Posts Tagged ‘graphic design’
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, November 15th, 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 Svetlana (crowdSPRING username: Allmond) today. Svetlana lives and work in Sofia Bulgaria.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
To be honest I don’t have the slightest idea (how I happened to be in the spotlight) why I am in the spotlight. It’s nice to meet you. My name (translates into) means “light”. There are scattered letters in my left hand, and northern wind in my hairs. I imagine the light, I spend my time playing the space clockwise and back, searching for the meanings, 
reaching for horizons, wondering why do we alibi only for what we’ve done, and not for what we never dare to do.
I live in Sofia | Bulgaria | (Southeastern) Europe.
2. How did you become interested in design?
Do you remember the magic of the dark room, the way the images appear on the white paper…?
I was in love with photography since I was13. As I graduated MA in Fine Art Photography, I was flying for a private air company, and working as a TV presenter for a photography edition. A teacher of mine used to say that living on a peninsula we’re (torned) torn between the water and the land. My heart was torn in few directions and neither of them was enough for itself. I think that the design gives the best opportunity to (see in your mind’s eye) envision in the most creative way ideas, visions and traveling … of brain mind, a perfect (symbiosis among) connection between water, land and air.
3. Which of your designs are your favorites and why?
First of all I have 2 favourite design projects – my daughter Ema (8) and my son Dimiter (almost 6). They never stop inspiring me, teaching me, (ushering me into the land of creativity) showing me how to be more creative. It’s amazing how we can discover the world through the eyes of the children. About my graphic design projects – certainly I try to give my best for every single design, and I feel happy and satisfied when my works are appreciated. I always say to my clients that they have to be 100% happy and comfortable with the result, so this is what matters to me – when a good idea finds the right way to show off. Not everything I like is what the client likes, so what is important is that we meet in between.
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Tags: 12 questions, Allmond, community, creative, creativity, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, design, designer, graphic design, graphics design, graphics designer, inspiration, package design, packaging design, print design, weekly glance of awesomeness
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, design, inspiration, Interviews, Uncategorized | 9 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 »
Monday, October 17th, 2011
What is a freelancer if not a small business? Just like small businesses, freelancers must engage in marketing, manage payables and receivables and other accounting tasks, perform HR functions, direct production, and plan strategy.
1. Planning and strategy. There are lots of great tools and apps out there that will help you to plan and execute great strategy for your freelance career or business, but the greatest tool you can use is knowledge. The Harvard Business Review is probably the leading publication for business and their an online journal contains thousands of articles nonbusiness theory, practice, and technique. The current issue of HBR includes articles which can provide great value to freelancers, such as “Stop Procrastinating…Now,” “Customer Loyalty in the Twitter Era,” and “he Secret to Dealing With Difficult People: It’s About You.”
2. Marketing. The single greatest marketing tool that a freelancers can use is standing directly in front of you: your clients. Happy customers talk, and when they talk about you or your business, the people they speak to listen. The typical freelancer will receive well over half of their new clients through word of mouth, and strong WOM builds business. Wikipedia defines it thus, “Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. Two great resources are Salesforce and Zoho.com. These two online resources allow you to plan and manage marketing campaigns, manage lead generation, automate sales management, perform inventory and customer support functions, and analyze and visualize customer data.
3. Managing HR. The human resources manager is typically one of the most important (and feared) members of the corporate management team. They typically manage processes that touch every employee every day: payroll, health benefits, incentive programs, performance reviews, pension and retirement plans, and vacation policies. But freelancers do all of this on their own, and more. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is the world’s largest association devoted to human resource management. Their website has a ton of resources for small businesses and freelancers, including articles, forms and templates, and user groups and forums, as well as information on other resources such as health care benefits, employee assistance programs, and retirement plans.
