Their current member firms produce most of the student learning resources currently used in Canadian schools and although they produce learning resources in a variety of media formats they were concerned that the association may be perceived in education circles as an organization whose members are principally focused on print text book production at a time when there is an increased interest in digital learning resources.

What CERC Wanted

CERC wanted to updated their image with a new logo and branding as well as revamp their existing website so it could be used as an effective communication vehicle to easily publish content to project a more accurate and up-to-date image of what the CERC member firms do.

Digital Deceptions teamed up with Lesley Kelz of Squidpress who was the lead on the project and also from Durham Region, Lesley is a graphic designer with a fair amount of design experience in the publishing industry. She was responsible for the logo and branding and my job was the web design and development.

Lesley did a great job on the logo and her choice of colours were dead on. Also I have to say when the logo was finalized she sent me the most detailed and easy to follow brand guide I have ever seen and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I now incorporate a similar type of guide myself.

Work Better in a Team Environment

I had never worked with Lesley prior to this job and I hope we get the chance to team again on future projects, it was really great working with her.

I don’t often get to work on projects with other graphic designers and I definitely like it much better when you have a set of parameters you have to work within rather than having to think, plan and design at every pixel yourself.

It is easy to get creative block, repetitive or even burnt out when wearing so many hats on a project so it nice not to have to think about as much and use the extra brain power to focus solely on your part.

For CERC’s website I used none other than WordPress, they needed an accessible content management system that was flexible, secure and easy to use so WordPress was a no brainer.

The website is accessible and W3C standard compliant. I made a simple clean design because this is going to be a very content driven website and you can’t have the user getting lost within the design. I used the great colour scheme Lesley chose as well as some dark and light greys and some carefully chosen stock photography.

All in all it was a great project and I enjoyed working with Lesly Kelz as well as the team at the Canadian Educational Resource Counsel.

Visit the website

Free Event

The event is called “Climate Changes: Opportunities and Impacts” and features presentations by:

Bob Willard – Author of the Sustainability Advantage books
“The Sustainability Advantage: How to Prosper in Changing Times”

Dr. Peter Berg – Professor of Physics, UOIT
“Navigating through resource depletion towards sustainability”

Q & A session following presentations

Location and Details

This free event will take place on Wednesday, November 17th, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at the McLaughlin Library Auditorium in Oshawa.

Climate Changes: Opportunities and Impacts

Wed, Nov17th,
from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

McLaughlin Library Auditorium
65 Bagot Street
Oshawa

Poster Brief

Target audience includes municipal councils and staff, UOIT and Durham College students, high school students across Durham Region and the general public.

The poster would have to be edgy and eye-catching and I was supplied with a stock image of a hand holding a burning earth.

Poster Style

The poster was completely composed in vector graphics using Adobe Illustrator, when creating illustrations with this type of subject matter it is very easy to get caught up in all the doom and gloom so to make it more interesting I thought it should have a much more appealing colour palette instead of opting for the typical dark apocalyptic tones typically used.

I chose the majority of the colour palette from the globe and the flames. Earth is commonly portrayed using both blue and green so I use a combination of the both of them to create a deep jungle indigo as my dark base, this colour is also used to shade the globe making it appear to be more spherical and the same colour representing the earth colours combined is used in illustrating the grassy hill.

The brightest red from the flames is used to punch up the main title of the event “Climate Changes”. That red and also the orange from the flames is used in the event date text which helps to draw you eye from the top right through the main illustration and bring you to the title.

The event main content is highlighted using the soft yellow from the flames against the deep jungle indigo I spoke of earlier. Note the balance from the tips of the red flames to the red title and again from the yellow flames to the yellow main content.

To make the background a little more interesting the globe was converted to grayscale, set to 20% opacity, enlarged and centred with the earth globe to mimic some of the detail adding contrast.

Some accents were included, black was used very sparingly to outline the free event on the top right and then on the time at the bottom of that block of text to balance it all out, then again to give the main title some three dimensional depth and on the sub heading. Also added some drips to show the effects of global warming as well as a bit of a shadow from the hand over the letter “M”.

I had a lot of fun creating this poster and thank the City of Oshawa for giving me the opportunity to help make people aware of important issues such as climate change.

