Here are few of my favorite things to eat:

• Gram crackers
• Cereal (any kind)
• Peanut Butter and Jelly (strawberry jam really)
• Poptarts
• Strawberries
• Sandwiches – How I love my sandwiches!

Comment below and add your favorite things to eat while working.

 

We believe that a mentor experience is extremely important, even invaluable, to those students still in school and even those just getting out. And we know firsthand that there is a need in the NWI design community for a mentor program. We’ve done the first step in recognizing the need, we’ve even done the second step by having the will and now we need the help of the community to make the way.

Starting this fall, we are proud to be announce the first session of Four11 Mentors. 

We’ve encountered a lot of questions, so here is a basic rundown of the program. Four11 Mentors is a one-on-one mentoring program that aims to connect students, in the last 2 years of a design program, or young professionals, who have just graduated from a design program, with seasoned professionals in the creative industry. The program will run on a semester basis, so the first program will run from approximately September through December. Once we pair a mentor with a mentee, it will be up to both of them to establish their relationship. We will require that each pair meet face-to-face 1-2 times during the program, because the face to face time is how the relationship develops. Besides the recommended 1-2 face-to-face meetings, we have no hard and fast ‘rules’ for the program, nor do we feel we need to. Every person is different, so all mentor/mentee relationships will be very different. As is true in life situations, it is all going to be based on how much they put into it and what they both want to get out of it.

Maybe you were lucky enough to have had a mentor or maybe you learned it all on your own. Either way, we see this as your chance to help our industry and make a difference in the lives of others.

We are excited about the future and can’t wait to hear from you!
Rock on!

Teresa and Ryan

Still have questions? Interested in getting involved?
Visit us @ www.four11mentors.com

 

We want you to take a 2.5 X 2.5 blank canvas and creatively tell us about one (or more) of these defining moments that has helped make you who you are today.

Why should you do this? Two reasons. One, it will help us as a community of artists get to know one another a little bit better. Two, iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17). That means that by sharing our stories with each other we also learn from each other.

If you would like to be involved with this project, please email kevin_bruinsma@yahoo.com and let me know you’re interested. You can pick up your canvas outside the Worship & Arts Department at Faith Church (100 81^sst Ave, Dyer, IN 46307) Monday – Friday 9am-4pm or on the weekends during our services. (www.faithchurchonline.org)

Rules:

1. Keep your artwork in such a way that it can be hung on the wall for display.
2. Keep your imagery appropriate enough to be hung in a multi-purpose space. (that means kids will see these displayed too)
3. Meet your deadline.
4. Create something you’re proud of.

DEADLINE: April 15, 2011 (early drop-offs are always welcomed with a smile)Please bring completed artwork to the Worship & Arts Department at Faith Church in Dyer.

Once all the art work is received it will be hung at Faith Church in Dyer through the month of May and then hung again at the Community Arts Center (CAC) in Cedar Lake through June.

 

In my last post I talked about how you should “self-evaluate” before you can jump into the self- promotion pool, now that you have done it, let’s get our yellow floaties on and start swimming.

Here are some ways to self-promote and get you started…

Have a website: Have something out there that allows people to get in touch with you and view your work. There are plenty of great resources out there to get your work up and running. I’m from the school of thought that, if you are a graphic designer and that is what you’re selling then you just need something as simple as a carbonmade site and you’re good to go. Eventually you’ll want to design your own site. My first site was  string of image tags on a one page site. I didn’t care because I wasn’t selling myself as a web designer. Today my site runs off of the index exhibit cms and was tweaked by Atom Groom. I also have a couple sites running on the Cargo Collective cms both of which are easy to use and will have you up and running in a few hours. If you are a web designer then that’s a completely different story. You should have a rock-star site with clean code, running the latest xyz language and all that jazz. Because that is what you are selling. I scratch my head at web guys who use templates for their own sites.

