When I got to my third year of design school, I distinctly remember taking on my first ever freelance client. It was my roommate at the time, and she and I traded a logo design for her burgeoning fashion business for a dress she made me for my cousin’s wedding. And pretty much since then, I ran a nice little side hustle as a freelance designer.
Read MoreLet’s be something other than busy
People seem to have come down with a case of the “busy’s”. “How are you?” – “Busy”. “How is business?” – “Busy”. “How’s your Mum?” – “Busy”. See a pattern here?
Read MoreWhat Grinds my Gears – the idea that because you work long hours, you work harder
Working in agency land and the corporate world was a real eye opener for this multitasking machine who likes to go home at 5:30. I found that many of my colleagues would not be efficient or effective as they could (or should) be during their standard hours, only to work back late and turn up late citing having “worked so hard and so late” and were both celebrated and sympathised for it.
Read MoreSometimes, the best advice you can take is your own.
I would like to start out here by explaining that this piece of content really isn’t as wanky as it sounds on face value. You know how it is so much easier to give your girlfriend advice about her clothing choices or her career than it is for you to take the same advice and put it into practice? Well, business is much the same. From the outside looking in, it is often incredibly easy to see the changes that someone should make in their business, and the steps that they should take. The question has always been, how do you apply the same clear and logical thinking to your own situation, and essentially learn to take your own advice?
Read MoreHOW TO START SAYING NO IN SMALL BUSINESS
Saying NO to different opportunities as a small business owner is scary. We want to say YES all the time because we aren’t sure when the next opportunity might come or if by saying NO just that once, all the opportunities will disappear. But it’s not that cut and dried.
Read MoreLearning to say NO in Small Business
NO is the hardest thing that someone in Small Business can do, but it is something that we all face at one time or another as businesses grow and change, sometimes in completely unexpected ways.
Read MoreHow graphic designers can work with web developers for best results.
I have designed quite a few websites in my time and some of them I have even built and coded. The biggest trouble with being a designer working on web projects is undoubtedly working with developers. Good ones are hard to come by, and often you are working to completely different schedules – in my experience, they work nights and mornings to have their weekends off, while I need a little more sleep than that. Couple that with a designers need for perfection and a developers need for function and you have the potential for some sleepless nights and heavy frustration. In my experience, as with all things, it really comes down to good, open and honest communication. Similarly to briefing in a client, I’ve got some simple tips for briefing in a project to your dev team: 1. Always start with a face to face meeting. As a small and local business owner myself, I believe it’s incredibly important to support those Aussies who are working on their dream, so I strictly work with Australian developers. I have worked with a number of them over the past few years and the most successful projects have worked out when there was a face to face meeting, earlier in the design phase – once you’ve gotten an overall concept signed off by the client. Sit down, have a coffee and talk about what you expect from them; what you will do, where you go from here. Then take the time to explain how you think it will function, then get their expert input. If you don’t know about CMS’s or development languages because you’re newer to the game, that’s fine – but lean on your developer to make these recommendations so you don’t over promise to the client. 2. Project manage. At the end of the day, this is your client and it’s absolutely your ass if you can’t deliver. So work out a schedule (Gantt Chart for those in marketing), allow a buffer of time and start riding your developer a little. Anyone working on a far off freelance project is going to need a nudge, so drive the beast. 3. Content. Ultimately in website development nothing can be done by your developer without content. Text, images, graphic assets, the whole works. Get it together in web optimised .jpegs, sort it into page folders in your Dropbox, name everything using a…
Read MoreTHE BEST DIGITAL PROJECT PLANNER FOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
I get asked a lot how I stay on top of projects from so many different clients and different kinds of work and remember to do my own blogging and images and the whole lot. And I won’t lie to you – its a lot of stuff. It’s a lot of small tasks that make a big difference for a business, both my own and my clients businesses. Well today I am going to let you in on a little secret. My new most favourite thing, the secret to my continued success (other than my winning personality and moxie of course) and boy is it a doozey.
Read MoreWHERE DO I FIND A JOB AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER
No one likes job hunting, no matter what stage of the game you are in. The reality is, working as a designer you are in an industry that has a lot of candidates and competition (who doesn’t want to do what we do?!) and its becoming increasingly difficult to secure full time work.
Read MoreMY TOP TIPS FOR TIME MANAGEMENT
Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It has been exactly one month since my last blog post, and heres the dirty little confession – I really enjoyed taking a break.
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