Daily Brad, the blog

Attention illustrators and designers - if you need to promote yourself and your illustration skills (and make a few extra dollars as well), why not give Threadless a try? What is Threadless? Threadless was created by a couple of guys called “the Jakes” under their DBA Skinny Corp. to give designers and artists an opportunity to unleash a little creativity and display it to the masses. Anyone can visit the site, download their templates and submit a t-shirt design. Then, the designs are voted on. The winning designers receive $2,000 in cash and prizes, huge amounts of notoriety and their design printed and sold on a tee.

Since they launched the site, Skinny Corp has received over 60,000 tee shirt design submissions. It’s been a great way for designers and illustrators to get their name out there. Over 300 winning designs have been printed and sold so far, with 6 new ones coming out every week.

The site features interviews with some of their designers, some who’ve won only a few times, while one guy from Louisianna has won over 13 times. (That’s a hefty chunk of cash and prizes) Plus, it worked into a job for this particular guy - and now he works at Threadless.

One of their winners, S. Bradley Askew when asked if he thinks Threadless helps designers:

Honestly, its one of the best things in the design community right now. Some of publicity T receives helps catapult designers who get featured in magazines like ‘GQ.’ PR like that is great and to tell clients you had work featured in publications like that, that wasn’t some sort of paid advertisement, it’s golden.

So if you’ve ever had a good idea for a t-shirt design - design it, enter it. There could be some recognition as well as a little cash in your future. (Heck, I’ll give it a try and post my design - wish me luck!)

Have you got a blog? Do you write about what’s happening in your world, or under your expertise, or in your realm of influence? Gannett Co. may want to hear about it. The nation’s largest newpaper chain plans to create stories with information from bloggers, people who post in Internet discussion groups and other non-journalists in hopes of winning readers from the Internet, television and other news sources, officials with the company said.

Gannett, which operates 90 newspapers, including the nation’s largest, USA Today, is hoping “citizen journalism” will reverse the company’s part of an industrywide trend of declining circulation and advertising revenues, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Gannett also plans to merge newspaper and online operations of USA Today and other publications. All Gannett newspapers are being urged to make the transition quickly.

The question is begged to be ask, As Blogs and Citizen Journalism Grow, Where’s the News? Who writes the news, and what news is news?

Read about it in this article: Yahoo News - Gannett enlists citizen journalists

Here’s some nice commentary: The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism

I received my Communication Arts Magazine today which features the latest and greatest in design. (Communication Arts is nearly a must read for every graphic designer who wants to keep up with trends).

Here are the companies from Utah that were featured.

Page 14:
Struck Design, Salt Lake City, for Packaging Design

Page 59:
And Design Capitalists (No Website), Salt Lake City for a Logo Design

Page 95:
BYU Publications & Graphics, Provo, UT for an Editorial Design

Congratulations to all this years winners!

What do the following add up to?

70,000 litres of paint
358 single bottle bombs
33 sextuple air cluster bombs
22 Triple hung cluster bombs
268 mortars
33 Triple Mortars
22 Double mortars
358 meters of weld
330 meters of steel pipe
57 km of copper wire

Paint the Town for Bravia
If you guessed the long awaited 2006 commercial for Sony BRAVIA, win. This latest TV ad - featuring massive paint explosions - took 10 days and 250 people to film. Huge quantities of paint were needed to accomplish this, which had to be delivered in 1 tonne trucks and mixed on-site by 20 people. This Bravia TV commercial was directed by award-winning director Jonathan Glazer, who is responsible for a dazzling array of original work in the fields of commercial, music video and film production. You’ll agree that the effect was stunning, but afterwards a major clean-up operation was required to clear away all that paint! (Thank goodness it was water-based!)

Watch the advertisement at www.bravia-advert.com.

Balls for Bravia
Sony’s previous ad for the Bravia was just as impressive. Featuring 250,000 multi-coloured ’superballs’ bouncing down the streets of San Francisco to demonstrate Bravia’s ability to show “colour like no other”. Directed by Danish director Nicolai Fuglsig and filmed in July of 2006.

Watch the advertisement at www.bravia-advert.com.

I ran across a blog post the other day, that prompted me to think about what was good and bad about my personal experience on being a freelancer. The post, entitled 7 Habits of a Highly Successful Freelance Web Designer was written by Andy Budd, the managing director of a user experience consultancy in England. After being asked by a couple people on how to make it as a freelance web designer, he posted his thoughts as 7 ideas. Here’s a summary:

1. Love what you do:

…you need to have a passion for what you do. Passion (with the aid of caffeine) will keep you working late into the night when the rest of your friends are down the pub or fast asleep.

