Full Weapons of Mass Creation Festival Lineup Announcement and Merch Giveaway

For all of us here at Go Media and the Weapons of Mass Creation Festival 5 team, it is hard to believe that another year of hard work is about to pay off, yet again, in dividends. Though we have a million details to work out before the best art, design and music event in the US opens on August 15, the light at the end of the tunnel is again in sight and we know that some of the best days of our life are upon us.

We cannot wait to share another weekend of inspiration and collaboration with all of you. We look forward to seeing many familiar faces and welcoming brand new members into our WMC Fest family.

If you’re reading this and have yet to attend the Fest, we encourage you to join us.

Become a Master Typographer: 19 Expert Secrets to Creating Custom Lettering

One way a typographer can communicate a brand is through custom hand-lettering.

As Von Glitschka, Illustrative Designer of Glitschka Studios notes, “Few things can brand a product, business or service like a custom hand-lettered logotype. Illustrative lettering is the perfect balance between design sensibilities and illustration. A unique personality and identity can be imbued from illustrated letterforms that a standard typeface could never achieve.”

Just what should you consider when you’re creating the perfect custom hand-lettered logotype? Von and friends Joey Nelson from Blkboxlabs, Jason Carne, Martin Schmetzer, Albert Trulls Muntañà and Alison Rowan are here to share with us some ever important tips.

How to Create a Winning Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing is a great way to blast your brand to the millions of fans following your every move. But like anything else, there is an art to creating the perfect campaign that will not only be worth reading, but worth opening in the first place.

We asked our friend Fabio Carneiro, over at Mailchimp, to share with us some words of wisdom on this very topic. Read on for Fabio’s 7 tips to creating an email marketing campaign that matters.

Announcing the Go Media building texture collection!

Textures. You said textures? That’s textures! Hey folks, it’s Simon here. To say that I’m excited to share what I’m about to write doesn’t even begin to cover it. Heather and myself have been hard at work to release a…

Create a Rockabilly Poster With Vector Set 22 – Part II

A bit of background information Hello all! Simon, the Arsenal manager here. Today, I finally have time to release the 2nd part of the vector set 22 inspired poster tutorial Steve Knerem poster a while back. <Fair warning> the post…

Why This Will Change Your Life: An Insider’s Guide to Weapons of Mass Creation Fest

The Countdown is On With this year’s Weapons of Mass Creation Fest only 14 days away, we here at Go Media are gearing up to bring you the premier art, design and music festival in the Midwest.  An event growing in…

Create a Rockabilly Poster With Vector Set 22 – Part I

The very talented Steve Knerem is the guest artist behind a majority of the content of our vector set 22. In this tutorial, he shows us how to assemble a rad rockabilly poster using various elements of the set, a bit like what Jeff did for us when we released Set 18.

WMC Fest – 2 Night Stand

We are excited to announce that 2 Night Stand is not only expanding to multiple cities in 2013, lead by amazing creatives across the country, but also that we will be having the first, non-Chicago event in the days leading up to the WMC Fest 2013. We’ve had over 1000 people apply to our past Chicago events, for Trencherman’s Brewing Company, the Zombie Research Society & NASA. We know that amazing people will be heading to WMC Fest and this event will open a unique opportunity for amazing people (who probably already follow each other on Twitter) to design and create side-by-side.

Interview with Davin Wilfrid of Future Insights Live

Last week we posted about the incredible design conference happening in Las Vegas called Future Insights. And they have graciously offered all you lovely readers a 10% off discount code for their annual conference.

Just click here to register and enter in the code: GoMedia10

Everything You Need to Know About Dealing with Difficult Clients

Whether you are a freelancer or run your own company, we have all dealt with difficult customers. It can be an arduous undertaking to deal with the idiosyncrasies of different clients, but it is a must for any business owner or designer to properly handle difficult customer interactions. The consequence of handling a customer incorrectly will not only cost you money but will also create the possibility of bad word-of-mouth, which can affect future sales and money in your pocket.