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Tags: accounting, client, CRM, customer, customer service, designer, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, freelance, freelancer, graphic design, inspiration, leadership, marketing, project management, small biz, small business, smallbiz, start-up, startup, startups, Strategy
Posted in business, How To, inspiration, marketing, start-up tips, Strategy | 11 Comments »
Monday, September 26th, 2011
Just about everybody has one. Your desk has probably is littered with little piles of them. I would be willing to bet good money, that right now you have a few of your own in your wallet or purse. In the past year you have probably handed out and received literally hundreds of these tiny leaflets – an ongoing marketing effort that we don’t often think of as marketing.
Small businesses can spend tens of thousands of dollars with direct marketing efforts that might include mailers, trade show handouts, brochures, door-hangers, coupons, product spec sheets and more. But what we don’t do is treat that little 2″x3.5″ slip of paper with our name and contact info as what it is: the best opportunity you have to market yourself or your business to a truly targeted and captive audience: the person to whom you hand it.
It is time to think of your business card as not just a handy way to share your email address, but as a selling opportunity. Approach the design and content of your business card differently – stop right now to consider what other messaging, information, or purpose your card might include. Here are seven ways you can leverage those tiny slips of paper to spread the word, stand out from the crowd, and make the most of each and every opportunity to market your company.
1. Multitask.
Your business card can serve purposes other than just sharing your info. Creative business people are using their’s to offer discounts, include coupons, serve as event tickets, note cards, or appointment cards. Clever and fun uses like scratch cards or stickers can be memorable and can encourage the recipient to hold onto that card and jog their memory about you at an opportune moment. Oh, I know – make your card a bookmark so that they will see a remind of you every time they put down their Jacqueline Susann!
2. Drill-down.
Your card can include your own QR code or SKU and can encourage the other person to come have a look at your site. This way potential leads can view additional information or even receive discounts or other incentives. This is also a great way to track the efficacy of the card – you will know that every user who comes to the URL via that code was someone whom you met at a given event. Not a bad way to measure conversions of a very different sort.
3. Testify.
Another great marketing strategy is to show a potential customer how others like them have benefitted by using your product or service. We do this in other marketing materials, why not use the back of your business card for a short testimonial from a happy customer? Quotes, photos, and links can help to illustrate how others have used your business successfully and can provide the confirmation that a potential customer needs.
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Tags: advertising, creativity, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, graphic design, inspiration, leadership, marketing, pr, public relations, small biz, small business, smallbiz, start-up, startup, startups, Strategy
Posted in business, How To, inspiration, marketing, start-up tips, Strategy | 4 Comments »
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
I stumbled on a fun project by Alessandro Novelli, an Italian designer who created a spelling video, where each character is the initial letter of a font name. Here’s the short video:
If you’re interested, here’s a nice writeup on how Alessandro Novelli created the video.
Tags: creative, design, graphic design, typography, video
Posted in Awesomeness, community, design, inspiration | No 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 3rd, 2011
In June, we announced that we would be issuing a monthly cS Award to honor quality work by designers and writers in the crowdSPRING community.
We are thrilled to announce that July’s award will go to cloud168, who had the site’s highest average Buyer score for the month!
cloud168 has been a crowdSPRING member since October, 2008 and comes from Indonesia. We are proud to have him in our community as a wonderful Creative and are proud that he will receive the $1,000 cS Award for July.
Thanks to everyone who participated last month, and special thanks to cloud168, and congratulations on winning the cS Award!
Image: cloud168
Tags: crowdspring, cS Award, design, graphic design, graphics design, graphics designer, writing
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, design | 19 Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
The August cS Award of $1,000 will be given to a designer who does the most to upgrade their crowdSPRING portfolio in the next 4 weeks.
To be eligible, you must upload, during the month of August, at least five (5) new portfolio items. In case of a tie, the award will go to the creative who has the highest average buyer score for their entries in August.
You do not need to win a project to be eligible for the August award.
Good luck to everyone!
Tags: community, crowdsourcing, crowdspring, cS Award, design, graphic design, graphic designer
Posted in Awesomeness, community, crowdsourcing, design, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
