Elise McCabe

Conscious, Creative, Graphic Designer

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WordCamp Austin 2013: Planning and Organizing Your Site with Brandon Kraft

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My notes from Kraft's presentation.
My notes from Kraft’s presentation.

This is the second in my series of Wordcamp 2013 posts. The next session I attended was “Planning & Organizing Your Site” with Brandon Kraft.  Since Kraft is an avid blogger, most of his talk was geared towards blogging. Here are some points I took down during the presentation:

  • Figure Out a Niche Market. Focus your blogging on this niche. This is a great way to increase site traffic.
  • Consider Your Audience. Have an ideal reader in mind & tailor your content towards that theme.
  • Create a Call to Action. Figure out what the purpose of the blog is & develop a desired action you would like your audience to exhibit.
  • Create a Sitemap. Search engines love site maps, so use them to increase your traffic.
  • Don’t Use Sub-menus. They are bad for Search Engines & for mobile devices.

Tags vs. Categories

Both: direct reader to a specific topic.
Categories: Are the main taxonomy. You only want to have a few of them.
Tags: Should be more specific & there are a greater number of them.

Kraft recommended Studiopress, Woo Themes, Themify , Elegant Themes & Headway for premium WordPress themes.

One question that arose from his talk in my mind was:

What exactly does a WordPress designer do? Do they modify existing themes, customize already designed themes , design their own themes or a combination of all of those?

Let me know what you think in the comments section.

 

 

 

WordCamp Austin 2013: How to Succeed At Freelancing with Bill Erickson And Jared Atchison

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My scribblings from Bill & Jared's presentation.
My scribblings from Bill & Jared’s presentation.

I recently attended WordCamp Austin 2013 and had the good fortune of being in the presence of many WordPress Gurus. This month I will release a series of five posts sharing my notes from WordCamp. Expect two posts this week & then one a week for the rest of June. In this series I will include many points & recommendations for various tools from the presenters. Please note that the views expressed are my interpretation of their suggestions & not a blanket endorsement. A lot of what I post I intend to try on for size & see how it works within my own business, I encourage you to do the same.

The first presentation I attended was by Bill Erickson and Jared Atchison on “How to Succeed at Freelancing”. Here are the points I found noteworthy:

  • Set Project Minimums to Filter out Unwanted Clients.  Charge sufficiently for your services & make your prices visible to filter out clients that aren’t willing to pay for your expertise.
  • Include “Currently Scheduling Projects for” Date on Your Site. Again this acts as a filter for clients who will need their projects completed in a time frame which is unrealistic given your current workload.
  • Include a “Content” Clause in Your Contract. If there’s no communication for X amount of days the site becomes locked & a change fee will be issued to unlock it. This protects the freelancer from unresponsive clients whose projects linger well past a reasonable completion date.

New Tools

  • Use WP101 for training clients who are unfamiliar with WordPress. This provides quality training at low cost to you & allows the client to choose which features they want to be educated on. Another plugin in the same vein is WPMU’s Integrated Training Videos, this is what I am presently using.
  • Freckle time management. I currently use Toggl which is free & does what I need it to for the time being. My understanding is Freckle may have some features that would merit upgrading to in the future as the business grows.
  • Freshbooks is a cloud-based accounting solution that allows payment through Google checkout. Numerous WP gurus spoke about how Paypal has serious limitations that make Google checkout a superior option.

That’s it for my notes from Bill Erickson & Jared Atchison’s presentation. I hope you enjoyed reading them. Please share any tips you may have for being a successful freelancer in the comments below. For a much more comprehensive report of this talk please check out Travis Northcutt’s writeup.

 

Clouds hang over Adobe Creative Suites

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Some years back I decided to bite the bullet & purchase a legitimate copy of Adobe Master Collection CS4. I was a student & figured I should take advantage of the software discount knowing that I would not be able to afford the full retail in the beginning of my freelance career. As it goes with technology what seems like a few days passed & Adobe decided to roll out CS5 another week CS5.5, another month CS6. Not only were they rolling out new editions as a regular daily function they were also requesting several hundred dollars for each upgrade. By the time CS6 rolled out I was fried from having just thrown down a grand or so for some software that would be obsolete in a few weeks. So begins the ethical designer’s journey over to the dark side…

I wanted to do things the right way, to have the latest legitimate software that included technical support but unfortunately my bank balance didn’t match my ethical aspirations. This morning a ray of hope came from an article I read which essentially says Adobe has decided to kill the Creative Suite & focus on the development of the Creative Cloud. While it’s too soon to say what exactly the drawbacks will be to this, for me it was a breath of fresh air. The thought of always having the latest, legitimate edition of the software I use daily excites me. Here’s to hoping they keep this solution’s cost low enough to be accessible to all.

 

 

Quit Your Day Job & Freelance Full Time

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For the past year or so I have been gradually dropping my day job one day a week at a time & picking up more freelance work. Do I have any profound ideas to share to ease the transition?  Probably not but, I can give you a realistic glimpse of what it’s been like for me thus far.

Long Hours
Gone are the days when 5 o’clock marks the entry into your own time & you can hang up your Illustrator/Photoshopping for the day. The end of your day job marks the start of your freelance work day. To build a successful freelance career, you have to be willing to meet deadlines & provide clients with the same or better service than you do at your day job which can often come at expense of leisure & sleep. My feeling is this is a temporary phase. Once freelance becomes the primary source of income, business hours should be relatively normal once again.

Multi Tasking
Not only are you the designer, you are also the client liaison, the executive assistant, the HR person, the accountant, the production person and your own manager all rolled in one. Being a freelancer means putting on more than just the creative hat. Rest assured this can also be a transitional phase if you so choose. As your business grows, it makes sense to contract out the stuff (like math) that makes you feel like your head will explode.

