Today in Design - Top Articles RoundUp 24 February 2016

The day’s best and most impor­tant design- and design business-focused arti­cles, tuto­ri­als, and resources hand-picked by Pariah Burke.

• 16 Tips for Design Success in 2016
  Designers from the UK’s top agen­cies offer invalu­able advice to help boost your design stu­dio in the year ahead.Tags: Design Business
• Storytelling Gone Wild: The Key to Creating Viral Content
  We dis­cussed how to make your sto­ry­telling more viral by con­nect­ing with emo​tion​.Here are three key take­aways from the webinar:Tags: CM ContentMarketing
• Create Beautiful Layouts & Striking Cover for a Children’s Book in InDesign

  In this tuto­r­i­al I’ll show you how to cre­ate a strik­ing cov­er as well as cre­ative page lay­outs for a chil­dren’s book (in this case a mod­ern­ized ver­sion of ‘Alice in Wonderland’!). Using Adobe InDesign, we’ll explore how think­ing out­side of the box with typog­ra­phy and images can make clas­si­cal­ly type­set pages more excit­ing. This tuto­r­i­al looks at tech­niques you can use for lay­out and design; lessons you can apply when putting togeth­er your own print book or eBook.

  Tags: InDesign Layout epub self­pub

• Teens’ Favorite Apps in 2016
  We asked dozens of teens about pop cul­ture, pol­i­tics, their dig­i­tal lives and habits. These are the apps they use and the games they play.
• 5 AMAZING Reasons to Write a Short Story: Develop and Market Your Novel
  That sto­ry has had reper­cus­sions through­out my nov­els and here’s how a short sto­ry could ben­e­fit YOUR novel.

  Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub

• I Blog to Find the 1 Percent
  I had an inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion the oth­er day where some­one asked me “Why do I blog?” It’s a ques­tion I have seen plen…

  Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership

• LOL: Designers Cheekily Photoshop Sleeping Art Director Into Random Images
  Have you ever won­dered about “what hap­pens when an art direc­tor falls asleep in an agency full of designers”? 
• The 5 Irrefutable Signs You Need To Start A Writing Project Now
  Is this the right time to start a writ­ing project? The 5 signs will show you exact­ly whether it’s the right time to start a writ­ing project now.Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub
• What Holds Companies Together?
  Leadership does not exist in a vac­u­um. It is par­tic­i­pa­to­ry – lead­ers and fol­low­ers are in a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship where each adds to the effec­tive­ness of the oth­er. There needs to be mutu­al under­stand­ing and col­lab­o­ra­tion to achieve greate…
• Bad, Crazy Clients Will Make You Rich

  Sounds crazy, right? But look­ing back, I can attribute any and all suc­cess I’ve had to what the title of this post is saying.

  Tags: Design Business

• A Visual Guide to Influencer Marketing [Infographic]
  If you want to get the best out of your con­tent and have fall­en short then con­sid­er influ­encer marketing.Tags: Entrepreneur Freelance Startup
• Cool WhatsApp Tips and Tricks [Infographic]
  Whether you have not used all the fea­tures of WhatsApp on android phone or you have switched from an android phone to an iPhone then this info­graph­ic below is all for increas­ing your knowl­edge. Now you can quick­ly learn how to use WhatsApp with this s…
• 14 Ways to Be the Worst Graphic Designer on Your Team
  Why grow as a graph­ic design­er when you can just push peo­ple around and makes things dif­fi­cult for every­one? Here’s how to make your project insufferable.Tags: Design Business
• Tips for Working with the Gradient Mesh Tool In Illustrator

  In this tuto­r­i­al, we’ll show you some tips that will improve your Mesh work. We’ll also show you a prop­er work­flow to get out­stand­ing results with this tool. We’ll take a close look at cre­at­ing a lay­er with­in the detailed file of a meshed boot. The final design is avail­able for review in our free­bies sec­tion, and is titled Army Shoe. Let’s get started!

