Skidding across fresh, bright black and white tile, a very exuberant 6-month husky jumped up excitedly to greet me at the door of Yellowcake, a recently renovated and expanded Gordon Square boutique.  Owner and Cleveland designer Valerie Mayen was quick to follow.  “Mango!  Get down!”

“Sorry… She gets very excited!”

Wild Mango

Inside Yellowcake live colorful, custom mod women’s and kid’s coats, dresses and skirts, and the beginnings of a men’s line including crisp ties and cool jackets.  All of her designs crafted right here in Cleveland, Ohio, Mayen has had her roots in the city since November of 2011.

Texas-native Mayen has studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, worked as an apprentice at Gemini GEL in Melrose and earned her BFA at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Illustration, where she also participated in a mobility exchange program with the Otis College of Art and Design in LA.  She has also studied at the Virginia Marti College of Art and Design.

A contestant on Project Runway Season 8, she expresses herself through traditional illustration, fashion photography, pop art influenced paintings, digital media and fashion design.

Go Media had a few moments to sit down with Mayen to talk Barbie, Cleveland love, and making it work.

Go Media: I understand you have a multitude of artistic interests…which came first?

Valerie: I would say the drawing, the painting came first. When I was really little, around five years old, I used to draw my Barbies – they were my models. We had a lot of Disney movies and I would always draw the covers and try to copy them. There was also a drawing show that I always used to watch on Saturday mornings called Secret City. I used to get up every 9 am on Saturdays to draw.

How does your training in illustration and graphic design help you on a daily basis as a fashion designer?

The illustration really helps me whenever I am working with new clients, whenever I am creating new collections, making new pieces for the store, and trying to flush out new ideas.  It helps me to visualize and realize if something is going to transpire or not.

It helps me to sell the vision, too. If I’m meeting with a client and they have an idea of what they want, but they’re not sure how to describe it, I can flush it out for them.  It gives me a little bit more of an advantage to communicate to them: “This is what we’re going for, this is what we’re doing.”  They have to trust based on what they’ve seen in my portfolio that I’m going to do good work. So the more accurate the drawing, the more piece of mind they have in hiring me.

The graphic design definitely helped, in the beginning, when I was starting Yellowcake.  I did all of my (initial) branding and print material. It’s helped given me some sensibilities that other designers might not have.

Graphic design is kind of like the icing on the cake.  No one ever gets a cake without icing. And if the icing is a hack job, then the cake isn’t as appetizing.  It’s like a cover of a book. People put a lot of thought and effort into the cover of a book, or a CD or a poster or anything that will be the one shot to grab someone’s attention. So, we put a lot of thought into our branding. Luckily I’ve been able to develop those sensibilities: what I like, what looks good. What kerning and leading is. Different types and fonts, things I know work best with our brand.

What’s the hardest or most challenging thing you have faced developing your brand?

The hardest thing was figuring out how to illustrate that we are clothing company – because you know, it’s a big no-no to use a needle and thread, scissors, or other tools of the trade as your logo because it implies that you do alterations or other things in design.  The dress form was a tricky one because it’s a tool of our trade. But because it’s a tool of our trade and also a woman’s form it, it was more of a metaphor, so it worked for us.

We’ll always go back and forth about Yellowcake. The longer we keep the company name, the longer I think, people should just deal with it. As we develop and we credibility and notoriety, it doesn’t matter anymore that people think we’re a bakery.  We even thought of having a tagline that says:

“Yellowcake, we’re not a bakery dammit!”

Why did you decide to establish your Yellowcake roots in Cleveland?  

It was a long line of a lot of things. At first it was friends, and then it was a lease, and then it was a grant, and then it was the guy. One year turned into four turned into six turned into twelve.  And after awhile too, I decided to set some roots down and really make the most of my time here. A friend told me that if you want to be successful do the same thing in the same city for twenty years – and that if you work hard and are kind, good things will happen.

What changed you the most about being on Project Runway?

It made me really efficient and taught me how to edit a little bit more. It also gave me a newfound respect for other designers who don’t have the same aesthetic as I do.  It taught me about respecting a designer for who they are, what they do and what their vision is regardless of whether or not it is in line with mine or not. Even now I have to check myself. Just because someone doesn’t design the way I do doesn’t mean they’re not worth their weight as a designer or artist regardless of what their level is or what their experience is.

What’s on the horizon for you?

