Read the intro and first law hereBe consistent and specific"The higher the coherence of branding efforts across time and space, the more likely the brand will be chosen." This one comes down to an old neuroscience line "the neurons that fire together, wire together". Connections are strengthened the more they're repeated---the SAME connections. Another reason to be firm about who you are and what niche you fill. If one month you do a promotion showing how you're the best greeting cards for mushy valentines cards, and the next month you switch up all your ads to be snarky Mother's day, you might get some impulse buys from being time-appropriate bu... » Read More

I'm going to summarize the paper: "Three laws of branding: Neurscientific foundations of effective brand building " by Tjaco H. Walvis. The paper discusses several things we know about memory from neuroscience and how they relate to principles that are common wisdom in marketing circles. Branding, as you probably know, is about how people recognize, remember, and choose you over a competitor. Branding comes up when you're picking a username for your twitter account and facebook fan page, when you're getting your first business cards or deciding how to set up for craft show. And, of course, the all-important Artfire banner and avatar. It's about t... » Read More

Some actual knitting content to start out with!I like crochet cast-on for provisional cast-ons where the edge is going to be live for a while. Judy’s Magic Cast-On is my favourite when the live stitches are going to be worked immediately, but for long projects having the crochet-chain holding the stitches is nice. Then ziiiiipppp when you want them live again and you’re ready to go.I highly recommend Romi's trick, chaining onto the needle. Much easier than trying to pick up the little loop after the fact. Less sensitive to which hook you use, too. I like deliberately doing extra stitches before and after, just in case. Keep in mind that you’... » Read More

A few weeks ago, when he was out hiking in Elk Island National Park, Joel got to spend some quality time watching a porcupine up a tree (sometimes watching the porcupine watch him).Go here to see Joel's animated GIF of the porcupine eating.I hadn't known that porcupines could scale trees, especially such disproportionate ones. The first time I ever saw a porcupine up a tree was when we were driving home from a trip to the mountains, just along Highway 2 on our way back to Edmonton. I was watching the windbreaks along the highway and saw a bundle up in the tree. First I thought it was a huge nest, but then Joel said it was a porcupine. A what?!? M... » Read More

Joel posted teaser picks of our pendants on his blog today - see the pendant preview here. We've about got the product photo side sorted, and then we can post the ones we have made up. Here's a quick run-down of the details:As we always do, we start with a metallic print of one of Joel's gorgeous nature photos. In this case, a teensy tiny one (which requires cutting it to fit---Joel gets this task foisted on him because his carpentry background lends itself to more precision than my random craftiness). We've had great fun picking out which pictures to use, although with the usual angst over the beauty that doesn't make the cut. We both lean s... » Read More

Read the intro and first law here, second law hereBe in-depth"The more engaging the branding environment that is created, the more likely the brand will be chosen."  The two previous laws emphasized repeated firing of the same neurons. This law is about variety. You have to be interesting, and in particular, you have to engage your customers on multiple levels. Not just repeating the same message, but repeating the same message in different media. Especially media that engage multiple senses in a rich environment. You might think that we can't do much about this one---after all, we don't have millions of dollars and extra employees to throw at... » Read More

So in my day job I'm a graduate student in artificial intelligence. I've had the luxury of doing a lot of cognitive science reading as part of my research, which is great because cognitive science is fascinating. The interesting thing about cognitive science is how much it both confirms and confounds our intuitions about how our minds work. Some things are exactly what we expect (repetition makes something stick in your memory more!). Some things are entirely opposite what we expect (you can be tricked into feeling like you have three arms).  And I think it can be particularly relevant to artist and small business owners. There's a lot we know a... » Read More

As I was going through our listings and adding more information to the descriptions, I ran into a favourite picture of a wild rose, from one of Joel's art prints. While I was looking around for interesting information to share, I was reminded that the petals and rosehips can be used in tea.Now, I have done this. For a few summers I was a counsellor for the elementary-aged children at Belleview Bible Camp. It was great fun, and the kids were fantastic. I ran some of the wilderness sessions, which was really all about finding fun things to do in nature. I believe we built some shelters, went on a nature walk, learned some basic first aid and, of cou... » Read More

The row counters we make are simple and easy to use, but a lot of people have never seen them before so I thought I should throw together a tutorial post. You use them like an ordinary stitch marker at the beginning of the round or row, but instead of just slipping from one needle to another you move down a link. I like adjusting the length to whatever the pattern requires and moving from the plain end towards the bead.In this example we're increasing every third row.First you shorten the counter to be three links long. Remember that you'll need the bead end! I've forgotten, and then not known whether I was coming or going down the chain.I'm at t... » Read More