Much loved the world over, Ed Emberley has been inspiring illustrators, young and old, since the 1970s. Either with crayon and a coloring book, or a more formal artistic approach, his incredible influence is clear.

Traditional publishing methods might be going the way of the dodo (I really wish I could say junk mail or phone books by now) but since this gives way to a drastic increase in the number of creative projects finding there way into the screens, ears and hands of more and more people I wouldn't say that this is a bad thing at all. Sure, we might have to sort through a few bad apples to get to the juicy materials we crave, but i'll choose to sort through my own apples over a bunch of people who don't necessarily share my tastes any day.

With that digested, here are 5 colorful indie magazines (mags) that, with long list of others, have chosen the creative publishing route with MagCloud, one of the many developing platforms for just that. And below that you will find a few sites to help you publish your next project whether it's a magazine, photo book, craft, or music.

wlwl

We Like We Love is a magazine about sharing the things you like & love.

Art

"Perfectly Flawed" New Work by Stina Persson

Exhibition @ Hanahou | Porfolio

September 9 – October 1, 2010
Opening reception September 9, 7-9 pm
RSVP info@galleryhanahou.com

In her new solo show “Perfectly Flawed,” Stockholm artist Stina Persson abandons her digital safety net to create unaltered works that are beautifully imperfect – or imperfectly beautiful – as a response to the increasingly flawless images with which we surround ourselves.

Over the course of 10+ years working as a commercial illustrator, Stina has found herself conforming to trends of narrowing hips and ever-smoother skin by digitally altering her original watercolors, often without prompting from a client: edges have gradually become cleaner, features more defined, and the painterly more photographic.

Fully conscious of going down this “slippery slope of adjusting, fixing, and retouching,”  Stina is ready to see the handmade, crooked, and flawed gain appeal, an aesthetic inspired by the 1970s, when social and environmental issues didn’t take a back seat to Botox in the public consciousness. For her newest work, the artist asked herself what would happen if she didn’t scan, didn’t retouch, and didn’t work digitally at all. The result of that question is a series of more than 30 new works on paper, watercolor pieces of women with running paint, unconventional color choices, and skewed perspective – imperfections that are natural, unsettling, and beautiful.

Hand Lettering by Daren Booth

Porfolio

Darren uses his collage pieces to determine the color palette for his work.

Video

True Colors

"Four month exhausting hard work in an abonded area, no sun just artificial light. The final result, a stop motion movie with no digital effects at all, everything is handmade. About 5000 pictures are processed with an average by 15 pictures per second. The music is by Pretty Lights from Denver, Colorado, thanks Derek!" - YouTube

Via our friend in common, PureForm.

Design

Work of Schmitz und Wiesner

Porfolio

Header Image Inspiration

Photo by BNF.

For this week's edition of What's Crafty on Etsy, I thought it would be fun to explore further into the depths of fashion and see what people are creating that's fun to wear. Whether for you, your husband, your mom or even your dog, there are tons of crafters that are focused on helping you to look snazzy. Maybe to start, you'd like to add some small details that will make people turn their heads?

You know a new pair of earrings can go a long way. For some women, they prefer large, dangly things, but some of you I'm sure prefer to accent with small details. For you, something like these burgandy pear studs might be just the thing. With a bit of a vintage look, you could easily pair these with a colorful dress, a tank top or even a t-shirt and jeans and still get people wondering where you got them. Seller Fiesty Kitty has tons more where this came from too, and all of it echoes of a time long gone -- think teardrop earrings, cameos, and lots of color. Hey, we like color around here, you know.

This summer has been a rough one as far as heat and humidity go. Not something that is very pleasant, which is why I am so ready for fall, and the amazing colors associated with this time of year. Deep oranges are some of the fall colors that seem to always pop up in my head when I think of the season, and there are so many great decor choices this hue to help bring in that great crisp welcoming feeling into your home. What are your thoughts on deep orange?

light | wall hook | bowls | glass | pillow | vase set

room 1 & 2

Here at COLOURlovers, it's easy to be spoiled by the millions of colors we have available at our fingertips. We can create colors, palettes and patterns to fit our every mood, meet every whim--you know where I'm going with this.

A well-stocked closet can further that creativity in everyday life. When you have bold colors and prints at the ready you can layer them up, mixing patterns, piling hues or opting for a single bright piece against a monochromatic look. But the basics aren't to be discounted in any scenario; a white shirt, black pants, a little black dress, a good brown belt, well-fitting denim and a pair of trim chinos are staples that form the foundation--and in some cases, the entirety--of any good wardrobe.

