How to Overcome the Challenges to Creativity

There are some interesting movies coming out this year: The Lion King, Toy Story 4, Aladdin, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, and Spider-Man: Far From Home just to name a few. It seems like sequels and remakes dominate our current culture.

So, why are these types of movies so popular to make?

10 Gift Ideas for Designers — Most Under $50

If you have friends or family who are designers, here's a list of gift ideas they would love to get. (Ahem. I know I would.)

Neat Trick to Create Donut Pie Charts in Illustrator

Sometimes I use Illustrator to make quick charts and graphs for infographics I'm building. Here's a quick way to create donut charts and keep the data intact within Illustrator — which allows me to edit at will.

Organizing Photoshop Files

Last time I talked about how you can organize computer folders to work more efficiently.

Here is a great resource I've referred to often for organizing Photoshop files and naming conventions. Make sure to bookmark this:

Photoshop Etiquette

How to Develop Mad Skills as a Designer

Sometimes it's easy to forget we need to do professional development on a regular basis. Even though I've been doing this for over 25 years, and I still need to train and develop my skill set and my thinking. Even writing this blog forces me to improve my processes and thinking. (Now I'm in the throes of redesigning my website to be more responsive and easier to manage.) There are several ways to improve as a designer. But here are a few basic ideas that are not new, but great places to start:

4 Reasons Why Writing Helps Me be a Better Designer

I’ve been in the habit of writing for quite some time. Last year I wrote articles in this space consistently once every week. My writing process included brainstorming, drafting, and editing. But this year, I’m not regular at all. What happened? Life got real tough.

The Truth About Job Interviews

If you are a graphic designer looking for full-time employment you might get your share of interviews. One question that frequently comes up is, "Why do you want to work with us?" Some designers get caught off-guard on this, and think the best approach is to wax eloquent about the virtues of working for the company, shared values, and so on. But everyone knows you probably are applying because they have an opening. That's about it. But to be fair, there are occasions when designers really apply because they like the organization, how they do business, the industry, or like the company goals. But most of the time designers just want the job because

Strategy for Overcoming Price Objections

Every industry has this problem. Customers always want something for free (or close to free as possible). This is nothing new, but the internet has elevated this desire. I remember there was a time when I was asked to design a poster. And the requester thought that if they offered me $25 that I would jump at the chance to do their work. Of course that didn't happen.

5 Reasons Sketching is Powerful

There are many reasons to sketch. Sometimes it can help you build your skill set. Sometimes it can help you make art. Sometimes it can help you generate design ideas. But getting into the habit of sketching can help you more than you know.

1. Sketching helps you clarify client requests. When a client tries to describe what they want, try sketching what the client is asking for during the discussion. It can help both the client and you clarify the request, because you both are visualizing the ideas. A good sketch can open doors of further dialog and getting clearer specifics.

2. Sketching helps you get ideas flowing quickly and freely. Even if you don't have any ideas when you begin, just the act of drawing forces you to generate ideas — even if they aren't very good at first. The more you do this the more you can generate and get those "a-ha" moments.

3. Sketching helps you visualize a complex idea or process. Sometimes words and explanations can be vague and hard to understand. But when you can sketch a diagram, you can get the big picture much quicker. And it can help you formulate the questions to get further clarification. The more your understanding grows, the more helpful your diagram will become. Who knows? The diagram might become the catalyst for a great project idea. Try this with mind-mapping techniques.

4. Sketching helps you plan better. Sometimes outlining helps when planning writing, actions, goals, or projects. But try to sketch first. Sketching will free you up to think in an unstructured manner. This will give you the creative fuel to make your plans more creative and thoughtful, rather than just structured.

5. Sketching can improve your health. Although sketching helps in many other ways, it helps you relax and think better. Next time, when you are pressed for time, pick up a pencil or pen and start sketching and doodling. You just might feel better.

Designing in a Box

I've been working as an in-house designer for some time now. And one thing we've been doing is using an Agile approach to marketing and design. Although I was a little skeptical at first, I found it to be an interesting experiment. And one thing I've learned from the experience is the value of time-boxing.

What I mean is that I've been getting in the habit of breaking all my various work into 3 hour segments. I know some people break their time down to 20-30 minute pieces, but I'm finding it more helpful for me to break it down in 3 hour segments.

Back to School Ideas for Designers

It’s that time of year again where everybody is returning to classes or have kids in school. By this time everyone is in full swing here in the U.S. This is a great time to consider upping our design skills and education. Here are few ideas:

4 Good Slideshows About Color in Design

Here are a few SlideShare slideshows about color that I like. Hope you do too:

The Power of Color in Branding from dezinegirl creative studio

Color For Dummies from ade chrisnadhi

Design - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly! from Ethinos Digital Marketing

CSS3 Colors from Russ Weakley

How to be Creative Without Trying So Hard

"Make it pop."
"Make it really stand out from the rest."
"Make it exciting."
"Make it creative."

There are many ways of saying it, but everyone wants their project to be noticed, taken seriously, and remembered. The question is not does it look good, but does it communicate the intended message in an unexpected manner and still look good.

Work Faster and Easier in InDesign

If you work in InDesign a lot, there's a way set yourself up for success. Make it your own.

Start by opening up InDesign with no documents open. (I've done this in CS 5 and 6 on the Mac. I'm sure other versions will be similar. Some procedures may vary on the PC.)

How to Move from Being a Busy Designer to a Productive Designer

One of the biggest mistakes designers make is confusing frantic activity with productivity. When we think of project management, it's not about breaking projects down on a spreadsheet. It’s about prioritizing based on what’s important and what’s urgent. Steven Covey’s book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, shows how to chart the urgent vs. the important

How Graphic Designers Can Find Their Own Niche Market

A niche is a subset of the business population (or market). It can be as broad as the education market, or as small as trade school instructors. For instance, if you are an interactive designer, you could limit your market from those who need interactive design to businesses in education or trade school instructors who need interactive design. The only catch is

How to Avoid Finding Graphic Design Inspiration in All the Wrong Places

There are good reasons to find inspiration from other designer’s work. But inexperienced designers can miss the inherent danger.

My Graphic Design Theme for the Year

At the beginning of 2013, I said it would be my year of Creativity. So, how did I do?

How to Design a Creative Brief in MS Word

This is a repost of an earlier article. Merry Christmas.



I've said several times how important it is to begin every project with a creative brief. Well, it's a great idea for designers to enable their clients to help them with this. The easiest way to do this is to offer their clients a creative brief template. However, I can almost guarantee you that nine times out of ten clients would prefer that those templates be in Word for easy editing.

I understand a beautiful form can be created as a PDF, but for some reason

A Few of My Favorite Things

At this time of year it's a good time to share and reflect. In this article I want to do a bit of both. I want to share some of the presentations I really have enjoyed this year — not only because of design, but because of their good content. Also, I want to reflect on where presentation design may be heading.

Here is some great presentation advice and a great example of a well-designed presentation:

You Suck At PowerPoint! by @jessedee from Jesse Desjardins - @jessedee

Also, here's some interesting facts and stats about customer service:

75 Customer Service Facts, Quotes & Statistics from Help Scout

And, some great advice on the proper use of Twitter:

Retweet Abuse: Birdy Bragging and the Importance of Being Human on Twitter from Gary Vaynerchuk

Finally, where presentations may be heading for the future:

7 Trends in Public Speaking and Presentations (Part 1)
7 Trends in Public Speaking and Presentations (Part 2)