It’s always good to have a network of friends and colleagues to push work back and forth to/from. Remember – one hand washes the other. When you “pay work forward”, it all comes back around. Whoever is too swamped at the time, or doesn’t want to do a particular job, will push it over someone else that might want it. This type of arrangement is highly recommended with regards to any type of freelancing position.  Sometimes you might not want to deal with a certain type of a client.  Dealing with the public can be trying, and not all of us handle certain types of people as well as others.  This is another perfect scenario of why you might want to shoot the job over to your colleague; not to dump them with a jerk of a client, but maybe you know they really could use the work.  “Beggars can’t be choosers”.  Wow, two old school expressions in the same blog post *facepalm*.

Great platforms for building your social work network such are twitter, behance, google+, linkedin; anywhere you can interact and connect with like minded creatives.  It takes constant effort, though.  You’ll need to actually keep in touch with your “creative network” somehow, and make sure you communicate regularly.  You’ll want to remember members of your network, and hope they remember you as well.  Keep each other updated on how busy everyone is, and who is in need of the most work at that present moment.

Do you already have something like this?  Please share your story in the comments section below.

They also bolded the word “mistake”, that’s another good point – you know that’s why your eyes jumped straight to it right after you read the first line. This would be a great example for a typography class. Just in case you’re still trying to figure out the mistake, the word “the” is repeated twice.  It’s okay, we know you’ve probably had a long day and/or didn’t have your coffee just yet.

If you really got a kick out of this, check out these other great mind benders, optical illusions, and brain teasers.

How true is this?  We need to choose our words very wisely when speaking to children; especially our own kids.  Sticks and stones break bones, but you can stifle a child with harsh words.

Got fish breath?  Then you need some Clorets!  This is such a great ad, with lots of copy space.

Get back into the plasma TV you naughty dinosaur!  This 3D Panasonic advertisement hits the nail right on the head.  The 3D is so real, it’s almost like the subjects you watch on it are invading your home.

Ever walk through an apartment building and smell everyone’s cooking mixed together?  It’s pretty nasty when too many aromas mix.  This fan company came up with a funny concept, to illustrate how well their exhaust fans work.

FedEx, Federal Express, a company that does logistics and shipping worldwide created a great ad illustrating how easy it is to ship packages to other countries.  It’s just as easy as handing a package to another person, through a window.  I love how they melded the scene together with the world map.  It’s clean, simple, and easy to understand at first glance.

Don’t drink and drive – if you do, it will feel like this.  Note the end of the road – disastrous consequences.  A greatly executed ad.

Recently we’ve read about and maybe heard the recent freeing of beagles in Spain that were being used for testing all their lives.  It’s really sad that they test cosmetics on these cute little guys.  I have two beagles myself, so I definitely feel for them.  They are the sweetest dogs.  If you find yourself in a position to rescue a beagle that needs a home, please do so.  Don’t even think about buying cosmetics from companies that practice animal testing – period!

A simple concept of clearing polution and smog with something as simple as the windshield wipers on your car.

A Faber Castell ad for true colours so well illustrates the fact that the color you’re using is so accurate, that it’s the same as the real thing.  Clever, and fun!

This is a really cool one, where a woman is actually hugging the page of a letter.  Talk about illustrating the point home about how much more thought and care goes into snail mail letters, than emails.  A great attempt by the post office to remind folks of this, in the digital age of smartphones and tablet pc’s we are living in.

Get so close and have so much control over your favorite sports, that your smartphone finger will actually have control over the games!  This is a funny one.

We all know evian water has used babies to advertise for years now – here is a funny continuation of that series.

We hope you have enjoyed these – please share this post, and be sure to bookmark us to come back regularly for more creative goodness.

Here Bob (“The Miz”) shows us how easy it is with just a few steps to remove color cast issues that might have happened in your images.  Make sure to subscribe to our youtube channel for more step-by-step, easy-to-follow Photoshop video tutorials!

