29th June 2009 / No Comments »
It’s been almost four months since my last update and what a four months it has been. I’ve completed some new sites, worked on some awesome projects, attended the odd event here and their, watched Transformers 2 and two series’ of Peep Show, built a bike, eat my body weight in Wine Gums and even managed to find time to sleep. Which was nice!
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5th April 2009 / 5 Comments »
For most companies hiring a website designer for the first time can be a daunting experience, and for a lot of businesses a bad experience the first time around can either put them off working with creatives for life or turn them into a nightmare client for the next designer they work with. There are plenty articles out there informing designers how to avoid the pit falls of working with various types of clients and how hey can protect themselves against awkward ones, but like most things its a two way street, so here is my list of 7 tips to help you get the most from your designer.
8th February 2009 / No Comments »
In case you’ve been living under a rock or have a life outside of the monitor then you won’t know that Twestival is taking place at 175+ locations across the planet this coming Thursday February 12th 2009. “WTF!?” you say. Well Twestival, in a nutshell, is a charity event being held to raise money for charity: water where cities across the globe will host a get together for all the Twitter users in the near by area. Sound nerdy? It is.
The chances are if you live in Europe, North America or Australia then there will be an event near you, as well as the odd one dotted across Africa, South America and the Middle East, so if you want to help out a worthy cause theres no excuse not attend (unless you’re trapped down a well).
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2nd February 2009 / 1 Comment »
I recently read a post on Carsonafied’s web development blog ThinkVitamin outlining 15 Tips for Freelancers Starting Their Own Business, in short it basically lists the must-have skills for freelance designers who are a looking to make the transition from just ‘paying the bills’ to running their own small design business.
Although the points are valid at a basic level I didn’t really agree with them in the context they were written, but like most posts of this kind its purely down to professional opinion. In most cases a list like this could stretch to 100+ must-haves for starting a business (or getting into freelancing, gaining more clients or writing a killer CV) and at the end of the day its more an argument about the order of importance pointers than the content its self. However as some one who has been a freelance web designed for the best part of 6 years I’d actually be surprised if any freelancer got past the first 12 months let alone as far as being able to set up a small firm without these basic skills already well and truly locked down.
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10th January 2009 / 5 Comments »
Note: Before I start, this is the second draft of this post. When I first wrote it I ended up going in to a 1000 word rant about students and Universities and how the whole thing just wasn’t working. After reading it back and then reading the original post I decided that this post should be a bit more constructive so rewrote it and it is…
When you’re a student time is precious, between drinking, partying and eating beans you’ve got fit in those exams, keep up with the course work and at some point start looking for a job, but unfortunately as discussed in the last post and at Design Forums it seems that leaving University with that all important degree is not nearly enough to secure yourself a job. Agency employers agree that they need much much more from potential employees than the education system is giving them and that students need to go that extra mile to keep them one step ahead of the game.
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