There have been quite a few things going on for me and Creative Curio outside of this site! Check out some of the things I’ve been up to lately.
Portfolio Featured!
As you know, I joined Art Bistro as a contributing writer (some of the articles from CC appear on the Art Bistro site).
Well today, my portfolio is featured on the homepage as well as the main Portfolios page! They hold informal contests each month and feature the designers who win. There is also a mini-interview with me (forgive the terseness of my last comment on advice to designers; I was told we had a 50 word limit for all of the answers combined!).
Of course, my work is only on the homepage today, Wednesday August 12, 2009, so in case you missed it, just go directly to my portfolio to see the work I’ve uploaded there.
CreativePro Article on Critiquing
The second piece of exciting news is that an article I wrote for CreativePro is live!
This is a classic Creative Curio article dissecting the design of a Greengate Garden ad. If you’ve enjoyed my other articles on the design theory, elements and principles of design, particularly the ones on Wrigley’s Tea Escapes and the Del Taco Campaign, then you’ll like this one, too, so head over and read it. Studying other people’s design helps us improve our own. Plus, it’s fun.
If you’ve never visited CreativePro before, after reading my article (of course!), check out the other resources they have available, particularly in the graphics and print sections.
Got Any Ideas?
Finally, I’m running dry on ideas for Creative Curio articles (can you tell?).
So dear reader, will you help me? Do you have any questions about design theory, practices or specific questions regarding using design programs like Photoshop, Illustrator or most especially InDesign? I would love to help you and others out by answering those questions! No question is a dumb question, so ask away in the comments below!!
Great stuff, Lauren! I hope they bring plenty of deserved new visitors. There was a good opportunity to link to your CC posts on shape, proportion, balance, texture etc. I wonder if any links were edited out of the Creative Pro post?
A few questions I hope bring some post ideas: Where do you see the blog going? What do you want to do with it in future? Have you attracted any clients as a direct result of your blog posts?
David Airey´s last blog ..AIGA President Debbie Millman on spec work
Hi Lauren, I’m glad things are going well for you at the moment. I’d never heard of Art Bistro before now. I’ll check it out.
My question would be about this Sandbox theme. Did you customise it yourself, or did someone else do it? Do you plan to update it at some point for a change of scenery, so to speak? It’s a very uniques design, so I’m not suggesting it needs updating, I’m just curious about your plans for CC and the design
Andrew Kelsall´s last blog ..First Video Post: My New Business Card Design
I enjoy reading your blog so much! It’s just that all articles are long (or short) enough and simply to the point. I work a lot of hours and its exhausting, so I don’t want to ready “heavy lecture” at night.
I would definitely be interested in reading more critiques – will hopefully come up with some questions soon, but I’m trying to read all the articles first… *phew*
Jess´s last blog ..Basic Header – Desktop
this greengate garden thing is simply amazing! looking forward to more such stuff from you.
David,
You’re right, there were good opportunities to link to my articles from that one (maybe too many!) but I didn’t want to only promote my articles and I just didn’t feel right linking to 10 different articles on my blog. Those are good questions, too. I’ll have to think about them a bit, actually!
Thanks for always being so supportive of me and CC
Andrew,
I created the design and my husband did the front-end coding, just to quickly answer your question! I hadn’t planned on updating it; I still like it. Did you check out Art Bistro? What did you think?
Jess,
Thank you!! I’m so glad you enjoy my articles here. More critiques! Check. They seem to be what I’m becoming known for.
Ashely,
Thanks! Pleased you liked it.
Hi Lauren !
Some ideas for Creative Curio articles:
- your favorite illustrator technics
- your favorite logo design tutorials
(It’s always a time to learn from pro
Hi Lauren. Congrats on your portfolio selection and your writing gig at Art Bistro. I’m now a contributing author at another site myself so I know it can be exciting.
Now that I am leaving Blogger for WordPress I have a bunch of articles and tuts that you would be welcome to dissect (or glean ideas from) for your own site. Let me know if you’re interested.
Doug C.´s last blog …The Discipline of Design: An Interview with Barry Downard
Here’s some thoughts….
1.) Some articles on Typography. I enjoy your articles on the old letterpress and perhaps you could do some other articles on design and typography.
2.) Interviews. I recently did an interview with a designer whose work I admire and it turned out really well. I also like reading these on other sites myself. So perhaps you could do some interviews.
3.) How you designed Creative Curio? I did several articles on how I designed my blog on Blogger and it was met with a ton of positive feedback. This is a site about creation and graphic design so what better way to emphasize that point than with an article (or perhaps one or two) about how you designed your site.
Doug C.´s last blog …The Discipline of Design: An Interview with Barry Downard
Here’s another one…do an article about psychotic Photoshop behavior, lol. I’m serious. I recently had Photoshop stop working on me because of an error – it said, “This gradient file is bad or corrupted.”
I asked about this in the Adobe Support Forums and they had no idea what was happening. I finally had to reinstall PS to get it to work again.
I’m sure a lot of people have dealt with bizarre PS behavior, but I seem to deal with it more than others. Below is just a few of the wonky things my PS program does…
1. When I am zoomed in close on a document and using the brush or eraser the program will just close – goodbye, see ya! No warnings or anything.
2. Sometimes when I double click on a layer to bring up the styles the program will either freeze or I’ll get several instances of Photoshop Help opening up in the browser.
3. Using the file browser can cause the program to freeze and often I’ll have to shut down my computer to get back to normal. This is odd because I have an Intel Quad CPU and 4Gigs of RAM. Go figure.
4. Quite often when I am working on a file I will get a warning box that says “Could not complete your request because of a program error.” This happens quite a lot. I cannot even save my file when this happens so I have learned to save often.
I’m sure if you wrote about this you’d get some good discussion going. Maybe even solve a few of these psychotic issues.
Doug C.´s last blog …Draw On Yourself
Doug,
Actually, I wrote some articles on the design of CC as I was designing it back in 2008! You’re welcome to take a peek.
I don’t think I’d know how to write an article on bizarre PS behavior. I don’t run into that stuff much (other than unexpected crashes), but even if I did, I don’t know that I would know how to fix it! It’s possible that you need to update or patch things like your OS or PS itself. If you’re using an older version of PS on a newer OS, like PS 7 on Vista, I wouldn’t be surprised at many compatibility issues arising. But you’re right, it could bring up good discussions and hopefully some solutions!
I’m writing it myself – right now, in fact. Should be published later today.
I don’t run into that stuff much