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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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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! (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)