AIGA News

Practice What You Preach - Self Promotion 

When: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 8:45 AM - 10:00 AM

Where: Tree Haus 1707 Lafayette Street Denver, CO 80218 MAP

Cost: Free
RSVP NOW!

When talking to clients, we preach that marketing is the key to success. After all, "it doesn't matter how great the product is if no one knows that." But how many of us follow our own advice? Eric Hines does. He built his business around practicing what we all preach. He's Denver's own self promotion king. And it doesn't end there, following through with a well thought out plan of communication is essential.

Join us for a fun (and impressive) show and tell with Eric as he walks us through some of the creative self promotion that has worked for him. Find out more about his firm Honest Bros. at honestbros.com.

About Eric:

A gifted designer and communications gear-head, Eric's passion for the power of a creative idea is infectious. As Principal and Creative Director, he leads the charge to find innovative solutions to business challenges by cultivating an environment that challenges people to produce their best. Prior to starting Honest Bros. Eric brought success to companies such as Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Special Olympics Colorado, High Plains Bison, Powerhouse Gym, and Bent Gate.

Eric has also taught at Metropolitan State College of Denver and is currently an adjunct at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. His design work has been recognized in awards shows and publications such as the Logo Lounge, Print Magazine, SXSW, Graphis, Addy's, and the Art Director's Club of Houston. He obtained a BFA degree from Southwest Texas State University in 1999.

Please RSVP so we can let Treehaus know how many pastries to make.

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Words of wisdom from Computer Arts

Speed up your InDesign workflow with scripts!

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InDesign scripts are handy snippets of code that can make your workflow faster.Here’s where to find them… Indiscripts Describing itself as an ‘InDesign scripting playground’, this site has thousands of scripts, snippets, tips and extras that can help make your working life easier.You will have to pay a fee to buy some of the best scripts – but at least you can try before you buy to find out whether they meet your needs.There are also lots of free resources to choose from. In-Tools Ostensibly a New York-based Adobe reseller, In-Tools also does a fine line of free InDesign scripts – although it does ask that you make a donation.You’ll find 25 useful InDesign scripts on the site, ranging from Apply Nested Styles to Zoom To Width. Adobe Exchange Of course, no round-up of InDesign scripting resources would be complete without mentioning Adobe’s own dedicated page.You’ll find hundreds of scripts to choose from here, with many available free or at low cost via donationware or shareware.You can easily filter the results by licence type if you wish.

How to get exhibited Be informed Do your research. You wouldn’t expect a gallery specialising in graffiti to be interested in landscape paintings, for example. Yet it’s amazing how many people write to us with work that’s nothing like the sort of thing we exhibit. We’d expect people to look at our website and consider how their work fits into those categories. Find your own style We’re always looking for people whose work we think is unusual and different, and has something to say. There’s a lot of rather same-ish stuff going around – certain designers or artists are very influential and, with the internet being what it is, their work spreads around like wildfire. It’s natural to have heroes, but you need to find your own style.   Expect to contribute There’s so much more to putting on an exhibition than simply sticking pictures up on the wall. Exhibitions are curated, so they might have themes – and in every case we’ll get people to do work specifically for the exhibition. Some of the most successful things we’ve done have been quite experimental, such as our First Impressions Last show, where five writers – including a science fiction writer, rapper and novelist – typed written portraits of people who came in.   Look for dry hire Look out for gallery spaces you can hire. We do the occasional dry hire for people who want to have the gallery for two or three days to show something, so people can potentially hire out the space. But we can’t hire it to just anybody, because we still need to maintain the gallery’s reputation.   Don’t take it personally In most cases, we’ll know straightaway if something is right for us. There aren’t any rules: it’s about getting an instinctive feeling. When you look at someone’s work, you can just tell. We’ll look at our year’s schedule and see where people might fit in. If it’s a no, it’s not a criticism of what you’re doing, it’s just not right for the gallery.

Interesting articles and inspiration

Trend report from Computer Arts; mass production design is old and busted. New hotness? Hand crafted work!

Examples of HTML contact forms; some lovely ideas here...

Inspiration from illustrator Blake Suarez

Design from Romania

Ice cream illustrations!

Photography inspiration from Charles Hu

20 artistic and creative album covers

Denver's first public-sourced exhibition

For the Denver Art Museum's first ever public-sourced exhibition they are challenging you to transform an everyday object or material into something that makes your neighborhood better. Due July 28!

Check it out!