DreamSpeaker Graphics

June Ramblings

2009-06-04T18:09:00.003-04:00

It's June already! I can't believe it has been almost 4 months since I have posted anything. Actually I have been adding links to my side columns of interesting sights but have not actually posted a blog.

So what have I been up too.
In January the pre-press house I was working for closed its offices in Orlando.
Fortunately, I was hired by another competing company and went right from one job to another. I feel very fortunate for that in today's economy. AND its a great company to work for. People are great to work with and company is appreciative. Still its hard in today's economy. One week you are working 70 hours a week and the next you are working 24 hours a week. Guess it all balances out.

I have to say the time off gives me some time to breath. I have been able to reconnect with my house and my yard, take care of my old springer, Ernie, and catch up on a lot of miscellaneous projects that I really needed to get done and have been putting off.

I keep meaning to post items more relevant to design and publishing but there are so many good sights already doing that already. I just keep copying their urls and posting them here. Check them out there are is a lot of good info on my side columns: freebies, apps, typography, vector sights etc.

Most importantly keep reading, keep learning and keep twittering!

Repost of LInks that I think are of Value

2009-01-31T08:55:00.019-05:00

The Best 80 Photoshop Text Effects on the Web
44 Must Learn Web Design Layout Tutorials in Photoshop
43 Incredibly Useful Collection of Tutorials, Resources, Inspirations etc To Discover The Best Of The Web In February at smashing apps
100 Beautiful Free Textures at Smashing Magazine
51 Creative Business Cards That Will Make You Look Twice at Quicksprout
Inspiring Design Links for Creatives for 2009-03-01 at thisinspires.me
65+ Smoking Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials at instantshift
100+ Free Seamless Vector Patterns Ideal for Web Design and Print Work at Pattern Head
Building/Customizing your own Wordpress theme: Beginners and Intermediate at Desizn Tech
28 of the Coolest Retro Style Photoshop Brush Sets at specky boy 50 Brilliant Typography Designs to Inspire You at Best Photoshop Tutorials
200+ High Quality Free Paper Textures to Grab at naldzgraphics
Readers Pick: 30+ Incredibly Useful Mac Apps for Web Design at noupe
The Coolest Text Effects on the Planet at best-photoshop-tutorials
27 Indespensible Resources for Graphic Designers at freelancefolder
Top 84 Photoshop Resource Sites - Toolbox for Designers at specky boy
The Ultimate Adobe InDesign Toolbox at Deadwings Designs
Blogger Toolbox: 100+ Tools and Themes at at mashable.com
54 Kick Ass Creative Logos Hand-Picked from Logofaves at dzineblog
45+ Free Design Template And PSD Files at 1stwebdesigner
20 Websites Every Apple Fan Must Bookmark at makeuseof.com
21 Typography and Font Web Apps You Can’t Live Without at specky boy
All the Logo Design Resources You Will Ever Need at design cublicle 79 Beautiful and Creative Business Cards Designs at 2Experts Design
Your Bestest Creative, Geeky Posts of 2008 - Part 2 at We are Just Creative
A - Z of Web Design at iampaddy
The Twelve Days of InDesign from InDesign Secrets
100+ Free Applications for Mac OS X at Usingmac
60+ Essential Feeds for Web Designers posted at iDesign Studios
Over 100 Free Christmas Design Resources - A Design Bliss Mega-List
29 Most Useful Texture Packs of 2008 at Web Design Ledger
13 Characteristics of Outstanding Blog Design at webdesigner Depot
7 Free Tools to Identify A Font at webdesigner Depot
11 Essential Photoshop E-Books Amazingly Free posted at specky boy
40 + cheatsheets for Designers at Six Revisions
The Ultimate List of Best Logo Design Resources at Just Creative.
Top 100 Essential Mac Applications. at Mac Tips and Tricks
In the Woods–Our Blog for all things Themey!
50+Amazing Logos on Spoonfed Design
30 inspiring type treatments from I love typography

Ramblings of a Production Artist

2009-01-19T07:49:00.009-05:00

Twittering
My previous post asked whether twitterers were just self-serving. Come to find out they are not, but sometimes you have to figure out how to get the message out. I started tweeting about an organization called Pilots and Paws. I tweeted it about 5-10 times, asking people to retweet it to spread the word. Most of the people I follow are in the design field in some way or other. I got real discouraged with the fact that few people bothered to retweet it. Then, I took the more direct approach. I asked for help from people like Jeff Fisher at LogoMotives, Graham Smith at imjustcreative, and Calvin Lee at mayhemstudios. Then things began to happen. They retweeted it and people who followed them retweeted it and by taking a more direct approach to people I respected and followed I was able to pass the word and hopefully at least save one animal.

