One of our favorite stock photography sites, Veer.com, constantly manages to come up with some unique giveaways. Their holiday thank you, which arrived this afternoon, is no exception. Check out the photos below.

The Packaging

Opening…

The Gift (Yay! Notebooks!)

The Cover

The Interior

We can’t wait to start sketching in this notebook! Thanks Veer!

Holiday shopping time is upon us and in case you are at a complete loss as to what to get your favorite designer (hint, hint) we’ve put together a little holiday shopping list for you. (Our FTC disclaimer: We are providing these links through Amazon’s Associate program, so if you click on them and buy something for yourself, or for us, or for Santa, we will get a whole shiny nickel. Or a quarter. Or something.)

Up first, Design School Confidential. Sorry design school students, we really hate to break this to you, but REAL WORLD DESIGN IS NOTHING LIKE SCHOOL. Like, major bummer, I know. In the real world, there are clients (!), with opinions (!), and bosses (!), and budgets (!!!). But every real world designer (yours truly included) loves to look back on the time when clients and bosses and budgets and opinions did not exist. We fondly remember our days in design school, spending hour after hour in the design lab making everything just perfect. We also remember not getting a paycheck. Personally, I’d rather get paid to work with my fabulous clients (you really are, I’m not just sucking up for presents), with fabulous opinions and fabulous bosses and sometimes not-so-fabulous budgets than be back in design school. But hey, a girl can dream.

Let’s face it, you already picture us working away at our desk with a coffee in one hand, pjs, and bunny slippers. (Really, we usually work barefoot.) But, nothing could make a designer happier than a fabulous new pair of Bunny Slippers. The best part of these slippers? They come in men, women AND kids sizes! Just picture it — a whole household of freelancers running around in bunny slippers! That’s a picture that will make any client smile! A size 7 should fit just fine.

X-Acto knives are SHARP. And sometimes daytime television is really funny and we get a little distracted while we are cutting. So maybe, on occasion, once or twice, we might have cut ourselves with said X-Acto knife. But fear not! Crazy and Zany Bacon Band Aids to the rescue! These rock for two reasons 1) EVERYBODY loves bacon and 2) sometimes we wind up working through lunch, and these might just serve a dual purpose.

We’ll admit, it does get a bit lonely listening to the sound of mouse clicks and key strokes all day. What better way to keep your designer happy than some new tunes!Yay! We even promise not to order any death metal (makes for angry designs) or classical music (makes for sleeping designers).

And of course, we’ll need something to play those new tunes on…what better than a brand new shiny Apple MacBook Pro MC226LL/A 17-Inch Laptop! You didn’t! You shouldn’t have! You get free designs for like two whole weeks! I know, the Macs are crazy expensive — but look at how pretty they are! (Plus, being a designer and all, we kind of have to use them.)

Alright, one final designer secret…Sometimes we need a little extra creative inspiration. And there are some great books anyone in a creative role should add to their library. Living Out Loud, by Keri Smith, is one of those books. The book is described as: “Living Out Loud is the perfect prescription for a creative jump start to your life. Included are games, projects, activities, crafts, postcards, and playful ideas that will send you off on an exciting adventure, where you’ll discover inspiration around and within you.” We’ll take inspiration and adventure any day!

Welcome back! Isn’t it amazing how fast those four day weekends go? We’re still working off our Thanksgiving dinner, and as such, we thought an appropriate site seeing topic for this week would (others can be found here) be our favorite fitness Websites. As always, click the image to go to the site.

Reebok

Wii Fit

Nike

Adidas

Dick’s Sporting Goods

Champion

Fitness Magazine

Under Armour

The weather in DC is finally starting to cool down, which has us craving a trip somewhere warm. So for our weekly site seeing column (others can be found here), we’re taking a trip around the Web to find some inspiring travel Websites. As always, click the image to go to the site.

Nannai Beach Resort

Ocean City, Maryland

Fairfax County, Virginia

The Curtis

Snowshoe Mountain

Avalon House

Knoxville Tourism

Visit California

Tonight, for the first time ever, we blogged live from an event. The lecture, with Gary Vee (Gary Vaynerchuk) with a part of his book launch. His book can be purchased here. Below, find our recap of the event, in a play-by-play format. The full lecture can be found at the bottom of the post.

