This is a guy who just plain “Gets It.” I read my first Tom Peters book about 5 years ago, and now I am stoked to see that he’s sharing tips and advice via YouTube (new to me, anyway).
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This week, I was graciously invited to be the co-manager for the Las Vegas Photoshop & Print Users Group, or, VegasPUG. What’s that, you say?
“Vegas PUG exists to introduce or reacquaint people with Adobe’s powerful desktop and web applications for Print design. Our meetings are structured in “show-and-do” lab format, giving attendees an immediate opportunity to put what they’re learning to use right away as well as tapping into the knowledge of our PUG Xperts as they roam the room answering questions and providing individual instruction where needed. Quarterly advanced labs will give seasoned users an opportunity to expand their skills or to share a technique with the group. Meetings are held monthly and are free for members”.
I’m excited to connect with this new community (I’m a community type of guy) and share some of my tricks with Photoshop and all things Adobe (big fan).
Over the next few weeks I’ll have some more news about upcoming programs and – who knows – maybe some other really exciting stuff to share.
Here’s a link to the group page on Adobe’s group pages. Currently there are 59 members. Are you one?
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Tonight I had some fun playing with a logo redesign for a band. Good friends, Slow To Surface called last week to see if I could help with a shirt design based on their recent album, The Reason We Do This. (Available on iTunes- pick it up, you won’t be sorry). I designed the CD last spring for the band – see below. (For the record, I like their current logo, but it could use a little more “edge” to match their new style, in my opinion).
Here’s a sped-up version of the process. The first thing I did was (duh) put on the album. Then I started to search through my database of fonts from recent projects. Probably about 375 selections. Most are completely incompatible… but I narrow it down to a typeface that conveys their style of music – I settled on Dirty & Classic by one of my favorite artists and fontographers, Billy Argel. I tweaked it until it was easier to read at a smaller size (from a distance, in this particular application), but still gets across the “vibe” I was going for.
Check out this video I made using Jing (killer app!) and let me know what you think. Starts out a little slow (no pun intended).
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I read an outstanding article on Rob Hahn’s blog today telling us why social media might be all hype. It was excellent. Please feel free to go read it and come back here when you finish. On the same note: while attending Blogworld Expo last week, I attended more than one course focused on trying to make sense out of this phenomenon – is social media a fad, a.k.a “all hype?” Or, is it legit. Is there a return on investment – and how do we profit? After a few weeks of swimming in social media, I wanted to share my conclusion: It’s not all hype. It’s just an over-analyzed, tech-driven revolution.
Social media’s popularity has grown side by side with society’s intolerance for bullshitters. We want to trust authority, but we just can’t. Its high time for a revolution in reliable messaging.
I don’t need to tell you how badly Americans have been bullshitted into this current economic depression. You already work harder than ever for less return. You pay more taxes than ever, and have very little influence on anything remotely democratic through “trusted” traditional arenas. (Election recount, anyone?). So we use our computers and social media as our collective voice. Obama won the last Presidential election in large part by trusting a young visionary who took a leave of absence from his other job – at Facebook. (Brilliant, in my humble opinion). Sarah Palin’s doing it now, too, so says Mr Hahn’s blog post. John McCain has 1.5 Million Twitter followers! Read that again. It’s kind of funny to see an old war vet politician tweeting. Still, that’s one beauty of social media – everyone’s finally created equal.
Social sites are shifting retail like crazy because consumers don’t want crap! We prefer quality, but we don’t trust advertising bullshitters because we don’t have much money and we need to stretch our dollar (due to the afore-mentioned political bullshitters), so we read User-Generated Content (UGC) like product reviews and ratings. There’s bullshitters there, too – but for some reason, it’s more genuine, as a whole, to read these reviews. (There’s numbers to prove this stuff if you want them, go to YouTube and Search “socialnomics.”)
These are a couple examples of the allure of SM and how it drives technology. There’s countless others: newspapers, magazines, sports, renting movies, real estate, the classified ads, ordering a pizza, porn (the pioneers, probably) and the ten o’clock news.
