An event at the Olympic Mills Gallery for Sunday June 28.

More details here.

http://myspace.com/olympicmillsart

I plan to get some pictures and a few words from the participants.  I am not one of the artists this time around, but there should be more events like this as Muralists, the City of Portland and Mayor elect Sam Adams with involvement from RACC open up more opportunities.

We want murals that will represent more than advertising. Look at what to Philadelphia, PA when Pabst got an opening to create public art: Pasbt Murals Philly 

Just a quick portal of links to some useful stock photo sites.
istockfree.com

The MacWorld Expo is coming up next week in San Francisco. There seems to be a pretty good group of events to check out. I will be there to see what is new and great in the mac universe, but I always have a pretty good idea. Some of the best printed marketing items can be found here, and I plan to collect a few and post them up on the site. Also, I will report on some of the vendors and their products or plans.

Stay Tuned!

At least they have decent taste. (article here) The big thing that surprises me is the lack of insurance for the work. For paintings worth $55 mil it would be a good idea to cover something. It just is a fair warning to living artists who hang work on cafe’s and galleries. Make sure that in case of a fire, water damage, or theft you are in some way covered. Check your own insurance to see. If anyone has tips on how protect your work beyond the basic artist contract, it would be great to hear about it.

A time comes when things blow so out of proportion that you can no longer find anything you need. This is what happened to the internet long ago. Not unlike a library, the internet is full of cobwebs and out-dated resources.  As there is always a need to stand out in the world it would be logical to as in your professional career.

Blog about what you know. The reason your reading this blog is because your interested in the hype behind niche sites. Well, there you have it.  If I were a winemaker I would blog about wine, or more specifically Pinto Noir grapes in the Willamette Valley.

The next is hobbies and trends.  One of the biggest type of trend for internet viewers is gadgets and technology. Look at how the iPod, iPhone and iTouch have exploded.  Five years ago you would have to force feed a person to use an Apple product. Today they pop off the shelf faster than candy at Costco. Following these trends is a good idea, but only if you really use the product or are willing to devote some time to its special advantages.

Look ahead for future trends. I started few informational design pieces on solar energy and the use of earth friendly ideas back in 2003 and was nearly laughed at. Today you cannot shut investors up about it, and no one is laughing (thanks Al Gore! :P).

Good ideas to blog about: Health Care, Travel and Leisure, Gadgets, Games, TV Shows, any product that is just released and has very little documentation.
Good ideas that might big in the future: Arctic Real Estate, Nano Technology, North American Union, Cybernetic Implants, Manned Mission to Mars, … hey if I knew what was going to be big, I would’nt be here!

The question comes up, “Why did you choose to use Wordpress , when you have the ability to create custom sites?”

There are a number of reasons I choose to use Wordpress, starting with the biggest being ease of use. I’ve created a many sites by hand coding, slicing, positioning and test-run applications to help including Dreamweaver, GoLive, BBedit, and others that are extinct. The truth is that after you exhaust yourself making time to create your own website you are ready for a re-design (even if that is just a year later), and often you need a new element you did not plan out. It happens on client sites and it happens to you, the difference being time and money.

Designers are people too and we all need time to promote ourselves, update content and track our research and interest just as any other business or professional. Wordpress offers a faster means to an end by allowing for design manipulation without disturbing your site’s content. When your world grows you need to simplify.

The next big reason is marketing. With all power of a simple web site I can now do multiple tasks in the time it took to do one. Creating automatic tags, distributing my information, cross-linking, Search Engine Optimization… the list just goes on. This means I can propagate more places faster.

Organization is a bit of the puzzle. I could sit around the old wireframe and say, “This needs to be here, this there, and oh here is the content.” Well, I am no different than 90% of my clients who never have it all together in one place at one time. In a short month business can change and being flexible is important to the fluidity of customer relationships. Which brings me to the next point.

Not everyone lives and breathes the internet. Some people actually make the world function and the internet is merely a tool to connect them to them. They need help setting up sites they can manage, at least maybe. The future is bringing Wordpress and other types of blogs to the classroom where students are submitting their reports via electronic means. Until that change is completely mastered, people will need help getting it all running.