Learn how to run your design business, work with clients, manage expectations, and handle your finances.
Take your small business to the next level and start growing now.
There are plenty of things you can do to develop your small business, and here we’ll look at some of the digital growth tools you have to help propel your business forward.
From mobile apps to branding and blogs, some of these tips can give you inspiration to explore areas for growth that you might not previously have considered.
One of the hottest trends for business cards is adding QR codes to the design.
A QR code can provide an extra way to contact to access your contact information, website, or even a landing page or sales information. QR codes have re-emerged as a popular element to help drive online traffic from physical sources.
Here, we’ll look at five tips to help you make the most of using QR codes for business card design.
Bonus: Every example here includes a template from Envato Elements that you can download and use for your business card designs. Not sure where to generate your QR code? You can start with a free tool such as QR Code Generator.
Whether you’re starting from scratch and building a custom template, or have a PowerPoint template you’ve downloaded and want to customize, knowing how to edit a PowerPoint template is a great skill to have in your kit.
We’re going to walk you through editing a PowerPoint template step-by-step, explaining all the PowerPoint terminology along the way!
If you like the presentation template we are using here—Creativa—you can get it from Envato Elements. It’s a great multi-purpose template that’s great for all types of presentations.
There’s nothing worse than sitting through a presentation filled with poor visuals. This is especially true when you are pitching to a client. If your presentation looks bad, how will your design look?
The problem with presentation design is often more about time than actual design. But you must take time in crafting stellar presentations. This might include building a template that you use for presentations or honing in your public speaking skills. Here, we’ll walk through a few ways to design a great presentation that will engage your audience. (While most of these tips are structured around creating a digital presentation, using software such as PowerPoint, the concepts can also be applied to posterboard style presentations as well.)
Want to jumpstart your presentations? All of the examples here are templates that you can download and use.
Giving a presentation to senior management or an executive team can be a little daunting. You need to create just the right design to appeal to a C-suite group.
This includes everything from color choice to typography to messaging. When it all comes together, you need a polished presentation deck to make a good impression.
Here, we’ve got some templates and tips to help you create just the right presentation, to help you get your message across in a stylish and professional way.
One of the most challenging aspects of running an agency is contending with the constantly revolving door of clients. This is simply the nature of the industry – a job well done basically leads to a client relationship ending because they no longer need you anymore. Did you nail it with your first attempt of an awesome logo design for that new client? Great – time to say goodbye.
This revolving door means you always need to feed your sales pipeline with new prospective clients, and it can feel like you’re never getting ahead. Even with great referrals and an undeniably compelling portfolio, it can be difficult to generate enough qualified leads to consistently hit your targets, month after month.
No wonder workflow efficiency, sales processes, and lead generation are the top three operational improvement areas among agencies for 2022, according to a recent Productive poll.
If you aren’t familiar with the terminology, now is the time to learn everything you can about omnichannel experience design.
It’s not a new term at all – Forbes mentioned the importance all the way back in 2013 – but it has more recently evolved as a vital part of your digital and online strategy.
Let’s dive into what omnichannel experience design is and how you can use these concepts to create your best work (and work that feels consistent for your customers across every channel and interaction they have with you!)
Need to wow a client or investor with a business proposal?
Whether you are lacking design inspiration or just need to get work done in a hurry, a business proposal is easy to build with the right Microsoft Word template. A good template allows you to pick a design you like, make modifications, and have your proposal ready to share in almost no time.
Here, we’ll walk through five simple steps to make a business proposal with a Word template. You can even download the one we use here.
Shake up your everyday home or professional routine with a scavenger hunt. A web-based scavenger hunt can be a fun game for all ages and skill levels and help create interaction and engagement for teams, individuals, or large (virtually connected) groups.
But how do you get started?
We’ve got some tips and ideas to help you manage an online scavenger hunt, with some tools to make it easy.
It doesn’t need to be nearly as complicated as you think, and it can be a really unique, innovative project to try.
You’ve heard the axiom “work smarter, not harder.” Automated tasks are the trick to taking some of the time-consuming elements out of web design so that you can do exactly that.
Automated tasks can include a variety of actions and elements. We’ll look at seven automated tasks here that will make your life a lot easier.
While all of these are particularly well suited to web designers, they’re also helpful tips for automating any aspect of your work (or personal!) live where you’d like to save a bit of time.
Recommendations from friends and family can be one of the most reliable sources of information when you are looking to try something, make a purchase, or enroll in a new service. Whether you are doing it subconsciously because of your peer group or you are seeking out information, what people around you do can influence decision-making.
It’s also true online. An element of social proof can help turn a website browser into a lead conversion or buyer.
But you have to design it. Here’s a guide that will help you navigate different ways to design social proof.
All the shortages and supply chain issues being faced by other industries are beginning to impact designers in a number of ways as well.
From paper shortages to out-of-stock graphics cards, to unstockable e-commerce, almost every designer is having to think about ways to design around (and through) global supply chain problems.
Whether or not these are affecting you yet, it makes sense to understand the situation and plan to get ahead.
Here’s a look at some of the issues popping up and ways to help mitigate the problems as best you can.