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Designers Forum

Peter Simcoe — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:51:01 +0000

Please Note:

Due to a lack of interest in the Designers Forum [What? There are no designers in Chester? ], the Meetup.com group has been closed. However, I have left the article on Design-Design as it outlines the ideas and aspirations behind the group.

The aims and objectives of Designers’ Forum are to encourage artists, designers and musicians to meet, share information and potentially collaborate on design projects on a formal or informal basis. My experience of Business Link, On Course Innovation and E-Business Events in the East Midlands [2003 - 2009] were generally positive and it would be great to bring these positive experiences to a group of people in creative industries in and around Chester.

Meetup.com was chosen as the vehicle for encouraging this activity because it seems to strike the right balance between professional and personal interests, has a large following, is an acceptable price to start your own Meetup.com group and has a reasonably intuitive interface. This is the write up for the Designers’ Forum:

This group is for designers, film makers, graphic artists and animators in the Chester area. The focus is on creating a support network made up of freelancers and company employees who enjoy meeting other people with a similar interest in designerly activity of different sorts.

The next meetup on 12 September at Telfords Warehouse [2pm] is all about how we use the web as professionals and for personal inspiration:

Dear Designers, Artists and those of the media persuasion of one sort or another,

Another month, another meetup. This time on 12 September at the same venue, Telfords Warehouse at 2pm! Last time it worked well as it was reasonably quiet and a very pleasant atmosphere to discuss art, design and web related ideas. I think that, from the feedback I have received, that it was useful and a promising start to what could be a regular thing with hopefully an ever expanding group of photographers, Photoshop experts, marketing people, designers, musicians, painters and artists of other pursuasions.

My proposal for September’s meetup is that we look at how we use the web and technology for our creative pursuits both professionally and personally.

Designers – how does the web provide you with additional support and tools?
Musicians – what can be gained from a web connection?
Traditional painters – do you use the web and if so how?
Photoshop user – what are the best tools, facilities and support sites on offer?

These are things to consider before coming to the next meeting. Hopefully we can all leave with some new ideas, inspiration and places to visit on the web to excite and inspire! Please download the Designers-Forum Web overview PDF and use it to jot down some ideas related to the professional and personal sites discussed.

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Contributing Constructively

Peter Simcoe — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:53:54 +0000

With the Web 2.0 explosion of interactivity and the potential to make your voice heard comes a challenge for all to be involved with online communities in their particular academic or industrial profession. Quality contributions to an online discussion can get you noticed as much as print or web advertising [both being very expensive] if you target the right audience with the right message. Also, the web is more democratic as a medium – the theory being that, if everyone in a community has a voice [and a PC] then those with something to say that really matters will eventually get heard or discovered independent of their status in their individual interests or professions. That’s the theory anyway.

I recently created a short news item for the Drawing Research Network called 6 Digital Drawing Experiments. This was essentially a collection of some of the research I had done into drawing and online experiments. When I say research, I mean the kind of informal searching for new and interesting design related websites I find by subscribing to design related RSS feeds through Google Reader and other paths and other related sites this may lead me to – I regularly scour the web for new and inspiring methods of digital drawing to learn from.

Why give free advice?

Why did I volunteer to freely spend this time providing others with content? Well, its simple and can be explained in 3 points that apply to blogs, forums or simply commenting upon someone elses work:

Reference. There is nothing like getting your head around a topic and clarifying your thoughts by writing them down – especially when there is potentially a large readership should the web community decide it is of value. The article is written both for my own benefit and the benefit of others interested in this area too.

Status. Do people rate what I have written? Well, maybe they want to see more of the same quality and may click on my own sites to see what else I do in the field of design – therefore this is an investment in potential future clients as well as impressing current clients who want to see that you are actively keeping up with what is going on in the world.

Community. Are there others out there who want to form collaborations, swap ideas or share similar information? By contributing to relevant blogs you can help connect with others.

What guidelines should I apply to my contributions?

Quality. Only create articles that you know are accurate, informative and contain a reasonable level of detail on the subject you are describing – ask yourself “What do I expect my readers to gain from this article? What insight or new information am I bringing to them? Could I assist presentation by using video or images or should the text be the only medium to convey the message. This sounds like common sense but there are many blogs out there full of very bland uninformative articles. Simplicity is good – over simplifying the content is not good.

