Know Thyself

Take the test. Read the results. Google more results and read those. It's important to understand what makes you tick so that you can more clearly see what makes you happy. Your personality is unique. Things that make you sublimely happy, may make someone else miserable. By learning about your personality type, you learn how to better yourself.
Happiness is so key to your personal success. Read The Happiness Advantage. The theories in this book are based off of research and study, and help you understand why consciously striving for happiness is so important. It also gives advice on how to find your own personal kind of happiness. One way is by discovering your top character strengths and nurturing them in new ways. Mine are:
1. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence
2. Curiousity (Exploration & Discovery)
3. Gratitude
4. Love of Learning
5. Creativity
Another way to find your happiness is by taking a small bit of time each day to jot down three good things that happened. Shawn Achor's advice is to be specific and list things that brought small or large laughs, feelings of accomplishment, nice things that were said, happy friendship moments, or a glimmer of hope for the future. This act conditions you to search for happiness more regularly and even unconsciously, allowing you to see the world through a rose-colored lens. Achor's book has really helped me understand myself and the world much better. Happiness does not come easily to all of us. It seems like such a simple and obvious thing, but it once evaded me. Now I would describe myself as a very happy person. Here are my happy thoughts of the day:
1. Rediscovered my Unstuck book today. It has lots of fun ideas to spark creativity.
2. I cleaned off my desk today a little bit. I feel much better when my work space is tidy.
3. The storm today was very exciting. On my drive to work, the water splashed around and made me smile. It reminded me of log flume rides at water parks.

Browsing DeviantArt

If you are an artist or designer, and have not yet made a DeviantART account, as Arnold would say, "Do it. Do it NOW!"  If not to post your own gallery of artwork under one of the many many categories (Digital Art, Traditional Art, Manga & Anime, Photography, Literature, Flash, the list goes on and on....), then at least to be able to browse and "Favorite" from the huge amount of inspirational artwork that gets added every day. 

The greatest thing about DevART, is that it's like a Google search without the garbage. You can sort from Most Popular or from Newest and it's all user generated artwork. I do Google search for inspiration, among other sources, but I find that I'm more successful at finding gem after gem if I DeviantART search. Google is just too broad sometimes. And it doesn't know that you are looking for artistic inspiration. So you end up with some junk that doesn't even make sense. I mean, what was that?

Thank Yous

Every time I start to feel a little poopy about the day, I just try to think of three things that I am thankful for. They can be abstract or not. It's a great idea from many knowledgeable folks, Rhonda Byrne and Shawn Achor for example, to help redirect your brain to focus on things that make you happy as opposed to focusing on whatever it is that is giving poop-thoughts. Try it!

Today I am thankful for: 
1. New discoveries.
2. Touching moments.
3. Sudden rainstorms.*

*Getting caught in a sudden storm sounds like a crap situation, but when it happens, I usually end up laughing hysterically. Getting drenched is hilarious 80% of the time. It's just a fact.

An Idea I Love: Faceted Paper Lamp

all things paper: Faceted Paper Lamp: Do you remember making folded paper fortune tellers when you were in grade school?

Go For Baroque 2

Today's good idea: take serious style risks. I went to ADDY Awards with a beehive style Marie Antoinette hairdo. Big hit. I even went around town after the event with my hair all huge. Hair style by Harley at Eskandalo!

Award Ceremonies: Go For Baroque

My colleagues at The Morning Call, who are also members of the Greater LV Ad Club's ADDY Committee, have worked tirelessly with me this year on a theme of 18th Century French style. The catch phrase chosen was "Go for Baroque", which I absolutely love. Some other ideas I had were "Come be Adorned," "The Feather in Your Cap," Oh My Gaud," and "Baroque as a Joke." These were the result of extensive Mind Mapping and daydreaming immediately after my first ADDY Awards last year: theme was MadMen (which was the theme of so many other ADDY awards that year.) I wanted a theme that was elegant, but not as likely to be imitated. I personally love this style of gaudy fashions and it seemed like something that could be easily done. I researched and found some amazing inspirations. I made some illustrations, and Sarah made some amazing mailer pieces and take-home pieces. Many sketchbook pages later, Sarah, Tanya and I came up with the idea of props for fun photo playtime at the event, including home-made masquerade masks, and other surprises. We also created some feather bouquet centerpieces. Photos to come.


If I learned anything from this large event planning experience, it is that one must understand the importance of the little things and the viewpoint of the attendees. When planning an event, I've noticed that committees think of the event in terms of themselves, how can we fit this into our budget, how can we make things run smoother, do we really need this or this, what's our next step; always keeping in mind the time and money that it will cost them. 


I propose that it's about the experience. What are the people going to this event going to remember? What are they going to take home with them? Will they talk about it? Will they come back next year because of the good time that they had or do they just see this as an event that they wouldn't mind skipping? If all of the fun little goofy things that people enjoy are taken away because of cost and time, it's obvious that the people planning DO NOT CARE about the people attending. 


So here's the main idea: The experience is what it is all about. Everything leads up to that one night. All that work will have been for naught if everyone thinks the ceremony is boring and lame. And no one wants to attend a stuffy event that feels like a business meeting, sorry (especially if they are PAYING for it!!!!). Bare minimum isn't gonna cut it. Not every budget needs to be cut. Some things are worth spending time and money on. If you don't care, then why are you even bothering?


So at the ADDY Awards this year, we hope you have fun. Take goofy pictures and play with our hand-crafted props. Make noise, be rowdy, and appreciate the cleverness. We tried really hard, with not much of a budget, to add some funky flair and debonair design to an event that is FOR DESIGNERS. 


We hope you win something and we hope you enjoy our idea: Go For Baroque!!!