I clicked on the link suspecting some spam site has picked up my RSS feed and when the web page loaded I sat there for a moment stunned and very confused because the home page that I just downloaded looked very much like my own but it had a few things missing.

It Was a Complete Duplicate

My company logo and header graphic were gone and in their place was Raj Creatives, Multimedia Designer, the title tags no longer said “Graphic Design and Web Design from Durham Region” but “Graphic Design and Web Design from Rajasekaran”.

WTF?

Because I was still waking up the first thing I thought was that my WordPress site got hacked, but a quick glance at the address bar soon put those fears to rest for another day and as I began to look at the site much closer I immediately saw that it was an exact copy of my hard work that some bush league graphic and web designer, sorry “Multimedia Designer” ripped off and is using it to showcase his shoddy portfolio and other works he is trying to take credit for.

This isn’t the first time I have been a victim of plagiarism, it is the third and funny enough they all have been this year but this Mr. S. Rajasekaran is by far the worst offender that I have caught. They say that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery but this guy has still got my content on his front page, my copyright, legal notice, and link to my old website and XHTML strict compliance.

I have been freelancing in the design business now for almost ten years and most of the last decade has been really tough, the internet bubble burst just before I finished college, there was absolutely no industry employers when I was coming out of school and studio jobs were nonexistent because most of the advertising and online marketing companies folded or cut back and all the experienced designers started taking all the freelance work.

I Know How Hard it is

I am pretty understanding and I know where this guy is coming from but the more I looked at what he did to my work the more angry I got. What if for whatever reasons his pilfered version of my website takes months or even years to be deleted from the Free Web Hosting Area servers (where it rests at the moment) and a potential client looking for me finds the stolen page, it does contain a lot of my content and what if they think that I do lousy work?

Original Website and My Bread and Butter

This isn’t just my blood, sweat and tears, it’s my livelihood and something I take very seriously. I don’t mind in the least that you copied my website to your hard drive, I do it quite often myself as it is the best way to learn. But when I get down to creating I come at it from a different angle, build it from scratch and try to do it better, I don’t steal.

The difference between you and I is that I always want to improve my skills by knowing how things work so I can offer a better product while you just take and then put your name on it hoping to make a quick buck, its people like you that devalue this profession, have no respect for intellectual property and make many clients so distrustful of us.

Two Great Quotes to Think About Mr. Rajasekaran

“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”
Pablo Picasso.

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”
Albert Einstein.

The website in question(I don’t know how long it will be available so I have some screen caps and would you believe that this guy has actually watermarked some of his own work with his name and phone number …lol )

Now Since I got all the business out of the way I would like to thank you for providing me with the unexpected opportunity to once again utilize my blog to practice search engine optimization techniques to better position my keywords by allowing me to talk about my graphic and web design company Digital Deceptions.

On the front page of my website I have a link to SlideShare where you can download the presentation I did at WordCamp Toronto 2010 on how to use WordPress and Social Media to Win an Election, on your version of my site you have your resume …lol.

Once a Thief, Was That a TV Show or a Movie?

I read your resume and even all your experience is a lie, judging by the bang up graphics butcher job you did with my work there is no possible way on earth you could have designed the web pages you say you did, plus all those sites you supposedly designed have got the design companies names on the bottom of them. Who do you think you are?

The Best is Yet to Come

At the bottom of Mr. S. Rajasekaran’s resume he has a declaration which reads:

I, hereby declare that the information furnished above is true to the best of my knowledge. If given an opportunity to work in your esteemed organization, I can perform to the best of my capabilities in a way that is satisfies the organization’s need and my career thirst.

Isn’t That Just Priceless?

Well if anyone is interested in Mr. Rajasekaran’s Multimedia Design services you can give him a call on his mobile at (988) 425-1897 day or night, mail or stop by his flat if you happen to be in India, he can be found at No.18, Seevaram 2nd Street, Perungudi, Chennai – 600 096 or you could just email him rajasekaran.gpcp@gmail.com. And yes ladies he is single as mentioned in his resume and if anyone does happen to contact my friend Mr. Rajasekaran don’t forget to wish that asshole a happy birthday, he turns 23 on May 27 which is next week and please do tell him that Duncan sent you.

