in developing your skills and abilities. If nothing else, a mentor can keep you accountable to your work and help you continually improve.

About the Author

Andrew Follett is a small-business marketing director and founder of Concept Feedback, a community of designers and marketers dedicated to sharing ideas and feedback on design projects.

Create a Grid Based Resume/CV Layout in InDesign

2009-10-03T00:31:00.001-07:00

Use the power of grid based designs to create a structured and professional page layout in InDesign, which can then be populated with a range of information to produce a polished CV or Resume.

I was recently invited to participate in the Steven Stevenson challenge over at Smashing Magazine. The goal was to produce a CV or Resume layout for a fictional character using the details supplied. My approach was to create a minimal two colour design that showcased Mr. Stevenson’s sophisticated Graphic Design skills through a clean and structured layout.

Let’s go back through the process of creating the document, and see how the initial grid layout was produced. Hopefully these techniques will not only help put together your own Resume/CV design, but also span across other Graphic and Website design projects.

Being a design aimed more towards print, and one that concentrates on the fine grid details, we’ll use Adobe InDesign as the application of choice. Being a desktop publishing package InDesign has a bunch of useful tools for creating complex layouts. Create a new document, set the page size to A4 and place margins at 10mm from each edge. We’re not planning on mass-producing the document so no bleed is necessary, but it could be handy if you’re planning on trimming down the final page if doubled up on an A3 printer.

With the basic document set up, go to Layout > Margins and Columns. Create five columns with a gutter of 5mm.

Go to the InDesign preferences and look under the Grids section. With the planned design using a lot of Cyan, it would be handy to change the colour of the gridlines from blue. Choose a colour such as Light Gray. Also change the start to 0mm from the Top Margin, Increment them to every 13pt and untick the Grids in Back option.

Ensure all grids are visible through the View > Grids and Guides menu. Our page is now ready to place elements accurately in relation to the structured gridlines.

Use the Rectangle Frame Tool to draw a box in the top right corner, with the option to Snap to Grid active the shape should fit exactly to the gridlines. Fill the box with 100% Cyan.

Create a text area with the Type tool and spell out your name. Here we’re using the fictional Steven Stevenson character along with all of his details.

Change the font to a stylish classic, such as Meta. Adjust the size of the type so that the text fits perfectly between the baselines. Once the type is positioned correctly, go to Object > Fitting > Fit Frame to Content.
With the title being large in size, any slight inaccuracies will be much more visible, spend a few moments to kern the letters. Place the cursor between two letters and nudge using the Alt and Arrow keys.

Repeat the process with the second line of text, but this time make the type smaller in size. The key is to ensure the elements align accurately to the nearest gridlines.

Draw a large text area spanning the first three columns of the page. Paste in a large selection of textual content.

Edit the text by setting in the appropriate font, set the size to 10pt and leading to 13pt to match the baseline grid. Indent the text to provide easy scanning and clear sections for each area of information.

Alter the titles in size and add the Cyan fill. Using variations in size and colour gives prominence to these elements, and helps display the various sections of information clearly.

Also alter the sub-headings to develop a clear hierarchy. The main titles at the top of the page stand out the most with their size and vibrant background colour. The secondary information is displayed under medium sized titles, which are also displayed in blue. The next level of information is set is a stronger weight font, but is toned back slightly with an 80% black, and finally the body text uses the standard 10pt black styling.

List out the contact details at the top of the right hand column. Draw a blue rectangle behind the text, but shorten it in size to just under the height of the baseline. When duplicated this will leave a tiny dividing line between each item.

Change the colour of the text to white and align it to the center of the rectangles, as opposed to the baseline itself. Notice how these elements flow neatly from the same gridline as the title.

Enter the remaining details and align as appropriate.

Add the remaining information to a text area spanning the remaining two columns. Use the same text styling and visual hierarchy on the titles and sub-headings.

Select the bunch of list items and go to Type > Bulleted & Numbered Lists > Apply Bullets. This will automatically indent the text and add points to each line.

With the list still selected, go to Type > Bulleted & Numbered Lists > Convert Bullets to Text.

We can now go through and select each bullet point, and change the text colour to Cyan, adding a little visual tweak to the page design.

Finish off the bottom of the page with a neat border using a rectangle at 210×2mm. Fill the shape with Cyan.

Zoom out and review the layout. Make any final checks to the page elements and ensure all items are aligned to the underlying grid.

When viewed without the guides the design holds itself together well with neatly aligned content and a clean, structured appearance. Go to File > Print, or export the layout as a PDF document.

Article Posted on : http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk

5 Easy Ways to Finish Your Day With A Bang

2009-09-24T02:51:00.001-07:00

5 Easy Ways to Finish Your Day With A Bang

Getting a lot of work done at the end of the day can be really tough — especially if it happens to be a Monday, Thursday, or Friday.

Time seems to slow down, motivation slowly seeps away, and I’d swear that work becomes exponentially more difficult. Something about late-afternoons just isn’t good for productivity.

With a few tricks, though, it’s possible to turn those sluggish afternoons into something altogether more productive. Not only that, if you can take an incredibly productive morning and then finish it off with a productive afternoon, you’ll be on track to hit life-changing levels of productivity.

With that in mind, here are 5 easy ways to finish your day with a bang:

1. Set a Concrete Ending Time

Ever noticed how, as a freelancer, some afternoons seem to stretch into forever? Do you sometimes find yourself working late into the night trying to wrap up little things that could have been finished earlier?

One of the best ways to improve your productivity is to set a concrete, no-excuses, ending time. Anything that doesn’t get finished by that time, maybe 5pm, will have to wait until tomorrow. Having this solid end time will force you to pay more attention to what gets done during the work day, especially towards the end — I can guarantee you’ll be more productive as a result. (For those of you who are night owls, this trick can still be applied on your own schedule…)

2. Have an Afternoon Snack

One of the primary reasons that afternoons are difficult has to do with the way most of us eat. Three meals a day, ironically, is not very conducive to being extremely productive. A few hours after lunch you’re blood sugar will drop (if you’re human), and rest assured that your energy and motivation will disappear right along with it.

Luckily, this late-afternoon productivity killer has a tasty solution — eat a snack. Not only will a small afternoon snack help your productivity, it will also keep your metabolism running and will help you lose weight. Which might just be better than productivity :-)

3. Go For a Walk

Another big reason for reduced productivity late in the day is pretty obvious: sitting at a computer all day is tough. It’s not tiring in the same as working in construction or another physical job, it is tiring mentally. Not only is it difficult to be productive after sitting at a computer for several hours, it’s also very bad for you physically (especially your eyes).

Do yourself and your business a favor — get up and go for a walk. Most experts recommend 5-10 minutes for every hour on the computer, but I’ve found that you can see great results from even less than that. Give it a try and see what works best for you.

4. Review Your Priorities

Once your physical concerns are taken care of, it’s time to take a sobering look at what still needs to get done before the end of your day.

Pull out the to-do list that you created in the morning (you did make one, didn’t you?) and review what’s been done so far and what’s still outstanding on the list. Think about the following questions, being as realistic as you can be:

What’s the most important thing left on your list?
Are there any time-intensive tasks that aren’t really needed?
Which items need to get done TODAY, which can done later?

The goal of your review is to create a manageable workload for the rest of your afternoon — a list of tasks that will make you smile when you think about everything you accomplished today. You also need to be honest with yourself about what tasks are no longer possible for this day, and plan to tackle them with a vengeance tomorrow.

5. Get Excited & Get to Work

Your body is taken care of, you’ve prepped your mind to work for the rest of the afternoon, and you even have a list of everything that needs to be finished. It’s time to get pumped up, dig your feet in, grab a cup of coffee or tea, and start working.

Chances are you only have a few hours left, so now it’s time to put on your superhero cape and see just how much work you can get done before the day is over.

Once you’ve become an afternoon productivity master, check out the companion article to this one: 5 Easy Ways to Start a Productive Day.

What do you think? What are your favorite afternoon productivity tips?

About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer.

Article published on http://freelancefolder.com/

5 Easy Ways to Start a Productive Day

2009-09-22T07:57:00.001-07:00

5 Easy Ways to Start a Productive Day

In the quest for ultimate productivity it’s important to think about how you get started in the morning.

As easy as it is to skimp on your routine, rush breakfast, and then try to dive right into work — that’s not usually the best way to go.

Without starting your morning properly you may never hit your full efficiency, or worse, you could doom the rest of your day to failure.

On the positive side, a good morning routine can make it a whole lot easier to be productive for the rest of the day. With that in mind, here are 5 ways to start a very productive day:

1. Get a good night’s sleep

Your morning begins as soon as that alarm wakes you up. If it happens to wake you up 4 hours after you went to sleep, then you’ll probably have a very difficult time being productive for the rest of the day. If you get a full 8 hours, on the other hand, things will look much rosier.

