Posts Tagged ‘blog’
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Roman (crowdSPRING username: Romasuave ) today. Roman lives and work in Northridge, California.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
My name is Roman Faiman, I am 37, husband to a wonderful woman and father to 2 amazing children, Ben who is 7 and Olivia, 4. We reside in Northridge, a suburb of Los Angeles and I do all of my designing from the comforts of my home studio/Kids play room.
I have a full time job, an Art Department Manager for a printing company, I handle all of the work that comes in and I prep it for printing, which is at times an arduous task since many so called graphic design gurus don’t really know how to set up their files for proper printing. On top of that I also spend a good 30-40% of my day creating designs for our clients. Our biggest account that I am involved in designing is The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, for whom I have designed anything from brochures to presentation folders to event books.
After my work day is over it’s time to work for my company, 4-8 Designs, my main focus at the moment is photo retouching, with print design, including logos, stationary secondary. My website is www.4-8designs.com
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Tags: 12 questions, blog, community, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, design, designer, graphic design, graphics design, graphics designer, inspiration, interview, logo, logo design, logos, Roman Faiman, Romasuave, weekly glance of awesomeness
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, design, inspiration, Interviews, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Debs & Johnny (crowdSPRING username: UsBeingUs ) today. Debs & Johnny live and work in the countryside of central Portugal.
1. Please tell us about yourselves.
Well firstly what a lovely surprise to be asked to do this, we are touched and honoured – thank you – you will certainly get to see some of the diversity within your crowd 
Well here goes, our story……I think it could be long, so I’ll leave our previous professional background to our own website if anyone wants to know it. But UsBeingUs started really with us finding us – Johnny & I had both previously been married and when we met we were literally start again teenagers in our mid thirties – we were living in England at the time and had very normal busy lives, however we were on an uphill climb as we were start again financially too – we were often ‘stressed out’ and to be honest not necessarily the nicest of people, we had
become snappy, irritable, with little time to relax and enjoy what’s real – thankfully we recognised who we were becoming and felt it was time to try things a different way to see if we could get a bit more balance in our lives – I have traveled quite a bit previously and whilst I love my homeland, I also love the warmth and slower, more relaxed lifestyle that some other countries manage to lead – to be honest we didn’t really know what we were looking for we just knew that we wanted to experience something different, try life a different way – so we took the plunge to experience a more rural lifestyle and moved to Brittany in France in 2003. We were lucky enough to find a beautiful former farm, which we renovated together. A busy time for us as we had a big mortgage and bills to pay – but being in the countryside with space around us did give us the opportunity to experience a different way of life – we chose not have a television, which was one of the best decisions we ever made, everyone always asks us what you do???
Well we got in touch with our surroundings to begin with and we talked, we read, we surfed the net & we opened our minds to new ideas – we began finding out who we really were and discovering what felt right for us – we became vegans, our furry friends started to find us. We also took the time to teach ourselves new skills, the main ones for us, our art and graphic design, passions that have grown and grown
We decided to continue to follow our love of a more natural life & our creative passions – so we gave up the house, the heating, the running water, the dishwasher, the luxuries, the mortgage and the bills and have opted for living in a yurt here in stunning countryside of central Portugal – We have a lovely riverside plot of land and are surrounded by nothing other than nature. We live with our furry family of animals, all of whom have found their way to us one way or another, we have 14 gorgeous dogs and a cat – not planned, just fate
We are lucky enough to have had the love and patience of our family and friends, who may not quite understand what on earth we are doing, but nonetheless give us their support both with their love and their finances at times – thank you so much – you are all here with us in our hearts x
We have just had our third anniversary of living here in Portugal and so far so good, there are certainly challenges and certainly some we were not expecting, having so many dogs was one of those So it took a while with many ups and downs, but this last year, we have been finding our rhythm and so far so good – We love our ‘off grid’ lifestyle here and in time we hope to become as self sufficient as possible with a forest food garden & permaculture system – we are also just starting the process of building our own handmade ecological home to accommodate us all – That should be fun
We have now become I guess what could be described in today’s terms as an alternative couple, with a wide range of interests and ‘cookey ideas’ but in fact as you can possibly see from our art we are probably more traditional than most…
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Tags: 12 questions, blog, community, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, Debs & Johnny, design, designer, graphic design, graphics design, graphics designer, illustration, inspiration, interview, logo, logo design, logos, UsBeingUs, weekly glance of awesomeness, writing
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, design, inspiration, Interviews, Uncategorized, writing | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Kate Casey (crowdSPRING username: katecasey ) today. Kate lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
1. Please tell us about yourself – A lady never reveals her age, so we’ll skip that part. I am a native Floridian transplanted to Minnesota. “How did THAT work,” you say?! My husband tricked me. That’s 
how. For now I work in the mortgage industry; I’m an administrative assistant. One day, I would love to be able to parlay my love of writing into a career. But for now I must just bring home the bacon; or the cheddar. Whichever euphemism you’d like to use.
