CreativeHerb.com

Certain people surpass all odds to survive in a disaster ,where many others may die. Want to know the secret to survival beyond all odds? I have a few ideas. It’s usually not even based on skill or strength, it’s actually about being humble. CNN.com wrote an interesting article here about it, even saying that the Rambo type people tend to die first. So maybe the movie stereotypes are true after all.

Here’s a small excerpt from CNN.com:

Gonzales says many of the disaster survivors he studied weren’t the most skilled, the strongest or the most experienced in their group.

Those who seemed best suited for survival — the strongest or most skilled — were often the first to die off in life-or-death struggles, he says. Experience and physical strength can lead to carelessness. The Rambo types, a Navy SEAL tells Gonzales, are often the first to go.

Small children and inexperienced climbers, for example, often survive emergencies in the wilderness far better than their stronger or adult counterparts, he says.

They survive because they’re humble, Gonzales says. They know when to rest, when they shouldn’t try something beyond their capabilities, when it’s wise to be afraid.

“Humility can keep you out of trouble,” Gonzales says. “If you go busting into the wilderness with the attitude that you know what’s going on, you’re liable to miss important cues.”

When something seriously bad happens, you have to just stop and realize that you are merely just another human being on the planet. And the only way to overcome it might be your utter desire to do so. And that includes throwing out any negatively stubborn traits you may have, because they might just drag you down at the critical moment.

It’s also about realizing that the world may not be Peaches and Cream forever, and putting one foot in front of the other till you get through it. To keep pushing on, it’s important to realize that everything is merely relative in comparison. It is a bad idea to keep thinking and worrying about your current situation, the key is to keep on going in the direction that you want. If it means surviving a disaster or a slump in your life, then just keep on breathing and know that as long as you keep pushing on, it will get better.

The key is to actually have a direction to head towards, any direction.

Of course getting better doesn’t necessarily mean being filthy rich overnight, but it will mean that you have something to aspire to, that you are yearning for personal growth and that you’re acquiring experience and knowledge to make future tasks that much easier. Which I think defines the human spirit pretty darn well, and exactly how the human race have managed to survive against all odds, these tens of thousands of years.

weeee Warhammerblogs.com launched. Lots of bug delays, lots of arguing over features VS launch dates, lots of scrambling to get everything coordinated. But it’s done, finally. Well, at least for version 1.

Of course, I already have Version 2 fully drafted in my head and hopefully one day soon, I will be able to get to it.

Why NewsGrid?

First of all, what you see now on the main page of WarhammerBlogs.com is called the NewsGrid. Why is it called that? Well, it’s news, and it’s lots of information placed in a grid format. NewsGrid. I wanted to create a place where the most important community information is displayed in a convenient manner. I went through a few versions before it got to what you see now. Kevin also made me remove a bunch of features that would have extended the production time by another 500%, but hey I’m the Creative. It’s my job and my right to think up totally unrealistic yet sometimes brilliant ideas.

The Colour Debate

For the NewsGrid colour scheme I used neutral shades of brown/tan at first, but that caused the headings to be lost in the clutter. So then I fixed it by vastly increasing the contrast of the overall colour scheme to punctuate every heading, also making it much easier to locate each section. That is also one of the reasons why I created icons for some of the headings, for the users to locate and differentiate easier.

The overall styling of the NewsGrid and User Blogs are fairly consistent, with the main theme graphic image up top, merged with the small nav bar. The theme layout is not at a point where I’m completely happy with it, but it will have to do for now. In a future version, I will make it even easier to design for. Because right now the design restrictions that I have imposed on myself is quite difficult sometimes.

Signup 1-2-3

The standard signup page from Wordpress MU (WPMU) was horrid at best, so I PSD designed a custom form, simplifying the process for the users visually. I guess sort of similar to having a “list” in blog posts. 1,2,3, easy as pie.

100+ Layers PSDs

Designing the theme headers was quite a challenge. I had to do it in a relatively short amount of time AND it had to look good. I think my current favourite one would be the Empire Theme, which I did last. I suppose I just adapted to theme designing over time.

I used a crazy amount of images sources and techniques for creating the theme headers. All images were taken from rights-free sources of course, but manipulated so much so that it is probably completely unrecognizable from the original.

To give an idea of the complexity, for example, I might split the Empire Theme into 8 different areas, with each area composed of 5 images, and each image would have their own 2-3 modification layers attached to it. Multiply that together and you have alot of layers for that one header alone.

I keep all my Adobe Photoshop PSD files extremely organized and labeled of course, with colour/levels as modification layers so that there’s no permanent ‘damage’ to the original image file, allowing me to make tweaks to it even months down the road.

Perhaps in future posts, if is any interest in my design process, perhaps I’ll share some of the design techniques that I’ve learned or discovered along the way. Till next time!