Sleep deprivation has been shown to severely reduce productivity, dramatically shorten your attention span, contribute to obesity and other health problems, and even slow your reaction time as much as alcohol.

If you need some help shutting down and falling asleep earlier, I recommend checking out Pzizz.com’s sleep tracks — they work wonders for an over-active mind. I also highly recommend Dave Navarro’s Becoming an Early Riser Program — he has a ton of great advice for getting awesome sleep and waking up with lots of energy.

2. Spend 20 minutes being disciplined

Get in the habit of doing something every morning that requires a lot of discipline. Find something that is very good for you, something that you feel great about doing (usually after the fact), and make sure you do it every morning.

Personally, I like to go for a 20 minute run. Okay, I actually hate running, but I feel great afterward — and every morning that I go running I have this great accomplishment to look back on for the rest of the day. It’s like a pace-setter reminding me that even if I don’t want to work hard, I’ve done it before, and I’ll feel great when things get completed.

3. Eat Breakfast

There really isn’t much to say about this, except that its importance has been studied and proven as much as the importance of sleep. So eat your breakfast, and eat it good.

4. Clarify EXACTLY what tasks are productive

Don’t just write a task list every morning — we all know that it’s possible to work hard all day long and not really accomplish anything.

Spend 10 minutes and think about the following:

What you have to do today
What you’ve been putting off doing
What you’d like to do today

Once you’ve thought about that, put yourself in your shoes at the end of the day. Imagine you’re looking back at all of the things you did during the day and evaluating yourself. Now — which things really matter? Which things make the biggest difference?

It’s those tasks that need to be on your list, and it’s those things that you need focus on to make your day productive.

5. Get into work mode

Once you’ve completed your morning routine, had breakfast, clarified your daily goals, etc… it’s time to get into work mode. Shower (or don’t), shave (or don’t), get dressed (or don’t), drive to the office (or not), and basically do whatever you need to do to get ready for work.

The goal is to remove yourself from distractions and prepare to focus on doing work. Whether you’re working at home or in an office, it helps to create a routine that clearly signifies this change. Once you have those mental blinders in place, you can step away from all things not related to work and get down to business.

These points have helped me sharpen my productivity, but each person is different. Do you have any tips that you use to help kick-start a productive day?

About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer. Follow him on twitter @MasonHipp

Article published on http://freelancefolder.com/

8 Strategies For Successful Relations With Clients

2009-09-22T00:27:00.001-07:00

By Jeff Gardner

Let’s face it. Some days, you want to just fire your clients. You go through one too many comps, iterations or edits and you’ve had enough. It has happened to everyone at least once and I’d be lying if I said it won’t happen again; you get to the end of a project and realize that you would have made more per hour flipping burgers at McDonald’s. Thankfully, as with most common problems, there are a few simple guidelines that you can follow to help make sure that you’re never working for below minimum wage.

Due Diligence

“Experts often possess more data than judgment.” -Colin Powell

Know your role

Remember that the client will always know more about their product or service than you do. They are the expert at what they do; their problem is usually that they don’t know how to explain it well. That is where you, as the designer, step in to help. You are a graphical communications ninja, but to effectively make your, and ultimately your client’s, point you must fully understand what needs to be said.

From the outset, make it a priority to get as much information as possible about the company, their product or service, the intended audience of your work and the reason that your work needs to exist. The better prepared you are and the more information you get out of the client before you start working, the quicker your design will be accepted, and the quicker you will get paid. Use that overflow of data from the client to form a coherent picture of what you’re trying to accomplish and then use your good judgment to make something beautiful from the madness. By spending ample time collecting information, you have allowed the client to share their knowledge and participate in the project. This is a good thing. When clients feel they are part of the process they are less likely to question the design decisions you make.

Hire the right customers

“If you try and please everyone, you won’t please anyone.” -37signals

Remember that part of your due diligence is making sure that the project is a good fit for you as a designer. You cannot be everything to everyone, and if you try to be, you will not only look bad, you’ll lose money.

Remember the principle that carries the Vilfredo Pareto name: 80% of the output will come from 20% of the input. In other words, you will make 80% of your income from 20% of your clients, so focus on the good ones and fire the bad ones. Stay true to your strengths and don’t be afraid to pass on a project. In the end, everyone, including your client, will be better off.

I repeat…

Don’t try to take on every project that comes across your desk, even when you’re starting out. This will preclude a large percentage of your client problems. By picking your two or three biggest strengths and building a solid reputation, you will attract clients who are looking for a genius in your fields of choice and who, consequently, will be willing to pay well for the service.

The Harvard Business professor Michael Porter states you can hold a competitive advantage in one, and only one, of two areas: price or quality. Focus your efforts on your strengths, build a solid reputation and you’ll never be forced to compete on price again.

Communication

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” -Peter F. Drucker

Approach all communication with a Zen mind

original image by isa_adsr

Zen philosophy teaches you to approach every task with a beginner’s mind. This is simple when you’re trying to teach yourself hyper-astro-meta-particle physics, but not as easy as you think when it comes to something you do all day, every day. Try hard to put yourself in the shoes of a beginner; you will be more apt to understand and sympathize with your client’s point of view. You will also find that by using less jargon (by assuming the language of a beginner) your client will understand and internalize your point much more quickly, which in turn helps to create an evangelist for your work in your client’s organization, which always makes your life easier.

But adopting a beginner’s mind isn’t as simple as dropping your haughty design-speak in favor of a fifth grade vocabulary. You need to approach each conversation or communication as a beginner does, with no expectations and no preconceived notions. Without the benefit of assumptions or preconceived notions, you will be forced to ask more questions and in turn draw more information out of the client; and just like that, your job will have gotten easier. Disclaimer: If all this Zen stuff is too new age for you, just remember the old adage: When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

Listen for what isn’t there

What the client says: Can you make that text just a little bigger?
What the client means: This font might be a little hard to read. What do you think?

Everyone fears the dreaded “Make this text bigger” line, and everyone (well, almost everyone) has probably cringed and then painfully capitulated. When faced with clients asking for design changes, especially from those clients who don’t have any design training (let alone a good eye for design), it’s important to check your design ego at the door and ask a few pointed questions. What you really need to find out is what the client actually means. Before doing anything to the design, pause for a moment and ask the client to explain what it is about the design that doesn’t accomplish the specific goals you outlined in the pre-work discovery meetings. (You did set specific goals, didn’t you!?)

Here are a few tips to help you get to the point:

Ask blunt questions (but tactfully). Don’t start or get hauled into arguments.
Use feature/benefit terminology and plain language, not design-speak.
Use yes/no questions that push the client to reveal what they really think (e.g. “Do you think this font is hard to read?”).
Take criticism well. (No one likes an overly sensitive artist.)

By your focusing on the goals rather than the implementation, clients will understand that you are trying to use your craft for their benefit, not just to take their money. Oh, and a note about that ego you left at the door: now is not the time to go into a diatribe about your profession or your skill as a designer. No one cares; your client just wants a functional design that they can be proud of when they show it to their boss.

Do what you said you were going to do

But don’t die by the contract. I’ve heard of many situations where clients and designers get into arguments about what was and wasn’t in the original contract. If the client comes to you with something that is obviously beyond the scope of the contract, you have a few choices:

You can do what the client wants and ask for nothing more in return.
You can refuse to do it and stick to what the original contract said.
You can try to renegotiate the contract to a new middle ground before continuing work on the project.

There isn’t any one right answer here; different situations call for different actions. If you’re not going to get badly burned by going the extra mile, it will probably be worth it (so long as the client knows you’re hooking them up). That said, sometimes the new request is outrageous and would take many, many hours to implement. In those situations, it is a good idea to be open, talk it through with the client, make it known that you’d love to help but it would be too much of a time commitment (you do have other clients, after all) for the current numbers to work out.

If you approach things with an open mind, with a positive attitude (instead of a demanding one) and on an even playing field, the client will generally help you out with a bit more cash. And if they are livid at the thought of paying you more money for more work, well, they may have just singled themselves out as a client who needs to be fired.

Admit it when you screw up

Then do everything possible to make it right. Mistakes are okay; everyone makes them from time to time. Hopefully you’re not a habitual offender. But the general rule is: the sooner you recognize the mistake and take the heat for it, the better off you’ll be in the long run.

By letting more time pass, the mistake only grows and becomes more difficult to cover up, and the heat that was originally a small and controlled campfire is now the roaring flames of hell licking at the bottoms of your feet. Get it out of the way, clear the air and get on with it. Your client will appreciate your candor and honesty, even if he or she isn’t that happy about the problem itself.

Parting Shot

Hopefully you’ve started to catch on here. Most of the things that can be counted as “common problems” are fairly easy to circumvent, especially if you put in your time doing your due diligence on the front end and adopt a firm but cooperative attitude in your client communications.

