Hidden habits of ineffective people

All five of these habits are easy to pick up but will squeeze out every bit of your effectiveness.  The first negative habit really stands out, and I have to constantly remind myself to create more than I consume.

Consuming more than you create 
Effective people tend to create a lot of content. Content can mean a lot of things - but the rule is always the same, create more than you consume. Ineffective people, on the other hand, spend the majority of their time consuming the fruits of others’ labor. They are consumate lurkers.

Read the rest on Chris Wake’s Quora post

Explosions in the Sky - Poster Process

A few weeks ago I started noticing DKNG’s shots on Dribbble for “Mystery Project 11”, and yesterday they finally posted the full poster for the band Explosions in the Sky.  Similar to their Black Key’s poster process they screen captured the entire design process and put together this amazing process video.

Watching this video makes me want to teach myself how to sketch.  Right now I struggle with writing barely legible letters.

Final Poster

Explosions in the Sky - DKNG poster


“When you have the good fortune to have success in your life that is precisely the time you should reinvent yourself. You should go right back to zero as though nothing had happened and start over. Because you can get real stale. You can fall in love with yourself or get to that danger point when you could ride on that success or try to repeat it.”— Robert Redford

Wise words.  I quickly threw together a desktop image with this quote as a reminder to create, reinvent, repeat.  Feel free to download the desktop image at 2560x1440px.
Via Surfstation

“When you have the good fortune to have success in your life that is precisely the time you should reinvent yourself. You should go right back to zero as though nothing had happened and start over. Because you can get real stale. You can fall in love with yourself or get to that danger point when you could ride on that success or try to repeat it.”
— Robert Redford

Wise words.  I quickly threw together a desktop image with this quote as a reminder to create, reinvent, repeat.  Feel free to download the desktop image at 2560x1440px.

Via Surfstation

Empathy is the Root of Creativity

“The greatest thing we can do and offer is to be great listeners and have to have empathy for your culture to understand what is the truth.”
— John Jay, global executive creative director at W+K 

One of the most important skills of a designer or creator is empathy. Without it you’ll fail to connect with users and clients in a meaningful way.

Studio Sweet Studio

Studio Sweet Studio is a website and yearly publication that features artists, their work, and their workspace as an interesting dialogue about how environment affects creative work and what it means to have a studio as an extension of your “visual brand” as an artist.

I recently stumbled on Studio Sweet Studio after the founders Meg Lewis & Tuesday Bassen started following Style Hatch on twitter last week.  That evening I stayed up going through virtually every post (almost 40) that they have on their two week old site.  The studio tours, posts on process, and designer interviews are beautifully done and quite inspiring.
Make sure you bookmark this site and add it to your RSS readers.  It’s already made it into the list of sites that I check on a daily basis.

Studio Sweet Studio

Studio Sweet Studio is a website and yearly publication that features artists, their work, and their workspace as an interesting dialogue about how environment affects creative work and what it means to have a studio as an extension of your “visual brand” as an artist.

I recently stumbled on Studio Sweet Studio after the founders Meg Lewis & Tuesday Bassen started following Style Hatch on twitter last week.  That evening I stayed up going through virtually every post (almost 40) that they have on their two week old site.  The studio tours, posts on process, and designer interviews are beautifully done and quite inspiring.

Make sure you bookmark this site and add it to your RSS readers.  It’s already made it into the list of sites that I check on a daily basis.

Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.

Paul Rand