Borderline obsessed today with all this? Yes maybe a little but it just happens to be Canada Day May 24 long weekend and I’m going to chalk it up to timing because I usually don’t have this much time on my hands 8p

We All Use Social Media in Different Ways

The time I spend is in no way squandered, as a matter of fact it is of great value to me because the quality networks I have built filter out a lot of crap and help get me to pertinent content I am very interested in and able to take advantage of.

Since I was a good boy today and got a lot of work finished I decided to jumped on Twitter for a bit before I headed for lunch (at 4:30 PM) and I happened to come across a tweet about the new Rogers Next is Now video on YouTube which I had no prior knowledge of due to my self-appointed denial of services and I decided to check it out.

Man Was I Blown Away With What I Saw

The video starts off with a time lapse sequence of the night’s sky and has a catchy little tune by Young Galaxy, a band I have never heard of but have bookmarked them so I can check them out later. The next thing on the video is the words “Next is Now”, so far so good it has my full attention and then it starts show all sorts of really amazing social media, mobile and internet stats.

As the movie went on I was wanting more and more, it was very well done and the first thing I thought to myself was how perfect it was to show some of my clients how important a role all this technology was going to be in helping them promote their products and services.

The BIG Picture

Most of my clients are small to medium sized companies and by implementing these tools now while most of their competitors do not have a social media strategy allows them to reap the benefits of being a fish in the pond before the sea of plenty. These next generations coming up don’t subscribe to TV and print ads like my contemporaries, Next is Now.

Whodunnit?

The video was produced by 76design and Thornley Fallis Communications who was a sponsor at WordCamp Toronto 2010 which I presented at (shamless) and it was produced using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 which I found out at Dave Fleet’s website who happens to be the head of the social media practice at Thornley Fallis Communications.

90% of the Time  I Collect Statistics

The last few years I have made it part of my routine to record interesting social media statistics and web analytics to use in presentations and to my advantage where I can. I have taken the time to type out all the stats on the Next is Now video and I am posting them for anyone who is interested. Below the statistics you will also find the sources of the stats as published in the official YouTube video by RogerCommsinc

Rogers Next is Now Stats

• We create more information every 2 days than in the history of the planet before 2004
• It would take 28 years without sleeping to watch the video uploaded to YouTube this week
• There are more Canadians on Facebook than people living in New Zealand, Ireland and Norway combined
• At Facebook’s current growth rate it will exceed the world’s population by 2014
• 10 years ago it took 72 hours to download the Godfather today it takes 10 minutes, It still takes 3 hours to watch
• Snail mail takes days
• Text messages take seconds
• Delivery of words on paper will seem as strange to our children as milk delivery does to us
• Canadians sent 174 million texts in 2002, now we send almost as many ach day
• For the first time in history Canadians surf the web more than watch TV
• Today 12,000 books fit onto 8 Kindles, an entire library in your backpack
• There are now 2000,000 apps for smartphones, including apps to find a soulmate
• 1910: mass media spreads news faster than word of mouth, 2010: word of mouth spreads news faster than mass media
• Teens multi task enough to squeeze 21 hours into 24, watch more video online than on DVDs and don’t know a world without the internet
• By 2017, there will be 7 trillion connected devices, 1000 for each person alive
• While you watched this video 150,000 messages were sent on Twitter, 15 million text messages were sent, 300 million email messages were sent, Ashton Hutcher gained 6 new followers on Twitter and 5 cats did something really cute on YouTube

