Ad Fed Blog

A link to some fantastic 19th century shipping posters via Drawn.

If your looking for premium linkage, the Designer’s Jumpola is the place to go.

If your like me, one of your new year’s resolutions is to pick back up that paper and pen and to finally make drawing a habit — you know, part of your everyday routine. Along those lines, I’ve found two great great books that really speak to the process of creating in this manner. Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson is about the most unusual and unique book on drawing I’ve seen in a while — how many books devote the entire first chapter to the process of doodling? Another great read is Danny Gregory’s The Creative License. He concentrates much more on journaling and how it should be a part of your everyday life. Afterall, our observations reflect the way in which we engage with life. Finally, if you need some artistic inspiration, head over to Drawn! and marvel at the artistic and creative illustrations submitted in this blog everyday.

Take a few moments from your hectic schedule to head down to the City Gallery at Waterfront Park to get a good look at Mary Walker’s Carolina Umbra and other selected works. There some very beautiful and graphical prints, oil paintings, and collages that evolved as series based on pieces of literature. Although some of the work deals with dark subjects, the joy and fun the artist has in creating her art was obvious in the opening walk-through she did on Saturday.

In recent years there have been numerous referrals to the rise of the creative class both nationally and here in Charleston. The beauty, the setting, and the people of this area have been key factors in attracting talent from such disciplines as Graphic Design, Photography, Public Relations, Marketing, and Web Production. This Blog is an effort to rangle the thoughts, ideas, and aspirations of this talented group of people and to eventually become the place to come to for Charleston area creatives. What is the plan to do that?

To start, we are going to be asking creatives in the area from a variety of disciplines to share their expert opinions and ideas with you. Interspersed with these short articles by our local “experts”, you can expect to find postings on everything and anything to deal with the marketing and design world. These postings could be anything from a reference to a new design tool to help you out in your daily work, to a link to an amazing ad that someone saw the other day on YouTube. As we hope to develop a fairly expansive group of trusted users to post, we hope that there will always be fresh content for you to enjoy and learn from.

The next step is you. We will never know what matters most to you unless we see some comments on the site, questions about becoming a blogger yourself, maybe even some inquiries about out our club. And while you can live an entire Second Life on the Web, this blog hopes to get ideas and discussions going both online and offline. Attend an AdFed, PRSA, AMA, or some other local club meeting…start your own group or just meet up with friends to discuss the hot topic of the day (can anyone say iPhone?). Now is truly a great time to be in the city of Charleston and we hope this Blog becomes a representation of the energy and talent that we see all around us.

Brose through a few of these beautiful, graphically unique posters from the By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection from the Library of Congress and you may just get a few ideas for some of your own projects. Or, if your like me, you’ll just be appreciative of the talented graphic designers from years past and what they were able to create with heart, energy, and a lot of hard work that didn’t include computers.

and check out what they are blogging about.