A designer's biggest challenge: Learning to develop thick skin!!

A couple of days ago my husband sent me an article he thought I should read. As I was busy at the time I kept it in my inbox waiting until I had free time. Then last week happened. I don't normally like to complain about my job, for me it's a dream to be doing what I love for a living, however a customer really got under my skin. After serving 250+ happily satisfied customers, odds are there is bound to be a rotten apple. Needless to say, this person brought out the version of me I rarely let people see, the not-so-nice version of me. I always try to approach a situation with a smile and a positive attitude, but I was all out of smiles and polite pleasantries for this customer.  Anyways the situation happened, and with some rationalization and support from my husband I was able to get passed it. Then today after work, I decided to read the article that my husband had sent me a while back. Boy am I glad I did. It was refreshing and inspiring and hit extremely close to home. I recommend every designer read this (it's actually pretty good even if you're not a designer). Reading it brought a smile back to my face and put a little spring back in my step. So I thought I'd share:
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/06/get-a-thick-skin-living-with-criticism/ Enjoy!!!

PBS Offbook: A look at "The Art of Film & TV Title Design"

I am obsessed with the new PBS Offbook channel on Youtube! I love that they cover so many different art mediums from tattoos to animated GIFs. On their latest installment they take a closer look at one of my favorite parts of a movie, the title sequence. I am always marveled by how creative some of these designer/filmmakers are. I remember really enjoying the title sequence in Spider-Man as well as the one in Zombieland (which is covered in the clip). I'm glad that PBS is taking the time to feature all these types of artistic expressions, plus they make really interesting and informative documentaries.

The Story of Keep Calm and Carry On

My Personal Favorite Variation :)

Original

Kept seeing these posters turn up all over the internet and wondered what the story behind them was. Lucky for me, there's a short 3 minute video up on youtube which explains how they came to be and how they became an icon of the 21st century.

    

                                     

My New Artfire Store!!

Decided to expand my business tonight and spontaneously opened up a shop on Artfire.com. I've been on Etsy.com for about a month and wanted to see what other sites had to offer. I must say I was thoroughly impressed with the functionality of Artfire. It has a lot of features that I wish Etsy had and it's pretty intuitive when it comes to setting up shop. The "Studio" feature is probably one of my favorites. Not to mention I was able to import my whole Etsy shop with a few easy clicks. I think I might like it here.

My Store Front!!

Check my store out at: Dragonfly Designs by Gwin on Artfire (I'm very proud of it!!)

Cool Ads: Mio Waterproof Ad

From time to time I come across an advertisement that delights my design senses. I love print ads and have started collecting vintage advertisement prints. However, recently all the magazine ads are so generic, they're hardly worth mention let alone collecting. To my surprise my husband pointed out this cool innovated ad in one of our Entertainment Weekly magazines from Mio Liquid Water Enhancers. We were skeptical at first, since it instructs to expose the ad to water, but what happened next was fun and innovative. Quite frankly it made me want to try their product. (and yes once it dries it goes back to its original form...and then you can do the whole process again:) )

Front of Ad

Back of Ad (Waterproof Side)

Exposing Ad to Water

Voila

Hidden Ad Content

How Creative Are You??

Love this article I read on the99percent.com, Test Your Creativity: 5 Classic Challenges. It has a lot of fun tests to test your level of creativity. My husband and I came came up with at least half of the answers, so I guess that makes us half creative :) Try it out and see what you can come up with!!

Hi, I'm Gwin, Graphic Designer

Found this on the interweb...It's sooo true!

Today officially marks the end of the first month since my store has been in business, and I am happy to report that it was a surprisingly successful month. As an artist and designer, there is always a bit of trepidation when you put out a product. There is that feeling of insecurity, the belief that every one else is better than you, and that constant fear of rejection. When I received my first order, I was beyond elated, it was a moment of validation. I knew that at least one person in the world liked my work, and for me that was enough. To my surprise 30+ orders later, and that feeling never gets old. My customers have also been amazing, they always email me kind words of encouragement and it inspires me to make the next product better than the last. Quite honestly, I feel lucky to have found that thing that many people spend a lifetime looking for, something I'm good at. I spent much of my adolescent and twenty something years in denial, running from my passion for art. Whenever I would tell people I wanted to be a designer, they looked at me as if I had told them I wanted to become a serial killer. If I managed to get past their look, I would then hear "Artist only make money when they're dead." As if we were in some kind of 14th Century Renaissance. It was after much soul searching that I decided to stop caring about what people thought, and admit to myself that this was the career that was going to make me happy. So with great pleasure and assertiveness, allow me to introduce myself...Hi, I'm Gwin, Graphic Designer.