 Great photo by Grok. Question: As the year draws to a close, are you merely older… or wiser?
Not to flatter ourselves, but we think we can help with the latter. That’s because it’s time for our year-end round-up—an annual tradition here at Copel Communications —of our top posts for creatives like you. Catch the ones you’d missed. Or revisit those that helped. Enjoy!
Well, that’s all for this year. Have a suggestion for a post for next year? Contact us. We’d love to hear from you!
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 Great photo by Grok. Wow. It’s a tradition (almost) as big as Thanksgiving here at Copel Communications. In which we devote our mid-November blog post to that which we’re thankful for. And in which, of course, we ask you what you’re thankful for! In other words, feel free to chime in, in the comments!
The title of this article is a tad misleading. Last year, we wrote about what we’re thankful for. “What” implies things. You can already see where this is going. That’s why you read these. Just to stay two jumps ahead of us! Not what, but who Sure, there’s plenty of “what” that we’re thankful for this year. Our technology and systems keep chugging along, relatively unimpaired. The economy, doom-and-gloom headlines notwithstanding, has been pretty good to us. Heck, at the more primal/Maslowian (??) level, we’re happy every time we flick a switch and the lights come on. Or open a spigot and get water. Don’t take anything for granted. But enough of the stuff. Let’s talk people. If you’ve read any of these articles of ours, you know we’re sticklers for anonymizing details when appropriate. This article is no exception. That said, if you’re reading this, and you’re called out in our little honor roll below, we’re confident that you’ll know who you are. Boy are we lucky to be surrounded by great people who help us do our job and make us look insanely better than we actually are. Here, we’re talking about other creatives. We’re talking about vendors. We’re talking about members of internal client teams we work with. We’re talking about SEO nerds and knob-turners. Some examples:
Not to leave out… We’re happy to sing about these unsung heroes. They’re vital members of the Copel Communications pantheon, which includes some really great clients who make it all possible, and the love of a family that makes it all worth it. What, and who, are you thankful for this year? Post your reply in the comments, or feel free to contact us.  Our long-suffering dog. Thanksgiving is a tradition. Writing an article about what to give thanks for? Well, we’ve been doing it for so long each November, that it’s also a tradition here at Copel Communications.
Before we list what we’re thankful for, let’s turn the table on you. What are you thankful for this year? It can be big. It can be small. It can be professional. It can be personal. The thing is, there’s always stuff to be thankful for. You don’t need a national holiday to remind you. Just like you don’t need to book a spa day to take care of yourself. Or hug your kids to remind yourself that you love them. Chime in. Leave a comment. It might make you feel better; rest assured that it will make us feel great. The little things Sometimes, it can be a tiny bit of tech that makes your day nicer. We recently upgraded our AirPods, and are thankful that we can finally adjust the @#$% volume without having to reach for a phone or ask Siri. Here’s another technical marvel: A remote-controlled training collar. Our dog has a habit of running out in the middle of the night to bark at the deer; a little beep and vibration from the training collar broke him of that habit. He might still be looking at the deer at 3 a.m., but he’s not barking at them anymore. So we’re thankful for a better night’s sleep. Clearly, we’re starting small. And non-professionally. Let’s shift gears. The bigger/business things In 2024, we’re especially grateful for the power of networking. Whether it’s via in-person gatherings, Zoom meetings, LinkedIn, or forwarding a colleague’s Pitch59 card, it’s opened up new business possibilities. More importantly, it’s connected us to some really nice people. People first, business second. If you don’t like that person, you won’t like working with them. More importantly, the opposite is just as true. We’ll still reach out to, say, second-level connections on LinkedIn, and simply say “hi” to people whose profiles look interesting. It’s better than spamming them with a message-bot. Many people are understandably jaded these days, but there are still plenty of people out there who will respond with a “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.” Again: People first, business second. Saving the best for last We can’t build much suspense here, because you know what’s coming. Aside from the Big Two (having good health and being lucky enough to be in the USA), we’re grateful for our friends and family. That includes the dog. He’s been a good boy. Have a thankful-for to share? Contact us or simply comment below. We’d love to hear it.  Great photo by Andrea Piacquadio. It’s that time of year again: Time for the annual year-in-review of our top articles from Copel Communications. We do two of these each December: one for our “Creatives” audience, and another for our consultants audience.
This one is the former. (We’d published the other one recently.) Here are the top articles we’ve posted for creatives, chock full of tips and tricks that you can put to use ASAP. Enjoy!
That wraps up this year. And so… Happy New Year! Any topics you’d like to see us address in 2024? Contact us and let us know!  Great photo by Andrea Piacquadio. Here we go again! Another year has zipped past… and presented us the opportunity to present you with a compendium of our top articles for consultants from this past year. If you missed any, here’s your chance to catch up. And if you have already seen, and liked, any of these, here’s your opportunity to revisit and brush up. Enjoy!
Have any topics you’d like to see us address next year? Contact us. We’d be delighted to hear from you!  Another great photo by Karolina Grabowska Turkey and stuffing are traditions, so why not a blog about what we’re thankful for? This is kind of an unintentional tradition here at Copel Communications, but the stuff we’re thankful for evolves each year.
We post this not just to share the love, but also to inspire. What are you thankful for? Is there stuff that we list below which you’d overlooked? More important, what have we invariably overlooked? Please chime in, in the comments. Creature comforts We’ll do anything and everything we can to get those creative juices flowing each day. That’s actually one of the perks of this job. We get to indulge ourselves in a cocoon-like office space, with everything desirable all within arm’s reach. Ready?