Quantity. Establish an approximate and suitable typical interval between your articles. I typically leave around 2-3 weeks between each article on this blog as I feel it is healthy to stop and think about design objectively at these intervals. I learn and I hopefully help people to gain insight from my experiences and knowledge.

Objectivity. Having a personal agenda, opinion and direction is good but watch what you say online as this can be misinterpreted or simply not understood – at worst you could gain a bad reputation or simply be ignored altogether. I always assume I am talking to one of my clients meaning that my focus is upon helping them to understand a design related concept, acting professionally and ultimately gaining their respect.

Where to start?

The best way to START contributing is to STOP. Stop and look around at the way others are contributing and the types of contributions they are making to online conversation. This is useful for gaining an idea of what readers find valuable, the conventions for writing for different audiences and for forums or Twitter rather than blogs [or other typical web technologies] and the typical style of content. Once you feel comfortable and passionate about contributing then go ahead. If you don t feel like writing a whole article you may feel inspired to write a short response in a comments box on the site.

Tip

Remember that the web has a good memory. If you decide to criticise others then this should be done in a professional manner and assume that your comments are permanent. Excessive or malicious criticism is never respectable and if you are that critical then maybe you should move on in your reading or remove the RSS feed from Google Reader altogether! It’s all about professional conduct and doing to others as you would wish them to do to you really – if it needs explaining further then you probably shouldn’t be contributing to blogs or forums

Good Luck!

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To Twit or Not to Twit?

Peter Simcoe — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:08:51 +0000

Twitter was the result of a one day brainstorming session by the podcasting company Odeo to generate ideas for direction in a creative slump during 2006. The microblogging site is constantly mentioned in the media as a great way to be part of a thriving social network and keep up to date with what is happening in the world by simply typing your current status into a box in a browser window allowing 140 character sentences. Enter your status as often as you like. Discuss what you like. Link to whoever you like. If other social networks are anything to go by, this sounds like it could be another social disaster for anyone around 12-18 years old.

Does it have any use for business users? Well, I am as skeptical as anyone that Twitter has any use at all in the business world….however, I am currently experimenting with the social networking site to see if I can generate any additional interest in my design blog [here] or my portfolio website at www.simcoe.co.uk.

Three Simple Rules

My recommendation, if you want to use Twitter for business, is to follow these three simple rules:

Have something of use to say to your followers. Make it relevant, interesting and professional and preferably relevant to some quality research or finding. As a business professional it is important to find out the facts and figures about your industry on a daily basis, note important events in the diary such as trade shows, read quality news or watch relevant documentaries. If you’re serious in business then finding something you’ve discovered that is of value to your listeners, even just once everyday, should be no problem at all.
Only Retweet [publish someone elses Tweet to your own readers] if you think that it is absolutely necessary that your audience knows about it. We live in a generation where people express their creativity by collecting and displaying other people’s creative expertise as a montage eg MySpace. Your audience needs to trust that they are not just getting a random retweet plucked from the general steady stream of drivel because you’ve got nothing to say.
Keep it professional. We’re not all interested in Steven Fry’s infinitely detailed details. We don’t want to hear about the great curry you had last night or how you’re now suffering the consequences. Quality, facts, informed opinion and valuable expression are the key to success as far as I can tell. I measure this by the way people I trust seem to be using the system and what I have gained professionally from this.

Useful Links

Below are some useful links for Twitter users:

http://listorious.com/tags – is a great way to search for Twitter users based upon keywords or tags. If you are interested in designing or photography, simply follow the relevant tags to find users with similar interests. Maybe they have something useful to share? Maybe not.

http://www.tweetdeck.com/ – here you can download a desktop based tool called Tweetdeck

Summary

Twitter can be useful and can possibly generate the new links and trust in your brand name that you are working towards. As with any social media, giving the public a voice usually results in finding out that you really don’t want to hear what the majority have to say [take examples from some of the most popular tags reaching number one in most searched such as 'thuglife' or other similarly grim topics] – but for those attempting to use more than two brain cells and use the internet at the same time, there may be some milage.

