This week’s graphic quote brings in texture, design and of course, inspiration… The famous words of Mr. Gandhi himself, the words we all know so well… if you want to change the world, you have to start with yourself. “Be the change you want to see in the world”, we’ve shortened it here for impact and simplicity. We hope you enjoy!

Design by Angelina Sereno

Thank you for checking us out. Feel free to pin, tweet or like this post to help inspire others!

Instagram, the uber-popular iPhone mobile app that lets users edit, stylize and share their photos, added an impressive 2 million users last month, coming close to the 15 million mark. The mobile app company attributes the boom to the launch of iPhone 4 and the holidays – more party photos to share! But their growth rate is strongly outpacing the other leading mobile-based app, Foursquare. And what’s really impressive about that is that Foursquare is on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Palm.

Sure, Instagram had its eyes set on mega-growth before its 2.0 launch earlier this year. And as we mentioned in an earlier blog, usability was its number-one improvement. Users can choose from four new filters with the 2.0 launch. And now, if you change your mind after you’ve taken a photo, you can apply a different filter fast – up to 200 times faster than in 1.0. But ease of use explains coming BACK. Why do people use Instagram in the first place?

Why? TTIUWP.

“This thread is useless without pics.” Now more than ever, with mobile devices and tablets, we are visual internet users. Everyone who’s friends with you on Facebook or following you on Twitter wants to SEE your San Diego SantaCon pics. Instagram offers this still-by-still and encourages users to comment on each other’s pics. They make it easy. And having a funny username, commenting on other users’ photos (especially with emoticons) and engaging people who comment on your photos really helps create a community of followers.

The Real Story

But Instagram does more than document activity. It lets the user tell a story. Using Instagram means participating in two key components of interactivity – creativity and inspiration. Instagram’s filters help you tell your unique story by adding emotion – a sepia filter for nostalgia, a color-pop filter for irony – and help you connect with your audience in, well, the blink of an eye. A single snapshot of a San Diego sailboat can be romantic or retro, depending on the filter. And not only can you add filters and effects, you can also easily add depth of field (something that can be tough to pull off even with more complex software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop).

And the best part is, you get to play around until you decide. This is really the key to Instagram’s success. They let us play, get inspired and get creative. All from our phones and all for free. It’s no wonder Apple named them 2011 App of the Year!

Instagram photos above taken by President + Creative Director of Skybox Creative, Angelina Sereno. Follow her by name or @happygumdrops!

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Branding Agency with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

by Angelina Sereno

What do scary fortune cookie messages, flocks of city pigeons and a calendar marking Spike Jonze’s birthday have in common? They’re all winners of the best advertising of September 2011, as voted by readers of Ads of the World, a website that tracks trends in advertising from print to ambient. There are some great examples of advertising among the winners, and a wide variety of great marketing work. But there are some common characteristics to these stand-out ads.

Funny

Humor is an age-old trick in advertising, and one that appears a lot in September’s stand-out ads. From the flat-out goofy “misfortune” cookies featured in Hell Pizza’s direct mail campaign to the colorful faux-retro tongue-in-cheek calendar by France’s Leo Burnett agency, humor sells.

Even a little visual can make a big impression. Look closely at Broker Security Systems’ print ad for the tiny punchline.

Engaging

The billboard for the Quebec Magic Festival is a simply designed ad that packs a big punch thanks to city pigeons just going about their business. The video tells the backstory about the challenge of creating a public magic trick. But the magic’s in getting the crowds around the billboard engaged with what they’re seeing. And what it looks like they’re watching is a sample of the magic that the festival will be celebrating. Pretty clever.

Another clever use of advertising by the Canadians comes in the Direct Mail category. An up-and-coming Vancouver band used an agency to design an interactive CD package to allow listeners to engage using QR codes and online tie-ins.

There’s a lot to inspire in these exceptional ad campaigns. For more, check out Ads of the World.

