Friday 27 February 2015

New Three-Dimensional Figurative Collages Encased in Multiple Layers of Glass by Dustin Yellin

Fun and Random

Photo by Andrew Romer Photography courtesy the artist

Photo by Andrew Romer Photography courtesy the artist

The Brooklyn-based artist Dustin Yellin (previously) was commissioned by the New York City Ballet to install a new series of his figurative collages. The artist refers to the sculptures as Psychogeographies because “they feel like maps of the psyche.”

Each large-scale sculpture is individually embellished with bizarre found objects—cut-up books, magazines and trash found on the street—which are then sealed within layers of glass. “Imagine if you were to make a drawing on a window,” said Yellin, explaining his process. “And then you were to take another window and glue it to that window… until you had a window sandwich. I make window sandwiches.”

The resulting forms resemble dancers striking various poses: their multi-dimensional bodies encapsulated in suspended animation. A grand total of 15 of these “window sandwiches,” each weighing in at 3,000 pounds each, were installed in the atrium of the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. The installation is on view for all performances through March 1, 2015 but there’s also free public viewing through February 22. If you can’t make it you can always follow Yellin’s activities on Instagram.

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by Andrew Romer Photography courtesy the artist

Photo by Andrew Romer Photography courtesy the artist

Photo by Andrew Romer Photography courtesy the artist

Photo by Andrew Romer Photography courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

Photo by David Deng courtesy the artist

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#funandrandom 
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How Compassion International Uses Blogging to Save Lives

Blogging with purpose

original post »

This is a guest contribution from Caitlin Gustafson.problogger - caitlin gustafsonI imagine a dirt road with boys playing with a lonely old soccer ball in the warm sunshine. A little boy with dark brown curls chases the ball, his worn sneakers kicking up dust from the street.

I don’t know if that’s what life is really like for Janair, my sponsor child from Honduras. But every time I get a hand-written letter in crayon, or I see a new picture of him, it’s what I imagine.

Compassion International is a non-profit organization that works in 26 countries around the world and is one of the few organizations that holds a 4-star rating from CharityNavigator.

Compassion was doing content marketing before it was in vogue and they consistently outperform other similar non-profits in their efforts. Though Compassion International uses many methods of content marketing, including video, Pinterest, direct mail, and email, a huge part of their success is tied to blogging.

According to Content Marketing Institute, 61% of Non-Profit marketers use content marketing, but only 35% say their efforts are effective. I’d venture a guess that the marketing team at Compassion International is within that 35%.

Company Blog

Every few days, Compassion International posts new stories to their blog. Some are communicated from field specialists, those who work directly with sponsored children and world relief projects. These are stories of heartbreak and hope for a brighter future. Some are inspirational pieces written to encourage sponsors to have more involved relationships with their sponsored children. Other stories are written by sponsored children who have overcome poverty through Compassion programs. Occasionally you will hear from a sponsor who tells how their involvement in Compassion has changed their life.

What makes the blog so engaging is how they manage to tell a story in each update. All of these are all personalized stories from people directly involved in their relief programs. They aren’t lists of ways to alleviate poverty, and individual blog posts aren’t likely to rank for any keywords in a Google search.

Somehow I doubt ranking for specific keywords is the intent with this blog. Instead, it’s a compelling collection of stories that keeps readers coming back, engaged, and committed to Compassion’s relief efforts.

 

A Network of Bloggers

Not only does Compassion keep an active blog that gets great engagement on social media and more, they have a network of over 350 affiliate bloggers to amplify their message to new audiences. Some of these bloggers are big names with lots of followers, such as author Ann Voskamp, or popular musical artist Shaun Groves. Compassion offers monthly assignments or writing prompts that bloggers can incorporate into their content calendars if they so choose.

Through this program each blogger is given a sponsor affiliate code and they can track how many children are sponsored through the links they use on their website. It’s a different rewards program than many affiliate networks, which reward bloggers with commissions or free product based on sales. Instead, this rewards program directly benefits the blogger’s sponsor child through family gifts that help impoverished families buy extra food, clothes, chickens, etc.

