If you follow my Twitter Account @JAWilsonDesign you may have noticed that my profile picture background has changed to promote the #timetotalk hashtag from the time to change campaign helping stop mental health discrimination.

I decided to become a time to change champion because I know what it is like to suffer with mental illness.

I have suffered quite badly over the last decade with severe mental illness but eventually, began to recover.

Why am I writing this post? I am writing this in the hope that my story might help others who are suffering with feelings of hopelessness, depression or/and anxiety to know that you can get better and things can improve. I am not trying to be presumptuous I just want others to know there is a way out of the dark place of depression and this is my story…

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Having an email address that isn’t @hotmail or @gmail whether for business or applying for jobs is really quite important for several reasons. In this blog post I plan to explain the issues surrounding not having a branded email address.

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Choosing the right hosting provider for your website is HUGELY important and probably the most important part of your website. Like a house, if you don’t put in the right foundations in at the start then your house is going to start getting problems and it just won’t be a good construction. Hosting is the same, choose a hosting provider that is below par and your website will see the effect. In this blog post I discuss why I had no choice but to leave my hosting provider.

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I recently read an article on the web about 5 principles to making a good logo design one of which one was that it is important that a logo is timeless. To quote

“Nothing about your logo should be trendy or connected to the style of the time. The best logo designs are iconic …” Indelible Branding

In my opinion nothing could be further from the truth and here is why.

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I realise that not everyone enjoys reading and some prefer a more visual approach to learning. Video blogging is something I have been interested in doing but never got around to trying out. Now I have decided the time is right to venture into YouTube to try and share some of my knowledge in a different format. Why not check it out in this video below : –

Now you have seen my first free tutorial if you have any suggestions what you would like to learn in Photoshop or other programs then please suggest ideas in the comment box below and I will try to adhere to your needs. Look forward to hearing from you guys and follow my rss feed or youtube channel for further free youtube photoshop tutorials 🙂

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You have probably heard it over and over again “is your business online yet?” or “create your own online presence”, but where do you start? Do you hire a web designer or do you try to save your money and design it yourself? One area to consider if going for the web designer option is the website hosting you choose.

In this post I am going to share what you should consider when first developing a new website and what to do as your website contenet grows and hopefully, your audience and profits increase, I have wrote the post in a fashion from the very start of a websites life to the large succesful website. To begin, lets discuss what website hosting is …

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Remember the good old days of red and blue glasses before all this high-tech 3d imagery came in. One lens red, the other blue? Well in this totally free tutorial I am going to teach you how to create your very own 3d imagery! The things you will need are a) patience and any version of Photoshop as the same rules apply for cs to cs6.

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Sometimes deciding what to write about on your blog can be difficult, you just get a creative block and it’s like you are sat in a white room, on a white stool with white windows & with nothing to white, oh sorry I mean write! Finding out what is trending on social media is one great way to inducious your creative sparks. In this post you will find four useful links to find out what is currently trending.

Google Trends

Each day there is new content created on the web and search engine giant Google is a great place to find out what is trending. It is the most widely used Search Engine in the Western Hemisphere so if you write about something related to the main trend you have a good chance you may generate some traffic from it.

Reddit

Ever heard of reddit? Well you have now! Reddit is a place that people share stories that they find interesting and they post them in specific categories. The benefit of this for looking for ideas for your own works is that you can see how many up’s they have which gives an indication at how interesting and successful the story might be if you were to create something yourself around that particular article.

Buzz Feed

BuzzFeed is the leading media company for the social age, intensely focused on delivering high-quality original reporting, insight, and viral content across a rapidly expanding array of subject areas. Their technology powers the social distribution of content, detects what is trending on the web, and connects people in realtime with the hottest content of the moment. A great way to really spark your imagination with many subjects and ideas to discuss on your blog, what could be better?

