Charitable, speculative and free design work is regularly sought after in the design industry. While the terms are often interchanged, there are important distinctions between them which define whether designers should accept or refuse the work.

Free work:

There’s no shortage of people who want free graphic design work. The most common excuses are “we’re only a small business” or “we’re a start-up company”. If we’re being honest though, this is rubbish.

No retail store tells their wholesaler they can’t afford to pay for products because they’re small. No office says they can’t pay the rest because they’re only a start-up.

Graphic design is a service like any other. And like everyone else in this work, designers get paid. The expectation of free graphic design work from any business is simply unacceptable.

While it may be tempting for students or designers just starting out to undertake free work in the hope of things to come, your time is better spent elsewhere. Design some promotional work, write guest articles for exposure or contact a real charity (we’ll get to that in a minute) who really can’t afford it. Anything but working for free.

Speculative work:

Requests for free work are often dressed up as speculative, even though people have no intention to pay. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s pretend the client is legitimate in their promises to pay if they’re happy with the work. Even if this is the case, it’s still flawed thinking.

Not wanting to pay for something which isn’t right is understandable, but if you don’t have some amount of confidence in a designer, why are you dealing with them? No one hires a builder and thinks “I’m really getting a bad vibe from this guy. Some of his work looks pretty sloppy. Oh well, I’ll hire him anyway and if my house isn’t right I just wont pay“. No, you contact someone else.

Spec work is most common in the form of design contests. A client promises an amount for the winning entry and depending on the terms & conditions of the provider, is often not required to pick a winner and can withdraw their offer. There is little to no risk for the client.

On the flip side of that coin, there is little to no chance for the designer to be compensated for their time. As a result they simply don’t care. Your design project is just one of many churn and burn jobs that the minimal amount of effort will go into for a chance at payment. Good graphic designers charge because they deliver a good service.

If you like a designers work but have any concerns, speak to them! Good designers care about the work they do and are just as eager for a successful project as you are.

Charity graphic design:

Contributing to a worthwhile charity is obviously a great thing, but “charitable organisations” come in many forms. You also may not support a particular organisation.

For example… I’ve done free design work in the past for local animal shelters, one in particular when I was living in Sydney. This cat shelter was run full time by one couple and a few dozen volunteers giving their time. They took in literally hundreds of cats, paying for everything themselves and with the help of modest donations. They only gave cats away to good homes and never put a single animal down. This is an organisation that deserves help.

On the other hand, I would not work for PETA, as they spend a fortune on advertising and legal battles while killing over 95% of the animals they “rescue”. (Note: No pro/anti PETA comments please, that topic would be better discussed elsewhere.)

You don’t need to wait for the right organisation to approach you either. Go out and find someone. There are plenty of suitable organisations with dud websites or clip-art pamphlets that would appreciate the help.

Where does charity stop?

Just because an organisation is charitable, doesn’t mean they don’t have funding. There are many national and international organisations with marketing budgets who hire agencies to co-ordinate their work.

It’s unfortunate, but some advertising agencies get paid work from charitable organisations then try to get free work from designers for the project. In this situation you’re working for the advertising agency, not the charity and you should be paid accordingly.

So what to do?

If business is good and you can give some time to a charitable organisation you support, that’s obviously great. Ultimately you’ve got to look out for number one, if the bills are piling up and your flat out, you should be focusing on paid work.

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Managing charity, speculative and free graphic design requests

The most common screen resolution, screen size and best practices when it comes to size for web design are common topics of discussion among web designers. Opinions are divided on what size is best, but luckily there is plenty of cold, hard data to help you decide.

In days gone by, when screen technology was in its toddler stage, fewer screen sizes were available and larger (considered large at the time anyway…), higher resolution screens came with a hefty price tag attached, typically limiting their use to specialised fields.

640×480, 800×600 and 1024×768 screen resolutions where the only options and catering for smaller sizes made sense as they were widely used. While many still argue it’s best to cater for these smaller sizes, the data just isn’t there to support this decision now-a-days.

What follows is a breakdown of the last 100,000 visitors to www.andrewkeir.com and their screen resolutions. Note: For the less tech-savvy out there, the most common screen resolution is not to be confused with the most common screen size. While 2 screens may be the same inches, the screen ratio, available resolutions and actual resolution in use will differ.

On to the data. First off, we have the top 10 resolutions.

To save you doing the math, 77,636 visitors had screen resolutions over 1024×768, with 9,425 of visitors using 1024×768 screen resolution. 87% of visitors accounted for with no sign of anything lower. On to ranks 10 – 20.

As you can see, 800×600 barely scrapes in with a measly 353 visitors out of 100,000. Nearly 95,000 visitors accounted now. The remaining few percent of visitors were made up of a mix of tablets, mobile phones and other devices. Individually none had more than a hundred visits, if not a lot less, including 640×480.