2. How did you become interested in writing? – I have always had a love of words and telling a great story. It’s a funny thing to admit, but I could stand around telling stories for hours to anyone willing to listen. The art of weaving a story is like a drug for me. It works the same with writing, creating something on paper that someone else might find interesting is so much fun for me. It’s not at all like work. I am most certainly a frustrated artist.
3. Who/what are some of the biggest influences on your writing? – I don’t know that I have any one, particular influence – Maybe Stephen King. I love his books and I’ve read them all; some of them more than twice. That’s a strange juxtaposition for someone who loves comedy as much as I do. I love observational humor. I watch things happen and how people react. I love to incorporate that into my writing. The best things always come from real life.
4. Please tell us about your favorite projects. – As far as cS goes, I like the web content projects. They really give you a lot creative freedom. I really LOVE taglines. They are like telling an interesting story in very short form. My favorite projects to work on are the ones where the buyer really gets involved and gives feedback. So many projects you get no feedback at all. That’s a bit frustrating, because I know that when I get feedback it inspires me to really put my thinking cap on. I appreciate it so much when I get those comments, good or bad from the buyer. It steers me in the direction that I need to go and from there new ideas blossom. It helps so much. I wish I could stress that fact to each and every person that has a job on cS – give feedback; you’ll get great results in return.
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Tags: 12 questions, blog, community, copywriting, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, inspiration, interview, Kate Casey, katecasey, weekly glance of awesomeness, writing
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, inspiration, Interviews, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Dragan Lončar (crowdSPRING username: draganfly) today. Dragan lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
Hi everybody! I am Dragan. I finished graphic design at Belgrade University some fourteen years ago and ever since this is mostly what I’ve been doing, getting to the level of jobs like Art and Creative Director. Apart form my inherited immediate family, I have another family, consisting of my fellow human rights defenders, and the youngsters that need some support in building self-esteem and major encouragement, since it is very difficult to be gay in Serbia. I also have enemies, but I assure you that I never did anything to turn them against me, except for my liberal sense of humour and their unfounded envy. I lived almost a year in Helsinki, Finland, and over six years in London, UK, where I had various experiences in fast paced market, even to the point of being a Creative Partner in my own company that was buried after several unpaid pitches, just after a half million pounds budget branding and launch campaign. Somebody would say that I was never bored in my life as sometimes I cannot recall all the details. Also, because my design interests and experiences are so diverse. I practice Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism as the tool of global peace movement through the SGI organisation, changing my karma and doing something what is called ‘the human revolution’. I am one of the leaders in SGI Serbia. I love cooking the mix of Mediterranean, Scandinavian, Japanese and Thai food, and love swimming and jogging. All of that, of course, when I can grab some time from super needy clients and horrible socio-political situation in Serbia. Currently I count 38 years of age, but who’s counting… I intend to stay forever young!
2. How did you become interested in design?
When I was a child, my parents were not really poor but we lived very modestly. I was never bribed with toys, or I always wanted the most expensive ones which they couldn’t afford. I was always inclined toward quality rather than quantity. Since my sister is much older than me, I could be considered as a single child who was often alone. So I spent time making castles of playing cards, or I would recycle any packaging that would come into my hands, and make furniture, cars, or anything that I could resemble or that took my fancy at given moment. Later, I don’t see if I really had a conscious choice. It was more an inclination that had to be fulfilled.
