JA Design Wood Business Cards - by NW Laser Image

These are the result of the highly creative, exceptionally skilled work from NW Laser Image! The business cards even got featured on their website (not to mention mine!).

If you have engraving, sand carving, dye sublimation, or CNC routing needs, this is who you want to see! To see more of Laser Image’s work and to contact them, visit the website here: www.nwlaserimage.com

by Peter Shallard, a shrink for entrepreneurs.
Download: Seek and Destroy Ebook (PDF) (126)

Excerpt from the book:

“You have plenty of ideas – tons! – but you can’t figure out which idea to pursue. What if you choose the wrong one? Which is the right one? Which has the best chance of success?

You probably know what this roadblock feels like – it’s a big problem for many entrepreneurs. The ideas come hard and fast, from little ones that would improve the business to big ones that could nearly cause a revolution!

They come so fast that you might keep your ideas in a list, just so you don’t forget any. And you might start to think that your list is looking pretty long. Overwhelming, even.”

Here’s a taste before you leave:

1. Higher prices increase customer focus

When you charge more, your customers pay more attention. Trust me – I’m a therapist. I’ve often joked that a Quit Smoking therapist need only charge $7500 a session to guarantee success.

2. Big transactions will ignite your motivation

When you’re selling a big ticket item, you’re going to get fired up. When the unconscious mind knows that a single sale could have you in caviar and cigars for months, it flips the motivation switch.

3. Being expensive cultivates an aura of expert and elite status

When you have high prices, something magical happens. People assume you’re the bees-knees. You start to become known as the place to go for top-end, elite and awesome

4. You’ll make more money by doing less (aka “margin is everything”)

Overnight, he had cut his workload in half. His revenue was the same but he was making more money because he only required half the inventory. His overheads pretty much halved!

5. Big figures attract big spenders (your customer demographics will get exciting)

There are a certain group of people who will pay more for the little extras. These people will intuitively gravitate towards good customer service, style and speed. In other words, they want the best and they want it now.

6. As prices go up, customer issues and complaints go down

The more you charge, the less debt collecting, refunds and general hassles you’ll have to deal with. The customers who make the decision to shell out for your pricier product will take it upon themselves to be better educated about what you offer.

7. Big rates motivate you to over-deliver (and customers will thank you for it)

Increasing your rates overnight will make you sweat with the need to be more awesome. You’ll be petrified that you’re not “worth it” – that you’re somehow not awesome enough to have big prices. This fear is a good thing.

01 – Art by Chris Wilhelm:

Chris is a traditional artist who does amazing murals in somewhat unexpected places. His work can be viewed in restaurants, hotels, galleries, and many private homes.

02 – Art by Danny Glix:

Here’s some trippy abstract art by Danny. I don’t have the medium that’s used, but maybe drawn on paper and scanned – these are definitely different work for sure, but very nice!

03 – Art by Peter Huiras:

Peter has a lot of different forms of artistic talent; he’s a sculptor, jeweler, and photographer. I wanted to feature his amazing custom unique guitar customizations. Peter carves guitars into spectacular designs;  truly inspirational work!

04 – Art by Jeff Ballard:

Jeff is an amazing glass blowing artist. He does a very nice technique called Incalmo: A glassblowing technique used to create horizontal or vertical bands of color. Some of Jeff’s work is almost indistinguishable from the “real thing”.

05 – Art by Erin Schmucker:

Erin is a budding artist and likes to draw; I love how creative she is with her pieces. They range from surreal to downright abstract.

Final Word

I would like to do one of these articles once every month or two. I need you to submit your work to be considered to be included in following issues. Any kind of art is open for publication here: traditional art, photography, 3D, digital painting etc. Please email me your submissions today! Or include @Orkron in your tweet to submit your work.

Well the great news is my design is a finalist in the final run; now it’s up for a public vote and I need your help in making mine the winner! What’s in it for me you ask? well unfortunately I’m just a poor graphic designer… I can’t offer monetary compensation – but you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are part of why I won! That should be enough to hold you over with excellent karma for at least half a year! What a deal!

But in all seriousness: I put a lot of time and love into that design (even found a way to help others learn from it) and would really love to have it published and printed (nationwide too!).

Please take a moment and vote for my design here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ICAW_2011_Poster_Poll

I really appreciate it!

