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Who visits your website? Use Google Analytics.
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. […]
Designing on an angle in Adobe Illustrator.
Should you find yourself designing projects in Adobe Illustrator that use a rotated axis, you can make your life easier using Illustrator’s Constrain Angle option. The Constrain Angle option is nothing new (it was introduced back in Illustrator 7), but it comes in handy when modifying our letter-folding templates from a recent tip. Once you […]
LetterFu folding template. No envelope needed.
Longtime readers of this tips newsletter may notice we collect clever folding templates. So when we stumbled on the Letterfu website, we knew it would eventually show up as a creative tip. (Past paper folding tips include pocketMod guides, or our collection of paper Mac templates.)
Basically you print a Letterfu design on a sheet of paper, write your letter on the back, fold it up, stamp it, and send it. The letter becomes its own envelope. It holds itself closed, secured by the stamp – so it doesn’t even need any glue. You use the entire sheet of paper, so there’s no cutting.
Get to know Photoshop’s Status Bar.
This week’s creative tip is a quick reminder about a handy Photoshop feature that sits ignored by most designers every day. While often taken for granted or overlooked entirely, Photoshop’s status bar can be a valuable tool.
Read Seth Godin’s Free eBook about Blogs.
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.
Post Troubleshooting Checklist
This week’s tech tip is a simple PDF checklist we’ve been using at Creativetechs for several years now. The next time you have someone work on your computer, print out this checklist and keep it handy. Before you let your tech leave, go through this with them to make sure everything important is still working properly.
Mac OS X Post Tune-Up Checklist (PDF)
We developed this checklist years ago to help ourselves avoid missing important details while working on our clients computers. Based on the positive feedback from last month’s Mac Maintenance Checklist, we’ve decided that the last week of each month we’ll feature a form, checklist, or other tool that designers can use to get the most out of their existing computer tech support.
The online Concert Ticket Generator
We’ve been adding an extra blog-related tip to our weekly newsletter to promote an upcoming blogging talk Creativetechs’ Craig Swanson is giving at the School of Visual Concepts next month.
This week’s scheduled tip wasn’t quite done by press time, so here is a fun replacement:
Visit the online Concert Ticket Generator
Enter your information and picture of a concert ticket will be generated for you. Impress your friends or help promote your own event.
Oh by the way… know a Seattle-area designer who might appreciate an easier way to keep their online portfolio updated? Forward them this tip and invite them to sign up. Thanks!
Make word-search puzzles w Excel & InDesign.
At first glance, this week’s creative tip may seem a little frivolous. One of our clients recently called for some coaching in how to create word-search puzzles for a monthly magazine she designs.
Yet as we dig a little below the surface this fun project demonstrates InDesign’s ability to place Excel spreadsheets as a table — which can be pretty handy for many types of information-heavy design projects.
3 Theft-Recovery Software Products.
Last month one of our clients, a prominent Seattle photographer, lost her laptop while flying home from an assignment. Her dilemma reminded us of a few software packages we’ve heard of that attempt to help reunite stolen computers with their rightful owner.
How theft recovery software works.
When a stolen computer is connected to the Internet (using dial-up, WiFi, Ethernet, etc), these utilities attempt to send network information back to a central server. This information can be used to track down which ISP is used for Internet access, and helps law enforcement track down the stolen devices.
StuffBak Device Recovery Stickers.
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.