Wow, it seems ages ago that I first mentioned that I was thinking about launching a new site. It’s been almost three months since the idea popped in to my head, and about six weeks ago that I first started sketching ideas, but the day has finally come.

I’m delighted to announce my new blog, the [...]]]>

Wow, it seems ages ago that I first mentioned that I was thinking about launching a new site. It’s been almost three months since the idea popped in to my head, and about six weeks ago that I first started sketching ideas, but the day has finally come.

I’m delighted to announce my new blog, the purpose of which is to promote my freelance web design work, officially open.

The aim of my new site is certainly to better position myself for my freelance activities, hence the way the homepage has been used as a kind of shop window. However, I intend the blog element to provide a useful resource for web and graphic designers and I hope to to carry on much of the what this blog has been doing up until now.

My opening article is a list of 25 design and creativity blogs that have inspired me. This is a way of thanking all the bloggers I have interacted with and learnt from over the past 14 months. Please head over, have a read and subscribe to the new RSS feed. And you would be doing me a massive favour if you could Stumble or Digg the article?

What happens to miLienzo.com now?

I want miLienzo.com to stay. I’ve actually built up quite a successful little site here with decent traffic and subscriber numbers, so it would be a shame to let it go. However, the truth is running two blogs may be more than I can manage.

My intention is to use this site more for my personal ramblings – somewhere where I can let of steam and post links to weird and wonderful things I see around the Internet – somewhere where I don’t necessarily have to think too carefully about what I am saying. I like the idea of distinguishing between my professional freelance blog and my personal random ramblings.

For the next month that is how I will try and run things in which time I can assess how manageable running two blogs simultaneously is. If all goes well I will then redesign miLienzo.com and give it a fresh coat of paint for a new life.

Many thanks for all your support through this – I know my postings have been few and far between for some months now and I appreciate you sticking with me. Thank you!

Apple fan Nick Haley made the advert in his spare time and uploaded the 30 second spot to YouTube. Naturally he couldn’t believe his ears [...]]]> An 18 year old British student has seen the mock iPod touch advert he made in his bedroom get aired on US TV and even shown live at the World Series.

Apple fan Nick Haley made the advert in his spare time and uploaded the 30 second spot to YouTube. Naturally he couldn’t believe his ears when an Apple representative called to buy the rights to the ad (which presumably they already owned?) and invited Nick to Los Angeles to help remake the video.

This first video shows Nick’s rough mash-up:

Apple’s advertising agency, TBWA Worldwide, applied a spot of Apple polish to create this second version, very faithful to Nick’s original idea:

I first came across this story at Ad Goodness where the mainly ad-professional community have been stroking their goatees and getting hot under their roll-neck collars, complaining that the ad lacks any creative concept or originality.

They may well be right but I think it’s a great ad. As brand developer Prescott Perez-Fox says, this ad is significant because it is one of the first examples of amateur consumer-generated content being implemented and used by mainstream professionals.

On his personal blog, risk-management consultant Indyman reflects on how refreshing it is to see Apple turn a blind eye to any copyright infringement issues and embrace the user-generated content movement.

I’ve written in the past at how Apple are the Jedi masters of marketing and PR. Here they’ve managed to produce a great ad (at a fraction of the cost of using a creative agency) and attach it to a great story (the guy next door striking it lucky). The result is a media- and blogosphere-friendly story that is well and truly going viral (almost 500,000 YouTube views, and counting).

Who needs a creative concept?

I truly love this ad, and I’m chuffed to bits for lucky Nick. What do you think?

PS – if you’re reading this Apple, why not checkout my iPod flex conceptual designs? Will consider fair offers

Starting a site’s design before the content for that site is fully developed can be a costly mistake. It often leads to designs that are sub par or that don’t fit with the final content. Knowing that is only half of the battle. The other battle [...]]]> Guest article: This article is written by Justin Kistner.

Starting a site’s design before the content for that site is fully developed can be a costly mistake. It often leads to designs that are sub par or that don’t fit with the final content. Knowing that is only half of the battle. The other battle is helping clients understand that, which is where this post comes into play.

