Worldwide Online Graphics Hangout - 23rd September 2020

Envato Authors Graphics Authors
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Hello and welcome to the forum thread for the Envato Worldwide Graphics Webinar, starting at 3:00pm (AEST) on 23rd September!

To join us on the day, please register here to receive a participation badge and then head over to the Youtube Live event on the envatoauthors channel and set a reminder to be notified on the day.

This forum space has been created to keep you updated on the day and so that you can share some of the key takeaways from each session, as well as give you space to connect with other authors from your community and ask questions, both during and after the event ends.

The webinar will be recorded, so you can head back over to Youtube and watch it anytime, or share the link with other authors who might not be available at the time.

We hope you can join us this Wednesday at 3:00pm (AEST) for our Graphics webinar!

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Hey, There
That is a great news and I can’t wait to participate for the 1st time in Envato World Wide.
I joined and am waiting… :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:

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Hello :wave:

We’re getting everything set-up for the Envato Worldwide Graphics Webinar starting soon!

We’ll be kicking off in 45 minutes - at 3.00pm (AEST) on Youtube, which you can view here.

Please use this forum thread to introduce yourself, discuss key takeaways from today’s sessions, ask questions and meet other authors from the Graphics community! This is also a great place to keep the conversation going after the event ends on Youtube.

Please see the agenda below:

  • Welcome (5 mins)
  • Demand Trends for GraphicRiver and Elements (20 mins)
  • Elements Review Tips (10 mins)
  • Fireside Chat (25 mins)

We hope you can join us!

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The Graphics webinar has started, here’s the Youtube link again for you to watch it now.

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The Worldwide Graphics Webinar is now underway here! I’ll be sharing the key takeaways from all of the sessions in this forum post as soon as it’s aired, so make sure to keep an eye on this thread for all the highlights.

Feel free to ask questions and continue the conversation here!

We hope you enjoy it and happy viewing :slight_smile:

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Andrew’s just getting stuck into industry-wide trends. First up: era related trends. Specifically The 1920s and the 1980s are making a comeback. Lots of Art Deco styles and 80s text effects.

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Graphic Demand Trends with Andrew, Envato’s Insights Specialist.

First up we had Andrew, Envato’s Insights Specialist presenting the latest graphics trends and insights. Here, he took us through the key demands from customers in the graphic design space. This included:

1. Industry Wide Trends

  • ERAS REIMAGINED: The 1920s and the 1980s are back in vogue.

  • NEON & CYBERPUNK: Neon has been the most consistent trend across most types of stock media.

  • NATURE & SUSTAINABILITY: Searches for environment, recycle and sustainable are rapidly increasing in demand.

  • ACTIVISM & THE AGEING DEMOGRAPHIC: Searches for the term ‘protest’ have grown by +80% across both photos and graphics.

  • INCLUSIVITY & MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS: Inclusivity across a range of genders, bodies orientation and race.

2. How do we people search on our sites?

80% of searches are related to:

  • Technologies
  • Specific productions
  • Industries
  • Subjects

Top Tip: Make sure your tags adequately describe your items features, industry and technology so customers can better find your items!

3. What Content is in Demand?

TOP ‘INDUSTRY / NICHE’ RELATED SEARCHES:

  • Education
  • Marketing & Advertising
  • Health & Medical
  • Weddings
  • Real Estate & Construction

Top Tip: While the top industries can be broad, research specific niches / trends within them that may be gaining popularity. For example, e-learning has been gaining popularity within the education industry.

TOP ‘PRODUCT / PRODUCTION’ RELATED SEARCHES

  • Business card
  • Logo
  • Flyer
  • Brochure
  • Resume

Top Tip: On Elements, we are seeing some items performing well that combine two or three of these products as one item with a consistent design.

TOP ‘TECHNOLOGY / PLATFORM’ RELATED SEARCHES

  • Photoshop Action
  • Instagram
  • Indesign
  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Top Tip: Customers are often looking for social media templates across multiple social media platforms. Ensure you have consistent theming across templates or include multiple templates in one item.