2. Never stop learning:

…the best web designers are endlessly inquisitive and always want to keep abreast of the latest trends and technologies.

3. Specialise:

Some skills are more in demand than others, but if you’re the top of your field in a particular language or skill, you’ll always be in demand.

4. Get a killer portfolio:

…don’t post up every project you’ve ever done. You’re only as good as your last couple of projects so put your best foot forward and showcase your most recent work.

5. Network like crazy:

…people much prefer doing businesses with somebody they have met and feel comfortable with. Next time they need help on a particular project, they are much more likely to remember you and get in touch.

6. Manage your time:

Make sure people know the difference between your work time and your home time. Just because you’re at home doesn’t mean you have time to do the dishes, clean the house and take out the trash. Conversely don’t participate in avoidance techniques like doing the chores, making snacks or watching TV.

7. Build your reputation:

…become the person people want to do business with. That way, rather than searching for new clients, they will come to you.

Read the entire post here.

My addition to this list, would probably be:

Develop a dual personality:
Keep your personal life and work life completely separate by having separate phone numbers (don’t give out your home number), maintain a work email that is separate that your personal email, and divide your personal space into “office” and home (even if you work in a small space).

Find opportunities to be on-site:
Freelancing from home became a lonely experience for me, so I often found opportunities to visit my clients at their offices. I’d drop by in the morning with donuts (my business card attached), or schedule lunches in advance with my clients near their office. I even kept an extra computer that I could keep onsite with one of my clients to work in their office on larger projects. These clients were happy to give me some space and an Internet connection - and things moved much smoother when the client was right there.

So I’ve been watching my traffic the past couple weeks through my newly installed Google Analytics. I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of referrals from the Design Directory at Dexigner.com, so I thought I’d check out the site.

Their listings have a small picture of your webpage - here’s mine, and contains all the pertinent details of my web page:

Description: Portfolio of Utah-based freelance designer. Includes logo identity, corporate packaging, web site design, corporate branding through all print and electronic materials.
URL: www.bradmccall.com
Category: Graphic Design Portfolios
Page Size: 115 bytes
Visitors: 337
Date Added: 01 May 2004 16:48
Last Crawl: 23 Oct 2006 10:10
Status: Active (200)
Supporter: No
Submitted by: Design Directory

The parent site of this directory also has a design database, design forums, design agenda, newsletter and more.

Dexigner Design Portal
Dexigner Design Portal delivers latest design news, events, exhibitions, conferences, and design competitions.
http://www.dexigner.com/

Design Directory
The Design Directory is a web directory of design resources.
Designers, design companies, design studios, portfolios, consultancies and many more.
http://www.dexigner.com/directory/
http://www.designdirectory.net/

Design Database
A comprehensive database of designs, designers and design companies.
Listings include photos, material, field, location and contact information.
http://www.dexigner.com/database/
http://www.designdatabase.com/

Design Agenda
Dexigner Design Agenda keeps you up-to-date on current design competitions,
exhibitions, conferences and upcoming events.
http://www.dexigner.com/agenda/
http://www.designagenda.net/

Dexigner Newsletter
Monthly roundup of design news and competitions from the #1 portal for design related information.
Already more than 26.000 subscribers.
http://www.dexigner.com/newsletter/

If you haven’t visited here already, or list your site (as a freelancer), I’d do it. It seems like a very popular site (800,000 unique visitors a month according to their about us page). I just signed up for their newsletter, so we’ll see how that goes.

Are you being paid what you’re worth? This designer salaries link, sponsored by AIGA (the organization for designers I recently became a part of) and Aquent (a marketing and creative services group) has a link to give you an idea of what your worth.

Check it out –>AIGA/AQUENT Survey of Design Salaries 2006

So there use to be this great site called ampUTate.org that would contain links to all the local Utah advertising agencies, graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, etc. Recently, because of time constraints (and from what I’ve found in message boards around the web) a “hack” to the site, the author has taken the page down.

So with a little digging, I found the link page still live, and grabbed most the links (half of them were old and broken). I checked every link to make sure it was still live (deleted the ones that were not) and still in Utah. (I’m sure I missed some) I also scoured the web to find a whole bunch of others. I’ll be managing from here, but I just wanted to credit ampUTate.org for the good start.

