Web Design Blog

First I would like to say thank you to the Web Directions Team for mentioning my post here on xemion.com yesterday about the speakers at the conference, it was a very nice gesture. Hopefully no one was able to read it and see all the spelling and grammar errors.

Secondly, I would like to tell you about the speakers today.

First speaker this morning was Indi Young of Adaptive Path speaking about Innovation and how it is overrated.  Young made three points at first. One is that currently we have hit a wall with innovation. Saying that currently we now are innovating current products when it fact we should be working on completely new products that can be innovative.

She then went on to say some of the most important things you need to remember when you come up with an idea, is that you have to think about the fact you still need to be able to manufacture, deliver and convince people to buy you innovative idea. Which of course can make innovation very expensive.

The one thing that stuck out in her talk was that if you focus on people rather than the product you will succeed with time. This I thought was excellent advice and wished she hadn’t just told everyone!

Next me and all my bags (purse, laptop and the prize I had received for having my blog post mentioned - you visualize this not being easy  right?) over to “The Future of Web Interfaces” with Cameron Adams. First I must say Cameron was a very well spoken individual, very easy to understand and he made sense!

Cameron chatted about the fact that currently users have a multitude of platforms, screen resolutions and ways of viewing our content. And that is what makes our job difficult. He stated, “each different person has a different view and they all want to do something different”.

He then went on to talk about dynamic interfaces. Stated that there are really two types. Developer driven interfaces and user driven interfaces. We discussed the pros and cons of each. The developer driven interface needs a deep understanding of what your users want. The user driven interface is something that is coming soon and is already in beta at BBC. View the site here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/beta/.

Cameron stated users are like information omnivores and they are getting more demanding. Someone in the audience brought up an excellent question, with user driven interfaces, how do we approach the customer service  aspect which these new interfaces.

Now off to, Information Visualization as a Medium with Erin Rodenbeck of Stamen Design. Stamen talked mainly about maps in which you think would be boring. But surprise, surprise it wasn’t.

He showed different examples of where his company has used live data and compiled it and displayed it as a usable easy to read map. One of his projects were cabspotting.org which traces San Francisco’s taxi cabs as they travel throughout the Bay Area. And Oakland Crime Spotting which is a map of crime in the Oakland Area.

On to Anil Dash with Putting Social Media to Work. Anil Dash is the Vice President of Six Apart. His talk was of particular interest as he talked about business cases and how to show the CEOs and CFOs of your company why they should be using social media.

Social Media is changing the way people communicate and larger business’ are having a hard time adapting to this change. He stated the main real why an IT manager would automatically say no to a new project is budget, real estate, time and resources. He also mentioned that when presenting the business case the technology we propose we need to make sure it is safe, reliable, scalable, measurable and manageable.

An easy way to over come this is point to current success with the technology and tie it to where others are failing.

The How and Why: UI Case Studies  with Daniel Burka was my next stop. Daniel Burka is a partner at silverorange and is one of the Digg team. And Daniel is from Prince Edward Island - a fellow Maritimer….

Daniel talked about three different UI Cases. The digg story, digg comments and pownce -original design. He walked us thru each of the steps and talked about why and what the reactions were. In the end we were given some useful insight on how to deal with these types of projects. Overall it was a very interesting, speech.

This morning I was off to the Web Directions North conference held at the Hyatt here in downtown Vancouver. The Web Directions conference was started back in 2004 in Sydney, Australia. In the four years since the conference has begun much has changed. Some of the topics covered in the past were web standards,  valid HTML, CSS.

Jeffery Zeldman was the opening keynote today and his topic was titled: Return of the Web Standards King. Jeffery’s speech was one of the speech’s I most enjoyed. He is an very animated speaker and made it interesting and easy to listen. Jeffery Zeldman is the brains behind A List Apart. He also is an author.

Jeffery talked about web standards - what a surprise. He told us that originally when he began the Web Standards Project, the designers and developers were not creating better sites they were actually creating more versions of sites. Simply because no of the browsers were standards were complainant. So designers were creating sites using browser detection and once the browser was detected it would send the user to a website designed specifically for that browser. His speech was full of some of the history of the web. Which I found very interesting.

I also had the opportunity to here  Josh Williams give his speech on Bedroom to Boardroom. Josh is the founder and CEO of Firewheel Design, Blinksale, and Icon Buffet.