Welcome to the relaunch party of CreativeHerb.com. In case you were wondering, I have been working on a v2.0 total redesign in Illustrator. However, this is version 1.5 because I took the v2.0 design that I was working on, ripped out elements of it and forced it onto my v1.0 design somehow. I wanted to get a new design for my blog out the door, but wanted to spend a few more months working on the v2.0 design. So look for that in the future.

Also with this relaunch, not only does the visuals look sleeker, but I also promise to be less polite. What?

I realized that my previous posts sounded very forced and often awkward. I was basically writing for others and not for myself. Writing flows easily enough for me, so why should I try to sound like something I’m not? I’ve felt so bad about it that I completely stopped blogging. Enough about graphics tutorials. Enough about money saving tips. I’m going to just share my thoughts of the moment because I think they are more than good enough.

Welcome to the new Creativeherb.com

Let me tell you the story of how I narrowly managed to avoid making a crappy logo. I am doing a logo design for a gaming website, and I instantly thought of all the cool texturing and gimmicky things that I could do with it. I think it is a fairly common situation to be in when you are working with the gaming genre.

I thought of things like imprinting the website name on an arcade red coin slot, or even making it look like an embossed polished brass/metal stamper. Very cool effects to be sure, but after I did some quick tests to see how they would turn out, they just turned out way too complicated.

With my primary background in Print, I realized that the logos might look really cool and gaming-like in an Ad or blog post images. However, it would be inflexible at best when placed in different media or even different places around the website. And scalability would simply be horrendous.

That is exactly why I like working with Vector for logos. I quickly loaded up Adobe Illustrator and thought about gaming and gamers. I needed to distill all the ideas and perceptions of the topic into a symbol that is instantly recognizable and contextually memorable.

The thing with Vector graphics, is that with less or no texturing, the logo’s colour scheme is easily adaptable to different placement scenarios. Light background, dark background, red, pink, blue, yellow, green, whatever. The way I set it up, all I had to do was change the colour of the symbol that I’ve chosen with one click. I left the wordmark itself in greyscale so I would not have to change that, and it’s nice to have some constant in the logo anyways.

Of course, I also had to make sure that all the text and lines were sufficiently thick so that it could be scaled down to a minuscule size and still be legible. Nothing kills a sponsorship logo placement quicker than a poorly designed logo that becomes unreadable at smaller sizes.

After that, just cross your fingers and hope the client likes the design. If you know the client is picky, may I also suggest doing so over a friendly drink or two.

Got any more good logo tips? Would love to hear about it.

Warning! 95% of product reviews are useless. Yes, I realize that’s a bold statement, but it’s true. The next time you decide to buy something, you really should read this first.

This also applies to other types of reviews but in particular, it applies to product reviews. When a new product is released, the majority of reviewers are not going to wait for the product to get old and stale before writing their reviews. They will try to stay updated, as much as they can, to the new products that are released so that people will keep coming back to them. And before the flood of other reviews come out for the product.

So what is wrong with releasing a product review quickly? It sure is great for gathering the limited information on the product in one central place. But the one major problem for reviews like that, is they will often not list the severe problems that pop up over time.

Time is the true tester, and it applies especially to products. Look at how long the pharmaceutical industry have to test their products before releasing it.Though even that standard is on a steady decline as money becomes more important than human wellbeing. But I’ll leave that topic for another time.

When you are looking to buy a new cell phone for example, you may search for keywords like “Sony Ericsson K850i specs” or “Sony Ericsson G900 reviews” and get all sorts of pretty product pictures and praises for its great new functions. All of which you absolutely need of course. Though probably for only 3 months till you get tired of them, and just use it to impress friends who has never seen those functions before.

Here’s the million dollar tip: Next time you are looking to buy something, use a search string like this, “Sony Ericsson K850i problems” or “Sony Ericsson G900 fixes”. That will link you with all the obscure forum posts and Help-Me websites where people are begging for help after purchasing the product.

It’s a simple but effective solution to get past all the PR and glitter for the product and dig up the potential pitfalls of your purchase.Hope this helps you to avoid a potentially disastrous purchase!

If this has helped you in any way, or if you have more shopping tips, please share it here!

With the high gas prices lately, many of you have looked hard for ways to save gas. Look no further! Here are some of the most stupid yet potentially really effective ways to save gas. Sure there’s always a chance it’ll backfire and cause a pandemic of traffic accidents, but hey, it’s not your fault gas prices are so high!

There are many well written, perfectly logical guides out there promising that you’ll save 5%, 10% or even 20% in gas mileage. But even with all those tips combined, it just isn’t making much of a difference. Read on for the REAL gas saving tips that the Professionals aren’t telling you!

Use Those Old Tires:
You know those old tires with the smoothed out treads that people throw away? Next time, keep them! The older the better in fact. Think of all those formula one racing cars with those smoothed out tires, they are designed to not grip the road and actually save on a lot of gas. After all, the less often they have to refill in the Pit, the greater chances they have for winning right? Now you know the secret behind those million dollar machines!

