30 Apr 2010
By Marnie B (@marnieb)
Since Adobe announced Creative Suite 5, I’ve had many conversations with other designers regarding whether or not an upgrade from CS4 to CS5 is worth the big bucks. If you’re anything like me, you upgraded to CS4 after years of using a very old version (no, I won’t tell you just how old), and aren’t keen to fork out anymore dosh so soon. Oh, you’ve already upgraded? Right, just me then.
Still, curious if the upgrade is worth it, I’ve finally downloaded the CS5 demo and had a play with some of the new stuff. Let’s take a look at three of the new features I think are most worthy of a mention.
6 Apr 2010
By Marnie B (@marnieb)
My graphic and web design company has been running for more than four years now, and there’s one thing I’ve noticed that gets more work in the door than anything else. You might think I’m talking about email marketing, cold calling or Google Adwords, but you’d be wrong. I’m talking about making the effort to follow up with a potential client after sending them a quote.
Following up doesn’t have to take long, cost you anything or be a hard sell. In fact, I’ve found the exact opposite to be far more effective.
29 Mar 2010
By Jon Bergan (@jonbergan)
We’re business owners and we’re damn good at it, right? We love what we do and we pour buckets of blood, sweat and tears into our businesses each and every day, right? We feel so confident about what we’re doing that we wouldn’t change it for the world… well, mostly.
But what happens when you have clients or questioning the way you work? Do we falter and try to do everything we can to make the other party smile or do we stand up for ourselves for a change to do what’s right for us?
24 Mar 2010
By Marnie B (@marnieb)
I’ve been on a mission lately to find some new iPhone apps as the usual ones just aren’t keeping me interested anymore. Tweetdeck, Facebook and Foursquare get a workout, but the rest of my apps just aren’t useful enough in an everyday sense.
It got me thinking – what apps do other designers use most often? What apps could they absolutely not live without having on their iPhones? I asked around, and here’s what I ended up with.
17 Mar 2010
By Jon Bergan (@jonbergan)
Imagine this. It’s a Saturday morning, you’re sitting in your favourite arm chair, feet up and relaxing knowing that there is absolutely nothing you have to do today. No work. Nothing. You might have a hot cup of tea in one hand and your iPhone with Tweetdeck open in the other. You’re content just tweeting to friends, maybe catching some early morning television and simply letting time pass by. Stop imagining. You can do this. I do it every weekend.
It was during one of these relaxing weekend moments when I noticed a few of my fellow designers grumble about how they have to work on the weekend. Why work weekends when you don’t have to? Why shouldn’t you be 100% happy if you can be?
If you love working weekends – that’s awesome! If you don’t, then stop – now.
16 Mar 2010
By Jon Bergan (@jonbergan)
Welcome back! Did you miss me? Probably not, but that’s still cool. Where were we? Oh yes, in Part 1 of A Beginners Guide to a Beautiful jQuery Form, we stepped through the process of creating a simple web-based form, styling that form with some fairly basic CSS rules and adding some funky jQuery effects to make the form a little fancy.
This post will focus on the other half of the form – data validation and server-side scripting. We need data validation to ensure that the data being submitted by the user is valid and we need server-side scripting to send us an email once the form has been successfully submitted. Yes, yes, I know … it sounds daunting, but trust me – you’ll breeze through this if you got through the last one unscathed!
11 Mar 2010
By Marnie B (@marnieb)
Even before I began designing professionally, I was always very offended when someone criticized my work. Whether it was a wallpaper design I put up on DeviantArt, a sketch in my A3 sketchpad or a painting on my wall, I took it personally when it was suggested that I could have done something better.
When I started getting paid for my work, it got much harder. Us designers pour our heart and soul into our designs, wouldn’t you agree? We spend hours researching, even more hours sketching, and once the design is finished, we spend just as much time working on the way we’re going to present it to the client. So it’s no wonder it’s hard to hear, “It’s just not what we’re looking for.”
Unfortunately this is just part of the job.
8 Mar 2010
By Jon Bergan (@jonbergan)
Ahh, the Internet. It’s a massive jungle of web sites that are crammed tight with links, navigation bars, images, tables, animations and forms. In fact, if we have a good think about it, web forms are really one of the most important elements to a web page as they start a conversation between the site visitor and the site owner – which is the goal of most websites. If they’re so damn important, then why don’t we spend more time focusing on them and getting them right?
5 Mar 2010
By Jon Bergan (@jonbergan)
Hi folks! I’d like to introduce you to DesignLuv – a blog about design, development and being your own boss.
It’s our absolute pleasure to finally unveil this fabulous new project of ours to the design community. We’ve been planning this little gem for a few months now and we’re really beaming with excitement to watch it finally get off the ground. Now we just have to give it some time to really stretch its wings and find its place within the blogosphere.
3 Mar 2010
By Marnie B (@marnieb)
Co-existing… too good to be true? Not in marketing. Integrating the online and offline worlds could be one of the best decisions you make in terms of getting the word out about your business. They’re powerful in different ways when apart, but by combining online and offline techniques, you really will benefit from the best of both worlds.
Exposing your business to as many people as possible is absolutely crucial. Even though we live in a highly technological society, we can’t necessarily assume that everyone uses the Internet for his or her main source of information. That’s why it’s so important to cover all your bases.
The following is a guide in how to get offline marketing to work with and promote your online efforts. Yes, you really can teach old dogs new tricks!
