Yet, the assumption could not be more crass. Creative people don’t rely on a specific medium as their fix for producing art. We express ourselves every day in some shape or form. Every time a difficult problem needs to be solved, or that some project needs to be completed and brought to fruition, we are moving the gears in our head to be productive. I’m not talking about “to-do” list productive, just the act of producing something from an abstract idea of what you want to accomplish. We humans really take it for granted how skilled we are at solving problems creatively.

Face it, some jobs and tasks can suck the life out of us. While we’re in the midst of filling out forms, creating spreadsheets and barley staying awake at meetings, we can’t help but feel that a little bit of us is dying inside. A creative mind urges to create, and these TPS reports are just an annoyance. However, if you really want to leave your personal mark on the world that badly, you can scratch the itch of creativity, even in the most uninspiring of tasks. TPS reports are boring and don’t offer any satisfaction. Practice your calligraphy (or for most people, handwriting) and give your fax cover sheets a flair that can only be uniquely yours. Cooking is a great outlet, too. Those who don’t like to cook usually don’t venture out beyond putting a Hot Pocket in the microwave. Sure, I’d be bored with the culinary arts if it were that boring and straightforward as well.

(quick sidenote : I do like to cook and one of my favorite things to make since I was a youngin’ was pancakes. I’ve even been nicknamed Poppa Pancakes by friends. Picture below is of a stack that I made a week ago.)

Make an effort. I will never forget the words of my 8th grade social studies teacher when he said, “there is no such thing as a boring situation, only boring people.” Fun and satisfaction are out there for the inspired mind, all you have to do is find it.

other posts you may enjoy

• August 22, 2010 — Feeling Inspired
• August 19, 2010 — What is tomoddo.com?
• February 5, 2010 — Inspiration and Creativity

The design of the pen is inspired by the high-octane, formula one race cars, like the Ferrari. Actually, the red was selected to be the closest match to the pantone swatch used in the Ferrari logo. Here is a shot of the pen cap and barrel to see the style:

The checkered patten on the box mimics the look of a checkered flag waving in the wind, while referencing the carbon fiber pattern that predominates the barrel of each pen. Hoping we sell a lot of these. If you want to pick yours up, please visit www.goldspot.com and you can even give me a call at 800-963-7367 during the week and I’ll make sure to give you a good deal on these.

other posts you may enjoy

• August 18, 2010 — Advertisement in Pen World
• June 11, 2010 — Free Download – Paper Task Manager
• November 14, 2009 — Fresh Ink : My First T-Shirt Design for Zazzle
• October 13, 2009 — Fresh Ink – Baptism Invite

One thing that jumps out at me is the fact that the “Souvenirs” button is floating above the other inline links below the main splash panel. I jump to their online version of the e-mail newsletter and looked at the source code to find the reason why.

The other four links are styled correctly, as I highlighted in the snippet of code above. The last link image, however, lacks that style property, thus creating the misaligned image. Hey Atlantis, since it seems that your code is missing from your HTML, does that mean I get to charge you $50 for an “eye annoyance fee?” Without having this post turn into a diatribe about how to do business an accommodate your customers, I will say that nickel and diming your patrons, especially in this economic climate, is a surefire way to screw yourself over in the long run.

other posts you may enjoy

• March 24, 2010 — E-mail Marketing Newsletters 102 : Casting the Net on the ‘Net
• March 3, 2010 — E-mail Marketing Newsletters 101 – an Introduction
• November 12, 2009 — You've Got Mail
• November 10, 2009 — You've Got Mail

WordPress Pages are self-explanatory – they are static and are considered separately from your posts. They are more informational in nature, meaning you should write your terms of service, contact us, about us, store hours, directions, etc as a “page.” This way, they are separately organized for your visitors to find all in one convenient location. If your viewer or potential customer wants to know more about your business, service or blog, they can use these pages to satisfy their inquiring mind.

WordPress Links are organized as a separate entity, often appearing on a sidebar. They provide more knowledgeable cues for your visitor to see that you are part of a network of other well-known blogs. This would also be a great place to show off achievements, press releases and other online articles that support your cause.

Links are accessible from the dashboard on the left sidebar menu.

Click on “Add New” to add a new link. On the next page, you will be confronted with several fields to fill out in order to add your link to the site.