How to Get Free Bonus Gas at Every Gas Station:
You know the drill. Unscrew gas cap, fill er’ up, put the nozzle back, pay the ransom. Did you know you just paid extra for the next person in line? It’s true! Next time you get gas, look up at the long tube that connects the nozzle to the top of the gas dispenser, that’s actually a lot of gas in there. All you have to do is lift up the dipped part of the tube so that the gas in the tube slides into your tank. You just got yourself a lot of free bonus gas!

Aerodynamic Tailgating:
I’m sure you’ve all seen at some point in time, a driver who weaves around and tailgates other cars or even you. Pretty annoying right? They are actually demonstrating a new type of highly advanced driving physics technique called Aerodynamic Tailgating. But don’t worry, the technique has been thoroughly tested on many Japanese Professional Race tracks. Guaranteed to save you gas and give you a nice speed boost too.

Free Taxi:
For those of you lucky enough to have CAA or AAA memberships, don’t forget about the annual allocations of free tows. If you ain’t using those perks, you’re actually losing money to the membership. Sure, your car may not actually be broken, but think of how much gas you can save from just one towing! And you can even use the extra time in traffic to finally respond to all those backlogged blackberry emails with 2 thumbs going at the same time!

Green Light Every Time:
Remember these little gadgets that turn traffic lights green? Now is the perfect time to use these to save on gas! Every time you stop your car and accelerate from a dead stop, it actually drains heavily on your gas to get the momentum going again. But if you use it in countries where it has been banned, it could also get you a green light right into jail!

Hidden Car Function You May Not Know About:
For those of you lucky enough to have a foldable side mirror on your car, you may not have realized the true intention of its design. One may initially think that it is for parking in tight spots or to protect itself from crazy people who loves to smash side mirrors. But in fact, it is designed to be folded in when you’re planning to achieve high velocity. Once folded in, it creates a super aerodynamic air bubble that will allow you to achieve the highest gas efficiency possible.

Note: Following the above comedic advice can be potentially hazardous to your health and is certainly not recommended, especially if you drive near where I drive.

Know of another stupid way to save gas? Please share them here!

Now, I don’t mean how many fonts you have available in your Photoshop font list, I’m talking about using 5-6 different font styles crammed in a single layout. It’s like plucking beautiful doves from the sky and messing up their feathers on purpose.

Before anyone jumps the gun and tell me about all the super designy stuff that uses a large number of fonts, those are merely the exception and not commonplace. To use a great number of fonts effectively, there must first be a great understanding of typography and how each font can affect one another. Every font that you add to the mix will increase the complexity and difficulty of the design. So use more fonts at your own risk, you’ve been warned!

While the design may have started out innocently enough with the attempt to separate elements in the design, an overuse of fonts usually make it look more like a flea market flyer more than anything else. Read the rest of this entry »

When you are stressed, doing something creative is a great way to relieve your stress. On the other hand, when you are stressed, trying to be creative is far from being easy. And for anyone working in the creative field, that can spell Doom. With a bolded D.

Many things contribute to stress, such as lack of sleep, overworking, taking on too many responsibilities, thinking too negatively and maybe even from a lack of exercise. With all the things that we have to deal with every day, fixing your mental wellbeing might be the last thing on your TO-DO list.

Hence the Creativity Catch 22. Frustration is felt as you struggle to think clearly, to perform well. When a little simple creativity will free yourself from the stress.

If you’re working on a project or problem that requires a certain degree of creativity to solve, you want to be in your best mental condition. Having a big stress knot in your head will not only make your mind difficult to focus, but any creativity that comes will be slow and tainted by your tense mind. So how do we get around that?

Create an Emergency Creative Box.

What the heck is an Emergency Creative Box? Think of it as a time capsule, from the stress-less you, to the over-stressed you in the future. Think of the last time something made you smile and feel awesome. What was it? Write it down on a piece of paper and put it in the box. And you can use any sorta box for this. Small jewelry box, cigarette box (smoking adds to stress by the way!), snuff box, tin candy box, any box that won’t get thrown away easily.

This way, when you are totally stressed out and unable to think of anything but going on a rampage upon those around you, dig into that box and follow a helpful suggestion. You might be surprised what the past-unstressed-you actually thought of to help lift your current mood!

Many people are in the category of the self imposed (un)creative prison. I believe that everyone is essentially creative, but through many years of negative conditioning, you are led to believe that only highly specialized artists can be creative. I’m here to say otherwise.

There are many people in various job positions where creativity is frowned upon. That is also one of the reasons why as soon as something goes wrong, the speed of adaptation and response to the situation would be slow. Just do what you’re told and stick to it.

Like the classic sci-fi robot that is only programmed to do certain tasks and nothing else. Something out of the scope happens and you have a headless chicken running around.

On the other hand, The joy of giving birth to that creative moment is priceless. It is a great fulfillment and affirmation of the immeasurable brilliance that humans are capable of. Read the rest of this entry »