  Tags: Vector Illustrator amdraw­ing

• 11 Types of Content to Make Your B2B Marketing Sing

  Be under no illu­sions – con­tent mar­ket­ing is hard work. It takes plan­ning, resources and focus. But it is also one of the most reward­ing forms of mar­ket­ing that you can do pro­fes­sion­al­ly and indi­vid­u­al­ly. Not only does con­tent mar­ket­ing chal­lenge you to clear­ly com­mu­ni­cate – it often brings you up close and per­son­al with cus­tomers as well as your sales teams.

  Tags: CM ContentMarketing

• Mastering Hygiene on LinkedIn: Personal Branding
  Tags:

  shareMiscellany

• Roundup of 6 Tips About Finding Freelance Writing Jobs
  Six pages of use­ful infor­ma­tion about find­ing free­lance writ­ing jobs plus links to job sites and Anne’s arti­cles on find­ing and land­ing gigs.Tags: Writing AmWriting copywriting
• Ambush Marketing [Cartoon]

  “Ambushes done right can deliv­er instant fame and talk val­ue, but the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of catch­ing light­ning in a bot­tle is not suit­ed for every­one or every brand,” Innocean’s Eric Springer said in a recent Adweek arti­cle called “How to Win the Super Bowl Without Spending $5 Million on a 30-Second Spot.”

• Women’s Voices in Type, On- and Offstage, Part Two

  In Part One, I talked about the inef­fec­tive­ness of shame. We still need to talk about the caus­es of the prob­lem so we can focus on solu­tions. As much as soci­ety affects us, every­thing we do affects soci­ety. If we lived in a tru­ly equal soci­ety, it would mean every­one would com­pro­mise. Therefore the onus is on every­one to make a difference.

  Tags: typog­ra­phy every­day­sex­ism hefor­she

• Illustrator Full Spectrum Spirograph | Veerle’s Blog

  Today’s arti­cle is com­plete­ly inspired by Mr. Spirograph him­self Andy Gilmore. His work is stun­ning and very inspi­ra­tional. He does mag­ic start­ing from sim­ple shapes and ends up with a remark­able com­plex composition.

  Tags: Vector Illustrator

• Write Active, Sensory Description to Make Your Story Believable
  So, my biggest pet peeve when read­ing is when an author pulls me from that world.And pulling me from that world with an info dump of inac­tive set­ting or char­ac­ter descrip­tion is the worst offend­er. Pure, unadul­ter­at­ed, tor­tur­ous Hell. Or, what I imagi…
• Hoefler & Co. Fonts Available for Digital Publishing Apps, eBooks, More With App.typography
  Now you can use the H&Co fonts you love to pub­lish apps, dig­i­tal pub­li­ca­tions, eBooks, and more. Meet App.typography, the sim­ple font licens­ing solu­tion for dig­i­tal publishers.
• Konrath’s Advice For Indie Booksellers
  Nobody wants to see the Indies dis­ap­pear. There is a tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ty here, but it starts with tak­ing the emo­tion out of how you view self-published authors and look­ing at it with an eye to what cus­tomers want.Tags: epub selfpub
• 5 Fixes For Under-Performing Brands
  If you’ve assessed your brand port­fo­lio and iden­ti­fied one or a num­ber of under-performers, there are options you can pur­sue to fix the situation.

  Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Startup

• Still not on Kindle #1
  Still not on Kindle #1 An aver­age of almost 3,000 books a day were added to the USA Kindle store last month, and that was­n’t a fluke. I record the aver­age in my month­ly Snapshots. The vast major­i­ty of those are indies (inde­pen­dent­ly pub­lished books). A con­sid­er­ably small­er num­ber are new­ly pub­lished by the trad­pubs (tra­di­tion­al…

  Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub

• 3 Resources to Help You Publish the Content Your Audience Wants
  Are you deliv­er­ing the right type of con­tent to your audi­ence? This week’s Copyblogger Collection offers guid­ance for metic­u­lous con­tent creators.Tags: Writing AmWriting copywriting
• Snickers Pokes Fun At Photoshop Fails In New, Terribly Edited Print Ad
  The mes­sage behind the imper­fect visu­al is that “pho­to retouch­ers get CONFUSED when they’re hungry”. 