So what is the minimum resolution you should cater for?

Designing a website no wider than 1024 still had as lot of merit, with nearly 10% of visitors running 1024×768. Having said that, you really can do a lot with a few hundred extra pixels.

If you do go wider, yours wont be the first website people running 1024×768 have seen that was too wide for their screen and the extra space can let you do more for the majority of your visitors.

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Most common screen resolution(s) and best size for web design; A 100,000 visitor analysis

In this guest article, writer Alvina Lopez highlights the benefits of writing guest posts to build your brand.

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As a freelance writer who has worked primarily online, I can think of no better, fairly recent phenomenon for bloggers of all sorts than guest posting. While most guest post gigs aren’t paid, it’s an incredible opportunity to grow your brand or spread the word about your writing organically.

What’s more, there are a host of other benefits that come with the territory. It truly is a win-win situation for bloggers who accept guest posts as well as for bloggers who write them. Here’s why you should get on the guest post bandwagon:

1. It brings more traffic to your site.
This is the most obvious draw of writing guest posts. When you submit a post to another blog, and in your byline you list your own blog, you’ll be potentially drawing an entirely new set of readers to discover the writing you put out on your own platform.

Of course, this means you have to place a strong emphasis on writing quality articles that directly appeal to the readers of the blog to which you are submitting. Just churning out tons of low-quality guest posts doesn’t by proxy equate to more traffic on your own site.

2. It establishes you as an expert in various fields.
Just as in the real world, on the blogosphere and the Internet at large, reputation is everything. If you write for high-quality, heavily trafficked sites in niches about which you know a lot, you’ll soon earn a solid reputation as your guest posts are retweeted and spread organically.

Establishing this sort of reputation as an expert is an instrumental part of growing your blog and your brand.

3. It improves your writing.
Writing guest posts poses a unique challenge that you won’t contend with writing for your own blog. When you write guest posts, you must learn to strike a balance between adhering to the general style and subject of the blog, while still giving the readers a fresh voice and perspective.

You’ll also have to read the blog extensively to figure out what, precisely, the typical reader wants. All these considerations naturally make you a more versatile and skilled writer.

4. It’s an easy way to build connections with other bloggers.
There’s an inherent community aspect to guest blogging that, at least in my opinion, is just as gratifying as receiving more traffic and establishing your reputation. Even if only virtually, writing guest posts will enable you to meet bloggers from all over the Internet.

The mutual exchange of fresh content for recognition is a wonderful way in which bloggers can learn from one another. Especially considering that there’s so much junk and black hat tricks out there on the Internet, guest blogging is an honest and wholesome breath of fresh air. It helps others, while in the process helping you as well. What could be better than that?

About this guest author
Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments, email her at alvina.lopez@gmail.com Image credit.

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A little good advice never hurt anyone. If you’re looking for a few tips on how to improve your graphic design business or just a little insight into how others do things, 100 habits of successful graphic designers is worth a read. On to a few quotes from the book…

Every business has competitors and you want clients to think of you first. Though repeat projects from some clients may be few and far between, keeping in touch occasionally will help secure you in their mind for future work.

Small projects are often treated as churn and burn jobs, but every business starts small. The better the job you do on the small job, the better your chances of landing the big job down the road.

It’s understandable that clients are excited and designers are eager to begin a new project, but you can never have too much information. However comprehensive a design brief might be, whether provided in full by a client or extracted via questions from the designer, there is always more information to be gained.

Don’t stop at just a written brief, have a few conversations. The more you understand the client and the more they understand you, the better it will be for everyone.

Although good graphic design is about what works, and not personal tastes and preferences, they sometimes can’t be avoided with some clients. If you’re constantly butting heads with a client over a their inflexible preconceived ideas or personal tastes the design can only suffer. On the other hand, working with clients on a similar creative wavelength is a recipe for success.

Advice applicable to every business, but seemingly more common in graphic design. The dreaded client who hires you for your expertise, and then proceeds to tell you exactly who/what/how/where/when every little detail should be done.

The moral of the story is, make the most effective use of your time. If your job is to drive the business, leave design to the designers, and vice versa.

To close, a few shots from inside the book.

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100 habits of successful graphic designers

Due to receiving a steady stream of enquiries about submitting guest articles, I thought an F.A.Q. was in order. If you are a writer interested in submitting content to www.andrewkeir.com, please read the following.

A few simple rules, I’m sure none of them will come as a surprise.