Submit on sites: This is a double edge sword, there are plenty of sites out there where you can submit your work and have it showcased or featured but you have to be careful. A lot of sites are built off of content from their community and have no real value or purpose. Meaning you submit your work giving them content and they get paid from advertisers who have ads on their site. When starting out, I posted my work on myspace, carbonmade and design:related. I was really picky where my work was being displayed but I encourage you to have an online portfolio somewhere in conjunction with your website. I still get traffic from my carbonmade site, because a lot of people will search that site and use it as a jumping point to designers’ websites. Today I have my work on those sites but have also included behance.net and itevenhasawatermark.com Both sites are top notch and I get traffic from each to my site. Some of my top blog traffic comes from itevenhasawatermark.

Submit to contest and competitions: Again this is another one that should be taken with caution. Contest sometimes equal crowdsourcing. And if you don’t know what the horrible monster of crowdsourcing is then you can read about it here. I submitted my work to allmightys.com and there is a really strong argument that allmightys, threadless, and designed by humans are forms of crowdsourcing. And quite frankly it is. But if you step back and look at the bigger picture of what it can do for you then it can be taken with a grain of salt. If your work gets picked and used for a tshirt design you’ll get a certain amount of compensation which is not a bad thing. But the process of voting and getting your work out there has a lot of value. I’d just stay away from “contest” that ask you to submit 20 concepts and 100′s of people are doing it with no real reward. You’ll know what I mean after reading up on crowdsourcing.

If you have a unique style or service: Talk about it, blog about it and get it out there. With so many different vehicles for communication now-a-days it is easier than ever to get your work out there. Some things you can do is to start a blog or contribute to a blog like this one, do useful tutorials or sell your product. Position yourself as an expert in your field and contribute content that supports your claim.

These are random things that I currently do to self-promote.

Donate work to charities and causes: Working for a non-profit can lead to some really interesting paths. I’ve designed work for non-profit events which lead to doing design work for people on the board. I’ve also agreed to be an featured artist for an event and donated my time and talent; to then be rewarded down the road to a project which lead to creating five identities and branding a restaurant within community park. All of which might not of happened if I never extended myself in the first place. Donating your time is just as important as donating your dollars.

Network with other designers and create partnerships: Having a solid network is key to any industry, having a strong circle or even being associated with a some type of circle will open doors for you. It’s self-promotion with a twist. You want to get known in your industry, then you have to email and visit peoples sites, contact them and let them know you exist. To this day, I still email random people I come across on the web and let them know that I like their work and to keep doing a good job. A quick note from a random stranger is extremely exciting. That person will go to your site and check out your work in a heartbeat and if they like what they see then they’ll keep you in mind. (this works for design firms too.

Have  a great business card and leave that sucker everywhere: Give them to your family members and have them hand them out for you. That’s how I meet Dr. Awesome. My mother-in-law gave him my card and look at us now. Leave them at book shops, drop them in fish bowls, leave them in magazines at Boarders, stick them in bathrooms, I mean everywhere. Because all you need is one response and it would have been worth it.

Do stuff: Plan and simple do things to get you noticed and give your-self a reason to blog, tweet and talk about it. I try to have something at least once a month to update my site with. Be it a new project or a new venture I’m jumping into, do something to get you noticed. I recently participated in a design event and had the opportunity to blog about it. I teach and have two other ventures that I’m involved in all of which gives me content to put out on the web and get traffic back to my sites. Make sure what ever you do and how ever you do it, it stays consistent with your brand and voice. Trying to do something outside of your comfort zone is competently transparent.

In closing remember that self-promotion is advertising. I look at everything I donate, from time to design, in terms of dollars I would be paying for advertising. Be it in print or online paying for advertising is expensive. If you can think of your time as that cost, then donating your services will get a little easier to swallow. Just be smart as to where you extend yourself and you’ll be on your way.

 

It was way different then what I expected and not in a bad way. The format for the presentations was different then I was use to, kind of like an even shorter version of a TED talk. Here’s how it breaks down -

• 5 minutes for the talk
• 20 slides, set to auto rotate every 15 seconds

This takes more prep from the speaker who has to work on getting their pacing and timing just right so that the slides line up with what they are talking about and make a smooth presentation overall.