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Tags: 12 questions, ads, advertising, blog, branding, community, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, design, designer, Dragan Lončar, draganfly, graphic design, graphics design, graphics designer, inspiration, interview, marketing, package design, packaging design, weekly glance of awesomeness
Posted in Awesomeness, business, community, crowdsourcing, design, inspiration, Interviews, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
Although project galleries on crowdSPRING can be visible to all users, crowdSPRING offers buyers the option to make their project galleries completely private.
We put together this short tutorial to help you understand the differences between public and private galleries and to answer some of the most common questions we regularly hear from users, including: Do public or private galleries get more entries? Which one is better for which type of project? Can gallery settings be changed after a project is posted?
PUBLIC (open) GALLERY
In a design project, the entries in a public gallery are visible to all users (in writing projects, the galleries are always private). If the project has an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) the gallery is visible after the NDA is executed.
When buyers score entries, creatives can only see their own scores and comments from the buyer (until after a project is awarded, when scores – but not comments – are revealed). Creatives can use the “Project stats” tool at the top of the gallery to decide if the buyer is active in the project (this tool show the total number of comments and the score distribution in the project).
PROs
FOR THE BUYER - Although opinions are split about open and closed galleries, we’ve found that more creatives tend to participate in open gallery projects (there are plenty of exceptions, because the size of the award, quality of the brief, and other factors also play an important role). Since we make it very easy for anyone to report potential violations of intellectual property, open galleries also make it easier for other participants to flag problem entries.
FOR THE CREATIVE – The creatives can see the competition, how other designers solve the problem, and bring up their own designs accordingly. They may also see if they can add something new to the project, or realize the competition is too stiff, and choose to move on to something else.
CONs
FOR THE BUYER – If a buyer is concerned about privacy, open galleries may not be the best option. A public gallery will allow others to see the ideas in the gallery. So if you’re concerned about privacy, you should definitely consider a private gallery. Also, some creatives only prefer to work in private gallery projects. This is a minor point because overall, participation in open gallery projects is very high.
FOR THE CREATIVE- If a creative has a unique concept, posting in an open gallery will show others that concept – and some creatives are leery of letting other creatives see (and potentially copy) their work in progress. We have strict rules about concept copying (see Q&A 14 in our post about intellectual property) – if an original concept is copied, the creative can easily report the entry by clicking ”Report violation” in the details view for that entry.
PRIVATE (closed) GALLERY
In a private gallery, only the buyer can see all of the submissions. Creatives only see their own entries in that project.
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Tags: blog, community, creative, creativity, crowdspring, design, designer, gallery, graphic design, graphics design, logo design, private gallery, public gallery
Posted in community, crowdsourcing, design, Site Updates | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Grace Wall Conlon (crowdSPRING username: gracewc) today. Grace is from Brooklyn, New York and currently lives and works in Provo, Utah.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
Date of Birth: December 7, 1921 (I am in my 90th year and still working as a free-lance writer. I do not ever plan to retire.)
Although I’ve lived and worked in many other cities and states, I still consider Brooklyn to be my home town. I’ve lived in Wantagh, L.I; Boynton Beach, FL; Greenwich, CT; the Hamptons, L.I. N.Y.; Westport, CT; the Upper East Side of Manhattan, N.Y.; Bountiful, UT; Salt Lake City, UT; Orem, UT; Spanish Fork, UT; Provo, UT (where I currently reside).
I’ve written for newspapers and magazines in many of these places, e.g. as a columnist for Advertising Age in NYC; technical writer for Marketing Communications magazine, NYC; publisher/writer, illustrator for The Sandpiper magazine, Boca Raton; reporter for Greenwich Time/The Advocate, Stamford, CT; reporter/columnist for Utah County Journal, Springville, UT; reporter/columnist for Orem Daily News, Orem, UT; reporter/columnist for The Spanish Fork Press, Spanish Fork, UT; columnist for the Daily Herald, Provo, UT; contributor to Utah Business magazine; contributor to Connect magazine, UT.
