Check out the unique way I was promoting Ian Ransley Graphic Design 20 years ago. At about the same time I decided to silkscreen my resume on t-shirts and send them out to Bay Area design firms. It did get some attention. You can check out what I have been doing lately at www.berkeleygraphicdesign.com.

You can also browse some of my other poster designs following this link to the print section of my portfolio website.

I have been designing stadium graphics for over a decade now. I have 5 Super Bowls under my belt, several NHL Winter Classics and Stadium Series games played in Yankee Stadium and Soldier Field. I have also designed for the Cal Bears, USC, San Diego State, University of Miami & Syracuse University to name a few college teams. I have designed for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Broncos. I have designed the photo collage in the Dallas Cowboys locker room. I have designed the graphics for the BCS National Championship game and the Fiesta Bowl.
I have also traveled to England and designed the graphics at Walker Stadium for the Leicester City Foxes which was a great honor having dual-citizenship in Britain and the U.S. These are just a few of the major stadium and event graphics I have designed. Please check out just a few of the more recent projects and let me know if you have any questions. Here is the link to a few photos of some of the projects I have designed. Please email me with any questions.

Sharable content will put you on the fast track to acquiring new Likes but do Likes translate to payable design projects? Personally I try to promote myself un many ways online. I have a personal Facebook page and a professional Facebook page called Ian Ransley Design and Illustration. Please join it. I use it to promote my work but I also us it while I am designing or to throw up several concepts to get feedback from followers. My theory is your friends are one of the best ways to get the word out you are trying to find freelance design work.
Facebook is an ever-evolving social network which offers businesses many options to market their services. But are the main users of Facebook females between the ages of 18 to 24? Is that really the audience I want? And are most people accessing Facebook from their phones? I think Facebook is still a confusing marketing platform for businesses. Like anything ensure your audience doesn't bore of your brand due to repetition. Refresh or continue to add new content as often as possible so you stay visible and more importantly, the content is interesting. I like the platform because as a graphic designer, I get critical feedback in a safe environment. What do you think about marketing on Facebook as a freelance designer?

I am an all round graphic designer, art director and illustrator. I design logos, web sites, power point decks. You name it, I've designed it but my full-time gig for many years has been designing for Flying Colors which is now Moss Sports. This Company began the industry of "branding an event". There is a 30 year legacy of international events Moss Sports has designed. In the past decade I have designed a good many of them. I am proud of the work this team has accomplished. Here is a quick perspective a just a few of the highlights:

FLYING COLORS PAST PROJECT VIDEO

Check out the video I created of the year-long process of designing for Super Bowl XLIV in South Florida a few years back. Here is the youtube link; FLYING COLORS: THE DESIGN ROAD TO THE SUPER BOWL. Enjoy!

Zachary's Chicago Pizza began in the 1980's in Oakland, CA. Funny enough, my first job after getting a degree in Design from UC Davis was working for a screen-printer who printed Zachary's Pizza t-shirts so I had a shirt before I ever had a Zachary's slice.
Zachary's has a poster contest every other years. They have been doing it for year's so each restaurant is covered in framed 36"x48' posters designed by all ages of Zachary's loving customers. I entered the first year when my older son was 7-years old. I only entered one poster that year and won 100 bucks of pizza. My son was thrilled every time we went to Zachary's to see "our" poster hanging on the wall. In 2009, I entered 3 posters. All 3 posters won, In 2011, I entered 4 posters and all 4 posters won and in 2013 again, I won 4 times. It's 2014 and I have designed 5 posters for the 2015 contest. It's not an obsession but a great way for me to put out my creative ideas in a forum I love to work in. I've used friends, my sons and even my mother as models for the posters. I don't do it for the prize or the "fame". I'm apparently not even the person who has won the most times! There is someone crazier than I am! The Berkeleyside, online-local newspaper even did an article on me.
Zachary's seems to love the posters I've designed so much they hired me to do their anniversary logo and few ads. When you go to a Zachary's check out all the great art on their walls!

