Newfire Creative

The most important skill for any designer

Leighton Taylor — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:32:34 +0000

The most important skill for a designer is not Photoshop savvy, drawing, brainstorming, or anything technology-related. Anyone can learn the ins and outs of design software or the technical skill of sketching, drawing, or any other art form. If you are a designer, the most vital skill you can develop is the skill of self-critique.

I know that you may disagree with me, because a designer must be able to design first of all, right? Yes, but anyone can “design.” Anyone can move a mouse and type on a keyboard and create a visual work meant to communicate.

What I’m saying though, is that self-critique is a vital element of design. The ability to evaluate what you’re creating and make critical decisions while you work empowers you to design effectively.

If you can analyze a piece of your own design and decide that it has room to improve, you have just enabled yourself to make those improvements to turn an average design into an excellent one. Try to step out of your “designer” shoes and into your “expert design critic” shoes, and be harsh on yourself!

Critiquing your own work is very difficult, because we are all naturally biased to like what we create. Sometimes I finish designing a website, logo, or brochure, and then I sit back in my chair and grin stupidly, basking in the glory of being impressed with my own work. I could just sit and gaze at my computer screen for 30 minutes, admiring my handiwork. Later in the day I’ll come back and open the file just to enjoy looking at it again.

Then a few days later I’ll come back and look at it again. “Holy crap! Who messed with my design?! It doesn’t look as mind-blowingly awesome as it did 5 days ago!” Hmm…

Taking a break from your design can work wonders in helping you critique yourself. I know it looked great before, but maybe your brain was slightly fried and needed some time to process something other than your computer screen.

It’s vital for designers to be critiquing their artwork continuously as they design, as this will result in a better final product. Of course, we all do critique as we work; that’s how we make each visual decision while we work.

Quick tips for self-critique

Take time off. Set your work aside for a few days and come back to it. I know, this is difficult with clients breathing down your neck, but do it when you can.
Get inspired. While working on your design, go find a collection of excellent design that is similar to what you’re going for and scan through it. This will help you compare the quality of your work with other good design.
Read professional critiques of other designs.
Review good design principles. Then analyze your design to see how it matches up. Here’s an article I wrote recently on 7 principles of good web design, which you may find helpful.

Questions to ask yourself as you critique

What were the original goals of this piece of design?
Does this design enable the client to meet those goals?
Does the piece (or each page) have a clear focal point?
Can I reduce and simplify this piece in any way while still effectively communicating?

Other resources

Mastering the Art of Self-Critique – an excellent article by David Sherwin of ChangeOrder.
Design Essentials 3: Accepting Criticism – Of course, you should also seek out the critique of others. A Graphic Design Blender article by Preston D Lee.
Web Design Criticism: A How-To – from Smashing Magazine.

A designer’s perfect environment

Leighton Taylor — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:31:27 +0000

How do you create an atmosphere that is conducive to creativity? I don’t know about you, but my creative thoughts come more easily in a stimulating, interesting environment than in a smothering, bleh environment.

Your surroundings really do have an impact on your ability to think creatively, so how do you create a good environment for brainstorming and designing?

I tend to work better in an atmosphere that is fairly quiet, yet visually stimulating and always different. For example, I work well in a small cafe, where people constantly come and go, where sunlight trickles in the windows onto hardwood floors, and a small fire crackles in the stone fireplace.

I also like to find a table in a restaurant downtown, where people bustle down sidewalks and walk their dogs, where trees line the streets and many small shops bunch together next to the ice cream shop and the Starbucks.

In contrast, I find that my small bedroom office does not help me design. I can still work there if necessary, but it’s not naturally stimulating, so it takes discipline and time to get my brain in the right mindset. It’s not like your surroundings can make you a good or bad designer, but they can definitely contribute to your ability to think outside the box.

If you work for a design firm, how have they designed the offices to stimulate creative thinking? Some companies do a job of this, while others don’t make it a priority.

If you’re a freelancer, where do you like to work? What tips can you share with the rest of us for creating a creative environment? I’m curious to hear what works for you.

Is school really necessary for a designer?

Leighton Taylor — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:04:27 +0000

Over the past three years I’ve become more and more convinced that college is overrated, generally speaking. What do I mean by that? Many people believe that if you work hard in school and get a college degree, you are set for life. You will breeze through job interviews and receive lucrative job offers as soon as employers see that you have a degree.

