20.01.2010
POSTED IN Blog, Graphic Design, Inspiration | NO COMMENTS TAGS : creative, drawing, illustration, ink, tool
Mike Lynch shares some of his tips for traveling with ink, nibs, and brushes. Taping a brush between two pieces of card stock is brilliant, and I don’t know why I never thought of it before.
Tags: How-To, inking, Mike Lynch
20.01.2010
POSTED IN Blog, Graphic Design, Inspiration, Resources, Tutorials, Web Dev | NO COMMENTS TAGS : adobe, creative, design, graphic, illustrator, inspiration, resources, tutorial, video, web
I know that you love Adobe products and I’m sure that you love even more the things that you are able to create using the Adobe products. That’s why, I’ve collected some easy to understand and very useful Adobe Illustrator video tutorials created by top Illustrator designers from all around the web. Most people consider that Photoshop is everything and they don’t actually need another product for their design projects. I strongly recommend you to take a look at this great Adobe Illustrator tutorials and you will understand why I say that you also need to use AI for more professional and artistic creations.
Learn about the User Interface and where you can find the tools you need.
One very important thing in Adobe Illustrator: – The Masking properties.
Use the pen tool to make things more interesting
A complete CS4 Video for Beginners
Learn how to use the Pathfinder in Illustrator.
Hiding a part of your illustration can make more important another part of it.
We all love Apple products and this tutorial help you to customize the famous ipod in no time.
Metal inspires professionals and this tutorial is 100% pro and free.
3D Logos are much more interesting than simple plain ones…so check this great tutorial to see how you can create one.
Any type of texture for any type of Illustration.
Eyes are very important for any human character, and that’s why this is a very important tutorial.
Professional Logo design for your company.
This is a pro glowing effect.
Choose most interesting and inspiring colors for your creations.
A progressbar is very important for Flash animations and applications.
Drawing a gear is just the title, but this tutorial will help you to create many types of illustrations.
A helix can be useful in many ways and that’s why you should take a look at this tutorial.
Create a custom logo for your company.
I know that it isn’t february yet, but you definitely should know how to draw a valentine.
Shiny text was always interesting and with this tutorial you will be able to create it too.
Restizing, croping and wrapping can improve your works and make them more attractive.
Famous and cool sign created in illustrator.
A cool new feature for Illustrator.
Artboards feature for CS4.
“Play” with gradients to create interesting designs.
Use Photoshop and Illustrator components to build better and powerful designs.
A very nice looking metal button.
Vey useful illustration for any type of activity which includes competition or quality review.
Bring the nature into your creations.
Even if you are a beginner with this tutorial you will be able to create pro background effects.
Cool and instant ribbons.
This will make your job a whole lot easier.
Create a cool stats graph in 3D.
Modelate your images and illustrations in no time.
The most essential drawing tool available in Illustrator and Photoshop.
Funny and flower-power clouds.
One of the coolest Cartoon hero sign can now be easily reproduced in Illustrator
Create cool backgrounds for your design projects.
Bring life into your Illustrator creations.
Make your cartoon creations more interesting for everyone.
20.01.2010
POSTED IN Blog, Inspiration, Resources | NO COMMENTS TAGS : approach, clients, designer, freelance, method, resources, Services, techniques, tips
There are a lot of factors that play a role in determining the success of a freelance web designer. Obviously, design ability and technical skills are needed, but other factors like customer service, marketing, networking, and work ethic will have a significant influence. In this article we’ll take a look at customer service as it applies to freelance designers.
Providing high-quality customer service can at times be frustrating for freelancers, but taking good care of your clients is critical for client retention and for encouraging word-of-mouth referrals. Here we will look at 10 aspects that should be considered by freelancers who aspire to provide a high level of customer service.
When clients have a question or a problem, they want to know that there is someone they can contact to get help. Of course, freelancers don’t have a team of customer service people ready to handle calls and emails around the clock, but in general it’s necessary to be accessible to clients. Clients should know the best ways to contact you (office phone, cell phone, email, through a customer service portal, IM, Twitter, etc.) and when they can expect to get a response if they are not able to speak with you immediately. Most clients understand that freelancers will not be available 24 hours a day, but they should know that you are interested in helping them and the best way to go about it.
Since it’s very common to deal with customer service via email and voice mail, the client should be able to know that you will get back to them as quickly as possible. The amount of time will vary, but clients should not feel like their messages are falling through the cracks and only answered whenever you have the spare time. Clients will appreciate customer service that involves a prompt response, which shows that service is a priority to you.
Organization is important in order to be able to provide quality customer service with timely responses. Working on multiple projects at any given time, plus some questions/issues from other clients needing maintenance, means that without organization it will be difficult to stay on top of things. Some freelancers use a CRM (see 12 CRM Options for Freelancers), while others institute their own system for organization. Organization also has a major impact on the ability to meet deadlines, which is a critical aspect of keeping your clients satisfied with your work.
