Colombians abroad

I just love it when this happens, you know? When out of the blue you find something that resonates with you. I love to see Colombians “making it abroad” and not forgetting where they came from. That, and weird coincidences, which deep down you know are no coincidences at all… I wonder…

Image from Decor8blog.com

Last week I was checking my favorite decoration blog on the web Decor8 Blog, which I usually do, and I stumbled upon a post about independent shops online and I started scrolling down looking at the pictures, when I see a sketch of a “Colombiana” soda, which is a brand of soda sold here in Colombia.

It was a preview from a shop online called LeftyHand. So I followed the link and it turned out that this shop was created by Marcela Restrepo who in her own words is “a Colombian professional illustrator working in Sydney, Australia. Born left-handed, she loves chocolate, The Eames and staring at the window.”

I loved her work!

Anyway, I was reading today a brochure for the Lápiz de Acero Award for this year, when lo and behold, what do I see in the middle of it? A mention of a 2004 winner in the category of “Internet”, whose name was… you guessed it, Marcela Restrepo! She won the Lápiz de Acero Award for best website with her http://www.lefthandside.com/ website, created, as she says it, “…to bring together talented left-handed artists and designers that are actually spread around the world.”

Is this what they call the Law of Attraction?

Well, at least it’s curious!

Anyway, check her work. It’ll make you feel proud if you’re a Colombian.

Business Skills Every Creative Needs to Know, Now!

Last week’s HOW’s Newsletter was packed with business related articles for all designers! These articles contain basic information about the design business in general. True, some of them apply only in the US, but they’re worth a read nevertheless.

Among the different titles you can find:

• Designers' Hourly Rates See what other designers in the country are charging for their work and how they determine those rates.
• Make The Most of Downtime At Work When work gets slow, here are 6 ways to use that extra time to your advantage.
• Are You Ready To Freelance Full-Time? Look at our checklist to find out!
• Be Your Client's Best Friend 8 ways to keep clients happy.
• How to Motivate Every Type of Creative Get specific ideas for encouraging—and getting the best from—any designer.

There are about 90 articles to choose from, so browse around!

Design Aerobics

Creativity is like a muscle, right? Well, here’s a website I found a couple of years ago, that literally proclaims that very thing and offers designers a series of exercises to stimulate their creative juices.

Designboom is a website dedicated to industrial design. One of their sections is called the Design Aerobics where for a fee, you can enroll in a variety of design exercises.

There are 8 themes a year: Sex, work, spirituality, childhood, glass, paper, ceramics and textiles. Each course takes two months, where you also get to meet other people from all over the world who are also doing the exercises, and get great feedback from expert instructors.

The website actually has a page where they explain what the Design Aerobics are about.

I can’t actually comment further, because I haven’t tried them myself. However, I thought I’d bring them up here as an interesting design resource and allow you to decide for yourselves.

Do drop by later and leave a comment if you’ve got something to share about them.

All the best!