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  • Creative business tips & advice

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    > A Beginner's Guide to Using Twitter

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    > Trade Show 101

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    >Think before you type: Social media and defamation law

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    >Protecting your own name as a trademark {Full Members only}

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    >Trademarks, Copyrights, Designs & Patents: An overview

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    >Making to Sell

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    >Marketing Basics

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    >What Makes a Successful Brand

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    >A Guide to Colour Terminology

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    Category Archives: regular columns

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    Call out for title page designers – Conversations with Creative Women: Volume Two

    sdfs

    Conversations with Creative Women: Volume One title page designed by Yan Yan Candy Ng

    Hey everyone, great news: the follow-up to our popular first book, Conversations with Creative Women, is on its way!

    Yes, I’ve interviewed a new bunch of fantastically creative and inspiring ladies and Conversations with Creative Women: Volume Two will be released in paperback format later this year.

    But we’re still in the early stages of pulling the book together, which is what this post is all about.

    I’m on the lookout for title page designers for Volume Two.

    Conversations with Creative Women: Volume 1 title page designed by Nicola St John

    Conversations with Creative Women: Volume One title page designed by Nicola St John

    Conversations with Creative Women: Volume One title page designed by Jenny Hipgrave

    Conversations with Creative Women: Volume One title page designed by Jenna Hipgrave

    In Conversations with Creative Women: Volume One, introducing each interview within the book was a title page designed by another local lady. You can see some of the magnificent examples in this post, and you can read these older posts about the designs and the creative minds behind them.

    The title pages, inspired by the work the interviewee is involved in, were such a surprising and enlightening addition to the book as a whole, that I am excited to invite a group of new designers to participate this time.

    So if you’re a designer, illustrator, painter, crafter or anyone who would be interested in participating in this new book, read on.

    How to apply to design a title page for Conversations with Creative Women: Volume Two:

    The application process is simple, but we would greatly appreciate if you could follow these guidelines exactly:

    1. Send an email to Tess  admin<at>creativewomenscircle.com.au with the subject title ‘Title page designer

    2. Include a link to your work online in the email and/or attach 2-3 examples of your work as jpegs (under 5mb in total please!)

    3. Please note that we cannot accept .zip files or images embedded into Word documents.

    A few things to note:

    • We may receive a lot of applications, so if you are not contacted to participate please do not be discouraged about the quality of your work. We keep all applications on file and there may be other opportunities to contribute at another time.
    • If you send examples of your typographic-based work, this will really help us gauge if your style is right for the book.
    • The title page can be created in any medium, so even if you’re a sculpter, sewer, or someone who works with three-dimensional materials, consider applying!
    • If your application is successful, we will send you the full brief and all the relevant details.
    • This project needs to be completed by the end of June 2013, so please consider if you are going to be away or if June is a particularly busy month for you before applying.
    • This will not be a paid opportunity, but your professional bio and contact details will appear within the book and you will receive a substantial discount if you choose to purchase a copy of the book when it is released.

    Applications close 10pm THIS Thursday 23 May 2013.

    I look forward to receiving your application!

    Conversations with Creative Women: Volume One title page designed by Luci Everett

    Conversations with Creative Women: Volume One title page designed by Luci Everett


    Posted by: Tess McCabe
    Categories: regular columns | Comments Off
    Posted on

    What’s new in social media? Video stars

    By Susan Goodwin

    It looks like 2013 is shaping up to be the year of video blogging.

    As everyone looks for new and interesting ways to engage with their fans, we’ve moved beyond the static of pretty picture to the immediacy of the moving image.

    The good thing is you don’t need loads of fancy equipment to create and share videos.

    Here are just a few ways to add some videos to your social media repertoire:

    Gifs
    Not quite a video but a super easy way to add some movement to your blog. Try makeagif as the simple solution to making your own animated Gif.

    YouTube
    Not just for watching daggy music video clips from the 80’s! You can upload your own videos or you can just create your own playlist. It’s a great way to showcase other artists, creators and influencers that inspire you (and the occasional daggy music video clip too!).

    Vimeo 
    A more refined version of You Tube and a great resource for some really gorgeous videos that show a lot of skill and talent. If you can make your own videos showcasing them here ensures many creatives will have access to your great work.

    Vine
    A great new App that is the Instagram of video. Follow along, post your own videos right from your very own smart phone. Once you sign up, an easy step by step guide takes you through your first post. Super easy and highly addictive. I can see this being as big as Instagram soon.

    Vine, Vimeo and You Tube can all be embedded into your blog as well as being shared via their various apps and sites, allowing you to get more mileage out of your videos.

    And maybe you will discover you’re a star!


    Posted by: Tess McCabe
    Categories: regular columns | Comments Off
    Posted on

    Organise Me: How to Create a Happy Work Space

    organise me: how to create a happy work space by dannielle cresp

    I’ve just returned to Melbourne after 12 weeks travelling around the USA and Canada and it’s time for me to create a happy, creative space for me to get my big ideas in order and get to work on them. I thought I’d share with you the things I found essential in creating a happy work space.

