Professional Growth

Empower yourself to achieve your goals and reinvent your career with advice, tips, and ideas to enhance your professional development.

Professional Growth
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  • Turning a Concept Into a Strong Project Statement
    Photography

    Turning a Concept Into a Strong Project Statement

    Conceptual portrait photographer Verónica Cerna shares tips for turning a concept into a strong project statement Verónica Cerna (@veronica_cerna) is a photographer and videographer who’s had her work published in magazines such as Musée Magazine, Shots Magazine, Better Photography, and Revista Pecado. Verónica started out creating self-portraits and has always been drawn to experimental portraiture. During her teens, she discovered that photography was a way for her to understand herself and take control of her body. She counts Edward Hopper, Ouka Leele, and Gregory Crewdson among the artists she’s been most influenced by. In her Domestika course, she invites you to learn about her process for creating a series of conceptual portraits. In this blog, she shares tips on how to create a concept and convert it into a powerful statement.

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  • Whorl, The App to Awaken Your Creativity
    Design

    Whorl, The App to Awaken Your Creativity

    Discover the app that awakens your creativity by appealing to a basic exercise of the imagination: play. There is one significant difference in the way a child thinks compared to an adult. Children can think up and arrive at solutions a grown up would never imagine. Their creativity is boundless and stems from their ability for playfulness, something most of us adults have long forgotten. The Whorl app–designed with adults in mind, but suitable for children alike–aims to awaken our creativity through play.

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  • Basic DJ Equipment for Beginners
    Music & Audio

    Basic DJ Equipment for Beginners

    Discover the setup recommended by Chuck Pereda for mixing electronic music Always wanted your own DJ setup? Before you start preparing your set and get ready to make your DJ debut, you will need some basic equipment (in addition to a love of music.) Chuck Pereda (@chuck_pereda), a DJ and radio presenter with more than two decades’ of experience, shares a basic list of essential equipment for beginner DJs. Chuck wants to point out that you will be able to acquire the following material second-hand. These are just recommendations, get together what you can, and turn up the volume.

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  • What Is Copywriting and How Can I Become a Copywriter?
    Teacher Marketing

    What Is Copywriting and How Can I Become a Copywriter?

    Discover what makes a good copywriter and what is their main role in an advertising agency The copywriter shoulders a great deal of the creative responsibility behind an ad. Some of the best advertising campaigns in history have originated from the mind of a copywriter. Yet, for many people, it is still unclear what their role is within an advertising agency. It is also sometimes hard for them to explain it to anyone outside of the industry. We’ll explain who is a copywriter and their role in an advertising agency in this day and age.

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  • 3 Essential Books for Learning to Create
    Teacher Design

    3 Essential Books for Learning to Create

    Illustrator Alfonso de Anda entrusts us with the titles of some of the books that have most inspired him Inspiration is everywhere, and although it may be waiting for you around the corner, in a café, at a meeting with friends, or in your own home, there are some books that can help you exercise your creativity and help good ideas flourish. Over the years, illustrator Alfonso de Anda (@deandaalfonso) has become a specialist in capturing good ideas and awakening creativity. These are some of his favorite books about the habit of creating: Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind, by 99u and Jocelyn K. Glei Taking as a premise the saturation of information and the long list of things to do that we all face every day, this book tries to give us an idea of how to organize our lives. It is about ensuring that our routine does not end up destroying our creativity, something we must keep on top of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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  • Brand Personality: How To Be Authentic
    Teacher Design

    Brand Personality: How To Be Authentic

    Brands, there are a lot of them. Brands with personality, not so many. How do you create a brand that stands out? There’s a phrase that I love and with which I couldn’t agree more: “Beauty attracts attention, personality makes you unforgettable.” I don’t know who said it first. We heard it from a client and it’s been stuck in our heads ever since. It’s said that our role as designers is, among other things, to create visual identities that are different and attractive; that turn heads and cause people to pick the products they represent off of shelves crammed with shapes, colors, and endless options; visual identities that people want to follow on Instagram; that they fall in love with. But we should never limit ourselves to only creating aesthetic solutions. Content defines form. The concept comes first. If you learn to define a brand’s personality, then you will understand its sense of style instead of trying to dress it up in something it doesn’t feel comfortable wearing.

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  • What are the origins of the different LGBTQ+ symbols?
    Teacher Design

    What are the origins of the different LGBTQ+ symbols?

