CreativeTechs Tips

We get frequent questions from designers wanting to use HTML email for client projects or their own marketing. Here is our comparison of the four prominent email delivery services on the market today.

1. Campaign Monitor
2. MailChimp
3. AWeber
4. Constant Contact

Implemented properly, email newsletters are a powerful marketing tool. Financially, they are one of the most cost-effective ways you can keep in front of clients and prospects. We're seeing more creative studios using email as a core part of their own marketing effort. And we're seeing a lot of design projects with studios creating email marketing templates for their clients.

Continue reading "Our Review of 4 Email Marketing Services." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 05:45 AM | Permalink

Today we've heard from several clients who are adding new designers to their team. They are not ready to upgrade their full office to Creative Suite 4, but they are having a hard time finding where to purchase copies of Creative Suite 3. For readers in the same quandry, here are some links on Amazon for the older CS3 packages:

Creative Suite 3.3 Design Standard:

• CS3 Standard - Full Version - Mac
• CS3 Standard - Full Version - PC
• CS3 Standard - Upgrade Version - Mac
• CS3 Standard - Upgrade Version - PC

Creative Suite 3.3 Design Premium:

• CS3 Premium - Full Version - Mac
• CS3 Premium - Full Version - PC
• CS3 Premium - Upgrade Version - Mac
• CS3 Premium - Upgrade Version - PC

Source: This tip inspired by today's request from Coolstone Design Works among others.

Posted by Craig Swanson at 10:14 AM | Permalink

Tracking individual serial numbers is hard work. It costs you money in time and frustration, and the hassle is easily avoided.

If you manage a creative team with even a few designers, please, please, take advantage of Adobe's Volume Licensing program when you purchase Adobe software and upgrades. Just call Adobe's volume licensing service at 800-443-8158, or visit the website to easily break the cycle of serial number management in your studio.

Link: Adobe Volume Licensing

Source: We've preached this message for years here, here, and here!

Posted by Craig Swanson at 09:00 AM | Permalink

Lots of new books are coming that dig into Creative Suite 4. But if you're looking for something fast and free to whet your appetite, download a copy of the 70-page CS4 Superguide at PhotoshopCafe.com:

Link: CS4 Superguide

Note: You'll need to subscribe to their mailing list for a download link.

And, for an updated collection of new and upcoming books about CS4, check out Amazon's new CS4 Books page:

Link: Amazon CS4 Books

Posted by Craig Swanson at 08:00 AM | Permalink

Every creative professional should know about the details of the Orphan Works legislation currently being considered by Congress. This is a terribly important issue for people like us who make a living with our ideas and images. Here are some resources to help you educate yourself:

Creative Industry Websites:

Graphic Artists Guild: Orphan Works News

ASMP: Orphan Works Status

Professional Photographers of America: Copyright

Audio Podcasts:

GAG: Conference Call with Lobbyist Megan Gray - May 2008 [1hr 21 min]

ASMP: Orphan Works Provisions - May 2008 [5 min]

ASMP: Orphan Works Politics - May 2008 [4 min]

ASMP: Orphan Works Myths - May 2008 [4 min]

ASMP: Orphan Works Web Suggestions - May 2008 [4 min]

ASMP: Orphan Works Provisions for Photographers - May 2008 [4 min]

Actual Pending Legislation:

House Bill (H.R. 5889)

Senate bill (S. 2913)

Seattle Event: Thursday Evening, September 11, 2008

This Thursday in Seattle, get an up-to-the-minute look at the political status of the two Orphan Works bills now in Congress. Lisa Shaftel, Graphic Artists Guild (GAG) National Advocacy Committee Chair talks about what's likely to happen next. She'll discuss the many things you can do to protect your own work. Plus, she'll quell many Internet rumors about this bill. Presented by SPGA/Seattle Chapter of GAG and ASMP.

Thursday, September 11, 2008 from 6:30-9:00 at MOHAI (Museum of History and Industry)

Posted by Craig Swanson at 05:45 AM | Permalink

For this week's tip we're breaking away from our normal weekly format. We've compiled links to over a dozen free eBooks, PDFs, and Manifestos, containing a plethora of sales, marketing, and management strategies to help you run and grow a successful creative studio. We've linked directly to the PDFs for several of these books:

1. The Word Of Mouth Manual
2. Win Without Pitching Manefesto
3. Ten Tests of Your Studio's Positioning
4. The Design Funnel
5. Time Management for Creative People
6. The Guide to Making Passive Income
7. How To Be Creative
8. Web Designer's Success Guide
9. AIGA's "Why Design?" Booklet
10. A Primer in Social Media
11. Business Start-up Guide for Designers and Makers
12. Branding vs Advertising
13. The Zen of Blogging
14. Harvard Business Review: The One Number You Need to Grow.
15. Testify: How Remarkable Organizations are Creating Customer Evangelists.