• Relevant subject matter – Submitted articles must obviously be relevant to this website. Topics discussed on www.andrewkeir.com include branding, logo design, stationery design, SEO & social networking, blogging, web design and other graphic design related topics. If you are looking to submit articles related to any of the above fields then this is the place for you.
• Outbound links – Outbound links are fine where appropriate and relevant to the subject at hand. Articles bloated with links/anchor text without editorial value will not be accepted. (All outbound links may have the rel="nofollow" tag at my discretion.)
• Unique, quality content – Articles must be of suitable quality and should be unique to www.andrewkeir.com. If you are submitting/syndicating the same article across loads of other websites then thank you, but no thank you.
• Author credit – Naturally you will be credited as the author for the article, and you’re welcome to include a short byline promoting your services and website.

  You’re obviously welcome (encouraged, in fact) to promote the article through your own channels for mutual benefit.

Good? Good.

If you’d like to become a guest author, contact me via this page; please don’t leave a comment here. Image credit.

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“A photographer went to a socialite party in New York.

As he entered the front door, the host said ‘I love your pictures – they’re wonderful; you must have a fantastic camera.’

He said nothing until dinner was finished, then: ‘That was a wonderful dinner; you must have a terrific stove.”

– Sam Haskins

An anecdote quoted from the now late photographer, Sam Haskins. If you’re a photographer, graphic designer or work in another creative field, you’ve probably heard similar comments to that of the host in this quote, I know I have.

Can you relate?

What is your craft, and how often do your tools get the credit?

P.S. Surprisingly, after posting this I’ve had to delete quite a few comments calling the photographer various colourful insults not fit to be repeated here. It’s a story people, meant to be taken with a little humour. No need to get upset.

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An anecdote for creative types everywhere

If you frequent the Behance Network at all, you might have come across bits and pieces of this amazing calendar by Irina Vinnik. It’s completion took nearly 4 years. I recently stumbled across the now complete set, and thought it deserved a recap in full.

A close up shot of the detail of each illustration/calendar page.

What do you think?

No doubt it’s a little late to buy a 2011 calendar this late in the year. Fingers crossed that a 2012 version becomes available soon. You can check out more of Irina’s amazing work here.

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The Saurians Renaissance; Illustrations and calendar

If you’ve never made an international money transfer, it can be a bit of a chore to say the least.

I’m sure the details vary slightly depending on which country you’re transferring to/from, using Australia for example though, you need the following for an international transfer:

• The recipients banks name
• BIC / SWIFT code
• Branch name
• Bank branch code
• BSB
• Account Number,
• Account Name
• The transferring agent banks name
• Their ABA
• Their BIC/ SWIFT Code
• A week of patience
• 3 banks worth of fee’s (potentially)

What you need for a PayPal transfer:

• An email address

Much easier!

Confirmation that payment has been made is basically instant, and there’s one minimal fee to be paid. If you don’t have a PayPal account and are potentially looking to hire an international graphic designer or other professional, it makes life easier for all involved.

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Yes, I have a Google+ Account, and while it is something I expect to be productive in the future, I can’t help but share the sentiments expressed in UK illustrator Jamie Smart’s “review” of Google Plus as illustrated above.

There are 40+ social network/online bookmarking/sharing platforms that I’m aware of and the list is growing. Unless you don’t require sleep, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to productively use them all.

There are of course bookmarking services that post your content to a number of websites simultaneously, but without regular attention to the “social” side of social networking this only has limited benefits.

In the past I’ve experimented with many of the social network with mixed success. Stumbleupon in particular for me has resulted in either feast or famine when it comes to referred traffic, with some posts receiving up to 20,000 visits and others receiving literally a handful.

Quality and the popularity of content on other platforms also seems to have no correlation, with quality, informative posts that regularly deliver good traffic via Google doing poorly while “list posts” or other short n’ sweet content which doesn’t rank too highly in SERP’s doing very well.

Despite the initial negative vibe that may have been inferred at the beginning of my post, I do plan to use Google+ in the future, but it has long since reached the point where other networks simply have to go.

Where will you be spending your time?

With the recent re-design of my WordPress theme now complete, and after little experimentation and consideration on what works best, I’ll be spending my time on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumbleupon, Digg and of course Google+ (the links are for following me if you feel so inclined…).

Will you be spending your time on Google+?

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Conqueror have recently added another half dozen papers to their already popular stock. To accompany their latest releases, Conqueror also have a small but great collection of fonts that are available, for free, to download from their webpage.

Available in a range of textures, coatings, colours and highly polished finishes, and ranging from 90 up to a hefty 400gsm, the Conqueror range is sure to have something to suit a future project.

Pictures are obviously a little lacking when it comes to demonstrating the texture and feel of paper, but here goes…

Laid Digital, Brilliant White with digital printing. 300gsm.

Laid Cobolt, screen-printed in Pantone. 300gsm.

Calligraphy, with a varnish deboss. 300gsm.