In my opinion, there are ways to develop necessary skills, get real-life experience, and begin a successful career in the design field without spending $50-$100 thousand on a college education. I believe that the alternatives to a normal college education can be even more beneficial in the long-run, especially for people in the design field.

40-60 years ago, a college degree meant more than it does today, simply because people with college educations were much more rare, and therefore more valuable. Today it’s a completely different story, because college degrees are expected, almost like a high school diploma used to be expected. Everyone goes to college. That means that you’ve got a lot more competition as a college graduate looking for a job.

From my observation, most employers are looking for real-life skills even more than a college degree. Certain careers require a college degree and even higher education, such as the medical profession, law, and others. Other professions are much more skill-based, rather than certification-based.

So how can a young designer begin a career in his/her desired field without spending thousands on a college degree and going into huge debt? And why do I believe that college isn’t necessarily the best way to begin this career?

Experience is king.

As an employer, who would you rather hire: a fresh college graduate who studied Graphic Design and finished at the top of his class, or a 23 year-old with 5 years of experience, who already knows how to interact with clients, make a sale, manage a team, and has excellent communication skills? I know who I’d pick.

Experience trumps education every time. You don’t learn to ride a bike by reading a book; you learn by going outside and doing it.

Here are a few reasons I think college is not always the best choice:

You spend 4 (or more) years paying someone else to give you design assignments, rather than being paid to do real work.
You spend a huge amount of money (anywhere from 3-10+ years of your starting income, once you get a job).
You lose 4 years of possible real-world experience.
Classroom assignments are nothing like projects for real clients.

I say all this speaking as an almost-graduate (I’m finishing my bachelor’s degree in May, 2010). I have spent the last 4 years of my life in classrooms, doing freelancing on the side on evenings and weekends. Without that freelancing experience, I would be completely lost in the design world. I have learned many things in class, but have also learned that nothing educates like working for real clients. I am very grateful for what I’ve learned at school, but I now believe that there are better ways to learn those things.

So what’s the alternative? For young designers eager to get their feet wet, here’s what I would recommend.

Read everything you can get your hands on. Go into Barnes and Noble or another bookstore and read about design, freelancing, and any skill you want to develop. You’ll have to be self-motivated. That’s why the non-college route isn’t for everyone—you’ll still be studying, just not under supervision.
Find a design company that will let you work for free (or minimal pay), and spend 1-2 years learning the trade. This “apprenticeship” will give you invaluable experience and help you learn how the business of design works. If you are working for free, you’ll probably have to find a second job to pay the bills.
Take a few classes. See, I’m not saying don’t ever go take classes after highschool. I’m just saying that 4 years of full-time studying isn’t the best way to learn. Find a few classes at the community college that will teach you the basics of drawing, composition, and design software. This will be much cheaper than going to 4 years of university.
Do any freelance work you can find. Freelancing is probably the best, quickest, and most effective way to learn the business of design, but don’t jump into it until you have a good grasp of design principles and business techniques, which you should be able to pick up while doing your apprenticeship. For tips on how to get started as a freelancer, check out this blog post.

To wrap up, I’m not saying that college is always bad, or that no one should go. For certain people, a college degree is the best way to learn the basics of design. My point is that college doesn’t prepare you for the real world, and that some people will benefit much more from a few years of real experience as an apprentice.

What are your thoughts? How did you get started in your career, and how valuable was your education? I’m sure there are many viewpoints on this issue, so please comment below.

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7 principles of good web design

Leighton Taylor — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:56:25 +0000

1. Visual hierarchy

When you open a webpage, you should be able to tell at a glance what the most important part of the page is, whether that be a headline, a product image, or whatever you decide is the focal point of the page.

Usually your pages will have multiple levels of importance, and these should be clear to the viewer. The easiest way to make part of your page “more important” is to make it bigger and bolder.

Another thing to consider is an element’s placement on the page. Since we read top to bottom and left to right, the most important place on the page is the top left (that’s why most sites have their logos in the top left position).

Apple’s website always has a very clear focal point: their homepage consists basically of the site navigation and a huge product image. The featured product is clearly the most important page element.