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Branding Agency with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Top 7 Inspirational Quotes for Business Success for the week of May 16th – 22nd

Skybox Creative’s Exclusive New Inspiration for Business Success
Blog by poet & author Prartho Sereno

Theme: The Power of Little Things

Last week we took on Technology as our meditation on business success. This week we’ll focus in a little closer, down to the small things we run into on our way through our days—a scheduled meeting perhaps, or maybe a chance one. We’ll slow down enough to consider the art of taking on one question, one phone call…one smile at a time.

This theme—the Power of the Small—was inspired in part by an article my friend Magan Arthur wrote for the meditation journal, Viha Connection (download pdf). Magan is Senior Principal Solutions Consultant of Infosys Consulting and one of the thought leaders in Enterprise Digital Content Management. The unlikely title of his article was Love and Truth in the Fortune 500. Early in the article he writes:

“In simple numbers I have now reached the top-ten list in my firm, and the million-dollar opportunities are lining up. But equally satisfying for me is that my boss has started to describe me as the best thing that can happen to a new hire and my senior clients keep wanting to hug me.

So, what happened? I think I started to understand that the change I seek to make in the world, and in my own life really, is about small steps. It is not about the big social consciousness but about the small things that I can truly impact. For example, when a team member asked me for advice on an issue with another team member, I listened carefully and finally suggested that he speak to the colleague directly. Within days the two were working as a team and provided excellent suggestions for the project.”

I enjoy the simplicity and humanness of Magan’s approach. His story inspired me to spend a little more of my “precious time” with all those little things that keep appearing in front of me. And to listen in on what artists and scientists and others who are living fully and deeply have noticed about this power of attention to the small. As usual, we open with the clear eyes and open heart of Albert Einstein.

Inspirational Quote #1
“Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”
—Albert Einstein, philosopher/ scientist/humanist

Inspirational Quote #2
“All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.”
—Lao Tzu, Ancient Taoist Mystic

Inspirational Quote #3
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
—Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist

Inspirational Quote #4
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
—Dr. Seuss, poetic genius for all ages

Inspirational Quote #5
“Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.”
—Blaise Pascal, French physicist, mathematician, and inventor

Inspirational Quote #6
“It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge an elephant, but we can’t dodge a fly.”
—Josh Billing, 19th century American humorist

Inspirational Quote #7
“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
—Robert Brault, Living American writer

Wishing you a week filled with all things wonderful and… small!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Working on the things, small and large, to elevate your brand.

Skybox Creative is a brand consultancy with an emphasis on web development and technology solutions. Get in touch today! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Top 7 Inspirational Quotes for Business Success for the week of May 9 – 13th

Skybox Creative’s Exclusive New Inspiration for Business Success
Blog by poet & author Prartho Sereno

Theme: Technology

I’ve been noticing that almost every list I create for these weekly Top 7 Inspirational Quotes for Business Success seems to include the words of Albert Einstein. No matter the theme, as soon as I begin my search, there he is with the wisest and wittiest thought. What a delight his brilliance brings to us. Not just Relativity Theory, E=MC2, and all that, but humor and compassion, and the fine art of taking himself lightly. One of my favorite of his quotes is: “I never keep anything in my mind I can look up.” (Quipped after he couldn’t remember his own phone number!)

The truth is, with our Blackberries and Bots, GPS, digital address books, and endless apps, none of us need much clutter upstairs anymore. Through the magic of technology, we all have more space for the good work of imagining. Or so it would seem. Sometimes it’s hard to come to terms with the immensity of the creative force that is technology as it continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

So this week, letting Uncle Albert take the lead, let’s contemplate the wonders and pitfalls of this undeniable life-changing force: Technology!

Inspirational Quote #1
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
— Albert Einstein, philosopher/ scientist/humanist

Inspirational Quote #2
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
— Arthur C. Clarke, British science fiction author, scientist, and inventor

Inspirational Quote #3
“If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.”
— Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th president of the United States

Inspirational Quote #4
“As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of ‘do it yourself.”
— 
Marshall McLuhan, Canadian scholar and author, one of the founding fathers of Media Theory

Inspirational Quote #5
“Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.”
— John F. Kennedy, charismatic 35th president of the United States

Inspirational Quote #6
“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
— Pablo Picasso, Progressive Spanish painter and sculptor, co-founder of Cubism

Inspirational Quote #7
“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”
— Rich Cook, overseer of the West Michigan Science & Technology Initiative’s Venture Center

See you next week!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Web Design + Technology experts to elevate your brand.

