Rizen Creative Ideas, advertising & design for underdog brands

So, we all know how this story ends, but Too Big to Fail (Andrew Ross Sorkin) is still a page turner that reads more like a Downton Abbey script than a story about the big players in Washington and Wall Street that (tried) to “save the financial system — and themselves”. Sure, there are times [...]

Lost today in the vast sea of digital fonts is the craft of hand lettering. The planning and execution of intricate typography has gone by the wayside. Type as art, and not just a supporting crutch for photography is something that seems ancient.

Which makes Martin Schmetzer’s work (above) even more brilliant. His appreciation for the [...]

Just finished “The Power of Habit: Why we what we do in life and business” by Charles Duhigg. A good read.
The long and short of it is this—habits control our lives, but with a little effort (and intentional focus) we can control our habits.
According to Duhigg, your bad habits never leave you. So forget trying [...]

If you want to get better at baseball or basket weaving or barbecue, the best place to start is the beginning: how it all works. Turns out the true is same for creativity. That precisely what Jonah Lehrer does in his new(ish) book, Imagine: How Creativity Works.
The book provides great insights on how everyone, from Bob Dylan [...]

We read a lot of business/sales/marketing books. Most are filled with opinions. Some good, others…meh.
The great thing about “Persuasion” by Dave Lakhani is that he leads with a concise thought, but has the analytical and anecdotal evidence to back it up.
Sometimes sales-oriented books can come off as slimey. Car-salesman-y. This book is different. Lakhani explains [...]

Bad at Algebra? Then just practice solving linear equations until you master it. Easy enough.
Unfortunately you’ll probably deprive your artistic side in the process, causing it to wither on the vine. The focus on fixing a weakness as opposed to developing our “natural talents” can have diminutive results.
In 2001 Gallup introduced StrengthsFinder which is a [...]

The latest book to hit our office is Seductive Interaction Design by Stephen P. Anderson. While we’re always touting the benefits of good design and looking pretty, it’s refreshing to read something that backs that up from a psychological stance. While only halfway through it,  our kindle is already packed with highlights and bookmarks. One [...]

There’s almost no such thing as a good ‘Coming Soon’ page, but if you’re going to put one up you might as well include an animated GIF. Karlssonwilker’s home page takes the visitor back in time to the late 90’s, with their own twist and surprise on how cool 256 animated colors can be.

One thing about Rizen Creative: we don’t worship at the idol of advertising. We like good advertising. We like creating effective advertising. But we certainly don’t see advertising as the solution to the vast majority of marketing communications problems.
That’s why the title of this book grabbed us.
We’ve helped create many ad-free brands and were excited [...]

There’s a new e-book of poetry floating around the kindle world, and it happens to both fantastic and local. Eat Art and Utter Poems, by j.a. Briggs (father to our own web developer, John Briggs), is “Contemporary Poetry with attitude…Frost in a blender with a dash of dada,” and it shares nothing with the fluff [...]