8 Bad Habits that Crush Your Creativity And Stifle Your Success. Your Designers Are Not Artists, and You Need to Stop Thinking That Way. As head of HubSpot’s creative and design team, I spend nearly every day acting as the translator between my designers and the rest of the company, particularly executives, marketers, and salespeople, (i.e. those folks whose jobs are often held to more formal or quantitative metrics).
Obviously, it should come as no surprise that there is always at least some disconnect between designers and non-designers, especially considering the vast differences in both the day-to-day work and the success metrics of each group. However, having spent the last several years basically being the translator between the two, one thing has really surprised me: the vast majority of non-designers don’t actually understand what a designer’s real role is. Fortunately, this divide usually has nothing at all to do with a lack of appreciation for the work designers do. Artist vs. Designer -- What’s the Difference?
Before you grimace at that statement, just take a moment to hear me out. Does This Really Matter? P.S. 13 Free Design Tools for Visual Marketers on a Budget. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but let's be honest ... a pretty cover doesn’t hurt when it comes to your marketing. That’s why -- whether you're creating lead generation content, social media content, calls-to-action, or infographics -- your marketing materials should always be as visually appealing as possible. Problem is, actually creating all these beautiful visuals isn't exactly every marketer's forte. Oh, another problem? Design software can cost an arm and a leg (plus all the classes you need to take to learn how to work the darn stuff).
But there's good news -- there are plenty of free and easy-to-use tools out there that can make you look like a master designer. This post will break down 21 of our favorites so you too can create visuals and images that'll make your marketing pop. Free Color Tools Even though it may seem like we have an unhealthy obsession with orange, we promise we’re equal opportunity color enthusiasts at HubSpot. 1) Adobe Color CC 4) Paletton. Right Brain vs. Left Brain.
» The Many Reasons We Rely Upon Our Clutter. Post written by Leo Babauta. Clutter isn’t an easy problem to solve, no matter how many times I might tell you to toss it out, tell you that you don’t need it. A book isn’t just an object with words on it. A jewelry box isn’t just a container. Clothes aren’t just protection from the elements. Each of these inanimate objects means so much more to us. We put our emotions into them. They are our crutches. What are we to do when we discover these crutches? The Roles of Clutter These aren’t all true for every person, but I’ve found they’re very common: 1. New habit: Learn to combat fears with information. 2. New habit: Learn that you don’t need external objects to be attractive or good enough. 3. New habit: Learn to live in the present. 4. New habit: Realize that things aren’t love, and that the love is only in people. 5.
New habit: Squash every bit of hope in yourself. 6. New habit: Deal with the problems. 7. New habit: Take one piece, and deal with that. 8. Clutterfree Book & Course. A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design. So, here's a Vision Of The Future that's popular right now. It's a lot of this sort of thing. As it happens, designing Future Interfaces For The Future used to be my line of work. I had the opportunity to design with real working prototypes, not green screens and After Effects, so there certainly are some interactions in the video which I'm a little skeptical of, given that I've actually tried them and the animators presumably haven't. But that's not my problem with the video. My problem is the opposite, really — this vision, from an interaction perspective, is not visionary.
This matters, because visions matter. This little rant isn't going to lay out any grand vision or anything. Before we think about how we should interact with our Tools Of The Future, let's consider what a tool is in the first place. I like this definition: A tool addresses human needs by amplifying human capabilities. That is, a tool converts what we can do into what we want to do. That's right! And that's great! Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!