Not too long ago I held a giveaway on this website sponsored by F-Stop to give away a free courier bag.  I've always loved giving things away on this website and I was very excited to be giving away such a great item.  In the past, I've found contests or giveaways to be great ways to increase traffic and exposure for my site as well as the item that is being given away.  The problem with contests or giveaways is that it can be hard to spread the word about them.  In the world of social networking, it can be tough to ask others to help spread the word because after all, why would anyone want to hurt their own chances of winning a particular item by telling their friends about it?

This is the major impediment to any "comment-to-win" contests or giveaways that one might find on the web.  Unless your site has a huge following, the traffic and exposure as a result from the contest is likely to be minimal because people simply won't want to help you promote it.  I spent a lot of time thinking about how to solve this problem.  The solution came to me while thinking about the terms for the F-Stop contest.  Why not allow people to enter the contest by Tweeting about it via Twitter?

• There is no limit to the number of designs you may submit.
• All submissions are free.
• All images must be 300dpi at a minimum size of 200 x 200 mm
• Only TIFF, Vector EPS or high resolution JPG files are accepted.
• The publisher, Angela Patchell Books, retains the right to print your company name, client name, and other related information within the book, and all marketing materials for promotional purposes.
• The publisher is not responsible for additional color-correcting of digital files.
• The publisher assumes all submitted artwork are the work and/or property of the designer or firm submitting the work. The publisher and its partners will not be liable for any copyright infringement on the part of the entrant. Because there is no entry fee, we cannot provide free copies of the book to those firms whose work is chosen. However, upon publication, Angela Patchell Books gives 50 percent discount on purchasing unlimited copies of the book to contributors.

February was another fantastic month in the design community.  Tons of excellent articles, tutorials and resources were published on a growing number of design websites.  February in particular was one of the busiest months I've had in a long time.  In addition to keeping this site up-to-date, I have also been working heavily on my book, as well as guest posting on some other sites as well.  This post is a review of some of my favorite articles from the month of February.

This week, I had the opportunity to interview Alex Dumitru from Designious.  If you are not already familiar with Designious, they are a design studio that specializes in premium stock vector designs.  The quality of their work is really top notch so it was really exciting to get to learn more about their business.  Alex works mostly with the business side of the company so it was very interesting to gain some insight into how the other side of the design industry works.  As always, I hope you enjoy this interview and when you're done, I hope that you will visit Designious' website, connect with them on Twitter, and of course purchase their products.