The topics themselves were all over the place but interesting overall. The guy I had come to see who is a mobile dev talked about his martial arts experience and working on the Mortal Kombat series doing motion cap (still good talk, just not what I expected.) Some of the presenters really had the format down and rocked it. Only a couple struggled with it, especially one who seemed to be trying to give a 15 minute talk in the 5 minutes and just looked down and read her cards straight and was constantly behind the slides which really made them not make much sense.

So why talk about this here? Well there was one presentation in particular that I thought you guys might appreciate. David Kadavy (@kadavy) gave a presentation on Comic Sans that was quite funny. The organizers recently put videos up of the talks so I figured I would share it with you below.

This was the first time I heard of David but was really intrigued by the idea of thinking about design from the “hackers” mind and am excited to hear that he will be able to put that idea into a book in the near future. It will be cool to hear someone talk about design possibly in a way I can understand which will only help me to be able to better communicate with designers on projects.

So hope you enjoyed the talk. Hopefully the next time Ignite rolls around I’ll have a talk to submit to help me battle public speaking issues. The crowd was very nice and would seem like a great place to work on it. Maybe some of the other NWI peeps can join me up there for it as well.

 

LOOK AT ME!!! OVER HERE!!! I’m cool. Ummm, really – that’s lame. The fine line of self-promotion is a balancing act of being graceful or obnoxious. I’ll cover key points that I have learned the past few years and share my experiences with what worked and what didn’t, in this three part series.

Let’s get started.

Before I dive in, lets set the stage for what self-promotion is and what it’s all about. Self-promotion, is in many cases, advertising. Advertising in a indirect or direct manner that promotes the personality, services and identity of said business or individual. That’s straight out of the Gonzalez attic so don’t start posting comments about what wikipedia says. All in all, self-promotion is what the name states it is. Now that we have that clear, lets move on chappy….

The first step to self-promotion is – a self-evaluation. I cannot stress this point more. Like with building any super-fly house; you need a solid foundation. Knowing who you are is  key to your future success and failure.

You first need to evaluate the level of work that you are producing. How do you stack up against others in your field? Is your design work relevant? Do the images in your corporate brochures have people with 1980s hair styles? Check out some online galleries, website and inspirational blogs and see if your work is in the same league (or time era). Many designers might find out that they need to update some work in their portfolio or chose not to display; their once amazing project. Just like tight rolling your jeans or wearing z cavaricci’s, design goes out of style. This simple exercise will help you put your best foot forward and showcase your abilities in the best light.

What type of person are you? Are you a type-A, a to-cool-for-school type of dude, loud, or just sit back and chill type of person. Whatever you are (and there is no wrong type of personality here) you should always be true to that. Uuuuhhh but with one twist. You want to represent yourself the best you can, so why not represent yourself in the way you are on your best day. I’m not saying be fake. I’m saying be the best you can be. You might be a laid back kind of guy with a “whatever” attitude, but if you ever want to get clients and/or a job then you better tighten up that belt clean up a bit. You don’t want your online presence to come off as if you are lazy and unreliable, you want to come off as easy going and great to work with because you’re so dang cool. This goes back to that balancing act. Once you understand who you are as a person, you can better understand what to say and what not to say online. And believe me, search the web and you’ll see examples of both. Knowing who you are will help determine your “voice” and presence – the essences of your brand. In closing if your personality calls for you driving around nwi vlogging as you smoke a stogy then do it cause that is who you are, which makes your brand unique. If your personality isn’t that out going and you attempt to do something like that then it will feel wrong.

Self-promotion can take a lot or a little amount of time. In the beginning it will take a lot of time. You need to have a game plan and adapt as you go. Decide how you want to self-promote and what is the best way to reach your audience. Having a multi-tiered attack will make your efforts more effective. Promoting to peers/industry will look different then promoting for business. Peers don’t want to be sold to they just want to know what’s going on with you. If you are looking for business then that communication will be tailored to that audience. Once you have a game plan you can then see how that looks like in terms of time. For instance, if you have a twitter account you’ll need to factor in time for tweets through out your day, or schedule them. If you have a blog, then time for writing, posting and keep up-to-date with new content, (both of which I personally fail at). If you have a website, which you should, updating content could be done weekly or quarterly. All of these items take time. You have to schedule that into your day, make time to think about or actually do the work that is needed to keep up with your brand.