Josh spoke about the process he went thru going frm having a boss, to being a freelancer, to assembling a team and starting a company. Josh also chatted about how he ended up moving from a top notch design firm in Texas to product development.

Right before lunch there was one more session with, Tara Hunt titled, Government  2.0: Architecting  for Collaboration. This was another great speech in which I thoroughly enjoyed. Tara spoke from the perspective of the user, not the Government. She spoke abou the difficulties in budget and resources that many of the government agencies have.

One project she mentioned which sparked my interest was the CalTrain project. In short the Caltrain project is where developers took note of the horrible schedule that CalTrain website had. The developers then took the schedule and create an easy to navigate map. Which explains where the trains run, what services each stop has and when the next trains are coming. You can view the iamcaltrain.com website yourself.

She then went on to speak about how regular people are getting together and helping the government understand the technologies and what they can do with the data they so secretly guard now. I was surprised to find out something like this was in my back yard titled Transit Camp Vancouver - visit the website to learn all about the great collaboration that is happening to help the web.

After lunch, I was able to hear “Plays well with others” with Brian Oberkirch. Who is a marketing consultant focused on social media.

Brian spoke about all the different social media sites  and having different logins and how we should be using or working on new services in which we can combine all our profile data and friend lists’. To make life easier for ourselves. He states, “The social network fatigue users feel the  and inefficiencies of multiple social apps. He showed on some examples of projects which are currently developing way to begin to do it.

Warren at Techvibes.com put it perfectly when he blogged,”Brian  said the technology, in applications like OpenID, oAuth already widely available now, while the Creative Commonsmovement helps to propagate ideas of openness and sharing.”

From there it was on to Jared Spool, whom I must say was one of the most animated speakers. Which was great for me as I was starting to tire. He kept me engaged and listening. Jared spoke about what makes a design seem intuitive.

He started by explain that in technically a design can’t be intuitive. But that’s his short cut to explaining it. He talked about what not being intuitive meant and he stated, “Not intuitive is when users don’t know what to do” this usually leads them to become frustrated.

He also spoke about the “Knowledge Gap” which is the point between what users know before ( from their past experiences ) and what users need to know to either use the website or application. He explains that this is where we start designing and that the is where design helps the user by educating them - without them knowing  and they reach the point where the user knows how to use the application. An unititative application would not each this point. Where an initiative design would make this easy.

And last was Gina Trapani creator of A better Gmail and create or Lifehacker.com. She explained what a better Gmail was - as I was unfamiliar and some of the difficulties she encountered and how she overcame them.

All in first day was a good one!

I mentioned in a previous article how an airline saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year by removing a single olive from their salads. It’s a little thing that made a big difference. What little things are you doing to help your clients, your business, your productivity? If you’ve not found out already, it’s small things that can sometimes make the biggest differences. Here’s a list of mine (but they don’t have to be yours).

Screencasts. Most of my clients use a Content Management System for their websites, so I’ve taken the time to create a number of screencasts that would help them out in performing simple to semi-complex tasks involving updating their website. It’s a small thing that I’ve been thanked for over and over again.

Passwords. I make it a point to hang on to passwords that my clients give me, whether it be for ftp access or the CMS or whatever. On more than one occasion have I been requested to retrieve said password because too long had gone by since the client had used it.

Chocolates. I distinctly recall reading an article while in college about an Art Director in charge of hiring a junior designer but coming up with no real contenders. He remarked something to the effect of: “I know it’s nothing to do with talent, but the hopeful-designer that brought me cookies would at least be remembered.” Being the sponge (and fountain) of useless knowledge that I am, I hung on to that tidbit and remembered it the next time I was applying for a job. You never know. That brings me to my next point…

Details. I spent several years in a large volunteer youth ministry. Amidst the thousands of kids there, there were a handful that I saw each and every week. I cannot tell you the look in their eyes when you call them by name. If you can sneak it out of them, catch your client’s birthday, or one of their kid’s names. If you go through the trouble to remember (or jot down) little details about the client, they’ll be more helpful, advertise you more, and be more likely to forgive you if you screw up.

So those are a few of my little things that make a big impact. What are yours? Let’s hear ‘em in the comments.

