Back to school for me

Back to school for me lol, wow! Urban Synergy's speed mentoring last night at Coinsborough College (Catford London), young people were so focused, learned more about myself than anything.

Big thanks for invite to http://www.urbansynergy.com/ Leila Thomas, Lesley Anne Miller, always highly organised and professional.

Top panellists: Adrian Grant (http://thrillerlive.com/), Ricardo Medford, Dawn Goring (10 Downing Street) & Colin Donaldson (Ba Pilot)... Mentors:Dawn Morgan, Trevor, Dr Charlie Easmon (Harley Street Doctor) Colin, Mark and others that gave up their time.

Hope the kids and school valued the experience as much as I did.

Personal Branding... we're all public figures!

It seems despite having your social media and website there's a gap and need for a personal site. 

Customers want to know who they are dealing with, the real character, you in turn can control the image, blog about your personal interests and show your personal site.

It's a Dragons Den

James Cann of Dragons Den is a good example, personal yet professional he seamlessly plugs his business, charity and personality work. http://www.james-caan.com/

It's all Out there!

With a quick google search you can uncover all sorts... videos, pictures.

it's a tricky balance... so it's better that your personal site comes up on the first page.

Richard Branson or Virgin

Your business image is closely associated with your personal image.. can you separate Richard Branson from Virgin... despite crashing his Balloon in the Atlantic didn't seem to affect the safety image of the the airline. 

Be Honest

You can't ultimately control your online image... there's no hiding, if your honest and integral in the real world it will be reflected online. 

Plug Plug!

Drop me an email if you want to look at a personal site or blog, a simple 2-3 page site that'll look great on mobiles and will do wonders at networking seminars.

Warmest Always

Ash

Ash Kamat
Design | Branding | Interactive | Web | Animation
T. 07985 590 114
E. ash@ashk.co.uk
W. www.ashk.co.u

Recent Designs, Web & Animation

Hi guys, keeping on top my social media marketing! some screen shots of recent work. 

Even though I help others market themselves I find it hard to be objective about my own marketing.. see below text for my own flyer following the A.I.D.A principles Attention, Interest, Desire & Action.

START draft1 

Headline: Targeted message

- Run your own business or starting up?

Attention Grabber:

In these digital times, you only have a few seconds to hold your potential customers attention. 

why isn't you're phone isn't ringing as much as it should.

Keep Interest

Decisions to buy your product or work with you are made emotionally and justified by logic, ensure your visual communication gets people excited.

Facts - Mates rates

You wouldn't get your mate to design & build your kitchen?  Having the tools.. a saw and a hammer doesn't make a good carpenter! 

Desire

Your success and standards are the average of the people you always hang around with...hang around with the best. Ash :-)

Call to Action:

Some times just a small tweak in your message can get the phones ringing, I will do free brand appraisal,  message you are out sending out. (offer ends 28th Feb 2014)

Inbox, text 07985 590 114 or email ash@ashk.co.uk

END

How did I do? did I convince you.. lol... feedback welcome.

Warmest

Ash

EBN: logo Design

Lite Waves Community Project: Website Design

Coding, and Splash page Animation

Jerrard Wayne Creatives: Animated Trailer

Sandy Paris PR: Logo Design

Jackee Holder: Interactive PDF Brochure

Logo Design

Flyer and Pop Up Banner

Official Honda - An impossible made possible - Behind the Scenes

Love this! Official Honda - The impossible made possible - no CGI used in the making this commercial lol http://youtu.be/ejXgE480R1I via @youtube

Invest your time this Saturday: Be Inspired III

Invest your time this Saturday: Be Inspired III - Inspirational YOU's Leadership, Enterprise and Personal Development day. It's my personal recommendation, Join Sonia Meggie and top panelists. Check out the promo trailer produced by me for Inspirational You for the tireless work they do encouraging enterprise and personal development.

http://inspirationalyou.co.uk/events/upcoming-events/83-be-inspired-series-3-29th-june-2013-at-birkbeck-univerisity

21secs to Flow: "Think Out of the Box" animation

"Think Out of The Box" to think freely, not bound by old, nonfunctional, or limiting structures, rules, or practices.

A 3d animation with an abstract message shamelessly promoting my motion design graphics services

Who Remembers Quark Express!

All change in design world Adobe's new revenue model

I'm sure this model will trickle down to your business especially if you sell digital products (ie audio, pdfs, video training etc)

Who remembers Quark Express?... giving away my age there... Adobes photo shop cost £500 + but everyone bootlegs it (not me and you of course), so they've adopted a subscription based model for a small monthly fee you can download any or all of the Adobe products (illustrator, indesign, etc). It's incredible. 