 

International Blogger Trips

Every so often, Compassion takes groups of sponsors overseas to meet the children they support. Bloggers often come on these trips and write about their experiences and encourage others to sign up and sponsor their own children using affiliate links. Myquillyn Smith from Nesting Place and Christy Jordan from Southern Plate are two popular bloggers that have taken part in such trips. Their stories have inspired many readers to sponsor their own children through Compassion International.

 

What Does This Mean For Me?

As a blogger, your website might not be dedicated to AIDS relief or ending poverty. So if you’re wondering how you can translate Compassion’s blogging success to your financial planning site, here’s my suggestion: readers want stories. It’s never been clearer that the most successful brands, advertisements, and blogs are the ones that tell a story. Ikea Spain’s Holiday commercial last year wasn’t about their furniture. It was about families and togetherness over the Holidays, and told as a story.

Lifestyle bloggers like Joy Cho, Joanna Goddard, and Kendi Skeen are popular because they connect with their readers through stories. KendiEveryday is a style blog – but readers love when she talks about her business ventures into opening her own clothing boutique. OhJoy is a mommy blogger that connects with readers by incorporating her recent pregnancy story into her regular blog content, like her “how to dress the bump” in each month of her pregnancy.

A blog about financial planning can be exciting if you can use it to tell readers how you got into the business of stocks and IRAs. Could you tell a client’s success story? Incorporating these stories into your regular blog content can only benefit your blog in the long run as it builds that personal relationship with your readers.

Caitlin Gustafson is an Online PR Specialist for Web Talent Marketing with a focus on content marketing and social media. You can find her blogging and tweeting about her two favorite things: digital marketing and travel.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

How Compassion International Uses Blogging to Save Lives

Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

How Compassion International Uses Blogging to Save Lives
 #bloggingtips 

ZazzleMySite - site and blog post generator, released at v1

ZazzleMySite - What is it?

ZazzleMySite is a web page generating tool for web sites and blogs that gives you unique Zazzle product grids on every page generated.
Here's an example Cinderella Accessory page created with it. Other Cinderella pages generated at the same time are automatically linked.

ZazzleMySite generates web pages and blog posts
with unique, static product grids

Say again?

ZazzleMySite is designed to work with a template for your site and, together with a bunch of settings per page, it generates all the pages, putting a unique product grid on each that displays your (or others') Zazzle products.
Thanks to some real helpful beta testers, I've managed to get this out in double-quick time!

How is that good for me?

It's ram-jam packed with benefits for you:
  • Embiggen (thanks Sprigfield!) your website with beautiful pages in minutes
    • It would take a competent web designer hours to do what you can do in minutes - more product creation time for you!
  • You earn from any referred sales and will know where that sale came from 
    • Everywhere your product links can appear can have their own tracking code
  • So easy for visitors to share what they see and like
    • Every product in the grid has it's own share / pin buttons
      Yes, you're also be able to earn and track sales from pins / shares!
  • Search engines love content created with ZazzleMySite
    • Static product grids mean their spiders can see and feast on them - which they can't with RSS feed-driven product grids like in the Zazzle Store Builder and others
  • Search engine spiders love fresh content and that's covered as well
    • You can regenerate all your pages using the same choices you made before and the product grid will be freshened with all the currently trending / popular items matching those choices.
  • Navigation included
    • All pages generated in the same session will have a set of navigation links included, with links to every other page generated at the same time.
  •  Small but perfectly formed templates to choose from
    • If you're thinking of starting a new site or blog, there's presently two(!) templates to choose from and this number will grow
  • All your options are easy to save and load again for next time
    • Once you have one set done and pages generated, it's so easy to modify your saved options to generate an entire new set of pages!
  • You can theme every page individually or as a set
    • Each can have its own background colour or image. Halloween pages can use a spooky background colour and repeating ghostly image, while your Winter Wedding pages can use white and snowy image themes.

It's easy to save and load options, so it's easy to regenerate your pages for fresh content.

Why don't you watch a video showing ZazzleMySite in action? This one whizzes through in under 7 mins. It was made using the pre-release version of ZMS but is essentially the same.