We all know that education is important.  In most cases, having some sort of training is vital to at least start you off on the direction you’re going to make your move in.  Whether you want to become a tradesman, a creative professional, or even just a general business associate, you usually have to have some form of training in order to even be considered for the job.  My parents always encouraged me to get a college degree, as it was a great feather in your cap, as well as something to fall back on.  Four and a half years later, I did just that – and it did get me started on the road to the creative fields I wanted to work in.  But know this: college doesn’t guarantee you a job.  I’ll say it again.  College does not guarantee you a job.  There are tons spewing out of the universities that can’t even find employment in their field of study within even the first year or two after graduation.  College could land you a great job that feels secure, but actually isn’t.  Having a degree doesn’t seem to as much influence or value as it used to.  Associates, Bachelors, Masters; heck – even a Doctorate degree.  In the end, I feel that I definitely learned a lot about design, business, and other people in general, in college.  I don’t regret it, but sometimes I wonder if it would have really mattered.  That’s an entire story in itself, but let me get back to where I was going with this before I digress further.

Going back to the year 2000, when I had just started my first semester of college, I thought I knew which direction I was headed.  Originally I had starting out in college with a computer science major; taking advanced calculus classes, and java to learn the basics of programming. The math part was challenging, but I was always pretty good at it. The java, was (to me) incredibly boring and dry, very very complicated stuff. The entire class was filled with your typical programming nerds, mostly Asians and Indian in their late teens that were probably foreign exchange students. They all seemed to be understanding everything and eating it up like it was fresh cupcakes on a platter being served up.  I looked around and asked myself… did I take a wrong turn somewhere?

Having always been an honors student, school and grades always seemed to come easy for me. I was always a good student back in grade school, studying and doing all of my homework.  I definitely was not an overachiever, however.  I did the absolute minimum to get by, but I made sure I did my best at whatever I was assigned.  Yes, it was a lot of work – but I actually did care about my grades.  Not so much what my teachers or the other students thought of me; I was more concerned about proving to myself that I did my best.  Now, here I am in a class learning programming.  What was I thinking?  I didn’t want to be a computer programmer.  Somewhere along the way, I must have thought that a computer science course of study would eventually lead back over to graphics, and playing around with Adobe Photoshop – one of my beloved past-times.  It turns out, there was another major in the university I had been attending. It was called Graphic/Info Design – a course of study more specific to what I really wanted to do for work.

This design degree program was a great fit for me.  The math classes required for it were all basic, that I was kicking myself for already suffering through a lot of advanced ones.  Papers and research projects in this Graphic Design major were now transformed into design projects.  I hated writing papers (now I just write super long blog posts; go figure).  Ask my parents – they will attest to me staying up many many late nights, gluing my design pieces to black foam core and then covering them with acetate until 2 in the morning.  But – I got to play with Photoshop!  That made it all worth it.

So I did well, graduated with mostly A’s in design classes, got a couple of bad grades from some tough history classes, and ended up with a 3.28 GPA – not bad.  Now what?  I started applying for jobs.  There were very few, and a lot of candidates.  Designers in my area were spitting out of colleges by the hundreds.  Who wouldn’t want to have a cushy computer desk job, where they get to play around with artwork and photography layouts all day?  Probably a lot of people.  But there are also a lot that see that type of work as “just their fit”.  I applied and interviewed and applied and interviewed, and then three months later found out of an opening in a company that a friend told me about.  That was my in.   Who knows how long it would have taken me to land a job, otherwise.  Sometimes it’s not what you can do, or what you’ve got in your cap, but who you know.  How did she know I would be interested in a graphic design position?  Because I talked about it.  A lot.  Use your yapper, and the right people will hear you, eventually.

That worked out great for a while, and I learned so much on the job.  After getting married and realizing there wasn’t much more room for growth, (you need more income when you have to support a family, of course) I eventually left the company to move on to broader horizons; so I thought.  The pay was better – the design work was more fun / interesting, and the benefits were excellent.  Later on, I was regretting that decision, due to the high stress level of that job.  About a year after that I got a pink slip, due to the corporation going into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, around 2008 when the worldwide economy was really tanking.  Oh wait- what just happened?  I thought those with college degrees could never get laid off?  Ha.  Huge myth and common misunderstanding.  There’s no such thing as “job security” in anything you do.  There’s only something called “time to figure out your next move, plan, and execute it”.  Remember that.  Still, that layoff was a huge blessing in disguise.  If you’re currently laid off, reading this – try to look at it in hindsight – not as a curse, or a drawback, but as a blessing to hit the “reset” button on your path and to try something else.