If you don’t believe us, just check out our post about the book “Thank You Economy”. The in-depth review tells you about the importance of guiding your clients through the design process and ensuring that their needs are met from the beginning to the end. Brushing off a clients’ issue could lead to a nasty review on a social media site like Facebook or Twitter, which could in turn could deter future clients from contacting you for design services.

Go Media Podcast – Episode 5: 2012 Year in Review

This edition of the podcast is our 2012 Year in Review. A look back at our successes and failures of the year, what we’ve learned, and what we have in store for 2013.

This month’s Quick Tip is setting up Monthly Reports. It’s important to remind yourself of what you’ve accomplished, as well as where you can improve as you move forward.

Team Work

Visual artists David Hobizal and Josh Johnson explain how a film nerd and a gamer/cartoonist collaborate successfully on a wide range of projects. David Hobizal is a self-described ‘film nerd’ and Josh Johnson is a gamer and cartoon enthusiast. Both…

52 Shades of Greed

The 52 Shades of Greed Project 52 Shades of Greed is a fully illustrated deck of playing cards brought to you by 2 art directors, 28 artists, and the 99%. The 52 Shades of Greed art directing team, Marc Scheff…

WMC Fest 4 Date and Venue Announced!

Weapons of Mass Creation Fest partnering with Cleveland Public Theatre Rapidly growing midwestern art, design, and music festival remains in Cleveland’s Gordon Square neighborhood, moves to August 16-18, 2013 CLEVELAND, August 8, 2012 — On the heels of its largest-ever…

The Making of Thread’s Not Dead

It’s been about 8 months since I launched my first ebook entitled Thread’s Not Dead: The Designer’s Guide to the Apparel Industry. We’ve sold over 1,000 copies of the ebook and we recently celebrated the launch of the hardcover edition.…

Let me introduce you to 13 Spade

Hello dear Zine readers! Jon and Simon here. Today, we’re taking our editor hats off for a minute or two and putting on our independent artist hats instead. We want to tell you guys about a project of ours that…

Distressing Techniques in Adobe Illustrator

Hey designers, attend our all-inclusive soul-fulfilling three-day design retreat, WMC: Off-The-Grid, this October 5 – 7th. To learn more, head to wmcfest.com. Simon from Studio Ace of Spade here. Jeff Finley asked me to compile a list of some common distressing…

Interview: Illustrator Ray Frenden

This interview was initially published in the Go Media Forum but we decided it was relevant to all our GoMediaZine readers as well. Ray Frenden the Artist. I think it’s necessary to put this all in context with a brief…

Adobe Creative Suite 5

It’s that time of the, um 18-month release cycle again. Time for a new version of Adobe’s Creative Suite. This time up: version 5. For this initial overview, I’m just going to talk about the new stuff in Photoshop and…

Goals: Ready Aim Fire

Have you ever heard that incredibly cheesy saying: “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it.” Well, I disagree. You won’t hit “nothing”, you’ll surely hit SOMETHING. Unfortunately it will most likely be something other than what you truly want.…

Top 28 Best Motion Graphics Blogs and Resources

We’ve scoured the net and tapped every resource we could to get you THE best list of mograph blogs and resources out there. Both novice and experienced mographers will get some insight here. We’ve also posted the twitter links of the brains behind some of these sites. So check it out!

Don’t Be A Whore!

10 Tips to help designers avoid being taken advantage of. If you’re freelancing or just starting your own design company, you may be in jeopardy of being a whore. That’s right. Some seemingly sweet client may come along, wine and…

How to make a vector pattern brush

Hey everybody! I hope the last few weeks have gone well for you – whatever that may mean. I hope that you found at least a little time to soak up all the great resources and knowledge being shared around…

Write for Us!

It’s easy. The Go MediaZine is already a great place to find design tutorials and tips. Now you can add your mark as an author. What we’re looking for We’re looking for in-depth, quality tutorials and insightful articles that will…