Designed a T-shirt!! Concept by Terry Payne

Behold, Nichibi!

I've gone and done it. I've created my perfect character. 
She will forever help me visually express my ideas and thoughts. 

Dream Big Dreamy Dreamer

Dream dreams! And write them down or clip images and post them on a sketchbook or a cork board in your house. These make your dreams more real, and also more on your mind. Logically, aren't you more likely to make your dreams a reality if you think of them every day because you see them every day?
Here are some of my visual dreams: 

DC vs Marvel??? How about EVERYONE ELSE?

I am a comic book fan. And although the giants DC and Marvel grab so much of the attention of the rest of the population, nerds know that things exist out there in such wonderful lands as: Image, Dark Horse, and IDW. Some comics that are F***ing amazing, but you only see in the backgrounds of nerd-made shows and movies (like Big Bang Theory and Paul), include: Goon, Locke & Key, The Walking Dead (which some people still don't realize is more than just a TV show), and Invincible. Even if you are not a fan of comics, there is a good chance you might like one of these or many others based on their amazing stories. If visiting the comic book store weekly isn't your thing, you can always grab some trades or hardcovers. The Walking Dead has a LOT of trades, and so does Goon. And you will NOT be disappointed. 

(One Sentence / Day) x (7 Days) = ???

I have an idea: 
Summarize each day in only one sentence for a week. After the week is over, read all the sentences together. What does it say? Does it make a poem? What is the tone? What does it say about you? If you continue, what do you get in a month? 
I will start mine: 
9/6/11:
I put on my big girl pants.
9/7/11:
The darkness & the rain match the misery.
9/8/11:
Exhausted & head-achey, I dream of the after work hours that will be filled with comics, Terry, & delicious food.

Exercise the Design Demon: Pretend Album Art

Fun with randomness: For awhile there I went nuts with this game. Anyone remember this? Fun way to exercise (not exorcise) your creative design demon. DON'T CHEAT. A lot of people do, and that is missing the whole point. Just take what you get, try your best not to edit the photo, do some creative cropping & typefacing and BAM! -> A pretend album design masterpiece. Sometimes they work out so well that it's freaky. And sometimes they can be so accidentally funny. Instructions below:


1 - Go to Wikipedia and hit random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4 - Use Photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together. 5 - Post it with this text in the "caption" and TAG the friends you want to join in

Here are the ones I did:

Livin' the Theme

When I get my own cozy little house, I plan on hosting theme parties now and again. 

HERE ARE MY CURRENT LIST OF THEMES:

Pirate Party
White Trash Party

Ugly Xmas Sweater Party

Pie-in-the-Face Party (come, make a pie, put it in someone's freakin' face)

Build-a-Fort Party

Traditional Tea Party

Harry Potter Party

Mad Men Party

Speakeasy Party

Comic Book Superhero Party

Comic Book Villain Party

Anime/Manga Party

Pin-up Party

Disney Princess Party

Weird Hat Party

Zombie Prom

Back to the 80s Party

PLEASE ADD TO THIS LIST IF YOU THINK OF ANY GOOD THEMES!

I'm Gonna Slap You Right in Your Typeface!

Everyone has unique handwriting. So create your own font! The world can't get enough fonts, especially free ones. If anyone finds a truly free font creator, let me know. The only ones that I can find besides the link I attached, charge you for the service. That link doesn't guarantee that your font will be made. >_<


Better yet, here's a REALLY GOOD IDEA that I hope someone steals: make a FREE Font Creator site and sell advertising on it. I wouldn't care if ads were in my face as long as it made my font for free. 

Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words. Words. Words.

Shakespeare did it many times, from "eyeball" to "wormhole." My own personal hero, Hayao Miyasaki, did it with "Ponyo," the name of the title character in his movie, Gake no ue no Ponyo (2008). And I did it with "ideaseased."
My proposal is this: make up your own word. Now it's only a matter of time until Merriam-Webster makes it official.

Google's Witchery

Another great idea from Google...

A What Do You Love search bar. 

When I saw it, I had no idea what it was because I had not yet heard about it. You should try it!

Boring To Do Lists are BORING!!!!!!!

Make a Life To Do List in a creative way. The good ideas I chose here (and am still in the process of choosing) are from the little book Dream it. List it. Do it! - a product of a Webby Award-Winning Social Networking Site. And now, I actually want to look at it, because it's pretty. BONUS: I'm also learning how to write upside-down with the quickness.

Here, Let Me Show You The Door

I think a great idea would be to have an office (or office building) where all the doors have a positive message painted (spray painted?) on them.


They will say things like: 


"Every wall is a door." Ralph Waldo Emerson



"Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be."
Albert Einstein


"Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go."
e. e. cummings


"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
Alexander Graham Bell

"Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door."
Emily Dickinson


"I'm also very proud to be a part of a trilogy of films that, if they do nothing else, allow people to check their problems at the door, sit down and have a good time."
Michael J. Fox


"In bed at night, I could be reading some book, and I'll come across a sentence that's totally unrelated to some scene I did years ago. But I'll play the scene back in my mind and think, I did that wrong - I should've opened the door more slowly."
Liam Neeson

The Ideaseased Begins Spewing Ideas All Over You

I don't know about you, but I am so full of ideas that it makes me sick. This blog is about my ideas and the disgustingly wonderful ideas of others. 


My first idea is to start my own blog about ideas. 


Oh, the silliness. And even though I have hardly a thing to say besides, "Hey there, welcome..." I decided to take the advice of pretty much every business/marketing book I've read in the past 2 months from the likes of Hugh MacLeod, Seth Godin, Jason Fried, & David Hansson and stop waiting for the right whatever and JUST START.


"I can always regain a territory; a single second, never." - Napoleon