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Blogging For Web Designers: Editorial Calendars and Style Guides

A few years ago, you might not have pointed out during a meeting with a potential client that you maintained a blog. Over time, though, blogs have evolved from the being a personal hobby to a serious work tool. In fact, today, web designers are supposed to know much more than just how to design and build websites. Customer’s expectations have increased, and unless you are in position to choose your favourite clients, meeting these expectations requires hard work.

Working For A Web Design Agency

The most obvious job for a web designer is working for a web design agency, but if you’ve never done that before… then how do you know what to expect? Is it even the right path for you?

Setting foot in an agency for the first time can be daunting. It’s filled with people who have probably worked in the industry longer than you and who probably know a lot more than you.

5 Ways to be Financially Fit

Let’s face it—no matter how much you might love your job and enjoy going to work every day, when it comes down to it, you rely on your profession to pay the bills and support yourself and your family. Though you may not be in your ideal salary range just yet, if you’re financially fit–responsible with your spending and mindful of how much you have in your accounts–you should still be able to cover your expenses and hopefully have something left over at the end of each month.

How to Write a Press Release

It used to be that you picked up a newspaper and noticed the headlines and knew there was something interesting to be learned that day. Press releases were the lifeblood of any newspaper worth its ink and the companies who issued them were judged by the amount of free publicity they could garner for their clients.

Print Tutorial: Creating A Magazine Cover

Graphic design in a print environment can be a nice change for someone who normally does web design. It’s a slightly different skillset, but still incorporates a lot of the same concepts. Print projects can be an exciting new challenge, something that lets a designer stretch their creativity a bit and even recharge if they’re getting stressed out by too many web design projects.

24 Impressive Blog Plugins You Should Consider

One of the great things about blogging is how easy it is to set up a blog on any of the multitude of blogging platforms. While there are many options for building your blog, one of the most popular platforms is WordPress.org.

However, what you get when you set up a WordPress blog can be pretty basic depending on the theme you choose. To make your new blog sing and work for you, it’s a good idea to install some key plugins.

Why & How Freelancers Should Exercise (from Fitness Expert Scott Tousignant)

As freelancers, our biggest assets are our minds and bodies. If we get sick, we can’t do any work. If our minds are foggy, we can’t produce our best. Therefore, we don’t make any money or as much money as we could.

Unfortunately, the care of our bodies is not always a top priority for many freelancers. It’s easy to get caught up in all our work–particularly because we enjoy it so much.

10 Requirements for Working with Clients in Other Countries

Freelancers are given the opportunity to work for either clients within their respective areas or clients coming from abroad. Personally, as a freelancer living in Asia, I’ve worked only with clients who run their businesses a hundred miles away such as those in the US, the UK, and Australia. I’ve never seen their faces, heard their voices, and of course never tried visiting them at their offices since our only mode of communication is either the email or the instant messenger.

Blogging by Numbers: How to Create Headlines That Get Retweeted

There is an art and science to getting blog posts to travel like wildfire.

This post will look at both, based on number crunching with 281 posts, 39,000+ comments, and almost 2,000,000 click-throughs via my Twitter profile and Facebook fan page in the last six months.

Here’s what I’ve found to work well…



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Zephyr, the September 2010 phpBB3 Club release, features an impressive assortment of stylistic tools, ranging from its completely Transparent Base, to an extensive array of Color Chooser controls.

Integrated with RokBB3 Administration Module,powerful features such as RTL Support, Google Web Fonts and many others are standard features by default with the Zephyr phpBB3 style, making it truly versatile and flexible.

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Grunge, the August 2010 Free GPL release, is outfitted with a sophisticated, artistic and professional design, in conjunction with a powerful configuration options.

The style is a perfect example of an artistic club release, with a range of key features that accompany all our RocketTheme phpBB3 styles, provides a useful sample for you to experience club level themes.

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Panacea, the August 2010 phpBB3 Style Club release, encapsulates stylistic freedom with the inclusion of the Color Chooser, allowing for easy style customization with just a few clicks. Offering an unconventional approach to such designs, combining ease of alteration with a mainstream appearance.

The style also supports a Background Rotator for the sub-header area, as well as popular features such as RTL Support or Google Web Fonts..

