Great graphic designers are great thinkers—because great graphic design is so much more that pretty pictures.

Designers are Visual Filters

in order to be innovative in the way we send messages, we need to spend time innovating how we receive messages.

“On an average day consumers are exposed to six thousand advertisements and, each year, to more than twenty-five thousand new products,” according to Scott M. Davis in his book Brand Asset Management.

We often refer to this onslaught of media and marketing as “the clutter” and we say that good design “cuts through” this clutter, making it easier for people to chose the stuff that they take into their own little system.

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Hey @VeerUpdate!

You’ll never win if you don’t enter!

My entry for Veer's first Take a Picture creative contest

I just won a $200 subscription to Veer’s new marketplace! I was one of five winners for the “big and blue” contest. I ran outside with some sidewalk chalk and went to work, snapped a photo and voila! Check out this contest and join in!

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Painting with Produce

An exploration of textures

Cantalope

In my 3D Graphic Design class (as in package and environment design), we have been given a number of “exploration” assignments. This one was to be an exploration of textures.

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A Limberer Mind

Take a break from doing what everyone else is telling you to do and do something for yourself.

Everyday, I wake up and go to work, open my email and my task management software and begin whittling away at the projects in the que. I love my work and am constantly striving to improve the quality of my work and my own capacity to create. One technique that helps me keep my creative mind limber is to turn off the que and do something for myself.

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Holistic Creativity

How specialization can limit a specialty

These days, all my creative energy is funneled toward one very specific vein of creativity: visual. As a graphic designer, I am always looking (and paying close attention) at art, design, textures, type, color, patterns, advertisements, opening credits and nearly everything visual. But this isn’t the end of my creative observation, nor is graphic design the end of my creative expression.

I’ve said it before, there is a lot of value in doing one thing and doing it well. Still, doing that one thing may start to suffer if it really is the only thing you do. As a creative professional—even one with a specialty—it is essential to allow one’s self to absorb more than that one thing to which one specializes in (whew!). I guess what I am trying to say is that creative energy (if you will) flows from so many places; it would be foolish to aimlessly create without letting that influence seep in.

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