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Hola!

I thought you’d be interested in knowing what goes behind the scenes. So I decided to put together a little something for you.

Alright, let’s start on the right track – Relax sit back and enjoy.
Featured: “Estorsjke Bar invites Petar Malesevic”

Business

With the entrepreneurial trend expanding all over the web, running your own business has become a tendency to follow. No matter what your passion is, you’ll find yourself looking for inspiration, mentors and material that will guide you along the way. If you’re new to this trend you’ll find the marketplace flooded with advertising of so-called experts. To me, most of them say recycled speeches selling similar products offering a vague promise of “freedom”.

After reading extensive materials and watching hours of video presentations, I came across a couple of amazing channels that completely change my mindset.

The Futr

The Futur is an extraordinary avenue of creative wisdom. This type of information was rarely available years ago, and I wish I had access to it when I first started freelancing. If you are a photographer, developer, or any kind of artist I highly recommend you seeing at least one of their videos.

Pia Silva

One thing is to possess creative skills another is to have business skills. I think most of the creative minds find themselves in a gray zone gap, where is difficult for us to quantify value in our work.

In my search for business advice, I found Pia’s story. Her message could exemplify a reflection of what many of us creatives go through by trying to stay afloat. Her simple and direct approach could be applied to any type of business. If you really have the entrepreneurial spirit and looking for sincere advice, start by reading her posts on Forbes, trust me on this one, you will learn solid business mentorship.

Technology

Technology could be overwhelming in today’s digital era. Over the past decade the Internet has grown to an exponential speed and with the constant birth of applications, it could be hard to find the right tool in an ocean of information overload.

Siteground

Having a good hosting provider is essential in web development. I have been hosting sites with Siteground for the past 7 years, it has been a pleasure to work with. The backend is easy to manage and customer service is always ready when you need them.

NameCheap

NameCheap might not be among the most popular domain name companies, although I decided to try it out by following WP Crafter referral. The interface is simple and user-friendly as well customer service has been responsive. I will continue using it in combination with Siteground.

WordPress & WooCommerce

After extensive research and evaluations, we opted to use WordPress on the development of Panda Studios due to the flexibility it would provide when applying in-depth customization. Yes, I know, it could be a Love-Hate relationship and a little daunting to use at first glance, but once you get familiar with the interface it’s all good.

We plan to keep WordPress running in combination with WooCoomerce, there is a possibility to migrate the Shop section to Shopify down the road, as it offers better integrations for eCommerce. For now, we are very happy with the new set up and will continue moving forward with both platforms.

Elementor

Elementor played a key role when selecting WordPress as our long-term platform. I have tried a few page builders before, in my opinion, Elementor is by far the best in the market. I can’t imagine myself working with any other. Really good stuff!

Ocean WP

The combination of WordPress + Elementor was perfect, and now it was time to choose a Theme. If you’re a WP Developer or had tried selecting a theme you’ll agree with me looking over thousands of themes could be a headache.

Fortunately, following Elementors advice, I found Ocean WP. I have tried a diversity of themes and honestly, I couldn’t be more happy with Ocean WP.

WordPress Tutorials

My two favourite WP mentors are WP Crafter and WP Tuts.

If you’re new to WordPress and have no idea where to start WP Crafter has all the content you need to begin. The video tutorials provide detailed information that will guide you in your early steps.

WP Tuts contains very handy tips and video tutorials that would help improve your WordPress abilities.

Tools

Wave

Are you new to running a small business? You’ll soon find you need to take care of many details. One of them will be Billing & Accounting, such a crucial part of the business that usually us creatives overlook. Being honest, I’m not a big fan of doing paperwork, who likes it anyway?… but, I’ll admit, I actually enjoy organizing my account using Wave, I guess is all the charts, simplicity and practicality that makes me not want to procrastinate on this one.

Dropbox

I believe Dropbox was one of the first companies offering File Transfer Protocol services (FTP). With so many Clouds on the web, it could be challenging to know which one to trust. I remember the old days of having to set up your own FTP, it was okay but I wasn’t a big fan of it. When it comes to sharing files I use Dropbox in combination with Google Drive.