Re-strengthening our inventory and finances after the buildout. Creating new products, trying new things. We’re revamping our website to capitalize on online sales. Also doing different shows and different events. We’re hoping to do Hullaballo again, which was our big fashion event last October.  It was a huge success and and we are expecting double the attendance this year.  We’re doing double the amount of garments in the collection and hoping for double the revenue.  Things like that will help us keep the lights on and will help us continue to grow.

Want to know more about Valerie?  Catch her at this year’s Weapons of Mass Creation Fest 2013 where she’ll be one of our honorary guest speakers!

Want to see her again on Project Runway? Vote for Valerie here!

Yellowcake is at 6500 Detroit Ave., Cleveland. Call 216-236-4073; www.yellowcakeshop.com. Hours: 1- 8 p.m. Wednesday – Friday; noon – 9 p.m. Saturday; 1- 6 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday and Tuesday.

Connect with Yellowcake!  Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest | Buzz and Growl | Yellowcake Blog

Since inception, Yellowcake has contributed 5% of their profits to a charitable organization that supports the relief of hunger, homelessness and poverty. They believe in creating boldly fashioned clothing that sustains and supports a healthy humanity. Employing local, supporting our neighbors and aiming to do well by doing good.

The post Dishing on Design with Valerie Mayen of Yellowcake appeared first on GoMediaZine.

We are excited to announce that 2 Night Stand is not only expanding to multiple cities in 2013, lead by amazing creatives across the country, but also that we will be having the first, non-Chicago event in the days leading up to the WMC Fest 2013. We’ve had over 1000 people apply to our past Chicago events, for Trencherman’s Brewing Company, the Zombie Research Society & NASA. We know that amazing people will be heading to WMC Fest and this event will open a unique opportunity for amazing people (who probably already follow each other on Twitter) to design and create side-by-side.

Obviously, we’d love to have amazing creatives request an application.

The better the crew, the more amazing the weekend.

Apply for the WMC Fest 2 Night Stand now!

Click here to request an invite. And check out the website for more info about the event.

You can also check out the twitter feed to see what people are saying about the event.

Be sure to hit up Jason Schwartz one of the Cleveland organizers, if you have any questions or just want to chat.

What is 2 Night Stand?

20 thinkers & makers dive into a weekend long creative bender.

Brilliant concepts and ideas are explored.

No deliverables are promised.

Come to think, be challenged & collaborate. The entire creative process is cataloged and posted live. We consider it a creative growth experience.

How It Works

Applicants request an invite.

Once the invitation process is closed, the 2 Night Stand crew and city leader choose a group of around 30 people to participate in the event. Once selected, those participants are notified and a waiting list of 3-5 people are notified. Tickets to event are purchased online before day of event, so no money is handed day of event and meals can be purchased.

2 Night Stand events are typically held on a Friday night (5pm-10pm) and Saturday (10am-7pm). This can vary by event and coordinator. (For example, the WMC Fest event is tentatively Thursday 10am-7pm and Friday 10am-4pm).

On the day of event, a “mystery client” is presented. By mystery client, we mean one that has not paid 2 Night Stand, or any of it’s organizers for free work. The event is based around sky is the limit creative with no feedback from any external sources. The jam session is posted live on our site and final work is posted by each team to Behance.

Is There A Cost/Fee?

Yes, the event costs $75/person which is used to secure space and provide meals and snacks for participants. The purpose of having these events is not to make money, but to provide a platform that is self-sustaining and has the ability to provide participants with good food and drinks.

Can People Sponsor The Events?

Yes, in the past we’ve had some great sponsors and are always looking for help whether it be financial around an event, or a supply donation.

Past Sponsors:

• Sharpie,
• Neenah Paper,
• Bright Bright Great,
• Old Style,
• We Are Mammoth, and
• CrossTech Communications

Can People Request A 2 Night Stand Event In Their City?

Yes. We are currently accepting city organizer applicants here.

The post WMC Fest – 2 Night Stand appeared first on GoMediaZine.

The day has come!  We are proud to announce the winners of our Weapons of Mass Creation Fest 2013 Portfolio Contest!  We must admit, we were overwhelmed by the number of submissions and votes, but after much debate we chose five stellar artists/designers.   These lucky folks will be featured at our WMC design gallery this year.

The criteria for voting was heavily influenced by popular vote. Some of these submissions received nearly 1,000 votes! However, our team at Go Media and WMC Fest had final say over what we thought would make a good addition to the gallery this year.