Remember, clients aren’t supposed to be a burden. They are a blessing (they are buying the bread on your table after all). But the relationship should always be mutually beneficial. You are getting paid to do what you, presumably, love to do, and the client is getting something beautiful and functional. Hopefully, you’re both learning a little something along the way.

About the author

Jeff Gardner is a business nerd. He loves Excel, making graphs and helping companies figure out how to perform better. He also enjoys writing, photography and being outside. You can check him out at his blog or look at some of his photos on his photography site. I thank smashmagazine for the great article.

How To Find Time For… Everything!

2009-09-21T00:00:00.001-07:00

Time management is one of the most important skills a freelance worker can learn. With a good time management system you can easily find the time to do the things that are important to you, whether in your professional or personal life.

Successful time management can be challenging, especially to those who are new to freelancing or being self-employed. When you have a boss telling you what to do and when to do it by, it’s much easier to prioritize and figure out what needs to be done and when. But when you’re not only dealing with client deadlines but also all of the day-to-day parts of running a business, on top of trying to maintain some sort of life outside of work, time management gets a whole lot trickier.

Below are sixteen tips to help you better manage your time and find the time to participate in the things that are important to you. Also included are some further resources to improve your time management.

1. Get Organized

Taking time away from your work to find things, whether on your computer or your physical desktop, can be one of the biggest time-wasters out there. This is one of those things that varies a lot by industry and personal preference, but you absolutely need to have a system in place to handle the information, files, and data that comes your way each day. This might include folders and tags on your computers, or file-folders, piles, and inboxes in your physical workspace.

Experiment with different organizational systems until you find one that really works for you. Personally, I have a folder called “work” on my desktop and within that I have folders for each client I work with on a regular basis. For one-off projects I’ll create a folder for that client while I’m working on the project, and then those folders will get moved into a “completed” folder once the project is over (and usually moved to my portable hard drive instead of remaining on my laptop’s hard drive). I have very little physical paperwork, so piles on my desk work just fine for me.

2. Separate Work Space from Everything-Else Space

You need to have a dedicated workspace. If you work in an office, this is easy enough to manage. But if you work from home, you’ll need to put a bit more effort in. Here are a few tips for creating a workspace if you don’t have space for a dedicated office:

Get a desk. Don’t try to work from your coffee table or dining room table. It’s inefficient and you’ll constantly find yourself having to pick things up just to bring them back out later. It’s better to have a space where you can leave your work things set up all the time.
Go into “work mode” when you’re in your workspace. This might mean wearing “work clothes” when you’re working. Or it might mean putting shoes on when you’re at your desk (this is one I do most of the time).
Steal unused space. Is there an unused room, corner of a room, or even closet somewhere in your home? Is it big enough for a desk? If it is, then you might have just found your dedicated office. If your space is part of a larger room, consider buying an office armoire to hide away your work stuff when you’re not using it. If it’s in a closet or other tiny space, a built-in desk and shelving might work best (otherwise you’re likely to waste space with a desk that’s smaller than the total space). Commandeer unused space in your home to carve out a dedicated work space.

3. Take Advantage of Time Management Tools

There are hundreds of tools out there for organizing and managing your time. Whether you opt for a physical date book or calendar or go for an online app, take advantage of the ready-made tools available. I use a combination of tools. Remember the Milk keeps my to-do list (with the Pro version you can also access it from an iPhone). I have a dry-erase calendar for my monthly schedule. And I flag emails that have important information in them until I’m done with that information.

Previously, I’ve used those yellow Post-It notes to keep my to-do list organized (I’d stick them to my desk in front of my keyboard) and a pocket-size black Moleskine notebook. Both tools worked well, but I finally decided I wanted to have a to-do list I could access from anywhere.

There are tons of other time management tools. Experiment with a few and see what seems to fit with the way you work. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution out there that will work for everyone. But there’s almost certainly a tool out there for everyone.

4. Set Goals

Setting goals is one of the most important things you can do to manage your time. If you don’t have any goals, how do you know what’s important? What deserves your time and attention? The short answer is: you don’t.

Goals don’t need to be formal. They don’t need to be long-term either (though long-term goals can also help). What they do need to do is focus your attention on what’s important.

One of my goals might be to get all of my work done by Thursday so I can take Friday off, or use Friday to work on a personal project. What that goal does is get me to focus on working more efficiently so I can finish my work in 80% of the time. Cutting 20% of my work time isn’t that big of a deal most weeks. Simply turning off TweetDeck while I work (or setting it to only pull updates every 30 or 60 minutes) can go a long way toward doing that. So can working through lunch or getting up a half hour earlier (or staying up a half hour later).

Your goals should be attainable and specific. You can set recurring goals (”I want to take every Friday off.”) or one-time goals (”I want to finish my new website design by next Tuesday.”) or any combination of the two. You might write them down somewhere or you can just keep them in your head. Just make sure you always have a goal. Your goal could even be as simple as, “finish this logo mockup before lunch.”

5. Set Deadlines

Deadlines are sort of like a built-in goal for a project. If you know something is due next Monday, then you’re more likely to structure your work on it to make sure it gets done by Monday. (If not, you definitely need this article more than most.)

If you don’t have deadlines imposed by clients or a boss, then you’ll need to have self-imposed deadlines. Think about when you want to finish something or when you’d like to move on to the next project. Put that date in your calendar or mark it on your to-do list as the deadline for your current project. For added accountability, tell someone else about your deadline. I’ll sometimes post self-imposed deadlines on Twitter or Facebook so my friends there can hound me about it if I miss a deadline. Peer pressure can go a long way toward getting you to work harder.

6. Plan Ahead

Keep some kind of big-picture plan. This might be monthly, bi-monthly, or yearly, depending on your industry and the particular types of projects you take on. As I mentioned before, I keep a dry-erase calendar with my monthly projects and deadlines. I can also mark down appointments, important dates, and other information that might interfere with my deadlines or regular work schedule. Most of my deadlines are on a weekly or semi-weekly basis, so a monthly calendar works great for me. If you have longer deadline periods (or shorter ones), you’ll need to adjust the amount of time you need to look at at once to get an idea of how much work you’ve committed yourself to at any one time.

7. Prioritize

You have to prioritize the work you do. For the most part, work due immediately (or within the next few days) should be completed first. Then comes the work due within the next week or two, and then everything else.

Don’t forget to include family priorities, too. Your child’s first soccer game is important, so make sure that gets on the list of top priorities. Doctor’s appointments, school plays, parent-teacher meetings, date nights, and parties also need to be taken into account when you’re planning your work schedule. Decide what things you absolutely must attend whether your work is finished or not (there shouldn’t be very many things on this list), what things you want to attend if you get to a certain point in your work (and note what you need to have done in order to attend), and things that you may or may not attend if all of your work is finished.

Set up a system of marking the priority of different items on your schedule. This might be using different-colored pens to write in different items, or it might be putting a star next to the most important things, or even keeping separate lists for each priority. Again, just make sure whatever you choose to do makes sense in your lifestyle.

8. Delegate or Outsource

There’s nothing wrong with bringing in a little outside help once in awhile. This might mean delegating responsibility for a project to someone else in your office, or even to an assistant. It might mean outsourcing a certain aspect of a project (research, coding, etc.) to someone else so you can focus on the more important parts.

You don’t necessarily need to outsource or delegate parts of your work to be more effective. Why not consider hiring a housekeeper to come in and clean your house once a week? Or getting someone else to wash and detail your car instead of spending Saturday afternoon doing it yourself? These kinds of outsourced services can free up your time for the important things you want to do (like hanging out with your significant other or your kids, or playing an extra round of golf).

9. Optimize Your Processes

There are almost certainly things you do on a daily or weekly basis in the course of your work that you could streamline. It might be your billing. Or maybe your archiving. Or it could be something you do on almost every project you take on.

These are the things you should streamline and optimize. Look at the way you’re currently doing things and see if there are steps you could combine or cut all together. If you’re a web designer, this might mean creating your own custom set of template files for developing sites. Or using an automated invoicing program for billing. Or any number of other things that can be made more efficient if you’re only willing to take the time to identify them.

10. Learn to Say “No”

One of the biggest time-management pitfalls you can experience is taking on too much work. You have to learn to say “no” to some people. If you take on more work than you can handle, not only will you have problems meeting deadlines, but the quality of your work and your relationships (both personal and work-related) will suffer.

Before taking on any new work, look at your schedule. Do you really have time for another project? If not, simply explain to the client that you have too many projects going to devote the time necessary for their project. Most will thank you for it. And if you really can’t bring yourself to turn down work, give them a realistic timeline for when you can complete their project. Don’t say you can have it done the following week if you already have commitments taking up your time between now and then.

