The joy of life consists in the exercise of one’s energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.

Aleister Crowley

An Antidote to Despair: Using Nature as A Design Tool for Innovation and Sustainability If you feel discouraged by the way the world is going, check out this video with the brilliant Michael Pawlyn, about using nature’s genius in art and design to create a new world of sustainable beauty.

We need artists to help us come together and share our voices and build community around powerful issues concerning our roles in the world and our planet’s survival. Compassion must be translated into action.”

Natasha Mayers

The creative spirit is one of the most powerful driving forces in human history. Creativity in the arts can inspire new insights and understanding for generations. Inventive creativity has helped transform our society time and time again, helping to make life better for countless lives. Creativity helps bring meaning to one’s life through unique self-expression. When focused on uplifting humanity, creativity can help to create a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. How will you use your creativity to help create a better world?

Robert Alan

Here we have second half of our list of tips for creative project promotion:

1. Organize teams to put up posters and distribute postcards and flyers.
2. Ask everybody you know if they have any contacts with press and media.
3. Collect a list of names, phone numbers, addresses and e-mails of all local media, as well as any national media you may want to target.
4. Write press release.
5. Send out press release to your media list.
6. Follow up press release with calls to media you wish to target or where you have personal leads.
7. Prepare and go to any media interviews you procure.
8. Promote your event on any web site or social media site you have set up.
9. Arrange for design and printing of program for your event.  Use this to recognize all participants and sponsors, as well as a promotional piece for you and your work. Be sure to include contact information, so people can get hold of you in the future and any web site address you have.
10. Have a sign-up list at your event to collect names of people for your e-mail and newsletter lists.
11. Afterwards, send out an e-mail to your list thanking all those who attended and helped make the event a success.  Highlight the wonderful things that happened through the creating and showcasing of your project.

Hope you have found this post series helpful!  Please leave us some comments about how you have implemented them, as well as your results.

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He’s not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he’s really needed.

Vaclav Havel

It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.

Virginia Woolf

Promoting your creative projects can be a daunting task, but it is important to put some time and energy into this part of the creative process. There is a saying that says, “If you build it, they will come.” Well, in the art world, you have to go a step further than just building; you have to let people know that you built something and where they can see it!

Here’s a basic list of actions you may want to take to promote your creative work :

1. Compile names of all friends, family, colleagues and work mates who would be interested in coming to your art events. Enter them into a database or create a group mailing in your computer address book.
2. Check with friends who have mailing lists and contacts. Ask if they would be willing to do mailings for your event.
3. Send out e-mail or a newsletter describing your new project and showcase dates.
4. At various points during the project send updates to your list on your progress and accomplishments.
5. In your e-mail updates and promotional materials mention and give appreciation for the help you are receiving from friends and other supporters, along with any sponsors you are able to bring on board. This all helps build momentum.
6. Collect images and write all information necessary for the design of promotional materials (postcards, posters, flyers etc.)
7. Meet and collaborate with a graphic designer for design of promotional materials. (Go to elance.com to access a host of graphic designers available on the internet at a range of prices.)
8. Finalize your promotional material with designer.
9. Proofread! Proofread! Proofread!
10. Deliver and pickup promotional material to printer or photocopy place.

Please join us later this week for the second part of our series on how to promote your creative projects!

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

– Mark Twain

You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens.

– Ethel Barrymore