But members here probably already know that, which explains why COLOURlovers' top colors are all strong, solid basics. Putting them into play here are members of Flickr's wardrobe_remix street fashion community.

"Black"

ninjascience's classic black is CL's most-loved and most-followed color. It's a crisp essential the fashion world loves, too, and the reasons are many: It's stark and striking at the same time, it creates a strong line, it's a clean backdrop for accessories and detail, and, you know, it's slimming.

Collective funding, crowd funding, community funding,... whatever you want to call it it's great, and these micro-financing sites are allowing people to find support for the smallest of projects related to their businesses and dreams.

The idea is simple: communicate your idea and set it free allowing it travel through the cloud collecting support along its way. Creative projects deserve creative funding, and what better way then to tap into the creative community at large for support. Not only do supporters get to see projects come alive they become a part of the project, without their support it would never happen. Supporting and seeing all these great projects takeoff can be just the bit of inspiration you might need to get your project off the ground too.

Having experienced working on a project (Designing Obama) from 'KickStart' to finish I can say that while the ultimate goal of course is to raise the money you need, connecting with people who are as excited about something as you are, and seeing a community form around a single project is the ultimate aspect of the support that can be found on these sites. In my mind, raising one million dollars from one person is one thing but having one million different people give one dollar each is quite another.

Creative Funding Sites

Fun thing! Courtesy of our bff The Internet, where nothing is lost, I just discovered that there are entire blogs dedicated to archiving vintage album art. Project Thirty Three, Groove is in the Art, and Stereo Sack are three such sites run by Seattle used vinyl shop, Jive Time Records. Everything from jazz to classical to psychedelic abound with a rainbow of colors and cheeky typography, all of which I am filing away as design inspiration fodder.

It's just amazing how well these have aged, design-wise.

Effective marketing these days is more about teaching than selling. Every seasoned teacher will tell you that people learn and consume

information in different ways. Even within a narrowly defined, ideal target market there exists many different personalities and just as many different learning styles.

The problem this presents to the marketing folks is that you can no longer strive to create the brochure or web page, with stunning images and evocative stories, and hope to appeal to someone who is a “just the facts ma’am” kind of person.

The web has raised the bar and when a prospect goes out there online they expect to find lots of information, in a variety of formats, packaged for the way they want to consume it. Your marketing materials must come in many different flavors and offer something for every buying style.

I’ve always promoted something I call a marketing kit approach. This can pertain to online of offline materials because it’s as much about what the information is as how it’s presented. The idea behind the kit approach is that you create various forms of content to appeal to different needs.

There are a number of personality profile tools that validate the learning style theory and if you could just have each of your prospects and customers complete one of those for you life would be great.

You may never have that luxury, but you can learn from what these personality instruments teach about how to interact with different learning styles.

One of the more popular tools is called the DISC profile. You may have seen or taken the DISC profile. DISC is the four quadrant behavioral model based on the work of William Moulton Marston Ph.D. to examine the behavior of individuals in their environment or within a specific situation. DISC looks at behavioral styles and behavioral preferences.

DISC is an acronym for:

• Dominance – relating to control, power and assertiveness
• Influence – relating to social situations and communication
• Steadiness (submission in Marston’s time)- relating to patience, persistence, and thoughtfulness
• Conscientiousness (or caution, compliance in Marston’s time) – relating to structure and organization

My take on this when it comes to marketing materials is that different behavioral styles need different marketing messages and forms of communication and content.

In our marketing kit example a

• D – needs the facts, the quick rationalization of benefit that a case statement might make, case studies too
• I – loves a good story, relates to more classic marketing messages of difference, loves images
• S – likes volume of content, frequency and consistency of content and message, full feature dumps, white papers
• C – responds to FAQs, testimonials, case studies – proof, checklists

Also consider that nobody is strictly a high D or high I, we’re all made up of mixtures.

Create lots of marketing content, package it in different formats (including audio and video) and offer it up for all to consume, knowing that how it’s consumed will differ from prospect to prospect.

I love cool, creative outdoor spaces. Today I happened uppon an article at somewhatsimple.com on making a non-weighted, no-fly-away  tablecloth for an outdoor table. That's not the only good point about it; it's also plastic (but tasteful) so it's weather wearable, will protect metal or wood and definitely washable for easy cleanup.

So here it is! The No-Fly-Away Shower Curtain Tablecloth from blogger, This Present Life.

I really enjoyed reading how this cute number was born - pure spontaneity. Initially, she bought the table at Target for $34, but you could use anything you have, yard sale or  craigslist, etc. Anything that will fit under a shower curtain! Yes, that's what I said, this is made of a shower curtain!