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10 Free Useful Online Tools

Peter Simcoe — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:08:07 +0000

Remember The Milk – is a great FREE online tool for creating to do lists that can be shared between you and your colleague, client and designer. In fact, you can even send each other jobs and tasks if you want to cause friction This tool can be integrated into the Google home page, accessed by mobile phone and used in a whole browser window. Daily reminders are sent in list form which can be very handy when there are many tasks building up in a month.

iGoogle as a web browser homepage – every time my browser opens or I use the home button the Simcoemedia Google page is shown. To create your account simply login / create a Google account then edit the settings for displaying your content by ADDING items. It is easy to set up and provides an informative and constantly updated dashboard for your business.

Xmarks – a great FREE plugin for Firefox or Internet Explorer web browsers. User’s bookmarks will automatically synchronise between all computers running the Xmarks plugin and logged into the same account. This is particularly useful if you have more than one computer for your browsing and general business – you may have an office and home machine or a main workstation and a netbook that can synchronise to avoid constant updating between browsers.

YouSendIt – is a useful program designed to help you send large files without blocking up someones email account or needing to set up tricky FTP sites. Its simple and you can send files up to 100Mb without signing inl. Paying customers can send up to 2Gb per upload with masses of FTP space and plenty of happy customers who can easily access their emails [ie you have not filled their inbox with your data!] and the file you’ve sent them!

FreeMind – another FREE download that is great for formalising your spider diagrams, mind maps, brain-dumps [or whatever you like to call them] for presentation or submission purposes. Once the initial learning curve is overcome then creating diagrams is relatively straight forward, with a variety of options for highlighting, adjusting text, creating lists and nodes and other techniques for communicating your lateral thinking. Diagrams can be exported to PDF and various bitmap formats such as JPEG, BMP etc.

Skype – theres not too much you cannot do with Skype these days and I find it most useful when sharing my design work on screen whilst talking to my client on Skype at the same time. It is FREE to use and Skype to Skype calls cost nothing – which is particularly relevant when you consider that any phone with Skype, such as many of the 3 phones, can make and receive these calls for FREE also. It is also a great replacement for a landline at around £4 / month for any UK landline – but only if you have a speedy connection to the internet otherwise this system can create embarrassing lags in those business conversations when there is high traffic volume.

Quicktime – if you have some digital video input as raw video via Firewire and just need a quick edit and professionally compressed look to your final output then you could do worse than spend the £25 Quicktime are demanding from you for a license to access Quicktime Pro. One of the best features of Quicktime Pro is the excellent H.264 Codec that really shrinks your video size down but maintains high quality output. If nothing else, you should invest in this piece of software for that Codec alone. Files are easily accessed from a PC or Mac with Quicktime installed.

Google Reader – Another part of the Google suite of free online products which basically collects the latest news from all of your favourite sites without you needing to visit those sites to check out the headlines. Personally, I keep up to date with the world of design through online RSS feeds grouped together in Reader, grouped into an easy to read format and constantly updated. This can save alot of surf time and effort to get the news you really want to read.

OpenOffice – Most people know about Open Office now, but in case you do not – it is a free suite of office programs very similar and compatible with Microsoft’s Word, Excel, Access and Powerpoint products. There are occassionally a few compatibility or inconsistency issues but generally this makes a great alternative to shelling out £400 for the Microsoft products.

Acrobat.com – Adobe have created some excellent design software such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. They have also created a website where the user has access to a variety of media production related tools including PDF conversion for those without Acrobat Standard or Professional, file sharing where a massive 5Gb file can be uploaded, ConnectNow for screensharing and professional online meetings and Buzzword, a document writer. PDF conversion requires payment to Adobe but other services are FREE.

CamStudio – is a FREE screen capture tool. With this free download you can record your on a computer screen then output a file containing video to a compressed file for delivery over the network. To put it simply, this is a great tool for creating a series of software training videos for your business! Beware though – lengthy screen captures from your PC will create large files. You might want to consider paying for a YouSendIt.com account if you want to create and send this sort of data.

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