Why is visual hierarchy so important? If everything on your home page is big and bold, your viewers won’t know what to look at. Their eyes will be confused, and they will probably leave your site frustrated.

If you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing, so choose carefully what is most important and then make a big deal out of it.

2. Breathing room

Nothing is worse than a website that crams content into every square inch of the screen! White space is an important design element. Your content needs room to breathe, and your viewers will have a much easier time using your website if you make good use of white space.

White space doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be the color white—the term just refers to areas of a design that are not filled with content. White space can be any color, but it needs to be blank space.

White space is a vital design element! Use it to space out your content, and your viewers will be grateful.

3. Does what you expect it to

Don’t make your viewers think about what they’re doing. In other words, there should be nothing about your site that confuses a user or makes them wonder what will happen next.

Example: Don’t have underlined text that is not a link. If it’s underlined, people will click on it, and when nothing happens, they will be frustrated or confused.

There are certain ways of doing things that are generally accepted and understood by most internet users. These widely accepted techniques are called “conventions,” and you should use them unless you have a good reason not to.

Examples of conventions include underlined links (or links that change color when rolled over), your site’s logo in the upper left of the page, navigation horizontally across the top or vertically down the left side, etc. These conventions can be broken if you have a good reason, but before breaking them, consider the risk of alienating users who may have a hard time navigating your site.

Steve Krug has an excellent book titled “Don’t Make Me Think,” in which he discusses web usability and the importance of designing your website so that your users don’t have to think about your site—they just use it.

4. Easy to find stuff

An important feature of most sites is a search bar. This is especially important if your site has lots of content. I’d much rather type in a keyword and hit Search than scroll through a long table of contents, even if the content is well-organized.

Also, try to make your navigation as intuitive as possible. A link to a page with job listings should say “Jobs,” not “Employment Opportunities.” The second link takes longer to read, and if I’m quickly scanning the page to find the job postings, I might completely miss “Employment Opportunities.” The first thing most people will look for is “Jobs,” so give them what they expect.

5. Concise

Content should be tightly written. Eliminate unnecessary words and phrases. Nobody wants to read wordy content online, so be as straightforward and concise as possible.

6. Scannable

I should be able to scroll down the page and quickly understand what the page is talking about, just by glancing over the headlines and paragraphs.

There are several ways to make your content scannable—here are a few of them.

Use bulleted lists.
Use headlines where appropriate.
Write short paragraphs!
Use bolded text within paragraphs to highlight the important parts.

7. No dead-ends

When I finish reading through a blog post or any other web page, there should be several links for me to choose from to continue to another page. If I reach the end of a page and see no links, I will probably leave the website.

Your web pages should all be connected to several others, so that your viewers will continue consuming your website’s content, rather than reaching a dead end and leaving your site.

Here are a few ways to eliminate dead ends on your site and lead viewers on to more content:

Have a list of “Related posts” links at the bottom of each blog post.
Link to popular articles in the sidebar or footer of your site.
Have a “Return to top” link at the bottom of the page so that the viewer can easily return to the top and view the site navigation.
Repeat the site navigation in small links in the page footer.
List multiple links to additional content in the page footer.

What principles of good web design would you add to this list? There are many more factors of good web design that I have not included, so please comment below and continue the discussion!

Business models for freelancers

Leighton Taylor — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:45:04 +0000

Before we begin, I want to clarify what I mean by “business model.” I’m referring to the basic structure of how your freelancing business operates, not the full-fledged business model that includes your target market, fixed cost, etc. etc.. If that’s what you’re looking for, check out this helpful page. Right now we’re just talking about whether you work alone, outsource work, and basically how you operate on a day-to-day basis.

That said, some of you freelancers do everything yourself, including sales, design, and coding. Others do just design and outsource the coding, or vice versa. Some of you probably operate as more of a manager, outsourcing everything and managing a team of other freelancers. Let’s talk about the pros and cons of each model. Feel free to comment on any tips or business models you use that might be useful to the rest of us.

1. The Lone Ranger

This freelancer is a Jack of all trades. He makes sales calls, strategizes, creates proposals, concepts, designs, codes, and delivers. If you can do this, more power to you. My passion is design. I code when I need to, but I’d rather pay someone else to do it and focus on what I love.

Pros

You’re the boss! You make all the decisions.
You have more control over the final product.
You get to keep all payment (minus taxes).

