Cool custom layout tool for the artistically inclined

I love WordPress

It’s an amazing platform to showcase your work and thoughts as well as to discover some really interesting things that others have put out for your viewing and reading pleasure. With that being said, I also enjoy another similar tool called Tumblr. With that being the case, I thought I’d share a site I found that can be a major asset to any graphics enthusiast who might want to design his or her own layout without having to be heavily technically skilled.

The site by Totally Layouts is provides a Tumblr theme generator allowing you to customize everything from fonts to backgrounds with just a little creativity on your part. If you use this platform at all or are considering doing so, this might just be a good place to start.

I know that being a provider of creative graphic services and recently starting to help others with SEO efforts through social media, the visual and creative can be just as important to drawing attention to your work as it is fun to work on in the first place.

2012 in review – Creative Dreamers Blog

WordPress.com has compiled a summary of the statistics for WP based blogs throughout 2012. And thanks to our viewers/readers, we had a pretty good year.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 14,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 3 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

To all my blog followers…

First off, I wanted to thank all of you out there who have helped to make the Creative Dreamers blog a success, at least by my humble definition. Your comments, views, likes and of course follows are always deeply appreciated.

That being said, if any of you fellow bloggers out there could use a guest poster, I’d be glad to do the job. Providing your content need is in my wheelhouse of course. All I ask is at least one do-follow contextual backlink for my effort.

If interested, just send me an e-mail at trcapromo@gmail.com or leave a comment with info.

And as always, we welcome guest posters too.

Guest blogging/posting

For those of us who consider ourselves creative people and also try to get the word out there about our creative ambitions, guest posting or guest blogging can be a good opportunity.

With that being said, I’m looking to both guest post for other blogs as well as feature other people’s posts on mine. If you own or run a blog and are interested in in either of these possibilities, please let me know either in the comments section or via e-mail at trcapromo@gmail.com .

What I’ll accept for this blog:

Anything arts related in any way. It must be original work and at least 250 words (unless it’s poetry or a visual submission like photography or a drawing). I’ll provide one backlink per poem or visual submission and up to two per written other form of written post.

What I can provide:

Having worked in journalism as well as the arts, I am up for providing mostly anything. However, if possible I’d like to keep the topics related to:

Poetry and writing

Photography and the visual arts

Movies and video

Music and the performing arts

Goth, emo or punk subcultures

Body modification

Graphic design

Maybe we can make this work out well for everyone!

 

Re-blogging, how do you feel about it?

As a writer and photographer, I like to get my work out there. However, I also want to make sure that it doesn’t make its way all over cyberspace without getting the proper recognition. This is one of the challenges we face as creative types in the digital age.

When we have a blog, most blogging platforms today have a feature allowing users to re-blog content found on other blogs and by other posters. And in general, you probably either love this or hate it.

You may love it because:

It can allow your work to reach a larger audience and gain more noteriaty.

You may hate it because:

You feel like someone else is taking advantage of your hard work.

In my opinion, it comes down to one thing. When your article, photo, poem, video… is re-blogged, does the person responsible give the originator credit for the content? In many cases this is an automatic aspect of re-blogging but that does not mean that a blog owner cannot physically remove the crediting information for some reason or another.

Only if the original poster gets his or her credit, in my personal opinion, the whole situation can be a win-win for everyone.

What are your thoughts on the mater?

 

The simple difference between writing for the web and for anything else

While it is easy to get caught up in thinking that writing is writing and that is all there is to it, this simply isn’t true.

Of course you know there is a difference between writing fiction and non-fiction, poetry and and essays and things like that for example. However, a lot of people don’t realize the subtle difference when it comes to writing for a blog or online publication as opposed to writing for an old-fashioned print periodical.

Yes, there is a subtle but very important difference.

Here are a few tips for writing for an online source whether it be a blog, online magazine or virutally any other web-based entity.

1. Stick with short but detail driven sentences.

2. Lists and bullet points, much like is the case in this post, are a nice way to go.

3. Link to sites and resources only when they are in context and/or ad to the value of the work.

4. Include photos whenever possible and relevant.

The bottom line it that the Internet and virtually any type of new media are driven by speed. People want the most detail they can get out of the least amount of wordage. And as a generally visual form of communication, web surfers want something to stimulate the eye. That would be where things like photos and video come in.

Taking this approach when writing for the Internet might just help you increase your audience. And who knows, maybe you’ll even get famous.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog focusing on the wonderful world of all that is artistic.

From concert reviews for how-to tutorials, this blog will cover everything from photography to literature to music.

Stop by and check us out frequently for some new material. And, don’t forget to ad your two cents with comments.