Particularly when your workload is high and you find yourself dancing from one job to another, things like billing and chasing payments can seem less important than meeting deadlines. But remember that you are in business and the only way you get paid is through your invoicing. Here are two things you can do to help you stay on...
After the painting is completed, I scan it in and adjust in photoshop (my style is kind of grungy and I can correct little mistakes a bit this way). This also allows me to send you the final digitally, so it’s easy for you to just plop it down into your layout. Hopefully you love it, and you email...
Now that the web has been around for well over a decade, most professional sites, personal sites or blogs, and in general sites with any credibility at all have a ubiquitously polished look. But lately, possibly emerging out of the low-fi, user-generated-content aesthetic, is a trend in seeking reverse-credibility through deliberately, earnestly bad design. Take as evidence the site...
The big trend right now in web design is what is often referred to as the “Web 2.0-style.” It includes large fonts, gradients, the word ‘beta’ and gloss. As a designer it’s good to learn and be able to utilize these trends but be careful not to become the trend. One of the things I always enjoy hearing from...
Whenever I’ve hired a freelancer, my biggest concern has been getting in touch with them at critical times. With an employee you know exactly where they are – in your office, and when they are there – during business hours. This affords some level of comfort for when a rush job or critical change comes in. A freelancer on...
So I emailed you my sketch ideas and gave you my rationale behind them. (Being an illustrator doesn’t mean I just paint pretty pictures… I also need to help you communicate the idea and solve the problem visually. And, at the same time, draw a viewer in by the image. It’s not that difficult, but this illustration needs to...
The title may not sound web design centric but I swear I’ll tie it altogether. Web designer’s live and die by the Internet. We seek out and view numerous web sites for inspiration and to see what the “competition” is doing. Most of us pay our bills online, shop online, have “friends” online we’ve never actually met and we...
In his 2000 bestseller, “The Tipping Point,” author Malcolm Gladwell describes the consumer phenomenon wherein a few cutting-edge influencers are responsible for setting off a mainstream frenzy for a product. Now, in order to launch its new social networking site, Flip.com, Conde Nast is attempting to invoke this principle. Flip.com has been created and is being marketed under the...
After I do some extremely loose sketches to jot down and work out ideas, I can see that some of them have legs and others are total floppers. The ones with legs (doesn’t that sound insect-like?) get a more formal sketch… more thought-out composition, etc. Maybe you sent me an initial layout pdf… I love it when I get...
With CSS becoming more prevalent in web design (thank goodness!) there are things you can do in design that was much more difficult to accomplish using tables. An area that is often overlooked for design is the sites’ footer. There is no reason not to think of footer design in the overall design of a site. Below are some...
