http://designersobriety.com Just another WordPress weblog Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:30:47 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en #73 If you're not sketching enough, start collecting images or ideas on your phone. Visual reminders are just as important. I've sketched or doodled as long as I can remember. But, as the busyness of  life, work, etc. has built up, my sketching has decreased. I have always felt very strongly ... http://designersobriety.com/2010/03/73-if-not-sketching-then-start-collecting/ We are continuing our series on a topic that is especially important this year: making yourself irreplaceable. How are you going to do that? So we are discussing four main topics to think about: 1 Relationship King 2 Service Superstar 3 Industry Ally 4 Valuable Partner NUMBER TWO: Service Superstar If your ... http://designersobriety.com/2010/02/be-irreplaceable-service-superstar/ #72 Want to be better at conversations or more interesting in meetings? How to talk about things other than the weather. Not everyone is a great conversationalist, and even the best have a tough day now and then. Plus, we’ve all had a client that is challenging to talk to. So, what sort ... http://designersobriety.com/2010/02/72-be-more-interesting/ Your theme, especially this year, should be to make yourself irreplaceable. How are you going to do that? The design and visual communication field boasts over 55,000 different companies in the U.S. When you add freelancers, crowd sourcing, and the person who still has CorelDRAW, the competition is steep, ... http://designersobriety.com/2010/02/be-irreplacable/ Learn your client's "new normal", because it's not business as usual anymore. Our clients' businesses, and therefore our careers, have changed forever. Sure, we can attribute some of this change to the explosion of social media, lightning fast communication speeds, and the new economy. But the bigger and longer-lasting change is ... http://designersobriety.com/2010/02/life-with-the-new-normal/ #71 Busy or bad day? Like Grandpa said, your response is your responsibility. Your Grandpa may not have said that to you, but it's true. All too often we get going so fast that we tend to not see too far past ourselves. This often leads to us being a bit ... http://designersobriety.com/2010/01/71-grandpa-was-right/ Cameron Sinclair, an architect and founder of Architecture for Humanity, is a past TED Prize winner. His most recent talk gives a different perspective of the financial and construction meltdown through the "boom and bust" refugees. His presentation questions us with an undeniable truth: at the bottom of the ... http://designersobriety.com/2010/01/forget-carbon-what-is-your-ethical-footprint/ It's always interesting to me how things work in cycles. It wasn't too long ago that everyone said, "You have to have a website; everyone who is anyone has one." And to a certain extent, at least nowadays, that is true. Recently, you see the same thing happening with social ... http://designersobriety.com/2009/12/3-things-to-ask-yourself-before-social-networking/ #70 Today, stop and look at something differently. Everyday we wake up, hit the snooze, workout...well, maybe...and make our way to our job. We go through whatever routine gets us going in the morning. Tea, coffee, check the email, and so on. We may have had this routine for several ... http://designersobriety.com/2009/11/70-change-it-up/ I would be willing to guess most of us think that a creative retreat is a good idea. Whether it's just you or the whole team, it's worth more than anything it would actually "cost" you while out of the office to take the time to recharge, get inspired, and ... http://designersobriety.com/2009/11/5-ways-to-have-a-successful-retreat/