"Leaders Are Readers" Book Review: The Breakthrough Company

One of the best books on becoming a successful business is "The Breakthrough Company," written by Keith McFarland. He analyzes the strategies that form breakthrough companies and is one of my top 10 books that I would suggest to leaders wanting to build a successful breakthrough company.

Excellent book for everyone!

Everything Photoshop

Thought I would share the link to some styles I have created over the years and posted on Adobe's Exchange site...Enjoy!

Chad's Styles »

Brain Freeze Lesson #2 - "A Picture Is Worth 1000...DOLLARS?!"

One of the biggest challenges for any designer is finding the right images to fit the project. I spent hundreds of dollars as a freelancer trying to find the best images I could. I've been to Corbis, Getty Images, etc. looking for the best in stock photography. Don't get swept away looking for expensive stock photography. There are two great sites out there offering cost effective solutions for your stock photography dilemma. They are...

iStockphoto.com (Fees range from $1 - $10)

AND...

Shutterstock.com (Subscriptions from $99/month)

Don't break the bank on buying stock photography. 

"Leaders Are Readers" Book Review: Meatball Sunday

Corporate America has been told by its most revered marketer that the old ways aren’t working, and that it’s time to change — not just marketing, but also product development — to meet the new conversational media forms. Seth Godin tells them why they should be a part of the New Marketing.

This book will make it “safe” for many marketers to really begin actively experimenting with social media. The book talks about another wave of businesses moving into two-way conversations. NOt your old marketing techniques.

"Make the Logo Bigger!" - A Lesson In Subliminal Advertising

As Creative Director of a truly innovative marketing firm we run across clients with many different needs...and desires! I can't tell you how many times we've partnered with businesses or organizations looking to us as their creative engine, utilizing the combined decades of industry experience that our team posseses. Our team spends hours strategizing and developing a major marketing campaign only to be told that all they really want is a personal designer to put to paper what they see in their head. We then become overpaid, overworked production artists.

Almost sparks the question, "And why are you hiring us again?"

We can never know as much as our clients do about the industry that they're in. I'm not an expert in running a bank, baking a cake, erecting a building, or picking poo out of a yard. But, what I am an expert in is devising proven and out-of-the-box methods of building and promoting a brand to targeted individuals.

"Looks good...but can you make the logo BIGGER?"

One of the biggest questions we hear in our industry is, "Can you make the logo bigger?" It has almost become a cliche throughout the marketing world. However, a bigger logo doesn't always command the attention that one would expect. Watch this video »

Size doesn't make people want to buy into a business or service. A brilliant idea, no matter how subtle, coupled with strategic planning and placement is key to building strong consumer pull. It isn't about bombarding them with beautifully designed brochures or flashy websites. It's about using man's most basic instinct...curiosity.

A Few Good Creative Men

An Idea That Sucks. Brilliant.

c. 11,000 BC: an unknown early human in East Africa’s Rift Valley realizes that, no matter how good it might taste, eating the scum on the floor of his cave is totally gross. Anthropologists term this moment “the dawn of floor-cleaning consciousness”.

2560 BC: an estimated 15,000 Hebrew slaves die cleaning the floors of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

44 BC: in the first major conflict of the nascent Roman Empire, Mark Antony and Octavian fall out over who is responsible for cleaning Julius Caesar’s blood from the floor of the Roman Forum. “Not it, called it,” Octavian famously declares.

c. 400-800 AD: as the Dark Ages fall across Europe, an order of monks in Ireland preserve the remaining storehouse of ancient floor-cleaning knowledge. The "Chant" is born.

1868 AD: Chicago inventor Ives W. McGaffey devises the first cleaner using vacuum principles. The “Whirlwind” is a modest success, but McGaffey abandons the idea to work on another invention: an electric-powered milk bucket that can read cows’ minds.

1901 AD: Hubert Cecil Booth, a British engineer, received a British patent for a vacuum cleaner on August 30th 1901 and took the form of a large, horse-drawn, petrol-driven unit. Did more damage than it was worth.

1978 AD (the year I was born!): James Dyson was vacuuming his house when he realized his top-of-the-line machine was losing suction and getting clogged. An industrial designer by training, Dyson went to work reengineering vacuum cleaner technology to fix this problem. But that wasn’t his only challenge. Fifteen years and more than 5,000 prototypes later, he launched the Dyson Limited–a new era in vaccum technology was born.

So what? What does all that mean?

Over 100 years after the first vaccum technology was engineered, James Dyson, with NO backing from any investor after many attempts to get funding, stepped out to challenge what had always been accepted in vaccum technology. He wanted to take an established good idea and make it suck...literally.

However, He has a hard road ahead of him because one major obstacle stands in his way–YOU. Creative ideas are everywhere. I can think of a million of them...and I have. In our quest to find the latest and greatest idea, sometimes we get ahead of our time. It's always great to dream and strategize for the future. Don't forget who you're targeting and how much consumer acceptance is available.

Oh, almost forgot...

2157 AD: the final living human is sucked into the four-acre dustbin of the Dyson, completing the robots’ conquest of Earth. Now that would suck.

Brain Freeze Lesson #1 - Font-ain of Youth!

Have you ever received a logo, print/publication piece, ad from a client or any other design that was either flattened or did not have the fonts attached...and now, you have NO idea what font was used? I know, happens all the time.

Did you know there's a great online tool that can save you hours of searching frantically for that exact font? It's called "What the font" and better yet, it's FREE.

What the Font »

Hope it helps.