Cons

With so many skills to learn and maintain, it may be difficult to become an expert in every field.
You will probably spend more time researching to keep up in every skill as technology develops.
Some aspects of your work may suffer when in a time crunch, since you are doing everything.

2. The Partner

Some freelancers choose to partner with someone who complements their skills. For example, a designer may work with a developer under one business name. Sometimes partnerships lead to conflict: The partners may have different opinions about the way to do things, and no one is “the boss” who can make the final decision. This means that both partners must have the attitude of being willing to compromise and be open to new ideas.

Another way to handle this relationship is to decide that you will each make the final decisions in specific matters. For example, you might agree in writing that you will have the final say in all design decisions, and your partner will have the final say in all development decisions. This can still get sticky though, when it comes to matters of finances, your brand, etc. If you enter a partnership, be prepared to compromise! In my opinion, it’s better to have one person who’s the boss, whether it’s you or someone else.

Pros

The partners can specialize in different skills, providing a more complete service for clients.
Having another brain in the mix can be great for brainstorming!
A second opinion can be valuable for critiquing designs, website testing, and trouble-shooting.

Cons

A partnership has no boss with the final say, so decisions must be reached by consensus.
If you ever choose to dissolve the partnership, you’ll have to figure out the smoothest way to do it (Do you split your clients? Can you both use your partnered work in your personal portfolios?).

3. The Manager

This is the guy who probably initiates relationships with clients and then contracts out most or all of the work to other freelancers. This is a good option if you enjoy developing relationships, sales, dealing with clients, and managing. If your passion is design and you’re not the greatest people person, this may not be for you.

Pros

Very independent! Similar to a Lone Ranger, except that this person outsources the work.
You can focus on one part of the business and let other experts handle the rest.
Your skillset doesn’t need to adjust as much. While you should be familiar with new technologies, you don’t have to be an expert in every one.
Having several people work on a project can be great for filtering through ideas and selecting the great ones. You are able to bounce ideas off of each other and brainstorm together to figure out solutions to problems.
You get to interact with other great freelancers. This interaction is great for learning new things, networking, and developing friendships.

Cons

You will need to find lots of business, since you are paying others to do the work. You will have more free time to find business, but your expenses will be higher as well.
You may not be doing what you love, if your passion is design. You will sign off on work before it goes to the client, so you are the quality control, but you won’t be getting your hands dirty designing, unless you choose to do so.

4. The Mercenary

This is my personal favorite, and the model that I am trying to develop myself into. Historically, mercenaries were soldiers who worked for the highest bidder, rather than fighting out of allegiance to a certain king or country.

This freelancer has developed relationships with other design companies and developers, and simply works on projects that these companies outsource to him. Why am I such a fan of this method? Mainly because it supports long-term relationships with clients who are educated about design, and it reduces the amount of paperwork for you.

If you’ve got 5-10 other design companies who send you a few projects a month, that gives you a consistent flow of work (and income) without the hassle of trying to find new clients. Also, your client (the design company) already understands your business and is on your side.

Sometimes designers struggle in working with normal clients, because they don’t understand why it’s a bad idea to use a cute photo as the page background or rainbow text. It’s often necessary to educate your clients about design in order to give them the best possible final product. If you supply services to other design companies, hopefully they will already understand the principles of good design and will support your artistic decisions.

Pros

More steady flow of work (and cash!).
Eliminates the hassle of finding new clients.
Less paperwork (contracts).
Educated clients.
Long-term relationships.
Fewer non-billable hours.

Cons

If one of these relationships dissolves, you may lose a significant chunk of income and have to find new clients.
It’s easy to forget self-marketing when you have long-term clients. Don’t neglect to keep marketing yourself, or you’ll be out in the cold when you lose a client!
Without practice, you may grow rusty in your new client-finding skills and sales pitch.
If you’re the type that likes to do new things constantly, you may feel like you’re stuck in a rut, especially if your clients send you similar work regularly.

What business model do you use? What pros and cons have you found in your personal way of operating? I’m eager to hear how you do things and what you’ve learned.

