GraphicDesignMe | Blog

Here’s a scenario:
An employer has posted a job opening on a well-known website and gets bombarded with applications.
The employer needs to weed out the crack pots from the legit people with the credentials.
There are lots or reasons that a company may not hire you, don’t let a lack of a professional look be one of them.

Looks are everything

Make sure your website reflects the kind or designer you are. I’m a full believer that your website should have some personality.

Don’t be something your not

If your a solo practicing freelancer DO NOT pretend that your a huge company. Believe it or not some clients want a small time freelancer so that they get individual attention.

Tips on what to include in your online portfolio

1. Include only your best work

This seams like an obvious one but I’ve seen many a portfolio where the designer had included every last piece ever done. Don’t include High School work unless your in High school. Edit liberally.

2. Write about your work

It’s always helpful to include details on the project you worked on, like date completed, client name, programs used, your role in the design, any other information that a future employer might find interesting.

3. Show you are versatile.

If your style ranges from conservative to funky, show it.

4. Show off your skills

If your also a web designer try to include some of your coding skills. If CSS is your strength play it up. Maybe jQuery or PHP is more your style? Make sure to show it off.

It’s almost a new year and time to take stock of your website situation. So are you looking for a reason to redesign your site? If your website has some or all of these you should seriously consider hiring a designer to take you into the new decade with a modern looking website.

1. Frames

If most of your site uses frames, you’re in design trouble. While the occasional iFrame might not be anything to worry about since they are often used for widgets, frames have been outdated for about 10 years. Get rid of them!

2.Intro/Splash Pages

Everyone had to have an intro/splash page in the early 2000s. Most used Flash with or without sound. And what do most users do when they see an intro page now…THEY LEAVE THE SITE. Or at the very least they get aggravated and try to find a way to get off it ASAP. Now, before your potential viewer/customer has even viewed one bit of your content, you’ve angered them. Not a good idea. It’s probably time for a redesign.

3. Flash

If your site was built with only Flash, it’s likely you’re SEO is suffering not to mention the usability of your website. You need to have some code in the backend of your site so google and other search engines can spider your site.

4. Tables

Tables were pretty much the way to layout a website a few years ago but that’s not what they were meant for — they were intended for formatting data. If your current site is designed using tables, it’s time for a redesign.

5. Trendy Designs

Web 2.0 glossy buttons — all the rage for the last couple of years — but that trend is starting to fade. Going they way of the hit counter, the scrolling marque and blinking text. Don’t wait until you’re the last site around using an outdated trend.

Here’s a small list of places you could find your next freelance job in no particular order. I mostly focused on places that specifically cater to freelance positions only, although some do have full-time listings if your interested.

1. Freelance Switch

2. Programer Meet Designer

3. Design Jobs On The Wall

4. Authentic Jobs

5. Smashing Jobs - from Smashing Magazine

6. Craigslist

Do you know of any other places to search out there for freelance work? Leave a comment below.

I always think twice when, in business, someone gives me an aol or gmail email address. There are usually 3 reasons why people do this:

1. Not technically inclined - these people are usually afraid of computers and hat that they even have to use email.

2. Lazy - They already have a perfectly good email address and see no need to have another

3. Cheap - Why pay for something when you can get it for free.

For all these people here’s why you need to get a new email address:

Professional looking email is not expensive. You can find domain names and hosting for next to nothing. If you want to play with the big boys pony up.

Added bonus - As Far as advertising and marketing goes, websites are cheap. In later posts I’ll go into more about how you can use your site to advertise your business.

Start using an email like yourname@yourdomain.com not yourname@gmail.com. If you want, you can always forward your email to any address you want. It just looks way more professional with your very own email address

In my time as a graphic designer I’ve seen many a resume and I have to say about 70% of them to put it bluntly, sucked. Any resume that was designed in (shutter) Microsoft Word were pretty much overlooked. The others that has some kind of style went right to the top. Look, your applying for a DESIGN job, your resume is your first impression, for God sake’s DESIGN IT! Show off your layout skills, I guarantee your resume will get a second look. In a quick google search for graphic design resume examples I came across the following. What an awful example to set! The basic information is fine and all but if I saw a resume that looked like any of these they would go right into the trash. I guess what I’m saying is when it comes to designing your resume you better design your ass off!