“Name” refers to the name you want to give the link. It does not have to have the same text as in the URL. If you are linking a press release to an awards ceremony of which you were nominated, you could title it : “5 Nominations for 2010 Awards” The Web Address field refers to the URL (www.examplewebsite.com) of the page that you want to link to. Make sure that you are copying and pasting the link exactly as you have found it. You may want to open a new window and paste the link in your browser address bar just to see if it will work before continuing. The web address URL is the most important part of the link creation process, as it will be pretty useless and frustrating for your visitor if you have a bunch of “dead” links on your site. Occasionally, you may even want to check your links just to see if the content may have been erased from the site you linked from.

The “Description” field will be the text that appears when the visitor “rolls over” the link with their mouse (that is, when the person hovers their mouse pointer over the link text on your web page). You may want to include some more information about the link the visitor is thinking about visiting. Choosing a category will be important if you have a lot of links, some of which may not really belong under the same heading. For example, you can list the links of the trade organizations you belong to, but if you want to link sites that offer more helpful how-to’s for your profession, you would want to create a separate category. Simply check off the correct category, or create a new one.

The last important item is the “Target” setting:

You want to select _blank any time you want the visitor to open a new window without navigating away from your website. This is optimal for use when you are linking to external website that do not have links back to your website. This way, you don’t lose your wandering visitor who forgets what site they were visiting five minutes ago. Select _none if this is a site that belongs to you or is part of your network. Most of the time, you are going to use _blank when creating links, especially when you’re first starting out on wordpress and do not have another established website to link to. Since we are doing a basic tutorial of the Links and Pages sections, I am covering the essential options that are the most important for you to know going in. Once you’re done, hit the blue Add Link button at the top right of the site.

Pages are also accessed through the dashboard, right after logging in.

To create a new page, click Add Page under the Pages section of the sidebar menu.

Entering a poignant, informative title is very important and at the top of the list. Keep it short, keep it simple and to the point. Below that, you have your text area where the bulk of your content is built. Used exactly like a Microsoft Word document, you can change fonts, colors, paragraph alignment and add images or other media. For Pages, you will be including a lot of dry information about your organization, so you may want to pepper it with a graphic here and there to make it visually compelling.

Ignoring the Custom Fields and below, since we are going over the real basics, let’s look at “Page Attributes” on the right sidebar. You can organize WordPress Pages a lot like how Cataegories organize your posts. The exception being that each page acts like a category and could have a parent/child organizational relationship. This comes into use if you have a set of pages that can be aligned under one topic. For example, there may be a few ways you can donate or contribute to your organization, so you may want to have a page for each of those activities. Each individual page would all be herded under one “parent” page. The “Order” value refers to where this page falls within the set of pages you have existing on your site already. You can arrange them in any order that you want. #1 would be at the top while #10 (of 10 Pages) would be at the bottom of your Pages menu bar. Once you’re done, hit publish!

other posts you may enjoy

• August 16, 2010 — Passion Players Community Theatre Website
• March 24, 2010 — E-mail Marketing Newsletters 102 : Casting the Net on the ‘Net
• March 3, 2010 — E-mail Marketing Newsletters 101 – an Introduction
• July 27, 2009 — TomOddo.com Under Construction

No surprise that I would be a big fan of the original StarCraft real time strategy computer game and it is no bigger surprise that I recently purchased the sequel that debuted a few weeks ago. Playing as the Terrans (which are the human race to the laypeople), I rip into the campaign, following the intriguing storyline that unfolds after every successful mission. The detailed artwork of each unit, the cinematic cutscenes and the wild “science” used in the plot really gets me motivated to do my own science fiction story, graphic novel, etc.

And yes, I do have a project that is started already. Years ago, I wrote part of a book (hundred or so pages) and drew some concept art for a novel that I was going to write that would be considered in the science fiction genre. I put it down after a year or so of eeking out a few pages every-once-in-a-while. Yet, I was never fully able to get the ideas and story out of my head. It’s as if I’m always toiling with this plot, rolling it around in my mind to play all the scenes and have it come to a epic conclusion. Now, I’ve considered moving the entire idea out of a straight prose novel into a graphic novel, utilizing my illustrating ability and make it a more visual experience. After all, isn’t that what George Lucas taught us, that a mediocre story can be better if we throw more visuals at the audience? Kidding. Not about Lucas though.

Well, I’d have at least a dozen excuses why I wouldn’t continue the project and at least a dozen more for why I haven’t finished it yet, but one thing seems to be constant : that my poor, single track mind won’t rest until it is done.

