I’ve always had difficulties with color…not to say I don’t use it, nor use it well. But it’s always been a detail in my own artwork that I’ve had to consciously push…otherwise, I end up with end-products that are always just in red, black, and white.

Now both in teaching students and talking to clients, I find myself trying to explain how important it is to put some thought into using more color in a project. Check out this info-graphic that demonstrates how colors affect shopping purchases (Kissmetrics)

Found this great little article, “The 10 most important business lessons I’ve learned”.

I think the biggest thing I’ll take away from that writing is that you must work with, or hire, people that are better than you at their jobs. I still have that dream in my head where I want this business to be….now if only I can tackle the rest of my life this systematically, it’d be great!

Just a quick update for anybody out there following Kingston’s recovery.

He’s actually doing amazingly well for a boy who literally had to be resuscitated on the surgery table to where he is today. All his tubes has been pulled out (well, he ended up pulling out his own tube the other day) with the exception of just one last IV in one arm that he hardly notices.

He IS walking, laughing, crying….and yes, still watching his favorite movie “Cars” for what might be his 70th time since this incident. The DVD player his uncle loaned him is on its last breath gasping for air each time we try to play the video…it’s starting to crap out.

He’s getting more and more stable with his walking again. Meanwhile that one right arm is slowly coming back, although the PT folks liken it to what happens to a stroke patient. All the mechanics are still there, but he “forgets” about that hand until you remind him about it. A couple days ago we witnessed him grab a ball with that hand and toss it overhead. As simple as that may sound, it’s a significant step in the right direction as the PT folks see that as a demonstration of an autonomous, non-thinking action taking place.

We’re HOPING just one more week in the hospital before we can bring him home. The last thing he has to prove to the doctors is that he can eat enough calories to stabilize or gain wait…the calories being an important part of his healing process. So we’re loading him up with all the stuff we’d never normally give him – mash potatoes & gravy, french fries, roast beef, yogurt, jello. I think I’m one step away from loading him up with 24 oz of Pepsi every day just to get his weight up. 

Anyway, all you folks out there who could do nothing more than send him your love and prayers?  It’s working…

Today’s 1st day of instruction went well. I dusted off a year’s worth of teaching absence and got through it relatively unscathed. There were some false starts in the early part of my first class but got rolling fairly well after the 1st hour. I think by the end of my 2nd class I started to feel my voice start leaving me… I think I’ll need to bring a jug of coffee with me to class.

To the students of Art 112 (if any of you are reading this) thanks for coming to class today and I hope to see many of your faces again next week Tuesday.

On that note, I bookmarked a great link the other week from a designer named Frank Chimero. This was his advice to budding graphic design students. I liked many of his thoughts:

Look people in the eyes when you are talking or listening to them. The best teachers are the ones who treat their classrooms like a workplace, and the worst ones are the ones who treat their classroom like a classroom as we’ve come to expect it. Eat breakfast. Realize that you are learning a trade, so craft matters more than most say. Realize that design is also a liberal art. Quiet is always an option, even if everyone is yelling. Libraries are a good place. The books are free there, and it smells great.

Check out the rest of his post here.

There’s a lot of buzz in recent months about “crowd-sourcing” design. Some companies are making big bucks on providing a service that allows what they call “communities” to submit logos in the hopes of getting a cash reward. This isn’t new of course, it’s basically the same thing as doing a design contest, or what we’d call speculative work. I may have discussed this issue here once or twice.

Here’s a great article written up by a design group that had their logo plagiarized dozens of times by people who submitted derivative artwork in the hopes of winning a design contest.

To new, upcoming designers…I understand the thrill of possibly getting some recognition by submitting your work on these things. But if you’re serious about getting into this profession, you have to think about your own role in protecting the very career you’re heading towards. Your raw talent, your training, your software and hardware, and the future well-being of your clients, are all worth more than what little you get awarded from these things.

One of the perks about teaching a college course in new media is that you get to use the latest software. Well, there’s no choice really, you HAVE to learn the latest thing otherwise the students you have lose out on the experience.

About a couple months back the latest Adobe Creative Suite software came out for CS5. As is typical of every upgrade season, it sets you back a few hundred bucks if you’re upgrading, or nearly a couple grand if you’re purchasing it all for the first time. And as usual, designers like me have to weigh the options of investing in the upgrade…are the changes worth the price of upgrade?  I know very well-established design colleagues who are still using CS2.

It’s still a crazy thing to keep up with….this year it might be all this software, next year it’ll be time to upgrade all the hardware. Kids…you want to do this type of business all legit?  This is where you’ll be sinking all your money.