Cover the basics

Start of by making sure that you include all the basic information.

Your vital information

1. Full name
2. Permanent address
3. Telephone number(s)
4. Email address
4. Website address

Major headings

1. Objective/Summery
2. Education
3. Computer Experience/ Software Knowledge
4. Work Experience
5. Awards/Organizations

Now design it

Your resume is as important if not more so then your portfolio. A well designed one will get you a second look even if your Experience is a little thin. Some things to consider:

Layout

The ultimate goal is for someone to read this so make sure your layout is clean and draws the eye around the page. Make use of grid systems and sticking with a color palette that makes sense.

Typography

Try to stick with some classic fonts that are easy on the eye to read. Serif fonts are always easier for the eye to navigate body copy, San Serifs are good for headers. Play with light and bold face type, extended and condensed, you get the idea. And remember NO COMIC SANS!

Imagery

If you have your own logo - use it - consider yourself a brand. You could also consider including some choice pieces of your portfolio - but limit it to about 3-4 at the most.

Here are two examples of some old resumes of mine. They are a little outdated now but at the time they got me in the door.

Hope you feel inspired, now go get ‘em!

UPDATE: To see my latest version of my resume download it here.

In a previous post I explained why I’m using Flatpress over Wordpress for my blog with step-by-step instructions on how to install it.
Ok, so your at the point where got your flatpress blog up and running and you should see a screen that looks something like this:

This is the default theme of Flatpress, you probably want to change it. You have a few options:

1. Get a new pre-built theme and install on your site

Sounds more complicated then it is.
There are a few (and I mean a very few) pre-built themes here.
And a few more here from other users.

Step one

Find a theme you like and download the files to your computer somewhere that’s handy (I usually save to my desktop so I can see the files right away).

Step two

Once the files are downloaded you need to put them on your site through your FTP program of choice (I use Fetch but any one will do).

Step three

Place all downloaded files into your public/blog (or flatpress)/fp-interface/themes folder.

Step four

Log into your admin area of your blog and click on “Themes” you should see what themes are now available to use. Here’s what mine looks like right now:

I wanted to try out a few so I have the Studiopress theme I’m using now as well as one called Deckay 3.0 and the default Leggero theme. All you have to do know is click the one you want to use and your blog should update automatically. Pretty Sweet!

2. Taking a pre-built theme and tweaking it to fit the rest of your site

Follow all steps above. Next comes the fun part. I’m assuming that you already know HTML and CSS at this point although I may go into those a little in the future. If you don’t your stuck with the pre-made stuff.

In your HTML editor of choice (I use Dreamweaver) you can open and edit any files that came with the theme. You’ll find them in:
public/blog (or flatpress)/fp-interface/(the theme folder that you downloaded)/

For example I used the Studiopress theme and edited the files header.tpl and footer.tpl and the css files found in the /res folder called globals.css to fit with the rst of my website. I also replaced some of the images.

Just re-upload said files, refresh and see what you get. If you really mess up you can always start over by re-downloading the theme and replacing the page with the original!

You made this awesome site back in 2006, everything is up to code. You got some rockin’ portfolio pieces and your feeling pretty good about the situation. So when should a designer redesign their website?

In my opinion, every 2-3 years.

What?? But what about brand loyalty and people being scared that they are not on the old site they were so familiar with.
A site that was designed 2-3 years ago, looks it. This is pretty much your business card so make it stand out.

Look I’m not saying scrap the whole thing and start over - unless it sucked in the first place - You should keep your logo consistent but I feel that the rest is up for grabs. And hey, if your CSS is good it should take that long.