CX22 ( 100% recycled ) in Diamond White, printed in 4 colour process. 100gsm – 400gsm.

Onto the fonts, starting with AW Conqueror Carved.

AW Conqueror Didot.

AW Conqueror Inline.

AW Conqueror Sans.

AW Conqueror Slab.

There are dozens of options to choose from which aren’t pictured of course. If you’re in Australia, K.W.Doggett is the place to go for printed samples. If you’re elsewhere you’ll need to check with your preferred supplier.

Don’t forget to grab the fonts!

You’ll find them on the Conqueror webpage under SOLUTIONS > TYPEFACES.

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After months of neglect, andrewkeir.com gets a new WordPress theme design. The old design can be seen above, while the new site is all around you.

Why the change now? A few reasons, initially my site was designed with three columns to keep all site navigation above the fold ( as well as other reasons ). Without creating an unusually wide site this unfortunately restricts the body of the site to be relatively small. The body has gone from a modest 500px wide to a healthy 640px.

With the recent changes to the Google image search and some future plans not suitable for the original 500px wide body it was time for an upgrade. Big images obviously look great as well.

More to come!

More changes as well as a return to regular blog posts are due to start shortly. Any feedback on the changes are of course welcome.

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There’s more than enough serifs and san-serifs typefaces out there, so how about adding a few good Gothic fonts ( or Ye Olde English if you prefer ) to your typographic collection.

Clairvaux LT Std Roman.

Duc De Berry LT Std.

Fette Fraktur LT Std.

Goudy Text MT Std.

Linotext Std.

Notre Dame LT Std. Available in:

• Roman
• Ornaments

San Marco LT Std Roman.

Wilhelm Klingspor Gotisch LT Std Roman.

Wittenberg Fraktur MT Std. Available in:

• Regular
• Bold

Dost thou like?

Don’t be afraid to add any favourites from your collection of Gothic fonts in a comment.

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As if it hadn’t received enough criticism already, the 2012 London Olympics logo design is now being accused of being racist by the national Olympic committee of the Islamic republic.

Quotes from the letter to the International Olympic Committee by the national Olympic committee of the Islamic republic representative Mohammad Aliabadi include:

Unfortunately, we all are witnessing that the upcoming Olympics … faces a serious challenge, definitely spawned out of some people’s racist spirit

The use of the word Zion by the designer of the Olympics logo … in the emblem of the Olympics Games 2012 is a very revolting act

Zion refers to the Old City of Jerusalem in the Bible. In addition to this, the secretary general of Iran’s Olympic committee, Bahram Afsharzadeh has said:

Certainly other countries, including Islamic nations, will react to this racist logo and this would jeopardise the goals of the Olympic games in the world

He goes on to warn the IOC that:

negligence of the issue from your side might affect the presence of some countries, especially Iran

All this comes 3 years after the 2012 Olympics logo design was initially made public.

What do you think?

Obviously the logo design says “2012″, I don’t know if I’d have ever interpreted it as saying “Zion” and certainly I don’t see any undercurrent of racism. How about you?

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2012 Olympics logo accused of racism

Having recently painted our house, I can tell you from first hand experience that choosing colours isn’t as exciting as you might think.

Between the blank tins of white paint used as bases for mixing and swatches half the size of a credit card it’s pretty much up to your imagination to picture how the colour will look on a larger area like your wall or roof. If only paint came like this…

Love ‘em.

Not a real retail product unfortunately but rather a packaging design concept by designer Samy Halim. You can in fact buy interior and exterior paint directly from Pantone if you know the colour you want, if your headed to the hardware store however you’re out of luck.

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Just about every WordPress blog theme displays the date a post was published which can be useful to your readers, if the date isn’t relevant to your posts however it can be disruptive to the appearance of your content is Google’s SERPS.

By using javascript instead of php code ( as is standard in WordPress themes ), the date/time will be shown in the exact same fashion as your current theme, but Google will ignore that piece of information and not show the date stamp before your meta description in the SERPS. Here’s how you make the change.

On most WordPress themes the 3 files you will need to update is your index.php to update your homepage, single.php to update your individual posts and archive.php to update your archives if you index them. More files may need updating depending on your theme. As always if your not 100% sure what you’re doing back-up your theme before making any changes.

Head into the appropriate file and find the php code which inserts the date with each post, it will look something like this:

<?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?>

Replace the code with the following:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">document.write("<?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?>");</script>

The change will turn this:

Into this:

Much better!

Now you should be free to make the most of the limited and valuable space available for your pages meta descriptions, without the date stamp getting in the way.

The change won’t be instant of course, but your root level page should update quickly while your remaining posts will update over the next few days/weeks depending on how often Google crawls your page.

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