Just Creative Design

20,000+ Subscribers - Comment To Win!

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A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
~ Lao Tzu

20,000 subscribers… it’s just another milestone but that’s no reason to let it go unnoticed. With help from a few generous sponsors, Just Creative Design is holding a small competition to celebrate & thank you for being part of the journey.

Thus far, there has been just under 300 articles and over 10,700 comments left on Just Creative Design so once again, I thank you for your support.

What Can You Win?

• 2x PSD to XHTML Conversions from Snobby Slice. ($299 each)

Winners: Alexander Koolen, Kevin Gamble

• Motion +61 DVD from Heavy Backpack. ($39)
  A DVD collection of work from some of today’s leading creative talent in broadcast, motion graphics, animation, film and effects; all working in the Australian industry.

Winner: Andrew Odri

• $150 to spend at RSRVS.com. ($150)
  Your to download any choice of typefaces, stock and images.

Winner: Steven

• 500 Free Business Cards from our affiliate UPrinting. Shipping not included. USA only. ($30)
• Get 10% off printing by using the affiliate link.

Winner: Snowpato

2x One Year Shared & Reseller (RS2) Hosting Plans from RockStar Communications. Plan details here. ($120 each)

Winners: BebopDesigner, Frank

To Win

To win one of the prizes, simply leave a comment telling us what articles you like / dislike most on JCD and / or what you think could be improved.

All winners will be drawn at random and announced in this post on the 19th of September.

Update: 19th September

As I haven’t had a chance to go through all of the comments (very overwhelmed by the response) I will announce the winners on the 20th or 21st. Feel free to enter until then.

Update: 21st September - Competition Closed

Congratulations to the winners! Please find the winners names under each prize. Thank you everyone for your kind comments & suggestions!

Thanks again and good luck.

Donate & Win A Free Logo

Since the 7th of February 2009, more than 200 people have lost their lives and close to 2000 homes have been lost due to ferocious bushfires here in Australia. This is one of the worst natural disasters in Australian history.

I am trying to do my part for something that I feel very close about (we nearly lost our home in 1994 due to bush fires) and I thought I could do this by running a small competition here on Just Creative Design.

I am giving away a free logo design to one lucky winner who enters the competition. Entry into the competition will consist of a $10+ donation to the Australian Red Cross.

For those who do not want / need a logo, please leave a comment on this post and I will personally donate $0.50 per comment that is left over a 1 week period.

Or if you just want to donate, please donate directly to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal however if you are wishing to enter the logo competition please read on as you will have to make payment to my PayPal account so I can track the entries. I have previously raised USD$1620 through this blog so your donation will be in safe hands - 100% of all proceeds will go to the Red Cross.

To enter the free logo design competition, please make a $10+ donation by clicking the donate button below. Leave a comment or email me telling me why you need / deserve the logo. On March 16th I will announce the winner.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Update: Thank you everyone who donated, the victims of this disaster will be extremely grateful!  The winner of the free logo design was Adrian Belfast, who I have emailed. I also upped the original 50cents to 1 dollar for my part - thank you once again!

Below you will find a tribute video to the those affected by the Victorian Bushfires and below that, some images of the bush fires, courtesy of The Big Picture.

A fire truck moves away from out of control flames from a bushfire in the Bunyip Sate Forest near the township of Tonimbuk, 125 kilometers (78 miles) west of Melbourne, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009. Walls of flame roared across southeastern Australia, razing scores of homes, forests and farmland in the sunburned country’s worst wildfire disaster in a quarter century. (AP Photo)

Flames and smoke rise from a bushfire in the Bunyip Sate Forest west of Melbourne, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009. (AP Photo)

A Country Fire Authority (CFA) Sector Commander looks up at a giant fire raging in the Bunyip State Park near Labertouche, Australia, on February 7, 2009. More than 40 blazes raged across two states as a once-in-a-century heatwave pushed the mercury as high as 46 degrees Celsius (115 Fahrenheit) with fire bans in place across much of the south-east. (WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images).

A general view of the devastation from the Peats Ridge Valley bushfire on February 9, 2009 in Peats Ridge, Australia. (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

Small acreage is burned out in Kinglake, northeast of Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

Craig Kidd looks at the melted metal of alloy wheels from his burnt out vehicles after a bushfire swept through his property on February 9, 2009 in Bendigo, 160 km from Melbourne, Australia. (Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

The burnt remains of a house are left standing in the aftermath of a bushfire on February 3, 2009 in Boolarra, approximately 200 kms southeast of Melbourne, Australia. (Luis Ascui/Getty Images)

The remains of properties destroyed by bushfires are seen in the town of Kinglake, 55km (34 miles) northeast of Melbourne February 8, 2009. (REUTERS/Mick Tsikas)

Family members react after learning that their parents Bill and Faye Walker and disabled brother Geoffrey were killed in wildfires in Marysville, north of Melbourne, Monday, Feb. 9, 2009. (AP Photo)

A fire truck moves away from out of control flames from a bushfire in the Bunyip Sate Forest near the township of Tonimbuk, 125 kilometers (78 miles) west of Melbourne, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009. (AP Photo) #

For more information please visit the Australian Red Cross Victorian Bushfire 2009 Appeal.