Clients like to work with designers who are willing and able to meet them at their level, where the designer will explain things in a way that makes sense to the client. There will be plenty of situations where you will need to explain your reasoning to the client, whether it be in response to a question or suggestion from them, or whether it is something that you feel needs to be pointed out. Taking the time to explain things without technical jargon will help to educate your clients and should help to make your job easier going forward.
Some designers use packages with set prices for specific types of projects, but many designers will provide a quote specifically based on the needs of each client. Even for those designers that offer prices by packages, there will be situations where a client’s needs do not quite fit into one of the existing packages and a quote will be needed anyway. Pricing design services is a hot topic that gets a lot of attention, but the quote/estimate process doesn’t get as much attention.
The quote involves more than just being able to price your services. It should also help you to evaluate exactly what the clients needs and what you can offer, the specific details of what is included in the price and what is not, any deadlines and/or project milestones that are involved, and any other relevant details. Having a system will help you to get information from the client that will help you to make better estimates, provide a timely response, and to cover all bases so that both the designer and client understand the specifics of what is being offered.
One of the most critical aspects to a successful design project is getting to know and understand the client’s specific needs, their business, their customers, and what is needed from the website. In order to get this right, it is necessary to dedicate the needed time upfront before the design work begins. Many designers have standard approach to client in-take that helps them to make sure all the right questions are asked.
Putting more effort in to the early stages of the designer/client relationship will help to improve the customer service down the road. A project that involves a solid in-take process will result in a more effective and efficient use of your time, and fewer issues that will need to be resolved at later stages of the process, which will make your customer service much easier.
Contracts not only serve to protect everyone involved from a legal perspective, but having contracts and clear terms with clients will help to reduce the potential for miscommunication and misunderstanding about pricing, payment terms, what is included in the price, and the responsibilities of the designer and the client. A lack of clarity in any of these areas can lead to problems and lots of customer service work.
Every client project will involve some sort of feedback, and many will require revisions from the designer. In some cases, the feedback may be coming from a few different sources, and it could involve a number of different people. This contributes to making it even more important to have a system to deal with feedback and to incorporate it into the project.
There are a number of different resources out there, such as Proof HQ, that are available to make the process more streamlined and effective.
In order to provide the highest level of customer service possible, it is necessary to have the client’s best interest in mind. There will be situations where you could recommend something to a client that would involve more money for you, but it may not be in the best interest of the client. While putting the client’s interests in priority may cause you to miss out on some income opportunities in the short-term, it’s a necessary part of providing good customer service. Clients will recognize when you are truly looking out for them and it will lead to increased trust in you, a greater chance of getting repeat business, and more referrals from current and former clients.
Just like you need to respect your clients, you also need to respect your own work and time. Simply catering to unreasonable requests or doing endless revisions for clients that keep changing their mind is not required to provide good customer service. The ideal designer/client relationship involves mutual respect and a concern for being fair on both sides. There will be times when providing some type of service to your customer is outside the scope of the contract. In these situations the best customer service will involve a willingness to help the client get the service that they want, but at an additional fee.
Provide the best customer service that you can, but also have a respect for your time that prevents you from getting walked on. A healthy designer/client relationship will produce the best results for the client, improve the chances of a long-term working relationship, and promote a genuine interest in working together for success.
From your experience, what do you feel are the most essential aspects to customer service for freelancers?
20.01.2010
POSTED IN Blog, Graphic Design, Logo Design | NO COMMENTS TAGS : airey, book, creative, david, design, inspiration, interview, logo
David Airey is a very talented graphic designer and logo designer and he recently published a book Logo Design Love that is “a guide to creating iconic brand identities.” I’ve followed David through his blog for a few years now and I’ve always had a great deal of respect for his work. I recently had a chance to take a look at his book (I haven’t had the chance to read the whole thing yet, but what I have read is very good), and I thought it would be interesting to interview David about his work and the process of writing the book.
I was born in 1979, in Bangor, Northern Ireland (a few miles outside the capital city, Belfast). I began studying graphic design in 1995, and finished my formal design education in 2003, with a number of qualifications behind me, and an internship in Pittsburgh, USA.
After extensive travel and a stint teaching English as a second language I landed a job in advertising sales for The Scotsman, Scotland’s national newspaper. Design jobs weren’t readily available, and I considered the ad sales a temporary role until I found design-related employment. Working at The Scotsman put me in contact with an old friend who told me about a print management opening at a nearby cancer charity. I applied, and got the job. My responsibilities were for the organization’s gamut of print design, print buying, and web management.
Around May 2006 I chose to become self-employed, taking on my former employer as my first client. I worked with them for a couple of years on a part-time basis (two or three days per week), sending monthly invoices for the work completed. The rest of my time was spent building a web presence and attracting new clients.