4. Interesting Demand Trends

  • Live Streaming content continues to rise. Twitch is trending and more specifically, Twitch Overlay templates are in-demand.
  • Customers are searching for more Procreate Brushes to add to their collection. Procreate is one of our highest trending ‘graphics-addons’ term!
  • Imagery relating to space is in-demand. Fast growing terms include: Outer Space, Galaxy, Astronaut, Milky Way, Planet.
  • Nature is in-demand with fast growing terms including: Iceberg, Hurricane, Lightning.
  • Sustainability is in-demand with fast growing terms including: Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Climate, Sustainable, Climate Change.

5. Hot Opportunities

Graphic templates & Graphics: The biggest opportunities align with seasonal events for example, ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Back to School’ but we can also see some demand for ‘year round’ content and emerging trends.

It’s important to do some research on key seasonal events and holidays around the world and ensure you have content for the most popular periods.

Fonts: We see opportunities that aren’t based on the latin alphabet, with terms such as ‘Arabic’, ‘Japan’ and ‘Cyrillic’ trending. There are also opportunities around specific styles such as ‘Neon’, ‘Graffiti’ and ‘Glitch’.

Presentation Templates: Searches for ‘3d Infographic’ is trending in demand!

Graphic Add Ons: Procreate (brushes) represents the biggest opportunity based on current demand trends, alongside terms such as Photo Effect and Sketch Effect, likely relating to the very popular Photoshop actions.

That’s it for our top graphics trends, happy creating! Make sure to watch the recording (made available after the webinar) for additional inspiration, tips, visual examples, graphs and more :slight_smile:

Remember, if you’re an Elements author, don’t forget to check out the Elements Author Dashboard for more insights: beta.author.envato.com

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This presentation is all about Elements Review Tips! I am the Author Engagement Lead in the Content Team at Envato. You might have met me previously at one of our in-person Worldwide events or meetups or seen me around the Forums!
I’m here if you have any questions about my presentation.

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Top Tips for Setting Yourself up for Success with the Envato Elements Review Process with James, Envato’s Author Engagement Lead.

In our second presentation, we had James sharing the top tips for setting yourself up for success with the Envato Elements review process.

Here, he explains how every portfolio and review experience is unique, so the focus is on an author’s individual merits and what they bring to the table, however there are some key things that are common across a lot of authors that are helpful to know during the application process.

Check out these top five tips:

  1. Be open, honest and clear about who is applying. When filling out an application, make sure to include your real name wherever possible (not a brand name), especially if you are applying with an account that already exists.

  2. Choose your best and newest assets for Envato. When it comes to evaluating a portfolio, it’s not always based on what’s sold the most. Remember that what sells well on Market, might not be the same as on Elements as it is a different customer base and experience. So, make sure to only include your best high quality items, that you know you can create really well and if you can, prioritise some of your more recent items. Help us get a sense of who you are and what you’re creating now, not what you created 2-4 years ago.

  3. Have a history of publishing new items regularly on Envato. Coming in with a portfolio with an array of high quality items is something that we’re after, we want to know you’ll be active in publishing new content so that there is fresh content available for customers.

  4. Show some variety and diversity in your items. We want to see how you can create different kinds of items in your portfolio, not the same kind of items. It helps us to get a sense of the types of things you can do and the kinds of things you can produce for customers on Elements.

  5. Have a history of doing the right thing. This means doing the right thing by customers, by authors and by Envato. We care about the interactions and behaviours within our ecosystem. The way you respond to customers, the way item pages are created and how you treat other authors via the forums for example, all those things play a role in helping to give us a sense of who you are as an author.

Bonus Tip: Remember, if you don’t succeed the first time, you can always apply again in six months time. This is a good time to think about your portfolio and the content that you’re producing. See what you have in the pipeline and try to tailor your content to what you think might work well for Elements.

Another good tip is to look at what's coming through and being showcased on the site to get a sense of the aesthetic and quality level required to get onto Elements!

Make sure to stick around for the Fireside Chat with Kate, Envato’s Graphics Specialist coming up next and feel free to ask questions for James and Andrew in this forum thread! :slight_smile:

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Fireside Chat with Kate, Envato’s Graphics Specialist.

Lastly, we had our fireside chat with Kate, Envato’s Graphics Specialist. Here, Kate shared how she started off in design as an Icon Designer, ran an illustration business on the side and ultimately, began working at Envato.