Update 5/17/13:

There has been a lot of debate in the comments over the results of this contest. The debate quickly escalated into cruel and disrespectful insults, accusations, and conspiracy theories. I had to close the comments because it was getting bad and our explanations only seemed to stir up more animosity. The type of behavior exhibited by some of the commenters is not tolerated on the GoMediaZine.

I’m going to make one final point on the subject to set the record straight. This was a contest that was decided by 90% popular vote and 10% judges’ subjective opinion. Contestants (which included both artists and designers of all skill levels) entered and were encouraged to get their friends and fans to vote on a daily basis to improve their chance of winning. The winner(s) would receive an invitation to become one of the featured designers in the 2013 WMC Fest gallery and have their work on display. The five winners were selected mostly by popular vote with a careful consideration of their entire body of work and overall fit into our goals for the gallery. We feel strongly that each person we chose met our criteria to be invited and we stand by our decision. If you were not picked, it’s nothing personal and we’re sorry if we made anyone feel left out.

Lessons Learned: We realized that combining popular vote with a subjective decision is a recipe for disaster. We apologize for the confusion and for anyone who felt offended by our choices. We strongly believe that we made honest choices to award those who played by our contest rules and deserved an invitation. Even if that means the community doesn’t agree with the choices. We have learned to either run our next contest 100% popular vote so that there is a clear distinction on why the five winners were chosen. Or run it without voting at all and choose privately based on merit alone. We’ll get it right next time! 

Reminder: Support the events you want to see! Keep WMC alive and back WMC on Kickstarter. Not only will you get discounted tickets to the fest, but you’ll get handsome rewards too!

Now, for the moment you’ve been waiting for:

The Winners Are…

Jillian Adel

Heather Davis

Kyle Sheridan

Sean Dockery

Traci Nelson

Celebrating all those who submitted…

Please check out the rest of the designers who also submitted portfolio images this year!  Such talent!  To all of you designers, we hope to see your submissions again next year!

Tim Lampe
Priya Garcia

Mike Jones

Laura Walczak

Jaden DeVogel

Jason Popis

Stephen Catapano

Paul Panfalone

anonymous

 Tim Frame

David Pokrivnak

Jen Klabis

Jeremy Backo

Jayson Shenk

Rebecca Lilianne Wichmann

James Bratten

Brandon Grbach

J.Bradley House

Allan Geiger

Aaron Root

 Charlie Bailey

Katie Daugherty

Jim Masie

Richard Longhi

 Katie Beam

James Patterson II

Kirk Wallace

 Stephanie Lazorchak

Ron Moore

Eric Doctor

Eric Oldag

 Marcus Penn

Jordan Shevell

Christopher Knowles

Erin Barnhart

Kris Underwood

Terran Washington

Michael Corrick

Daniel Nyari

Steve Shanabruch

Shannon Blaz

Martins Legzdins

 Ryan Kallok

Design by Disorder

Shane Harris

Natalee Brown

Josh Jacobs

Brent Galloway

Doug Penick

Rob Hopkins

Gavin Thompson

Chris Rushing

Jermaine Haggerty

Patrick Macomber

 Timothy J. Reynolds

 John Sakowicz

Robert Valvonis

Don’t forget to save the date for WMC4: August 16 – 18 here in Sunny Cleveland, Ohio!

Follow us on Facebook | Join our Street Team | Back us on Kickstarter

The post WMC 2013 Portfolio Winners Announced! appeared first on GoMediaZine.

Regurgitate back exactly what your clients tell you. Writing a good proposal starts with listening. Ask lots of questions and listen carefully; your potential client is going to tell you exactly what they want to read in your proposal. Your first job is to listen and write down everything they say. Then you’re going to write that back to them in your proposal. If a client says: “We want a highly interactive website.” Your proposal should say: “Our solution for you is a highly interactive website.”

Create templates and refine your message. When you sit down to write your first proposal, think of building a template. You’re not going to want to write every proposal from scratch. Try to keep most of the sections generic enough so that you can reuse them with other clients.

Design your proposal. You can file this under the “duh” category. Your business documents are a representation of you! They should embody all the skills you have as a designer. This includes your proposals. So take the time to make sure that the design of your proposal will sell your potential client as strongly as the content within it. Your proposal is your portfolio! Make sure it looks amazing!

Customize the design for your client. For larger proposals, we will swap out the colors and images in our proposals to match the client’s brand. In some cases we invest quite a bit of time and effort to make our proposal look like THEIR proposal. It’s amazing how impactful delivering a custom designed proposal can be. The client feels like: “They just ‘get’ us.”