WeTransfer

Have you ever send an attachment or set up a link just to find out your files were never received. Yahhh, it happens from time to time. WeTransfer is great for these occasions, it sends you an email notification when files have been received. It works great when sending files to printers.

GOOGLE DOCS

Some of you may rather Windows or Mac over Google. Totally a personal preference. For now, Google Docs works well for me, they give you 15GB of space to start, it might not seem much now in days with the big files we work with, but it’s definitely useful.

Google Analytics

I can’t stress enough how important is to set up Google Analytics on any website. Definitely a must! It will provide statistics and detail information helping you understand the kind of traffic that runs through your site.

Cloudflare

I’m pretty sure you want your website to run fast. Well, it’s not a single step process, there are plenty of factors that will influence your website performance and speed. One of them is by using a Content Delivery Network. If you haven’t, I encourage you to look into applying CDN to your site. Cloudflare is among the best in the industry, it will definitely help you boost your speed.

Asana

I’ll admit again, I can’t live without Asana. I have so many digital notes in it that it’s not even funny looking at them. You can ask Dahlias, she gets quite annoyed by the amount of information I compile in it. Disregarding my obsession for digital notes Asana was one of the first in this category and it’s a great task management tool.

Web Typography

If you need to refresh your typography skills or are looking to learn more about type, Better Web Type would be a good place to start. His material is straightforward and the exercises are fun to do.

Fontbase

Do you have a big Font library, I guess you and me both do. Looking for an alternative Font Manager found Fontbase. Its fast performance surprised me after using it for about a week. They are fairly new in the field, and are doing amazing! Every upgrade becomes better and better.

Grammarly

Grammar has been never my thing, for those who know me well, will completely agree. I don’t know why, but it’s hard for me to express myself in words. So, I guess, I chose the right profession by going into Visual Communication. Grammarly, I’m sure, you have seen all over Facebook Ads, and what they say is true, it’s like having a personal proofreader. Love it!

Udemy

This is for all you self-taught people out there. I know there are plenty of new online platforms, I only have had time to try Udemy and must say I’m pretty happy with it. The content presented depends on each teacher, you have to do a bit of research to find which will be a good fit for you. To me, Udemy comes practical, as I can pick up a course and follow up at my own rhythm. I’m about to start a basic photography course to brush up on my photography knowledge. I’ll let you know how it goes.

MailChimp

New to email marketing? Take a look into MailChimp. They recently rebranded and redesigned their site. It’s easy to setup up and provides plenty of documentation. MailChimp is our current email Marketing tool and we plan on continuing to use it.

Print

With the trendy wave of having your own Brand, print on demand has become a go-to for solopreneurs, small companies and single artists.

This mould is not for everyone and you’ll come across different opinions, some say print on demand it’s good to build a Brand, some don’t. There will always be pros and cons. I personally think is a good place to start, once again it all gravitates on applying the tools that will work for you, your brand and your business model.

Inspiration

There is no magic formula when it comes to being creative, there’s No such thing as waiting for inspiration to come, I mean reeeally?! Is not like you’re waiting for the bus or your Uber ride. I see creativity as a muscle we constantly need to develop. In order for creativity to take place, you must understand what works for you and what doesn’t.

For me, inspiration comes in all forms and shapes. Music and video are a big influence in my work, writing, recording or bouncing ideas with someone helps clear my mind. Also, paying attention to events happening around the world and being involved in the city I’m living in is always good. Other times taking breaks comes usefully (I need to frequently remind myself to take 5).

Vancouver Mural Fest

A perfect example of checking out new events was my first encounter with the Vancouver Mural Festival. After coming back from Mexico where I was surrounded by their amazing Muralism movement, I was kind of saddened by the thought of not being able to see more city murals anymore, some of which you can find on our Instagram.