    We explain the lesser known origins of some of the LGBTQ+ community’s most recognizable symbols Although there is no doubt that the best known LGBTQ+ symbol is the rainbow flag, which represents the diversity of the community, there are many who feel like they aren’t fully represented in this single symbol, or who for other historic reasons have used other symbols to represent their specific community. Throughout history, the labels and symbols used to represent the LGBTQ+ community have held a lot of meaning, and they continue to do so. Behind each of them there are millions of people fighting for the right to authentically represent themselves, using these symbols not just as a declaration of identity but also as a way to foster community. You’ll likely recognize all, or at least most, of these symbols, but you might know know their origins. Here we tell you a bit more about each them, and why these images hold so much power:

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  • 7 World-renowned Artists Exploring LGBTQ+ Identity
    Art

    7 World-renowned Artists Exploring LGBTQ+ Identity

    Art has always been a powerful form of activism. Today we’re celebrating 7 artists who have stood up and spoken out for LGBTQ+ rights. Zanele Muholi, David Hockney, Keith Haring, Catherine Opie, Gilbert & George, Annie Leibovitz, and Robert Mapplethorpe have each used their medium of choice to speak out against social injustice, break down barriers, subvert gender norms, or draw attention to, normalize and celebrate queer identities and relationships. To celebrate Pride month, here we take a look at some of their most iconic works of art.

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  • From Movies to Space: José Fernández's Work
    Design

    From Movies to Space: José Fernández's Work

    Learn about the work of the artist who made it in Hollywood and then designed the SpaceX astronaut suit José Fernández is a Mexican-American designer who began working in Hollywood in the 1980s. His first costume design was for the movie Gremlins and, since then, he has been involved in the design of concepts, costumes, and accessories for major film studios and musicians. According to Fernández, when he was first invited to design the suit for SpaceX, he thought it was for a movie. He did not know that he was about to take his work from the big screen to space. Get to know some of the work this artist as well as his creative shop, Ironhead Studio, have done in recent years: Collaboration with Daft Punk In the 2010s, for Daft Punk's return to the stage as well as the band's involvement in the movie Tron Legacy, José's studio took over the design of the helmets for the famous French duo.

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  • 11 Amazing Documentaries on Creativity
    Film & Video

    11 Amazing Documentaries on Creativity

    We asked the Domestika community to name their favorite inspiring documentaries that focus on creatives This documentaries about artists don’t just document history, they can change what comes next. They touch our hearts, raise awareness, and promote change. They remind us of forgotten struggles. They teach us about lives we’ve never lived. They entertain us, inspire us, and make us think. They move us. We’re talking about documentaries, a genre of cinema as varied as human nature itself. We asked the Domestika community to name their favorites, and these are the titles that received the most votes. Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingstone, 1990) Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, this documentary chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved. These groups of artists started their own balls as a form of protest in response to being excluded from those hosted by white, upper-class communities.

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  • You Now Have 2.8 Million Free Images to Use on Your Projects
    Art

    You Now Have 2.8 Million Free Images to Use on Your Projects

    The Smithsonian Institution releases millions of high-resolution images from across its collections into the public domain The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum and research complex, a must-see attraction in Washington D.C. that documents the history and heritage of the United States while also highlighting the world's natural and cultural diversity. The collection held in its vault is, by all accounts, staggering. It is estimated to have nearly 155 million pieces altogether, including more than 146 million artifacts and specimens at the National Museum of Natural History. The Institution has started digitizing its entire catalog, a process that will take years to complete. Less than 25% of it has been digitized thus far! The site offers high-resolution 2D images and 3D models, as well as research datasets and collections metadata. The Smithsonian's 19 museums, research centers, libraries, and even the National Zoo have contributed. The database includes content across the arts, sciences, history, culture, and design, from portraits of American historical figures to 3D scans of dinosaur skeletons.

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  • Four Initiatives to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing
    Art

    Four Initiatives to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

    If you’re experiencing creator’s block during quarantine, here are four initiatives to get your juices flowing Most creatives would agree that the best source of inspiration is to go out into the world and make observations, so what happens when you are stuck staring at the same four walls every day? If you’re experiencing creator’s block during lockdown, know that you are not alone. It’s OK to not be at the top of your game right now. This is a challenging time. So, first things first: give yourself a break. Being housebound will affect everyone in different ways–perhaps you are dealing with increased anxiety, feeling lethargic, and/or struggling to concentrate on work. You don’t have to be productive right now. But if you are itching to create and are not sure where to start, look to the creative community for support and inspiration. Right now, lots of brands and organizations are reaching out to their followers and the wider creative community to unite artists and inspire them to get started on different creative projects by setting fun tasks and launching competitions. So if you’re stuck for ideas, here are four initiatives that are sure to get your creative juices flowing.