The same principle goes for personal obligations, too. Nothing says you have to serve on your homeowners’ association board. You don’t have to join the PTA or your local indoor soccer league. And just because you’ve done something every year for the past ten years doesn’t mean you have to do it every year for the next ten. Learn to say no to your friends, family, neighbors, and others in your life so you have time to say “yes” to the things that are really important to you.

11. Learn When You Work Best

One of the advantages to being a freelancer is that you can set your own hours. Pay attention to when you’re mot productive. For me, that’s from about nine in the morning until around two or three, and then again from about six or seven in the evening until eleven or twelve. I don’t force myself to work in those hours when I know I’m not productive (from 2-7 most days). But I make sure that I’m in work mode in the morning and then again late in the evening so I can get more done when I am productive.

12. Set Regular Working Hours

This is related to when you work best. You should have regular working hours that you try to stick to every day. If you work best from 4:00AM until noon, then work every day during that time. That also means that you should stop work at noon and go do something else. The same goes fro weekends. Take at least two days a week off if at all possible. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Saturday and Sunday; you might choose to take Wednesday and Thursday off or Monday and Tuesday. Whatever works for you. Just make sure you have some down time when you’re not working. Otherwise you’re likely to end up burning out.

13. Don’t Waste Time

Look at the things that waste time during your day. Are you constantly checking Facebook or Twitter? Getting up to get a glass of water? Taking your dog for his sixth walk this afternoon? Whatever these things are, try to figure out ways to minimize their ability to interrupt you. Take the dog for a nice, long walk right after lunch. Only check Facebook or Twitter once an hour (or every two hours); keep them closed other than at their allotted times. Get a refillable water bottle so you only have to get up a couple times a day. Identify what you waste time doing and eliminate it.

14. Avoid Multitasking

Multitasking works in some circumstances. But when it comes to getting any substantial work done, multitasking usually does more harm than good. Work on one project at a time. This doesn’t mean you necessarily have to work on one project until it’s completely finished, but it does mean you shouldn’t skip back and forth between three projects every two minutes. Set yourself a minimum work time; it might be fifteen or twenty minutes or even an hour, and then work on just one project during that time.

The multitasking advice also applies to trying to work while you’re checking your email, playing solitaire, talking on the phone, and any other distractions that prevent you from dedicating your full attention to the task at hand.

15. Take Frequent Breaks

Burnout is a huge bar to productivity. When you get burned out you end up unable to focus or complete work as quickly as you might otherwise (if you can work at all). Taking regular breaks from your work helps prevent burnout. This might mean going for a walk in the middle of the day, taking a break to watch the news after lunch, doing your shopping in the midafternoon instead of in the evening, or even taking a week off a couple times each year for vacation.

These little breaks refresh us and keep us eager to work. Without them we grow tired and our concentration lags. I generally take a couple hours each afternoon and get out of my house. This might mean going to visit relatives, doing some shopping, going for a drive or a walk, a short hike, or swimming in the summer. I also take a few five or ten minute breaks throughout the day to recharge and rest my eyes (staring at a computer screen all day is very hazardous to your vision). And I take long weekends (3 or even 4 days off) on a regular basis to recharge.

16. Maintain

Maintenance is incredibly important to any time management system. But it’s not just your system you need to maintain. It’s all the parts of your life that you need to keep running smoothly in order to get your work done.

This means basic maintenance on your computer (backing up files, emptying your trash, cleaning out your inbox), basic maintenance on your office or workspace (dusting, emptying the trash, vacuuming, etc.) and basic household maintenance (washing dishes, doing laundry, home repairs, etc.).

Don’t overlook maintenance on yourself, either. Getting some exercise every day and eating right can go a long way toward making you more productive.

You might be asking yourself what this has to do with finding time to do things in your life. Well, here’s the thing: If you don’t maintain all the things in your life that need it, eventually something is going to fail. This might be something as simple as having to take time out on a work day to do laundry because you’re completely out of clean clothes, or it might be something more major like a preventable illness or injury. When unexpected disasters crop up, they wreak havoc on our productivity. You end up spending more time playing catch-up than you would have if you had just maintained things in the first place. And if you include regular maintenance in your schedule, they really don’t take up much time at all.

Article on http://www.smashingmagazine.com

About the author

Cameron Chapman is a professional Web and graphic designer with over 6 years of experience. She also writes for a number of blogs, including her own, Cameron Chapman On Writing. She’s also the author of the upcoming book Internet Famous.

100 Ways To Live A Better Life

2009-09-20T07:27:00.001-07:00

Without further ado, let’s go.

1. Accept Your Mistakes

2. Accept Your Friends Mistakes

3. Create A New Habit

4. Build Self Discipline

5. Make New Friends

6. Get A New Job

7. Start A New Diet

8. Keep A Journal

9. Create And Keep A Morning Phrase

10. Travel Far Away From Your Home

11. Learn To Take Risks

12. Start Your Own Business

13. Change Your Work Space

14. Learn A New Language

15. Find Reasons To Agree

16. Pay Yourself First

17. Wake Up Early

18. Train Your Focus

19. Start A Blog

20. Write An Ebook

21. Be Better, Not Perfect

22. Stop Self Sabotage

23. Find Reasons To Love Your Life

24. Try Something New

25. Avoid Fighting

26. Stop Wasting Your Power

27. Learn To Ignore

28. Experiment Gratitude

29. Recycle Your Aggression

30. Release Your Guardians

Don’t touch that! Don’t eat that! Don’t go for that opportunity! Those are the sentences you hear when going for something you really want. Those are yourguardians, your mental constructs made to protect you. Release them, you’ll be much better off.

31. Clean Up Your House

32. Write A Personal Mission Statement

33. Dissolve Negative Opinions About Yourself

34. Build Different Skills

Don’t stop learning. Don’t remain stuck in a single career, it’s boring and limiting. Learndifferent skills, possibly from completely unrelated fields. You never know when life will ask you to use them. Besides, it’s a lot of fun.

35. Manage Your Time As You Manage Your Money

36. Exercise

37. Be A Parent

38. Throw Away One Object A Day From Your House

39. Read A Book Per Week

40. Start A Monthly Challenge

41. Call An Old Friend

42. Follow A Coincidence

43. Play A Game

44. Forgive Somebody Out Of The Blue

45. Stop Solving The Wrong Problems

46. Make Peace With An Old Enemy

47. Make A Promise To A Close Person And Keep It

48. Break Up With A Person You Don’t Really Like

49. Get A Thing You Wanted For A Long Time

50. Stop Being Judgemental

51. Change Your Wardrobe

52. Smile At Least 10 Times A Day

53. Burn Some Old Memories

54. Plant A Tree

55. Move To Another Town Or Country

56. Join A New Group

57. Stop Watching TV

58. Start A Totally Unexpected Hobby

59. Randomly Hug A Stranger On The Street

60. Set Up A Surprise Party

61. Go Hiking

62. Get A Pet

63. Write A Thank You Letter

64. Meditate Daily

65. Say Something Nice To Somebody

66. Say Something Nice To You

67. When I Doubt, Improvise

68. Don’t Argue, Win Or Lose

69. Stop Faking Your Life

70. Define Goals

71. Help Others

72. Go Social

73. Spend Some Time Alone

74. Fix Something By Yourself

75. Create Value

76. Do A Random Act Of Kindness

77. One More Second

78. Understand What People Want From You

79. Break An Old Bad Habit

80. Stop Complaining

81. Reject What You Don’t Want

82. Being Is Better Than Having

83. Listen To Your Critics

84. Don’t Take It Personally

85. Laugh

86. Go With Passion

87. Trust Your Emotions

88. Live It Like A Holiday

89. Make A Story Out Of It

90. Stop Being A Follower

91. Watch Your Beliefs

92. Stop Lying

93. Stop Reacting To Stuff

94. Live Today

95. Expect The Unexpected

96. Enjoy

97. Make Your Own Rules

98. Love

99. Get Rid Of Labels

100. No Regrets

Article posted on http://www.dragosroua.com

5 Reasons To Contribute To A Blog

2009-09-16T00:49:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately there are many designers that have extensive knowledge but don’t share it with others. In this post, I’ll give you five reasons why every designer should be contributing to blogs and how that will help his or her career.

1) Get Exposure

Due to the digital age we’re living in, it is extremely important that you have an online presence. Contributing to a blog is a perfect way to accomplish that. You get your name out there to fellow creatives, and potential clients. If you have something important to say, you’ll definitely be noticed.

2) Establish Yourself as an Expert

Someone that is considered an expert is not only respected, but also trusted. How do you do that? Well, the question to ask is, “What information do I provide to my niche?” Again, we live in a digital world and your online presence is key. If you have no meaningful online contribution, it is as if you don’t exist. This is sad to say, but there are way too many people that haven’t caught up with this yet. As a side note, make sure the impression that you are creating is truthful; no one likes a phony.

3) Engrave Your Knowledge

As with most things, the more you talk about a given subject, the more you understand and comprehend it. Even if your knowledge is very little, you still have something to contribute. No one can say something the same exact way that you do.

