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 done by different individuals or departments. One of the most difficult things I encountered when I started as a freelancer was staying focused on the deadlines. And not only keeping my focus, but also meeting the deadline and delivering the project on time – at the end of the day, this is one of the most important things alongside the quality of your work.
Read More
Unleashing Facebook Page Timeline Tips with a Riveting Showcase
After Facebook launched Timeline for profiles, it was pretty obvious that the social media giant would eventually push similar changes to Pages. Are you excited about the new Timeline for your Facebook Business Page or do you dislike the change? Unfortunately, you don’t have a say in the matter. On March 30th, Facebook will automatically convert your page to the new Timeline format. Numerous changes affecting designs, analytics, postings, and more will take effect, so before you make a move, take a look at some of these important Facebook Page Timeline Tips.
Read More
Tips on Designing the Perfect Navigation System for Your Website
Where is the Home Button? Does this website even care about its navigation system? And, by the way, why are they using breadcrumbs when I don’t see how it could be useful? Well, navigational menus can be a big turn off for your readers if they aren’t planned well. Although webmasters assume that a simple menu is enough, most of the time yet they forget that a navigational menu has its own requirements. Sometimes a simple to use navigation will do just fine for your website design while at times you will have to click a lot of links into your navigational menu so as to compliment the various branches of your website.
This discussion will pick up some of the obvious forms of websites and then shed some light on how the navigational menu changes for each of them. Hold tight and don’t leave!
Read More
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 business and to give a helping hand to different communities.
Pro bono work comes from a Latin phrase and is mostly used to describe professional work delivered voluntarily and without payment or at a highly reduced fee. Pro bono work is increasing in popularity lately in domains such as marketing, technology and yes, web design. Such a concept offers the specific skills of a professional for free to someone who is not able to afford them otherwise. The main difference between Spec work and pro bono work is that pro bono work is usually for a good cause and even if you don’t get paid, it will definitely bring you awareness and allow you to build up a portfolio and earn experience. The reason behind me preferring pro bono work instead of spec work is that it is usually for a good cause. We designers love the nature, optimistic and energetic volunteers and good causes like charity. Why not work for them and earn their respect rather than do Spec work and (most of the time) earn nothing?
Read More
10 Efficient Ways to Build Quality Links to Your Website
Link building is the most difficult task in SEO, no doubt. Why? Because it is time-consuming, and requires careful research, and the results of which are not guaranteed. For the same reason, many SEOs either outsource the work or go for quick link building campaigns like softwares or simply ignore the whole thing focusing on onsite optimization – which is by far a more comfortable task.
Read More
A Beginner’s Guide on How to Pursue a Graphic Design Career
Done with college? Time to opt for a real career and get out of your part-time money-earning world? It isn’t easy out there especially when you want to opt for a career option which isn’t as safe as the job of software engineers is. Don’t get me wrong, I am a software engineer myself and I know that a 9-5 job with reputed I.T. company can make you feel safe. My point here is that a career option like Graphic Design is very nice and the process isn’t as automated as it is in various MNCs. This makes it a bit difficult for the infant web designer to find a way through the newly coined term Designer Poverty.
This article will help you understand the basic pointers that are essential when it comes to career in graphics designing.
Read More
16 Android Applications to Help You Manage Your Day Better
Freelancers are always working. There is usually something that needs to be done, be it an email that needs sending or research for a project that you should be working on. If you are a freelancer with an Android phone, you can easily manage your day and some of your work flow while you are away from your desk.
Below are a bunch of free or low-cost Android applications to better help you manage your daily to-dos. While these applications are a few of hundreds of thousands available, the applications in this list have been chosen for their ease of use and/or integration with programs and web services you may already be using.
Read More
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 mood board is a type of poster design containing text, images and samples of objects used in a composition of the choice of the mood board creator. It enables a person to illustrate the direction and general style which the final product is pursuing.
Read More
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 minimalist layouts you will become a better designer. You might ask yourself why, therefore I thought of putting together some ideas to try to convince you that this is also a good way of improving your skills.
Minimalist designs have been with us for quite some time now, emerging from nowhere a couple of years ago. It is easy to spot all over the place as everybody longs for such a design and everybody looks to have it. People pay lots of money for revamping their websites and minimalism seems to be everybody’s direction right now.
Read More
6 Simple Tips on How to Market Your Infographics
Today, Infographics are everywhere on the Internet, there is an infographic for almost every popular subject. From serious topics like marketing to seemingly simple ones like apps and bedtime stories are made into infographics. We saw the trend back in 2010, when internet marketers were thinking of a better way to market content. Top ten lists were being overdone, and there was a huge need for interesting content, people were getting bored by the typical content marketing techniques seen up to that point.
Read More
