Today is the final day of the "Powerful ____  You Probably Don't Know About" Series.  It's been so popular I might revive this at some point.   I am so excited to share these amazing tools are going to blow your mind!!!  By the way I'm not sponsored by any of these companies, I just think they are noteworthy. Click the downloadable PDF's at the bottom to get his full lectures with all this content and more from LERN.  (He told me I could link them! Isn't he a radtastical?!  Thanks Dan!)

It feels so nice to be back in San Diego. I'm recovering from such an amazing time at the LERN conference.  I highly recommend that you go next year as it is taking place in Florida at Disney World!  So awesome! Cannot wait for that.  I had entirely way too much fun in San Fran this year, and almost as much fun at the conference in Chicago back in 2009!  I am officially addicted to the LERN conference.  What I am reporting on here is just a tiny taste of all that the conference has to offer!

This week I have been attending a convention in the lovely San Francisco, by the world's largest higher learning association called LERN.  I currently teach one course for LERN, which I had acquired after winning a design award from them way back in 2009.  This is by far one of the best conventions i've ever been to!  The information is outstanding and the things that I took away from it are worth everything!

Here are the highlights of what I learned that might just boggle your mind!

I used to be a "yes" girl.  "Yes, I'll design your logo!" "Yes I'll create your website!" "Yes! I'll be your design slave for pennies on the dollar."  "Yes, I'll meet you for coffee and try to convince to give me your business, even though I don't like your company!"  I almost even said "Yes" to marrying the wrong guy, now that would have definitely taken my life in the wrong direction.

In 2009, I won an international design award for the "Best Catalog Design Targeting Gen Y" at this conference, which is why I was invited to attend.  This conference was one of the best conferences I've ever been to!  This year I've been invited to volunteer, with the hopes of hopefully developing some great connections to possibly speak at next year's event.  Either way, attending this event is life changing!

I find myself occasionally getting into a creative rut, so I have some solutions to overcome this before I get ready to work on a big project.   Sometimes I feel burnt out, other times i just feel like I couldn't come up with a bad idea, let alone a good idea.  If I design like this, some of the worst most pathetic and cliché ideas come out.  It's really quite frustrating  when I feel like I suck at my profession.  Fortunately this doesn't happen often because I have learned over the years how to get out of it and get out of it fast!  I have found a series of things that I do to get out of this rut before I create something truly unique and awesome.

If you aren't feeling awesome 80% of the time about what you are doing with eight hours of your working day, then you are most likely not living your bliss.  Sure we all have things we don't like doing, even in your purpose, but if you find yourself complaining, feeling trapped and miserable a great percentage of the week, it might be time to change career paths.

Today was one of those days where everything goes wrong. I am in the process of doing my first ever VIP days with one of my graphic design clients who lives 3 hours away. Everything that could go wrong today, did, in regards to productivity!  

About six months ago, I attempted this 200 days of blogging challenge and was having a wonderful time with the challenge and then BOOM! I had one of the biggest life changes. I broke up with my fiance and my whole entire world flipped upside down. Of course, I STOPPED BLOGGING.

Over the last two weeks, I had to make one of the hardest decisions of my life:

I broke up with my fiancé.

So we are onto the next phase of this five part series!   Today we'regoing to get deeper into typography.  Since I design for three different universities this issue comes up constantly, many students have a tendency to get lazy or scared about typography.   They choose default fonts that are boring or unfitting or worse they actually choose every trendy font imaginable.

Concepts, Themes, & Typography - One of the most overlooked aspects of design by new / non-designers is the importance of typography.​ If you want your materials to look professional, typography can be the number one way to make it brilliant and stylish, OR if done incorrectly it can make your materials look amateurish, unprofessional, and embarassing!  You want to be brilliant and stylish, don't you?  So, read on...

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