No list of marketing ebooks would be complete without including the contributions of Seth Godin whose book, The Ideavirus, is claimed to be the most downloaded eBook of all time. Here are some of his many freely available publications in roughly chronological order:

16. The Idea Virus
17. The Bootstrapper's Bible
18. Realy Bad Powerpoint
19. Bull Market: 2004
20. Knock Knock
21. Who's There?
22. Flipping the Funnel
23. Do Less
24. Pushing Past the Dip: How to Become the Best in the World
25. Marketing Mismatch: When New Won't Work With Old.

This list may continue to grow, so check back. We'll post additional free books as we discover them.

Continue reading "Free eBooks to Help Grow Your Studio." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 07:45 PM | Permalink

The AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2008 is now available.

This survey is widely recognized as the most comprehensive look into how creative professionals are compensated. The results are drawn from responses from more than 6,200 design professionals across the United States.

Link: Design Salaries 2008

Curious how you stack up with your peers? The website has a location-based salary calculator that lets you compare average salaries using a wide range of variables.

Link: AIGA|Aquent Salary Calculator

Play with this handy tool and you can uncover a wealth of details:

• What's the average salary for a Creative Director in Seattle?
• How do salaries compare between design studios and in-house design departments?
• How do different cities compare in creative salaries?
• What is the trend for designer salaries over the last several years?

Enjoy the research.

Continue reading "2008 Annual Designer Salary Survey. " »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 05:45 AM | Permalink

RSS feeds are a great way to stay updated whenever new articles (or tips) are posted to your favorite blogs. But the usefulness doesn't stop there. As you become more comfortable using RSS feeds, you'll discover all sorts of handy ways you can use RSS to grow your business.

For example, you can turn any search on Craigslist into a personalized RSS feed that notifies you whenever newly posted listings fit your search criteria.

Continue reading "Track Craigslist Opportunities using RSS." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 05:45 AM | Permalink

On June 20, 2008, we performed a Google search using the phrase "Seattle graphic design."

Out of about 722,000 total results, we carefully studied the top 10 websites Google identified as the best match for our search keywords.

Then we compared Google's results to a list of the top 10 Seattle design firms drawn from the 2008 edition of Media Inc’s annual Northwest Graphic Design list.

It's instructive to consider the differences between these lists. Large prominent design firms such as Hornall Anderson, HL2, Fitch, and Methodolgie are largely absent from Google's results. While smaller (some relatively unknown) studios managed to grab Google's top slots.

How do they do it? How do smaller studios like Page 3 Design, Eben Deisgn, and Design Hovie Studios beat out the big Seattle design firms in Google's search results?

More importantly, can you learn how to accomplish the same results for your own studio?

Continue reading "SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Graphic Designers." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 06:00 AM | Permalink

Here we are on New Year’s Eve. In honor of this annual time of introspection and planning, we've collected links to a few clever calendar templates to help start your new year off right.

David Seah’s Compact Calendar

"The problem with traditional calendar design," says designer David Seah, "is that they chunk time in months, not continuous days." In answer to that problem Seah created a long, thin calendar (at right) that is perfect for project planning. Download as PDF or choose an editable Excel document.

David Seah’s Compact Calendar 2008

Adam Sporka’s Thumb Calendar

Here's an ingenious 2008 calendar shrunk to the size of a standard business card. Focus on the dates directly below each month’s header.

Adam Sporka’s Thumb Calendar 2008

Juliana Halvorson’s InDesign Template

Finally, a bit more traditional calendar. Here is a clean InDesign template for you to create and customize your own 2008 calendar. The template uses style sheets for dates, holiday, and other details. So swapping out your own font choices is easy.

Juliana Halvorson’s InDesign Template 2008

Posted by Craig Swanson at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In April 2007, A List Apart conducted a survey of people who make websites. Close to 33,000 web professionals answered the survey’s 37 questions, providing a treasure trove of data on the business of web design and development as practiced in the U.S. and worldwide.

The Web Design Survey 2007

If you are a web designer, hire web designers, or engage web development firms, this is a fantastic business resource.