Skybox Creative is a brand consultancy with an emphasis on web development and technology solutions. Get in touch today! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Top 7 Inspirational Quotes for Business Success for the week of May 1 – 7th

Skybox Creative’s Exclusive New Inspiration for Business Success
Blog by poet & author Prartho Sereno

Theme: Discovery

After focusing our last two inspirational blogs on such inevitabilities as Time and Money, my fancy turns toward the uncharted—that as-yet undiscovered territory Walt Disney called Tomorrowland. The way there requires a considerable amount of daydreaming and therefore considered “unpractical.” But this journey might be the most practical one an entrepreneur can make, its route the most dependable road to success.

For one thing, everything new, both inner and outer, comes through discovery. Think electricity, automobiles, light bulbs. Think i-tunes and GPS. But also think insight, think aha! Discovery of any kind requires dedication from its explorer, but it gives back double-fold to the discoverer.

I am reminded of a talk J. Krishnamurti gave late in his life. He was about to explain something about the inner world, but stopped himself short, saying (loosely quoted): I’m not going to tell you… because if I tell you, you’ll all nod your heads and say, “Isn’t that right!” And you won’t have discovered anything. Have you ever noticed that when you discover something on your own it gives energy? And you’ll need energy, tremendous energy, on your search for the truth.

And so, let’s listen in on a few scientists and out-of-the-box thinkers for what they’ve learned about the fine art of discovery.

Inspirational Quote #1
“The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”
—Albert Einstein, who once said, humbly, “I’m no Einstein.”

Inspirational Quote #2
“What I have a passion for is the idea of discovery. People keep asking what’s the next thing on the horizon, and I keep saying it’s not there yet.”
—Red Burns, Interactive Telecommunications Program Chairwoman (quoted in 1997)

Inspirational Quote #3
“Very often it happens that a discovery is made whilst working upon quite another problem.”
—Thomas Alva Edison, inventor superior

Inspirational Quote #4
“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, lawyer

Inspirational Quote #5
“The secret of all those who make discoveries is that they regard nothing as impossible.”
— Justus Liebig,  German bio-chemist, discoverer of, among other things, nitrogen.

Inspirational Quote #6
[When asked about how he discovered the law of gravitation, Newton answered,] “By thinking about it all the time.”
—Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian.

Inspirational Quote #7
“Of all the discoveries which men need to make, the most important, at the present moment, is that of the self-forming power treasured up in themselves.”
—William Ellery Channing, nineteenth-century American Unitarian theologian

See you next week!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Discover the power of your brand!

Skybox Creative is a brand consultancy with an emphasis on web development and technology solutions. Get in touch today! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Top 7 Inspirational Quotes for Business Success for the week of April 25 – 30

Skybox Creative’s Exclusive New Inspiration for Business Success
Blog by poet & author Prartho Sereno

Theme: Time

Last week’s theme of Money flows naturally toward Time. And as we finally emerge from the darkest months’ hibernation, we seem to have a little more! It only seems that way, of course. 24/7 is 24/7. But who hasn’t wondered over time’s mysteriously stretchy ways? An hour in a boring lecture was sure different from one out at the swimming hole, wasn’t it?

It’s a favorite idea in business circles that we all have the same 24 hours, which is meant to encourage us to stop complaining about not having enough. And any way we can get the mind to stop kvetching is worthwhile. Toward that end, I offer the following quotes for your inspiration and business success!

Here’s to your finding just the right number of hours in your days. Enough for the success of your business… and for the happy downtime that allows. Cheers!

Inspirational Quote #1
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
—Albert Einstein, a scientist full of wonder

Inspirational Quote #2
“Lost time is never found again.”
—Benjamin Franklin,  genius, inventor of bifocals, inspired “proverb-maker”: An apple a day keeps the doctor away, and Early to bed & early to rise make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise—to name a few—and the man on the $100 dollar bill!