She reflects on working in the industry when she was the only person who could do design in her first job and was often asked to create things she wasn’t sure how to do - fake it till you make it, right? This is how she found Envato Tuts+.

Everytime she was asked to do something that she needed more clarity on, she went to Envato Tuts+ to view the design tutorials available. The Editor of Envato Tuts+ at the time asked her if she would be interested in writing a tutorial given she had been reading so many of them. Eventually, there was a job advertised for an Associate Editor for Envato Tuts+ and that’s how she ended up at Envato!

What does your day-to-day job look like?

Kate explains that her day-to-day includes a variety of different things, including:

  • Trend Reports - Looking back at Envato platforms, Industries and what’s coming up ahead.
  • Technical requirements and review operations.
  • Supporting other teams in the business across selling, review and marketing.

What are some of the things you think about when it comes to planning quality requirements?

  1. What it looks like - does it apply to design principles?
  2. How does it look to the buyer - how is it presented and what’s included for the user/buyer?
  3. How does it work - does it have those technical requirements you need, is it free of errors?

She explains that this is where it’s important to spend time how to articulate best practice in design and put that forward in a clear and easy way. In terms of technical requirements, it’s also about thinking about what would be reasonable for a buyer to expect when purchasing an item.

Additionally, since authors are designing for someone else there are also considerations around their needs and to ensure the experience they have is positive. Kate shares her learnings on how sometimes these considerations are not met.

  • Often, the focus is on what the item looks like, not what’s inside the file. Working with a client means that file preparation is important so they know what they need to do, how to edit what they need to edit and that it follows a standard approach to files.
  • Really learning how to use that piece of software will take you far.
  • Remember to think about the end user and that they might not know as much as you do, so it’s important to keep it simple and convenient for them to use the file.
  • Tidying up your files helps with presentation - think about how your files will be viewed externally and how it might make sense to someone else.

Is there a top tip you can share with authors as the Curator for content on Envato Elements?

  • Sometimes authors who start on the platform will just add one or a few items and then not come back for a while. From observing the platform, the portfolios that do the best are the ones that have a good sustained publishing plan. It’s not just about one or two files, it’s about the whole library.

How can authors maintain authenticity?

  • It’s good to try different styles, but it’s important to focus on a niche. Become familiar with a specific style and be really good at it. This will be far more sustainable for your business than being across too many things.
  • If you are experimenting with new things, ask for feedback from colleagues. Be comfortable with being a novice, so that you can learn new things and build that confidence.
  • Having a unique style means that people will recognize your style before seeing your brand or portfolio. That’s a powerful design language that speaks to authenticity.

To wrap-up, is there anything else you’d like authors to know?

  • Don’t be afraid to ask questions on the forums if you’re not quite sure about the review handbook or the technical requirements. We’re not able to provide feedback on an individual level but we can help with how to prepare your items and what’s required.
  • Ask each other for help to review and provide feedback on the quality of your items.
  • Be consistent.
  • Make sure to spend some time during the week to reflect and work on your portfolio!

…and that’s a wrap! Thanks for joining us today :slight_smile:

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What do you think about quantity of items in a case they don’t effect the quality of these items? Is a good thing for Element in general term ?

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QUESTION TIME

We would love to hear from you!

  • How many of the top trends did you know about? Did any surprise you? Which ones are you most excited about?
  • What did you think of the Elements Review Tips? Will you be applying for Elements?
  • How do you maintain authenticity in your work?

James, Kate and Andrew are available to answer any of your questions / comments now :slight_smile:

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Is it worth going back to old items and improving them? For example, I make a lot of Photoshop Layer Styles, but my older stuff from years ago are nowhere close to the quality that I do now, so I’m in the middle of going back and remaking them as updates to the existing items instead of making new ones, or should I just make new ones instead?

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Thanks James, Andrew, Steve & Andrew

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I have a question related to web design not graphics design. Can I ask about that?

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Thanks James

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I think it depends on how close the item is to the old one. If it’s a really big change, then I would consider it to be a new item.

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I love this chart so much, I’ll be so happy if I can access it on Beta Dashboard.

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Hi spacestudios, there is a section called ‘Elements Trends and Opportunities’ that takes these 3 key measures and combines them into one overall score.

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