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  • Learn with the Domestika Live series while you #StayAtHome
    Teacher Domestika

    Learn with the Domestika Live series while you #StayAtHome

    Get to know the creatives that will share their expertise on Domestika Live We invite you to watch our Facebook Live series, Domestika Live, where creatives from different backgrounds will share their secrets and answer your questions. Keep learning while you discover more about Domestika teachers and other members of the creative community. You can watch the talks here. All past episodes are available here. Come and join us!

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  • Meet the Creatives Launching Domestika Courses Over March
    Teacher Domestika

    Meet the Creatives Launching Domestika Courses Over March

    Discover all the new material dropping this month so that you don’t miss out Meet the creatives who are launching courses this month on Domestika. This month, newcomers to the community, as well as members who you probably already know, present courses across a range of creative disciplines. Get to know them all as you prepare for a month packed with creativity. Design Create your identity as a designer with Sagi Haviv Sagi Haviv is a designer and partner at Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv–the legendary studio that handles design for brands such as Mobil, PBS, NBC, Showtime, and National Geographic. In this course, Sagi will show you how to add personality to graphic design and make the most of your creativity in every one of your projects.

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  • Domestika Talks: Marta Cerdà
    Design

    Domestika Talks: Marta Cerdà

    Discover what inspires Marta Cerdà, an eclectic creative who struggles to identify herself The graphic designer fascinated the public with her career and reflections on Copa Domestika Colombia, which took place in Bogotá on September 28th. Cerdà is able to flip many of the most common conceptions of the worlds of design, typography, and illustration on their head. She proposes new interpretations that you can discover in the video below:

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  • 10 Skills to Boost Your Visual Portfolio
    Design

    10 Skills to Boost Your Visual Portfolio

    These tips will help your work stand out so you can focus on creating it We all know that thinking up and making a good piece of visual work is just one part of the process. Once the work starts to fill up our portfolio, we have to work out how to make our pieces shine. There’s no simple way to make sure that happens but we’ve come across a few methods that could give your portfolio that something extra. 1. Make a good portfolio It sounds obvious but it’s the truth. If you want your work to triumph, you’ve got to pick the best projects and present them attractively. This is your calling card for future clients and you should always have it updated with the best work you’ve done to date. This Domestika course by Sandra López and Ángel Domingo, from the agency Pencil (@pencil) is full of tips and tricks for illustrators to create their portfolio professional: Keys for Creating a Professional Illustration Portfolio.

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  • 5 Amazing Sites With Quality Stock Images
    Photography

    5 Amazing Sites With Quality Stock Images

    Mercedes Valgañón shares her favorite websites for downloading free stock images Pinterest is one of the best social media platforms for visual content. If you want to use it to boost sales–using the tools offered to those with Pinterest business accounts–you will need to find strong images that stand out from the sea of visual content and attract potential customers. To help you find the best photographs (that are also free!) for your art and design projects, graphic designer, illustrator, and community manager Mercedes Valgañón (@heymercedes)–who is also an expert in promoting brands and boosting sales using Pinterest–shares a list of her favorite websites offering free stock images. 1. Unsplash Founded in 2013 as a small Tumblr blog, Unsplash is a website offering free image downloads, which has also become one of the most important visual communities in its industry. A source of inspiration for thousands of designers and artists from around the world, it allows you to download high-quality stock images for free in exchange for crediting the author when you use them.

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  • 7 Habits of Effective Artists
    Art

    7 Habits of Effective Artists

    What separates successful artists from their fans? 3D artist and animator, Andrew Price, gives you some advice to improve your artistic development. In 2015, creator Andrew Pierce made a bet with his younger cousin: whoever managed to get 1000 likes for their painting work and 2D drawing would win $1000. Six months later, Andrew had done it. His bet inspired his Blender Conference 2016 talk, The Habits of Effective Artists. In it, he shares how to be a more effective artist, the habits and practices of the best artists in computer graphics and tricks and advice on how to improve your own work.

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