How to simplify your life as a freelancer (3 quick tips)

Leighton Taylor — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:30:37 +0000

Working for yourself and doing what you love is quite possibly the most fun a human being can have. But do you ever feel overwhelmed with the incredible number of things you have to juggle to survive as a freelancer? I know I do; some days I have clients calling me with urgent work as I drive home from class, only to rush inside, flip open my computer, and find myself flooded with reminders of things that need to be done yesterday.

Or sometimes I have a solid afternoon to work on a project, only to find that the time slips through my fingers and I end up accomplishing next to nothing. How does that happen? I’ve read a few books and blogs lately that have opened my eyes to a few tricks that really help me manage my time.

If you ever feel overwhelmed, read on for a 3 easy ways to simplify life and handle things a little more efficiently. I’d love to hear your tips on time management and simplifying life in the comments below.

1. Limit email checking

One basic tip for simplifying life as a freelancer is to check email at a set time, and no more. What?! But shouldn’t I be ready to respond immediately to any email that shows up in my inbox? Isn’t that part of good customer service?

Here’s some breaking news: your clients will probably not fall over dead in their chairs if they don’t receive an email response from you within 1.5 minutes. In fact, your clients will probably be fine as long as you respond within 1 business day.

Are you addicted to your inbox? Do you find yourself mindlessly checking your email whenever you have nothing else to do? STOP! Have a set time (or 2 times, if you just can’t bear to be away that long) that you check your email, and then don’t even look at your inbox the rest of the day.

Tim Ferris has an excellent book called The 4-Hour Workweek in which he discusses a number of time management principles, including the idea of checking email once per day, or, in his case, once per week. Check out his blog for some very interesting articles on how he does this while keeping his business running.

I know, I know, maybe your particular business will crash and burn within a few hours if you aren’t there to instantly respond to emails. If that’s the case, you might want to consider figuring out a way to unleash yourself from your inbox, allowing you to have a life and increase your productivity in other areas.

2. Outsource

Are you the type of person who is a top-notch designer, freakin’ awesome coder, and pretty much an all-around freelancing ninja? Yeah? Well if you are, outsourcing can still be useful in simplifying your life if you ever feel overwhelmed.

On the other hand, if you’re a great designer but haven’t mastered the development yet, rather than trying to learn every necessary skill to design/code/write copy/walk the dog, outsource work to other experts. You should have a basic understanding of the back end of things, but you’ll save time and end up with happier life if you focus on what you love and what you’re good at.

3. Plan ahead

Try taking about an hour each Monday morning to plan out your goals for that week. Goals can include a number of sales calls to make, blog posts to write, self-promotion to accomplish, clients to sign, or peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches to consume.

Also take about 10 minutes at the end of each day to plan what you will accomplish the next day. This will help you hit the ground running in the morning and accomplish more within one day. See my article on how to improve your productivity with mini-deadlines for more tips on planning and goal-setting.

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50 beautiful blog designs

Leighton Taylor — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:07:55 +0000

Enjoy this selection of beautiful blog designs. I’ve included a variety of styles, including web 2.0, minimalist, and others.

They are in no particular order.

1. aiAlex

2. Hugs For Monsters

3. JustBCoz

4. Koodoz

5. GoodBytes

6. FortySeven Media

7. Best Blog Box

8. Douglas Menezes

9. Dino Latoga

10. Design Disease

11. Catalyst Studios

12. Branded07

13. Matt Mullenweg

14. Magouya

15. Padd Solutions

16. Electric Pulp

17. The Pixel

18. Viget

19. Yuru

20. Human Resources

21. Function

22. Web Designer Depot

23. Vikiworks

24. Slodive

25. Site Sketch 101

26. Pro Blog Design

27. Owltastic

28. Outlaw Design Blog

29. Ali Felski

30. North x East

31. N.Design Studio

32. Nathan Borror

33. Narfstuff

34. All For Design

35. Max Voltar

36. Markup and Style

37. Marchand de Trucs

38. Kulturbanause

39. Jesús Rodríguez Velasco

40. I Love Colors

41. Home Design Find

42. Fresh Approach Coach

43. Elitist Snob

44. Duirwaigh Studios

45. Digital Mash

46. Daustralala

47. Coalmarch Productions

48. Brown Blog Films

49. Blog What? Design

50. Spoon Graphics

What do you think? What’s good and bad from this selection in your opinion?