    • Get a bookshelf for all those books that you use for inspiration and take the time to set it up in a way that makes you happy when you look at it and makes it easy for you to find the things you’re always looking for. Shelves make it easier to spot what you’re looking for than boxes
    • Invest in pretty stationery. It’s much more fun to write your notes on a pretty notepad in brightly coloured pens, than it is to scribble everything down on the back of used envelopes and napkins. Allow yourself to get a notebook for each of your big ideas if you prefer to handwrite. It keeps everything together in one place and you can add it to your bookshelf.
    • Add some artwork to your space. Having pretty cards or prints in your creative space makes it a much nicer place to be when you’re on a deadline or you’re itching to get outside.
    • Have a calendar or diary (that works for you) and make it as colourful as you wish. I find it’s easier to plan a timeline on paper, so I like to have a calendar on my desk with colours signifying different things. It makes it easier for me to see how things fit together. Even if you’re more an online calendar person, most will allow colour coding for you to see how your plans and projects come together.
    • Have a place for everything. If you can get creatively messy like me, you’ll know how great it is to have somewhere to put everything when the working day is over. There’s nothing like walking into an organised work space in the morning and knowing where everything is. It’s much better than one where you walk in and feel instantly overwhelmed. Having somewhere for your projects to live whilst your working on them can make your space happy and welcoming for you.

    I found that these helped me to feel more at home in my new, much smaller, work space and feel less overwhelmed with getting back into a working frame of mind after 12 weeks exploring North America. Even if you are already settled in your work space these could help you to check that your space is working the best it can for you.

    Dannielle is a blogger, serial organiser and passionate traveller. She has a secret love of 90s teen movies and can often be found on Twitter. In 2013, Dannielle packed up her life in Melbourne into one suitcase and moved to Canada to make her crazy dream of a more adventurous life happen. But she quickly found the inspiration she was searching for was in Melbourne and has recently returned home. You can find out more on her blog.


    Posted by: Dannielle Cresp
    Categories: organise me, regular columns | Comments Off
    Posted on

    Women from History: Swank Elsie de Wolfe

    The young artist, Cecil Beaton, met and sketched interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe in New York in 1929. He was much younger than her but he liked her at once calling de Wolfe “the sort of wildly grotesque artificial creature I adore”.

    C-Beaton-de-wolfe-1930

    Elsie de Wolfe had middling success as a stage actor.

    Her real success came after she changed direction and became an important American tastemaker. A lady decorator.

    One of her most famous interiors was for the first female only club in New York, the Colony Club.

    This is the Trellis Room.

    E-de-Wolfe-Colony-Club-1

    And the Strangers’ Room

    E-de-Wolfe-Colony-Club-Strangers-Room

    In 1915 she published The House in Good Taste. A natty book on all things refined in the home. But also a treatise on the idea of women’s spaces. A space made by women after the men have played their architectural part.

    “It is the personality of the mistress that the home expresses. Men are forever guests in our homes, no matter how much happiness they may find there.”

    De Wolf also had some particular ideas on colour.

    “If you are inclined to a hasty temper, for instance, you should not live in a room in which the prevailing note is red. On the other hand, a timid, delicate nature could often gain courage and poise by living in surroundings of rich red tones.”

    In 1938 Janet Flanner wrote a story about de Wolf in The New Yorker.

    “She was a wizard saleswoman. She made money because she likes money and is vulnerable to it, because she has a true, talented eye for color, because she loved the job, and above all because the time was ripe for the work. Women clients liked her because she planned plenty of closets and was practically the mother of modern lampshades; also, she had an inventive efficiency unafraid to mix the practical and lovely.

    “She is today a lively little figure with artfully coiffed pale green hair, squirrel-brown eyes, an alert, inquiring, small chic face, and neat tiny feet in low-heeled shoes. She has an air of being an eccentric, entertaining, highly compact, energetic personality. She has been called one of the world’s best-dressed women and probably is, since she sensibly gets beautiful Parisian clothes which are simple, fit perfectly, aren’t ephemeral or startling in style, and which she generally wears two or three years. She wears chiefly blue or black, and used to adore beige. When she first looked at the Parthenon in Athens, she cried, ‘It’s beige—just my color!’”

    This elegant sitting room from the thirties represents the work of de Wolfe’s glamourous lady rooms. Gleaming mirrors, pale walls and painted furniture with soft blue fabrics.

    Elsie-de-Wolf-1930s-interior

    And by the way she was a fitness freak.

    E-de-Wolfe

    And, this is the best bit, at her home in France, the Villa Trianon, she had a dog cemetery in which each tombstone read, “The one I loved the best.”

    A swanky creature.

    Julia Ritson is a Melbourne artist. Her paintings investigate colour, abstraction and a long-standing fascination with the grid. Julia has enriched and extended her studio practice with a series of limited edition art scarves. She also produces an online journal dedicated to art and scarves and architecture.

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    Posted by: Julia Ritson
    Categories: regular columns, women from history | Comments Off