life
Yesterday over on the new Steed facebook page I posted a question about what I should do on my new video blog. Well, with only one response it was pretty simple to decide what to do. So thank you Chris Drake for suggesting a little house tour.
In under 8 minutes you get to see me make tea, take a sneak peak at some upcoming artwork and see the sacred Steed bedroom. What's not to love?
It's hard to believe I've been at this blogging thing for two years now. So many things have changed since then. I can remember the only way of finding new people to connect with was searching through people's blogrolls. Now we have twitter. And the content I write about has had a dramatic change from my very first post about The Darjeeling Limited. These days it's geared more toward design.
Last year for my one-year blogiversary I gave away a 3-pack of Field Note Notebooks. It was a huge success. So this year I am happy to be giving away a Flip Mino HD (courtesy of the awesome guys at Firehost) with two available custom skins designed by yours truly, that one lucky winner will get to choose from.
I thought that since I've recently gotten in to video blogging (excuse my absence) this would be the perfect gift to give. And who knows, maybe it will help you break in to the video blogging scene.
Here's a preview of the two custom skins:
Enter to win a Flip Mino HD video recorder. Your chance to win will run from now to next Tuesday, October 20. The winner will be announced the day after the contest ends on here and will be sent a direct message via twitter with details on how to claim your new Flip Mino HD.
Good luck! And as always, thanks to those of you who have supported me over these past two years.
Hello and welcome to the new version of Kyle Steed on the web. This has been, at least what feels like, a long time coming. What started as simple sketches in my journal months ago has now blossomed in to a fully functional work of wonder. But I'll save the mushy design details for later. In this first part, of what I plan to be a three part series, I want to focus on how my life has affected the new look of my site.
When I first started out blogging nearly two years ago I wrote about the simple things in life, what my favorite tv show was, the new movie I just saw at the theater or maybe a new band I just started listening to. It was me testing the waters of documenting my life online and how to approach it. There wasn't really much of a focus on what I was writing about.
Compare that with more than two years later where I have narrowed my writing down to three main topics, and I feel that I've somewhat found my voice in the creative community.
Another lesson I've learned in life is that my actions speak louder than words. And I wanted to convey that somehow in my new design. Hence the new portfolio slideshow. That's one thing that always bothered me about my previous designs. I had not created a decent way of showing off what I could do. Not that I mean to boast, but if I'm not going to promote myself, then who will?
I think that old saying "content is king" is a great way to start a blog, but if you can do more than that, then I would encourage you to do so.
One of my main goals in life is to get out as much as possible and spend time with those I love. There is nothing more important than building relationship with real people. So with that in mind, I don't want to constantly sit at my computer and worry about what to write/design next. I want my blog to be able to handle my absence for a week or so and not feel like it's growing stagnant. And I think with the creation of my custom home page template I have found a good solution.
So I'm looking forward to what lies ahead in life, and my goal is to stay as transparent as possible through my writing and designs. In the second part of this series I will go over, from start to finish, the design decisions I had to work through, some good and some bad.
Don't take everything so personal. It's not about you. Listen. No seriously, really listen and maybe you'll hear what they're talking about. Then in the end you will have been the wiser to not jump to conclusions and say something you might regret.
A Huge thank you to all of you for your continued support and love through twitter and the comments you have been leaving. And now that Chat Creative is underway I feel like I get an even bigger chance to give back to this great community that I love so much.
If you haven't heard of Firehost yet, just wait, they are taking the hosting world by storm right now.
A few weeks ago I was having issues with my old hosting company, which seemed to be a regular occurrence, and while venting to a friend of mine was recommended that I try out Firehost. That same night another friend on twitter messaged me about a partnership opportunity Firehost was offering. So I filled out the form and BAM! the very next day I got an email from the CEO telling me they would love to partner with me.
Needless to say the past week has been a breeze getting my site migrated over to Firehost. Their support team is friendly, courteous and very knowledgeable about what they're doing. This opposed to my previous hosting provider who I held on this pedestal as the "Best Thing Since Sliced Servers", but ended up leaving me dumb-struck as to what all the hype was about. So please, go check them out at Firehost.com and learn about their Advance Secure Hosting services.
Going back to college has been a constant struggle for me over the past year. One day I will convince myself that it's a good idea and the next just blow it off and continue working.
Well this past weekend my wife and I were able to spend some quality time together and talk through some things, one of which was school. And now I feel confident in my decision to go back to college and finish my degree. The plan right now is to finish my core classes at a community college the next two semesters and then starting in the Fall 2010, transfer to the College of Visual Arts and Design at University of North Texas.
I know it won't be easy, and I'll probably feel like giving up more than once, but with a good support system (a.k.a. my wife) I know I will pull through. And in the end I can look back on what I accomplished and feel proud that I stuck it out.
I first met Josh in tinychat over a month ago, and then just a few weeks ago met him in person when I flew out to Southern California. Josh recently just launched his website/blog over at CagwinDesign.com where he shares his thoughts and experiences in design. Yesterday he posted up a new article called "What Makes Us Hungry" where he poses the question about what inspires us to do what we do.
I think that we as creative people, more than any others, wrestle with feelings of inadequacy and the desire to always be better. You can read more about that here. But what I really feel inspires me the most is the chance to meet (and work with) great people and do great things. Fame is fleeting but change is permanent, meaning that I could care less about being famous and more about helping people realize their true potential.
I'm not usually one to be so open about my faith. But when I'm passionate about something I can't help but speak what's in my heart. It's been a hard lesson to learn, and I still have a long way to go, but I'm learning that I don't need to be approved by anyone to feel complete in what I'm doing. God has already approved me. But I just like to share what He has done.
I was reminded today of how much power our words hold. A simple personal opinion on twitter today really stirred the waters in the creative community. I think the whole thing got out of hand honestly.
Basically we need to put our pride aside and embrace the creative community as a whole. There are no "groups" or "cliques" here at Chat Creative. We are open to anyone interested in connecting with other creative people.
My stance from the beginning of Chat Creative is that this is nothing new. People have been sharing thoughts, ideas and information for hundreds of years. Only with the internet and the recent rise of social networking has our scope of who we can reach broadened. I don't mind promoting others out there with similar ideas, and I hope they would be willing to promote us as well.
So let's put ourselves aside for a second and look at the bigger picture of what we're trying to accomplish. I'm positive that when we do this we will see how we can work together, instead of against.
This weekend I finally got the chance to fly to Temecula, California and meet/hang out with Aaron Irizarry and Garth Humbert. While out there I was able to attend the 2nd ever Collekt meetup and finally meet, in person, a few others I have been connecting with lately on tinychat. Getting to meet everyone in person really solidified my reasoning for starting Chat Creative. The desire these other creatives had to interact with one another was amazing, so much to the extent that our friend Nicho drove two hours to be there.
On top of all the great connections I made, I was able to find time to relax with Garth and his family. We took a trip down to Coronado Island by San Diego on Saturday afternoon. Getting to smell the ocean air and feel the cool breeze as we walked the beach was a real mind-clearer. To top it off, after the beach we went and visited Temecula Wine Country for a little wine tasting and dinner. Here are a few photos I took while down there. You can see more over on my flickr page.
Thanks again to everyone that came out to the Collekt meetup. I am so pumped for what the future holds for Chat Creative, and all the connections we are making right now. This is just the beginning of a new generation of designers working with/for each other, not against.
