been surfing around quite a while now for a high quality minimal two colomn theme and I believe this might just be it. And yes, this very blog design looks great as well, havent seen this good work since the barecity theme was released, and thats a few years ago. Looking forward to see the end version, take care!

Just some suggestions. For me, a minimal theme is to focus on the content itself and to appreciate those typography and their mix. I’m testing several themes to achieve both. Looking forward to see yours!

Willow

If you feel like giving it a trial run once it’s closer to ready, shoot me an email via my contact form.

Redmark it starting its buzz, and it’s great to see more and more people trying to take care of the design community.

I’m the cofounder of a small but nice French startup and we are doing UpShot (http://upshotapp.com).

We’re working on the same concept (help the designer get more time to create). We focus on simplicity and efficiency which means that every non techie customer can understand how it works within 15 seconds.

You should give UpShot a try and give us your feedback, don’t hesitate to contact me!

Bonne journée !

No, really this is such a tough one. One the one hand you would hope that friends and family understand that this is your livelihood, that you have put time and money into this business and learning the skills necessary to do what you do so you can’t just give it away. On the other hand you don’t want to jeopardize an otherwise good relationship with someone over money.

This was a problem that I ran into all of the time when I produced a small t-shirt line. Everyone assumed that since I had boxes stacked to the ceiling with t-shirts that I had more than enough to hand out a few freebies. What they didn’t think about was the fact that those boxes of tees also had a good chunk of debt behind them waiting to be paid off on sale. Sure I floated a shirt to a good friend from time to time, but it was always based on the understanding that to any one else you are a paying (full price) customer.

Honestly I have found that my good friends and family, the people that I would actually be willing to give a discount to are the first ones to offer to pay for the products or services. For instance I have worked with my brother on several sites and he always paypals me some cash in return whether I ask for it or not. (In a lot of ways he saves me from having to deal with these situations, all I have to say is listen, my own brother pays for my work.)

I also don’t think it’s entirely wrong to float a discount to a good friend, but there has to be an understanding there as well. With the discount it also becomes more of a favor, if a full price paying client comes along they are likely to be served first. Also come to the understanding that you appreciate them keeping the discount confidential to avoid that inevitable Hey I’ve got a friend who will hook you up with that real cheap Which obviously opens the door to one awkward situation after another.

I think the hardest part of it all is getting over the fear that there might be hard feelings and just letting them know why it’s not possible. From my experience good friends and family are going to understand where you are coming from and why you can not afford to give them a certain discount or even something for free.

One situation that I am faced with a lot is acquaintances and/or friends of friends coming to me looking to have design work done. Most of the time they have no knowledge of what design work costs and upon receiving a quote from me they automatically back out or say they aren’t ready to proceed with the project because of insufficient funds at the moment. They assume that because we ‘know each other’ that I should automatically do work for them for discounted prices.

If you have faced situations like this, how do you keep these types of client without devaluing yourself?