Business - Page 21

Business / 13 Dec 2010

How to Cut the Crap and Actually Be Productive as a Creative Person

Today we’re going to talk about everyone’s favorite subject: productivity. More importantly, we’ll discuss why your current system doesn’t work, why traditional company structures suck and how to wrangle your creative brain into submission.

If you’ve been waiting for an eye-opening discussion into what’s really wrong with your workflow and why your $50 todo list app isn’t fixing it, this is your lucky day.

Business / 10 Dec 2010

Freelancer or FTE? 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Deciding

As a designer, you have a much higher likelihood of confronting the freelancer vs. full-time employee dilemma than most people. No matter which side you’re currently on or have been on before, there are several key questions that you should ask yourself before deciding where you fit in best.

Below we’ll take a look at ten such questions that you can use to assess your career aspirations and long-term goals. We’ll also offer tons of advice along the way about how to interpret your answers to each question.

Business / 25 Nov 2010

20 Outstanding Tools to Maximize Your Time

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m off stuffing my face with copious amounts of poultry and mashed potatoes but I planned ahead so that you don’t have to miss out on your daily dose of Design Shack!

If you’re like me, the holidays drastically cut in to your work time. You don’t get the luxury of having less to do, only less time to do it! If this sounds like you, check out the 20 amazing tools below to help maximize your time. Dedicating yourself to using just a few of these will boost your productivity levels to an all-time high.

Business / 23 Nov 2010

Networking Tips in the Design Industry

Web designers come at a dime a dozen. These days businesses are not hiring professional designers to create work anymore. Instead most of our progress has shifted overseas where outsourcing web design and coding is common place.

This shows how much industry name really means. The conversion into a well-known and respected designer takes time and a lot of hard work. There are some great networks out there for connecting with designers and once you understand how to utilize their power almost anything is possible!

Business / 3 Nov 2010

Feedback From a Theory X and Theory Y Perspective

This article is for both designers and clients/employers. I have been on both sides of this equation so I know how it feels to give feedback as well as receive it and I firmly believe that there is a right and wrong way to go about each task.

Today we’ll look at both sides of the coin and discuss how employers can motivate the people working for them to meet necessary goals and how designers should react in the face of both constructive and destructive criticism.

As we’ll see, designers and managers are often equally guilty of approaching the problem of feedback in a poor manner. While abusive managers do exist, designers tend to unnecessarily wear their feelings on their sleeves and take offense too quickly.

Business / 24 Apr 2010

Earning Extra Income Selling Stock Art

As a designer, you’ve probably used stock art quite a few times and can therefore attest to its usefulness. But have you ever considered jumping from the consumer side to the supplier side?

Today we’ll briefly go over everything you need to know to start making real money as a stock provider.

Business / 6 Apr 2010

5 Questions to Ask for Deciding When to Fire a Client

One of the amazing things about being a freelance designer is the freedom to choose who you are willing to work with. Unlike the nine to five crowd, we freelancers don’t always have bosses or coworkers that we are simply stuck with. If we don’t like working with someone, we fire them and move on.

Though this process sounds dandy in theory, the reality is much more complicated. Like anyone else, we have mortgages, utility bills and an annoyingly expensive need to eat just about every day. If you’ve got a client you can’t stand, run through the questions below to you help decide whether or not you can ditch them successfully (and whether you should).

Business / 28 Mar 2010

7 Reasons to Attend Design Conferences

If you’ve never been to a big design conference, you’re missing out. Aside from being a blast, they’re a great way to boost you out of professional stagnation or a design rut. Below we’ll take a look at seven reasons you should attend the occasional design conference. Along the way I’ll post a few images and links for upcoming conferences that you might find interesting.

Business / 12 Mar 2010

What to Do if Someone Steals Your Design

Protecting your intellectual property has always been a difficult task and the Internet has only served to complicate matters. The web has become an unoriginal designer’s one stop shop for endless material to shamelessly ripoff. Today we’ll take a look into some of the reasons design theft is so rampant online and explore some answers to the essential question of what to do if someone steals your design. A big thanks to Von Glitschka for providing much of the content and advice seen below!

Business / 3 Mar 2010

How and When to Integrate Ads Into Your Site

Due to the success stories of mega blogs like Smashing Magazine, the professional blogging world has really exploded in recent years. There is a thriving network of free content online spanning nearly every hobby or profession you can imagine. Driving virtually all of these sites (or at least those focused on profitability) is one thing: ad revenue. Consistent and rewarding ad revenue is the holy grail among the blogging world.

Knowing when and how to integrate ads into your site can be quite difficult. Today we’ll look at some tips to help you know if the time is right for you to jump into the world of advertising and what your options are for doing so.

Business / 28 Feb 2010

10 Tips for Effective Creative Brainstorming

Brainstorming can either be a creative gold mine or a time wasting disaster.

Brainstorming is often discussed in relation to a business environment. In college, nearly every one of my business school textbooks had an entire chapter dedicated to the concept. Though creative brainstorming is in many ways a different beast due to its visual nature, many of the same concepts apply.

Today we’ll take a look at ten tips to consider before you pull your creative team into a brainstorming session. When applied properly, they can drastically increase productivity and quality of results.

Business / 6 Feb 2010

Creating a Well Designed Invoice: Step-by-Step

Boring paperwork is one of the necessary evils of being a freelance designer.

There’s simply no way around it, if you want to track and manage payments from clients, you’re going to have to setup an invoicing system. It’s not all bad news though; the fun part is that you actually get to design a custom invoice.

Today we’ll walk through designing an invoice from scratch. I’ll be as in-depth as possible and include everything you need to know from the absolute basics to advanced features and even a little design theory.