ANYWAY, I guess since the new Fall semester starts next week, I better sit my arse down these next few days and familiarize myself with the new GUI and features. Nothing more embarrassing than sitting down in front of a class and not being able to find that one feature that’s been moved to another menu.

There’s a good set of tutorials over at Layers Magazine to check out all the programs and the new features they have. I guess the rest of my day will be staring at tutorials…

Twelve days into this crisis experience – Kingston’s still in the hospital but at least he seems to be out of imminent danger. He’s got a fever that constantly hovers around 102F – 104F which is alarming to us. But the nurses and doctors who keep checking on him don’t seem overtly alarmed. The problem now lies in trying to figure out what the cause of it is. They’ve done all kinds of samples, CAT scans, ultrasounds, tested different antibiotics, etc without any clear cut solution so far.

My wife and I are holding up…my wife is as stoic as ever, but I can read the concern and worry on her face for everything from Kingston’s recovery to the upcoming bills that are inevitably going to show up. But otherwise she’s never one to complain and often refuses help or attention on herself.

Me on the other hand, I’m more than ready to cry for help if I need it. I think it was only within the last 5 or 6 years ago where I learned it’s much more comforting just voicing all my pain and suffering out to whomever can listen, than to just hold it all in. THAT’s why you guys hear all the bitching all the time see?

I’m still hanging in there….there’s no choice really. But my body is definitely complaining to me….my throat hurts, I gots me one of them painful canker sores on my lip, my back is killing me, I got nightmares almost every night since my wife’s been staying over at the hospital. Maaaan, I’m breaking down!

One of my friends said it best, “Some things were just meant to be endured until it’s over”. There’s something reassuring about that statement….at least it suggests all of this crappiness to be over someday.

One thing I discovered about having my own business in the midst of a personal crisis — the advantage of being my own boss allowed me to respond to my son’s situation really quick. From the time I got the call he was hurt till I was standing there next to the ambulance by his side wasn’t more than 4 minutes. Precious minutes I’m glad I gave my child so that he had the chance to be saved.

However, the one bad side about having my own business in the midst of a personal emergency — I’m screwed if I don’t work. Unlike my wife who has family medical leave while dealing with this situation, all my work sits there waiting for me unless I sit my ass down here and do something. My clients can only wait so long…

It’s been hard to concentrate. But there’s nothing to do about it but to just force myself to do what I need to do. Otherwise Kingston’s upcoming hospital bills will probably be another big concern in the near future.

Must….endure.

On that note, for those of you who may be following along with the situation, Kingston’s condition improves day by day. He’s got most of his IVs pulled out already (poor little guy has bruises and scabs all over his hands and feet where they poked him), and he’s been off of sedation for a few days now. Mom washed his hair a couple times so it doesn’t look like nappy dreads.

He’s generally in a good mood….even laughs and requests his favorite movie all the time. Of course, nurse visits where they have to take samples, swab his nose, & check his temperature, always makes him fussy again.  He’s been fighting a fever between 100F – 102F these past couple days but otherwise doesn’t act like he’s that sick.

He’s getting there….I want to thank any of you out there who have been so kind to offer your thoughts and prayers for the little one.

I’m feeling a little bit of a loss of confidence today. Long time readers will probably recognize this happens to me once in a while. Who knows what triggers this feeling….I might see another designer do some great work that I wish I did? I might have done work that I wasn’t too happy with? I might have lost a bid on a contract I really wanted? Who knows…it just happens from time to time. I hear it occurs a lot for folks who work alone. It’s one of the hazards of doing my own business I suppose.

What to do? I dunno really, time heals. You wait long enough the feeling goes away and the next successful project comes along and the confidence comes back.

Taking a break helps. Get outdoors, see some gorgeous weather or spot some truly inspirational movie poster and then you feel the spark again.

Sitting with other creatives helps. It might be a rare occasion when you can meet another freelancer, but when that opportunity comes up to share horror stories or even commiserate together, you don’t feel so alone anymore.

When all else fails, a nice big bowl of ice cream and some time sitting behind a game of God of War helps.

Stumbled across a tweet that led me to this older study “How Little Do Users Read?” (via Jakob Neilsen’s Alertbox)

Apparently, not very much. In summary, (even though this article is 3 years old) people were already only reading at most 28% of your words on an average visit, spending maybe 4.4 seconds on each 100 words. I’d wager a guess that maybe now, 3 years later, these numbers have dropped…viewers spending even less time dwelling on your site and absorbing even less content.

My own site visitation numbers seem to correlate that finding. I think I average about over 8k visitors per month (where are you?), but a good portion of that traffic dwells here less than 4 seconds. They probably see what terrible writing I have and leave faster than they can hit the back button.

Anyway, it’s good to keep that article to support me when I’ve been urging clients to trim content into bite-sized chunks as much as possible.