4) Polish Your Skills

The famous saying goes, “Practice makes perfect”. Make a cool tutorial with an effect that you know. Kill two birds with one stone and use the pieces that you make for your portfolio and polish your skills at the same time. It’s a great way to get away from work that you have from clients and have some fun. Also, more often than not, the pieces that you make for yourself will be your best work. Why? Because you know what looks nice and you have no one else to please other than yourself.

5) Make Some Money

For many, this is the most important reason. In this tough economy, we don’t always have design work. Why not take the time to share your knowledge with others? You get to put in practice the first four reasons and make some money! That’s awesome! It won’t be enough to pay all your bills but it’ll be some extra cash that you probably weren’t counting on.

Thanks to : www.myinkblog.com

A Showcase of Popular Web Design Trends

2009-09-16T00:32:00.001-07:00

Personalization and Hand Drawn Elements

It is no wonder that this first one has caught on, and taken off the way that it has, especially when it comes to blog designs, and it is because of the way that the website surfers have responded to it. Readers like to feel a personal connection with the author of the blog and designing your theme with a personalized touch is a perfect way to add to that feeling.

Suie Paparude

Paul Wallas

The Official Gary Nock Website

Clean Illustrations

I am not saying the death of the grunge is nigh or upon us, or anything to that effect. In fact, I happen to still be quite a fan of the rough and punk feel of grunge graphics and illustrations, however, there is a trend that moves in a slightly opposite direction. Vector illustrations are an extremely popular web design trend, that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. They have the ability to add a lot of color and style to a site while still keeping it really clean and sleek looking, so once again, their popularity is easily understood.

Tomáš Pojeta – grafické portfolio

Paper and Collage Effects

Having explored the art of collage in my traditional art, seeing the trend towards bringing that feel to the web is one that I am overly excited to see. To be honest, this is one of my favorite trends of the moment. Digitizing a bit of real world elements into the vast cyber sea, using paper, sticky notes, paper clips, thumbtacks, and coffee stains all collaged together to create some really appealing layouts.

Wood Elements

As a bit of a tree hugger, I do enjoy seeing this final trend that I am showcasing, and fondly hope that it sticks around for a while. The use of wood elements in web design, which is a fairly new trend that is starting to take off, is the one I am speaking of. This versatile element can be used to achieve so many different styles from grungy to elegant. One could say it’s a natural. Get it? Cause, wood is from nature, so…nevermind, it’s a hippie joke.

2008 Design Trends

2009-09-14T11:24:00.001-07:00

About a year ago, I compiled a huge list of artistic sites. It seems like the trend has carried on in 2008 and is growing stronger (thank God the glossy style is gone). So what’s hot now? Pencil sketches, handwritten notes, card stocks, watercolor effects, collage art, script fonts, grungy and splatter ink backgrounds (glossy gradients are not "in" this year). Another trend to be on the lookout for are the vintage and retro styles which I’ve posted earlier this year. Here is a list of 82 sites picked from Best Web Gallery that show the current design trends.

Vintage / Retro Styles

Handwritten Notes and Paper Clips

Grungy

Splatter Ink

Watercolor

Collage

Sketches and Handwritten Fonts

Big Fonts

Script Fonts

Wood Pattern

Zig Zag Pattern

50 Minimal Sites

2009-09-14T09:52:00.001-07:00

Since Web Designer Wall launched, I’ve been featuring a lot of graphic intense websites such as the artistic, large background, vintage, and illustrative styles. Now it is time to feature the minimalist design. Here is a massive list of 50 minimal sites. See how designers use minimal elements to create high visual impact — less is more.

Hot Meteor

Vitor Lourenco

Arty Papers

Mark Boulton Design

Vesess

Design Work Plan

Made by Sofa

Shift px

Frank Chimero

80/20 Studio

Somme

Aen UI

HUGE

Rustin Jessen

Subtraction

Information Architects

Wilson Miner

The Man in the Sea

Built by Buffalo

CRW

Concentric Studio

Rikcat Industries

Studio Mikmik

Andy Rutledge

Mezzoblue

Simplebits

Chama Inc

Kind Company

Jon Tangerine

Mark Wieman

Winnie Lim

Matt Bango

David Sutoyo

Jason Santa Maria

Rodrigo Galindez

J. Bradford Dillon

Alpha Bros

Joni Korpi

Grow (flash)

Clearleft

Polar Gold

Maxvoltar

Tictoc

Mark Dearman

Odd Web Things

Lift

Jason Duerr

72 Dots

Poccuo

Wonderful Union

Iain Crawford – Photographer

2009-09-12T02:51:00.001-07:00

Iain Crawford - Photographer

A superb many work and shootings on the sober portfolio of the photographer Iain Crawford, currently based in London. A whole of capture of images moving, with always much of colors. To discover in the continuation.

15 Tips and Tricks for 3ds max - Nimalkanth

2009-09-11T07:21:00.001-07:00

Tip 1

Did you know that "architectural materials" and "self illuminated" materials are light emitting (for Mental Ray & Vray) ? If you apply them on a box you will get a similar effect as a "photometric area light" or a "Vray light".

Tip 2

Try to use always soft shadows in your renderings if possible. Hard shadows are looking always very fake. In "Mr Omni/Spot" scale the size of the light in the area light parameters (mental ray).
In Mental Ray you have to use the "RAYTRACED shadows" !
In Vray enable in the Omni/Spot the "area shadow" and scale the size of the light. Soft shadows will take more render time !

Tip 3

To have perfect shadows it is necessary to create all objects with real dimensions.

Tip 4

How to decrease render time for test-renderings:
a) The main setting to decrease the render time is the image size. Normally I use 150x112 pixels as size. It is too small to see the object's details but it’s perfect to understand the light conditions.
b) Lower the Shadow quality !
c) Reduce the polygon number of the objects (try to use the optimize modifier if you don't have any mesh smooth modifier on the objects)!
d) Reduce the photon number or/and the "sample" settings in the render engines. Vray/MentalRay/Brazil RS/FinalRender/ etc.
e) Be careful with the amount of lights (too many lights will make the rendering very slow)!

Tip 5

Do not use editable MESH but ALWAYS editable "POLY".
Editable Poly is optimized for advanced modeling , creates less errors than editable mesh and has many more settings than editable mesh.
If you were working on a object with editable mesh , you can without problems convert it into an editable Poly object.

Tip 6

Instead to mesh smooth a box, use from the "extended primitives" a "chamfer box"... the result is the same, but the chamfer box" has less polygons !

Tip 7

Sometimes all your Vertexes disappear during modeling of an object. To fix this bug try this options:
a) Convert your object again to an editable poly.
b) Convert your object to an editable mesh and then to an editable poly.
c) Save the file, Exit from 3Ds max and open again the file.
d) Save the file, Exit from 3Ds max and merge the object in a new file.

Tip 8

The best light to create Highlights is the Omni light (or MR Omni).

Tip 9

Do not use "area shadows" in Mental Ray, they are very slow and not optimized for Mental Ray.
The best/fastest result is visible when you use Raytrace shadows.
If you are working with the "light-tracer" than you can use "area shadows". The result is the same as in MentalRay with Raytrace shadows.

Tip 10

(For beginners) When you are working sometimes you can't anymore move your object.
Probably you have pressed the key X. Press again X to enable the move tool (GIZMO).
Similar problem: You can select only one object, all other objects can't be selected anymore: probably you have pressed SPACE and locked the object. Press again SPACE to unlock it.

Tip 11

When you create a "loft" object it can happen that the end or beginning of the object has an error.
To fix the problem you should choose "CORNER" vertex on the first and last vertex of your spline.

Tip 12

Download ALWAYS the last service-pack for your 3Ds Max version. It will fix important bugs.

Tip 13

There can be only 2 mistakes when your extruded (spline + extrude modifier) object has an error:
a) you have overlapping segments in your spline.
b) the shape is not closed-check where you did not weld the vertexes.

Tip 14

If you use splines to create shapes, try to use a very small number of vertexes.
If you convert the vertexes in smooth/bezier/bezier-corner you can create very organic and round shapes without a too high number of vertexes (same tip for loft in deformations-scale-panel).

Tip 15

If your interface/panel disappeared you have this options to fix the problem:
a.) Maybe You are in the "expert" mode...press CTR+x...
b.) Customize > Customize User Interface > Toolbars Tab > Reset!
c.) "Start" button on windows > Autodesk > 3Ds Max > change graphics mode !
d.) There should be a 3dsmax.ini file in ur max folder...delete it and start 3Ds Max again...
e.) Customize > load custom UI scheme.

I hope that this tips will help you.

Saab TV Ad Change perspective

2009-09-10T04:25:00.001-07:00

The latest TV commercial from Saab, part of the Changing perspective campaign that launch the new Saab 9-3X. Soundtrack is called Time Is Now by the the Swedish singer Asha Ali.