Sources

Facts in Next is Now are calculated based on data from the following sources:
[0:10] Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Information Week
[0:18] 24 hours of video uploaded per minute, The Official YouTube Blog
[0:25] Facebakers, Facebook Statistics Canada
[0:32] Normalized, averaged Facebook growth (Facebook Press Room milestones)
[0:49] iTunes download of The Godfather vs 56kbps
[0:55] Speeds of 50mbps and up in Canada
[1:16] Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
[1:21] Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
[1:29] Ipsos Reid Interactive Group
[1:39] Amazon Kindle capacity
[1:43] Bedford Public Library collection: nearly 12,000 books
[1:52] Android: Androlib / iPhone: Apple
[1:55] Match.com iPhone App
[2:32] OTX, 2008 Longitudinal Media Experience Study
[2:36] SRG, Digital Life Canada, November 2009
[2:40] SRG, Digital Life Canada, November 2009
[2:56] AmDocs, The Connected World Vision
[3:16] TweeSpeed
[3:20] 15 million in U.S. alone. CTIA-The Wireless Association, Wireless Industry Survey
[3:24] Symantec, 2000-2009: The Spam Explosion

Well once again WordCamp Toronto has come and gone. I got to see a lot of familiar faces and just like last year’s event I met interesting people and enjoyed making new contacts while practicing the art of networking.

Some of those new people include:

• Sue Varty of Wordtree Consulting a copyrighter
• Martha Chan the owner of the Divorce Marketing Group
• Brian Caicco the lead creative and project manager of dtmedia
• Christy Heenan the founder of Virtuall a virtual assistant providing administrative and marketing support
• Mai Peck a mortgage agent from The Mortgage Centre
• Clarence Johnson a photographer and eyewear photoblogger who has a cool concept website called
• Picpu about dudes like me who were glasses (my pic on his blog)
• Laurie (didn’t catch her last name) of Elle Media
• Ruth Maude a freelance web designer (like me) who’s company is called Dandelion Web Design Inc.
• Brian Anderson a content strategist and copywriter from Strategic Content who I first met on twitter and had the pleasure to meet in person
• The mysterious guy Joe from Double Take who I did not get any contact info from, had some good fun and great conversations with you …lol
• The event organizers Mathieu Yuill of Yuill.ca and Melissa Feeney of Mel, do tell thanks for all of your hard work.

Location

This year’s event was held at the Centennial College Student Centre, first time I had been there and I thought it was a pretty good spot to have it. There was a good crowd turnout, it was spacious and wasn’t packed to the point that you felt like a herd of cattle having trouble moving around and it best of all it wasn’t hot and uncomfortable like some of these events can easily become.

The WiFi didn’t have any issues unlike other events I have been to in the past and there was a lot of crowd surfing (online, no mosh pits) and tweets going on throughout both days.

It is getting pretty late, I have (what I usually call) computer butt from sitting in crappy chairs all weekend which is my only complaint, back is killing me and my Aeron isn’t even helping so it is time to go to bed. I will write a little more about the event during the week and get into some of the presentations.

?

Wow it is WordCamp time already and I am lucky enough again this year to be speaking at it. From the exposure I got from my presentation last year and a couple of key contacts that were made, Digital Deceptions has by far had it’s most successful year since this crazy ride began.

At this years event I will be speaking with one of my partners in crime Glenn McKnight from Global Catalysts Consulting Service and our topic is “Using WordPress and Social Media to Win an Election”.

WordCamp Toronto 2010 is taking place on March 27 and 28 and will be held at the Centennial College Student Centre. You can find out all about it at the WordCamp Toronto website.

Working closely with the event organizer Glen McKnight from Global Catalysts Consulting Service and the Foundation for Building Sustainable Communities (FBSC) we decided early on that we didn’t want to show any weapons.

I wanted this poster to have a childlike character to it so this is where the scribbled crayon effect on the background comes into play. The main colour chosen was blue for all the Canadians who serve with the United Nations.

The white dove which is one of the most classic symbols of peace was one of the last things to be added in, I was trying to stay away from the stereotypical things you would see in these types of posters but it just added such a nice touch.

In the very background is the Vimy ridge National Historic Site of Canada for those who fought and gave their lives in the First World War. Just in front of that are the three soldiers from the Peacekeeping Monument in Ottawa entitled the Reconciliation, this monument commemorates Canada’s role in international peacekeeping and the soldiers who have participated and are participation, both living and dead.

Directly below the soldier in the very middle of the poster and the young boy looking up is Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping plaque which is located in Oshawa Memorial Park.

To the very left of the plaque is a silhouette of two of our modern Canadian soldiers and right below them is a police car. Police officers may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of peacekeeping but they are certainly peacekeepers as well.