Continue reading "A List Aparts' 2007 Web Design Survey." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Curious how your website traffic compares to your competition? Alexa.com offers a fascinating ranking measurement that lets you pull up the traffic history for any website you wish.

http://www.alexa.com/

Think of Alexa.com as a form of Nielsen Ratings for websites. Alexa collects traffic data from users who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their web browser. The resulting traffic data is flawed — yet while not completely accurate, this information does provide a useful tool for designers tasked with improving their client's competitive web positioning.

Continue reading "How does your website rank on Alexa.com?" »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 03:10 PM | Permalink

Lately I've noticed more studios placing self promoting displays in their client reception areas. This is a fun, simple way of exposing visiting clients to your studio's changing portfolio of projects.

These portfolio theaters can be cheaper and easier to create than you might have guessed. Examples range from using a new Apple TV, to repurposing an old design station with an Acrobat slide show. Pull it off with flare and you have a great environment for visiting clients and vendors to discover and appreciate the breadth of your studio's portfolio.

Continue reading "Use an Apple TV as Your Portfolio Theater." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 06:12 PM | Permalink

We've been getting a lot of calls and questions this last week about CreativeTechs' "official" recommendation to wait until June 2007 before upgrading to Adobe CS3. This recommendation was part of our presentation on March 28, 2007: Getting Ready for Leopard, CS3 and New Macs!

Now that Adobe CS3 has actually started arriving at many design studios, we've begun relaxing our initial cautious recommendations. As with all major new software releases, we've seen a number of odd bugs and issues that need to be addressed. However we underestimated the pressure in many studios to upgrade to CS3. Especially in studios struggling with the stability of InDesign CS2 or Illustrator CS2 on new Intel Macs.

Continue reading "When to Upgrade to Adobe CS3?" »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 01:39 PM | Permalink

If you manage a creative team with even a few designers, we strongly recommend that you take advantage of Adobe's Transactional Licensing Program (TLP) when you purchase Adobe software and upgrades.

Link: Adobe volume licensing made easy.

You'll probably save money. Far more importantly you'll prevent a future of serial-number headaches.

Continue reading "Avoid serial number headaches with CS3!" »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 01:24 AM | Permalink

Around this time of year, many freelancers and other small creative businesses in the United States start receiving requests for a lot of W-9's and other tax-related forms from their clients.

Tax advice is well beyond the scope of this tips newsletter. However if you are getting a lot of requests for W-9's this month, you can streamline things by using the editable PDF Form provided by the IRS:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf

Pre-fill all your company's details and keep a copy of the form handy for when clients request it. Other tax forms can be found as PDFs on the IRS's Forms and Publications site.

Continue reading "Send all those W-9's using PDF Forms." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 06:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Many years ago Seth Godin wrote a small book called The Bootstrapper's Bible. It is no longer in print.

More recently Seth updated that book, divided the ideas into short sections, and released it as a free ebook:

Seth Godin's Bootstrapper's Bible - Free PDF.

The original version was published before Permission Marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus, Purple Cow, and his other big hits could firmly plant Seth Godin's name in the minds of entrepreneurs and marketing managers. Otherwise this Bootstrapper's guide would certainly be a best seller.

Continue reading "Read Seth Godin's Free Bootstrapper's Bible." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the oddest line item in the CreativeTechs marketing budget for 2006. 55 bucks for our message on a digital piece of toast?

Link: Your Name on Toast

I'm a Seth Godin junkie, and he mentioned this site on his blog. I would have dismissed this out of hand from any other source.

Continue reading "CreativeTechs Tips on Toast?" »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A couple years ago I was checking to see if CraigSwanson.com was still available. It was not. In fact to drive that point home, I found this blog entry by another Craig Swanson commenting on being one of thousands of people with the exact same name:

"'Craig Swanson'" is quite possibly the 'John Smith' of the late 20th century."

Somewhat sobering to be just one in thousands of Craig Swanson's out there. Too bad I wasn't the first one to register the domain. If your name is still available, grab it.

Continue reading "Is your personal name URL still available? Get it!" »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Almost every creative studio uses written contracts of some form with their clients. Many studios invest time and legal fees in developing their own custom contracts, while other designers will borrow contract language from the back of a design business book (or from a studio where they used to work).

However your studio developed your current client contracts, you might be interested in looking through a free, downloadable contract template from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA).

Continue reading "AIGA's standard client contract." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The October issue of the Creative Business newsletter has a valuable two-page white paper titled “How To Answer: I’d Like The Computer Files”, which discusses the legal and business issues involved when a client requests a copy of the original files used to build a recent project.

