Guest blog from DesignRFix.com

Whether you work from home, as a freelancer or as part of a creative team your success as a Graphic Designer hinges upon one thing; your creativity. And in order to keep the ideas fresh, fast and coming you need to take care of your motivation levels. When you’re feeling the pressure it can be hard to stay motivated, but with discipline, a little time and attention to the way you work, you can help prevent your inspiration from drying up.

Naturally, each individual will find their own way of working, and you should listen to yourself when it comes to finding out how to get your creative juices really flowing – here are a few thoughts and suggestions to help you on your way.

Are you looking to set up a new e-commerce website or spruce up an old one?

For many small businesses, Shopify might be the holy grail you've been looking for. Shopify is a popular all-in-one platform for e-commerce sites focused on simplicity. This is reflected in their pricing, setup, and built-in features.

By @JackieClews

Are you a content marketer looking to show results for all of your content marketing campaigns and collaborate easily but not quite ready to take on a more sophisticated project management software?

Whether you’re marketing an e-commerce or a service-based business to consumers or businesses, an easy trick to try is adding the most important stats to your editorial calendar so you can plan in advance and turn your calendar into a detailed analytics report, as well.

Two great tools to use are Microsoft Excel (as long as you can share it and edit in real time on the cloud) or Google Spreadsheets, which can be viewed and edited by all collaborators in real time.

What are infographics? Infographics are a way to visually display data. By using them you are replacing mind-numbing data with a visually appealing graphic that can be read quickly and clearly. Sure, there are people that love data, but for most of us on an information overload, we either don’t time or don’t want to sort through it all. This is why infographics can be a great idea for your company.

It may be hard to keep up with the trends in design only to find out that it is outdated one year later. The flat design trend is something that I have seen emerging in major companies including Apple, Microsoft, and many others.

You might think that GIFs are only used to show twerking fails or of a cat falling off a ledge, but there are actually some very useful instances for GIFs. Check your inbox. I bet that you have a few waiting for you right now. I constantly see animated GIFs that are classy, appealing, and eye catching that compliment the email’s message. Here are a few reasons why I think you should use them in your next email campaign.

For someone who has not ever worked with a graphic designer you may wonder, "Where do I start?"

One of the most common questions that I get from non-designers is “What programs do you use? Are there any free options that are just as good?” I use Adobe and they are the industry standard in the design world. I honestly don’t know if there are any free options out there because I never cared to check. Once you use Adobe’s applications you will never use anything else.

Today I will show you some of processes that go into creating a logo. This time I worked with Conversion Strategies, a consulting business that assists their clients with digital strategies to increase web conversions (sign ups, sales, social following, traffic, etc).

They were originally looking for a simple logo with clean lettering but would also like to incorporate what the business does… their first thought was to include a beveled button somehow, second thought was to include a numerator & denominator concept because conversions are simply increasing your numerator or decreasing denominator.