I was sitting here waiting for a download to complete, reading blogs and articles when I thought… I’ve forgotten to just play. It brings me back after so many years to a time when I wrote HTML just because I could. I remember the satisfaction I felt when I was able to make some cool pendulum thing in Flash by extending someone else’s pendulum. I also remember the satisfaction of hooking up my first webpage to a database.

So where does this bring me?
As we grow in our careers, client and marketing take over our lives. We’re constantly asking ourselves where is the next lead, what’s our next project. These are important focus areas in our careers. We have to feed ourselves and our families. However this constant pressure to get new work can take some of the joy out of our career. A career is something you enjoy. We have to remember this fact lest we fall into a rut.

In The Middle
Somewhere between meeting client needs and gaining new clients there is a middle ground. It’s the ground we use to grow as web designers/developers. It’s important for everyone to learn something new because you have to stay on top of web design trends. This can put additional pressures on you. Sometimes I’ve thought “How can I possibly stay on top of everything?” You can’t but you can keep up with most of the trends.

Where’s The Fun?
Pressure is the enemy of fun. How do we combat that simple need to perform better than the next guy? How do we move forward? It comes down to remembering when you started. What was fun about web design? Why did you start? For me as I said it was satisfaction. It’s important for us to find that satisfaction again. I’ve found it when completing a client’s website but that’s not the only place to find satisfaction.

Don’t forget to Play
I spent a year getting a teaching credential and during that time I taught kindergardeners through high schoolers. What I remember the most of all that time was if a lesson was fun the kids responded better to it. They remembered it longer. By taking a leaf out of my own teaching background, I’ve found that learning can be fun if we take the pressure out of it. Last year I spent some time in photoshop playing in a simple design contest for no prize and nothing for a website… just for fun. It was on a discussion board for a series of books by one of my favorite authors. It was fun bringing the book’s characters to life. Nobody got work because of it, we just patted each other on the back.

Go Play
We need to take time out each day or once a week or once a month to just play at our craft. No pressure just play. It’s the playing that got many of us started and it’s the play that will make us better. It’s a time to relax because the outcome doesn’t matter. This weekend I got interested in using ffmpeg for video uploads and conversions to flv format with asp.net. I completely forgot my sense of time. After 7 hours of research, trial and error I have a small working upload button that transforms an avi to a flash video file. I don’t have a client for it but I do have satisfaction in doing it. So I did play this weekend after all.

How do you play? Let us know.

Web Out
Des

Networking –

This is an obvious one. As a freelance designer you need connections. Now don’t think just because the conference you are going to will be filled with you competition, you can’t network.

For example I am heading this week the Web Directions North conference, here in Vancouver, BC and I am going to run into a lot of my competition. This doesn’t mean I shouldn’t network. I am going to network and I am going to make sure to come out of this conference with many business cards and some new friendships.

You are probably asking, why? Well those people I connect with probably won’t all be designers. They could be internet marketers, PHP developers or Flash gurus. Having all these additional resources in my network can only benefit me. As my friendships grow I may learn from them, I may meet new contacts thru them who turn into clients or I may team up with one of these new connections. Either way it’s a win-win situation.

Learning –

Chances are even if you learn just one new thing, it’ll be worth it. Conferences don’t have to be long or even technical. Usually if your butt is in the seat, you will learn a few new things.

As professionals in a rapidly changing industry we need to be on our toes! We need to know about new technologies, ideas and stuff going on around us. A conference may do just the trick. Like this conference I am attending this week, I plan on sitting in on all the topics I can. Some of the topics are not directly related to what I do but I want to learn all about them none the less. Bottom line… conferences are a great way to continue your professional development.

Revamp of what you know –

Possibly the conferences available to you aren’t conferences in which have high profile speakers and experts from around the world coming but, you can still benefit. Even attending some smaller conferences can help your brain start moving. Maybe the speaker(s) have a different perspective on something. This enables you to think outside your normal thought process.

For example just last week I was at a Mangers’ Toolbox event with Michael Linehan of Marketing Alchemy. Now maybe it was because it was 730 in the morning, but some of the first few things he talked about were pretty - roll eyes. Oh guess I should tell you what he was talking about. His topic was How to build a powerful, inspiring and effective website. Basically the first 30 minutes were a little dry. After that things started to perk up though. I was able to listen to and learn so different ways of explaining things to my clients.