2. How did you become interested in writing?
I’ve been writing all my life – prose, poetry, technical studies, short stories, novels, news stories, investigative journalism – just about any form of writing you might imagine. I wrote my first poem at seven years of age and I still write both serious poetry and jingles. I’ve written three novels, one of which I self-published. I am considering doing the same for the second one. I’ve also written a screen play for an animated feature but other than submitting it to the Academy ofMotion Picture Arts several years ago during a contest, I’ve done nothing more with it. It made it to the final leg of the contest, though. The screen play was expanded from an original short story I wrote for a magazine I was publishing in Florida.
I really write because I need this outlet, I guess. The business end of promoting my work leaves me absolutely cold.
My published novel is “Satan’s Caravan, A Victory Over the Adversary.” I wrote it in 1978 but didn’t self-publish until 1995. This novel has a very interesting story attached to it and, if you would like, I’ll tell the background in a separate story. Some very unusual aspects prompted me to self publish.
3. Who/what are some of the biggest influences on your writing?
My interest in writing continued through my school years, both in grade school and high school. My freshman- grade English teacher was very instrumental in establishing the discipline that most writers, including myself, really need; e.g. to write every day, even when you don’t feel like writing. Students in this teacher’s class had to write a short theme every day and maintain a notebook of them. By the end of the term, even the most uncooperative among us, had to concede that this daily exercise really worked. The improvement each of us showed in our work was quite evident.
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Tags: 12 questions, advertising, blog, community, copywriting, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, Grace Wall Conlon, inspiration, interview, marketing, weekly glance of awesomeness, writing
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, inspiration, Interviews, marketing, Uncategorized, writing | 3 Comments »
Monday, July 11th, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature MJ (crowdSPRING username: UpQuark) today. MJ lives and works in the desert southwest of the US.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
My name is MJ (I’m a female “Junior”). Contrary to popular belief, I was not spawned, but rather hatched in the northeast region of the US. I live in the desert southwest US, and am the youngest of four girls who, oddly and inexplicably, were not hatched. The explanation is classified, even to me.
Okay, so random tidbit (or is it random? We’ll see…): I’m ambidextrous. Not in a perfect-handwriting-with-either-hand kind of way, because my handwriting isn’t… oh wait! My handwriting is equally bad with either hand, so there ya have it. Clarification issue solved.
I actually do believe that my ambidexterity translates into everything I do, in that my logical and creative sides tend to balance each other out, or slap each other around, depending on what’s needed. I’m often frenetically creative and possess hyperfocus superpowers (unless I see something shiny, and not in a girly way; I mean like futuristic spacecraft shiny. Or escaped mercury). My sister and I can riff on creative ideas faster than a… something really fast, or get extremely excited about something really geeky. If I get too hyped, there’s cheap entertainment to be had. Think superball let loose on a vibrating surface.
So, linear background.
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Tags: 12 questions, blog, community, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, design, designer, graphic design, graphics design, graphics designer, inspiration, interview, logo, logo design, logos, MJ, UpQuark, weekly glance of awesomeness
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, design, inspiration, Interviews, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Keith Woodruff (crowdSPRING username: Dayshift) today. Keith lives and works in Akron, Ohio.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
I am an ex ad agency writer and am freelancing now as gRasShoPpEr Communication. (The big and small font is an e.e. cummings thing.) My hobbies are, in this order I suppose, reading and writing, fishing, hor
ror movies, craft beer (all hail Lagunitas) and jogging to run off the beer – and to smooth out the edges. I have two Border Terriers, Otty and Indy, and am haunted by the ghosts of my cats Katie and Paisley. My first love was the ocean, the Pacific, even though during my childhood there the Zodiac Killer was hiding down every path. One of my favorite foods is Blind Robins. I makes em and eats em, much to the disgust of everyone around. (If you have to ask you’ll be sorry.)