Give them a few exciting ideas. It’s a well-known fact that people buy on impulse. There is a lot of emotion involved in why people buy. One way to sell a client is to get them excited. This can be easily accomplished by sharing a few of your ideas with a client. This should be done in just a sentence or two. Describe something exciting you want to do with your client’s design. A clever idea can make the difference between you and your competitor.

Ask for a budget upfront. Knowing a client’s budget up-front is critical to writing a winning proposal. Ask your potential client for a budget during your very first interaction with them. If they act coy and won’t give you one, there are ways of extracting it. (These tactics and many more in the forthcoming book).

Don’t underbid the project. Another critical reason for asking for a budget is making sure that you’re not underbidding the project. Believe it or not, underbidding a project is as bad as overbidding it. When you severely underbid a project you’re communicating that you’re either an amateur or that you don’t understand the scope of the project. Both of these will scare off a customer.

So that’s it – just a little taste of what’s to come in my book.

The post Drawn to Business: Writing Winning Design Proposals appeared first on GoMediaZine.

Fonts can be so much fun to work with. Whether you’re creating a logo, a T-shirt or a funky poster, having the right font can make all the difference. If you’re looking for something new, something clean, and something fun, you’ve come to the right place. This Mighty Deal offers up the Solomon Font Family, from Fontfabric, at a ridiculously reduced price.

Solomon Font Family Highlights:

• 12 Total Fonts
  This collection of the Solomon Font Family includes 6 unique Deco Styles, as well as 6 different weights. That’s a total of 12 different fonts to bring your fabulous project to life.
• Legible and Entertaining
  Besides sporting some excellent legibility, the Solomon Font Family can be characterized as having a well-finished geometric design with optimized kerning. It’s perfect for any kind of headline, not to mention text blocks.
• Decorative Font
  The deco fonts in this set are bold and ornate, while still being legible. Gorgeous without being over flowery. They were custom created using ornamental work with organic forms at the heart of the design base.
• 50+ Languages
  Your purchase of the Solomon Font Family gives you access to the fonts in over 50 languages! Yep, this font really gets around! Languages include: Afrikaans, Alsatian, Albanian, Basque, Bislama, Breton, Bosnian (Latin), Catalan, Chamorro, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Faroese, Finnish, Flemish, Franco-Provencal, French, Frisian, Friulian, Galician, German, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Ladin, Latin, Luxembourgish, Malay, Manx Gaelic, Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian (Nynorsk), Occitan, Portuguese, Polish, Rhaeto-Romance, Romansh, Romanian, Sami (Inari), Sami (Lule), Sami (Northern), Sami (Skolt), Sami (Southern), Scottish Gaelic, Slovenian, Sorbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Turkish, Walloon, and Welsh. Note: The Web font may not support all of these languages.
• Compatiblity
  The Desktop font version is provided as an Opentype font (.otf), which is compatible with both a PC and a Mac computer. Your font collection includes a 438 character set, manual kerning, and tracking/pairs.

Pricing:

The Solomon Font Family normally sells for $279, but for a limited time only, you can own this beautiful and elegant family for just $9 for either the Desktop or Web Font (@font-face) version  - OR get both the Desktop and Web fonts together for just $18! - That’s a massive 97% off the regular price!

Deal terms:

• Delivered as an instant download, after completing your purchase.
• The Desktop version of the font files are in .otf format and work on both Windows and Mac. The Desktop font license does not permit @font-face webfont usage. You will need to purchase the Web font version for this.
• The Web Font is designed to work with @font-face for text on websites. The Web Font might not support all of the listed languages.
• Files cannot be shared or redistributed.
• May be used for personal and commercial projects.
• License allows the Desktop version of this font to be installed on 5 computers.

Buy Now:

• Desktop version (for Win/Mac) – $9
• Web Font version (@font-face) – $9
• Desktop + Web Fonts = $18

The post Solomon Font Family for only $9 from Mighty Deals! appeared first on GoMediaZine.

The countdown is on! Weapons of Mass Creation Fest is only a few months away, and we are working tirelessly to make it the best art, design and music festival possible. We are so excited to welcome 20 insanely talented speakers into Cleveland Public Theater August 16 through 18.  Here is a list of the speakers we have lined up thus far and a little bit about why we are so pumped to hang on their every word.

