Hot Links from April & May

Well I did promise a bumper links post this time to make up for my slacking last month, so here's my top finds from April and May

Great stop motion film, Wolf and a Pig made from over 1,300 photographs

PSDtoWP. Give them your PSD layouts and get a fully functioning wordpress theme in return. Sounds like it would be of dubious quality but it does come highly recommended and may be worth a shot

Ginou Choueiri's potato portraits, I want one!

Very stylish product photographs from French Photography studio Palast

Several artists have collaborated on Art Nouveau inspired T Shirt designs, especially like the photography by Steve Carty

Loads of great fashion branding and packaging work from dyhr.hagen

InPrint, online gallery and store for buying Ltd Edition art prints

Freelance Switch has a good round up of very nice business cards

Some interesting free typefaces from FontFabric

Dzine puts together an impressive collection of digitally manipulated photos

AlternativeTo is a growing site providing links to download free Opensource software alternatives to loads of different software. I actually prefer using the free NeoOffice to Microsofts Office suite

Business Link Press Release

I've had a fair few dealings with Business Link West Midlands of late. They initially got in touch with me after last years Plus+ Design Festival and provided some great info packs for writing a business and marketing plan, both of which I'd advise any freelancer to do. Apart from giving you an overall view of your current activity and 'where your at' business wise it really helped me focus on where my client base is currently coming from and what I can do to target new clients.

I also attended a series of free business seminars about time management, marketing and financial planning. Really useful stuff and 100% free, so I'd recommend signing up for their newsletter to find out about any more upcoming events.

Anyway off the back of this I had a mini interview and photo shoot for a Business Link press release and an article is online at the Birmingham Post website, cheesiest photo out the lot used and slightly embellished text of course but all good publicity.

Admitting Defeat

Well I've tried to find time and failed so my Links from April will now merge with a bumper Hot Links from May at the end of the month. At time of writing my unread RSS feeds is up to 592 posts so I'm sure there will be a be a few gems amongst them and I already have some of my own finds lined up. Been rather mental recently which is great news for me, been working on some briefs for two new clients along with juggling my other projects.

Here's a couple of other bits I've been working on recently. I've taken an advert out in the Further Education Financial Yearbook, as I have a lot of experience in marketing/ design for Higher Education establishments. Would be good to expand on this so hopefully the ad will generate some interest.

The other big project is for Orgasmic. Having produced the company logo I'm now working on two product catalogues for their Underwear and Toys range (Tease) and their Fetish wear collection (Please). It's been a bit of a mammoth task sourcing and cutting out the high res images for the catalogues but I am now finally getting on with the design proper. The covers for both catalogues are below, still need some tweeks and tidying though.

Coping with downtime part 2

Part two of my MTB post on coping with downtime is now live, check it out here. Will get round to my hot links from April real soon.

Coping with down time

Part of my guide to coping with quiet spells as a freelancer is now live over at Media Talent Bank, glad I've got that written as ironically I now seem to be majorly busy.

Orgasmic Logo

Just got sign off for a logo I have created for a new adult lingerie and toy catalogue company 'Orgasmic'. The client wanted a classy vibe to set themselves apart from what can be a trashy (visual wise) industry. The bespoke 'g' was a bit of a nightmare to get right as it needed to be subtly reminiscent of a sperm but still fit with the other characters. I do quite like the simplicity of the solid colour version but am exploring some 3D effect options for different applications.

4 Networking

I've always cringed at the idea of Networking events. Being a creative type I prefer to let my work do the talking and am happiest getting on with the job of producing it. After looking into Networking organisations in my local area a few months back I was rather put off by what seemed to be a whole stream of etiquette, rules for joining, not to mention the financial outlay.

After attending a couple of recent free Business Link seminars; they we're very good by the way, I got chatting to Bernadette Jones and she mentioned 4Networking, of which she helps run the Birmingham City Centre meet ups.

On the promise that these events are a lot less stuffy/ restrictive than many other network groups I went along to my first session yesterday. I have to say I'm very impressed, the set up is informal but structured, you each have a 40 second round to introduce yourself and the services you provide, followed by three 10 min chats with anyone you may be able to help or could help you.

At the time of writing this I have two meetings with new contacts lined up and some details for a few more referred from one of the attendees. As a non-networker I'm very impressed and have signed up for a 6 month passport so I can visit some of the other groups in the local area, as and when my commitments allow.

If you've been looking for a networking group then register for the free online forum and get involved.