  Tags: Design Humor

• What Is the True Cost of Building and Managing a WordPress Website?
  Discover how you can min­i­mize the total cost of WordPress own­er­ship while max­i­miz­ing its poten­tial to man­age the online con­tent that dri­ves your business.
• 50 Free Stylish Fonts To Bring A Touch Of Elegance To Any Design
  Bring a styl­ish touch of class to any con­tent piece.Tags: Typography fonts
• Let Your Customers Help You Make It Memorable

  While your com­peti­tors can match your prices, copy your prod­ucts or ser­vices and even hire away your staff but they can’t repli­cate a unique cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. The ques­tion, of course, is – exact­ly what would that expe­ri­ence be?

  Tags: Entrepreneur Leadership Freelance

• 42 Free Tattoo Fonts for Your Body Art
  Be inspired by these free tat­too fonts that you can put to use in your body art designs.Tags: Typography fonts design
• Typography 101: Typefaces & Fonts: What and Why They’Re Important to Graphic Designers

  There’s some confusion about font and typeface. I realize to some people, the terminology is super important, and to others, it’s not.

  Tags: Typography fonts

• 35 Best WordPress Church Themes
  So what makes a per­fect church theme? By far, almost all of them have fea­tures like event man­age­ment, audio and video ser­mon man­age­ment, and even a donationTags: WordPress
• What’s a Replica-Plus Digital Magazine?
  The most basic kind of dig­i­tal mag­a­zine app you can cre­ate is the repli­ca mag­a­zine. Upload a PDF of your pub­li­ca­tion to the Internet and voila! You’re a mobile publisher.

  Tags: DPS digimag

• 5 Reasons You Should Pitch Your Writing to Smaller Markets

  The dream of every free­lance writer is the “big get.” That is, writ­ing for the largest, best-known mar­kets we can land. Bigger mar­kets, after all, mean more pres­tige and bet­ter mon­ey. But there also can be tremen­dous val­ue in writ­ing for small­er markets—something a lot of writ­ers tend to for­get as they chase big­ger fish.

  Tags: Writing AmWriting copy­writ­ing

• OverTagging: Crime and Punishment
  Tagging is an essen­tial part of a sol­id social media mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. It helps you inter­act with both your cur­rent audi­ence and those you want to woo into your fold. However, there have been enough cas­es of overtag­ging that Facebook, Twitter and In…
• Nine Ways to Get Out of Your Rut and Create a Blast of Writing Energy
  Habits and rou­tines are good. Ruts are not. A rou­tine is all about estab­lished habits. A rut is about feel­ing stuck or bored. People can be crea­tures of habit. Routines are com­fort­ing and com­fort­able. I used to work with a design­er who ate the same lunch every day for the 10 years I worked with him. A turkey and…

  Tags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub

• 10 Rules for Writing Numbers and Numerals
  How do you express num­bers in your writ­ing? When do you use fig­ures (dig­its) and when do you write out the num­ber in words (let­ters)? That is, when do you writeTags: Writing AmWriting self­pub epub
• How to Troubleshoot Problems With Your Mac
  For any prob­lem with your Mac, you can at least help iso­late or even fix it by per­form­ing sev­er­al checks and trou­bleshoot­ing actions.Tags: OSX Mac
• Choosing and Pairing Typefaces for Cookbooks
  There are many ways of set­ting up typo­graph­ic sys­tems, and we learned ear­ly on that choos­ing and pair­ing type­faces can be com­pared to the clas­si­cal approach to cook­ing: Choose ingre­di­ents that will serve the over­all fla­vor of the dish as well as compl…

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