Take the trial version for a spin. It's limited to generating a maximum of 5 products in a grid (30 in the full version) and will let you see just how useful it is!
Monthly+ and Perpetual licenses are available when you want to move beyond 5 in a product grid.
NB Monthly+ means the rest of the current month and all of the following month - up to two months!
 

I'm more than happy to answer any questions :)
~~Mark (HightonRidley)

PS If you're a Zazzler and you can (or already do) create templates for others to use I'd be happy to make one of yours available to use with ZMS in trade for a Monthly+ license. If you're interested, then first off, drop a mention in the comments and I'll get in touch.

Architectural Letterforms Come to Life for ‘Deepblue Networks’

Fun and Random

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For a recent promotional campaign, German creative firm Deepblue Networks collaborated with illustrator and graphic designer Florian Schommer of Kjosk Collective to create a series of animated buildings using the letters of their logo. The 8 illustrations turn each letter of the logo into a multi-story building and imagines the staff working inside. You can see the full presentation here. Creative direction by Burkhard Müller. (via Behance)

 
#funandrandom 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/colossal/~3/Z9pP4ilznbc/

Wednesday 25 February 2015

Cute Wild Pony in Dartmoor National Park Postcards

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: gorse,, piebald,, hrcol67,, horses,, hrbstslr,, wild ponies,, grazing pony,, cute pony,, dartmoor national park,, loveable

Dartmoor Pony series

A cute piebald pony quietly grazing beside a lone gorse bush in Dartmoor National Park where the ponies run wild.

more items with this image
more pony Items

Image code: hrcol67

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Cute ponies for the bedroom and school

Black Piebald Cartoon Gypsy Vanner Shire Horse Canvas PrintHorse head cartoon MacBook air sleeveHorse head cartoon courier bags

Cute ponies for the bedroom and school

If you know a boy or girl who loves ponies then here's a collection that should give you some gift ideas.
Any boy or girl will love them - some for bedroom and some for school. Which of these would be best?

Click the image for more details and to buy. You'll also see more designs from the artist there.

Graffiti Artist ‘Faust’ Draws Calligraphic Messages on Snow-Covered Cars in New York City

Fun and Random

Processed with VSCOcam with se3 preset

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For the last few years NYC-based graffiti artist Faust has been putting everyone’s handwriting to shame with these impromptu notes drawn on snow-covered vehicles around the city. Faust is known worldwide for his fusion of classical calligraphy with contemporary graffiti in murals and other art projects. You can follow him on Instagram and see several more snow pieces spanning the last few years on Behance. (via Laughing Squid, Design TAXI)

 
#funandrandom 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/colossal/~3/OW8T6fj7ops/

Extremes of Human Nature Explored through Hand-Built Stoneware Animals by Beth Cavener Stichter

Fun and Random

obaryion-1
Obariyon. 2013. Stoneware, antique hooks, glaze. 17 x 46 x 30″

Washington-based artist Beth Cavener Stichter sculpts human-sized animals from clay and other materials in both dramatically overt and subtly ambigous displays of emotion. Hung from ropes or pinned to walls, the anthropomorphic sculptures are infused with juxtapositions that depict the extremes of both human emotion and animalistic behavior: predator and prey, love and hate, fear and peace. “On the surface,” shares Stichter, “these figures are simply feral animals suspended in a moment of tension. Beneath the surface, they embody the consequences of human fear, apathy, aggression, and misunderstanding.”

Stichter collaborates with a variety of artists in her work, including Alessandro Gallo, who designed and painted the ornate Japanese tattoos on the nineteen-foot long anaconda snake depicted in Tangled Up in You seen below. There’s much more to see over on her website and several studio views on Hi-Fructose. All images courtesy the artist.

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Obariyon, detail.

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Obariyon, detail.

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Tangled Up in You. 2014. Stoneware, mixed media. Tattoos designed and painted by Alessandro Gallo.

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Tangled Up in You, detail.

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Tangled Up in You, detail.

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Tangled Up in You, detail.

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The Sentimental Question. 2012. Stoneware.

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L’Amante. 2012. Stoneware, painted tattoos. 45 x 60 x 44″

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L’Amante, detail.

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The Question That Devours. 2012. Stoneware.

