Carrie Cousins

Business / 9 Sep 2019

How to Make a Personal Marketing Plan (With Examples)

You probably understand that everything you do online – and in-person – contributes to your personal brand. But did you know that having a personal marketing plan to establish, maintain, and promote that brand can be equally important?

Particularly for freelancers and anyone working in the gig economy, both full-time or part-part, having a distinct personal brand can impact your design work. Your brand will attract a certain type of potential client and work. Do you have a plan to draw in projects that are most appealing to you?

It can start with a personal marketing plan. Here’s how you do it.

Business / 6 Sep 2019

30 Tips to Learn Web Design in 30 Days

Is learning the basics of web design still on your “someday” list? Why haven’t you got started yet? We’ve put together 30 tips and resources to help you start learning web design this month (and maybe even find yourself a new career path!)

Graphic designers, print designers, and creatives looking to learn something new or break into website need to quit procrastinating. Every day that you don’t take that first step leaves you one day further behind everyone else!

Follow these steps to begin learning how to create your first website, industry best practices, and much more—all in 30 days!

After Effects Templates / 5 Sep 2019

How to Use After Effects Templates

Adobe After Effects is a video-based tool that’s used to add elements to moving pictures and animations. Designers use it to create titles, intros, and transitions between video clips to enhance the production value of animations and video projects.

After Effects is one of those tools that’s packed with goodies, including templates that you can use to speed up project workflows. You can create your own templates or find and download them from other sources.

Here, we have a guide to using After Effects so you have everything you need to get started or better use the software.

UX Design / 4 Sep 2019

10 UX Phrases and Terms to Know Right Now

It seems like the world of the web – and web design – is changing every few days. Trends, new techniques and users who demand more are driving this change. And we all have to stay on top of it to remain relevant.

Today, we are going to look at 10 phrases that you need to add to your vocabulary right now.

Each of these words or phrases relates to user experience, and in essence are part of the design process. Without further ado, let’s get started!

Business / 3 Sep 2019

5 Tips for Building a Website for Friends or Family

How often does someone in your inner circle ask for a website? It happens quite often! Building a website for friends or family members can get tricky fast. These can sometimes your best (or worst) customers.

If you start projects with the right ground rules and a few tools, you can navigate these projects easier. And you can avoid any potential fall-out from setting the wrong expectations or committing yourself to a project that blows way past the time you have to spend on it.

Here are a few tips for approaching a family or friends project in the right way, and setting yourself up for success from the start.

CV & Resume Templates / 3 Sep 2019

What’s the Best Font for Your Resume or CV?

It might sound a little silly at first, but the typeface you select for your resume design can speak volumes to potential employers. The font represents your design style and professionalism. It can also impact how the person looking at your resume perceives the information at hand.

The typeface you select makes a first impression with every person you might meet in the interview or hiring process. (They’ll likely see your resume before they ever meet you.) Make sure to set the right tone from the start.

We’re exploring the best free fonts for resumes today. Here are a few top-notch font choices that are resume-ready, and all completely free!

Typography / 3 Sep 2019

What’s the Deal With Em and Rem?

With all the talk about designing for responsive websites, two little words keep cropping up – em and rem. But what are they?

Em and rem, along with pixels, are units and methods to measure and resize type. Em and rem are relative, rather than static, units and are being used more and more for responsive web design schemes. Let’s dive into this concept today and explain things a little more clearly!

Lightroom Presets / 2 Sep 2019

What Are Lightroom Presets? (+ 10 Useful Examples)

If you’re looking for a shortcut to help speed up your photo editing workflows, Adobe Lightroom presets could be the answer. We’re covering what a Lightroom preset is, how they work, and featuring some of our favorite examples!

Adobe Lightroom Presets can help you perform certain effects and edits with one click. It can be a great way to apply the same edits repeatedly and save time with mundane editing tasks.

Here’s everything you need to know about Lightroom presets work with some cool examples you can download and use.

Brochure Templates / 29 Aug 2019

How to Make a Brochure Quickly & Easily

Creating a simple brochure can be a quick and easy design project once you have the assets and content you need ready to go. Today we’re walking you through how to make a brochure quickly, and easily!

While brochures can get complicated with fancy folds, cuts, or finishes, most beginners can make a brochure that looks good and can be printed in house or from an online printer.

The trick to making the process as simple as possible is to create a brochure-making routine and follow the steps in a logical order. It also helps to have all the right tools.

Here’s how to make a brochure.

Photoshop Actions / 28 Aug 2019

How to Export Actions in Photoshop

Photoshop actions are a great tool for creating and recreating sequences of edits or tasks. You can save actions to reuse later and even “export” actions to use on another computer. Here’s how!

If you have tasks that you perform regularly, such as edits to images or cropping and saving to a certain location, actions can be a lifesaver.

Here, we’ll look at how to create an export actions in Photoshop with a step-by-step guide. This is a great way to move Photoshop actions between computers, or for sharing them with other people online.

Logo Templates / 26 Aug 2019

What Is a Logo Template? (And Should I Use One?)

If you’ve ever needed a logo in a pinch, you know how stressful that can be! For a quick design, a logo template can be just the tool to help you develop a logo fast and even show potential ideas off before a design gets too far along.

If you’ve never used a logo template before, a good template comes in vector form with everything you need to tweak and play to get the right logo design fast.

Here’s how it works, and a few tips on whether it is the right choice for you.

Keynote Templates / 21 Aug 2019

How to Embed a YouTube Video in Keynote

If you’ve ever wanted to embed a YouTube video in Keynote to create a more engaging slideshow for in-person or recorded presentations, don’t worry. It’s not complicated at all.

We’re going to take you through how to embed a YouTube video in Keynote step-by-step, and share a few tips for how to use video to supercharge your presentations.

You don’t need any special software, and you’ll be all set with a video-packed presentation in minutes!