Open question for anyone who may stumble upon reading this post would be : What really gets your creative juices going for a self-project? Not only limited to visual arts, but to music, dance, hell, even wood whittling. Does seeing a bare tree stripped of its bark really get your knife going? What will it be, folks? I’m sure that I’m not the only laser-brain out there.

other posts you may enjoy

• September 2, 2010 — Other Creative Outlets
• August 19, 2010 — What is tomoddo.com?
• May 20, 2010 — A Hiatus is in the Works
• February 5, 2010 — Inspiration and Creativity

Everything has an endgame.

I’m not here just to rattle off self-promotional content and inflate my ego. This is my home base. Whenever I meet people in all walks of life who are interested in seeing my work or possibly having something designed, this is their one-stop shop to take a look at my previous work, my current projects and to really get a sense of my open personality.

I love to share and be open with my work. In that same spirit, I will organize some insightful links and post a tutorial or two on subjects or tasks that I run up against in my day-to-day business that could be helpful to other designers or people who are looking to launch print or web marketing campaigns. I’m not looking to get traffic to boost my AdSense revenue. I’m no pushy salesman either. If you want to work with me, I want to work with you!

- Tom Oddo

other posts you may enjoy

• September 2, 2010 — Other Creative Outlets
• August 22, 2010 — Feeling Inspired
• February 5, 2010 — Inspiration and Creativity
• January 28, 2010 — Best Graphic Design Job Post EVER!

More of my process is now done at the html code level rather than arranging slices in photoshop. I think this should have been the process all along, but photoshop allows you to do more creative things with text and images blended together, so it was a technique with its merits. Keeping in mind the sensitivity of e-mail spam blockers these days, image-heavy e-mail campaigns may fall under the radar of many subscribers. It was a shift that is well worth the investment in the future, as I think this will be the most optimal way of producing effective e-mail campaigns that reach the inbox. I will go into more of the under-the-hood design in my next tutorial installment.

other posts you may enjoy

• August 28, 2010 — Atlantis Resort E-mail Faux Pas
• March 24, 2010 — E-mail Marketing Newsletters 102 : Casting the Net on the ‘Net
• March 3, 2010 — E-mail Marketing Newsletters 101 – an Introduction
• December 29, 2009 — Holiday E-mail Marketing 2009

other posts you may enjoy

• September 1, 2010 — Exclusive Pen Packaging Design
• February 27, 2010 — Winner of Parker Ad Contest!
• December 29, 2009 — Holiday E-mail Marketing 2009
• November 26, 2009 — Parker Premier Ad

There is this weird problem that occurs when I go to the site at work (where the site was originally hosted). I’ve already changed the DNS server (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this), but for some reason, I’m still accessing the old site at work (see left).

So, what do you think? Improvement or no?

other posts you may enjoy

• August 28, 2010 — Atlantis Resort E-mail Faux Pas
• August 16, 2010 — Passion Players Community Theatre Website
• March 24, 2010 — E-mail Marketing Newsletters 102 : Casting the Net on the ‘Net
• March 3, 2010 — E-mail Marketing Newsletters 101 – an Introduction

The logo uses typical iconography to communicate the type of business and the personality behind it. Fun, kid friendly and all about the drama. We originally wanted to avoid using the happy / sad drama masks as part of the logo, as it is a bit cliche. However, it really does drive the point harder and is a symbol that anyone can quickly recognize, so I had to tastefully make it part of the design.

On to the second leg of the project : the website. I was very eager to re-do this site after I first took a look at it. For a sample screenshot, see below:

I thought I would never see frames again after the turn of the millennium. It was time to update this site into the web 2.0 era, which is all about the content management system or CMS for short. WordPress, my weapon of choice, was installed and configured to fit with the intended use of the company in mind. Oh, and it got a face-lift with a new header, logo, type face and background (See Below).

The site now has the functionality to satisfy the interest of their visitors. After an evening tutorial to show the website administrator how to use the wordpress back-end, the site can be totally maintained without my constant assistance. Teach a man to fish…as I always say.

other posts you may enjoy

• July 27, 2009 — TomOddo.com Under Construction
• July 28, 2009 — Halloween's Come Early
• August 28, 2010 — Atlantis Resort E-mail Faux Pas
• August 23, 2010 — Essential WordPress Tutorial – Pages & Links