Saving the best for last You should be able to figure out where this is going. Everything we’d bulleted above, while great, is stuff. What are we most thankful for? Of course. It’s people. We’re talking about the great creative folk we have the good fortune to work with among our constellation of vendors. We’re talking about the fantastic clients we’re lucky to serve every day: they keep us challenged and stimulated, and always fail to appreciate just how much free education they shower upon us with their subject-matter expertise. And then what is Thanksgiving without giving thanks to family? It’s why we do anything, everything, that we do. What are you thankful for? Let us know directly, or simply add your thoughts to the Comments below.  Boy did this year ever fly past! We hope you’ve stayed productive and healthy.
In what’s become a big tradition here at Copel Communications, we’d like to offer you our annual wrap-up of creative skill-building articles for the entire year. If you missed any of these, here’s your chance to catch up; if you already enjoyed any of these, here’s an opportunity to re-hone your skills. Enjoy!
Have a creative topic you’d like us to weigh in on next year? Let us know. We’d love to hear from you.  Each year, around Thanksgiving, we here at Copel Communications like to devote an article to things we’re thankful for. We’ve written about the creative use of “stuffing,” about the camera obscura and other unsung heroes of creative inspiration, and creative “turkeys,” to name a few.
This year, we’d like to talk about things that help keep the creative juices flowing. You know what we’re talking about if you, like us, toil in the ideation trenches: You’re constantly under pressure to invent wholly new things, and thus any little tricks or tips or devices you can find that lubricate the process are more than welcome. Well, here’s our little cornucopia. How many of these are you using now? How many are you under-utilizing? How many are, ideally, new to you?
Have any creative-lubrication tricks or gadgets you’re thankful for? Let us know about them! Meantime, here’s wishing you a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.  Hard to believe that 2020 is almost over. (Good riddance, right?)
What we mean is, it’s time for our annual wrap-up of creative skill-building articles for the entire year. If you missed any of these, here’s your chance to catch up; if you already enjoyed any of these, 1) thanks! and 2) here’s an opportunity to revisit and refresh.
Have a creative topic you’d like us to weigh in on? Let us know. We’d love to hear from you.  Ah, stuffing. What a perfect topic to address in November. Breadcrumbs and giblets, all jammed into a turkey, which is then jammed into the oven, and eventually jammed into your gullet, thus living up to its name. Stuffing. After Thanksgiving dinner, you’re stuffed.
What on earth does this have to do with creative services? Bear with us. We’re getting there. So. You had that big dinner, you’re feeling uncomfortably bloated. People always say it's the tryptophan in the turkey that makes you tired; we've read—and believe—that it's simply the act of over-stuffing yourself that wears you out. And now we circle back to things like layouts and website design and illustration. Stuffed. Overstuffed. Bloated. Uncomfortable. They all go together, right? Not always. More is more You’ve had the phrase “Less is more!” drilled into your head from the first time you ever clutched a pencil. (Or stylus.) It’s true... to an extent. Remember, here at Copel Communications, we’re huge fans of creative rule-breaking. Indeed, that’s where the creativity often happens: right at the ragged boundary between “What you’re supposed to do” and “What you dare to do.” Of course, you can’t break a rule—and get away with it, let alone achieve a creative breakthrough—unless you know what the rule is in the first place, and how it works, and why it’s there. So let’s start with “Less is more,” assuming, for the purposes of this discussion, that it’s a “rule.” “Less is more” tells you to minimize your content. To maximize your negative space. To embrace silence, white space, and sentence fragments. Like this. It tells you to let the audience connect the dots in their mind, to let them enjoy the creative leap which requires them to fill in the gaps, Rorschach-like, between what you’re telling/showing them and how they fit into that story/presentation. That’s really valuable advice. Most of the time, it’s spot-on. Except when it isn’t. Put it this way: Do you always want your audience to make assumptions on their own? Do you always want them to fill in blanks from their own tool box? Do you always want them to have just the least possible information? Do you always want them to have clean, airy space? No, no, no, and no. There are countless exceptions to this rule. And many of them create the most engaging and enjoyable audience experiences you can imagine. We read an interview with the cinematographer who was shooting a James Bond movie. And he mentioned the “James Bond ‘see-it-all’ look.” Isn’t that beautiful? It tells you everything. When James Bond first sneaks into the villain’s secret laboratory/lair, do you just see a whiff of fog and a desk or two in a sterile room? Heck, no. You see it all, in perfect deep focus: the massive cavern carved out of the inside of a volcano, with missile-launch controls festooned with chrome dials and switches and blinking lights, and scores of evil-uniformed workers busily scurrying about, and the monorail with the “Evil Industries” logo on each car zipping by, and the shark tank with the bubbles, and the huge orchestral “reveal” score and it’s just a jaw-dropping overload which defines the big-screen experience. Less is more? Hardly. Another: Think of great illustrations. Sure, some can be sparse. But the most memorable are packed—stuffed—with detail. Don’t believe us? Norman Rockwell. So there. You can spend hours--happy hours—staring at one of his illustrations, diving down the rabbit holes of detail. He put a ton of work into every composition, and you, the viewer, get the reward. If you’re old enough to remember “Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” those gorgeous hand-drawn cartoons were similarly packed—every square inch of them—with cool details. Ditto for the classic Rube Goldberg inventions. More modern examples exist, too. Think of, say, a movie or TV satire in the recently-departed MAD magazine. Just because that mag is gone, doesn’t mean that the over-stuffed illustration approach is gone, too. It’s been a staple of comic-book art since its inception, and lives on today in things like the graphic novel. Get stuffed The important thing, for you as a creative resource, is to know when to employ this approach. There are times when, pardon our punning, your audience will be hungry for detail. They’ll want a “big meal” of information that they can over-indulge in. Your job, at that time: Reward them. Got a creative challenge—stuffed or otherwise—you need help with? Contact us. We solve these kinds of problems every day. |