Inspirational Quote #3
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
—H. Jackson Brown, Jr., American author of the bestselling Life’s Little Instruction Book

Inspirational Quote #4
“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
—Auguste Rodin, exquisite French sculptor, considered the father of modern sculpture

Inspirational Quote #5
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.”
— Charles Richards, Canadian schoolteacher turned politician

Inspirational Quote #6
“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”
—Henry David Thoreau , American philosopher & writer

Inspirational Quote #7
“If you want work well done, select a busy man – the other kind has no time.”
—Elbert Hubbard, American writer/publisher, influential exponent of the Arts & Crafts Movement

See you next week!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your profits deadline driven brand + web design.

Top 7 Inspirational Quotes for the week of April 18 – 24

Skybox Creative’s Exclusive New Inspiration for Business Success
Blog by poet & author Prartho Sereno

Theme of the week: Money

Tax Time! Oh dear… But the tax collector knew what he was doing when asked us to financially settle up in April. Our moods have been lifted by Mother Nature’s celebration (the dazzling return of scent, sound, and color, flowers and birds) so the Ouch of it is softened. With that in mind, it is probably also a good time to step back and look at this mysteriously powerful stuff we call Money. As always, we call upon the wisest and wittiest to help us find our way.

Inspirational Quote #1
“If there’s anyone listening to whom I owe money, I’m prepared to forget it if you are.”
—Errol Flynn, Australian-born swashbuckling actor, in a radio broadcast shortly before embarking to America, where he was to become one of Hollywood’s shiniest stars.

Inspirational Quote #2
“Money helps, though not as much as you think when you don’t have it.”
—Louise Erdrich, Native American author, in her novel The Bingo Palace

Inspirational Quote #3
“If a little money does not go, much money cannot come.”
—Chinese Proverb

Inspirational Quote #4
“Money talks, but all it ever says is goodbye.”
—American Proverb

Inspirational Quote #5
“We can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs.”
—Gloria Steinem, American feminist, journalist, and political activist

Inspirational Quote #6
“I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form.”
—Donald Trump, American Financier

Inspirational Quote #7
“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.”
—Maya Angelou, African American Poet

See you next week!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your profits with effective brand + web design.

Top 7 Inspirational Quotes for Business Success: Laughter For the week of April 11 – 15

Skybox Creative’s Exclusive New Inspiration for Business Success
Blog by poet & author Prartho Sereno

Theme of the week: Laughter

I love the way April opens with a day devoted to foolishness. Any successes to report from last Friday? Either of being fooled or catching someone in your foolery? Either way, you were probably reminded what a breath of fresh air a moment of laughter can be. In fact, that’s just what follows a laugh’s belly-quaking, lung-emptying ha-ha-ha: a fresh breath.

So let’s admit it; we all hunger for a few more opportunities to chuckle, especially during the notoriously stuffy work-week. And customers seem to crave it just as much: In California, Florida, Texas, and elsewhere you can take your required traffic school hours with a humorist. Not surprisingly, they are much more popular than the brass-tacks, humorless ones. And remember your first Southwest Airlines flight, where the entire emergency instructions, with all that frightening talk of crashing and dangling oxygen masks, were given as jokes? Those laughs not only kept the passengers attentive, but loyal. Keeping their workers in good humor has been a major ingredient of Southwest’s enviable success. Check out Kevin and Jackie Freiberg’s book, itself an example of SW humor: Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success

One secret of humor’s success seems to be this: Let yourself be the fool and many shortcomings will be forgiven. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg must know this, as his recent shenanigans show. At a recent charity dinner, the mayor donned a Spiderman suit and flew, comically clumsy, over the stage—a spoof on the accident-prone, media-taunted, still-working-out-the-kinks-yet-to-open Broadway Musical Spiderman. But of course, his best spoof was on himself.

Watch the video of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his spiderman get up!