7:42:06 PM: A few housekeeping items: @GaryVee will be tweeting from @GaryVatAU tonight during the even

7:42:31 PM: Also, we apologize in advance for typos and grammar errors

7:42:47 PM: We’ll go back and fix those after the fact

7:43:49 PM: Also, if you are following from our blog (http://bit.ly/ji4a9) you’ll need to refresh to keep up with the action

7:46:14 PM: Our hashtag tonight is #AUCrush so if you’d like to ask questions from home, join in!

7:54:38 PM: If you want to watch the #AUCrush action live broadcasr is — http://ustre.am/75eV

7:56:14 PM: RT @darthcheeta: http://twitpic.com/ljw0o – #aucrush with @garyvee getting ready to start

7:57:34 PM: Room has definitely filled up much more in the last 10 minutes

7:59:33 PM: 7:59 by my watch. let’s hope #AUCrush doesn’t crash twitter!

8:04:07 PM: Gary must be finishing his glass of wine before he crushes it #AUCrush

8:09:30 PM: Looks like we are getting ready to start!

8:10:16 PM: Ogilvy is introducing Gary Vee

8:11:16 PM: things to know about Gary Vee: Co owner of Wine Library

8:11:22 PM: Host of Wine Library TV

8:11:40 PM: Worked at Wine Library for 7 years every day

8:12:00 PM: Built families wine business

8:12:27 PM: Gary Vee signed a 10 book deal — Holy moly! #AUCrush

8:13:38 PM: How many of you don’t have a feel for what I’m about — less than half raise hands

8:15:09 PM: (We can see ourselves on the big screen — it’s kind of cool!)

8:15:43 PM: Gary started branding with a lemonade stand. Seriously. With 7 locations. #AUCrush

8:18:24 PM: Gary was on the Conan OBrien show — he ate dirt

8:18:43 PM: His parents wouldn’t let him drink wine, and his parents didn’t drink wine

8:18:52 PM: ry wanted to be the greatest wine expert of all time

8:20:06 PM: Grew Wine Library to a $15M business

8:20:42 PM: Summer 05 — watched @ZeFrank the Show — We love @ZeFrank

8:20:58 PM: RT @auobserver: @garyvee learned to taste wine by eating dirt, grass, mulberries, etc. #AUCrush

8:22:15 PM: Wine Library grew 20% every month for the 9 years Gary was in charge

8:22:56 PM: You can’t build business or brands in 3 weeks or 3 months or 3 years

8:24:14 PM: (Gary gives props to those in the room) Thanks Gary!

8:24:37 PM: 99.9% of us underestimate the power of the internet #AUCrush

8:26:26 PM: The only thing that is going to beat the internet is that we are going to start swallowing chips #AUCrush

8:29:14 PM: Customer service is the only business we are all in now

8:29:58 PM: RT @Macala: The Internet means being reactionary. #aucrush – do you have dailybooth? You will in a year.

8:30:16 PM: The game has changed — it’s about to change a whole lot more

8:30:42 PM: the pipe dream of do what you love and you’ll be happy was not real a couple years ago

8:31:05 PM: we can create content, distribute it and it costs us nothing. #AUCrush

8:32:52 PM: Whatever that one thing is that you do for free, that needs to be your business

8:33:22 PM: Screw the printing press. This is so much bigger #AUCrush

8:34:55 PM: I’ve crossed off 90 people from the smart list because of their reaction to Gourmet magazine closing

8:40:18 PM: Time for questions from the qudience

8:40:52 PM: Gary knew Wine Library would be big as soon as he started doing it

8:41:23 PM: Biggest mistake people make is they look for the payoff #AUCrush

8:42:26 PM: Wine Library TV uses iMovie

8:42:50 PM: Gary did Wine Library in the AM — the PM — that was when the magic happened #AUCrush

8:43:09 PM: RT @auobserver: “the payoff needs to be the process” -@garyvee #AUCrush

8:45:14 PM: I have no idea who my best customer is , that’s not how I do things #AUCrush

8:46:44 PM: RT @Macala: Gary’s strategy was community development and meeting people 1 by 1. Everyday on the grind. Built winelibrary on that. #aucrush

8:47:02 PM: Brand is a very special thing. Once you get there it’s very scary.

