• Illustrations and Photography
• Hair and Photoshop
• Member news
• Do you have a website?

The royalty-free photo site iStockPhoto.com has announced they will soon allow their members to create stock logos and sell them on the site.

Is this good news, or terrible?

The forum on the iStockPhoto site seems to tip both ways. On the one hand this is a fantastic opportunity for logo creators – both professional and apprentices – to perfect their craft while earning a little income on the side. But on the other it’s another dig into the bread-and-butter income of people who make their living creating logos for third parties. (Some of the comments on the iStockPhoto forum would have you believe it’s the end of the world as we know it!)

What do I think? It’s a free market, that’s what I think. For one thing, the kind of company that buys a logo from a Royalty-Free site is just as likely to try to screw a professional (like me) down on the price, and is thus not a great client to have. For another, just imagine being able to sell all the trash logos you designed but were not taken up by the client!

My advice to you is to use this service to its full potential. Drag out that dusty installation of Illustrator and spend an hour a day drawing up concepts and designs, then use them to bring in a possible income.


Illustrations and Photography

While on the topic of iStockPhoto (and all the other Royalty-Free sites), if you’re not already a contributor to these sites, I hope you’re investigating the opportunity. A friend of mine spends wet Sunday afternoons creating illustrations specifically for spec-selling, and now gets a nice couple of hundred dollars every month. It’s not going to make him rich, but it sure adds up. I know how enthusiastic he is because he's always trying to pick my brains for techniques in Illustrator and Photoshop (and yes, he's an owner of the Learn Professional Computer Graphics & Digital Illustration course).


Hair and Photoshop

Getting a hair selection right in Photoshop is surely one of the most difficult of all tasks – and one of my most popular training topics bar none. I’ve sure done my share of training people in doing this properly.

One video I have on ewe-tube (sorry, a bit of Kiwi humour) shows a quick selection method, and uses hair as the example. The video is about the selection method, but about a gazillion comments have made it plain that most people think it’s all about the hair.

Now while I have a much more detailed video on separating hair out from complex backgrounds exlusive to my member’s site (http://www.theelectricartist.com/members.html) I have also succumbed to pressure and created a new video to show you how to remove the halo around selected hair. You can see this video either on YouTube (search for ‘electricartist’) or here on my site... (http://www.theelectricartist.com).


Members

Are you a Member of my Electric Artist site? Just a quick note that I haven’t received a lot of requests lately and one of the toughest jobs I have is trying to predict what it is that people want to see.

I do have a series of videos coming soon that will cover all aspects of design using the Adobe Creative Suite. I have created a mythical chocolate company start-up and will take my Members through the process of branding the company, creating the logo, building the website and designing some brochures, as well as chocolate catalogues. That's coming soon...


Personal Graphics Trainer

Just to let you know that this service is no longer available. I had some very quick and very enthusiastic responses – which I have attended to.

And then… nothing. More to the point, I was inundated by emails from people who wanted one-on-one training from me, but who were not prepared to pay me for it. I’m sorry, but my Mother Teresa halo has slipped. I know the recession has hit us all – I’ve also suffered, and have been forced to lay off a staff member and get out there and actually work for a living (as opposed to providing my training services).

I don’t know if I’ll resume this site in the future. If you still want specialised training I'm sure you'll contact me regardless, and in the meantime I’ll continue working on generic and popular topics for you.


Do you have a website...?

...or a blog or an email database of people who read what you have to say? What about a whole lot of friends on Facebook? Or followers on Twitter? If you have, would you like to accumulate a little extra dinera? (That's m.oney in most languages.)

I ask these questions because I will soon be offering some of my training products to potential affiliates for the first time ever. What this means is that you can collect commissions for telling your network or friends about, for example, the Learn Professional Computer Graphics & Digital Illustration course. Stay tuned…

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