If you know anyone that needs to be added to this list, feel free to comment, or drop me a note at imcre8tive [at] yahoo.com . You’ll always find the most updated version of this list in the main navigation under “pages”. (this list/post was last updated Dec 1, 2006)

Utah Graphic Designers
( Click Here to View Most Recent List )

Alan Peck [Menacing Tourist]
Andrew Burt [Moondog Studios]
Angie Wingert [Ridgeline Creative Design]
Ashley J. Gay [Studio525]
Ben Childs [BC Design]
Brad Ford
Brad McCall [Brad McCall, designer]
Bryan Green
Chad Garrick [Fubbs]
Chad Maxwell [Xzude]
Charles Plummer [Chasworks]
Cory Maylett
Curt Snarr
Curtis Morley
Dan Decort [Decort Interactive]
Darin Warren
Dave Boyd [Boyd Interactive]
Dave Gibson [Listen Design]
Davina Pallone [Design Wrench]
Ed Harrach
Eduardo Cuellar [EdWorks]
Eric Harrison [Dzin Forge]
Eric Russell
Eric Turner [Stremph]
Erik Lono [Neubrucke]
James Bowden [Bowden Visual]
Janice Mataya [Mataya Design / The Very Idea]
Jared T. Strain [Drool Collection]
Jason Gill [Gilluminate]
Jeffrey Whitehead [Jeffrey’s Fridge]
Jennifer Gyllenskog
Jennifer Straus
Joanne Maass [Jomass Design]
John Lepinski
Jon Bybee [Bybee Creative]
Jordan Mazziotti [Mazziotti Design]
Josh Penrod [Amishrobot]
Joshua Steimle [Don Loper]
Kim Reynolds [Kimbolt]
Kirk Rawlins
Kyle Follett [Folco]
Lance Clark [l4nc3]
Luke Baker [LMB Studio]
Maria Q. Stultz [MQStudio]
Matt Maxwell
Matt Wigham [I Hear It Hurts]
Matthew Jorgensen [Creative Insights]
Mel Milton [Melmade]
Micah Bauer
Michael John Burgoyne
Monique Heileson [Moneek]
Nate Smith
Paul Consiglio [72 Pixels]
Paul Mayne [Forml Design]
Paul Solomon [Solomon71]
Pete Hawkes
Ray Elder
Rob Harris
Ryan Mansfield [Mansfield Company]
Ryan Tanner [fourthdaydesign]
Steven Jerman
Zac Bernstein [740creative]

Utah Design Firms and Agencies
( Click Here to View Most Recent List )

a/3
Allbee Green
Anavi Design
A N D
angryporcupine*design
Artisian Studios
Axiom Designed Communications
Axis41
Bailey Montague - Graphic Design
Blakeslee Group
Blissium
Blurred Vision Studios
Boede + Partners
B/O/W/G
Braintrust Creative
Brubaker Street
BTH2
CC Graphic Design
Candesa
Clarkson Creative
Cobalt Communications Group
Cogbox
Cohezion
Contact
Counterpoint Studios
Crowell
Cue Media
Dahlin Smith White
Da Vinci Advertising & Marketing
Design of Today
Design Publishing and Media Group
Design Solutions
Digital Slant
Dimensions Edge
Doglatin
8 Fish
EF Creative, Inc
Enhance
Eyefx
Fluid Studio
Focus
Forth Gear
Fortis Creative
Freestyle Marketing Group
Fullnelson Communications
Fusion Media
Gravity Media
H Theory
Humaniz Interactive
ID Communications
Indigo Creative
i4 solutions
Inetz Media Group
Infinite Scale Design Group
Janda Design Company
Jibe Media
Joanne Maass Design
Kassing Andrews
Kinara
Kinetic Stream
Kirwin
Look Designs
Love Communications
Luna Webs
M2 Results
Market Design Media Group
Mergen|Design
Merrell Remington
Mindfog
MWI
Meyer and Liechty
Modern8
Neumaedia
Nine-Grain Design
Orton Group
Page Forward Design
Penna Powers Brian Haynes
Pinnacle Communications
Publicis West
Powerpix
Persudio Design
R&R Partners
Red Factor
Red Olive
Richards&Swensen
Richter7
RIESTER
Rumor Advertising
Sadi
Sandbox Circle
Sandman Studios
Skogen Group
Soter Associates
Stephen Hales Creative
Struck Design
Studeo
The Studio
Thought Lab
Swivelhead Design Works
Systematic Design
Targa Media
Thomas Arts
Vangaurd Media Group
Verite
W Communications
The Walton Group
Zara Media

Utah Illustrators
( Click Here to View Most Recent List )

Adrian Ropp
Alex Nabaum
Angela Woods
Ben Craner
Ben Simonsen
Ben Sowards
Bob Commander
Boris Lyubner
Chris Miles
Daniel Hughes
Darren Gygi
Dave Malan
David Habben II
Dung Hoang
Garth Bruner
Greg Newbold
Greg Ragland
Guy Francis
Henry Elmo Bawden
Jessie Colby
Jonathan Brown
Jonathan Coombs
Jonathan Hull
Julie Olson
Ken Chandler
Lael Henderson
Leia Bell
Leslie Lammle
Maryn Roos
Mathew Armstrong
Michael Phipps
Mike Tea
Nate Greenwall
Patrick Kendall
Peter Sakievich
Robert T. Barrett
Robert Neubecker
Ron Brown
Roz Fulcher
Ryan Wood
Scott Jarrard
Shane Lewis
Shawna J.C. Tenney
Suzanne Tornquist
Terrel VanLeeuwen
Trent Call