All while I was working these traditional graphic design jobs for 4 or so years, designing everything from custom magazines, to marketing materials, and advertising of all shapes and sizes, I was introduced to the wonder world of stock imagery.  Stock photography is something as a graphic design that you are forced to at least get familiar with in the course of your job.  You obviously need effective imagery to advertise.  What our eyes see is a powerful influence on the mind.  I ended up using a lot of stock photography, and eventually in my endless searches I noticed that there were individual names attached to some of the images I was purchasing on the microstock websites, like Dreamstime and iStockphoto. I also learned what I was looking for, as an image buyer.  That placed me directly inside that type of customer mindset.

I realized that stock imagery was something I wanted to dabble in, for a side income.  I could make graphics and illustrations, even shoot some snapshots with my digital point and shoot; and then hawk them online for small commissions.  Awesome.  So, with much persistence, I got in.  It grew.  One image I got approved on istock had even earned $3000 over it’s short life span.  I was spending a few hours here and there on nights or weekends doing stock, mostly as a fun hobby to see how many sales I could rack up.  My earnings were viewed more like a score, or points.  This was just a game for me.  Something fun I could mess around with, and get the jollies when learning which images people liked to purchase the most.  Eventually I was earning enough to pay a lot of my family’s major bills, like the mortgage.  That’s right about when I was laid off from my graphic design dayjob.  Thankfully, stock imagery was my next major move.

So, I had a great start. About 3.5 years of working at shooting photos, designing graphics and layouts, keywording, description tagging them, uploading them via ftp to the agencies, processing them, and tracking stats led me into a lucrative side gig.  I knew that it was do or die time.  I needed to prove to myself, and everyone else, that when you dedicated a full time work week to this, you could make it a full time job.  Just three to six months later, I had hustled so hard that I was making double the earnings from my stock images.  I know that stress, anxiety, fear, and hunger had a lot to do with my hustle.  Sometimes its healthy to get a little hungry.  Have a little ambition.  Put your best foot forward, and work your hardest at whatever you set out to accomplish.  At least if you fail, you’ll realize that you tried your best.  Now I’m mostly a photographer.  After 6 years shooting, learning, improving, I finally consider myself a little bit more a photographer than I do a graphic designer.   Who’d have thunk it?  Not me.  So I went from high school grocery store employee (customer service booth jockey, cashier, cart pusher, grocery bagger, and dairy stocker – how I paid my way through college, and much motivation to stay in school so I could get out of that rat hole dead-end job) to computer science student, to graphic designer, to photographer.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you ever find yourself at some sort of a “career path crossroads”.  Maybe in 5-10 years, I’ll be doing something entirely different.  Who knows? Don’t let anxiety or stress get the best of you.  Things will eventually work out, as long as you’re keeping your eyes, ears, and mind open to different potential opportunities.  Don’t forget to be adaptable.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What am I really good at? 

What have I learned about myself and about the industries I’ve worked in? 

Which businesses do I know the client, inside and out? 

What do I love doing, and actually have a passion for? 

If there’s a way to actually make money doing it, how can I combine the two into a job that will support myself and/or my family? 

Even if I don’t think I’ll absolutely love a certain type of job at first, am I willing to take a chance on it, and see where it leads me? 

Is college or some form of secular training course going to be affordable, or even worth pursuing for this specific field? 

Have I done my homework by talking to other friends, neighbors, or even random internet friends about what they have learned? 

Always keep your options open, kiddos.  You will eventually find your niche. Some fall into it quick, while it takes very many years for others.  There are never really any wrong moves, because with each move your learn more about where you’d rather be or what you’d rather do.  There are risks, and there are educated risks.  Use your noggin.  Sometimes you learn what you really would like to do isn’t always possible.  Either way, you can’t be afraid to make a decision when they time comes to do so.  Life is a journey.  We all have to remember to try and enjoy the ride as we figure ours out.

Have you ever taken a photograph of someone near a brightly colored wall, object, or in a certain environment; only to realize there has been a terrible colorcast on the subject?  This happens a lot.  The white balance isn’t always the issue, but more so what the light is reflecting off of.  Taking photographs of someone in the grass on a sunny day can many times make them have a slight greenish hue in their skin tones. Using some simple color range selections, and curves adjustment techniques, you can easily remove color cast issues using this simple technique that Bob Mizerek demonstrates in this video tutorial.

Want to learn how to crate and use actions in Adobe Photoshop?  Maybe you’ve heard about it, or tried it in the past, only to find yourself getting stuck or held up at a certain point?  This tutorial is for you.  It will walk you through the basics of how to record an action and then how to use it in your post processing workflow.  Tutorial by the one and only Bob Mizerek.