The Cloud working in teams and revisions

It's part of Adobe whole transition to the cloud thing where files can be updated by designer or customer in cloud... no more emails back and forth getting confused as to which was the latest version... very much in transition phase but along with "Google Drive" everything is heading into the cloud! 

Free Programs for Webdesign

"Adobe Muse" great for small business or in house non designers to do micro websites sites (even full websites) with out any coding skills

"Adobe Edge" lets you do animations to your websites without flash or any programming both are free full working trials

set up a free account here: 

http://www.adobe.com/uk/downloads/

Kompozer Another Great Free Web Design Programme

Ohh also came across this free website editor program, it's excellent you make changes directly on the layout and saving then uploading (can't believe it's free).

http://kompozer.net/

Business Motivation Mark Hughes founder of Herbal Life

And Lastly you know I'm big on personal / business motivation, you'll love this 12 minute snippets from Mark Hughes founder of Herbal Life on sales mindset and good business principles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Gd4ucc70c

If you haven't already had a melt down, let me know if this was useful

Thanks again.

Ash

Coming soon future newsletters!

• Function vs Form... achieving the balance between getting your message across, making a sale and a fancy design
• Logo appraisal... what message is your logo out, what's your brand id? can people tell what you do instantly?
• Newsletter Design and Mailing (still learning it myself, I'll let you know how I get on with mine lol)

Hard lessons in Photoshop lol - flyer design

Time seems to slow down in Photoshop, the program has become a legend....Over 15 years of dabbling has come this lol, using  liberal amounts of shadows, masks and overlays. Who remember when Photoshop version 5 was the big thing, this was before the CS series...

My first cut out, (didn't even know about the Path Tool)... the lasso tool was king, if you made a mistake going round an object you had to start over lol, saved only by the feather tool lol, the end result looked like something my son would bring back from nursery.... 

Budding designers, digital artists, creatives you've heard it before, my tip is learn about composition, perspective, how light falls and texture by hand first, you don't have to be fantastic just understand it (if you want realistic or even surreal images that jump of a 2d flat surface) or if your stubborn like me do it the long way round and dive straight into photoshop.

Most of my time is spent observing real life objects, and trying to get my 2d photoshop work to draw the viewer in and make it believable... it's always a work in progress, can't wait look back on these in 10 years. Ash K

Photoshop: Before and After with UK Hip Hop Artist Poni

This is what happens when I'm procrastinating lol

Recent Designs | Flyer samples from Ash

Photoshop skillz, maximum use of pen tool, gradient strokes, glows and brushes

Club flyer design with a touch of bling, using all he big programs 3d, photoshop and illustrator to for maximum impact!

Logo reconstructed in illustrator from the orginal pixelated jpg

Relationship Seminar and Counselling flyer all done in illustrator for that clean sharp look

Recent Graphic Designs from Ash K

Steve Jobs "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

I also believe good design should not only meet the client brief, but should evoke a positive emotion in favour of the product or service

DJ RP a female dj, brief was to get the balance between retaining the unique feminine quality but also being taken seriously in a male dominated industry. Logo in illustrator and composited in with main studio picture in photoshop

Lipavenu magazine advert: As An independent the brief was to retain the existing branding from the website and previous marketing material but also lift the brand and enhance it's up accessible yet market image. Main product shot embellished entirely in illustrator

Nikk Aire: Young model entrepreneur always re-inventing herself the brief was to stand out in the social media crowd. Photo manipulation, vectorised and finished in illustrator

TSOL Radio, London's premiere radio station general e flyer promoting it's "the happiest station on the web" slogan on the Internet and social media. All done in 3d and finalised with pen tool light streaks and all in photoshop

New London Bridge passenger symbols!

Just did these as mick take inspired by the temporary boards up at London Bridge

Urban Art | Depford

How art can change your frame of mind, always inspires and makes me smile when I walk past here!

Van Livery | just words?

What a difference good copy and imaging can make

Be inspire this week 20 Examples of Innovative Technology Designs

see full article and images here:

http://inspirationfeed.com/inspiration/industrial-inspiration/20-examples-of-innovative-technology-designs/

Share Think and Act Flyer Design

30sec Trailer for Keisha Frances talented young photographer

A short sample of a 3d animation id

Good or bad image for Peckham?

Hi guys was just up the high road in Peckham earlier, the aftermath of the kids looting etc, is this a good image for Peckham?

Being Creative

Paradoxically creativity is about freedom and play yet I find structure is needed to be creative! Ash