Utah Photographers
( Click Here to View Most Recent List )

Blair Kunz & Associates Photography, L.C.
Cheyenne Rouse
Chris Noble
Derek Smith
Dunker Imaging
Ed Rosenberger
Hawkinson
James Kay
Jason Gerbing
Jedrzej Adam “Jay” Borowczyk
John Rees
Joshua Waldron
Justin Hackworth
Kevin Lee
Lance Clayton
Dennis Mecham
Marv Poulson
Michael Mcrae
Nick Sokoloff
Paul Montano
Robb Hanks
Simon Blundell
Steve Mulligan
Steve Wilson
Tom Till
Tyler Gourley

Utah Organizations and Associations
( Click Here to View Most Recent List )

Ad News Online
Artists of Utah
Bad Dog Kids
Global Artways
Site
SLC Chapter AIGA
Tech to Market
Utah Advertising Federation
Utah Director & Flash User Group
Utah Technology Council

So in my blog the other day I mentioned thisisbroken.com - Mark Hurst’s blog showing broken user experiences sent in by readers of his goodexperience.com newsletter. So today I ran across my own broken experience, something that made me say, hu? In response to my submission to the thisisbroken website, I got an automated email that said “I get 40 to 50 entries per week and only have time to post 5 to 7 entries a week. This means that your post may not make it on the site.” Sounds like the site is a victim of it’s own popularity it seems. That’s okay. So I decided I would post it here. What do you think? Do you think he should post it on his site?

Let PR work for you
I always take a chance during the day to read the most popular news on Yahoo News, and found an article that had an interesting thing in it that seemed “broken” from a PR point-of-view. A WISCONSIN man visiting a state park took home the ultimate souvenir: a 5.47-carat canary diamond from Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, ARKANSAS.

After reading the article, I clicked on the image, which showed the actual diamond next to a US Quarter for size comparison.

(AP Photo)

Notice that the quarter was the Wisconsin state version (where the man was from), rather than Arkansas version where the stone was found. After seeing the image, I thought to myself, “now where was that state park?” and had to check the article again for the answer - Arkansas.

So I thought, maybe Arkansas doesn’t have its quarter out yet, so I checked, and what do you know? In the center of the Arkansas quarter released in 2003 is prominently pictured a diamond. The United State’s Mint says “Visitors to Arkansas can search Crater of Diamonds State Park for precious gems including, of course, diamonds.” in talking about its choice for this diamond illustration on the quarter.

So in fact, the picture seemed a bit confusing. Don’t you think?

Think about the movies you saw that you’ve seen in the past. Okay so think about Spiderman, Austin Powers, and James Bond for examples, what do they have in common?

Time’s up.

Did you know that these movies made millions of dollars even before they were ever released? How you ask? It’s called product placement. It’s when a company pays Hollywood to include their product in a movie. Companies do it all the time! James Bond introduced us to the BMW Z3 Roadster in Goldeneye (there was a huge uprising from the Austin Martin lovers at the time), Spiderman almost got trampled on by a Terminix truck, and let’s not forget the Mini Cooper in Austin Powers Goldmember. Wonder what it cost them to do this? Well, just to give you an idea, Burger King spent $15 million in MIB II just to get their products featured on the screen.

Sometimes it’s obvious, and sometimes it’s subtle, and then other times (as in a recent Wayne’s World rerun I saw on TV lately) they make fun of the fact they’re doing it. Ever seen a floating blur over people on reality shows? I assume that’d be about as opposite as you can get of product placement.

But what happens when product placement goes wrong? I got a good laugh out of a recent Yahoo news article entitled “Heroes” Lawsuit Down the Drain” where Disposal maker Emerson filed a federal lawsuit Monday (Oct 2) against NBC to prevent the network from re-airing the pilot episode of the new drama Heroes, which featured one of the title characters demonstrating her superhuman healing prowess by sticking her hand down the drain. The drain featured the company’s In-Sink-Erator product in clear view and according to the lawsuit’s claim “casts the disposer in an unsavory light, irreparably tarnishing the product” by suggesting that the appliance “will cause debilitating and severe injuries, including the loss of fingers, in the event consumers were to accidentally insert their hand into one.”

Oops, better edit that footage.