As salespeople as well as designers, we often feel like we should be bowing to our client’s every need. We might especially do that in this economy, where it feels like a person has to scramble for every penny and pittance they can get. However, at times this can lead to wasting good time that can be put towards development work.

But what are the warning signs of a bad client that’s going to put us in a slippery position? Or maybe you’re really asking should I really go with this client, despite their demands? Let’s explore the types of problem clients, and how to explore them! Read more »

Tools commonly referenced in “Designer Wanted” articles often include inDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. I’m going to take for granted that the reader already realizes the purpose of inDesign as a print media platform, and more narrowly focus on the use of Illustrator and Photoshop in design.

By definition, Illustrator’s output files are vectors, meaning that they are saved differently than Photoshop’s. When resized, they lose less of their value because they are saved as points and curves, whereas a Photoshop file would lose much of its value as its resolution became bigger as it would become more and more pixellated or “fuzzy”. For more information (and probably a better definition of what vector artwork is), please view this page.

Of course, you can use any range of image editing software that you wish, whether GIMP or your choice of vector program, but as a designer I have found Adobe’s programs more intuitive and thus have continued to use them for years. As such, I will focus on these two programs by name. Read more »

It happens to the best of us. We’re doing great with our business, finish off the last client file, and then…

Suddenly nothing.

We find ourselves scrambling to try and make ends meet, and worry and fret that perhaps going into freelance design wasn’t that great of an idea. Our savings begin to burn up, and we panic.

What can be done? Read more »

I’ve read iPad rumors like a hound. It’s been one of my few tech industry predilections. Most things with Apple generally are, considering how much of an Apple fangirl I’ve become following the purchase of my iMac.

Now, I like the name of the device, and initially I was very impressed with the surface, just like I am with all of Apple’s products. I’ve always had a huge amount of respect for Apple’s interface design team (considering that it’s their interface I’m most rabid about), but as I dug into the technical specifications… I kind of took a step back. It certainly wasn’t what I expected, which was exactly what Apple had promised, but I don’t think they really meant it in the sense that I found it to be “unexpected.” Read more »

Well, I’ve finally done it. I doodled a panda, and I placed it on my site. It was bound to happen; I already have panda avatars on most sites, pandas on my printer, a panda on my keyring, I even turned my calendar to the one month that has a panda. And don’t even get me started on the pandas that populate the desktops of my iMac and my Macbook. If anything, however, at least I was able to just sit and have some fun with gradients and the other goodies in Illustrator.

And now I have this. A small experiment I did while procrastinating further updates to my site’s scheme and layout, and while searching for ideas for what to do with the site footer, which I wanted to redo. On an unrelated note, however, I do have something I’ve been pondering. Read more »