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Modestus is fast and elegant phpBB3 style and it’s completly free. With Modestus, we combined speed and simplicity, with some of the powerful configuration options.

An assortment of 5 preset styles also accompany the template.

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Somaxiom, the July 2010 phpBB3 Style Club release, concentrates on elegance of design. The visuals are refined and conservative, making the appearance suitable for many different types of forums, as well as providing a base for extensive customization.

The phpBB3 style provides support for Google Web Fonts, and is equipped with few interesting RokBB3 options.

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Hair Used: Dreamweaver Yaky 12″ & Elle Color Shown: Elle 1B & Yaky 613

A good collaboration is like a good marriage. You want someone you feel that you can trust, and you especially want someone who compliments your style. When a client picks you, they pick you for your style, techniques, portfolio, and value. Likewise, you want someone that can match the clients requests as well as your own. You want a professional to work with, and you can’t afford to mix different styles for a client. You might end up re-doing the entire design or even loose the client completely. So how do you pick out your freelance back-up, your designing duo….and not a dud?

Collaborating freelancers are more than one great mind at work. It’s often helpful to have another set of eyes on the process. A partner can notice things that are out of place: a minor color alteration, buttons not in sync, headers all wrong for the content, and so on. Even though collaboration might be very useful, there are things you need to consider before finding a partner for your next project. Collaborated work should be very carefully planned, and if you are new to this kind of work you might need some help on how to find a perfect partner and avoid bad collaboration experiences.

Consider Carefully

There are important things to remember, ask, and look for in a fellow freelancer. Remember that your concerns and priorities may change depending on the project and client.

  • Check out the individual’s previous work, preferably even contact a couple of the previous clients and ask if all requirements were met.
  • Style, we all have different styles when we’re designing. Remember to double check twice if the style compliments your own. Keep in mind that styles don’t need to be identical, but they should prioritize the same design concepts.
  • Social profiles. How mature is the person in question on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Tumblr and so on can be a good indication on another freelancer’s communication style. Collaborating with someone who can not communicate professionally can ruin your process quite easy.
  • You have a friend who knows her? Check if some of your friends or followers have worked with or is familiar with the work of the person in question. Look for a reference that you’re familiar with. Recommendations from acquaintances will give you a better understanding about the freelancer.
  • Hourly fees. You’ll need to have an equitable way to split profit or otherwise pay your collaborator. If hourly fees are not listed, contact and ask for his expected hourly rate. Some freelancers will want a rate, flat payment, or profit share–get it figured out before you start.
  • If you have contacted the person in question, always double check the response you are given. Make sure that the person is professional on all points.

These are a few things to consider before you make the contact. As you probably can imagine, the things listed above aren’t everything you need to know about a collaboration partner. You will need to consider other things like on-going support needs, how fast will you get an answer back, and how detailed it is.

Interview Your Future Partner

It can be helpful to interview a potential partner knowing the answers your ideal candidate would give. Take the time to prepare for your interview. Know what points you require your partner absolutely agree with you on, and what issues you will not mind disagreement. Knowing your priorities going in gives you a better look at how this person matches yourself and your work.

  • Ask him if he’s interested in collaboration work and summarize what it is you need help with. An experienced freelancer should be able to put the pieces together and understand what it is you’re after even with just a quick summary from you.
  • Trust but verify. Always check the previous client-based work this person has done. Ask how she thought it went from contact to delivery. See if the client agrees.
  • Ask him to describe the work-flow he’s using. You want a consistent partner on your project. Differing work styles can be destructive to a project.
  • Ask if the person have a special skill. Is she great with footers but not on content? Consider if you’re willing to compromise to ensure the best product. Make the work-flow as easy and fast as possible, but still on a professional level.
  • Ask if the person has a favorite client he has worked with and why. This is a personal favorite question of mine. It gives you a better feel on style and what projects this person likes to work on.

If the interview leaves you with no red flags and, hopefully, even looking forward to the work, then you’ll know you’ve found your collaboration partner. Above all, trust your gut–if you’re uncertain about a partner now, how will you feel when you’re under the gun to produce with your reputation on the line? No matter what you choose to do, remember that each designer (and project) will be different. Do you research and enjoy the ride!

Share Your Thoughts

Do you have any experience with collaboration work? Feel free to share your stories or ask if you have any questions in our comments.



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