August 2010 Guest Recap & Props!

Over the past several months, Matt’s Musings has welcomed a number of contributors who have offered their unique perspectives on a number of subjects including writing, marketing, SEO and business. I like to think that these contributors have added value to my personal blog and am grateful for what I have been able to publish thus far.

Just in case you missed who contributed what during August 2010, I am offering to you the following recap of the month’s guest posts:

Using YouTube Videos To Pick The Right Domain Names — Duncan Heath, in the first of two articles he contributed in August, offers how YouTube can help you find a domain name that will instantly attract visitors. Capitalize on the video phenom to get your new website off to a fantastic start.

Being Creative Under Pressure — Creativity and pressure don’t work so well together, right? Well, pressure is a fact of life and Sonia Mansfield shows us how to keep the creative juices flowing no matter how crazy things can get.

Let Your Negotiating Skills Turn Your Into A Money Maker Outsourcer – Lior Levin explains how letting others handle some of your tasks can be beneficial, even a source of revenue. You can’t and shouldn’t do everything yourself.

Top 7 Timesaving Tips For Entrepreneurs — Entrepreneurs have a lot on their plate which means that making good use of their time is essential to their success. James Adams shares seven tips we can all use to make good use of our time.

Is Blogging Good For The Mind, Body, And Soul? — Lior Levin returns, this time sharing his personal journey into blogging. Read how an introvert loses his solitude to become a blogging extrovert.

3 Things Not To Say To An SEO Client — Duncan Heath returns and gives us sound advice on how to deal with clients for all things SEO. Lose the gobbledygook and speak a language your customers can understand. They’ll be grateful and you’ll come across professional.

How Any Business Can Benefit From SEO — Kara Taylor explains how beneficial SEO is to large and small companies alike. Certainly, small businesses have financial constraints, but they need to optimize their sites in order to be competitive.

If you’re interested in contributing an original article to Matt’s Musings, please click on the contact link to find my email address and send your inquiry my way. Please check the site’s archives [site:matthewkeegan.com] to make sure that you aren’t repeating something published here over the past six months. All contributions are passed through Copyscape before publishing; I reserve the right to edit as needed.

Being Creative Under Pressure

By Sonia Mansfield

Maintaining your creative drive while staring down a deadline is one of the biggest challenges in graphic design. These three simple tips will help you to overcome the pressure and create great graphic design without stress.

Stay In Your Chair

Stephen King has often attributed his prolific writing career to a simple strategy: he stays in his chair. When he sits down to write, he stays in place purposefully and reminds himself that it is his job to produce words. By staying at his keyboard, Stephen King can finish several bestsellers in the time most would-be novelists would spend waiting for the muse to strike.

This is a perfect strategy for graphic design. During crunch time, designers who wait nervously for inspiration to strike are doing themselves a disservice. Creativity becomes more difficult as time slips away. The best way to keep yourself calm and creative under pressure is to keep your pencil moving and your mouse clicking—you’re guaranteed to make more progress in a day than a designer who paces around an unused drawing board.

Make Lists

Even if you will yourself to work, the breadth of a graphic design project can be daunting. You may find yourself caught in a loop of hesitation over false starts or insurmountable tasks. If so, it’s time to make the power of the list work for you.

Cartoonist Lynda Barry once told an interviewer that when she has writer’s block, she makes a list of ten comic strip topics that she could write about. This helped her mobilize her work efforts, and made it easy to choose the best idea. You can apply this to graphic design by making a list of ten ideas, or perhaps ten thumbnails. Don’t worry if your ideas seem silly or outrageous! A good design idea is bound to come to light.

You can also use lists again to break big tasks into smaller ones. This will put your graphic design process into perspective and help you to manage your time. For example, completing a project in one day may seem impossible, but, if you break it down into a list like this, the task looks more more managable:

1. Thumbnail ten designs; choose the best to pursue. (1 hour)
2. Refine best design (finish mockup before lunch)
3. Implement design according to medium of choice (all afternoon)

Hold yourself to the times you’ve set out in the list and you’ll make your deadline with minimum stress.

Treat Yourself Well

Professional graphic design can be demanding, especially around crunch time. Put in the time you need, but keep it in check! You’ll work better, faster, happier and smarter if you don’t skip on meals and sleep.

Time management and task management are no good without stress management. Too much stress and fatigue will make it hard to produce good graphic design. Just as an athlete eats well and sleeps well before a marathon, make sure you get the food and rest you need to perform to the highest standards.

Author Information

Sonia Mansfield is the content editor for PsPrint and editor for the PsPrint Blog. She likes to write, do yoga and make nerdy “Star Wars” and “Simpsons” references. PsPrint is an online printing solutions company, which you can follow on Twitter and Facebook.