8:48:12 PM: I could have put them out of business. I didn’t. Why? They had brand. It takes a long time for people to adjust #AUCrush

8:48:52 PM: I built Wine Library’s business model on Froogle. #AUCrush

8:49:05 PM: Froogle is innovation

8:49:20 PM: I saw the worst possible market for myself and I learned how to live within it

8:49:55 PM: I built a business model off the worst possible case scenario

8:50:19 PM: What I knew was that is was going to be a story telling game

8:52:51 PM: Gary just compared the smell of some wines to the smell of Matzo Ball Soup

8:53:35 PM: But that’s how he’s successful, he makes wine approachable

8:54:45 PM: People make decisions. People are the ones who hire you. People put in their credit cards.

8:55:07 PM: This is why social media is so important. You are engaging with other people.

8:55:52 PM: RT @annatauzin: “This is a people game, and that’s what people are missing”

8:56:51 PM: If you bring value, you can charge more.

9:02:29 PM: DailyBooth is going to be the next big thing. Gary is doing his FTC compliance

9:03:19 PM: College kid: If I can do all this and I have youth on my side: Should I drop out?

9:04:34 PM: You have to know who you are. Not everything is for everybody. If you feel like you are a hardcore entrepreneur, you should quit.

9:05:34 PM: RE: Taking a long time for brands to die. It takes Patience.

9:05:42 PM: It all comes down to your skill set

9:06:59 PM: There are two ways to build the biggest building. You can build the biggest building. OR you can tear the others down. #AUCrush

9:08:34 PM: We are lazy. We are going robot.

9:09:36 PM: How does Gary identify what the next big thing is?

9:09:43 PM: Content is king.

9:10:03 PM: If you’ve got the chops, you are going to win. #AUCrush

9:11:42 PM: Julian Jackson – boxer from Jamaica – “No man on Earth can get up when I feel the crack in my elbow” (It’s not a physical crack)

9:14:17 PM: How 2 b good in music business – hang out with ur fans. Walk their F*ing dogs. BE W/ THEM. (We think this goes for fans, customers, clients)

9:15:27 PM: There is a bottled water company that offered Gary $5K a week to put their water on his desk. Why? He has eyeballs.

9:17:30 PM: If you need the money or want the money, go out and get the money.

9:18:59 PM: RT @auobserver: “The rock stars of the world are going to be the new media people” #AUCrush

9:20:00 PM: RT @MosesHawk: Takeaways from tonight – Be of value + Have a good Story + Work 100 times harder than everyone else = SUCCE$$

9:20:49 PM: F* the platform. It’s the message. Not the method.

9:21:32 PM: Next books: Contradiction in Business. Creating Tunnels in Business.

9:22:37 PM: You have to know the players in your world. (Gary includes his wife and father in this)

9:22:51 PM: I know I work hard, and I’m real hungry.

9:23:42 PM: Star Wars Sh*T — You can’t control your destiny.

9:26:01 PM: You build creditability by doing it.

9:26:37 PM: Q: About NBC and Comcast merger — will they change the game?

9:28:06 PM: A: I don’t know who the captain of the ship is. I want to know who is doing it. Think abt Hulu — we made fun and they r changing the game.

9:29:14 PM: Q: Is @FourSquare going anywhere?

9:29:33 PM: A: I didn’t execute. #Mistake

9:30:10 PM: Gary wants to keep going

9:30:24 PM: WHY THE BOOK?

9:30:46 PM: There are so many people that I am going to reach with this book that wouldn’t see me.

9:31:08 PM: Gary bought a $2K billboard for the book. (The billboard was priced at $7K)

9:31:38 PM: Gary will be ALL OVER Hudson News (the airport bookstand)

9:34:49 PM: RT @MosesHawk: The importance of core values to build a business rather than tips and tricks that will become outdated. #aucrush

9:36:38 PM: Props to @FrankGruber from @GaryVee

9:39:13 PM: Cable television is in trouble.

9:43:31 PM: We are all in the word of mouth business.

9:45:02 PM: Oh no. We broke Twitter.