 
#funandrandom 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/colossal/~3/N8kuEHpq-i0/

Sunday 22 February 2015

Stout Work Boots Generic logo Business Card Template

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: generic,, logo,, genbct,, boots,, businesses,, hrbstslr,, stout,, hobnail,, army

A great generic business card template. Just upload your logo or use the one provided. Then customise with your details and give a strap line, quote or personal message for that professional feel.

This business card template with other artwork

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Adorably Cute Pomeranian Puppy Mousemat

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: pomeranian,, dogs,, poms,, puppies,, mind control,, cute puppy,, hrbstslr hrmon266,, spitz,, adorable pets,, toy dogs

Animals and Pets series An adorably cute Pomeranian puppy is trying to exert mind-control to make you do her bidding!

more items with this image
more Cute items

image code: hrmon266

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Saturday 21 February 2015

Respect, Kindness, Trust, Virtues word art poster Poster

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: respect,, honour,, trust,, kindness,, peace,, harmony,, patience,, honesty,, strength,, hrbstslr mowds3

Here's a great bedroom wall poster design. It uses motivational word art based around virtues that could help give you a nice little boost!!
It works on the psychological principle of conscious and unconscious positive reinforcement and can help you grow as a person.

more items featuring these motivational virtues words
more


»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Geologist Tie - Sedimentary Rock necktie

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: geologists,, geology,, slate,, hrbstslr,, sedimentary rock,, quartz veins

A river of gold appears to run from the opening at the base of concrete stairs, reddened by lichens and the stains of rust seeping through.
In my inner vision the vein of quartz and iron pyrites that's pushed its way through the slate looks like a molten river of gold, pouring from a melted heart.

more items with this image
more


»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

What does the ‘Pro’ in ProBlogger Stand for?

Blogging with purpose

original post »

Startup Stock PhotoI overheard an interesting debate on Twitter recently about what the ‘Pro’ in ProBlogger stands for.

Is it to signify professional behaviour, or is it about the profession of blogging?

The answer is both – but in my mind it’s more.

Here’s what the Pro in ProBlogger means to me

I’m Pro Bloggers – I love bloggers

As a 16-year-old I took a short course in public speaking.

This was an unusual move for me because I was a very shy kid who had a small group of friends. The idea of speaking in front of a room of people terrified me, but as I wanted to conquer that fear I took the class.

At the end of the course I had to stand up in front of a room of 60 or so people and talk for five minutes. I’d never felt such a rush of exhilaration and I saw people in the audience respond positively to my words and it triggered in me the beginning of a passion for communication.

I’ve explored many forms of communication over the years but when I stumbled across blogs for the first time in 2002 I knew I’d found something special. What other tool could amplify the voice of an ordinar guy like me around the world to millions of people?

I love blogging and I love bloggers and what they do day in and day out with their blogs. This blog is written by bloggers for bloggers and my hope is that it’ll help them to step closer to their potential.

It’s about the Profession of Blogging

For the first 18 or so months of my blogging, I didn’t consider the idea that it could be anything but a hobby. That changed through a series of events including starting a little digital camera review blog and stumbling across the brand new Google AdSense ad network.

To cut a long story short I began to experiment with making a little money from my blogs with the hope of covering my server costs and with the dream of one day being able to make enough money to get off dial-up internet and onto broadband.

Gradually I made enough to do both those things and the income grew into the equivalent of a part time income. At this point I created a category on my personal blog for ‘blog tips’ and began sharing what I was learning.

My income continued to grow until I reached a point in late 2004 where I realised I was going to have a full time income from blogging and that it had the potential to be my career or profession.

I began to search for other full time bloggers and found very few writing about their experience so decided to start a blog on my journey to ‘go pro’ as a blogger. ProBlogger.net was born and I imported all my previously written blog tips from my personal blog over to start it in September 2004.

I can’t lay claim to inventing the term as someone had already registered ProBlogger.com (which I later bought). They were not really using the domain (but seemed to have plans to develop a blogging platform) and as far as I know, I was the first person to use the term to describe someone making a living from blogging.

The early days of the blog were simply me sharing my journey of making a living from blogging. I wrote more general blog tips but the focus was always upon helping bloggers to sustain writing about their passions by building profitable blogs.