Ann Friedman & Dylan Lathrop: Ann and Dylan are an unstoppable team. They first worked together when Ann was the main editor at GOOD magazine and Dylan was the main designer. They did amazing work there until the entire editorial team was let go in a pretty famous change-of-gears for the magazine. They then co-founded Tomorrow Magazine, which got Kickstarted and featured the work of some really talented writers/photographers/designers. Ann is a real role model to young journalists and writes quite a bit about building your own personal brand in the game. Dylan’s a great advocate for design and cares equally about going about things the right way, professionally and personally.

Lisa Congdon: Lisa’s got a really great story. She came into art/design later in her life and has rocketed to a real position of prominence. She’s well known for her hand-drawn yet very detailed illustration style, and she’s very sought out for it. She’s also an avid collector of a variety of little things and even published a book about her small collections. She’s a fixture in the keynote slot in speaking at events and is the perfect fit for WMC because she’s forged her own creative path in life after working in a different world completely.

Jon Contino: You’ve all seen his work; every time you put on last year’s WMC t-shirt, you’re WEARING his work. He is, of course, an amazing illustrator whose style is everywhere – but nobody does it quite as good as he does. He is a unique voice and a real advocate for craft and caring about what you do. He’s a much-sought-after illustrator (as well as speaker). He’s worked hard to build his own brand and is a great example of what hard work and talent and hustle can accomplish.

Adam Garcia: What a talent! I first encountered Adam’s work for 160over90, one of the top design firms in the country out of Philadelphia. He then went on to work for Nike (yep, THE Nike) before going on his own. He’s got an instantly recognizable style, like Jon Contino, and he will do an amazing job in speaking about the role fear plays in forging your career. It’s important for people to see that even a top-flight illustrator like him can fight the same doubts and fears that the everyday folks face.

Rena Tom: Rena, like Kate Bingaman Burt last year, is a real Pied Piper of creative types, especially creative and crafty entrepreneurs. We’ve tried hard this year to really bolster our entrepreneurial side, as part of defying the hand you’re dealt nearly always involves selling your own stuff. She started back in the early 2000s as a handmade jeweler and got to be quite famous in the craft community for that. She then has opened her own store, Rare Device, sold that, and now operates a coworking space in San Francisco (and soon one in New York) called Makeshift Society, which is really taking off. She does a lot of lecturing as well about how to build your own business and brand and is a real mixer in the community.

Kristy Tillman: Kristy’s a real fixture on social media who works for IDEO in Boston. IDEO is the closest thing the design/industrial design world comes to Willy Wonka’s factory. She’s on sabbatical now working on this huge grant/award she got to build a mobile career platform for those searching for a job who only have access to a mobile device. She’s a real authority on the intersection between emerging tech and design as it serves to address social issues. In other words, she really cares about the world around her and is using her career and training to make a difference, which is an important message for our attendees.

Christen Carter: Another awesome entrepreneur. Christen founded Busy Beaver Button Co. (a 2012 sponsor), which is one of the top (if not THE top) button maker in the country. They’re huge in the creative world and print all of the buttons you get when you order Field Notes. She’s out of Chicago and continues our tradition of bringing in top speakers and a ton of attendees from the Windy City. She’s an expert on the history of buttons as well as starting your own business; she started Busy Beaver in order to make the little 1″ buttons bands use to promote themselves. She’s smack dab in the intersection of entrepreneurship, design and music. It’s also important for our audience to see how successful a woman-owned business can be.

These Are Things: Jen and Omar both attended last year as part of the gallery. They got their start in Columbus and were a real feather in the cap of Ohio before moving to Brooklyn earlier this year. Their maps can be found everywhere – design/lifestyle/home magazines, websites, on TV in shows, etc. They started their entire niche when they were dissatisfied with the maps they found for purchase. Talk about defying the hand you’re dealt! They’ll be presenting a great talk about the ways creatives can build their brand as they did and overcome the kinds of struggles we all face.

Kern and Burn: Jess and Tim attended last year as well and also had a table to vend from. They’ve interviewed top creatives nationwide and just put it all into a book that they successfully Kickstarted last year. So they’re a great resource on the many paths we can take to achieve what we want and are a great example of how we hope to elevate gallery participants to the speaking world, which we hope shows our audience how our message can be applied in the real world at the event itself.