Self-promotion, once started, is a full-time job; how you work this job will in-turn reflect the outcomes that it generates for you. Being aware of this balancing act will separate you from the rest. It only takes a moment to fall off, but understanding the core principles will constantly keep you on the wire.

 

Installation view, "Every Hour Is Happy Hour", Michael Robert Pollard, Danny Hein

On October 6th I posted an announcement for a contemporary art exhibition at a venue that goes by the name of ‘SideCar’. Over the weekend it occurred to me that many of you have no idea just what SideCar is. This post is an attempt to change that reality; to give you all a short introduction to SideCar, what drives it (if you’ll pardon the pun) and what some of the long-term goals for the SideCar Project are.

"Sunrise On Camp No", Matt Hanner, wall painting

SideCar is first and foremost a Contemporary Art space. Art is made there (it is my studio) and art is shown there. I envision SideCar to be a kind-of ‘incubation’ space for contemporary art. I want to foster an environment for creativity, a place where ideas can be hammered out, where discoveries can be made. SideCar is a place where artists working now can try things; it is almost an art laboratory.

"Back and Forth", site-specific collaboration by Shari Pettis and Matt Hanner

It is also an attempt to bring contemporary art out of the major metropolitan area that is Chicago into what is effectively Chicago’s suburbs. There are a few other spaces that perform that function; The Beverly Art Center in Beverly, Union Street Gallery in Chicago Heights, the IU Northwest Gallery for Contemporary Art in Gary, the Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City to name a few. SideCar’s differs in that it is an artist run, artist owned space and distinctly Contemporary Art is what is shown, closer in spirit to The Suburban located in Oak Park, Illinois.

"It's Only A Paper Moon 2", site-specific installation, Gunnatowski

Last weeks post was an announcement for the current exhibition at SideCar. If I may be allowed, it is a good show. If you like art, care about art, you should see this show. Included in this post are a few images but the real thing is always better; art is to be lived ……

"Stand", Mark Holmes

"Stand", Mark Holmes

Long term, SideCar intends to bring contemporary artists from around the globe to work here, to surprise us in ways we can’t imagine at the moment. Artist residencies and long-term installation projects are also under consideration. The SideCar Project is an attempt to bring these methods of contemporary art practice to Hammond. It is a way to provide a place where artists can experiment. It is a way for me to be involved in the types of artist projects that I find exciting. My hope is that you will find these events exciting too.

 

1.  Set Goals.

So where do you want to take this? Your local coffee shop?  Art fairs? Local galleries? Wholesaling prints and originals nationally? Larger galleries in big cites?  Museums?  You don’t know? Artists have very different goals, which change over time, and the answer to this question will more than likely be a big factor in moving forward with the business side of creating.

My personal business model has gone against the advice of fellow artists, gallery owners and peers who own their own businesses.  However, my personal goals do not align with theirs and I have subsequently structured my business to hopefully take me where I want to go.  For myself, it has never been about making money.  I want to do three things, create unbelievable beautiful paintings with highest quality supplies so it can become a long-term investment for my collectors, put my art in the hands of those who appreciate it the most, and use this gift to best serve the community in which I live.

Now, the decision making process becomes more pointed as I have direction in which to move.  Just to give one example, a year and a half ago, I decided to stop making prints of my artwork as it was time consuming and I found myself spending so much time in the proofing process ensuring the prints were of the highest quality that it was preventing me from painting more.  I found this to be a great way to generate additional income off of already created work but it did not align with my original goals.  As a young artist, I am focused on improving the overall quality of my work, exploring new mediums, painting more, and spending less time exploring alternative avenues to make money off my work.  This is not to say that I will not explore this avenue in the future, but it does not align with my current goals.

2.  Think twice before lower your prices.

First, how does one even go about pricing their work? Starting out, a young artist will probably have to experiment finding a fair price in which their work moves quick.   However, once this price is established, I do not believe it should be lowered.  At this point, I look at the collector purchasing my work as an investment and at a fundamental level, investors do not want to see their investments decrease in value.  That being said, it is important for a young artist to show a steady increase in prices, thus increasing their value.  In the beginning, struggling to sell art, I would put artwork “on sale” just to move it and in hindsight, I am not sure that I would do that again.  It works to undermine the previous purchasers investment in which they purchased my work at full price.