Middlemen are an endangered species because of social media. They’re synonymous with bullshitters, to me, in most cases. Middlemen get in the way, they can filter the truth, add cost, and frankly, they just slow us down.
The new consumer wants it now, and if you tell us that we can’t have it now – we’ll control-alt-delete your ass and find a way to get it directly and immediately. It = everything.
In summary, there’s no way in hell this is all hype.
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An article in last Friday’s Review-Journal could turn out to be a really timely effort from McCarran Int’l Airport. Hopefully, the revenue from billboard leases will trickle down to some of Las Vegas’ hungry creatives. This will lie entirely in the hands of the winning bidder, and I’m cautiously optimistic.
There’s tons of complex reasons why the creative industy here is hurting. Some are internal issues at companies who were/are managed poorly, but most are directly related to gaming cutbacks. In this case, I think it’s a chicken-or-egg system. Sales are down, so companies have stopped spending on marketing. It’s the only “controllable expense,” they say…. I disagree, to an extent. Blindly pulling the plug on marketing is effectively selling off your entire brand investment. Hey – cut where you need to cut, but keep in mind the work and expenses that have led up to your sales slide. Not to mention the jobs for the people that stay late and work weekends for thankless campaigns that shift millions of dollars around town. I always try to buy these guys a beer or a pizza whenever I can.
On a similar note… Yesterday, while returning from Utah, my wife and I counted at least 10 consecutive billboards with nothing on them. I think billboard companies should have stock templates with general feelgood campaigns instead of running blanks. Hell, why not? I’ll even volunteer to design them. If you know someone who is in a position to make decisions on something like this – please email me. I’m curious to see the benefit of running a white blank board vs. a message reminding people to drive courteously, hang up their cell phones, or spend time with their kids when they get home.
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Recently, my work has shifted into a more fun speed – as you can probably tell from the new tone of this site (thanks for all of the kind words, by the way, to those who are enjoying the more laid-back style) and this winter is going to be a fun one…
There will be some updates in the coming weeks about upcoming action sports events, new apparel designs hitting the streets, as always – concert coverage, special events and other exciting adventures.
This is going to be a fun Fall and Winter season. And, from the looks of this story, it’s coming quick.
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This is a sweet machine, and I hate to get rid of it, but I have opted to keep my Mac Pro Dual 3GHz instead.
If you, or someone you know is in the market for a slightly-used iMac with 2GB RAM, please send me an email and I’ll get you the details. I will reformat it so its brand new OSX will be as if you just opened the box.
you can DM me on twitter @natevegas, or email me at info -at- blackdiamonddigital.com.
Thanks!
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This week marks a very important event in the creative community – and one that I have discussed like a broken record with my local AIGA board of directors past and present (sorry, guys and gals) – spec work. I have spoken out against Spec at events, hoping to educate designers from participating in glorified poster contests for a – ahem – living.
I am excited to see my AIGA investment continuing to pay itself off. Aside from the countless friends and colleagues, job interviews, client leads and awesome continuing education opportunities – the AIGA leadership has finally put its foot down against Spec work. Yesterday, Catherine Wentworth from NoSpec! interviewed new AIGA president, Debbie Millman. The resulting interview, seen here, is fantastic. It outlines new mandates for the 100-year anniversary of The Professional Association For Design – each of which are more progressive (and aggressive) than I have seen from this organization to date.
I cannot thank these two leaders enough for supporting our industry, and I can only hope creatives – from the AIGA or not – will support each other and follow their lead.
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I cannot stress enough the importance of having good friends in your industry. For years, I have offered to bail out anyone who needed a spot to hang out and check their email, work for a few hours (or weeks), make a handshake happen or find the name of a missing font. I’m always glad to do these things to help out friends in a jam – or even friends of friends. I’m sure most people are the same as I am – with a few bad check writers and client stalkers in there, of course .(Karma works both ways).
Over the last month or so, I have had some bumps in the road with software, hardware and an exciting new endeavor or two or three. Thankfully, some of the people who I have helped out of jams in the past have come to my aid – and these things call for a Humongous Thank You.
You know who you are, and you know I’ll bail you out of your next jam. Cheers, Nate.
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