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10 powerful free tools for freelancers

Leighton Taylor — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:51:34 +0000

1. Outright

This powerful book-keeping tool allows you to easily track expenses, income, and taxes. I’ve used Outright for my business records for over a year and have found it to be a very intuitive, efficient, and helpful tool.

Highlights:

Outright’s slick interface allows you to input income, noting which client the payment is from, a description of the services or products provided, and the date.

Click on the “Reports” tab to view charts showing income, expenses, and profit/loss.

Outright also allows you to file 1099s for $5, which is helpful for freelancers who hire subcontractors.

www.Outright.com

2. Pixlr

Pixlr is basically a slimmed-down version of Photoshop. While not a replacement for Photoshop, it could be very handy if you ever need an image editor and forgot to bring your laptop.

The main screen will look familiar to Photoshop users.

The toolbar includes Photoshop tools like Marquee, Crop, Magic Wand, Gradient, Paint Bucket, Dodge, Burn, Shapes, Eye Dropper, and Text.

Pixlr includes Layers, Filters, and photo retouching tools.

www.Pixlr.com

3. FaxZero

Most people will accept an email attachment with a scanned document, but for the rare occasion that you need to send a fax, FaxZero is the free solution. The free option includes a cover page with an advertisement, or you can pay $1.99 to send a fax without the ad.

www.FaxZero.com

4. Invoice Machine

Invoice Machine includes a time-tracking tool and invoice management. You can create projects, track time spent on each project, and send invoices by email. Includes PayPal integration.

The free plan allows you to send 3 invoices per month and have 1 user. The next step up is $12 per month for 30 invoices and 2 users.

www.InvoiceMachine.com

5. Are My Sites Up?

When your website (or one of your clients’ websites) goes down, wouldn’t you like to be the first one to know? AMSU monitors your sites and notifies you when one goes down.

Free plan features:

Checks up to 5 websites 25 times per day
Notifies you via email or SMS when one goes down
Tries to tell you WHY your site went down by including the HTML status error code

Their premium plans include more features and more websites monitored, and they are reasonably priced (between $35 and $95 per year).

www.AreMySitesUp.com

6. Skype

Free internet phone service. Call other Skype users for free, or pay a few cents per minute to call phones from your Skype account.

Make conference calls, have a video conference, and share screens (great for training clients to use a Content Management System).

You can also pay a few dollars a month for a local phone number. This allows your clients to use their phones to call your internet phone service. If you are offline, they can leave a voicemail, and then you are notified by email that you have a voicemail.

www.Skype.com

7. Remember The Milk

A to-do list is great, but what good is a list if you forget to look at it? RTM will automatically remind you of tasks via text message, email, Skype, or instant message. Tasks can be organized by location or tags.

www.RememberTheMilk.com

8. Toggl

Use Toggl to track time spent on your clients’ projects. Create a new task, then punch a button to start the clock. Toggl includes a graph of your total available hours and how many you’ve spent.

Download the free Toggl desktop app to track time, or get the iPhone app for on-the-go tracking.

www.Toggl.com

9. Typechart

Typechart lets you browse through samples of web typography, also providing the CSS for each sample. It’s a very helpful tool when deciding how you want your type to appear, and the CSS copy/paste makes it simple to use.

www.Typechart.com

10. Bubbl.us

Bubbl.us is a simple mind-mapping tool. I’ve found that brainstorming can be very effective when I mind-map, and Bubbl.us makes it easy to do online.

Not familiar with the idea of mind-mapping? It’s basically a type of brainstorming where you write down a starting concept and draw a circle around it. Then draw lines away from the center circle and start writing down related words or concepts that come to mind and branching out from your center concept. This process is useful, for example, when doing research for a new logo. Incorporate the ideas that your client wants to communicate about his company, and then branch out on paper to brainstorm related ideas that might be useful in communicating these concepts.

When mind-mapping, don’t spend long thinking about each word before writing it down. The idea is to write quickly, jotting down thoughts as soon as they appear and moving on. Once you’ve finished, go back and review your mind-map and pick out the valuable pieces.

