What’s hot? What’s new? Innovation — whether in technology or the arts — has always fascinated our society. Today, the latest buzz is, “What’s next after Facebook and Twitter?” In the 19th century, we were dying to know, “What’s next after Impressionism?” Regardless of the century, groundbreaking trailblazers continue to excite and pique our interests.
Following the extraordinary summer exhibition Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay at the de Young Museum in San Francisco (seen by over 430,000 visitors) is Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay. This exhibition, the second of the two exhibitions traveling around the world from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, explores the evolution of cutting-edge artistic developments by renowned Post-Impressionist artists (and some lesser known ones too).
Read my full arts review on SF STATION.
With 13,297 Twitter followers combined, the following graphic designers know a thing or two about using Twitter to effectively promote their design businesses: Lawrence Anderson(twitter.com/hellolawrence), a San Francisco graphic designer at Designed By Anderson; Jacob Cass(twitter.com/justcreative), an Australian freelance graphic, web, and logo designer at Just Creative Design; and Grace Smith (twitter.com/gracesmith), a United Kingdom freelance web and blog designer at Postscript5. Moderated by San Francisco copywriter and graphic designer Stephanie Orma (twitter.com/stephanieorma) of Orma Design, the three designers share their personal Twitter experience, tips, and advice including how to get Twitter followers and land design jobs.
READ FULL ARTICLE: SF EXAMINER
When running a one-man show as a self-employed creative (artist, graphic designer, illustrator, photographer, writer, etc.), how we prioritize our time is of the utmost importance to the success of our business. When the economy is good, our days are spent juggling “the creative side” with all the other tasks of keeping the company afloat. But when times are slow, like now, an imbalanced portion of our time is spent on promotion. This, of course, is an absolute necessity. But with a significant portion of time spent marketing via Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, blogs, online discussion groups, sending out direct mailers, emails, and the like, at what point do we take a break from all this promoting and start creating again?
Clever new card created for my greeting card company She's SO Creative. Photo Courtesy Stephanie Orma / She's SO Creative.
For my greeting card business, She’s SO Creative, I certainly find myself struggling to justify time spent on creating new cards when business is slow. Do I create new products when I still have a fair amount of unsold inventory or do I just hold off and wait for the storm to subside? Retailers need fresh inventory in their stores because customers will stop coming if they see the same old products day in and day out. And retailers won’t buy from manufacturers if they having nothing new to offer.
Along the same lines, how do we as commercial artists grow our talents in a sluggish economy, if we’re not gaining new clients? Taking on new projects challenges us, keeps our skills sharp, and feeds our creative souls. And those entities are the bread and butter of our business. Plus, creating new work adds another project to our portfolio; an extremely vital element as it’s the actual tangible item that sells our services.
Whether we create a new project in a graphic design or illustration class, take on a non-for-profit client, or write a magazine article on spec, this is our livelihood and we need to keep moving forward. I absolutely believe we should be spending a large portion of our time promoting our services and drumming up new business. But I think it’s equally important to dedicate a certain portion of our day, our week, our lives to creating. In fact, I’m cutting this article short to start working on some new greeting cards right now!
(originally appeared in SF Examiner 3/30/09)