I do have to give a shoot-out to Paulastudio who was the first person who retweeted my tweet, to Jeff Fisher who took the time to even send me the link for the newreel about Pilots and Paws, and to Graham Smith (and his dog Dylan) who offered to post about Pilots and Paws on Soultweet.

Bottom line is work it. Figure out what you need to do to get your word out. People will help. Sometimes you just have to approach it from a different aspect. At first I was mad and sad that people only seemed to care about what was important to them—it seemed so self-serving. Truth be told, there IS a part of that in all of us. The point I want to make is that instead of wallowing in self pity (nobody cares what I have to say) or getting mad, learn how to get work it and reach out to people for what you want.

The New Year–2009
Lot of big changes for me with the start of this year. Afer 11 years of working for a company, they have closed their doors. Its a hard and depressing thing. You suddenly are no longer a part of a "family" that you have spent the last 11 years with. Saturday I started working for a new company. I was lucky in economic times like this to find a new job. Several people I have worked with in the past are working there, so I have hopes of developing a new "family."

Twittering Addiction
I have spent a LOT of time on Twitter. As you can see from my blog I have collected a lot of sites/links for fonts, vectors, photoshop, typography, logos etc. The trouble is, I spend way to much time collecting all this information and way to little time using it. After all, you never know when these things may come in handy!
What is the real problem with this. The fact is, I am collecting and collecting, reading and reading, and not really doing anything with all this information.

What does this say about me: partial depression with the way the world is turning (or collapsing), partial procrastination, lack of creativity, basically all around lack of motivation. What I think I need is a 12-step program to wean me of Twitterdom. I am finding it much more interesting to twitter, collect, read, and watch TV than to DO. I need help!

Are Twitterers Just Self-serving?

2009-01-03T13:14:00.011-05:00

For the past few days I have been tweeting about a cause that is important to me; saving dogs lives (Pilots and Paws). I have asked several times for followers to retweet this for me. Of the 250 followers that I have, only 8 people have bothered to retweet and/or respond: sere_usdesign, Paulastudio, imjustcreative, mayhemstudios, GLHoffman. sharebrain, emtwo, and LogoMotives. Jeff from Logomotives even took the time to locate the NBC newsreel and post that as well.

I have to wonder what this all means. One person said "Also shows you people RT only what they think will promote themselves/is self serving, not serves others/good causes."

I have to somewhat agree, even though I don't want to think or feel that way. I have spent many hours online twittering away with many people and retweeting for many of their causes as well as promoting many of their posts. I really don't expect anything in return (or do I—I have to ask myself this), but I had hoped that when I needed the same that it would be reciprocated. So does that mean we only serve ourselves and self-promote ourselves. I don't know.... I do know that it made me feel sad, bad, and mad that if it didn't promote self and self-interests that it just wasn't important enough to retweet.

I know what twitter is about, but I thought and hoped that it was more than that. I wanted to think that people cared about more than just the things that were important to them. Somehow this experience once again reinforced my perception of human nature. You would think that being 58 years old, and having experienced a lot in my life that I would understand this, not continue to be so naive, and be more accepting of the nature of people.

Help Save Pets' Lives

2009-01-03T11:29:00.003-05:00

If you know any private pilots or anyone you think can help save a pet's life, please let them know about this good cause Pilots and Paws.

2009! It's a New Year!

2009-01-01T09:07:00.005-05:00

It's a new year and I think a new way of life globally. I think the world is going to have to rethink what they want out of life.
Following Chris Brogan's concept of 3 words for 2009, my goals for 2009 are:
simplify, positive, humor
I am not going to try to explain them and expound on them. They just came to me. I read Chris's article and thought OK nice thought and then went about my business of twittering and looking at blogs and sites on the web and thought nothing more of it. Then I thought I should start off by adding something to my blog for the new year and started writing and suddenly those 3 words just came to me. Somehow they seem appropriate and right for the new year.

