Marketing and self promotion today is pretty straight forward. Think about what you do in your everyday life when its time to make an informed decision. Personally if I want to find the best deal on computer hardware, I do a Google Search. If I need a plumber or painter, I ask friends for recommendations and I still do a Google Search on the people they suggest.

I then go to their website and try to find information on their services, rates and what people are saying about them.

This is how most people qualify their buying decisions in the technology age. And hiring and investing in you “is a buying decision” and you need to think of it that way to market yourself effectively in 2012.

Designers need to invest in the future of this market as well. The need for print designer’s continues to shrink with every new devices that is capable of enabling media and ad delivery. A huge shift to digital media buying has been taking place for the past 5 years and show’s no sign of slowing.

In this video I talk about what Graphic Design is today, and how it has changed over the years

I’ve seen many different typography effects on the web, and one of my favorites is always when I see one from the movie TRON Legacy. Today I decided to share my own text effect and the assets for it, FREE!

Adobe has done a Mid Release update in the form of CS5.5 but is it really worth it?

No matter what level you’ve reached in your career or journey as a designer, there is always room for improvement! Today I’m going to cover a few ways you can improve your design skills and reach your next level.

Force of Nature is a fairly simple image to create but uses several techniques in combination to accomplish something clean and visually dynamic.

OASIS is something I came up with while looking at an old piece of work “Star Girl I”. I realized since working on that image that my skills have progressed a great deal and wanted to see what I could do with that stock image today, and that is how I made my start on this project.

In my time I’ve had the opportunity to work with many creative and talented people. Whether they have been models, musicians or dancers, each of these people has been unique and inspiring. One of the greatest talents I’ve had the pleasure of working with is Sir Ben Marx (Marc Benjamin).

Melody Nieves is one of my favorite people in the online design community and its was a real treat to interview her and ask her some questions, and more about her blog SexiDesign.com

Herald of Devotion is part of my Herald series just like Herald of Creation, the next one in the series that I will be working on is Herald of Destruction.

I’m really excited about this! It was a great honor to be featured in Photoshop Creative’s Reader’s Gallery section. Four of my favorite pieces of art were featured in this month’s issue including: Energetic and Celestial Being.

Todays Music Monday Inspiration image was a request from a watcher of mine on deviantart.com enjoy!

Raven Dawn II is a follow up to my original Raven Dawn image using what I’ve learned since that time. For this image I took a simple and clean stylish approach.

I really enjoyed working on this particular image. Look at me was a chance to try out some new techniques. I did extensive retouch work to this image including, completely recreating the eyes and lips, whitening the teeth, and smoothing the skin.

I used different adjustment layers to really get the image to pop. The butterfly wings I did myself using a reference. The model in this image was great and had very unique and expressive features that allowed this image to work the way I imagined it.

The recession is still a probably for many, not just in the United States but abroad as well. The economy has hurt people from many different fields, and the Graphic and Web Design fields are no exception. The job crisis is very scary, but embracing fear isn’t the answer, finding solutions is, and as a Graphic Designer living in the recension I have some interesting advice that will help you through it.