I often refer to my approach to design as ‘content driven design‘. Louis Sullivan would have said, “form follows function”. No matter how you express it, using language in the beginning that defines the design as dependent upon the function/content of the site helps establish a precedence. But, simply saying you subscribe to the ‘content driven design’ school of thought isn’t enough to prevent a client from saying, “Can’t we just make a design and then put the copy and pictures in when it’s done?”

The logical approach

Your first line of defense should be one of reasoning because it demonstrates that your respect your client’s intelligence. For some clients, a simple statement is enough to convince them. The statement I use is, “My job as a web designer is to arrange content on a page so that it is both functional and compelling. I can’t make good decisions about either unless I know what I’m supposed to arrange.”

Good design reveals more about the content that the design is treating. Emphasis, for example, can be represented by scale, color, and/or font weight. In order to know how to present the messages on the page, you need to be able to read the message.

The illustrated approach

Sharp clients that don’t want to or can’t get their content together in the timeframe they want the site designed by can have a response to the logical approach. They usually come in the form of a few variations:

• “I know what I basically want, isn’t that enough to at least get you started?”
• “I can already tell you what pages I want and what will be on them.”
• “I pretty much have all of my content. Let’s just start with that.”

Here’s a list of examples to help explain in more detail the importance of the specific content.

Complexity thresholds

If you have one good photo, it’s pretty straightforward how to place it on the page. If you have twelve photos, then you might need to arrange them in a matrix as thumbnails that can be clicked to view them larger. If you have two hundred photos, you would need to break them up onto multiple pages. If you’ve got twenty thousand, then you would need categories and search options to make them digestible, which means there are now form elements that have to be included in the layout.

This example reveals how the volume of content not only impacts the way that content is laid out, but also the number of pages and additional supporting elements that might need to be on the page.

Square peg, round hole

Let’s say your design uses a horizontal nav bar that has five items and each is a single word. Then let’s say your real content comes back and you need eight items in the nav bar and they are all 2-3 words each. Now your horizontal nav bar doesn’t hold the real navigation and needs to be made vertical. That could break the whole design and require starting over on the layout.

This example shows that designing in a vacuum can produce a layout that won’t accommodate the final content. And, it can happen in the reverse too where a design allows for a lot of space for content that turns out to be small making the site feel awkward and empty.

A chef is only as good as his/her ingredients

Let’s say the client is only missing the photo of their office and one of their staff that they want on their about page. So, you use placeholders you found using Google’s image search. Then the final photo of the office the client provides was taken on their cell phone and most of the staff objected to having their pictures taken. Now you can’t run the office photo very big and you have holes where the staff photos were supposed to go forcing you to redesign the about page.

This example illustrates two points: the quality of content impacts how you use it; and planning to have certain content doesn’t mean you’ll get it.

It’s as easy as 1-2-3

Let’s say you have a page that describes your client’s service. Because the client doesn’t have the final content, you design it with Lorem Ipsum. When the final content comes you see that signing up for the service is a three step process that would have been a great opportunity for an infographic. Now the service page is a page of boring grey text.

This example is about missed opportunities. Here the client doesn’t incur additional expense from breaking the design with the final content, but they miss out on what could have been a great visual description of their money making service. The result is that they lose profits from a less effective website.

Your job as a web designer is both as a designer and a client counselor. You can and should advise your client according to the experience and knowledge that you have, but you are under no obligation to deliver a difficult client the best website in the world. In other words, if the logical approach and a couple of good examples isn’t enough to convince your client then you can take one of two courses of action:

1. Tell them you appreciate the opportunity to work with them, but you’ll have to pass on this project. Obviously you can only take this approach if you have the luxury to do so. There are many successful designers that will wisely advise you to avoid projects that will cause you pain and not end up in your portfolio. Sometimes throwing down the gauntlet can spark a stubborn client into action, which means pulling their content together. You might still be weary of that situation because conflict is usually not a great way to start a project.
2. Tell them they need to sign a waiver stating that you advised them not to go this route and that it could lead to extra rounds of revisions for which they will be responsible for paying. While it reads pretty harsh, there are polite and diplomatic ways of approaching this option. You could say something like, “I can appreciate that your timeline is tight. We can get started without the final content, but it could lead to additional rounds of design when we start plugging in the real content. If your priority is your timeline, then let’s just update our agreement to make sure you get those extra rounds of design if need be. I’ve got this handy form right here.”