I also disagreed with a few things that he had said but, with questions in hand I headed up to him after the speech – introduced myself and handed him my business card. From there I started asking my questions or explaining that I didn’t agree. He graciously answered why he had said some of the things (we had a different view on page rank). It was very refreshing to have this type of conversation with another expert. As a freelance designer working possibly from home I know a few of you could use an invigorating experience with someone at your level and in your industry.

That’s it – Three reasons why you should attend a conference. See you at the next conference!

Normally when I’m creating a proposal for a potential client one of the things I’ll do for them is a Competitive or even a Comparative Analysis. They are both essentially the same thing. The key is to find out what the client’s competitors are doing online. How are they successfully marketing their businesses?

Where to Start
The first thing I do is a Google search. I want to find out who is most likely to be found on a search engine. Bear in mind that some industries will have offline leaders who are well known in real life. These are competitors you need to ask your client to provide.

Once I have a list of 3-4 competitors, I start off each by taking a screenshot of their sites. I’ll take a look at how that business describes its services. I’m specifically looking for their Unique Selling Point. What’s different about them compared to my client and to the other industry leaders? These are the things that help you figure out what makes a competitor unique in their industry.

Investigating Interactive Activities
Once I’m familiar with the competitor’s claims, I’ll investigate the website to determine what activities a visitor can perform at the website. How does their website interact with the visitors? How much content do they have on the website? How does the website keep their potential customers involved?

Investigating Integrating Activities
At this point I want to discover how the competitor integrates their offline business (if they have one) with their online business. Is the site a customer service website used by their current customers or is it a site whose goal is to entice new customers?

Investigating Personal Services
Most sites have some sort of personal service area whether it’s a simple FAQ or if it’s a full blown interactive program that allows them to design their own product from pieces they purchase from the website. Sometimes this is what differentiates an industry leader from an industry wannabe. It’s up to the web designer to discover the services that a competitor might offer.

Investigating Global Reach
It might seem like a particular company can only provide a local service. This is wrong. One company I investigated for a client blew me away. They provided a product and service that seemed like it could only be delivered locally unless it was done through a large chain store. Boy was I wrong. This particular company had built up enough web traffic with potential clients from all over the US. What they did was create a lead system. Any clients they couldn’t service themselves, they referred to other companies for a small referral fee. It gave them a global reach and a new revenue stream.

Summing Up Strengths and Weaknesses
At the end I’ll sum up the strengths and weaknesses of a particular competitor. This is my opportunity to point out features that my client would benefit from having on their website. It’s a great place to up sell features to your client for their website.

Client Doesn’t Want All That Stuff
You’ve got to be careful not to overwhelm your client with the competitive analysis. If they only asked for a few things for their website it’s important to give them a quote based on those features. They may or may not read your proposal all the way through to the end. Larger clients tend to look all the way through the proposal. Add the Competitive Analysis and your added recommendations after you’ve given them a cost summary of what they first asked in their website. The Competitive Analysis can highlight these extra features for the future.

Good Luck with your Competitive/Comparative Analysis

Web Out
Des

Before you start seeking new clients on LinkedIn,  your LinkedIn profile must be up-to-date and include detailed information on at least your last three job positions.  Include what your responsibilities are and what you accomplished while you were there.  Your profile is essentially your resume.   This is what a potential client will look before contacting you.   Be sure to point out areas in which you have expertise.  Your LinkedIn headline must reflect what it is exactly you do.  Include a word like “expert”, “specialist”, “senior”, “consultant” or “experienced” in your title.  Your title will be the first impression you make.

Secondly, post links to your website and your portfolio.  If you regularly update your blog, post a link to it too.  An infrequently updated blog gives off a bad impression, so don’t link to it unless you’re posting at least every other week.

Once your profile is ready, connect to as many people as you can.  This includes clients, vendors, friends, colleagues, past colleagues, family, etc..  If it’s not a close acquaintance, be sure to include a personal note stating who you are and how you know them.  From now on, attempt to connect to everyone you meet.  Building your network is extremely important.  When a search is conducted on LinkedIn, contacts are often ranked by the number of connections they have.  Plus, the larger your network the more often you will show up in searches.  Get as many recommendations as you can (tip: recommend your connections first).

Those are the basics. The real key to finding new work on LinkedIn is participating in the network and increasing your visibility.  The best way to do this is by asking and answering questions on LinkedIn Answers.