Color; I love it but it can be a huge headache. On large-scale events such as the NFL Super Bowl getting the color is critical. In such a large event we are working with multiple print vendors and substrates. We may be printing the Super Bowl logo on vinyl, adhesives, and multiple fabrics for both interiors and exteriors. I would set up one standard color tests with numerous Pantone color squares with many of the colors of the event on them. I would sent out the same test to each print vendor asking them to print on the various substrates we are using for that particular event. Once I got the color test back, some of them can be a 5 feet wide by 20 feet long. I will pick the PMS colors that print closest to the color I'm trying to hit. I will plug in that color into my graphic files. That color may vary per print vendor and substrate but will visually print the same. It can be quite complicated at times. The printing industry has come along way but using digital printing, silkscreen, dye sublimation, etc., it can become a nightmare.
Quite a few years ago I designed the Chicago Bears field wall at Soldier Field. The print vendor, for some reason could not hit the Bears' official blue. It printed almost a purple. Of course the team rejected the entire stadium field wall. The printer had to eat the entire job and print it over again.
Another example was when we designed the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl in 2010. It was a complete re-brand. Tostitos had designed a new package for their tortilla chips and they wanted us to translate that to the stadium graphics for the National Championship Game in Phoenix. The packaging was mainly a navy blue but for the printer to print that dark blue on fabric I had to create graphic files with a baby blue in them. My files looked so "off", it was very nerve-racking.
When designing web graphics and web sites, color mistakes are forgiving. The designer can quickly upload revised files. Printing large-scale graphics need to be checked and checked again before going to production. The costs involved in printing, shipping, and most of all, installation can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
I try to use PMS colors in my files. Printing a PMS color as a spot color versus a PMS color converted to CYMK can print dramatically different. Of course using RGB color in files will not print as seen on your computer screen since all the printing machines still using a CMYK process toy create the spectrum of colors. I have to be careful of the blacks in my files as well. A black created as C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100 versus a black created with C=100 M=100 Y=100 K=100 prints much more like a true black.
Printing on vinyl mesh versus a 13 oz vinyl can create different colors as well. Because vinyl mesh as holes in it so air can pass through makes colors lighter. Less surface area to print on creates this. I usually go one shade darker as a rule to compensate for this.
I'm always creating graphics and effects in Photoshop and laying them over my Illustrator files. Using the same color in both programs sometimes does not get the same color value when printed because one is a vector and one is a raster (bitmap).
If I know I will be printing revised graphics for the same project in a year or two I will ask the printer to take note of the printer settings so when they go to print we get the same color results. It's amazing but even the temperature of the print shop at the time of printing can effect the color. I also make field wall panels no longer than 50 feet long because the color levels on the inkjet machine can also effect color and saturation.

As a professional designer, should you enter design contests? It's always good to get your work out there in front of any audience but do you get more work from a winning a entry? From my experience the answer is, no. Last year I entered a design contest by the people who run the Oakland Running Festival. They said it was a contest but there was no real prize except to have my design printed on 6,000 give-away t-shirts. To make a long story short, I won. I "won" 6 shirts from the previous year's race and 4 shirts with my own design on it. 3 of the shirts were woman's shirts that I had to give away. I felt very used by the Company. The only thing that came out of it is when I see a runner wearing my design I say, "ya know I did that?" I thought maybe I can work this to my advantage buy designing a new design and sending it to the Oakland Running Festival people and tell them they can use it for a few dollars. I sent the design to them and they told me they don't want to pay for design. I was flooored. I said to them, but you pay a screen-printer thousands of dollars to print the shirts. They ignored me after that.
A lot of design contests use designers so they can get free design. It costs a lot less to run a little contest then pay a real designer to do something amazing. My friends are always sending me links to design contests and I'm always apprehensive to spend the creative energy to enter them. The prize never equates to the time and energy it takes to do the design.
Granted there are some design contests that are worth entering and you have to ask yourself a few questions before entering. Do you wan to improve your resume, impress potential employers, and get your name in front of the biggest firms and most important people in the design community? Then you need to consider entering some graphic design contests and competitions.Graphic design contests abound, ranging from poster design to logos, animation, multi-media, and more. Instead of randomly entering all of them, focus your energy and attention on the fields where you know you excel.
Some contests can have outrageous entrance fees, and if that’s the case you need to reevaluate question #1 with the cost in mind. It may be worth it to pay the fee and enter, but it could also be a waste of your time and money.
What do you think?

Design is a huge part of my life. It's a passion, a hobby and my profession. I have never stepped into the uncertain world of being a full-time freelance designer because not knowing when and where the next gig is going to come frankly scares the sh*t out of me. I have freelanced on-the-side for many years but it's never been a steady flow of projects. It never fails that projects all come at the same time and then I have a dry spell for a month or two. I do wonder if potential clients see I am a fully-employed designer and think I don't have time to spend on their projects. These new "bidding" websites are a disaster for the designer as well. There are people bidding on projects with fees as low as $5 an hour. That may be a livable wage in some countries but not here in the Bay Area.
I ask, what is the best way to put yourself out there if you are trying to pick-up freelance work? I promote myself as much as I can through Linkedin, Flikr, Behance, blogging and even buying several urls (www.bayareagraphicart.com & www.berkeleygraphicdesign.com). It's a never ending struggle to market myself. One thing that wasn't taught in design school was how to be your own business person and marketing yourself. That is a huge part of being a designer today. So, until I can figure out how to get 2 or 3 steady clients doing freelance design, I will continue to work for a large company picking up a steady paycheck. I do have to admit, I think freelance work would be a very lonely existence. I do love the team atmosphere working on large projects brings with it. I'm letting the world know - I'm looking for some freelance design gigs!!