I am sure all of us have a lot of work to do during our freelance workday or even during the full-time agency job. But I am also sure that most of us have side projects as well. While some can be beneficial for your pocket and experience, sometimes you just want to develop your …
Begginer’s Guide to Launching a Successful Blog
We are all aware of just how fast the Internet grows. The American search engine giant, Google, reports that more than 1 trillion websites were indexed in 2008. Twenty years ago Google only indexed 15,000 new URLs per year. In a stunning report from Mashable last summer we found out that 150,000 new URLs are …
How To Grow as a Designer by Building Your Own Network
Being part of a web design and development community offers you many possibilities and chances for self-development. Each one of us knows about these communities and, at some point in time or another, wished or even was part of one of them. Knowing other individuals in your industry is something I recommend to everybody, as …
Answering a Designer’s Question: Should I Choose Web or Print?
Print and web are both huge areas of design and mean a lot in today’s world. Print has been with us for more than 100 years and we know pretty much everything about it, while web is a new area of design that became mainstream about 10 years ago. Before this, web design was totally …
6 Must Read Tips Before Registering a Domain Name
There are many things a web designer has to think of when designing a website. Moreover, if he has full responsibility, he has to come up with a good domain name as well. Although many think it is not so important, the domain name is as important as your company name, the website or the …
6 Tips to Stay Focused on Project Deadlines
Staying focused on your goals may be difficult at times as a freelancer. Not having a nine-to-five job, selecting your own clients, setting your own rates and deadlines and also doing PR work for yourself is quite different than being a full-time employee in a web design agency, where many of the things above are …
What is Pro Bono Work and Why Should You Embrace It
Few weeks ago I wrote an article where I torn Spec work apart. There is no reason in going back and I think I should do as promised and explain why I think pro bono work is something you should do to help you build up a portfolio if you are new to the design …
Introduction to Mood Boarding and How to Use it Properly
Mood boarding is a technique often used in web and graphic design, but its use is even broader than this. Painting, photography, game design, interior design, movies, marketing, fashion, music, advertising and even architecture are domains where mood boarding is used to develop concepts and to intercommunicate with other members of the design team. A …
Why Creating Minimalist Design Makes You a Better Designer
Our target as designers most of the time is improving ourselves and our techniques. There are many ways of doing this. You can read books, find an internship or simply learn a lot by example from the internet. But there are some other ways as well. You might not believe it, but by only designing …
What is Spec Work and Why You Should Say No
Spec work means producing a piece of work for a client without any guarantee that your work will be published in any way – or will be paid for. If you think you’ve never done this before, look back when you submitted designs on 99designs.com. Websites like this one make lots of people work for …
New CSS3 Properties For Better Text And Word Wrapping
CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets is, alongside HTML, the very basics of web design. It was first designed to enable separation of document content and allow web pages to be displayed differently depending on the screen size of the device, or depending on the device itself. CSS is maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium …
New CSS3 Properties For Better Text And Word Wrapping
CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets is, alongside HTML, the very basics of web design. It was first designed to enable separation of document content and allow web pages to be displayed differently depending on the screen size of the device, or depending on the device itself. CSS is maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium …
A Beginner’s Guide to Combining Multiple Fonts
Using multiple fonts in the same design can get tricky if you don’t have knowledge of basic theories and good practices. In my opinion pairing fonts is one of the most difficult parts of the design process. If you have no idea where to begin, then this article will guide you through the knowledge you …
Is Paypal Good for Your Online Business?
PayPal is definitely the most well-known online user payment service in the world. With its start somewhere in 2000 thanks to X.com and Confinity merging, PayPal quickly became a leader of the market and expanded very fast among eBay users. That is probably why PayPal was bought by eBay in 2002 for just under $1.5 …
What is the Trend for Web Design in 2012?
Just one month and a half have passed in 2012 and there are some patterns which are quite easy to notice in how people design. Sure, most of them are similar to the ones of 2011 – it seems 2011 and 2012 will not be too different, however there might be some small changes which …
How to Overcome the Bad Moments of Your Career Like a Boss
There are lots of web design resources out there and learning all the skills you need is not a problem anymore – everybody can do it. But some of us (or better said, most of us) encounter the same logistical problems now and then during our freelance careers. Being able to create high quality websites …
Why Did You Become a Web Designer?
You are probably one of those who chose web design because you are passionate about it; or not. You may have chosen it because your father owned a design company and he wanted to integrate you into it. Or because you started off as a content writer and after writing on design topics for two …
How to Beat Designer’s Block Like a Kung Fu Master
If you have ever written articles for a blog or publication, you’ve definitely experienced what we call a writer’s block. By definition, this is an undetermined period during which a writer feels there is no inspiration for him anymore. Writer’s block can easily be a designer’s block and all of us can encounter a block …
5 Tips to Improve Your Résumé
Have you ever thought that the reason behind you not getting any design jobs is not the amount of skills you have, but the résumé you send to companies? Think that when companies post job openings hundreds of applications come in day by day and the HR manager needs to sort the bad ones out first. …
First Steps in Creating a Web Design Business
You don’t like working for others and wish others worked for you? Are you also attracted to the idea of working with lots of people and multiple personalities? Then going for your own design company is something you might want to look into. Starting a web design business might seem something anybody can do, but …