Cross processing is a technique where you either have the same image, shot on a tripod, captured with multiple exposures. Or, cross-processing can also be done by creating mutltiple exposure levels in post, using an original RAW file.  Here, Bob Mizerek gives us a peek inside his personal workflow to see how he took a landscape photo of a forest from dull to spectacular by cross-processing the image.

Here is a Photoshop tutorial by Bob Mizerek which shows you how to move layer masks; no matter which version of Photoshop you have.

This video tutorial shows you a few different ways in which you can select parts of your image for isolation using Adobe Photoshop.  Tutorial by the late Bob Mizerek.  Comment, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for many more tuts and creative goodness.

Selectively highlighting parts of your photographs is made easy, using the methods taught in this free quality Photoshop tutorial by Robert Mizerek.  Put it in HD mode, and watch it full screen.  The best part about this method, is because it gives you the freedom to selectively accentuate certain parts of your image.  Less is more, many times.  Comment / share / subscribe to our youtube channel for more.

I think QR codes definitely helpful IF: 1.) you own a smartphone 2. ) you are a above average smartphone/computer user and 3. ) you hate typing urls and contact info into a touch screen cell phone and/or keyboard.

Yeah, that’s a lot of IF’s. Nevertheless, I’ve incorporated a QR code into my latest business card design on one of the sides, that way for those that might know what they’ve doing, they can have the convenience of not having to type or dial manually when contacting me.

Are QR codes life changing? They’re definitely more convenient, considering most of us now have the tools to read and decode them. How long did it take average people to embrace a new technology, such as computers, or cell phones? I know for a fact that many in the age 50-80 age range are still (just now) entering into the wonderful world of wireless telephones, or even personal computers. Some people embrace technology much quicker than others.

Should you use a QR code in your design? In the end, ask yourself – of what benefit would it be for the target market? Is the product one that has a tech-savvy market? Would it encourage them to visit or contact the intended website with less apprehension?  Is typing on a keyboard really dead?  For those that think of scanning bar-codes with their cell phones as “fun” or “cool” might be a little more prone to it than the rest of the general population.  Maybe awareness of these QR codes will increase over time, and things will change.

What do you think?  Chime in below – and please share this post with a friend using one of the social share links.  To learn more about QR codes and QR code marketing tactics for the small business owner, check out the book by Michael Weir.

Funny enough, I noticed the dunking basketball player stock photo in the montage above is in fact one of our royalty-free images!

Now don’t leave just yet… did you enjoy this post?  Then please be kind and leave a comment below!  Which of the above image manipulations are your favorites?  These posts take a lot of effort to compile, so please share this with your friends and colleagues.

An amazingly executed job by Coca Cola.  All three soccer players are smiling and staring towards the bottle.  The corporate logo is clear and identifiable at the upper left, with a simple, two-word catch phrase “open happiness”.  Why are the guys so happy?  Oh, it’s the cola.  It’s plain and clear.  You see it, and you get it.  And yeah, it only takes a few seconds.  Brand recognition is visible not only in the form of the logo, but also in the product itself.  The photography is excellent, and the image has been stylized in almost an illustrative way to make it stand out from the crowd.

The Applie iPad did it right also.  Logo, upper left hand corner.  It’s human nature that we read from the top left hand side, from left to right.  It’s proven fact.  They placed the logo and product logotype there.  The photo of the woman lounging with the iPad on her lap, shows how portable the product is.  It’s almost like you’re looking over her shoulder.  This billboard has no words other than the product name, but it promotes the lifestyle.  Once again, less is more.  And when is the last time you saw a crop like this on a billboard?  This woman is relaxed, and enjoying her brand new iPad.  Similar to the Coca Cola ad above, the product here speaks for itself. There is no need to busy the ad up with website urls, phone numbers, or any other call to action.

Bad billboard design has text that isn’t viewable from further than a few car lengths away, and they usually have way too much text.  You can’t read that much text on a billboard, because you’re usually traveling at least 65 mph down the highway as you’re viewing it.  Mostly passengers will have the advantage over the drivers, but effective ads will be brief enough to be noticeable to the drivers as well.  If you ever have the privilege to design a billboard, keep these pointers in mind.