Answers are by far the most visible part of the LinkedIn community.   Answering a question helps someone out and establishes yourself as an expert in that field (it will show up in your profile too).  Many questions are often along the lines of “Do you know someone who does…?”  Be sure to state that you have experience in that area and you’d be happy to help (if you truly do have experience in that area).  And if you answer enough questions in a particular category, you’ll be shown as an expert in that category.

Asking a question also increases your visibility.   If you need help with something business related, LinkedIn is a great place to ask.  Keep your tone and grammar professional at all times.

It’s important that you be genuine with all your answers and questions.  Make sure your answers are detailed and relevant.  LinkedIn is just like networking in the offline world.  It’s a great place to meet people and help them fix their problems.  If you simply try to hand out business cards, it won’t do any good.

The second great way to pick up new clients is through a recommendation.  Recommendations can come from a connection’s profile or from a connection answering a question.  The easiest way to get recommended is by recommending others and remaining active in the network and in their lives.

If you’ve found any clients on LinkedIn and have any additional tips, please share!

I recently had a request that got me thinking about professionalism from clients. As business people, web designers make the best effort to treat our clients with respect but as we know very well we don’t always get that professional treatment in return. Here are a few stories from the trenches of web design.

Requests from potential clients
These types of requests are my top deal breakers.

I’ll tell all my friends. You’ll get lots of work.
This is probably the first thing any beginning web designer will hear and its usually a friend that says it. Beginners tend to get picked on a lot. Funny thing is that this particular thought process never seems to go away. Even after 10 years in the industry I still get this offer. I guess they think because I don’t have loads of sites in my portfolio that I’m starving. Imagine their shock when I tell them that I teach web development, design and windows programming.

While this request might sound enticing, it usually doesn’t work. What kind of friends does someone who can’t or won’t pay have? Probably other friends who can’t or won’t pay. How many plumbers out there would fix your plumbing just because you might refer them so new clients? Micah had a post on how to give a client a break without looking like the “cheap guy” in web design. Go back and read it.

It shouldn’t take long for an experienced web designer
This one really fries me. I really don’t understand how someone who doesn’t know a thing apparently knows how long it will take a web designer/developer to build anything. My favorites are always when they ask for a clone of MySpace, Facebook, Ebay or something of that nature. Usually these requests come with impossible schedules. These requestss are usually accompanied by ridiculously low budgets. Educating some of these clients will sometimes work but not always.

Add my site to your portfolio to make you look good.
We all know that a strong portfolio of previous work helps you get new clients. They all want to see what you’ve done. However, (And this one really steams me off) this statement normally comes from the bottom feeders. They really can’t afford your services. I normally counter requests like this with “Well why don’t you give me your service/product for free. I’ll wear a tshirt that shows I used your product/service or drive the car or …” It’s essentially the same. I’ve even had a request that “allowed” me to have a link on their website. Well sorry, it’s normally in my contracts that all my work comes with a link back to my website. This can be negotiated out of the contract.

If you really need to build up your portfolio I recommend that you build a fake town with fake web businesses. I’ve seen this done before and had done it myself. Domains are inexpensive, pick one and do the work for yourself. Potential clients will see your examples and use them to judge if you’re a good fit for them.

I have this great idea for a website
I’ve been through this request and even once looked at base code for the idea. I really love as a programmer when they want you to build all the functionality then only take 10-20% of the profit when they start “selling it”. This type of request is really more of a venture capitalist request. You need to ask the person to send you a business plan since they are asking you to invest whatever you would charge to build this website into their business. If they believe in the project so much, they’d be willing to pay for it out of their own pocket or find a real venture capitalist or angel investor to pay for the site to be built.

What really irks me about these types of potential clients is that they try to get you caught up in their dream. This is really only an attempt on their part to entice you to build their website in the hopes that one day you’ll actually get paid if they are effective in marketing the website. So before you sign onto a project like this go through the same due diligence as a venture capitalist.

Current Unprofessional Clients
And despite being able to pay there are still clients who will almost always be a tad over the top.

The Crier
While I didn’t personally have a client like this, I did so some subwork for another developer who had a client that actually cried on the phone because we couldn’t drop everything and respond to their requests at their whim. While I’m sure crying over emotional trauma is appropriate in some professions, this situation was just unreal. I was never so glad as to know that I never had to talk to this client on the phone or via email. It was all handled by the other developer.

