Every Professional Was You

Hello Creatives!

At one point, every professional or admired colleague, was you. They started somewhere and became someone. The road to success only happens when you begin. You can nor succeed or go anywhere if you don't start. Get ready, begin!

Start?

You have a dream, or dream career, but where do you start to achieve that? How do you become like the people you idolize?

Start with your best skills

Master your strengths

Share your skill

Learn what you don't know

Strengthen your weaknesses

Start with what you know, your best skills. This will keep you confident as you reach toward your goals. When you work with your best skills, you naturally would like to show them off. Feel free to showcase your work and best skills by sharing it on social media, aka self-promo. People love to see work from passionate creators. When you produce great work with your best skills, it boosts your confidence to learn new skills.

Once you start sharing your work, you can learn new skills to broaden your reach. Success is a journey, the more skills you master, the farther you can go. These days there are a multitude of tools to help you, including Skillshare that allows you to start for free, as well as Adobe Creative Cloud on YouTube. They provide tutorials and live streams with real design professionals where you can interact with them and other creatives who attend. This can be a long process so patience is key. Remember it's all experience to benefit you and turn your weaknesses into strengths.

IT's TOO MUCH

Learning new skills can be overwhelming, especially when you realize all the things you don't know, don't stress out. Pacing yourself and creating a schedule for learning will help you stay on track and avoid burnout.

Perseverance is your friend , don't allow small mishaps or early failures dishearten your resolve to learn new things. It's okay if you find this difficult, you may not be successful the 1st time, or the 2nd, or the 5th. No successful professional ever reached their success by giving up.

"Many of life's failure's are people who did not realize

how close they were to success when they gave up"

- Thomas A. Edison

Don't give up, take a break when you feel overwhelmed and come back to it. You will conquer the hurdles, remember patience is key.

SUCCESS in STAGES

Many interviews and autobiographies with career professionals frequently say that success is for only a moment. Success is fleeting but when it arrives, it's exciting. It sticks around long enough to inspire and motivate you to keep going. Success has a different definition to everyone based on how you measure it.

What is success to you?

Cameo in a prestigious magazine

Live television interview

Global recognition

1st time published

1st product sale

However you measure it, success can happen even if the success is small. Don' t filter out the little victories that could mean success to those who admire you.

Every professional was you when they began their journey, you can reach the success you want. Get ready, begin!

See You Soon Creatives!

Graphic Green Routines

Hello Creatives!

In today's world, companies are striving towards transparency and sustainability. Many professionals are trying to be more "green". We, as graphic designers and creators, can be "green" as well by utilizing certain habits and routines. Ultimately, these routines revolve around eliminating waste by using less material and more creativity in order to design efficiently.

In every profession seeking sustainability, the reuse, recycle and compostable routine cycle should be considered and utilized. Designers also should be aware of the materials they use, how they use packaging and how their work is distributed. Manufacturing, production and delivery usage should be considered when trying to achieve an environmentally-friendly, sustainable status.

Principles Graphic Design

To prepare for success and reduce costly mistakes, designers need to collect meaningful data on each project as well as feedback in each stage of the design process. Manufacturing, production and delivery should be considered at the beginning of the design process to make sure they follow the sustainability guidelines. This preparation allows for more accurate and effective measuring of materials, time needed to complete the project and ability to reduce waste.

For some designers, using alternative materials is enough, others require a full green initiative process to be sustainable. Some sustainable materials would be using hemp or soy based inks instead of the resin and propylene glycol based inks. Printing on non-chlorine bleached paper or post-consumer recycled fiber paper, post-consumer recyclable packaging and cardboard. Packaging product in recyclable bubble wrap or biodegradable packing peanuts.

More forward-thinking sustainable design would be migrating printed material into digital material such as downloadable pdf files and even monitoring the consumption of power and energy used by the printers and computers in the office space. In what ways can you increase sustainability in your workplace?

See You Soon Creatives!

Sustainable Design

Hello Creatives!

n. Design process that integrates an environmentally-friendly approach and considers natural resources as part of the design.

Philosophy of design and services that comply with the social, economic and ecological sustainability. An approach that minimizes harmful effects on human health and the environment.

Terms like "eco-friendly", "green" and "sustainable" have become mainstream. They have made their way into every market as well as design. Sustainable or green design encompasses more than only using recycled papers and alternate sustainable materials.

Graphic designers are solution finders who can help brands connect to and educate their audiences on causes, materials and resources that have a positive impact on the environment to reduce waste and toxins. Designers are more than image manipulators and product pushers; Designers affect change. Using renewable resources and materials are only a small portion that is "green" design.

Designers Affect Change

True green design happens when designers transform non-valuable outputs to valuable inputs or simply, waste into product. It can be a constant challenge finding solutions for waste as we learn to work within our ecological limits.

Every designer can be green through a shift in perspective to do good design without adding excess harmful waste to the environment.

Transform Waste into Product

mMajor companies are shifting to more green practices and products, especially within the cosmetics niche. Companies like L'Oreal and Maybelline are buying into the green market by purchasing smaller, eco-conscious brands like IT Cosmetics and NYX. They're reaching towards sustainability and that's all we, as designers and consumers, can ask for. There are many companies who are sustainability leaders; LUSH, Intel, Logitech, Celery and Green Room

Green Graphic Design by Brian Doughtery is an invaluable resource for a more in-depth look into the world of green and sustainable design.

"Design decisions are not made at the scale of the corporation,

they are made at the scale of the person."

The Challenge: What ways can you incorporate more green routines or sustainability in your design process?

See You Soon Creatives!