Adding to all of that, I received an email today from one of my absolute favorite design studios (and a big source of inspiration), Seventh Street Studio. Apparently, I've won myself a copy of their new sketchbook! Can you say THRILLED?!

If you haven't heard of Seventh Street, I suggest you check 'em out. They work with some impressive big name clients and provide a lot of great services, offer free wallpaper downloads, and their impressive portfolio is worth gazing at if you find yourself stuck in some designers' block!

Another great site to look at if you are in need of inspiration is:

The Design Inspiration
This site was actually recommended by Seventh Street, and man, it has it all! There are daily inspirational articles on a variety of topics, as well as ultra-creative and cutting-edge logos, fonts, websites, illustrations, digital art, links and more!

One of the sites I found on Design Inspiration was the award-winning portfolio site of designer Kunal Chhajer. It's lighthearted, sleek and very creative. Check it out!

And finally... this is just amazing... Spend some time looking around Never Mind the Bullets. As you can tell from the name, it's a whimsical site - but look a little deeper at what they are doing here. It's a comic. It's a game. It's interactive. It's fun. It's... Flash? Think again!! I'm unbelievably excited about the stuff this site is doing with jQuery. The effects are very complex, mimicking much of what is possible with Flash and showing that there is no doubt about the animation and interaction powers of jQuery - especially Parallax (which we have used here on Pixels and Media in the recent past, and we LOVE it.

As you read, you literally pull the storyline onto the screen, make things move, control characters (letting them walk into a bar for example). You can also take it a step further and create your own nemesis to fight in a make-believe cartoon world (translation: awesome). Hey, why are you still reading this? Go! Do it now!

Kudos to all of the above designers, developers, webmasters and creative teams on a job well done on each of these sites. Thanks to all of you for keeping me inspired!

What sites do YOU like to visit when your creative juices need refueling? Share your favorite graphic and web design inspiration sites here. I'd love to add more to my list!

So, a co-worker was trying to recruit a web developer. After several long months of not receiving any qualified candidate resumes (apparently the recession makes it difficult on both ends of the hiring process) she finally turned to the internet in a moment of epiphany. She began crowdsourcing and searching the major social networks (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) as well as using search engines like Google or reading through the blogs of local designers and developers. She was searching for signs of anyone who matched our ideal candidate's qualifications, and who - hopefully - was also interested in a full-time job with benefits.

Within a few hours, she'd found a candidate who was on both Twitter and Facebook, had written technical articles across various websites, designed and developed for industry leaders and even used to work at Google. Yes. GOOGLE!

Then, because this is 2011 folks, she used Google Talk to instantly message me and tell me the great news. Naturally, this led to some lighthearted lame jokes about social media. Because that's how we roll.

Coworker: I found a guy on Facebook. It must have been magic! ha

Me: Excellent use of social media for recruiting purposes. Way to crowdsource.

Coworker: Thanks. Now let me show you this video of a kitten...

Ha! But of course, I can't just end the blog post on that note.

So let me show you this video of a kitten...

Check it out here:

http://www.justladders.com/the-game-using-linkedin-to-land-you-a-job-in

Luckily, there are lots of sites and individuals out there willing to help you out along the way. One such site is http://youngentrepreneur.com/ - a new site for, you guessed it, young entrepreneurs. One part social networking community, one part advice blog, and one part business magazine, this site has advice that is useful for just about any business professional. Even though it is geared towards primarily Gen Y individuals who are interested in starting their own business, I recommend this site to anyone who needs helpful advice, great articles and a supportive community.

Stop on by and show some love! Won't you be my fan? :)

Thanks to deeboo.com for this image!

These album covers prove one glorious fact: designers and musicians, when your powers combine, you give us some really amazing album covers!

Irepress - Sol Eye See I

Prince - Lotusflow3r

Reading Rainbow - Mystical Participation

Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures

Kings of Leon - Only by the Night

Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

Incubus - Moments and Melodies

Pixels and Media does provide album cover designs for bands and musicians, and we would love to help you with your next project! Click here for more information...

This good-hearted fundraiser event starts at 6:30pm on Friday and lasts until 10:00pm, giving you nearly FOUR HOURS of live music, food, bourbon, and of course, social media. Not a fan of Twitter or Facebook? No worries. Being a social media lover is NOT a requirement to attend this event, which will be held at Buster's Billiards & Back Room at 899 Manchester Street (the club's new and improved location in Lexington's distillery district). If you are curious about social media but haven't had a chance to explore it for yourself yet, or if you've tried but are completely lost, there will be work stations and local social media professionals on site to cover the basics, answer your questions, and even help you set up profiles on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

If that still didn't impress you, maybe the menu will: Raising Cane's famous chicken fingers, Firehouse Subs, Buffalo Trace bourbon, plenty of Ale-8-One, and more! The cover is a very affordable $10 and again, it goes to benefit Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky, which is a cause we can all hopefully appreciate.

 If anyone is planning on attending, let me know. I'd love to meet up with you at the event! And even if you're not planning on attending, you might want to consider it. Good food. Good music. Good beer. Good people. Good cause. Don't do it for me. Do it for the kids! And maybe do it for the additional Followers ;o)

http://www.grantasticdesigns.com/searchengines.html

http://www.lookoff.com/tactics/promotion.html

http://www.1stsearchranking.com/link-popularity.htm

http://www1stsearchranking.com/open-directory.htm

http://www.sofer.com/research/searchmain.html

http://www.deadlock.com/promote/?1482 - excellent resources on search engine optimization, "power promotion" for online businesses, a free newsletter and more!

You can also search for optimization tips on Microsoft's bCentral small business hub. You'll find pages of advice, which prove particularly useful in optimizing for Microsoft's new Bing search engine - although many of the tricks listed are still applicable to Google and other search engines as well.

What sites have YOU found to be helpful in learning more about search engine optimization?

Keep It Simple. Don't overwhelm people. Online, you only have a matter of seconds to grab someone's attention and get your point across. This means using more images and fewer words. 

Get their attention. Replace product features and benefits with calls to action. Example: “This product lets you…” becomes “Click Here to Download Now!”

Create a better slogan. Be less specific. You want to present yourself as having a solution for any business.

Call them to action! Use trigger phrases like “Save Money” or "Click Here" to get instant attention and entice potential customers to click on your ad.

What techniques have you found to be most helpful in creating online advertisements?