when HiFi is just not an option » Business/Freelance

10 Essential Guidelines for Freelance Collaboration

laura — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:22:47 +0000

Freelance collaboration is on the rise. Increasingly, teams of freelancers are now doing the work that in-house departments used to do. Graphic designers are now working on teams with writers and programmers. But many freelancers are used to working alone. Collaboration definitely requires freelancers to make a few adjustments. In this post, I'll provide ten essential guidelines to help you put the pieces together for freelance collaboration. If you enjoy this post, you may also enjoy reading 15 Questions to Ask Before Collaborating.

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30 Fantastic Transparent Business cards

Brant Wilson — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:18:53 +0000

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In this roundup we have compiled some awesome and fantastic transparent business cards for inspiration. If you like these transparent business cards you might also want to check out our previous posts below. 26 Polished White Letterpress Business Card Designs Showcase of Double-Sided Business Cards Corporate business card

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26 Polished White Letterpress Business Card Designs

Jake Rocheleau — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 03:27:40 +0000

Marketing is a huge part of building any company. And with proper marketing comes human networking which often involves the exchange of business cards. These bits of paper often contain information about your website, phone number, e-mail address, and location of your company headquarters.

With letterpress style business cards the type of relief printing uses a printing press accessible to a type-high bed. This allows for movable type and imagery which can be transposed over the card stock. Raised surface ink is pressed into the sheet of paper which allows for same-color stock to contain unique messages. Check out the fantastic gallery below and feel free to share your thoughts within the comments section below!

Cleverly Cut

MOJO-Themes.com Version 2.0 plus Anniversary Bundle!

Brady Nord — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 03:51:11 +0000

A New Era at MOJO-Themes

In case you have not been formerly introduced the MOJO-Themes, now is the time. MOJO-Themes is a buy and sell marketplace for premium themes and templates. We spent the last year building a solid product that has proven to provide quality themes and templates on the most popular CMS platforms. We have some of the most talented people who sell WordPress themes, sell HTML templates, and sell Tumblr themes. Seeing that we have an amazing community, we felt we had the responsibility for setting the standard for marketplaces on the web. It was necessary to step up and continue evolving and improving upon was has already been built.

Announcing the MOJO-Themes Cyber Bundle

Brady Nord — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:00:51 +0000

MOJO-Themes is a growing buy and sell marketplace for a variety of blogging and design platforms such as WordPress. New themes and templates are added daily and users are able to find themes based on theme style, cost, number of sales, and upload date. Over the past year MOJO Themes has proven to continue to grow and keep building upon their thriving community of premium design products. In celebration of their successful year in business, MOJO-Themes is announcing their first annual MOJO-Themes Cyber Bundle packed full of the marketplaces top selling items such as premium WordPress themes. This is a package that is sure to make anyone salivate.

Lorraine Sneed — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:20:53 +0000

If you�re a creative pro, it doesn�t matter whether it�s a photo, logo, layout, or video, someone�s got to review and approve your work. I�ve never met anyone who thought this process was fun, and it can be a huge hassle, especially if you have a big team of reviewers spread all over the globe. If you want to stay in business, you must learn to streamline your review process and make the client happy with as few cycles and missed changes as possible. I�ve heard of people still using paper and faxes and all manner of markable materials to try to collect organized input. Then, of course you get the reviewers who disagree with each other, but don�t know it because they can�t see each other�s comments. There�s no getting around it � you can only try to maximize your time on creative and try to spend less in review. Is this familiar? When you send out review, you:

Save your work as a separate, non-native file
Send the file to your list of reviewers
Go to the gym
Get coffee
Sleep on it
Awake to an inbox with as many replies as you have reviewers
Sort through the comments, crossing fingers there are no conflicts
Resolve conflicts
Get back to creating

Sucks, right? Picture this:

In your working file, choose Create New Review and give it a name
Invite all your reviewers to comment online
Skip the gym
Get coffee
Hop back into your artwork and find opinions already there
Respond immediately for all to see (avoid conflicts!)
Get back to creating

26 fantastic iPhone & Android apps for managing your website

Jonathan Brealey — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:43:53 +0000

Thanks to smartphones, you no longer have to be sitting in front of your computer to upload, manage, publish and monitor your website. We�ve brought together a collection of applications for both iPhone and Android users.

WordPress

If you have a WordPress website, then you can manage comments, upload images, and write, publish and edit posts all from your phone. Both these apps are free and are offered by WordPress.org.

Left: WordPress for iOS. Right: WordPress for Android

10 Ways to Lose a Client

Steven Snell — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:08:48 +0000

Providing quality service and retaining clients is critical to the success of any freelancer or design agency. In this post we'll look at ten common causes for clients leaving designers. The intent is to provide some clear examples of things that should be avoided if you want to keep your clients happy.

1. Don't Provide Quality Work

Clients will always have a certain expectation in terms of quality of work. It might seem that these expectations will correspond to their budget (high budget = high quality, low budget = low quality), but this is not always the case. Failing to live up to the quality expectations of a client can lead to a lack of repeat business, no referral business, and even the loss of a client before a project is completed.

12 Tips for Avoiding Burnout as a Freelancer

Steven Snell — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:51:35 +0000

Freelancing is attractive to a lot of people because of the opportunity to work on your own and to set your own hours. However, in reality most full-time freelancers face a lot of stress and experience burnout in their work on a regular basis. In this post we'll look at some things that you can do to avoid burnout and to maintain an efficient and rewarding work process while still having a life outside of work.

1. Establish Reasonable Working Hours

One of the most obvious contributors to burnout is simply working too much. Most freelancers, myself included, struggle with setting working hours and sticking with them. It's easy to work more hours than you plan when things don't go as you expected, or when you have a lot that needs to get done. Certainly there are times when upcoming deadlines may force you to work longer hours, but that should be the exception not the norm. The first step towards avoiding burnout is to have some sort of a set schedule that involves only working a reasonable number of hours each week. Most freelancers cherish the freedom that they have to work whatever hours they choose, and this often leads to a hesitance to establish a normal schedule. Setting working hours doesn't require that you have a boring schedule with no room for flexibility. You can work varied hours that change from one week to the next, but the important part is that you set a schedule for yourself that will help you to avoid working ridiculously long hours on a regular basis.

11 Ways To Earn More Money Freelancing

Blue Derkin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:35:50 +0000

It�s no secret that times are tough all over, even for those who work in the Web design industry. Maybe you've found full-time work as a web designer, but in this economy it�s just as likely that you're piecing together several part-time or contract gigs just to stay afloat. Whatever your situation, you could probably stand to make some extra cash. We all could, right? Luckily, skills in design and development are in demand, and due to the downturn, companies are more likely to hire freelancers to do their web design and development work. And, even better, you can make extra money with the work you're already doing! Here are 11 ways, then, that you can make some extra income as a freelance designer by adding some value to your existing services, or by leveraging your expertise in a more piecemeal fashion.

Become a Hosting Affiliate

When a client hires you to design their site, sometimes they have a hard time understanding that not only do they need a domain, but they need to host that site somewhere. And, usually, they leave it up to you to decide who will host it. You probably already host the majority of sites you design with the same company, so why not profit from that loyalty? Most hosting companies offer a commission for hosting account referrals, so give them a call and ask how that might work for you. Most hosting companies will also allow you to add an affiliate link to your own site, and that will pay off anytime someone clicks through the link and purchases hosting. Both scenarios will earn you some extra money with very little extra effort on your part.