Brandon Rike: Brandon is one of the most important fixtures to WMC. He’s had a table every year and spoke in a small slot at the first event. His message is directly in line with ours and it’s important for our out-of-town audience to recognize how talented, hard-working and creative Ohioans like Brandon are. He plans on talking about fighting back against the will to conform and instead build your own career. He’s a real credit to our festival and his year-after-year enthusiasm is contagious!

Nick Disabato: He’s an interaction designer in Chicago and is a much-sought-after freelancer and speaker there. He started and published his own journal about design and technology, Distance, and has published a book about interaction design, too. He’s great from a best-practices perspective and is as vital to creatives about how best to go about the back-end of your work (contracts, planning, etc.) as Ann is with writers.

Jacqui Oakley: This Canadian illustration superstar has done spot work everywhere you can think. She’s got a great story as well, having lived in Canada, England, Bahrain, Zambia, and Libya. She’s worldly and her work reflects that. She’s got a great talk planned about style and what the concept really means. She’s a teacher as well as illustrator and is great in front of a crowd. Her client list is a real who’s who that includes the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and National Geographic, among many others.

Stewart Scott-Curran: Stewart is a native Scot who came to the U.S. to work for CNN Digital and is helping spearhead a new look for CNN.com. He’s a big fixture on social media who was the inaugural speaker at Creative Mornings in Atlanta. He just moved to San Francisco, where he still works for CNN (his wife designs for GAP). Like Adam Garcia, he worked for Nike, as well as for Coca-Cola. He’s got experience in designing the World Cup uniforms for quite a few countries, which is amazing. His is a message about how going the extra mile and doing it while being polite is so, so important.

Troy DeShano: He beat cancer and is a real storyteller in terms of using his illustration talent. He created the Old & New Project to re-tell classic biblical stories for a new audience, using some of the biggest names in design, including Nate Utesch (WMC alum). He’s native to Michigan and will bring a great message from the state up north to the festival.

Alonzo Felix: He’s a Brooklyn-based designer who has become really prominent for his type design, which can be found, among other places, in the Lost Type Co-op. He’s a big believer in craft and detail and will be a credit to the lineup. He’s another teacher, like Jacqui, and is really dominating the industry.

Caroline Moore: She’s been our official photographer and is a real credit to the festival. Her message about how punk rock made her a better entrepreneur will be a hit just like Dan Christofferson’s was two years ago.

John Jennings: He’s an expert in African American participation in the comic book world, which promises to be an amazing topic on the roster. He’s also a professor. I cannot wait to pick his brain about his subject area and know that, despite being in many different fields, love of comic books is something that unites nearly all of our attendees.

Stephanie Landes: Stephanie’s perhaps the biggest up-and-comer in Cleveland’s surprisingly large advertising community. She won the city AAF club’s young visionary award. She also bridges the gap between writing and design (like Ann and Dylan) and will follow in Austin Kleon‘s footsteps in terms of bringing a real writer’s angle to the fest.

Our final two speakers will be added to the roster very soon.  Stay tuned for updates here on the GoMediaZine as well as on our WMC Facebook page.  In the meantime, help us build momentum for Weapons of Mass Creation 2013 by donating to our Kickstarter page and  joining the WMC Street Team!  And, don’t forget to vote for the next featured designer at WMC 2013!

The post Weapons of Mass Creation 2013 Speakers are Lining Up! appeared first on GoMediaZine.

Hello all!

I’m very happy to announce that we’re releasing the 3rd part of Steve Knerem‘s video tutorial series today! For those of you that have followed part 1 and part 2, you’re probably jumping with excitement. For the others, I’m inviting you to go read Steve’s “Getting Inked” post for a quick recap.

Also, both Steve and the Arsenal team would like to apologize for the delay, but we’ve had to slay a few dragons fight some video issues (video flickering and sound track). When a video file doesn’t want to, it doesn’t want to.

So, what’s in the box?

In this last installment, Steve covers his digitization and coloring techniques:

• Color palette choice
• How to use Illustrator’s tools to add various elements that bring the place together:
  • Vector brushes
  • Halftones
  • Patterns
• And more!

The hour-long video is as usual laced with tips, tricks, and cool music. While the tips and tricks might not be the ultimate demystification of the process, they should at least make it more of a relaxing walk than an uphill battle.

A few screenshots

A few notes from Steve

Hey Guys,

Well if you been following this tutorial you know that it’s a long time coming. We’re finally at the finish line and now you can on the in depth look into how I color and finalize my tees for print. I’m super pumped to get this out to you and a mega props to Go Media for being a great company to do some work for and letting me use their stage to help anyone learn something new and grow as an artist.