2. How did you become interested in writing?
I would have to say reading made me interested in writing. (Have always been an avid reader.) I read Of Mice and Men in high school and was devastated, in a good way if that makes any sense. I thought, if I could ever write a story this gorgeous that would be quite an accomplishment. Then there was the whole Stephen King thing.
3. Who/what are some of the biggest influences on your writing?
… Third base. I think the word play of classic comedy had a big influence on my advertising writing. I remember loving the word gags of Abbott and Costello as a kid (and still do.) as well as Laurel and Hardy and imitated their style of word play whenever I could. Later Steve Martin, George Carlin, Steven Wright, more wordsmiths. I think that that love of word play and sense of humor about language helped me with some of my best headlines and also makes it hard to get a straight answer out of me—or so I am constantly told.
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Tags: 12 questions, ads, advertising, blog, branding, community, copywriting, creative, creativity, crowdspring, Dayshift, design, graphic design, graphics design, inspiration, interview, Keith Woodruff, marketing, weekly glance of awesomeness, writing
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, inspiration, Interviews, Uncategorized, writing | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Troy Tessalone (crowdSPRING username: TroyTess) today.Troy lives and works in Redondo Beach, CA.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
Hello world! Troy Tessalone here. I’m a creative who participates in Writing projects on crowdSPRING, or in other words I primarily name stuff. As a 24 year old, I’m nearing my quarter century age crisis. I was born and raised in the South Bay area of Southern California, which is also where I currently live and work. The South Bay is a group of beach cities about 30 minutes to an hour (depending on traffic) southwest of downtown Los Angeles. In May 2008, I earned my B.S. in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing from the University of Southern California (USC), where I also took some Information Technology courses like how to build a website. Needless to say, I’m a USC Trojan, tried and true. By day, I work for an online advertising company, where I’m a Web Production Analyst. That’s geek speak for saying I work on the technical side of the business interfacing with systems and dealing with a lot of data. I consider myself a social media junkie and someone who keeps up with technology. I’d rather be busy than bored, so I’m always looking for ways to be immersed in the world around me and enjoy what life has to offer. I believe everyone is a product of their environment and I’m certainly no exception. “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” is the motto I live my life by. I came across that quote while reading the graduation speech Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005. That quote immediately struck a cord with me and I’ve strived to live my life based upon it ever since.
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Tags: 12 questions, blog, community, copywriting, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, domain naming, inspiration, interview, marketing, naming, tagline, taglines, Troy Tessalone, TroyTess, weekly glance of awesomeness, writing
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, inspiration, Interviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, November 22nd, 2010
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Rod MacGregor (crowdSPRING username: Rodesign) today. Rod lives and works in Valencia, Spain.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
I feel honored that crowdSPRING flew me out to Chicago on Ross’s private jet for this interview. Thanks guys. (Ha,ha).
I live in a small mountain village near the Mediterranean Sea, in the community of Valencia in Spain.
I was Born in England and lived there for the first forty years of my life. I am married and have a daught
er, 8 and a son 3. We moved to Spain seven and a half years ago for a culture change and have enjoyed every moment of it. I suppose in the back of my mind, I wish I could have started this interview by saying that I worked for a number of top design agencies around the world and I’m only 28…But that is far from the truth. The truth is I am 47 years old and have worked as a waiter, a shipping clerk, a Tug Boat Skipper(14 years),a builders mate, an electricians mate, a pine tree planter (in the Spanish mountains), a house painter and a car test driver (in South Africa). I don’t regret a minute of it…I suppose I would have been bored if I’d have sat in a design office for all of that time!
My artistic work during my life includes, book illustration, greetings card design, animation, painting, architectural 3d visualization, sculpture, video and installation and I have a First class honours degree in Fine Art.
2. How did you become interested in design?
I got a good feeling inside from seeing creations and artwork by others. We are surrounded by design in our lives and it’s hard not to be interested in it.
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Tags: 12 questions, art, artist, blog, community, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, design, graphic design, graphics design, graphics designer, illustration, interview, logo, logo design, logos, Rod MacGregor, Rodesign, weekly glance of awesomeness
Posted in Awesomeness, community, design, inspiration, Interviews, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