A graphic illustration depicting our Canadian military and law enforcement peacekeepers wouldn’t be complete without showcasing our traditional Royal Canadian Mounted Police now would it?

I had a great time creating this piece which took just over 21 hours to complete. Although I immigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland I feel a great sense of pride being a Canadian and it is this pride I hope shows through in this poster.

Well WordCamp Toronto is all done for another year. I had an absolute blast learning lots of new things, will probably take a few days for it all to sink in. On Saturday I did a presentation on how Digital Deceptions transitioned from a Flash based website to a WordPress Content Management System and all the benefits and doors it has opened for me over the last year.

You can find my slides here.

And the biggest surprise this weekend was Digital Deceptions taking away the Best Theme Design Award, I’m still in shock.

I would like to thank all the wonderful people I met at the conference Jason from GueRilla Marketers, Glenn from Global Catalyst, Robert from SMO Joe and Alfred from Butterscotch just to name a few. I had some great conversations talking shop.

I would also like to thank Brendan from BackSpaceStudios and Phug and all the volunteers who put on a great show,  here is the link if you want to learn all about the WordCamp Toronto 2009 conference.

I really wanted to showcase the project as a whole but at the moment I have so many projects on the go in various stages of completion I got desperate and just had to show a little bit of the work I have been doing of late.

The logo is 100% pure vector and was created in Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to achieve a deep metallic look with a sense of realism, something you would see on an old classic car from days gone by.

I experimented heavily trying to get the desired effect with the help of a few tutorials I found here and here and in the end I ended up creating my own technique to add to my bag of tricks.

I think the logo turned out great, it looks like it was carved out of metal and polished, I learnt a new trick and the client is very happy. The next thing to expect from this project will be the business cards and brochure/ pamphlet and then on to the website which I am really looking forward to.

Well it is official, on Saturday, May 9 at 10:45AM I will be speaking at WordCamp Toronto 2009. This is the second time Toronto is hosting the event and I have to admit that I missed the first one last year because I only started really using WordPress late last spring.

At the moment I am a little concerned about speaking in front of such a large audience but it is still a couple of months away so I have plenty of time to prepare.

Where Do You Think Will You Be In 6 Months?

This opportunity has come up at an interesting time in my career. Six months ago I restructured my entire business model, switched from a Flash website to WordPress and incorporated (SEO) search engine optimization and online marketing strategies into my game plan and have to say that last September I could never have imagined doing so well or that I would even be doing a presentation at WordCamp Toronto.

Anyways On With the Show

I have been to a few similar type events namely Flash in the Can and absolutely love seeing industry people talking shop, it is one thing following somebody’s work online and in magazines but when you get to see them talk and then get a chance to meet them it is a whole other experience, kind of like stalking…lol.

So Who Am I Going To Stalk At WordCamp?

Brendan Sera-Shriar

Last summer I took a WordPress course at the Rich Media Institute which was taught by Brendan Sera-Shriar who runs BackSpace Studios, Phug – Open Source Culture and who also happens to be the big man behind the show, I learnt so much from him in such a little time so I am looking forward to hear what he has got to say. Also I am really interested in his release of FlashPress which is as you guessed it Flash using WordPress as an CMS engine.

Peter Flaschner

Peter Flaschner from The Blog Studio is another gentleman I am looking forward to hearing speak, he has been doing what I have been recently doing but for much, much longer so I will be like a sponge trying to soak up all he has to say.

Nick La

Nick La of Designer Wall, Best Web Gallery and N.Design Studio who I have followed for a couple of years will also be speaking. Nick is always sharing his knowledge and presenting it in a way that is easy to read and visually pleasing.

Matt Brett

Although Matt isn’t on the list of speakers a little birdie (tweet) told me he will be at the event. He happens to be a big time WordPresser who is also from the Durham Region like myself and I have followed his work for quite a while now, you can find his awesome site at MattBrett.com I have never really spoke to him before but I have been following up on his blog and tweets so I guess I am a true stalker…lol, anyway I look forward to hopefully meeting him at the venue.

That is just a few of the people I want to see, I could go on and on but I will save it for another post. here is the official WordCamp Toronto website.