To my surprise, on my return to Canada, I found out the Muralism movement finally arrived at VanCity. I was so happy and inspired to see the diverse local and international talent that VMF brought together bringing colour and life to the city.

All City Canvas

All City Canvas is an amazing resource for Street Culture, their beginnings started in 2012 inspired by the Mexican Muralism. I cannot convey the amount of Street Culture I have found through them, if you were looking for a new source of inspiration look no more, you’ll stumble across some good treasures.

streetartnews

Another jolly good one is, Street Art News which is considered a trusted source for Art news, exhibitions, reviews, and street lifestyle. I love checking out new artwork, it mesmerizes me seeing the number of talented artists there is Worldwide. Inspiration at it’s best.

abduzeedo

Back in my school days, Abduzeedo was one of the first websites I used to refer to. I have seen them evolve from a small personal blog into becoming one of the most popular design blogs on the web. If you’re a creative veteran or starting your creative path Abduzeedo will definitely kick-start your ideas.

Desktopia

I Loooove Desktopia. I mean who doesn’t like having beautiful wallpapers. They release yearly collections from top concept artists. Have fun with it, I’m pretty sure you’ll find something for you.

Vancouver International Film Festival

I consider Film to be one of the most impactful ways of delivering a message. I’m really lucky to live in one of the most active cities in the film industry. Every year we are thrilled to see what new screenplays will VIFF will bring to us. If you happen to be in Van during VIFF, make sure you check one of their award-winning screenplays.

Music

Yes, and of course! I’m indeed a music junky. I couldn’t imagine my life without music. The following is a very brief list of artists that help me get into the creative mindset.

Soundcloud

Finding music has become a constant learning experience. I use various platforms, Soundcloud is one of them. I know – I know! It might not be the most popular app for all you Spotify fanatics, but let me tell you. If you really want to find underground artists and non-commercial music Soundcloud is perfect for this. You can follow my likes and discover new music with me.

Resident Advisor

Resident Advisor is definitely positioned on the top list when it comes to showcasing electronic music artist around the globe. One of my favourite things to listen to is the RA exchange podcast. I have learned so much about the origins of Electronic music as well it’s interesting to hear the experiences and creative process of each one of the guest speakers.

Max Cooper

Max Cooper’s work is a great example of artistic experimentation, he merges music and science through live audio-visual art installations. I saw him perform many years ago at the Electric Owl, although I can’t wait to experience one of his 4D Sounds shows.  Max Cooper explains in detail more about 4D Sound.

Video thanks to DJ TechTools 

Christian Löffler

Christian Löffler music will bring you to a zen state of peace and tranquillity. I find his melodies soothing and relaxing, perfect for the chill times in life. I enjoy waking up listening to his songs, it sort of feels like coming up from a fairy tale dream.

Kiasmos

I was extremely lucky to stumble across Kiasmos through a random Soundcloud playlist. I had never heard of them but instantly fell in love with their sounds.  Double lucky charm, a couple of months after knowing about their existence I had the opportunity to see them perform live at the Biltmore Cabaret –Unforgettable times. I’m anxiously waiting to see them again!

When you have a chance take a moment to listen to the live performance on KEXP. The will take you on a deep journey.

Kiasmos – Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

Video brought you thanks to KEXP.

Nils Frahm

Nils Frahm is an astonishing Piano composer. If you haven’t heard any material from him please do so! His compositions will take you into a Trance Hypnotic state.

Shortly after listening to most of his works, I was lucky enough to see him live, not once but, a couple times. The first time at the Imperial and second at the Vogue. Both performances were special and unique in their own way. If you have the opportunity to see him, please do it! It’s one of those things you just have to to experience.

Here is one of my favourites.

Video thanks to Resident Advisor  | RA Sessions: Nils Frahm – All Melody / #2

Done for now. Hope this has been a useful guide for you.

Panda Studios is not sponsored or affiliated with any of the mentioned companies, brands or artist. The following has been published with the simple intention to share their work and thank them for the contribution they have provided towards the development of Panda Studios.

Best of All,
YON Panda.