Logo Designer Blog Give Away Winners Announced

A big thank you to all the sponsors and those who have been promoting the new Logo Designer Blog. Here are the winners of the prizes from the competition. Congratulations!

I’ve contacted the winners & sponsors via email.

Winner: Josiah Jost
Prize: USD$50 credit at Think Geek, courtesy of the kind OfficeHax AND an awesome piece of artwork (11?x14?) done by the talented Darlene Lee, be sure to check out her work! Very inspiring! Darlene is also on LinkedIn.

Winner: Fabian
Prize: 1000 business cards courtesy of the kind Jeremey Duboys from AllBusinessCards, a quality online print shop!

Winner: Brandon Meier
Prize: Any tshirt from DesignByHumans*.

Winner: Bev&Catey
Prize: One free month advertising (125×125) on Logo Designer Blog.

Winner: Christhian Bedon
Prize: A caricature drawing of your wishing, courtesy of Ben Capozzi who is a very talented political cartoonist!

Winner: Francois
Prize: A CMYK clay pack from the kind Michel of BlackEye.

Thanks again everyone! Stay tuned for a great typography post coming up later tonight.

Win Prizes + Logo Designer Blog Follow Up

Just incase you didn’t already know, there are still heaps of prizes up for grabs and it’s very easy to enter, plus not many have entered so you have a very high chance of winning. Ensure you check out the post linked above before it’s too late!

On another note, I would like thank everyone who has the promoted the new Logo Designer Blog site, we have already had over 10,000 visits, 22,000 page views and 460+ subscribers in just 6 days.

Here are some articles that got quite a bit of attention:

• 5 Recent Rebrands That Caused The Most Upset by Chris Spooner
• Logo Designs After The Recession
• Discover The Dot Grid Book for Logo Designers

Anyway, why don’t you subscribe to Logo Designer Blog?

Logo Designer Blog Launchs + (Win Prizes!)

Well only 3 months after launching Logo Of The Day, I now have another surprise for you… a new blog totally dedicated to logo & identity design. I introduce you to Logo Designer Blog! This blog is for logo design discussion, inspiration, tips and resources (and then some) which will be provided by myself and the many contributors to the site (we’ve already had 11 articles submitted). Please feel free to submit an article to the site.

On another note, you may have noticed the familiar pink, white and grey colour scheme? I have kept with these colours to cross brand all three of my sites (Just Creative Design, Logo Of The Day & now Logo Designer Blog). You may have also noticed the dot as the logo, quite similar to the Logo Of The Day logo. In short, I have gone with this simple approach because the circle is a very common design element found in many logos which in turn, reflects the blog quite well. It was quite a challenge though… how would you design a logo for a logo design blog?

So what type of articles can you expect on Logo Designer Blog? Here are a few already on offer:

• The Dot Grid Book For Logo Designers
• How To Use Colour In Logo Design To Effectively Communicate The Right Message
• My Favourite 17 Logos From The Past 3 Years Of Wolda
• Logo Designs After The Recession
• 3 Ways To Successfully Design Your FavIcon
• Lindon Leader (The Man Behind The FedEx Logo)
• Top 10 Logo Design Inspiration Galleries
• + lots more to come!

I would also like to thank those who have already submitted articles (which are or will be appearing soon); Alex Charchar (RetinArt), Anthony Zinni (Positive Space), Chad Mueller (Inspiredology), Chris Spooner (Spoon Graphics), Graham Smith (ImJustCreative), Lauren Marie (Creative Curio), Liam McKay (WeFunction) & Selene Bowlby (iDesign Studios).

Please do feel free to submit an article yourself.

Promote the new site & win!

To entice you to promote the site, there are a few prizes on offer! Each task you do will get you one entry into each prize draw (ie. 6 prizes = 6 draws). You don’t have to do all tasks but the more you do, the more chance you have of winning a prize! Winners will be announced in a new post next week.

Task 1 - Win $50 & Art

Write a blog post about the new site (preferably) or mention the new site launch in a blog post. Ensure you leave a trackback so I can track your post.
Win: USD$50 credit at Think Geek, courtesy of the kind OfficeHax AND an awesome piece of artwork (11″x14″) done by the talented Darlene Lee, be sure to check out her work! Very inspiring! Darlene is also on LinkedIn.

Task 2 - Win 1000 Business Cards

Leave two comments on the new site, on two different articles.
Win: 1000 business cards courtesy of the kind Jeremey Duboys from AllBusinessCards, a quality online print shop!