Here’s an excerpt:

Maybe you started off waking to find your clock blinking 12:00 AM. The power must have gone off in the night, and when you look at your phone or your watch, you realize you have just enough time to throw on clothes and head off to work. You throw on that outfit, hit the kitchen to pour a quick bowl of Fruit Loops, but the milk doesn’t even land enough for the bottom of the bowl to get wet. You throw the bowl in the sink and get in your car. 10 minutes to go before you’re late for your job that’s a half-hour away. But, as you ignite the car, you realize your car is on empty. You stop at the Flexi-Fuel and pour gasoline in before realizing you spent your last five dollars on curly fries the night before. When you get to work, your boss calls you in on account of your lateness, and there’s a client waiting at your desk ready to eat you alive because of a mistake the mail room guy made two weeks ago.

This post really appealed to me since I tend to have the “bad” mornings more than the “good” ones… Food for thought!

Read the whole article here: Why the First Hour is the Most Important Hour of Your Day

I want to showcase your work here on my blog

A form of gathered-inspiration all in one place. I am interested in showcasing all kinds of artistic talent for everyone to see!

Send me a note with a link to your work (it has to be hosted somewhere) and I’ll include it in my first (of many hopefully) “Design Inspiration” posts.

Thanks!

Infographic: All You Need To Know About Web Designers by Tech King

Instead, I decided on a stock image which seemed manageable to remove the background easily enough… Or so I thought at the time. My plan was to use the Pen Tool to create a Mask and remove it from the background. I realized quickly (well, actually not that quickly) that this particular item was way too complicated for the Pen Tool treatment.

Here's the Tree Stock Image I started with.

All I wanted was the tree; the sky and ground had to go, including the sky behind the tiny little branches. Now, because this was for a printed poster, the image is large, and has to be very detailed even when viewed close, so there wasn’t much room to fudge the details; I needed to remove the sky from behind each and every branch…

My first attempt was to use the Pen Tool and try to mask out the tree. But after 3 hours of work, this is all I had done…

Cellphone photo of Tree Mask using Pen Tool.

This was just ridiculous, at this rate I would have been masking out this tree for 6-7 hours and been less-than-satisfied with the final result; because of this, I gave up immediately on this method (scratch 3 hours from my life… but better to save the rest than continue on with a poor method).

I ended up using Channels to do the task, and it turned out better than I thought it ever would!

How to use Channels in Photoshop:

I’m using Photoshop CS3 to explain this, but the method is very similar across the entire CS – CS5 tree (no pun intended).

Step One:

With an image (preferably the one you are trying to remove an object on) opened in Photoshop, choose Window – > Channels if it’s not already open. By default, the panel is tied in with the Layers panel.

Click on Window -> Channels to open Chennel Menu

Step Two:

Find which Channel gives the most contrast between the foreground and the background by clicking on each one Red, Green and Blue one at a time; the more contrast there is, the better your results. In my case, Blue turned out to have the most contrast.

Find the Channel which offers the most contrast

Step Three:

Using the Magic Wand Tool with a tolerance of 50 I clicked on the tree. The tolerance settings may need to be adjusted depending on your image, however this worked well for me. It did though also pick up the ground:

Select the Tree using the Magic Wand Tool with a 50 Tolerance

I simply used the Rectangle Marquee Tool to unselect the ground, leaving the tree the only selected object.

Step Four:

Head over to the Layers Panel by Clicking on Window -> Layers. You will see the image has returned to full color, yet the tree is still selected. Then it’s just a quick click of the Mask icon in the Layers Panel.

Click on Layers Panel and your object, in full-color is now selected.

Click the Mask Icon and watch the background disappear

That’s it! 5 minutes of work beats hours and hours every time!

I was then able to use the tree in my final composition, and the space between branches showed the design elements behind it!

Final Composition

Freelancer’s Guide to Coffee, by FsW
3-part article written for the coffee connoisseur!

Part One: Brew your own.
What’s this you say? I shouldn’t go to Starbucks to buy my coffee? The reality is, if you’re looking for good coffee, you probably won’t find a lot of it at the major coffee chains. What you will find however, is burnt out, bottom of the pot sludge masked with froufrou toppings and silly sounding names. And you’ll get the privilege of paying outrageous prices for it!

Part Two: the French Press.
So what exactly is a French press? In a nutshell, the French press combines coffee grounds and hot water and then uses a finely-messed plunger to push the grounds to the bottom of the container.

Part Three: The Percolator Coffee Pot
The percolator refers to the method of brewing where boiling water percolates or leaches slowly through the coffee grounds. I know what you’re thinking; anything that has to do with coffee and leeches has to be good.