Varaz Gharakhanian, Marketing Manager, 4over.com joins host Scott Sheppard from his booth at this year’s Graphics of the Americas conference to explain how designers can benefit from working with their high-volume print services. Varaz explains they recently launched a large format service and also have business affiliate programs available to designers so you can make money by reselling their print services along with creative design. For more information visit: http://www.4over.com.

Dani Nordin, Designer & Zen Warrior Princess, The Zen Kitchen Design joins hosts Scott Sheppard and Gene Gable for some insights, tips, and inspiration about her eco-friendly design business.Dani’s passion for design began with her background in theater. Leveraging what she learned about understanding and developing a backstory to get into character actually helped her develop her process and approach to communicating her design ideas with her clients. Figuring out what her clients would like to accomplish through design, Dani uses theater inspired techniques to get her clients to define the character of their target market to help her hone in her creative pitch. She attributes her success to her consultative approach with her clients.

The Zen Kitchen specializes in eco-friendly designs and Dani is passionate about striking a balance of minimizing our environmental impact yet using enough of the right materials to acheive marketing/brand success. Focusing on environmental issues doesn’t mean her designs look “hippie” or “eco” but that her commitment to making smarter choices comes through her design choices and advice to her clients. Dani also shares some of her thoughts about working with clients seeking “green washing” designs and rebrands that are hoping to take advantage of the rising popularity of eco-friendly designs.

Dani actively participates in the design community, and firmly beleives that social networking, her blog, and attending design related events have brought much success and business to her firm. She feels that offering advice and consultation, and sharing information especially with women owned business groups is a great way to learn, stay inspired, and of course gain clients.

For more information about Dani & The Zen Kitchen visit: http://www.tzk-design.com/

Design News of the Week with Jay Nelson

Jay Nelson joins us this week to share his thoughts on the Orphan Works Act recently put through legislation. Jay explains the importance of speaking up about this topic from a designer’s perspective as the final verdict includes eliminating the automatic copyright protection on your existing and future creative work.The issue in legislation surrounds the lack of their ability to easily research and reference the origin of creative work. In the future, you will have to individually register and reregister work you’ve already registered in order to ensure proper credit, and royalties for your work or be able to litigate in the event of copyright infringement upon your work. Registration for existing work could be tedious and there is a fee for filing which could get costly for large collections.

To get more information and find easy ways to write your local Senate and House Representatives visit Jay’s site at: http://www.design-tools.com/ilpow/ or the Illustrator’s Partnership Orphan Works’ Blog at: http://www.ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Jay also shares a tip about scanning your work. At a recent conference he learned that over time, flatbed scanner bulbs and parts can wear out which can impact the overall quality. Since many manufacturers offer cost effective solutions, it’s a good idea to consider an upgrade every 18 months.

For more on Jay Nelson and his Design Tools topics visit: http://www.design-tools.com

Wes Wilson, President, IncSpring LLC. joins hosts Scott Sheppard and Gene Gable for some information about how their site helps designer “re purpose” their unused corporate logos, brands, and corporate identities, connecting graphic designers with entrepreneurs and small business owners across the globe. Wes explains that when designers are contracted for traditional branding and logos they often create several concepts for their clients. Since only one of the concepts is chosen, IncSpring’s site offers a venue to resell the leftover brand concepts – including any relevant domain names – for additional income opportunities.

Launched in August this year, IncSpring focuses on entrepreneurs and venture firms seeking turnkey branding solutions. For designers who enjoy creating branding and logos, IncSpring can provide a lucrative outlet for expressing their designs. Pricing begins at $150 a package and can go to several thousand dollars for an established design firm, brand, popular url, and other extras.

IncSpring includes social networking tools that allow clients to communicate directly with the designers and their revenue is based on commission % for the final creative sale.

For more information, and to sign up visit: http://www.incspring.com

Design News of the Week with Jay Nelson

Jay Nelson joins us this week for more information on Adobe’s recent release of Creative Suite 4. Gene and Jay, who were beta testers and have experienced the different components of the suite focus the discussion on the enhanced integration of the suite of applications. This version of Creative Suite definately showcases the traditional Adobe programs and has successfully combined the best tools from their acquisition of Macromedia applications including Flash and Dreamweaver that are now better incorporated in the interface and connectivity across the applications.

For more information and details visit: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/

For more on Jay Nelson and his Design Tools topics visit: http://www.design-tools.com

Jeff Fisher, Author & Engineer of Creative Identity, LogoMotives joins Inside Digital Design for a discussion about his book “Identity Crisis: 100 Redesigns That Transformed Stale Identities into Successful Brands” where he showcases examples of recent brand redesigns and provides an invaluable resource for designers focusing on brand and logo work. Jeff has been involved in branding and logo design for over 30 years, a popular speaker, often showcased in HOW Design and AIGA conferences and articles. Jeff maintains a series of blogs that are informative and full of relevant examples and tips. Jeff also shares some tips on how to stay ahead of the trends, keeping your brand and identity work up to date and find inspiration with fresh perspectives.

For more information and links visit: http://www.jfisherlogomotives.com/ or his blog at: http://blog-omotives.blogspot.com/. For information and tips from Identity Crisis visit: http://identitycrisisbook.blogspot.com/

Dave Tabler, Portfolio Manager, The iSpot.com joins hosts Scott Sheppard and Gene Gable for some background and information on their popular illustrator portfolio site. Since 1996, The iSpot.com has held a place online for artists and illustrators to join forces and showcase their work for hire and stock. Formed to assist artist representatives to have a place for clients to locate and view a range of illustrations. Dave explains there are two areas The iSpot.com focuses on; one being portfolios and the other involves rights managed stock illustrations, not clipart.

Dave has worked closely with many artists, helping them properly identify and keyword tag their particular style so that art directors and creative shoppers can easily locate their work. The ability to properly tag and identify artist samples is critical in matching the right illustrator to the right project. Dave shares some insight on the work they’ve done to adjust and maintain popular tags. The iSpot.com has comprehensive tracking for each image viewed and will coach the artists on how to best showcase their most popular styles. Dave also explains their revenue model, and the costs associated in working with them. Althought the iSpot.com is one of the most renowned and popular websites dedicated to illustration, Dave explains that they continue to advertise and promote their services to ensure their artists get hired. They are a global site, representing artists from over 26 countries.

For more information on The iSpot.com visit their site at: http://www.theispot.com/

Design News of the Week with Jay Nelson

Jay Nelson joins us this week for an update on Adobe’s recent release of Creative Suite 4 addressing the pressing question – Should I upgrade? Jay explains that many times designers skip a version so Adobe may see more updates from CS2 to CS4 than from their current CS3 base. Gene explains that this jump might also require a significant hardware upgrade in order to take advantage of the new features. Jay shares some of his favorite new enhancements including a redesigned interface, better collaboration tools, new 3D effects, and keyboard shortcuts. For more information and details visit: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/

For more on Jay Nelson and his Design Tools topics visit: http://www.design-tools.com

Mark Dancey, Designer/Cartoonist/Illustrator, Illuminado joins Inside Digital Design for some information about his work and how he gains exposure and clients as a traditional illustrator. Mark’s work includes gallery exhibitions, album designs, cartoons and other organic media. Mark shares his experiences and insights on how he uses digital representations of his art on his website to promote to his clients but explains that although it provides instant access, maintaining the original artist intent from analog to digital can present compromises and challenges.

For more about his work visit: http://www.illuminado.com