I did get certified as a Help Desk Analyst and Help Desk Manager to teach these classes and I can see where some of the techniques would help in this situation. The best technique is to use their first name. You have to get their attention. The next step would be to establish that you understand their emotions but NOT that you agree with them. You should say something like “I understand that you’re upset about….. ” You want to acknowledge that they’re upset but not agree with why. At that point you can adjust your conversation to help them with their problem.

The Screamer
I’ve never personally had a person scream at me on the phone for anything related to web design. Unfortunately I’ve heard others having this issue. These types of clients aren’t really great clients. They are trying to bully you. Of course you would never hear a client screaming at you on the phone or in person if you were a lawyer. That wouldn’t be productive to maintaining a good relationship with your lawyer. Guess what, it’s not productive in any business.

The key again is to use their name. Talk calmly and don’t get caught up in the anger. It’s not conducive to reaching an agreement. In the end it may be best to “fire” this kind of client. It all depends on how much abuse you’re willing to take.

The Sad State of Affairs
Unfortunately as web designers and developers we’re all going to face these at some point in our careers. It’s a given. They key to success is how you handle it.

Beginners will always get the bottom end of the barrel. That’s a given but what isn’t is how you should handle it. As a beginner, look for ways to hone your craft without giving it away too hastily. My best advice is to stay away from businesses that aren’t willing to pay you for your services. Build websites for yourself to build a portfolio or build them for worthy causes like the local dog shelter or the homeless shelter. You’ll probably get better attention from doing a site for a worthy cause than for a fly by night operation without any real plan for success.

As for unprofessional clients that use their emotions to batter you into the ground, this is where you as a business person can really shine. Handling them smoothly without losing your cool can really turn you into a hero or give you the incentive to drop the client in favor of a better prospect.

If you’ve got another unprofessional client story, please post it.

Web Out
Des

There’s a story of a company that makes lawn mowers. Good, sturdy, reliable lawn mowers at affordable prices. They became so popular that the nation’s largest retailer noticed them and offered to carry them - effectively extending the company’s potential audience to unprecedented numbers. The retailer then became convinced that it could sell the mowers even cheaper if the company would buy cheaper parts. The lawn mower company chose to remove their mowers from the retailer and drop the retailer altogether. Their large potential customer base was now gone, and doom seemed inevitable.

Sadly enough, I don’t know how that story ends. I didn’t tell it to leave you dangling with suspense either, but instead to tell you how much I believe in that story and how much I respect what those guys did. Why? They lost their customer base. They may have lost millions. But they gained the respect of me and others, I’m sure. How? Because they chose to have a commitment to excellence. Executing with excellence should be one of your biggest priorities, no matter what you do. Here’s how:

If you screw up, handle it gracefully. You know how the back of your car insurance card tells you never to admit fault in an automobile accident? Doesn’t work in the business world, buddy. If you know you goofed, so do they. Handle it in a humble way and you may be able to salvage it, all because you were willing to admit you were wrong and did what you could to fix it.

Evaluate and revise broken processes. I know an airline that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by simply removing a single olive from their salads. Who noticed? The one who made the decision, that’s who. They saw an area that could help the company that wouldn’t hurt the customers. Evaluate every process you have and make sure it’s the most efficient and effective way of doing it. Never, ever do things just because “that’s the way we’ve always done things”. If you think that way, you’ll never grow. Remember: If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always had.

Reward loyalty and faithfulness. You might be providing a service, but the customers, clients and staff that stick with you are the ones you’re indebted to. Be sure to let them know how invaluable they are to you. One of the best ways? A simple hand-written note.

Both WebDesignerWall and CSSGlobe both posted today a really neat trick for making CSS-only text gradients (albeit, not semantic…but it’s not a perfect world). The same-day posting was just an odd coincidence, but this will be a very handy little code.

I attended the Magento Webinar today and if you haven’t heard of Magento you soon will if you’re building ecommerce websites. I was very impressed with the attention to detail this team has made to front end designers and developers. They’ve taken this cart and made it highly adaptable on the front end. (Read more…)

It’s a rookie mistake, going from signing a contract with a client straight to delivering a full design concept. Some of us do a little more discovery, or take additional steps along the way, but few designers really take the time to stage the process of developing the design concept. Guess what? Those extra steps will make your job easier, and your design hours less. (Read more…)