It’s about Positive Blogging

I’m a glass half full kind of guy (most of the time) and was brought up by parents who taught me to always look for the positives in situations I face, and in the people around me. Similarly, a phrase that was often heard in our house was ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’.

This has all rubbed off on me and the way that I blog and I’m a big believer in spending 99% of my time doing things that are constructive and positive rather than focusing upon negativity, controversy, or picking out the fault in others.

I’ve seen many blogs about blogging come and go over the years but have noticed one type of blog tips blog ‘go’ (or die) more often than others – that being the type that dwells of the negative more often than the positive.

A number of examples come to mind (that I won’t name) but all of which either focused upon critiquing the approach of others, causing division, stirring up controversy, and basically attempting to get traffic by causing trouble.

While in some cases the negative tactic worked in getting eyeballs, each of these blogs is inactive today, and conversations with several of the bloggers concerned revealed that they couldn’t sustain the negativity and ended up burning out.

They also reflected to me that because they blogged negatively that they drew around them negative readers, and while traffic often rose so did a brand that they didn’t really want to be associated with in the long term.

In my experience, a blogger sets the tone for their blog. If you blog with a negative stance you tend to create a culture of negativity that others pick up on and join in on.

This is why some blogs end with with a cesspool of negativity in their comments.

On the flip side if a blogger models constructive and positive blogging this can help with building a strong positive and constructive community of readers.

While there will may be times to call out bad behaviour, write a justified rant, or offer a critique, my hope for ProBlogger is that it is a place for positive and constructive advice that brings about lasting change for those who read it.

It’s about blogging Professionally

My hope with ProBlogger is that it is not only a blog that helps others to ‘Go Pro’ as bloggers, but that it inspires them to do so in a professional and ethical manner.

A few years ago at a business conference I met a small group of attendees at a networking session, and on mentioning what I did, one of the members of the group burst out with the statement “but all you bloggers are scammers and sleaze bags!”

I’ll never forget that moment and the anger that the gentleman spoke with.

After an awkward silence for a few seconds, he shared his story. It wasn’t a pleasant one.

Sadly he’d been ripped off by a blogger who claimed to be able to teach him how to make a fortune from blogging with his $3000 ‘program’. The program turned out to be a poorly curated collection of posts from ProBlogger and several other blogging tips blogs and the promised coaching and support never eventuated.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated story, and one of the difficult parts about blogging about making money blogging is that the unprofessional and unethical actions of a small few bloggers in this niche hurt the reputation of the rest of us.

ProBlogger has no $3000 programs and makes no promises of overnight riches from blogging. Making money from blogs generally takes a long term approach and a lot of good, old-fashioned hard work.

While the temptation to take short cuts through unethical ‘black hat’ behaviour exist, the reality is that doing so puts you at the risk of being caught out and having your reputation hurt.

My goal with ProBlogger is to create a site that helps bloggers to blog well about what they’re passionate about, to build business models around their blogs to help them sustain what they do, and to do it in a professional and ethical way.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

What does the ‘Pro’ in ProBlogger Stand for?

Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

What does the ‘Pro’ in ProBlogger Stand for?
 #bloggingtips 

Behind the Scenes of Elgin Park, a Retro City of Optical Illusions Photographed by Michael Paul Smith

Fun and Random

Here at Colossal we’ve long been fans of photographer Michael Paul Smith whose broad life experiences lead him to the creation of Elgin Park, a fictional 20th century town filled with miniature 1/24th-scale models of cars and buildings. Smith mixes his carefully crafted model sets with die-cut automobiles and real-life backdrops, taking advantage of an optical illusion known as forced perspective. The photos have been a massive hit with the internet, racking up over 70 million views on his Flickr account alone.

Smith recently sat down with documentary director and producer Danny Yourd of Animal to discuss his significant personal challenges and life experiences that are now the driving force behind his photography. This is a must-watch for any creative grappling with aspects of identity or personal history in their artwork. He’s is also on the verge of publishing a new book, Elgin Park, which is available now for preorder. Seen here are some of his most recent photos along with behind-the-scenes views, there’s much more over on Flickr. (via PetaPixel)

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#funandrandom 
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