Make Mistakes
Regardless of what books you read or professional advice you receive you’re bound to make a ton of mistakes when starting your own business. My theory on this is make mistakes rapidly & don’t be afraid to do so. From these failures come success & even if it doesn’t bring success right away, there is a good chance you will learn something in the process.  So far mistakes have helped me to understand that I need a written contract in place prior to taking on work, creative briefs are always a work in progress, & the designer needs to do everything  possible to ensure they know the vision of each decision maker in the project & see that their aim is as unified as possible prior to the project beginning.

Preventing Creative Burn-Out
Since my day job is also to be a designer, it can often be quite exhausting to come home & jump right into branding a company. For me, it’s helpful to keep the end goal in site. Keeping the idea in mind that I can work when I want, where I want & only take on as much work as I want keeps me going strong. Aside from that it is crucial that you do take breaks regularly. Everyone knows that the best ideas strike you in the craziest of places. Any other shower geniuses out there?

Anything else you’d like to add to the list of things to expect when freelancing full time?

Part 1: A Minimalist’s Guide to Becoming a Better Graphic Designer.

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In order to be good at anything, you have to always be striving for improvement. As one wise person once told me, the key to rapid advancement is to always push yourself just beyond your comfort zone, then once you get comfortable there give yourself another nudge. A good designer is always looking for fresh designs & new material to get their creative juices flowing. A quick google on “how to become a better graphic designer” yields lists of things like, buying books, keeping print design pieces, sketching in sketchbooks, etc. To a minimalist this breaks the core principle of keeping it simple & minimizing the amount of material objects we surround ourselves with. That being the case I have compiled a list of tips on how to become a great designer & still be a good minimalist.

melkabbeylibrary

 

Visit your local bookstore or library. 

Instead of purchasing all these great design books that are typically replaced by the next edition within a year, find a bookstore or even library near you that has an up-to-date selection of the latest design books. Colleges/ Universities which have a Graphic Design or Fine Arts program are typically great candidates for having a well stocked, current selection of design books/ magazines. Also many of the larger bookstores like Barnes & Nobles have wonderful selections on hand as well as comfortable places to read them. Reap the benefits of having books, without having them.

Find something inspiring. Take a picture.

If you’re in the design biz, there’s a 99% chance you have a smartphone with a relatively decent camera. Find something inspirational in your library/ book store safari or that amazing package design in the local food co-op. Take a picture & e-mail it to yourself or use iCloud.

Full Sketchbooks/ Journals

I have a Wacom Intous tablet which I love but, there’s just something about the feeling of pen to paper, the rawness of it with the inability to erase that is irreplaceable. If you’re like me, an avid sketcher, quickly you’ll find sketchbooks & journals being filled, loose papers & napkins piling up with spur of the moment inspirations. You’ve poured your heart out on the paper & you know just one day, this idea will be useful, but your minimalist conscience says yeah right, put it in the rubbish bin already. How to solve this dilemma? Scan it in & create a combined pdf. This way you’ll retain the original energy of the sketches as well as retain the order. This being the case make sure you have a killer backup system in place in case of disasters.

Get connected

Use the internet for inspiration there is a ton of it. Yes this is simple but, an effective way at obtaining inspiration without acquiring stuff. Go to meetups, join forums, utilize social networking to its fullest potential.

Bookmark & Share

Since you’ve spent hours on end scouring the web for quality content, share the wealth. Join a bookmark sharing service like delicious & connect with others. Give more & get more.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, so feel free to add more suggestions in comments below & stay tuned for part 2…

Taking Drawing to the Next Dimension…

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Ever since watching Charlie & the Chocolate Factory as a young kid, I had always hoped Wonkavision would be a reality sooner than later. Twenty some years have gone by since then & I still haven’t seen too many glimmers of hope on the horizon of Wonkavision technology emerging…until the day I stumbled upon the world of 3D printers.  Once I saw the cost &  software knowledge needed, 3D printers lost their appeal to me a bit as I didn’t have a genuine need that would justify the expenditure. Today I  came across this awesome, now way beyond fully funded, Kickstarter Project. A pen capable of drawing in the third dimension with a projected price tag of $75.
3d_pen

Imagine the possibilities…

3d_pen_people 3d_pen_eiffel

 

I’m not sure how this fits into the ethics of materials used or my minimalist tendencies, but I’d love to spend a bit of time with one of these & explore its potential.

The Barcode & Beyond…

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When most designers embark upon package design they are faced with a number of necessary evils… the barcode being the most hideous of them all.  The problem of how to deal with this grayscale nightmare often results in surrendering to slapping it on in the most inconspicuous yet, functional place possible.  It’s not a holistic solution but rather a concealment of what some think to be an unsightly blemish on their otherwise beautiful design work.

Recently a colleague sent me a link to a news story about designers who have raised the bar on barcode application & design.  Then about a week later I was at a local coffee shop with a friend & noticed one of these best use of a bad bargain barcodes adorning his can of Tecate.

tecate barcode

 

While not among the most beautiful of barcode designs I’ve seen, I was stoked to see one in real life & given that it is a translation of their mark I would have to say tis’ quite fitting. One of my favorites thus far comes from the folks over at Beach Packaging Design, for use on a spaghetti sauce label they designed:

spaghetti barcode

 

Currently I’m working on a new retail package design for work, so these folks have given me the inspiration to try & raise the bar as well…

Has anyone else seen these lil’ gems in action? If so, please share the wealth & comment & link below.