How to Find Inspiration for Your Projects

One thing that is common in the creative field is creative blocks or ruts when developing projects. The term artist or writer's block is quite common if you've ever created something. In this article, I will talk about a few ways on how to find inspiration for your projects.

BriefBox

The website, BriefBox, is an online collection of sample project briefs. It's primarily aimed at designers but I think it's perfect for other creatives to use as ideas for their next project. I could see a videographer taking a website design for a festival and expanding on that brief to create video related projects.

Film

I'm a huge fan of cinema so I tend to get a lot of ideas from watching film. It's also helpful to unplug from social media sites like Instagram and Youtube and just watch something original. Even rewatching old movies can often jumpstart your artistic vision during a creative funk.

Going for a Walk

Just taking a walk, getting away from digital media like your phone or laptop can be relaxing. Most noteworthy is that it allows you to absorb your surroundings outside of the digital world.

Mood Boards

I think list and mood boards are a great way to gather ideas if you're in a creative rut. Below are a few tools that I have used in the past for creating Mood Boards:

• InvisionApp
• Pinterest
• Trello

Topics Outside Your Niche

One thing I think is important for creative growth is to look at what other creators are doing outside your niche. For instance, I specialize in the areas of photography and videography but I often get inspired by creators that are great at telling a story. These range from foreign language influencers to fashion vloggers on youtube.

Summary: How to Find Inspiration for Your Projects

In conclusion, these are a few methods to jumpstart your creativity when you encounter a creative block. I hope you found this article informative and helpful. If you have anyways that you have used to find inspiration for your next project I would love to know.

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How to Keep Visitors on Your Website

In addition to bringing traffic to your website, another goal to keep in mind for your website is to keep those visitors for as long as possible. Youtube is another medium that uses "title cards" to link to other videos to keep visitors on a channel. One of the reasons is because visitors who stay on a website longer are more likely to purchase a product or a service. Below are three ways on how to keep visitors on your website.

Create Call to Actions

A call to action is helpful in that they can link to another page on your website. This can be a service or to a relevant page that tackles similar subjects. Some other ideas include:

• Newsletter
• Link to Services or Product Pages on Blog Posts
• Offer a Free Product/Ebook

Easy to Digest Content

A few mistakes I made when I started blogging consistently was creating posts full of long paragraphs. However, many people want to digest content quickly and easily. Some ideas are to use lists and summaries.Having content 200-300 words and which is broken up using bullet list or images will help in making your content easy for your visitors to digest.

Use Video Content

I have been going back and incorporating more video content into my website. I think having video content helps your visitors in several ways:

• Can Explain a Product or Service
• Gives Visitors Another Way to Digest Content

Summary: How to Keep Visitors on Your Website

In conclusion, these are just a few ways to keep visitors on your website. A good way to test if your visitors are sticking around is to use Google Analytics and look at the "Bounce Rate" for your users. Overall, I think if your website is mainly about helping and assisting your visitors, the more likely they will stay.

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Sony A7iii Long Term Review

I have owned the Sony A7iii for over a year now. The A7iii is the replacement for Sony's entry-level full-frame camera the A7ii. As I have been using the camera for a year now, below is my Sony A7iii Long Term Review.

Price & Length

When the A7iii was released in 2018, it was priced at $1,998.00. Because of the camera's popularity, the price for the A7iii has held steady. You can probably expect that price to hold for the A7iii until Sony releases another Full Frame camera.

Things that I Really Liked:

• Button Customibility

• Long Battery Life

• Fast Shutter Speed

What I didn't Like:

After owning the A7iii for a year I discovered a few issues that I did not like with the camera. The most noteworthy issues I had with the A7iii were:

• Weather Sealing

• Updating Firmware on a Mac is a long process

• Overheating with 4K long usage (Must set the Auto Pwr Temp to High)

Weather Sealing

There is no weather sealing on the A7iii body. This would often lead to dust often getting onto the sensor of the camera if I was shooting in less than ideal environments.

Image Stabilization

Overall, I thought the Image Stabilization in the A7iii was poor. The image stabilization appears to be great for taking photos, which is nice if you primarily take photographs. I thought it was great to have. However, for video, I found the image stabilization to behave very poorly. The reason why I'm very critical on the image stabilization is I feel it is often used as a selling point for this camera.

Overheating while recording in 4K

Another issue I found with the Sony A7iii was how it tends to overheat when recording in 4k video. In my testing, I found that the A7iii tends to overheat around half an hour of 4k recording.

Summary: Sony A7iii Long Term Review

In conclusion, if you're primarily a photographer I think the Sony A7iii is a great investment for you. The combination of a flip-up screen and long battery life make it perfect for long photo shoots days. If you're planning on shooting more video I think you would be happier with another type of camera like something from Panasonic or Fuji.[tg_divider style="normal"]

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The Problem with Logo Design Contests

Earlier this August, an influencer posted a video about a logo design contest that he wanted for his brand. I decided not to mention the influencer's name because I don't want to give his competition attention. However, I do think it's important to discuss the problem with Logo Design Contests and why it is unethical to the creative community. I commented on his video to illustrate why these contests are problematic. In this article, I wanted to discuss how contests such as these take advantage of creatives and the creative community.

Why Creative Contests are an Issue:

The problem with contests like these is that they promote free work. The influencer in this case, has a huge following on Social Media which allows him a lot of influence. On Youtube alone, he has a half-million subscribers. His video promoting the logo design contests has received 83,000 views at the time of writing this article.

Working for Free versus Spec Work

There are some valid cases where I can see working for free as being value for professional development. Non-profits and charities that normally can't afford your services make sense, especially if you're just starting out or switching to a new industry. I also think that doing work for an influencer or organization with a large following makes sense as long as there is an agreement in place and you're not competing with others for the same project.In the case for this influencer's logo contest, if you participate there is a big chance that you won't receive the value for the work that you're doing. The contest page doesn't describe the rights and ownership for the rejected or winning submissions. Also, according to the contest details, only three entrants will receive value from the contest:

• First Prize: $1,000 (CAD) + Shout Out on Vlog + Consideration for Future Projects
• Second Prize: Shout Out on Influencers Vlog + Consideration for Future Projects
• Third Prize: Shout Out on Influencers Vlog + Consideration for Future Projects

The Value of a Logo:

A year ago I stumbled on the Youtube channel called The Futur. The channel discusses a lot about the business of design. In the below video, Chris Do discusses the value and true cost of logo design:

How You Should Hire a Designer

Whether or not you're an influencer or not you should treat hiring a graphic designer like any other profession. If you wouldn't hold a contest for whichever lawyer can draw up the best contract, you shouldn't do the same for logo designers. You would research and then select the one who's style fits your own. I think the main issue is that this influencer doesn't value design work. Nothing illustrates this point better than the video by Zulu Alpha Kilo:

The Difference Between Other Contests

Something that really bothered me about this logo contest, is that the influencer compared it to a film festival or film competition type of a contest. I think for most film festivals you're submitting original work or work that is not directly related to the subject of the film festival. If I'm mistaken please let me know but I think most videos submitted for film festivals are not going to be part of their brand and used over and over again.

Summary: The Problem with Logo Design Contests

In conclusion, I encourage everyone to visit the website No!Spec as it is very informative on why these contests are a problem for creatives. These types of contest devalue creative work. Going forward I'm hoping influencer researches and chooses a designer to create his logo rather than proceeding with this contest. I also want to mention that this is not only an issue for designers but others such as photographers, illustrators, videographers and other creatives.

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