And so for April, let’s go for the highest humor—the kind that helps us remember that everything/one is imperfect and life is short and happiness has more to do with how you take the bumps than your uptight success in avoiding them. Here’s how a few of our planet’s great thinkers (and jesters) have put it:

Inspirational Quote #1
“All higher humor begins with ceasing to take oneself seriously.”
—Hermann Hesse, German Nobel Laureate writer & mystic

Inspirational Quote #2
“Humor: the ability to laugh at any mistake you survive.”
—Jerry Tucker, author of The Experience of Politics: You and American Government

Inspirational Quote #3
“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.”
—George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright

Inspirational Quote #4
“That of all days is the most completely wasted in which one did not once laugh.”
—Nicholas Chamfort, 18th century French writer, best known for his wit

Inspirational Quote #5
“A thing is funny when… it upsets the established order. Every joke is a tiny revolution.”
—George Orwell, British novelist and journalist

Inspirational Quote #6
“Never laugh at live dragons.”
—J.R.R. Tolkien, British author of The Lord of the Rings

Inspirational Quote #7
“When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.”
—George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright

See you next week!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your business with playful brand + web design.

Top 7 Inspirational Quotes for Business Success for the Week of March 28—April 3

Skybox Creative’s Exclusive New Inspiration for Business Success
Blog by poet & author Prartho Sereno

Theme of the Week: CHUTZPAH! (Going Boldly…)

Last week, stardate 3/22/11, was William “Captain Kirk” Shatner’s 80th birthday, the spaceman icon who, through long years of reruns, reminded us each week that space was the final frontier, and that our mission was “…to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

This idea—of going boldly where no one else has gone before—so thrills the human spirit that Star Trek went on to reinvent itself for at least three generations and continues to call our imaginations toward “strange new worlds.”

Watch the Star Trek Classic Trailer

In tune with this theme that William Shatner reawakened in me, I stumbled across the review of a new biography that speaks to boldness in this week’s (March 28) New Yorker, “The Color of Money.”  Ruth Brandon devotes the first half of her biography Ugly Beauty to the legendary cosmetic millionairess Helena Rubenstein, whose story is bold enough to qualify as full-blown Chutzpah!

Helena Rubenstein began as one of eight daughters of a kerosene dealer in the Jewish ghetto of Krakow, but by the time she was in her teens she was already cooking up face creams in the kitchen. She branded her potion with the name Valaze and invented a  legend that it was crafted from rare herbs by an eminent specialist named Dr. Lukuski. In ten years she was a millionaire. One of the most wonderful twists of the story, demonstrating that hers was not just beginner’s luck, is that after Ms. Rubenstein sold her business to Lehman Brothers in 1928 for $84 million (in today’s dollars), she managed to buy it back during the Depression “for a pittance,” and brought it back to vibrancy.

Watch Early Helena Rubenstein TV commercials

So in honor of this unlikely couple—Captain Kirk and Helena Rubenstein— this week’s top 7 inspirational quotes for business are variations on the theme chutzpah!(which I can’t seem to write without the exclamation point… audacious that it is… bold, risk-taking, and it has evolved to include a deep sense of playfulness.) In short… the message for this week: Go for it—wildly!

Inspirational Quote #1
“I want you to have chutzpah. Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah. Don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don’t doubt yourself.”
—Alan Alda, actor, director, screenwriter

Inspirational Quote #2
“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing, but what you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.”
—Alan Alda, actor, director, screenwriter

Inspirational Quote #3
Chutzpah is “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts,’ presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to.”
Leo Rosten, educator, writer, humorist

Inspirational Quote #4
Alexis Zorba: Damn it boss, I like you too much not to say it. You’ve got everything except one thing: madness! A man needs a little madness, or else…
Basil: Or else?
Alexis Zorba: …he never dares cut the rope and be free.
Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek

Inspirational Quote #5
“We should be ready for all issues, not daring to die, but daring to live.”
Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher-poet

Inspirational Quote #6
“There’s a fine line between being brave and being stupid.”
Tom Seaver, Major League Baseball Pitcher (and later announcer)

Inspirational Quote #7
“Naught venture, naught have.” (later evolving into: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.)
John Heywood, 15th century playwright & composer of proverbs

See you next week!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your business with bold brand + web design.

Need more inspiration? Email us at info@skyboxcreative.com