If you purchased the first two tutorials, you can expect more awesome music from some awesome metal bands such as Onward to Olympus. I drop a bunch of personal insight that I’ve picked up over the years illustrating that hopefully will help, let you in on some of my technical “secrets,” and show you how I conduct business.

Lastly the tee will be or already is printed! Go to www.establishthefrontline.com. Buy a tee or five and wear it proudly and send me pics of you wearing it to steve@steveknerem.com. AS A BONUS: the first 50 tees will have a labeled tag with the ETF name on it, my signature and I’ll write in the order # of the tee you purchased it ( i.e. 1/50, 10/50, etc.). Finally I am getting a printed tag made up that on one side shows the final art and the other side shows the making of the art.

Thanks for purchasing and viewing, always let me know what you think, ya’ll are the best!

— Steve Knerem

One, no, two, no, three, last things!

One: again, you should totally go buy that last part of the tutorial on the Arsenal. Also, if you haven’t gotten any of them yet, we’re making the 3 parts available at $69.99. Just buy the 3 parts at the same time. This is a $20 discount, and it won’t last forever. You should totally take advantage of it while it lasts.

Two: if you follow the tutorial, we’d love to see what comes out of it! Don’t hesitate to mock it up, post the result on the interwebs, and to link to your image in the comments below. Or better yet, post it in the Go Media Flickr pool, and you might be featured on our monthly showcase.

Three: like the art Steve has been designing throughout the tutorial? Well, it’s available on shirts, as Steve said! You should totally purchase one in your size on Establish the Front Line, Steve’s apparel line. Also, something tells me that Steve will share a few more things about that shirt yet (like production pictures, etc), so you should totally watch this space.

The post New Arsenal Release: Hand Illustration for T-Shirts, Part 3 of 3 appeared first on GoMediaZine.

A few sources of inspiration for this design.

You’ll notice that it looks like the dragon’s body is snaking back and forth. To create this appearance, I simply copied the body, pasted it and flipped it horizontally.

I grabbed the wings and tail from Vector Pack 19.

The Sakai family crest provided to me by Heather.

The post Sakai Vector Portrait appeared first on GoMediaZine.

The response to the Mockup Everything Contest has been overwhelming! We sifted through all the submissions, and it was crazy difficult to pick the best one, but alas, we had to make a decision.

A HUGE congratulations goes out to MOHAMED for being our Mockup Everything Contest Winner! He will be receiving a FREE year-long Pro Subscription. Check out his design below, and to see all of the submissions, go to our Pinterest board.

New Templates

Have you ever wished that our apparel mockups had an actual model in them rather than just being ghosted? Well, you asked and we answered. This month’s templates, feature models donning t-shirts and hoodies in some of our most popular styles.

• Women’s Crew Neck T-Shirt – Modelshot
• Women’s Ribbed Beater – Modelshot
• Women’s Long Sleeve T-Shirt – Modelshot
• Women’s Low-Cut T-Shirt – Modelshot (front & back)
• Men’s V-Neck T-Shirt – Modelshot (front & back)
• Men’s Distressed T-Shirt – Modelshot (front & back)
• Men’s Pullover Hoodie – Modelshot
• Women’s Deep V-Neck T-Shirt – Ghosted (front & back)
• Women’s Deep V-Neck T-Shirt – Flat (front & back)

So what are you waiting for? Login to Mockup Everything NOW to check out the new templates and start showcasing your super cool designs.

Questions, Concerns, Feedback

If this is the first time you have used Mockup Everything, we suggest you check out our post called “How To Use Mockup Everything” for step-by-step instructions on how to mockup your designs.

We love hearing from you so if you have any suggestions, questions, or concerns please feel free to email us at hello@mockupeverything.com or submit an inquiry through our contact form. We also have a Get Satisfaction Community Page, where you can send us your template suggestions or just message us to say “what’s up?” Don’t ever hesitate to speak your mind. We want to hear what y’all think about Mockup Everything!

The post Mockup Everything Contest Winner + New Templates appeared first on GoMediaZine.

I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. And yet, I appreciate beautiful design just as much as the next person, and dislike those hyper-corporate sites that are all business and no personality. That’s why I think it’s so important to test the success of your web designs — not just to see whether or not users actually find the site compelling, easy to navigate, and even easier to buy from, but also to see how far a designer can push the envelope before that bottom line begins to suffer.