How To Create WordPress Themes From Scratch Part 1 by Theme station.

2008-12-21T07:13:00.003-05:00

ThemeTation is writing a 3 Part series on how to create a wordpress theme from scratch.
I am going to list them here as they are posted for myself and anyone else who hasn't seen the link to them.

How To Create WordPress Themes From Scratch Part 1

Freelance/Job/Freelance/Job

2008-12-14T10:41:00.006-05:00

What to do! What to do!
As of January 16th of 2009 our company in Orlando will close. At this point I have to come to some sort of decision as to how I will move forward.

• Should I branch out into freelancing full time?
• Should I seek employment with another company?
• Should I change careers and do freelance work on the side?

These are all questions I have to ask myself.
What is important to me is health insurance, 401K, steady income, etc. All things to consider, especially in these economic times.

I have to think about this more before I continue writing. I want to write something that will be relevant to myself and that may help other people too.
For now here is some humor from Hubspot!

Posted on Freelance Switch by NC Winters

So many Sites so Little Time

2008-12-02T05:31:00.036-05:00

I signed on to Twitter this morning, as usual, before I head off to work. And geez there were so many interesting posts and sites to check out and of course so little time.
I wanted to make sure I checked them out and so I just started copying and pasting them here. Some day I am going to have to sort all this information that I am gathering OR at least try to.
What I have been doing up to this point is to add links that I think are of interest to my resource link side panel, but that is getting rather cumbersome and long. Somehow, I will need to sort through those and categorize them into some useful directory.
Arghhhh. Just another organizational mess to figure out.
27 Indespensible Resources for Graphic Designers at freelancefolder
Top 84 Photoshop Resource Sites - Toolbox for Designers at specky boy
The Ultimate Adobe InDesign Toolbox at Deadwings Designs
Blogger Toolbox: 100+ Tools and Themes at at mashable.com
54 Kick Ass Creative Logos Hand-Picked from Logofaves at dzineblog
45+ Free Design Template And PSD Files at 1stwebdesigner
20 Websites Every Apple Fan Must Bookmark at makeuseof.com
21 Typography and Font Web Apps You Can’t Live Without at specky boy
All the Logo Design Resources You Will Ever Need at design cublicle
79 Beautiful and Creative Business Cards Designs at 2Experts Design
Your Bestest Creative, Geeky Posts of 2008 - Part 2 at We are Just Creative
A - Z of Web Design at iampaddy
The Twelve Days of InDesign from InDesign Secrets
100+ Free Applications for Mac OS X at Usingmac
60+ Essential Feeds for Web Designers posted at iDesign Studios
Over 100 Free Christmas Design Resources - A Design Bliss Mega-List
29 Most Useful Texture Packs of 2008 at Web Design Ledger
13 Characteristics of Outstanding Blog Design at webdesigner Depot
7 Free Tools to Identify A Font at webdesigner Depot
11 Essential Photoshop E-Books Amazingly Free posted at specky boy
40 + cheatsheets for Designers at Six Revisions
The Ultimate List of Best Logo Design Resources at Just Creative.
Top 100 Essential Mac Applications. at Mac Tips and Tricks
In the Woods–Our Blog for all things Themey!
50+Amazing Logos on Spoonfed Design
30 inspiring type treatments from I love typography

Boring Book Covers

2008-11-15T17:35:00.001-05:00

I submitted two covers for Boring Book Covers at Before and After Magazine on a lark. It was fun and humorous to come up with a boring book cover that would put you to sleep. One cover The Art of Folding Clothes they actually posted with comments. What FUN!

I did another one, The Truth About Nuts & Bolts.

They had about 120 submissions and eventually hope to post a PDF of all of them.

Should be fun and interesting.

Networking

2008-11-01T07:51:00.000-04:00

Realize I haven't posted anything in quite a while and feel that I should make some comments.

I have been working long, long days at trying to get approximately 1200 pages to final PDFs and get 1200 more reformatted and into K4. It is killing me and taking its toll but getting there.

I have been spending a lot of time on twitter. At first I thought "What is the big deal with this thing?" but the more time I spend on it the more I learn. Especially if you follow the right people in the same or similar fields as yourself. You can learn a lot.

