Inspiration Deli » daily special

Seth Godin | he talks, we listen

mmaziarz — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:10:46 +0000

Seth Godin has released a free e-book titled “What Matters Now” here. This is not only an inspiration to running a great business, but it can be an inspiration to running a great life, too. If you’re a fan, you know you should get it and read it, if you’re not a fan (yet,) just give it a minute or 2 and you’ll get sucked in also.

Kevin Kelly | 1000 True Fans

mmaziarz — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:20:49 +0000

One of my pet peeves is artists who think it’s uncool ( or below them) to concern themselves with selling their work. As an economics major, maybe I’ve given too much thought to selling your work as an artist, but if you don’t have enough income to survive, you won’t be producing your work for very long.

It seems as if our world is changing exponentially. For the first 15 years of my career as a photographer, I was able to figure out a way to operate my business and that method worked well for 15 years. Then I had to adapt to a new way of running my business, and that time it lasted about 3 years. Then I realized I was modifing my business plan every 6 months or so. It’s hard for a person to keep up.

Kevin Kelly’s blog post is brilliant. Give yourself some time to get through the blog post, the links in the post and his 2 updates at the end. It’s one of the best business models for independent artists that I’ve ever read.

What does money have to do with creativity?

mmaziarz — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:54:08 +0000

A lot. Susan Baroncini-Moe writes a great blog post titled “Could You Raise Your Rates?”. She mentions that solo professionals resist raising their rates for one main reason–self-worth issues. I’ve often said that self-confidence issues are at the root of all the world’s problems, and they rear their ugly heads in the free-lance world, too. Not to say that a graphic designer who doesn’t charge enough is one of the world’s major problems, but my thesis is scalable from world peace down to an interaction between you and your neighbor.

The beauty of Susan’s post is that if people follow her ideas, they will lead to freedom. Financial freedom and creative freedom. If you raise your rates and lose some of your bottom-feeder clients, you’ll have more income and potentially less stress. Or you can opt to maintain your income and dedicate more hours to creative soul-searching and/or tinkering. Something that could result in you increasing your skillset and maybe even raising your rates more. I like joyful upward spirals much more than viscous downward spirals.

Ryan McGinley | clarity of personal vision & levi’s ads

mmaziarz — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:16:15 +0000

Levi’s – OPioneers! (Go Forth) Commercial

I’m not a huge fan of his work, but I love the clarity of his vision. I love how you usually know it’s a Ryan McGinley photograph when you’re looking at one. I also love that Wieden+Kennedy hired someone who’s primarily a still photographer to do these commercials and they let his style permeate the ads. And I love W&K’s use of Walt Whitman.

Having that strong of a vision is one of the main keys to success in the photography market of late 2009. Is your vision that strong?