When your a designer your website says a lot about you before the potential client even gets to your portfolio or about page. You’ll notice on my site I have a few pieces of my work on the homepage, I want the user to be hit with visual pieces off the bat, it’s intentional, so that they want to look for more.

This may not be true for other types of business - ebay and amazon probably don’t want a face lift anytime soon since they rely on people feeling comfortable enough to actual purchase something from them online - but in the design field you gotta go for the gusto!

This is kind of a sensitive subject for me. I’m in a dying industry, they are announcing giants in my field falling, practically everyday. You see, I’m a newspaper designer. When I started at my job about 10 years ago, fresh out of school, I couldn’t have imagined what I am seeing today. Small weeklys going down as well as big dailys biting the dust. Luckily for me I’m in what they call a nitch publication, but yet I can’t help but feel that my days may be numbered the more we move to the web.

I do feel fortunate that I took that one web design class back in ‘96. I took it on a whim, to get the credits and I thought it would be cool to know how to make a web page, whatever that was. I had a great teacher and became very interested in the subject. Over the years I’ve developed my skills more and more, learning CSS and PHP on my own and now, hopefully Ruby on Rails!

Where am I going with this?
I have a backup plan, and you should too. I see a lot of designers focus too much on one discipline and I think this recession is a good opportunity to broaden your skills. If your in print learn the web - like yesterday. If your in web, learn print or development.

A little background

When I started working on adding this blog to my site I immediately went to Wordpress and downloaded the latest version. I followed the instructions and looked up a few tutorials, and thought I had this thing down pat. I then downloaded MySql installed it and ran into a huge problem. I’m behind a firewall. What’s a girl to do? Go to google that’s what! So I looked up blogs that don’t require a database and low and behold I come across Flatpress. Now flatpress has a wiki with instructions on how to install but I thought I could make it a little simpler for people to understand exactly what they should do. If you’re in the same situation as me and want this stuff explained as straight forward as possible then keep reading.

Step 1. Download Flatpress

It’s free, just like Wordpress so just do it. Go to: http://sourceforge.net/projects/flatpress/files/ and grab the latest version.

Step 2. Unpackage the file

Just double click on the file and all should be well.

Step 3. Upload Flatpress files to your website

Once the package is opened a folder should pop up called, surprisingly, flatpress. Using your FTP program of choice (I use Fetch but there’s a ton out there) place this folder in your public folder - or in my case, to make my life easier I created a new folder called blog and placed the contents of the flatpress folder in there.

Step 4. Set up Flatpress

Next you need to set this baby up, so what you want to do is to make sure the folder fp-content should have “777” permissions. What?!?!
All that means is that in the permissions for the folder fp-content, all the check boxes should be checked.

Next the easy part:

Once that’s done you need to go through the setup. To do this you need to type in your domain/flatpress. i.e. http://www.mydomain.com/flatpress. This is pretty straight forward, there’s only 3 steps:

1. Welcome dialogue
2. Enter user name, password (these you give yourself to login to your site so just make something up that you’ll remember and is pretty secure), URL and e-mail address
3. Provided, setup was successful, you are then asked whether you want to login or view your blog.

Make sure, for security reasons, that you delete the folder setup and the file setup.php once you have your blog up and running

And that’s it!

Your done - unless you want a theme or have it match your site.
I’ll go into that in detail in a future post.

Well after a lot of headaches I finally have the blog up and running - although the design will more then likely change in the near future.

Why am I starting a blog?

So why am I joining the millions of bloggers out there? Good question.

1. I’ve been doing this design thing for over 10 years now and I think some young designers can learn from me.
2. I’ve got opinions and I wanna share them.
3. And hey, I ain’t gonna lie, I want more traffic to my site and bloging is a great and low/no cost way to do that.

So stay tuned, I hope this will be useful to all the budding designers out there as well as help all my future clients get to know me a little better.