Task 3 - Win a Designer T-Shirt

Add a logo to the Logo Designer Blog Flickr pool.
Win: Any shirt from DesignByHumans. Postage not included.

Task 4 - Win $60 worth of Advertising

Stumble Review The Site
Win: One free month advertising (125×125) on the new blog.

Task 5 - Win a Caricature Drawing

Twitter about the new blog - Ensure you put ‘#LDB’ in the twitter message so I can track it. (without the quotes, but with the hash)
Win: A caricature drawing of your wishing, courtesy of Ben Capozzi who is a very talented political cartoonist!

Task 6 - Win a CMYK Clay Pack

Suggest an article that you would like to see on Logo Designer Blog - leave the comment on this page.
Win: A CMYK clay pack from the kind Michel of BlackEye. Looks like fun!

Also any feedback, advice, suggestions or ideas for the site would be appreciated. Thank you and good luck!

How To Get Sponsors For Giveaways & Competitions

A lot of people have been asking how I managed to get $11,000 worth of prizes in my latest competition so I thought I would share with you how I managed to do so… I present to you how to get sponsors for giveaways & competitions.

There are 3 ways that work best (in order):

1. Direct Email Likely Sponsors
2. Call For Sponsorship On Your Blog
3. Use Your Other Social Networks

1. Direct Email Likely Sponsors

This is by far the best way to get sponsorship, especially for the larger prizes. Below I will guide you through how I wrote one of my emails to Threadless when asking for sponsorship.

Example:

(1) Gday Bob,

(2) This is Jacob Cass here from Just Creative Design, I hope this email finds you well. (3) I am a big fan of Threadless and the T Shirt community and (4) I was wondering if you could help me out in regards to sponsoring a shirt or two for a MASSIVE prize giveaway that I am holding on Just Creative Design for my blog’s 1st birthday.

(5) I have a loyal fan base of about 8700+ subscribers and the site sees over 20,000 page views a day so you would get some great exposure if you could kindly donate a shirt (or something else?) to the cause.

(6) I really want to give back to the community and my readers… Of course credit and links would be given back.

(7) Anyway, if you do have something to offer please get back to me.

(8) Thanks and hear from you soon.

Regards,

Jacob Cass
http://justcreativedesign.com

Reference:

1. Always address the person by name if you can find it. Look hard for it.
2. Introduce yourself.
3. Add a compliment relating to their business. Do not make it a generic email.
4. Ask for sponsorship.
5. Tell them what they will get out of it.
6. Tell them why you are doing it.
7. Don’t assume they will sponsor you.
8. Close nicely.

2. Call For Sponsorship On Your Blog

The second recommended way to get sponsorship is to write a blog post asking your readers if they will sponsor something for your competition or giveaway. Tell them what they will get in return. Make it easy for them to sponsor. You can see my original call for sponsorship below.

In a few weeks Just Creative Design is turning 1 year old and to celebrate I am holding a MASSIVE design group writing project with LOTS (I mean lots) of prizes. This is going to be huge!

Back in June I held my first group design project and I managed to gather $5000 worth of prizes (including an electric guitar) when I had less than 2000 subscribers so I wonder what can be done with 8300+ subscribers?

I am not going to tell you much more for now but if you want to sponsor you will get many links back to your website from this website and from other blogs posting about this contest - plus a warm giddy feeling that you are donating.

To Sponsor

To sponsor a prize please email me (jacobcass [AT] justcreativedesign [DOT] com) with the prize you are kindly willing to donate along with a link to your website so I can link back to your site and the value in $ of your prize. For prize ideas see what was donated last time.

Excited? I am.

3. Use Your Other Social Networks

If you have a good following in any social networks send out a request for sponsorship in that network. Everyone has their own preferred network (ie. Digg, SU, DesignFloat, Twitter) so use them to your advantage.

Personally I am quite active on Twitter and Facebook… I sent out numerous Twitter’s asking for sponsorship and then those messages then got retweeted by friends and so fourth. Follow Me On Twitter.

I also have a Just Creative Design group on Facebook of which I sent out a mass message to all of it’s members asking for sponsorship.

This mass message method doesn’t usually work as well so I would try doing the first two methods, it really does pay off.

Well there we have it, how to get sponsors for giveaways and competitions! What other tips do you have?

USD$1620 Raised For Charity + Prize Give Away Winners

First off I want to thank everyone for your donations, promotion, support and generosity - the project was a success, allowing us to raise $1620 for charity.

In total there was exactly 200 entries, 148 donations and 52 articles submitted.

So now your probably wondering who the winners are? Head over to the original post and look for the names under each prize sponsor. Please contact the prize sponsor to claim your prize unless otherwise noted. If you have any troubles at all please contact me and I will help you out. Please also let me know if you do not want the prize so I can pass it on.

Congratulations to all winners and for those who missed out, stay tuned because there are more giveaways coming up very soon.

Please have a look around the sites below and once again, thank you!

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