Doing mind-mapping on paper is great, but Bubbl.us is a handy tool for brainstorming online. When you’re finished, Bubbl.us will export your mind-map as an image (JPEG or PNG), HTML, or XML.

www.Bubbl.us

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New look

Leighton Taylor — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:21:55 +0000

I haven’t been completely happy with my site design, so here goes try #3. One weakness of graphic designers (or strength, depending on how one handles it) is that we are never quite satisfied with our work, especially work for ourselves.

idApostle recently posted an insightful article on doing work for yourself as a designer, and how it’s important to make use of deadlines. He mentions that it’s very important to take a break from your design sometimes and come back to it later. Often a break like this will reveal composition flaws or minor improvements to be made, and you will be able to make improvements that you missed during the first round.

After taking some time to look at my last site design, I saw a few things that could use improvement, and ended up going a different direction with the layout and style. (This theme is by Feeleep, and I am adjusting the layout and graphics as needed).

Next time you think you’re finished with a design, take some time off to work on something else or read a book, and see what revelations appear when you come back to your work.

Has this technique worked for you? What other suggestions do you have for fellow freelancers? Please continue the discussion below.

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How to get referrals by increasing trust

Leighton Taylor — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:38:54 +0000

One of the most important factors in signing a new client is trust. For a freelance designer, trust can be established in several ways, but the most powerful is a good referral.

Within the past 2 weeks, 2 different prospective clients have approached me with design projects. One had been referred to me by a current satisfied client, and the other by one of my graphic design college professors. Because I had been referred by people that each client already trusted, I immediately had the new client’s trust. Signing on a new client is incredibly easy when they already trust you because of a referral from someone they know personally.

So how do you get more referrals? There are several things you can do to nudge your clients towards recommending you to others.

1. Be predictable

Consistency is a good thing, especially when you’re talking about your quality of work, your customer service, and your prompt communication. Sit down and write out your operating guidelines, including how soon you will return emails/phone calls, your rates, business hours, and anything you want a client to know when working with you. Then stick to it. It’s probably a good idea to send this list of operating procedures to a new client, so they know what to expect.

The whole experience of interacting with you should be part of your brand. People grow to like things that are familiar, and there’s a sense of security in knowing what it feels like to interact with a certain company. For example, I’m familiar with what it’s like to buy from Apple. I’ve bought a MacBook Pro and several iPods, and I’ve also had my computer worked on while under warranty. I’ve grown to like the clean, sharp design of Apple’s website and the easy checkout process. Apple products come wrapped in creative, well-designed packaging. Everything about my interaction with Apple contributes to my conception of the company’s brand, and I like the familiarity of purchasing from them.

Your brand includes not only your interaction with clients, but also your website, logo, business cards, and anything that is part of your company that a client will see. Try to create a consistent experience for your clients. When they feel comfortable and grow to like the familiarity of how you operate, they will talk about you to their friends and recommend you.

2. Be unpredictable

Consistency is good, but shake things up every once in a while by going the extra mile and giving clients a pleasant surprise. If you develop a reputation as a business person who will go above and beyond the requirements, people will grow to trust and like you more.

A few practical ways to be pleasantly unpredictable include giving away free stuff (with no strings attached), sending a thank-you card. or simply impressing your clients with amazing customer service

3. Give your client a referral

Keep an eye out for people who might need the services of your clients. When the opportunity arises, introduce a potential customer to your client and recommend the client’s services. This is a small favor that you can do your clients that they will probably gladly return.

4. Make your client into your friend

Make an effort to get to know your client outside of business conversation. By taking an interest in a client’s family, personal well-being, and daily activities, you will both benefit yourself and have the opportunity to benefit your client. I’m not talking about putting on a fake smile and asking about his family just to further your own business. Taking on the mindset of giving and investing in others will benefit everyone involved.

If you hire a close friend to work on a project for you, you will likely be more loyal to him, give him the benefit of the doubt when complex situations arise, and have more fun working together. Why not try to work towards that with your clients? It’s great to work with friends.

5. Offer incentives for clients to refer you

When my clients refer a new client to me, I will give both the new and old client a 20% discount off their next project. Another offer you can make to your clients is to pay them a cash commission for any jobs they send your way. Doing this allows you to essentially hire a sales force with no risk, because you only pay when you get paid.

Paying out a percentage of your revenue or offering a large discount may seem like a big hit financially, and it can be. However, it can contribute to your success if your goal is to maintain long-term relationships with clients, because you won’t pay commissions or give discounts when those clients return to you for future work.

You might also be interested in my article on how to get started as a freelancer and make money.

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