Content driven design for a CMS

Most clients seeking web design today would like some level of admin control via a CMS. In those situations the client won’t have all of the content by definition of the project. In the case of a CMS design, what you will need up front is not the future content, but rather a clear description of the system. I could write a whole post about how to define a content system, but I’ll save it for later. For now, my recommendation to you is to ask some basic questions about what they need to manage, like is it a gallery, a blog, a calendar, etc. Select a free CMS that seems like it will fit and have the client start using it before you make a custom design. Having the client use a CMS before creating a design will help you in two ways:

• It will reveal if it meets their functional needs before investing in an interface design.
• It will give you a starting base of content to analyze for design direction. Even the most prepared client ends up producing content that is different from what they thought they would create in the beginning, so it’s good to have something real to provide you with design direction.

Do you ask for content before starting a design? Do you have challenges getting the content from the client? How do you handle those situations?

Justin Kistner – Justin is an Internet strategist, web designer, and the author of the blog Metafluence that covers web design, website traffic driving strategies, business practices for web developers, and news and trends.

Last night was the private viewing of my end of year show. I donned some smart clothes and exhibited my portfolio of work, in the hope of networking, making connections, and possibly finding freelance work or even employment.

I’ve actually been up since 4am this morning, doing that thing that happens after job interviews where you [...]]]>

Last night was the private viewing of my end of year show. I donned some smart clothes and exhibited my portfolio of work, in the hope of networking, making connections, and possibly finding freelance work or even employment.

I’ve actually been up since 4am this morning, doing that thing that happens after job interviews where you go over the entire event in your head and re-run conversations you had. It’s quite annoying so I guess it’s more productive to spurt out some thoughts here.

Firstly, I feel weird. For two years I’ve been working up to this event and now all of a sudden it’s over in a flash. The event kicked off just before 7pm and by 8.30pm practically all of the guests had gone home and just the students were left polishing off the alcohol.

I’m a bit older than most of the other students and I noticed some were virtually hiding behind their displays being a bit bashful, whereas I made a concerted effort to say hello and talk people through my work. This is a tricky one to gauge though, as I’m not a natural at this kind of thing and I was aware sometimes that I came onto people giving it the hard sell. It got easier towards the end of the evening and I ended up having some nice long conversations about how people were enjoying the show and how they’ve found other students’ work, before I began discussing my own work.

In fact, I don’t remember any periods of time where I was not engaged in conversation with someone. It all went so quickly it seems a bit of a blur. This seems positive, but I have mixed feelings. My gut feeling is I spent a lot of time speaking to people who were just interested passers by. I’m delighted that they liked my work but I know full well that they are not going to phone me up tomorrow and offer me a job.

This might seem a little cut-throat, which is not my style at all, but I can’t help feeling that for an event that can potentially have huge bearings on the future of ones life, you need a massive amount of luck: lucky that the potential employer decides to walk into the same room as you; lucky that they walk past your display rather than the dozens of others; lucky that you’re not busy talking to someone else when they walk past.

And this is my point. Whilst there was a lot of chat, I only recall speaking to a few actual designers or representatives from studios or agencies and I only gave out a handful of my portfolio CDs and business cards. I can’t escape this nagging feeling that it’s a bit of an opportunity missed.

On the plus side, at one point I received a grilling from five chaps from one studio who were really interested in my work. They even said that they were actually looking for someone who was a multimedia all-rounder. I spent an intense five minutes with these guys fielding constant questions from them and showing them my work. Then they were gone.

Do you remember your final show?

