Being a designer isn’t always the rainbows and rivers of creativity that it seems from the outside looking in. It actually takes a lot of energy to take a unique approach to each project. What many people think is “easy to create a logo” or “easy to build a [simple] website” sometimes isn’t rudimentary at all. And when those days come we can get what I like to call designer’s block; where no matter how hard we try it is really hard to conceptualize a new creative thought. Here are some quick things you can do to help break that block.
Take a Walk or Hit The Gym
Stepping away from coding or designing a new logo can actually be pretty healthy. I’ll step away for a long walk, sometimes up to two miles just to really get my head clear. Listening to a podcast or music helps even better while taking that walk. Working out in a gym can also help and relieve a little bit of stress at the same time.
Take a Long Shower
I can’t tell you how many good ideas I come up with in shower or the loo. I used to think that maybe it had something with me being a Pisces but after several impromptu conversations with colleagues I find it’s not just me. Maybe it’s the running water that promotes a zen-like or calming environment, even if it is temporal.
Take a 30K View Look Down
When working on routine projects and something goes wrong along the way, we’re sometimes confused. Why would something break or go wrong, it never does at this point of the project. It doesn’t help that we can get tunnel vision and may have missed a step or forgot to confirm some details that are now vital.
Retrace your progress from the absolute beginning and review each step as if you were someone else checking someone else’s work
Perform an audit. Are you sure you have all the pertinent details necessary for your project?
Does someone else (with a specific expertise) need to finish this work?
So what are some things that you do to refresh your mind when you get stuck working on a project? Send me a Tweet me and let me know or comment below.
Recently we were asked to help setup a Facebook Business page and unless you follow the blogs on Facebook, each time you want to go in and make a change, they’ve updated their user interface and move things around. It’s supposed to make things easier but I beg to differ.
Anyways if you currently have a Facebook page now and use Messenger, you’ll want to be sure you turn on or even edit the options in the Response Assistant. It’s easy enough to get to (once you’ve found it the first time) by hitting the Settings at the top right then Messaging on the right menu
Once there scroll down until you see the Response Assistant.
Take a few minutes to fill out what you’d like your custom messages to be for each option. Be sure to save when you’re done, and you’re all set!
There’s a guy that I know here in Orlando that goes by the nickname Nemo. He’s got his hands in a lot of cookie jars and making use of each of them in ways that all come together under the idea of “Dreamers”. Alex Hanse is that thought leader behind the Foolies Limited Clothing. Chances are you’ve seen his inspirational t-shirts all around social media from Orlando, to New York, and on Hollywood Celebrities. It’s true, check it out on Instagram.
For Black History Month, Foolies is featuring a different Dreamer for each day of the month. I encourage you to follow them and see who else they’re featured and hopefully find some inspiration by their short bios and stories. I know I am inspired!
In this short instructional video, you’ll see how easy it is to connect your website to your social media channels so that when you publish a new post, it will automatically post to your social media accounts. Once you’ve installed and activated Jetpack you’ll be able to connect to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Linked In.
A couple of years ago I participated in the World Wide Instagram Meetup that was held at Lake Eola in downtown Orlando. I met a lot of nice people and some great photographers. Some of which are major influencers on Instagram too. In this photo we were all using the crystal ball to create photographs of our surroundings that ended up changing what we are familiar with when it comes to Lake Eola to a new creative spin.
While photography has changed over the years and current technology makes it much easier to get into, the mainstay I believe is the artistry and creativity in photography. While anyone can take a photo, not everyone has the same level of creativity. And that’s what makes this such a great art form.
Another new year has begun and prior to January first, like most of you, I had a good few goals I wanted to begin come the turn of the year. I imagined myself doing them, I wrote a few of them down on paper, and I barely started two of them. And that’s me being honest.
That hype that you have about fresh and newness is the same attitude most of your potential customers and visitors are also expecting from your website too. Because they are expecting this, we don’t want to let them down. This is why I’ve started to renew the idea of writing a quality post at least once a week as well as post much more regularly my photographic work on my social media sites.
Being a creative you’d think that I’d have a ton of materials for my website and social sites all the time ready to go. Well, to be honest, as a creative we’re probably the most critical over our work than most others in different trades. So below are five great changes you can make to your website to give it a fresh look for the start of 2017.
1: Update Your Home Page Graphics and Hero Graphics
Whenever landing on a website your eyes are usually first intrigued by the images and graphics that are at the top. Those visuals may be accompanied by text to better describe the graphic or also with buttons that lead to other pages or to a call to action or product. Think about how much better some more relevant images could do for your website in better describing your products or services.
2: Change Some Colors
Not saying you should change your brand identity, but maybe use some of your highlight or accent colors in a different way. Be subtle but make a fresh impact that leads to something worth looking at or reading for your website visitors. I’m recently working with a client where their logo is their first name in gold and they have a couple of other websites that could use the same gold color in the logo to create a linking motive while keeping separate identities for each website. It’s kind of like finding an easter egg in a Marvel movie – when you see it, you smile.
3: Use Video
Video explains so much and when done right will capture and keep the attention of your visitors a bit better than regular text and more so than a static image. For those of you with products, how about creating a video that describes how to use the product, how it saves time, or even the difference of your product over a competitor product. Other video ideas could be you describing what the website stands for, why it’s relevant, or better yet video testimonials from past and current customers.
4: Create a Worth-While Call-to-Action
You’ve gotta create an incentive for people to come back. While “creating great content” is the common phrase you hear all the time, part of that content needs to be something that is engaging or offers some value. We’re all used to seeing the 10%-25% off stuff and even those sometimes don’t entice most consumers to buy alone. Why not offer something that your visitors will actually use. Try offering a free hour with the purchase of the first hour. Or suggest this product to two friends and you get this free.
5: Make it a Point to Post Once a Week
This may be the hardest thing to do. We’re busy, there are other things we must get done, we don’t have time, don’t want to make time, etc. I can give you plenty of excuses. But it’s 2017, there are too many services out there that you can sub-contract your busy work to. For me, Sunday nights are the best times for me to sit down and write out my posts and schedule my social media. I’m more in the mood to do it then and it helps me to get the weight off my shoulders when my week actually does start. Once you get on a roll with it, you’ll find how easy it is to keep going and making it a priority. Don’t forget to track with analytics to better curate your content.