I also quickly discovered that there is a fine line between too cheap that it appears you undervalue your work and then priced at a point where collectors are enticed to buy.  Putting a price tag on a tangible item that which I created is a difficult thing to do as it has special personal meaning and it is essentially priceless. Instinctually, I started my work priced high but was not moving anything and then found myself practically giving art away.  At first it was difficult, walking in and out of galleries, no one wanted my work.  Finally, putting my stuff in a local coffee shop, just to watch most of the stuff sit at prices that were probably too low.

Another consideration to think about is the difference between priced to sell and priced to sit.  I prefer selling a lot of work at lower prices, thus making less money, which sometimes when galleries take their cut, I make very little money, but this aligns with my goal of putting art in the hands of those who appreciate it as my work is currently affordable to a wider range of income brackets.  Out of the gate, others prefer pricing their work higher, building up a big inventory, doing lots of shows thus building credibility, but more than likely selling less work, which in my eyes, keeps the paintings in their studio or a gallery and out of the hands of someone who are going to display it proudly in their home. What will work for one may not work for another but it is important to think about how even a small difference in price could potentially mean the work with sit for 6 months rather than 6 hours.

3.  Don’t get discouraged.

Knowing nothing about how to go about selling my work, I was living in Indianapolis the first time I walked into a gallery with art in my hand and the hopes that they may like what I was doing, possibly give me a chance to hang some of my work on their walls.  Long story short I walked into several galleries that day and went home with all of my paintings and a whole lot of humility.  Now three years later, building a modest following of collectors and really starting to throw myself out there in the world, I sometimes receive comments, messages, and emails from people offering words of discouragement, many times with unconstructive negative feedback about my artwork and what I am doing.  Even still, now that I have really developed some confidence in my paintings, my brand, and myself, it is difficult not take these messages personally.  However, at the end of the day, I believe in who I am, what I am doing, and where I am going and as hurtful as it is sometimes to get your ego crushed, it is important to take the licks and keep looking and moving forward.

4.  You are a brand.

I believe one of the more important exercises I have done over the last three years was taking and 8×8’ blank wall and started visually brain storming with my friends about my career goals.  On Wednesday nights over the course of a few months, we took turns writing, drawing, and listing all sorts of stuff on this board.  Doing exercises like each one of us would write one word that describes my art, one word that describes my brand, one word that describes my goals.  We created slogans, logos, picked apart the repeated elements in my work and discussed the underlying symbolism behind these elements.   In doing these exercises and more with my closest peers, I really started to learn things about myself and where I wanted to take my art.  This process also helped define my short and long term goals and again gave me direction in which to guide my ultimate business decisions.

I strongly recommend taking the time to go through this great slideshow by Marty Neumeier that describes what it takes to create a strong brand – http://www.slideshare.net/coolstuff/the-brand-gap?from=share_email

5.  Quality vs. Quantity

Most artists could probably testify that if they made only one painting a year, they could probably make one very incredible piece of artwork, spending months on the planning and execution.  But this is an unrealistic endeavor for most artists and many artists prefer plein-air painting or creating paintings in a much shorter time frame, thus they have the opportunity to create a higher number of works per year.

I mentioned before that I have sold over 400 pieces in the last three years and when you do the math that adds up to creating one piece of artwork every three to four days.  Honestly, three years ago when I started selling my work, my goals were different.  I was not thinking of my artwork as a long-term investment for my collectors, rather, I was thinking about my bottom line, generating more income and the way to do that was creating more paintings.  In hindsight, I was painting a ton and producing a lot of work which really helped my skills improve quickly however, looking back I think I was focused too much on quantity rather than quality.  I believe it is important for an artist to continuously be producing in order to foster development, improvement, and growth, but at the same time producing too much can result in a decline of quality.  For myself, I am still finding a balance between creating a lot of work while maintaining a very high quality.  Not all paintings are great successes, but when I finish a painting I want to be able to confidently say to myself that this is one of the best pieces I have created to date.  If I cannot say that to myself, I believe it will be time for me reassess what I am doing.