Tiny Invention for TMBG – Electric Car

2009-09-10T04:12:00.001-07:00

Mild mannered animation studio, Tiny Inventions, have lifted the veil on their latest opus and introduced Electric Car – a stop-motion style music video for the sugary children’s band, They Might Be Giants (TMBG). Showcasing a foxy sense of craftsmanship, Tiny Inventions is true to form, and has a knack for detail that’s put up for show in each one of their rustic-themed characters and makeshift environments.

The aesthetic here is homestyle – nothing too pretentious or embellished in flowery trimmings. Instead, Electric Car is a throwback to the good ol’ days of educational shorts; when Saturday mornings were for play; when School House Rock was a staple. Electric Car keeps it simple, but does it in a big way – a watermark to their authenticity, and a badge of honor for the studio.

“Making of”

Imagining Peace at the Colombo Art Biennale

2009-09-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

50 artists are participating in the Colombo Art Biennale, displaying their work over 14,000 sqft of space. In addition there are 25 other locations which will act as satellites to the main event and have mini-shows. You can read more about the event on their website here.

The theme for this years biennale is “Imagining Peace”

Peace – to encourage peace between and within nations, communities, families and individuals. This is not so much about showcasing Sri Lankan art; this is a project with a vision. This is to show the world that despite the fact that Sri Lanka is a seemingly politically, ethnically polarized society, artists can work together as collectives, a sign of peace in itself. “Imagining Peace”- Imagining that people can work together. Source : CAB Mission

12 Essential Rules to Follow When Designing a Logo

2009-09-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

The logo is the face of any brand — the very first impression — so its design is extremely important.

When executed correctly, a logo is a powerful asset to your client’s brand.

However, creating an effective visual representation of a brand requires much more than just graphic design.

Like any line of work that involves a set of specific skills, logo design requires plenty of practice and experience for it to be successful; knowledge is definitely power for any graphic designer.

For this reason, we have outlined 12 essential rules to follow in order to design an effective logo.

1. Preliminary Work Is a Must

Preliminary sketches are an important first step in designing an effective logo.

These can be as simple as paper and pen drawings or drafts made using a vector program, such as Illustrator.

The bottom line is that you compromise the final result if you rush, or skip, this step.

Start with 20 to 30 sketches or ideas and then branch out to create variations of the original ideas.

If nothing seems to work, start over and begin sketching new ideas.

An effective graphic designer will spend more time on this preliminary work than any other step in the design process.

2. Create Balance

Balance is important in logo design because our minds naturally perceive a balanced design as being pleasing and appealing.

Keep your logo balanced by keeping the “weight” of the graphics, colors, and size equal on each side.

Though the rule of balance can occasionally be broken, remember that your logo will be viewed by the masses, not just those with an eye for great art, so a balanced design is the safest approach.

3. Size Matters

When it comes to logo design, size does matter. A logo has to look good and be legible at all sizes.

A logo is not effective if it loses too much definition when scaled down for letterheads, envelopes, and small promotional items. The logo also has to look good when used for larger formats, such as posters, billboards, and electronic formats such as TV and the Web.

The most reliable way to determine if a logo works at all sizes is to actually test it yourself.

Note that the smallest scale is usually the hardest to get right, so start by printing the logo on a letterhead or envelope and see if it is still legible.

You can also test for large-scale rendering by printing a poster-sized version at a print shop.

4. Clever Use of Color

Color theory is complex, but designers who understand the basics are able to use color to their advantage.

The basic rules to keep in mind are:

Use colors near to each other on the color wheel (e.g. for a “warm” palette, use red, orange, and yellow hues).
Don’t use colors that are so bright that they are hard on the eyes.
The logo must also look good in black and white, grayscale, and two colors.
Breaking the rules sometimes is okay; just make sure you have a good reason to!

Knowing how colors evoke feelings and moods is also important. For example, red can evoke feelings of aggression, love, passion, and strength.

Keep this in mind as you try out different color combinations, and try to match the color to the overall tone and feel of the brand.

Playing around with individual colors on their own is another good idea. Some brands are recognizable solely by their distinct color.

For example, when you think of John Deere, you think of the “John Deere green” color, and this sets this brand apart from its competitors and, more importantly, makes the brand all the more recognizable.

5. Design Style Should Suit the Company

You can use various design styles when creating a logo, and to pick the right one, you should have some background information about the client and the brand.

A recent trend in logo design is the Web 2.0 style of 3D-looking logos, with “bubbly” graphics, gradients, and drop shadows.

This style may work well for a Web 2.0 website or tech company, but may not be effective for other kinds of brands.

Research your client and its audience before you begin your preliminary work.

This will help you determine the best design style from the start and save you from having to return repeatedly to the drawing board.

6. Typography Matters… a Lot!

Choosing the right font type and size is much more difficult than many beginner designers realize.

If your logo design includes text, either as part of the logo or in the tagline, you will need to spend time sorting through various font types — often, dozens of them — and testing them in your design before making a final decision.

Try both serif fonts and sans-serif fonts as well as script, italics, bold, and custom fonts.

Consider three main points when choosing a font to accompany your logo design:

Avoid the most commonly used fonts, such as Comic Sans, or else your design may come off as amateurish.
Make sure the font is legible when scaled down, especially with script fonts.
One font is ideal, and avoid more than two.

Strongly consider a custom font for your design. The more original the font, the more it will distinguish the brand. Examples of successful logos that have a custom font are Yahoo!, Twitter, and Coca Cola.

7. The Goal IS Recognition

The whole point of creating a logo is to build brand recognition. So, how do you go about doing this?

Well, it varies from case to case, but the goal with the logo is for the average person to instantly call the brand to mind.

A few examples of this are the logos for Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s, and Nike.

Just a glimpse of any of these logos is all you need to recognize the brands.

The key to making a popular and recognizable logo is to combine all of the elements discussed in this article: size, style, color, typography, and originality.

Overlooking any of these during the design process will impair the quality of your final design. Examine your own logo design and see whether it meets all of these criteria.

A quick test to determine if your logo is recognizable enough is to invert it using any graphic design software and see if you can still recognize the brand. Additionally, you should mirror the logo and see if it’s easily recognizable in this state.

Keep in mind that logos aren’t always seen head-on in real world situations, for example, on the side of a bus or a billboard that you drive by.

Therefore, you should make sure to view your logo design from all angles and ensure that it’s recognizable from any direction before submitting it to your client.

8. Dare to be Different

To stand out from the competition, you must distinguish yourself as a designer with a distinct style. Rather than copy another design or style, be innovative and stand out from the crowd.

So, how can you be different? Try breaking the rules of design and taking risks.

Try a variety of styles to find the one that works best for your client. Try different color combinations until you find one that makes your design truly original.

Have fun with the design program you use, and keep tweaking the design until you feel you’ve got it right.

9. K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple, Stupid)

The simpler the logo, the more recognizable it will be.

For example, the Nike swoosh is an extremely simple logo and is also one of the most recognizable in the world.

Follow the K.I.S.S. rule right from the start of the design process, when you are brainstorming ideas and doodling sketches.

Often, you’ll find that you start with a relatively complicated design and end up with a simpler version of it in the end.

Work the design down to its essentials and leave out all unnecessary elements.

10. Go Easy on Effects

Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, Photoshop, and other graphic design programs are extremely powerful tools and have many filters and effects that you can apply to your logo, but don’t get carried away!

There’s a time and place for these powerful tools, but it is not necessarily to design a logo.

Of course, playing around and seeing whether they enhance a logo is fine, but just remember that simplicity is key.

11. Develop a Design “Assembly Line”

To produce consistently high-quality logos, you need to develop your own design process, or “assembly line.” This should include the following steps:

Research
Brainstorm and generate ideas
Preliminary sketches
Develop vector designs
Send to client
Add or remove anything the client wants
Finalize the design and resubmit to client

Although you may want to tweak the order slightly, you should follow these basic steps with each logo design.

This will help you streamline your work, stay organized, maintain focus, and deliver better quality and more consistent results with each job.

12. Use Other Designs for Inspiration Only!

The last rule for designing an effective logo is quite simple: don’t copy other designers’ work! While there’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other designers, copying another person’s ideas or work is morally and legally wrong.

Gallery websites exist that let you use vector art images free of charge, with proper attribution under the Creative Commons License, but I strongly recommend not going this route.

These websites can be helpful for getting ideas during the brainstorming stage, but you’re better off starting your design from scratch and making it 100% original.

Written exclusively for WDd by Jarkko Laine.

Do you follow these rules when designing your logos? Why or why now? Please share your comments with us…

2009-08-10T23:18:00.000-07:00

The 3D Zone: Its Past & Its Future by Ray Zone

Article Focus: The world expert in the history of 3D imaging looks at its past to see into its future. Along the way, he looks at the role of comics in the evolution of 3D storytelling, the importance of anaglyph even today, and why 3D is going to stick around this time.

