It's Ilise Benun's fault...

When people ask me how I got into writing articles about design, and eventually writing books on design topics, I will sometimes jokingly tell them it's Ilise Benun's fault. Back in 2000 HOW Books released her book Self Promotion Online: Marketing Your Creative Services Using Web Sites, Email and Digital Portfolios, and my own marketing and promotion efforts were featured several times in the volume. While my design work had been featured in a number of books prior to that time, Ilise's book brought my self-promotion methods and writing to the attention of a lot of people. Opportunities to be interviewed by other writers and authors, write articles for magazines and websites, and eventually write my first book, followed.

Fast forward seven years and Ilise Benun is known as one of powerhouses behind the Marketing Mentor. Ilise and I have kept in touch since she first interviewed me back in 1999. We usually have the opportunity to catch up in person at the annual HOW Design Conferences, where we both will speak again in 2008.

This morning, Ilise gave my new book, Identity Crisis!: 50 redesigns that transformed stale identities into successful brands, a great mention on The Marketing Mix blog. Thank you, Ilise!

By the way, Ilise and Peleg Top (her Marketing Mentor "partner-in-crime") present the first of HOW Magazine's Grow Your Design Business From Your Desktop Webinar series - "Get Rich in a Niche" - tomorrow, September 27th.