This increasingly common client request can pose a dilemma for many creative studios. Should you give them up? Do you have to? How do you respond to your client's request?

Continue reading "How to Answer: "I'd Like the Computer Files."" »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here is a tip that came up during the hour of Q&A after last week's "Blog Your Portfolio" talk at Seattle's School of Visual Concepts: "What are some of the best tools out there for keeping track of my studios's online buzz?"

Here's an easy tool we like: SocialMeter.com

Type in the URL of your website, blog, or client's website. SocialMeter queries eight of the more popular social bookmarking sites to see how many links are pointing to your site.

Continue reading "Score your online buzz using SocialMeter.com" »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to everybody who came out to SVC last Tuesday for our free "Blog your Portfolio" talk. Every seat in the house was taken, and we ended up staying almost a hour after the presentation answering questions and talk with people.

As promised, here is a PDF of the slides from our talk:

Blog Your Portfolio - 09/18/06

Continue reading "Blog Your Portfolio Notes (September 18, 2006)." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Every graphic designer who earns part of their living designing websites should be required to read at least chapter 14 of Dave Taylor's book Growing Your Business with Google.

Tip: Copywriters who want to learn to craft search engine-friendly copy should read this book too.

Craig's note: That's my own copy shown at right. I read it on vacation in early 2006 while we were planning our own CreativeIQ blog. I thought I knew a fair bit about web design. The dozens of post-it notes and highlighted sections are a testimony to how much I was missing about designing sites that work well with search engines.

Continue reading "Growing Your Business with Google." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week we reviewed (and highly recommended) the book Growing Your Business with Google by author Dave Taylor. If you like to watch video instead of read, we've added a link below to Dave's presentation on business blogging at a recent summit in Florida

Continue reading "Growing Your Business with Google - The Video." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who is viewing your website? How do they find it? And what do they look at while they are there? Those are three important questions every creative team should know. Not only for their own website, but for their clients as well.

Google Analytics is a great tool for uncovering the answers to those questions. Colorful charts and graphs make traffic information accessible to visually-oriented types who might feel lost in a sea of raw data. Even better, it's free.

Continue reading "Who visits your website? Use Google Analytics." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

About a year ago Seth Godin published Who's There? -- a free ebook about the evolving art of marketing with blogs. (This was a follow-up to his previous ebook Knock Knock which discussed how to make websites do their job better.)

This 45-page PDF is a quick read:

Seth Godin's Who's There (PDF)

Seth's book provides a good introduction into the world of using blogging as an effective marketing tool.

Continue reading "Read Seth Godin's Free eBook about Blogs." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 02:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Should you ever lose your laptop while traveling, StuffBak property identification tags increase the chance that your lost item will be returned to you. StuffBak offers a wide range of label shapes and sizes that affix to any electronic device, such as a laptop, camera, iPod, cell phone, or external hard drive.

Continue reading "StuffBak Device Recovery Stickers." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ever wondered how you might use a blog for your studio? You can see how hundreds of other designers answered that same question at Designers Who Blog.

This site (a blog itself) provides a constantly growing list of over 400 blogging designers. Also included are illustrators, photographers, and professionals in advertising and marketing, etc.

Continue reading "Designers-Who-Blog.com" »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Providing computer support for a busy team of graphic designers, account managers, and other creative pros is a challenging job. It demands an odd combination of long-term planning and short-term crisis response.

A new book published by O'Reilly does a good job addressing the real-world, interruption-based environment most system administrators find themselves working in:

Time Management for System Administrators.

As author Thomas Limoncelli says, "A System Administrator's life is divided between putting out fires and building new buildings."

Good time management is crucial to keeping creative teams happy. There aren't many mentoring opportunities that teach these crucial skills to professional system administrators.

Continue reading "Time Management for System Administrators." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seth Godin has published a quick list of ideas on how to generate blog readership.

Seth's Blog: How to get traffic for your blog

The ideas come rapidly and sometimes appear to be contradictory. But it is a great idea list -- and certainly worth a quick read for people interested in generating more traffic for their own sites.

Continue reading "Seth Godin's 56 ways to get traffic for your blog." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Seth Godin has posted some eye tracking test results for Squido -- a web service he helped found that allows individuals create and maintain specials "lens" that focus on particular content.

You can view the raw unedited results in this YouTube video, or jump over to Seth's full blog entry "What I learned from eye tracking" and read his takeaways and thoughts.

Continue reading "Examples of Eye Tracking tests at Seth Godin's Blog." »

Posted by Craig Swanson at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)