]]> http://arenacreative.com/blog/graphic-design/less-is-more-when-it-comes-to-good-billboard-designs/feed/ 0 http://arenacreative.com/blog/graphic-design/15-hilarious-old-school-vintage-print-advertisements/ http://arenacreative.com/blog/graphic-design/15-hilarious-old-school-vintage-print-advertisements/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:13:58 +0000 ArenaCreative.com http://arenacreative.com/blog/?p=2480 Graphic design has undergone a lot of change in the last 100 years.  They only just started using computers in design back in the late 80s, or early 90s.  But besides the technical side of things, society has changed a lot over the years as well.  We have had endless technological advances in product design, health standards, science, and even general common knowledge.  We’re living in an informed generation, where you can learn anything in a matter of a minute spent searching Google.  Here are 15 retro / vintage print ads that might come across the wrong way by today’s standards.  I hope you get a kick out of these flashbacks from the dark ages.  Some of them are hilarious, others quite offensive by today’s standards.

That’s definitely a realistic reenactment of what happens after blowing tabacco smoke into a pretty woman’s face.  About 5 Tipalets for 25 cents.  Not 5, but about 5.  Just in case we throw in an extra half, or 4, or 6, or 3. 

Cocaine.  Instantaneous cure for everything.  Right.  For sale by all druggists.  Coke heads rejoice!  Nowadays they call them “street pharmacists”.

Oh look!  There’s actually a Soda Pop Board of America, and what do they recommend?  Starting babies on Cola EARLY ON!  Sure, that makes a lot of sense.  No wonder why most Americans are overweight, and why many school systems have removed their soda machines.

There’s nothing like a fresh and crispy gat on Christmas morning LOL!  Put a heater in your pocket on those cold winter days.

I’m not a real doctor, but the big tobacco company has paid me to act like one endorsing how healthy it is to smoke in this ad.  Smoking cigarettes is actually healthy?  What a joke.  Decades of health research has proven otherwise.  I actually just recently saw a 20/20 special on the smoking and smoking kids / babies epidemic going on over in Indonesia.  Check it out, it was pretty interesting. The full 20/20 episode is here.

I’m giving my wife a Kenwood Chef, because it does everything but cooks.  But hey; that’s what wives are for! (Well, they used to be. Things done changed somewhere along the lines but let’s not get into that history lesson.)  I wonder if this ad pissed women off back when it was released?  Probably not.  Today, they would receive about 150,000 hate letters on the first day public.

Who wouldn’t want to go on a gay cruise with their wives and family members, while playing with puppets!?  Every voyage a gay cruise.

Yeah, we’re all going to die somehow.  Who cares, just smoke our cancer sticks!  Take it from this dude in the bowtie.  He looks like a wise fella.

There’s definitely nothing wrong with a hard working woman.  I can hear the ad slogan now, “Put some PEP in your step, with Kelloggs PEP cereal! Vitamin enriched so you can get all of your chores done on time!”

Lane Bryant today refers to clothes for heavier women as “plus size” or “plus sized”.  Back in the day? Chubbies.  LOL!

Wow, a softtop Schlitz beer can!  I wonder how long we’ll need to wait to have something similar!?  Ever heard of the on-can flip top aluminum tab?  What about the vented wide mouth opening?  Yes, things have come a long way.

DJ Paulie D would say: “Oh yeah, beer for babies yeah.”  Please don’t give beer to your children, people.  You know what?  I “pick up” a little every time I have a beer in my hand too, so I can see why mother and baby would also.

Wives: cry to your husbands for what you want, and then they’ll buy it for you.  Very realistic!

Wow, Motorola actually used to make TV sets.  This study showed that a television set meant better behavior in kids.  HA!

Tape worms.  They do a body good.  Eat all you want, and then let the tapeworms steal all of the calories, and grow inside of your stomach until they come out of your throat.  Mmm tapeworms!  Beats throwing up.

All you ever needed to know about the quick selection tool in adobe photoshop – here is an easy tutorial to help you figure out how to handle it.  Making selections is one of the most important skills to master in Photoshop.  This is just one method for quick selections that you might find a good use for, depending on the image or graphic you’re working with.  I find it’s sometimes a nice alternative to the magic wand or magnetic lasso tools.  Watch it in 720 HD at full screen, and have fun listening to me babbling like I just drank 5 coffees (maybe I had; I can’t remember).