I have found a lot of very talented people, many freebies, many exciting blogs and sites, and met some great helpful people. It is amazing that if you have an issue or a problem you need resolved, you can get an almost immediate answer or a reference to an area that may help you.

Afterall, it is all about learning, keeping up on new ideas, and getting yourself out there.

Networking, Blogging, Getting Myself Out There . . .

2008-10-11T09:03:00.000-04:00

OK, here we go, my latest attempt at networking is adding "Follow This Blog" to my gadgets.

I have so much to do to catch up with everyone else. What seems to come natural for so many is a big learning curve for me. I have spent the last 11 years working in a pre-press house as a production artist, embedded first in Quark and then InDesign. I have been buried in specs, page layouts, typography and master graphics. This has been all wrapped around the aspects of building school book pages for major publishing firms.

While it has been a good learning experience, it lacks a lot in developing my creativity. It has taught me a lot about the aspects of good page layout, proper development of style sheets, the importance of consistency etc.

The publishing industry has greatly changed in the last few years. The biggest change is that most of the work is being outsourced to areas like Asia, the Philippines, and India. Where once you were a production artist, in today's industry you have become a project manager. I much preferred being in the trenches and doing the actual work.

To continue with the subject at hand, I have been very lax in networking and focusing on the whole world of design on the web. For the last several years, I have been playing with, attempting, working toward, developing my own company called DreamSpeaker Graphics.

Now it is time for catch-up. And I have a lot to do. So, I have started this blog, I am getting involved in twittering, I am following several blogs and sites, I have portfolios on Jamuse and Graphics.com. I still have a lot of work to do. I don't understand yet the whole aspect of digging, dilicious and so much more. So much to learn, and so much to do. Its boggling how so many people do so much. Calvin Lee at Mayhem Studios, David Blatner of InDesign Secrets (among other things), and Jacob Cass of Just Creative Design seem to have made the day 48 hours long with all that they do.

Gonna enter this in the Designer Writing Project. One more way to network and hopefully get some helpful advice, thoughts, ideas.

So, if anyone out there is reading this, thoughts, suggestions, and ideas are most welcome.

2008-10-05T16:30:00.000-04:00

Okay, this months photo challenge on Graphics.com was to take the 6 samples and use at least 3 of them in a creation. They are actually blood vessels. Yikes. I used 4 of them. I went into Illustrator and made a grid. Then I colored some of the boxes and placed squares of 4 of the samples in to. Then I took it into the 3D effects and rotated it and free transformed it. Copied it 3 times vertically and three times horizontally. I then intertwined them vert/horiz, vert/horiz, vert/horiz.

After that was completed, I went to stock.xchange and found a room setting. I got rid of the photo that was on the wall and then replaced it with my design. I did some effects on the photo layer. Then I was done.

Twittering, Blogging, Working, and More

2008-09-28T10:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I just read an article by Jay Hilgert, at Bittbox, on Twittering. So, I thought I would try it. Between trying to learn about this, trying to better establish my blog, working and trying to establish my own company, DreamSpeaker Graphics, sometimes it all gets to be too much.

Ideas, suggestions, thoughts on improvements, are all greatly appreciated.

Small Bi-fold Design Project

2008-09-28T10:32:00.000-04:00

Project: A design for the inside of a small bi-fold brochure promoting a new CD for winning at Texas Hold’em poker, featuring professional player and tournament winner Floyd “Pitbull” Silver.

Christmas Card Designs

2008-09-16T19:13:00.000-04:00

Design of some Christmas Cards for a Print contest.
Click on it and tell me what you think!

Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies

2008-09-16T17:28:00.001-04:00

6 butterflies are supplies and you have to use 3 of them to create a piece of art.
In the first I made a pattern of parts of all 6, and then made a pattern and background for the book cover.

In the second, I put a butterfly in the flower from my garden and then used two of the butterflies to incorporate them into the background.

Letterhead Design

2008-09-16T17:20:00.000-04:00

Letterhead and business card designs I came up with for another challenge on graphics.com.

Chadwick

2008-08-31T09:55:00.000-04:00

This is Chadwick. We were supplied some light beam brushes and asked to use them to create an effect with an image. I did a very simple project of clipping Chadwick from an old photo and placing him on a black background trotting across light beams. Sometimes simple is best. Actually simplicity is most often best. Anyway, this is the result.