Youtube Trending

Lastly, if you are starting to enter the world of video blogging you may like to take a look at this site. It gives you insight into what is currently trending on youtube. Even if you aren’t video blogging it still might spark some ideas for your latest blog post or podcast.

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Remember, although all these websites are informing you of what is trending at that particular moment you may want to try and be a little bit psychic too and write about things that are yet to happen but are foresable and highly likely to happen as this will give google time to index your content and you won’t become old news. Alternatively, if you can write an article within a couple of hours and you have large social media followings on various platforms and you are a part of various communities then don’t worry so much about natural search results just make sure you use the hashtag as effecitvely as possible when describing your blog post so that your article can be found amongst all the other trending information. Best of luck and if you have any other ideas of to find out what is trending then please feel free to comment in the box below.

Its August and many students are packing their bags and buying laptops and student supplies in ready to undertake their very expensive university education. For others they may not have got past the UCAS point scoring or maybe they aren’t as academic as their counterparts. In this post I will show you ten British people that have made a success of themselves without ever attending university, proof that a degree doesn’t always necessarily mean increased wealth and better opportunities.

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Duncan Bannatyne

If you don’t give it a go you’ll never fail, but if you don’t accept the possibility of failure, you’ll never get the chance to succeed.

— Duncan Bannatyne

John Caudwell

“I strongly believe the group has enormous potential for further growth in the UK and internationally ,”

Simon Cowell

If you have people working for you, you must understand that they have an invisible sign on their heads which says, “Make me feel important”. Share the credit.

Alan Sugar

The entrepreneurial instinct is in you. You can’t learn it, you can’t buy it, you can’t put it in a bottle. It’s just there and it comes out.

Richard Branson

 My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.’

Sean Connery

I left Scotland when I was 16 because I had no qualifications for anything but the Navy, having left school at 13.

David Beckham

 I’ve felt a little tired, but I’m only 24. I love playing football. That’s my job and that’s what I love doing.

John Lennon

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

Andy Murray

The only pressure I feel is the pressure I put on myself to win.

Deborah Meaden

There isn’t a single path to success – there are many.

William Hesketh Lever

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is I don’t know which half

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The main thing that all these people have is a passion for one industry, determination to make it work, an understanding that hard work will eventually pay off and a “realistic” belief that they can do it.

Just because you didn’t get a degree or state education ( what many in society believe is expected for a successful future) doesn’t mean you can’t still be highly successful. If these ten successful British people without a degree are anything to go by it could be said that you are probably wiser not to attend university and invest your money and more importantly, time elsewhere.

Photoshop comes with some fabulous brushes but did you can you make your own? In this blog post I help you in learning how to create a Photoshop brush so you can create your own.

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Create a Spiral Photoshop Brush

Create anew document and then a new layer. Draw a black object. We produced this one by creating Bezier curves using the Pen tool and then filled in the path. Ctrl/Cmd-click the layer to select the object and choose Edit > Copy. Select File > New and change the background contents to Transparent.

Define your Photoshop Brush

After the new document has been created, select edit > paste and the shape you copied will appear on the transparent background layer. Choose Select>All and then edit > Define Brush Preset. A brush name window will appear for you to name your brush. Enter the text in the name box and click OK.

Time to experiment

Create a new document. Choose the brush tool and select a colour by clicking on the foreground colour swatch in the tool bar. Select Window > brush preset. Scroll to the bottom of the brush presets palette to find your new brush. Click it to select it. Now make alterations to the size, opacity and flow of the brush using the top toolbar options. See what kind of patterns you can create!

Save the Photoshop Brush day

Finally make sure you save the photoshop brush. To do this simply select the brush > then press the dropdown next to the small image of the brush > then the arrow pointing right in a circle and a drop down will appear. Next click save brush…a file save as will appear, give your brush a good name, jobs a gudden!

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In my next post I will discuss how to create retro 3d photographs so they really do stand out!! Free 3d wallpapers will also be available for free!