If you’ve been through a similar experience to this (I presume all design students have?), I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on your show?

Thanks for the previous posts’ comments: Paul, Lauren and David.

Hows your day going? What’s that – you’ve got a client that’s being a complete pain in the arse? They’ve called through the 37th set of amends on that brochure you’re doing? They want to see how the front cover would look if it was green? They want you to make the logo bigger?

Well, fear [...]]]>

Hows your day going? What’s that – you’ve got a client that’s being a complete pain in the arse? They’ve called through the 37th set of amends on that brochure you’re doing? They want to see how the front cover would look if it was green? They want you to make the logo bigger?

Well, fear not my friend. Sit back, click play, and let off some steam.

(Credit to Sera for finding this one. And thanks, Sera, for giving me an excuse to put audio on my blog – I’ve been wanting to do it for months!)

Dish the dirt on your nightmare clients

So lets turn this into a designer group therapy session – this could be fun. Tell me all about your worst client and just why they are so annoying to work with? If it helps, play the song again.

As always, many thanks for the previous posts’ comments: Randa, Tara, StevieB, Jez, Paul, David, Scot, Marc, Asgeir and Sera.

Working for myself is a life-long goal of mine. There are lots of things that drive this ambition: I’m an independent person and enjoy making my own decisions in life; I don’t particularly enjoy the politics of corporate life; I relish constant challenges; and most importantly, I love money and dream of making myself filthy [...]]]>

Working for myself is a life-long goal of mine. There are lots of things that drive this ambition: I’m an independent person and enjoy making my own decisions in life; I don’t particularly enjoy the politics of corporate life; I relish constant challenges; and most importantly, I love money and dream of making myself filthy rich!

That said, my feet are firmly on this planet. It may be several years off, but a freelance design career is something I’m driving towards.

Over on NorthxEast I discovered this superb comprehensive guide to starting your freelance career. To summarise, the post covers:

• What is freelancing?
• Branding yourself
• Where do you find work?
• Quoting and estimating
• Rebilling other services
• How much is right?
• Invoicing
• Getting paid
• Recognizing trouble clients
• Scoping, delivery and time frames
• Service, accessibility and saving the day
• Expansion and becoming a full-fledged business

There is a wealth of valuable information to be taken from the article, whatever your experience. Make sure you check it out!

Are you already freelancing?

How important is experience within a design studio/agency? Does a studio background make you a better designer, and will clients insist on several years experience in a studio? Is it possible to freelance without any studio experience?

I’ve been working in London for a couple of days this week, and this city is an amazing place to be. I have been to many of the big European cities and without a doubt, London has an absolutely unique energy to it not seen in other cities.

Just walking through the streets of London and [...]]]>

I’ve been working in London for a couple of days this week, and this city is an amazing place to be. I have been to many of the big European cities and without a doubt, London has an absolutely unique energy to it not seen in other cities.

Just walking through the streets of London and being amongst the diverse and multicultural London life is inspirational. Yet every visit I make to London leaves me with one overwhelming feeling: I’m glad I don’t live here!

By comparison I live in a medium sized town, unique in no way other than its blander-than-average averageness (anyone who’s been to Swindon will know what I mean). There’s nothing particularly wrong with where I live, it’s just like a thousand other towns in this country. But that’s precisely what is wrong with it.

As someone who will be looking to get into the creative industry soon, moving to a bigger city is not only a wise option, it’s probably my only option. There are a few complications, but I’m not opposed to upping sticks and moving on. In fact, I think the challenge would be a positive experience and living somewhere more alive can only help get the creative juices flowing. Although there are cities I’d rather be than London.

So this evening, as I sat in a restaurant dwelling on these thoughts, I got thinking – surely many creative people in the world has gone through this?

Have you been drawn by the bright lights?

Have you gone through similar experiences to find work? Have you moved from the country to the city? Has it been a positive experience? Does being in a large city energise and inspire you? Or is it just somewhere to work? How important is open space and the countryside to you? Is living in the city the only option for a creative professional?