To accurately measure the success of a website, Google Analytics is a must. There’s a lot to it, so I highly recommend this analytics guide for both an initial grounding in the subject and for more advanced, deeper investigations. As a start, here are just a few key things to look out for when testing the success of your web designs.

Conversion Rate

When it comes to determining the effectiveness of a website’s user interface, there are few measures as telling as conversion rate. Whether it’s an actual purchase or simply downloading a pamphlet, conversion rate is an effective way to gauge just how engaged in the site users are, and where in the sale funnel they might be encountering roadblocks.

Of course, basic measures like keeping a headcount of newsletter sign-ups are useful, but to really dig into the nitty gritty, consider using Google Analytic’s Advanced Segmentation tool. As you can see in this case study of a company called WBC, advanced segmentation can really help you dig down into subtle measures that are powerful yet easy to miss. For example, this particular company found that, lurking within a generally low conversion rate were loyal users with high conversion rates. This lead to a redesign that displayed a greater range of products most desired by loyal customers, and established industry authority.

This tool is most powerful when paired with content experiments, which, despite the title, can be applied not just to content but to various elements of design as well. As a designer, you already know that on a landing page the most crucial information and any forms or other means of conversion should appear above the fold. But how much information should appear? Should the content be wordy and informational or highly visual? How clean is too clean, how packed too packed? With content experiments, you’ll randomly send visitors two or more versions of your site while tracking conversion rates, enabling you to test everything from major layout differences to the color of a headline. Whether that creative, totally new layout works or not will entirely come down to the data.

Event Tracking

Let’s say a design is working and a customer has added the desired product into the cart or started to fill out a form field. But then they get frustrated with just how long the form is, or they type something incorrectly, or the cart responds with an error message. Make no mistake: web users are fickle and these kinds of frustrations are likely to turn them away.

Google Analytics’ event tracking can both identify and help mitigate the problem. With the ga.js tracking code, you’ll be able to see and record just how users are interacting with website elements, and you can classify those interactions with web page objects. So, whether your forms are too long or your checkout process is too cumbersome, event tracking can help you identify user experience and sales funnel roadblocks and move them out of the way.

Site Speed

By most accounts, the average user expects a web page to load in no more than 2 seconds. Yep, all of those jaw-dropping photos and helpful videos and interactive features you’ve added to a site in order to up conversions and engage users (and just generally keep things fun and cool) have all of a couple of seconds to load and become totally functionally. Not only that, but they also have to work on a variety of devices; fair or not, users will blame the site for not loading on their ancient iMac, and all of that design genius of yours will be thrown out of the window.

First order of business a site speed test for every site you produce. The Site Speed menu under Content in your Google Analytics dashboard will also provide a look at specific page load times, as well as that of the overall site. If the results are disappointing and you’ve got a high percentage of visitors coming to you from around the world, consider hosting your site on a Content Distributed Network like MetaCDN. As the name implies, CDNs distribute storage of a site across a worldwide network, so that users will always be downloading page elements from the nearest server to them, rather than waiting for it to download from some server halfway across the world. CDNs also automatically account for the demands of different devices, making for an overall much speedier experience (and a higher likelihood that visitors will stick around).

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate analytics are easy to find in your GA dashboard both for landing pages and specific pages on your site. However, just what bounce rate means is a little more confusing. Strictly defined, bounce rate measures the percentage of users who leave the site rather than clicking links that bring them deeper in.

But if you’ve designed for, say, an expertise blog, this could just mean that users are finding exactly what they want and leaving. You’ll know this for sure if they’re staying awhile on the site — something you can see for certain when you take a look at site times in the Engagement tool. This all may mean that the content and layout in themselves might be great, but there may not be, for example, a nice display of related articles in the sidebar, or enough featuring of services to show the reader that there is more on offer. Other causes of high bounce rate might include loading and error issues, boring content and design and poor usability.

Google Experiments can again prove crucial not just in upping conversions but also in getting users to stay there in the first place. Use the bounce rate to identify and pin down the problem, and Experiments to determine just what to do about it.

Take-Away

Creativity, artfulness, and fun are all crucial elements of good web design. But users won’t appreciate any of that if they can’t find what they’re looking for — and fast. Rather than fearing the numbers, web designers should use them as the source of their creativity. In fact, many times the most creative and inspiring solutions are those that come from within real world constraints. In that way, analytics and web design are perfectly paired.

The post Testing The Success of Your Web Designs appeared first on GoMediaZine.