Logos for Graphics.com

2008-08-22T19:13:00.001-04:00

Here's a couple of logos that I was playing with for graphics.com. Just a note that I was NOT commissioned for this. They have a gallery on graphics that you can submit ideas for logos.

Magazine Cover 1

2008-08-16T21:41:00.001-04:00

This is the second Magazine Cover I did for a fictitious food magazine. These were fun to do!

Letterhead for Chili Party Restaurant

2008-08-16T20:19:00.000-04:00

Another fictitious business that I did as a challenge for graphics.com. Client would have a choice of the castanet business card with string, or folding open from the top, or because of price could go with the traditional business card designed around the letterhead.

Magazine Cover 2

2008-08-16T20:13:00.000-04:00

Another Challenge on Graphics.com. We were supplies 6 photos we could use or choose photos of our own that depict a fictitious magazine and do a design for their inaugural publication. This is really the first time I have attempted a magazine cover and I really like the way it came out!

Photos.com Challenge

2008-08-16T20:08:00.000-04:00

This is my recent August photo challenge on Graphic.com. We took instrument art and had to do a design around them. I love what I did with the background.

Photo Phrenzy Challenge

2008-08-03T17:29:00.000-04:00

Ahh another challenge to keep my brain a working. We were to use some actions supplied by graphics.com to experiment with and see what we could come up with. Took some old pictures of mine and this is what I came up with.

Photo Challenge

2008-07-29T17:03:00.000-04:00

Posted this on graphics.com for a photo challenge. Had to use a variety of backgrounds supplied and come up with something. This is the result. Used some new filters I hadn't tried before so it was fun to learn something new.

This is another challenge that I did on graphics.com where we had to place the girl somewhere. So I placed her in a field of daisies on my sister's farm.

And finally I did this challenge on graphics.com where we had to develop a letterhead and business card using certain specs and graphics that they gave us.

2008-07-06T14:05:00.000-04:00

This is another piece that was published in Create Magazine. Simple combination of ideas created in InDesign using fonts. Since I am not the greatest "artist" in the world, I like finding different ways to incorporate thoughts and ideas into a design. Fonts are a great way to do that.

2008-06-27T18:13:00.000-04:00

My family lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While I only lived there for approximately 7 years of my life, I still consider it home. People from the UP are called Yoopers and anyone below the bride (in the lower peninsula) are called Trolls.
What is the UP famous for you ask? Well, trees, snow, nosiums, and pasties.

Monday, monday . . . The Mamas and the Papas

2008-06-23T17:27:00.000-04:00

Well it was back to work today. Next week I have a week and a half of vacation time that I will be taking. Can't wait.

Took this picture on a trip to St. Augustine. Took the picture into photoshop, adjusted the color somewhat, and added the text. Love that town. So much history. Great buidlings, stairs, windows, alleys.

Sunday Boredom

2008-06-22T12:54:00.000-04:00

Its Sunday. I am bored but can't seem to drag myself away from the computer. You would think after working all week long that I could find something better to do.

I took a picture of one of my sister's calves and brought it into Illustrator, traced it, cleaned it up and adjusted some colors and this is the result. It actually got published in Create Magazine....

Week 2

2008-06-21T17:35:00.000-04:00

Well this is week 2 and I have not added much to this blog. Since the demise of Create Magazine, I have been doing a lot of research online to see if I can find a site that is as compatible as that one for promoting Dreamspeaker Graphics.

As everyone probably knows this can be a tiresome and time consuming project. I haven't found anything that really replaces what I experienced there. It has left a big whole in my life as far as easily communicating with other professionals....

I feel somewhat successful in learning this whole blogging thing. I have added some of my favorite sites to my blog, added a favorite blog list and added my jamuse portfolio link.

Demise of Create Magazine

2008-06-15T09:49:00.000-04:00

After the downfall of Create Magazine—their merge with Jupiter Media.
Well, I am lost without my site on create magazine. So, I have decided to take the plunge into creating a blog for my developing graphics company, DreamSpeaker graphics. Being a newbie at this I am sure to make a lot of mistakes and learn a lot through experimentation and hopefully suggestions and insights from fellow bloggers.