Identity design projects are relatively short in time frame (i.e. one or two months, sometimes longer). This means I’m working with a widely varied client base in order to stay busy, and as such, I learn an incredible amount about how different industries operate.
I don’t think I’d be anywhere near as motivated if I was always working with the same design limitations (i.e., as an in-house designer with strict brand guidelines).
Without my blog, you’d not be reading these answers. I doubt you’d want to interview me, and I doubt you’d know about my work. The Internet can open so many doors, and it’s up to each one of us to tread our own path. Seth Godin published a relevant post, Seven years gone.
An effective logo should be distinctive, memorable, original, and relevant to the industry within which the identified company operates. It’s the tip of the branding iceberg, and should be consistent with the entire visual identity system.
I see a lack of imagination. The most obvious solution can sometimes be the most effective, but obvious does not equate to dull.
For instance, look at Landor’s 2009 identity design for the City of Melbourne. The solution is based upon the first letter of the city’s name, the ‘M’, and is probably the most obvious idea possible. But Landor took it, pushed boundaries, and created a stunning visual system to match any I’ve seen elsewhere.
The first step is choosing the client, and I’m sure many of your readers will agree that not all potential clients are a good fit.
Over the years I’ve been able to pre-determine a healthy working relationship by asking the right questions before a project begins, and I outline these questions in my new book, Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities. In fact, the whole book is based upon the design process I carry out, and you can download a free chapter here.
You’ll find a less-detailed, online overview of my identity design process here.
Almost one year to the day. I first chatted with my publisher, Peachpit, in December 2008, and it was December 2009 when I finally held a tangible copy of the book.
Peachpit found me through my design blogs, which is another reason why I place so much emphasis on the importance of a strong online presence. I wasn’t planning to write a book last year, but when asked, I thought, “Why not?”
It was. Another factor was how I find myself being asked more and more questions about the process of design, so I think there’s a gap in the market for a book such as mine.
My publisher asked me to think of another project for 2010, but I’m not sure I want to tackle one just yet. I’ll consider it in future, though. We’ll see how it goes.
If you’re interested in logo design, I recommend that you check out David’s book Logo Design Love.
20.01.2010
POSTED IN Blog, Graphic Design, Resources, Web Design | NO COMMENTS TAGS : brushes, cool, creative, design, freebies, graphic, icons, original, patterns, photoshop, resources
Free Vectors — Social Networking Icons (10 Colors/2 Styles)
Included are 21 social networking icons, in 2 different styles, with 10 color variations total. So in short, it’s a lot of icons! One of the styles is more glossy/gradient-y, and one of the styles is flat. Also, the download includes both CS & CS3 files.
Today, I am releasing one of my favorite sets of brushes to date; a set of 40 high resolution Photoshop brushes for creating streaks of light. It seems like each set of light effect brushes I make get better and better. This set is really amazing and I hope that you enjoy them!
A set of 5 bright and colorful high resolution bokeh textures.
This abstract render pack comes filled with 33 images of 3D abstract renders. All the images are in PNG format with transparent backgrounds. For the adventurers out there, we have also included two of the 3ds Max files that this pack was created with!
There are 108 simple icons included in this set. The icons are avaliable in 32×32 px .png (transparent background) format.
A collection of over a 100 letter pressed icons, in various letter pressed styles exclusive to Creative Nerds readers. The icons include three PSD files which are full of icons which you can drag and drop into your designs.
Tape is often used to hold things together or fix broken items. That being said, I don’t think these brushes will fix a bad design, but they will surely add a nice touch to hand drawn styles and anything else you find them useful for. Each brush measures around 2500 pixels.
This cheat sheet is essentially a simple visual grid that contains a list of all HTML tags and of their related attributes supported by HTML 5. The simple visual style I used to design this sheet allows you to find at a glance everything you are looking for.
Here are 5 high quality icons of boxes/cartons that you can use to announce the launch of a new application or on your portfolio websites. There is plenty of space to add your own flavor to the graphics like your name, important dates, blog names, app names etc.
A free WordPress theme from Alex at Crazy Leaf Design featuring widget ready areas, 3 columns, 2 sidebars (right and left), featured post section with featured image custom field, integrated logo changer (text or image).
A free package containing 12 sweet panda animals, 128×128 pixels each, that have social network marks on their stomach. You’ll get 12 .png files and 1 vector (.ai) file in case you need to rescale them (in Adobe Illustrator format).
Sketching & Wireframing kit is a free set of elements for sketching and wireframing. It consist of form elements, icons, indicators, feedback messages, tooltips, navigation elements, image placeholders, embedded videos, sliders and common ad banners.
A large set of high resolution stained brown paper textures.
This set of 11 Free Scaffolding Grunge Vectors was specifically created with large print designs in mind, but they can be used in web projects too. It’s a common technique to slightly destroy large type in ads and other print campaigns.