My current project on the side of the Valparaiso International Center.

 

Time: September 22 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm

Location:The C.A.C. (Community Arts Center: 13300 Lincoln Plaza, Cedar Lake, IN 46303)

Created By: Ali Lauren Jacobs

 

@atomgroom – Lol, all that info is available for free, online! Waste of money on conferences!

and thought hey that would make a good topic to talk about on NWI Creative, so now months later I’m finally getting it done. First, you have to take his tweet with a grain of salt being he helps run the Insight conference but I do believe there are a lot of people who do believe this though.

Why would anyone feel this way? That’s pretty simple, there are a lot of really bad ones out there. I’ve spoken at some (and yeah I was one of the horrible presenters and can admit that, but hey it was my first time) that were quite bad and have read about more that were of the same vein. It also really hard to know if a conference is going to be of value before you go to it. There is always the hype of those who run it or say how great it was after even though but unless you are familiar with the sources you won’t know whether what they say is the truth or not.

Most of the time, it is not. You will here presentations that are out of date or of little relevance to things that you will find value in. As well the conferences themselves will be structured in ways that you will have conflicting talks that you would like to see while at other times there is nothing. Or worse, it’s some paid talk by a sponsor that no one wants to hear.

And really, why pay for something when all the info they are going to talk about is already online somewhere? Most of the time what is being talked about is something that is already known by those who really cared and isn’t bringing anything new to the table.

It’s pretty easy I think to see where a lot of people would get their feelings on conferences. Overall I’d have the same feeling if it wasn’t for a couple experiences I had through conferences.

But isn’t it right that all this info is online? It is but then it isn’t. There is lots of info out there on lots of topics. But can you trust what you find? There are tons of php tutorials out there that talk about mysql and give examples, BUT how many are out there don’t mention mysql_real_escape_string. I would say, in general, the more specific the conference the better it usually going to be. The people chosen are usually better known in the community for that specific topic. When you have a larger topic, like Web or Higher Ed, someone who might not be a real expert in field. They might be the person talking because they are the one who sounded like they know it better then the rest of the group, but that doesn’t mean they are really giving what is needed. When it comes to a more generic conference, the organizers don’t know enough usually about the smaller topics to pick who would be best to talk about it, or are even given a person who should talk about it counting on what the conference is.

The one thing you don’t really get online though is the ability to meet similar people and talk about a shared interest. People might lead you on to things that you never would have thought of or point you towards tech you weren’t aware of. You may have even seen it talked about before but never fully grasped that it was what you were looking for. While there are forums, mailing lists, and chat rooms that you can go to, talking in person can really help you learn about the things that you never knew to really ask.

As well, speakers may say things “off script” that are also of great value. One of the talks that I took the most home from was the APC @ Facebook talk at PHP|Tek 2k7 that opened my eyes to a lot of the possibilities of tech i had never really thought about. While I had read about caching online and got some of the points, it wasn’t until I saw it fully laid out by one of the engineers behind Facebook that I saw how it all came together in a grand symphony of pure awesome. As well, there were a ton of people in the crowd who questioned him on stuff that, while at the time I didn’t realize I cared, after I got back up into the hotel room and played more I realized that I would have had the same question and glad to have the answer. I’ve tried to pass out the slide deck from the talk and it really doesn’t do it justice at all and doesn’t give you that needed feedback to really understand what he’s saying.

And lastly I’d like to include another point made by Rahsaan

Rahsaan – “And some people learn better at [conferences] it all depends on the person.”

which is also very true. While for me overall I prefer to tinker myself, there are a lot of people who would rather have someone walk them through things and not just read it off a paper.

Well, that’s about all I had to spew on the subject. I hope I gave you some insight to both sides of conference debate and maybe swayed you a little. I hope that people from both sides (and the middle) come in and put in anything else they feel on the subject. For me, while I won’t be at a conference very often, hopefully I will catch you at one at some point so we can talk more in person.