9:48:14 PM: One more questions

9:48:20 PM: One more question

9:49:45 PM: Big round of applause for Gary

Next: We #CRUSHIT

Free TV : Ustream

This week, our site seeing column (others can be found here) explores sites focusing on food and drink. As always, click the image to go to the site.

Pizza Luce

Parish Foods & Goods

Fantesca Estate & Winery

Bonny Doon Vineyard

Forty-Five North Vineyard & Winery

CoCo Sala

Brabo

Nature’s Table Cafe

Conferences are great — there are endless networking opportunities, lectures and workshops by industry leaders, and the chance to re-energize worn-out batteries. But let’s be honest, one of the best things about conferences is what’s available on the tradeshow floor — the “swag” (or stuff we all get). These are the items attendees covet; and often the only thing that makes it back to an attendees’ office. But how many logoed BIC pens, magnets and mints can one person use?

We asked Mike Harper, account executive and promotional product genius, at Summit Marketing to provide some unique ideas for promotional products that are sure to get noticed on the tradeshow floor and that will keep your brand in front of your customers long after they’ve left the floor.

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Slinky Adhesive Notes
Budget: $1.99-$1.23 each
100 Sheets

Slinky® adhesive note pads feature alternating glue and reminds everyone of their favorite childhood walking toy. Each note has repositionable adhesive at the top. Works like a sticky note, fun like a Slinky®.  Must be ordered in increments of 500.

Slap, Wrap & Go Cooler
Budget:  $1.79-$3.99 each

Slap n Wrap beverage insulators are the only Coolie on the market that can fit cans, bottles, glasses & more. The patented Slap n Wrap effect allows it to grip almost any container without falling off. The large 2.5″ x 7″ imprint area allows for a billboard logo that will be recognized easily.

Biodegradable Anti-Bacterial Wipes Canister
Budget: $1.95-$1.65 each
Blue or Lime Cap
Recyclable dispenser contains 30 biodegradable antibacterial wetwipes. Wipes are lavender scented.

Relax Calm Down Pen
Budget: $2.25-$2.00

Fun pen says “Relax, calm down now. Don’t stress, take it easy!” when head is pressed down. Made from Eco-Friendly corn plastic.

IGOT Pen
Budget: $4.95-$3.25 each

The same size as a credit card, this pen fits in your wallet just like your credit cards would. Full color imprinting options on both sides. Made in the USA.

Driinn Cell Phone Holder
Budget:  $3.17 – $1.75 each

Authentic Driinn™ Phone Charger Holder is a handy product for EVERYONE with a cell phone, Mp3 player, or PDA. It hangs between the battery charger and the wall socket, providing a support for your mobile phone and convenient storage for the charging cord. Patented, Made in the USA, large imprint area for your logo will be viewed daily for optimal brand recognition!

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Summit Marketing offers services including promotional products, recognition and incentives, strategic fundraising, direct mail and fulfillment services.

Stay tuned for more ideas from Mike in the coming months (including some great ideas for holiday gifts). To learn more about these and other promotional products, Mike can be reached at 240-491-5235 or m.harper@summitmarketing.com.

Normally, we use our site seeing column (others can be found here) to show off some of our favorite Web site finds across the Internet. We’re still going to do that this week, but instead of showing off multiple sites, we’re going to show you one great site that shows off a bunch of other great sites. This week we explores some of the most creative Flash preloaders on Websites. A preloader is used to allow a Flash file to load in the background while something else visual occurs on screen. The variety and creativity on shown on this site is unmatched. Click here, sit back, and Enjoy!

The DC air is beginning to turn crisp, and this week we officially welcome Fall. To celebrate, this site seeing column (others can be found here) explores sites with autumnal color palettes. As always, click the image to go to the site.

Square One Coffee

Recklessly Abandoned

Arlington Arts

Ayer Blogs

Pomeranc

Mount Hope Church

Cellar

Balance

In this site seeing column (others can be found here), we navigate through the Web to find the best examples of event and conference Web sites. What makes them great? A beautiful design, a clear call to action, and engaging content. On each, click the image to visit the site.

Full Sail University

ASAE Annual Meeting & Expo

TechAdventure DC

New York Wine & Food Festival

Dublin Detour

Print 09

Virgin Mobile Festival

In-Howse Designer Conference