There are several compelling reasons why 3D is not going to go away this time. The train has left the station.

The first compelling reason driving studios and independent producers to make 3D feature films is that the 3D version makes three times the box office — and sometimes even more than that. The 3D version of “My Bloody Valentine” earned closer to seven times more than the 2D version.

The second overriding reason is the technology itself. The tools for making both live action and computer-generated 3D movies are so sweet. Previously, producers have had to deal with these humongous 35mm cameras, and had to contrive to get the lenses close enough together to make the films viewable. That has really changed with smaller cameras from Silicon Imaging and Iconix. Live action stereoscopic productions no longer need to be limited in the kinds of things they can shoot, including handheld. The form factor of even 4K RAW imaging is so small, that you can easily make 3D movies that eliminate the difficulties of eye strain and visual errors that were seen in the past.

In exhibition, the great watershed which was inaugurated on November 4th 2005, with the release of "Chicken Little 3D" from Disney on 84 RealD cinema screens, using a single projector solution. Frames are triple-flashed -- 24 frames per second for each eye, flashed 3 times each, for a total of 144 frames per second. This creates a very high rate of intermittency, where you don't notice any flicker at all. It's a beautiful solution, almost 100% error free, and that eliminates many of the errors from the 50s. Even if the projectors stayed in sync, film weave would create an unpleasant kind of stutter to the image, or one of the films would break and then there would be a problem for the projection of putting them back in sync with the splice.

So, previous exhibition obstacles have been solved with RealD, Dolby Digital 3D, ExpandD and then IMAX 3D, which of course is a wonderful platform for watching 3D movies.

The third factor is a new generation stereoscopic filmmakers that is successfully creating 3D movies that are simply more immersive. Although they have imagery that comes off the screen, which you expect in a 3D movie, it happens in a way that is coherent and fits in the story.

We have at times seen this before. The 3D films of the 50s had noteworthy examples of a marriage between stereoscopic imaging and storytelling. “Kiss Me Kate” was a wonderful musical, and it was designed for 3D. “Inferno,” starring Robert Ryan, was a great example of 3D being used as an integral part of the narrative. Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder” is certainly a 3D film that stands out even in 2D.

Another wonderful 3D film that had a great influence on many people — including me — was “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” which is actually a kind of poetic love story, along the lines of “Beauty and the Beast.”

So the 3D films of the 50s were not just B pictures. There were some true A-list pictures that used 3D in a way that was seamless with the narrative.

3D filmmakers today have devised a number of storytelling innovations that are taking this even further forward. Brian Gardner developed the idea of a floating stereo window. Brian, Phil McNally (who came from ILM to Disney, and later moved to DreamWorks), and Bernard Mendiburu put this together on Disney's "Meet The Robinsons" in a way that animated the position of the 3D frame in a way that audience doesn't notice, but that makes 3D easier to create, and easier for the audience to view.

[Ed. note: You can read more with Phil "Captain 3D" McNally at Creative COW here. You can read the online version of Brian Gardner's article for Creative COW Magazine on 3D storytelling, here.]

Another wonderful device they implemented was the idea of multi-rigging -- different figures in the foreground or background all had different interocular settings. For animated films, this is just math, but it adds a richness to the 3D experience. They also used this control to animate interocular distances over the course of a shot.

The combination of additional box office generated by 3D feature films, new ease in making them, improvements in exhibition, and new, more immersive storytelling are a few of the compelling reasons that 3D filmmaking will not go away this time.

STEREOGRAPHY

I like to use the term “stereography,” because it means literally rendering the forms of volume on a flat plane. It happens that the discovery of stereography preceded the invention of photography as well as motion pictures.

Stereography, as discovered by Charles Wheatstone in 1838, preceded the invention of both photography and motion pictures.

In fact, the realism of the very first stereo view cards drove the invention of motion pictures. These inventors looked through the stereoscopes and a saw a 3D image, and asked themselves, “What’s missing?” Well, motion was missing, so as utopians of the image, they set out to add not just motion, but sound, and color, and depth.

The first three-dimensional motion pictures were developed by William Friese-Green in 1889. He devised a dioptic camera with twin lenses that took two pictures, side-by-side. The remnants of his system survive today in still versions as the View-Master — still in production, primarily with cartoons and 3D movie promotional tie-ins.

But well before Friese-Green’s invention, the stereoview card had become the great mass medium of the 19th Century — far more popular than newspapers or anything else. It was only the proliferation of the motion picture which led to the eclipse of the stereoview card as a mass medium in the 20th Century.

A stereographic image of a stereograph factory, from 1905. Click image for larger.

ANAGLYPH: YESTERDAY AND TODAY

We will have anaglyph for as long as there is imaging.

Many people in production who champion newer platforms think it’s necessary to denigrate or put down the anaglyph and its red and green glasses — but it conveys a very strong stereographic experience when done carefully. It is simply one of several different ways to display what is essentially two movies: one for the left eye, and one for the right eye.

I wrote my book [“Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film, 1838-1952”] to show how 3D cinema preceded the release of “Bwana Devil” by 100 years, and to show how important anaglyph technologies and techniques were as a part of that period.

[Ed. note: Ray has also written "3D Filmmakers: Conversations with Creators of Stereoscopic Motion Pictures." Both of these books are highly recommended.]

Since its discovery and perfection by Louis Ducos du Hauron – he patented it in 1895 – anaglyph has been continuously in production. It has been the universal solution for making, exhibiting, and displaying 3D images, both in movies -- because it works with standard projections and a standard white screen --and print media, which often supported the movies even in the 20s.

Anaglyph was used initially for Magic Lanterns Slideshows, as well as some of the first movies made in America, I suspect shown using dual projectors. In the 20s, there was a wave of very popular anaglyphic short films, along with a 3D shadow show called the Shadowgraph, invented by Lawrence Hammond, also the inventor of the Hammond Organ.

The earliest anaglyph feature film was “The Power of Love.” debuting in Hollywood in 1922, and shown using two projectors. The films using this early process were called plasticons and plastigrams. A plasticon opened at the Rivoli theater in New York in 1922 which made novel use of the anaglyphic process.
Two endings to the film were shown simultaneously. Audience members who desired a happy ending simply viewed the film through the red filter, with a tragic ending seen through the green filter.

Things changed in 1939, when the New York World’s Fair showed Edward Land’s newly-patented linear polarizing material projected on a silver screen.

Click image for larger.

That was the point at which polarizing technology for 3D movies become a standard – but the anaglyph is still the most versatile way to look at a 3D movie.

Even though 3D TV is going to be using some newer technologies that allow for full-color imaging will surpass the anaglyph, anaglyph is being produced in greater numbers today than it ever was before. Just go to YouTube and search for anaglyph 3D movies. You’ll be surprised that how many there are. These films are coming from every corner of the world, from desktop 3D moviemakers — and anaglyph works great in the RGB colorspace of computers.

So while there have been other important platforms for people to discover 3D, anaglyph remains the de facto way for most young people to discover 3D, as I did when I was six. When done with care, it really can convey a powerful 3D experience.

HANDMADE 3D

I first saw 3D images in the first issue of “Three Dimension Comics,” by Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer, featuring Mighty Mouse, in September 1953. It sold over a million copies, leading to the release of over 50 3D comics, into 1954. They were primarily created by using three or four acetate overlays over a background board, and shifting the layers to create the left and right eye views.

While there were a few examples in between, I worked to reinvent the form in the 80s, and have produced over 130 3D comics -- the first hundred by using a number 11 Exacto blade, and cutting and shifting photostats of the line art. It was a labor-intensive process, but it meant that I was no longer limited to only 4 or 5 planes of depth. I could create as many planes as the art could bear, as many 20 or 30 levels – so many levels, in fact, that the art itself started to appear volumetric! I also started to use techniques that would stretch and twist the image.

This was well in advance of using a computer. When I started using Photoshop to create 3D comics in 1995, they became polychromatic anaglyph, as opposed to the two-color comics used before. They now retained all of the color information of the original four-color images, but also had the 3D embedded into that four-color scheme.

The first comics to use this for the full length of the comic book were a 12 issue run for Image Comics that I did in 1997. The most recent 3D comics that I’ve produced were for DC, “Superman: Beyond Final Crisis,” #1 and #2.

Alongside the full-color anaglyph comics, I’m still doing conversion of comics to monochromatic anaglyph -- essentially a black and white image delivered with the red and blue color selection.

Comic parody of Ray Zone. Click image for full-size version of the entire page.

Right now I’m working with Clive Barker and a writer and a team at IDW (Idea and Design Works) to do an original Clive Barker 3D comic. We are using some unusual techniques with red and blue glasses, to create things like 2-step animation or hidden image, or some visually interesting effects exploiting the differences in color perception between the left and right eye, called retinal rivalry.

