Articles
The Dreaded Box
I've been thinking a lot lately about stability versus spontaneity, freedom versus structure. Sometimes I find myself saying things like, "You can't grow unless you try new things, even if it's just trying a different shampoo every time you run out," and "If I die today, I won't care if the dishes were done." Then, on another day, I will preach that you can't live or grow in chaos. Humans need routines. Otherwise we inevitably feel lost.
So how does one keep oneself from teetering over the edge… or never even approaching the brink to see that gorgeous view? I'm wondering what it means to have structure and what it means to be free,...
Do this, Not that –
Overcoming Procrastination
As I sit here at my desk with yet another article deadline staring me in the face, I can't help but wonder if I'm the only one who is plagued by the appealing face of procrastination. Procrastination lures me away from my daily tasks and whisks me off to friend's houses, shoe stores, movie theaters and wine bars. I believe this character flaw can be attributed to owning my own business. As large design agencies close their doors due to a poor economy, more and more individuals are starting independent agencies or freelancing. While the pros far out way the cons, I've discovered being your own boss has its disadvantages. Sometimes you...
The Only Advertising Advice
You Will Ever Need
In the advertising business we all aspire to do something big, something memorable, something great that has never been done before; unfortunately not very many of us get the opportunity to present our big ideas to a multi-million dollar corporation. Many of us sit at our desk, some of us in cubicles with white walls, wondering where our integrity went. We mass produce someone else's creative work with no input on the project and wonder why we are given the title "Creative Director". The recently released documentary, ART & COPY, awakens the creative spirit in all of us, which has been subdued by clients dictating their ideas and...
WordPress Tutorial:
5 Ways to Shorten Your Post Titles
I am under the personal belief that post titles should be short, sweet and precise enough to get the point across without sounding like an awkward newspaper headline. Sadly not all titles follow the same belief and as a result, the layout of the website suffers. As noted on bavotasan.com "you can throw in as many keywords as you want in hopes that you might get more from Google, but I doubt that will really do anything for your site’s SEO." Long titles may not be explicitly linked to the focus of SEO, but they are still out there.
What are we going to do about it? We are going to present five different tested methods of truncating...
A Design Trend That Might
Cost You Your Job
If you're involved in the world of design, whether it is by trade or business necessity, then you are probably familiar with the term "spec design", also known as "crowdsourcing". The basic principal behind crowdsourcing is working for little or no compensation. There are entire companies devoted to spec design. For example, a company called 99 Designs posts projects, otherwise known as "contests", for businesses. If you're a company in need of design services, you only need to log on to their site and post your contest. These can range from a logo design, t-shirt design or a full-blown website design. Hundreds of designers compete for...
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