Every Monday is Tip Day! Grab a cup of coffee and get over the Monday morning bump with tips, tools, and inspiration from Perch. This Week: Leverage Pinterest for Idea Boards I admit it. For being an early adopter in most tech arenas, I was a late-comer to Pinterest. It seemed too much of a mass-market, Farmville-ish kind of product. All the sudden, everybody was on it and loving it. It was too much of a fad, a blip on the radar of social media products, a trend I was sure would pass by the next quarter. Clearly, I was …

Every Monday is Tip Day! Grab a cup of coffee and get over the Monday morning bump with tips, tools, and inspiration from Perch. This Week: Unwind Happy Monday! I hope you had a lovely weekend! I was blessed to spend a rare 24 hours at the lake with my family and co-workers, and although a bit physically exhausted from time on the water, I feel mentally refreshed and ready for a new week. What struck me most about my experience at the lake this weekend was that having a retreat like that — easily accessible, always available — must …

Melanie Sklarz, January 2010 Like most years, I decided to start 2010 by dedicating the year to becoming more creative. Usually, my dedication ends up occurring in not so everyday inspirational spurts. I hope this year will be different. I hope my creativity remains constant and in the forefront of everything I do. So how am I going to manage to pull off this feat? By learning to be everyday creative by following Eric Maisel’s The Creativity Book: A Year’s Worth of Inspiration and Guidance. Yes, that’s a year’s worth of dedication! I first encountered creativity coach extraordinaire, Eric Maisel’s …

Last week in our How to Be an Innovator series, we talked about how strategic planning can help in the innovation process. This week we’ll go a step further and talk about how to get the information you need to choose the right problems and build a solid plan. Part 25: Get Your Facts Straight When it comes to strategically growing an organization or an idea, many times we feel like we have a good, general idea of where things are out – how productive we are, or how profitable, or how successful. But to develop an effective strategic plan, you …

Janine at Uppercasehas posted an online preview of the new issue of Uppercase Magazine here. It’s more than a sneak-peak – you can literally page through the entire issue, and it looks incredible! I can’t wait to see it in person.

Thanks so much to everyone who has downloaded the Get Your Creative Groove on eBook in the last few weeks. It means more to me than I can really express to see people from literally all over the world downloading it. You guys are amazing, and I feel so grateful for you. Can I ask just one favor, though? If you downloaded the eBook, I would love to hear from you! Would you mind sending me your feedback? I’m preparing an “in print” version, and I would love to hear your thoughts on the digital version. The hardcopy will include …

“Art is everywhere. It finds its origin in everything and ultimately reflects the beauty of the Creator.” – Chris Wilcox, Chris Paul Design, LLC rt is everywhere… especially at Daily Drop Cap. I love these beautiful illustrations by designer Jessica Hische and can’t wait to see all she has in store! First, the letter A…

I apologize that this post is coming to you on a Monday rather than a Sunday. I use WordPress as my blog engine, and it has been incredibly slow and finicky for the last few days. So sorry about that! I’m just glad it’s working well enough now that I can share a little bit of inspiration with you! 1. Fingerprint Call for Submissions I was so excited to learn about this follow up project to the best-selling book Fingerprint: The Art of Using Handmade Elements in Graphic Design. HOW Books and Chen Design Associates are partnering on this project …

Every Monday is Tip Day! Grab a cup of coffee and get over the Monday morning bump with tips, tools, and inspiration from Perch. This Week: See with Colour I recently discovered a fantastic community for artists called Colour Lovers. It’s a wonderful site that encourages group participation and is a great resource for color trending and research. However, what I’ve gained or learned most from this community is training myself to see color palettes in common place items.

“Art is everywhere. It finds its origin in everything and ultimately reflects the beauty of the Creator.” – Chris Wilcox, Chris Paul Design, LLC When I picked my husband Chris up from the airport yesterday, he surprised me with a lovely gift – an all-white Fuji Instax Mini instant camera.