I’m also making stereo pairs of paintings by hand, in acrylics and oils. One example is below, I was influenced by a local gentleman named Abe Fagenson who creates left and right eye images on a single canvas, for cross-eye, binocular-free vision. You cross your eyes, and you see it in 3D without a viewing aid of any kind. I’m making my own stereo pairs of paintings, of abstract images. You can use a viewing device, or you can view them in cross-eye, or parallel free vision. You can experience the abstract imagery stereoscopically using any of these methods.

Arcadia, by Ray Zone. Click image for larger.

This is for art gallery display of 3D images, another platform that I’m moving forward on. As a curator, and an art writer, and an artist myself, I want to show people that stereography can, and should, be displayed in art gallery setting, and that there are numerous strategies to show the image in 3D using binocular stereopsis of one kind of another.

THE EXPERIENCE OF 3D FILMMAKING

"Brijes 3D" is the second animated feature to be produced by Ithrax Productions, a motion picture studio based in Mexico City, and will be the first feature-length animated stereoscopic film in Mexican cinema history. Benito Fernandez is the principal at Ithrax, and the director of "Brijes 3D."

Marius Henry Hoyo is the visual effects supervisor for Santo Domingo Animation, and following a recommendation from Lenny Lipton at RealD, Marius invited me to be the 3D producer for the project. The first time I went down, in August 2008, we set up the stereoscopic team, which was Marius, Benito's brother Diego and two after effects Adobe After Effects wizards. We set up a procedure to take the digital still art as it came into the stereoscopic finishing department, and created pixel-based shifts to place the images both behind and in front of the screen. We then animated along the Z axis in After Effects.

By January 2009 the 3D for the opening 7-minute prologue of "Brijes 3D" was complete. I had it encoded at RealD with the help of Lenny Lipton, Josh Greer and Robert Turner. SDA decided that they wanted to announce the stereoscopic production to the media in Mexico, at a 3D screening. Those chose a Cinepolis theater, Mexico’s largest theater chain, which is quickly rolling out rolling out screens equipped with RealD stereoscopic projection in their multiplexes.

We showed it to the Mexican press on a 50-foot screen with the new RealD XO brighter projection platform, and they were very impressed with the stereoscopic aspect.

Production is underway again. We will be shooting some miniatures in 3D, as well as using some CG elements mixed with the still art. I will be making more trips down to Mexico as we move toward our spring 2010 release.

I also continue to work on my own films. As one example, I wrote and directed a 14 minute short called "Slow Glass" which was an attempt to do a new idea with 3D story telling. It is adaptation of a classic Bob Shaw story, “Light of Other Days.” You see through this slow glass what happened 10 years earlier. The story involves a moving realization that, as it comes to the end of the story, is quite heartbreaking.

Sean Isroelit was the visual effects supervisor, and I had Brian Gardner work on some of the shots. For one of them, I gave him a stereo pair of a mountain forest with snow, and he animated snow falling in it, and he did this amazing push-in into that shot.

We had shot it in only two days, but it had taken two years in post production because of the extensive stereoscopic bluescreen effects. Bernard Mendiburu did two things to save Slow Glass. One, he made this amazing title sequence. He also rescued what all of us came to call The Shot From Hell. We had a live action plate with actors moving through it, and behind them, a number of bluescreen panes of slow glass, each with a 3D movie playing in it. And I told Bernard, lay things in there with garbage mattes, or whatever else you can figure out. And he did!. He finished the shot from hell, and the movie was done.

3DIY

In the excitement over 3D releases from major studios, one thing that doesn’t get discussed as much is that there is, right now, a desktop 3D video revolution going on. People are cobbling together their own solutions using readily accessible hardware and software, and they’re sharing their stories with each other. I’ll coin a term, “3DIY,” to describe it. This is much more important than people realize.

I think of companies with major software and hardware platforms as 800-pound gorillas -- and 800-pound gorillas do not swing as high or as quickly through the forest as chimpanzees. There is this amazing groundswell of 3D movie production with the chimpanzees. They have kludged their own 3DIY stereoscopic solutions, and they’ve actually built in smarter, more sophisticated capabilities than the 800-pound gorillas have.

While the 800-pound gorillas are still undertaking studies, trying to figure out what to do with it, this technology is sweeping along at the desktop level. It’s bottom-up. It’s viral. And unlike a lot of areas where people are waiting for major studio-level tools to filter down to them, this is an area where the 800-pound gorillas have a lot to learn from the chimpanzees.

So as exciting as the top-down forward motion of 3D in cinema is – and it is very, very exciting – one of my concerns as a film historian is access to the couple of thousand 3D screens for the many thousands of independent 3D movie makers.

The solution that friends and I in the Stereo Club of Southern California have come up with is using two smaller digital projectors, a silver screen and linear polarizing glass. Solutions like this are critical for the development for 3D moviemaking now, because I believe some of the great 3D moviemakers of the future are going to come out of this desktop revolution.

People just haven’t seen the full extent of how artistically diverse and conceptually rich stereographic imaging can be. But they are starting to find out, experiencing these new movies and the forward motion of of 3D on every kind of visual display, from mobiles and handhelds to the IMAX screen.

Post- Barrelism: Erasing Camouflage

2009-07-24T23:42:00.000-07:00

“Post- Barrelism: Erasing Camouflage”, An Exhibition of Paintings and Installations by Chandraguptha Thenuwara was inaugurated on July 23rd 2009 at Lionel Wendt Gallery.

The exhibition will remain open from July 24th 2009 to July 28th 2009 from 10am to 7pm.

Parallel exhibition- A retrospective of Chandraguptha Thenuwara’s “Barrelism” is being held at Saskia Fernando Gallery from July 23rd 2009 to August 6th 2009.

Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday from 10am to 7pm, Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 5pm.

The exhibition is organised by Vibhavi Academy of Fine Arts (VAFA).

Chandraguptha Thenuwara is a senior lecturer at the University of Visual Arts in Colombo. He is also the Director of Vibhavi-Academy of Fine Arts, which was founded in 1993.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

“Post- Barrelism: Erasing Camouflage”

"At this moment “Barrelism” has emerged into a new phase- that of “Post- Barrelism”. I say this because there is now an official statement that the “war is over”, that at least some aspects of the war that terrorized our society for three decades and disrupted our lives have now come to n end.

Since, it is now official that the “war is over” our society which is highly militarized should begin a process of de-militarisation. If rightful thinking (Samma Sathi) prevails, we should no longer go back to war mongering. This exhibition is an open invitation to consider this possibility.

No one will de-camouflage society for us. “They” will propose many reasons for not doing so. The responsibility to ensure that we do not slide back into war is ours alone, we cannot delegate it to others. Although the war is officially over, terror and displacement are not completely at an end. They have many faces. While the time has come to change the yellow-black-green camouflage of the past to white, we can perceive that this camouflage has taken on a new aspect transforming to red-orange.

This exhibition is making a statement and communicating through the language of colour as a signifier of signs. However the path to real and abiding peace is a complex one. This “victory” obtained through the sacrifice of valuable lives should lead to a harmonious amalgam of socio-economic, political, cultural and spiritual spheres.

Selfish opportunities should not be permitted to distort, betray and forfeit this hard fought “victory” as is indicated by works at this “Post- Barrelism” exhibition.

The responsibility to protect the right to life is ours, so that these un-commemorable, terrible and inhuman memories will never be experienced again."- Chandraguptha Thenuwara

Great Collection of Uniforms and Fashions

2009-07-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

extensive collection of stewardess / flight attendant uniforms

Here's a great reference for airline uniform designs throughout the years.

http://www.uniformfreak.com/

some japanese street styles. very interesting and unusual clothes, some details are hot.

http://www.japanesestreets.com/photos/
http://www.style-arena.jp/index_e.htm
http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
http://www.supermodels.nl

http://www.asos.com/
http://www.chictopia.com/

this is an excellent resource for keeping up with what all of the fashion pro's are doing. There are incredible amounts if photos of contemporary fashion design here:

http://men.style.com/

specifically here. if you browse by designer and look at their complete collections, that's where the money is. you can also look back through most designer's histories for at least 8 years or so:

http://men.style.com/fashion/collect...EN/runwayshows

The same goes for women's fashion:

http://www.style.com/

again, the really good stuff is here, sort by designer:

http://www.style.com/fashionshows/collections/S2009RTW/

www.otto.nl
www.esprit.com (Like this one, because you can get a bit larger than average size images)

www.reiss.co.uk/lookbook

heres a couple of good ones: (found through marc taros site)

http://fabricmag.com/

http://www.s-inc.com/news/heaven.php?catid=118

http://hautemacabre.com/

http://skingraftdesigns.com/news

http://www.venuswept.org/blog/