creative briefing

Freelancers and entrepreneurs love free stuff. It’s in our blood to be frugle and get as much as we can while paying the least we can. Asians have been known to share this same nature. So fortunately or unfortunately for me, my love for free stuff is multiplied.

That’s why when I found out about the Graphic Design Group Writing Project, I got a bit excited. Jacob Cass of Just Creative Design recently launched an initiative to get design geeks like me to write on the topic of graphic design with hopes of bringing the community a little closer through exposure and link love. As we write more articles, Jacob adds links to our articles from his site to share it with everyone else.

And to add some extra incentive, he’s giving away $5000 worth of prizes through random draw. What does the $5000 include, you ask? Some pretty kick-ass stuff. For example:

• A Squier Strat by Fender electic guitar and a crap load of accessories is being donated by mohdrafie.co.uk.
• Go Media Vector Packs and an Adobe Photoshop Brush Pack. PLUS 55 iStockPhoto credits from PJ of Premium Wordpress Theme showcase.
• Everyone’s favorite logo designer and blogger David Airey is offering his brain to help improve your identity and its integration into your site.
• Jacob Cass himself is going to pimp your logo or your blog.
• Advertising space on Estetica Design Forums (donated by Toon) and on Just Creative Design.

And those are just some of the prizes that are up for grabs. Tons of sponsors have already signed on to help this initiative out so big props to them as well: Vivien of InspirationBit, Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips, Audee from Graphic Identity, Bloggeries, JasMate from Digital Point Forums, Freelance Folder, Jillian of The Minty Ferret, Lauren of Creative Curio, Ruchir of Technomoney, Meryl, and Design Sojourn. Wooo. That’s a lot of link love.

So how to you win some of these bad boys? It’s simple, you write a graphic design-related post and you send it in. Jacob also has a handful of other easy things that you can do right away that will immediately get you some free entires. All the contest details can be found here. The contest ends March 4th.

If you know me, you know I have my eyes set on the Fender guitar. I’ll try to control the drooling while I work on my entries for the contest.

I hope some of you will take some time and get some entries in yourself. But if you don’t, I’ll forgive you. :)

Having just passed the 8 month mark of this blog, I thought it was time to give everyone a fresh face to look at (the site’s, not mine). Since starting in July 2007, Creative Briefing has matured a great deal in its content and value offering, as well as in its traffic and readership. I myself have made a few leaps and bounds as well since venturing into the blogosphere so it was time to reflect all the growth that’s happened.

The free Lorem Ipsum theme has served me well for these last 8 months. I had picked it originally for its simplicity and cleanliness, which is an aspect that hasn’t changed in the new design. In fact, I’ve made the new look even simpler and even cleaner in order to bring the focus back to what’s most important - the content.

I’ve also been working non-stop with WordPress in the past 2 month or so and my agency and I have already pumped out a handful of WP-powered sites. Naturally, the custom theme route was the only one to take for the new design. I’m already writing a “the making of…” post to help introduce you all to some of the new features here, but for now, I’ll let you just breathe it all in. I hope like it!

Creative Briefing v1

Creative Briefing v2

Please leave your comments and suggestions on the new design! I’ll be tying up a few loose ends here and there throughout the week so it’ll certainly help to have a few extra pairs of eyes.

The Season for Change

Apparently I’m not the only one who’s been feeling the need for change these days. Check out the fresh new looks of CSS-Tricks and Wake Up Later too!

If I’m quiet, it means I’m working on something.

If I’m working on something, there’s a 50% chance that you’ll all hear about it soon.

If I’m blogging about it, there’s a 99% chance you’ll all hear about it Monday.

Do the math! :)

In case you can’t get enough of me here, I thought I’d direct your attention over to Simply Put, the second blog that I’ve been actively contributing to. Simply Put is my agency’s blog and outlet for creative conversations, so if you’re killing time waiting for your pizza pops to finish in the microwave, swing by and read up on what we’re saying.

If you pay attention to my sidebar, you’ll also notice the RSS widget that pulls the latest headlines from Simply Put. I just wrote a quick tutorial over there on how to vertically center content with CSS (anybody want to lend a stumble or digg?). And if you’re not a web designer, maybe you’ll get a kick out of the color-coded text. Or maybe not.

Ding. My pizza pops are ready.

After teeter-tottering in the 40’s for the past weeks, I’ve finally hit 50 RSS subscribers today! I always feel a bit silly celebrating a new high on my RSS count because chances are tomorrow it will have dropped by half. But in any case, thanks to all those who have contributed to this number and those who will stick around and help me hit the next big milestone.

…I’d also like to thank my parents, my brother, my girlfriend, everyone at the agency, and of course, the big guy upstairs (the landlord) for giving me the opportunity to do what I love to do…

Cue the Oscars music.