CMD+Shift Design
Liz Andrade
Designer of print and web. Podcaster, Blogger, internet nerd and crazy cat lady.
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A wrench was thrown in the project this afternoon! I jumped on YouStream to make a live update to this weeks Rush Project Video Diary. CRAZY! This video was done in a dark room on my iSight, it looks and sounds BAD – but, it was an experiment! :)If you don’t want to struggle though this crappy video, I will recap in my Day #3 Video tomorrow!
Thanks everyone for following me on this roller coaster, all your comments and tweets really brighten my day!
Rush Project Video Diary: Day #2
It’s day 2 of my RUSH project video diary. I put in a 12 hour day yesterday and had a minor disaster this morning when my alarm failed to go off. I read through yesterdays comments and talk about clients who drag their feet and the benefits of bare-bones WordPress theme templates. Check out this round-up of low-style themes that can give you a jump start on theme development here.
My RUSH project tip for today: Set 2 alarms!
Bonus!
Here is the Lorem Ipsum WordPress template I mentioned – Import this .XML file into any clean install of WordPress and you’ll have a collection of placeholder posts, pages, categories and tags to help you get a kick start on styling all the text elements that a blog will need!
You can see what these placeholder posts look like if you visit the demo version of the FREE WordPress theme I released earlier this year called Simple Changes.
Rush Project Video Diary: Day #1
Just got home from vacation late last night and I am starting a RUSH project! Follow me over the next 7 days as I race to finish a blog theme design and development!
Day #1:
Client supplied me with all the necessary pieces needed to get a running start, client meeting was this morning and from now till 11am tomorrow I am getting the design together!
My RUSH project tip for today: Get feedback sooner than later when time is tight!
My Vacation Reading List
As you already know, since I’ve been blogging about it and Tweeting about it. I am going on vacation! In preparation for the extended hours I will be spending lounging, I am bringing along a few books to keep my mind from turning to mush while I am away, here’s what they are…
You can buy these titles on Amazon and read along with me!
Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin | This book is all about community!
The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business by Tara | This one’s about community, personal branding and social media marketing.
Wildly Sophisticated: A Bold New Attitude for Career Success by Nicole Williams | A unique womans perspctive on marketing yourself in a competitive business world. I chose this cause I was intrigued by her interview on Obsessed.tv – check that out here.
Cash: The Autobiography by Johnny Cash | The title should explain this one… :)
I Love My Clients, Why Don’t You?
This is a video response to the Friday VidCast by Aaron at This Is Aarons Life about how you communicate with your client! It’s also related to another video that was posted today by Danny on the Outlaw Design Blog.
Join in the discussion!
Leave a comment below or at one of the other posts I mentioned! OR make your own video response on this subject and post it to your blog, then share the link with us! :)
Evangelist Marketing on Twitter
This is sort of a follow-up to yesterdays video, so if you haven’t seen the video about Selling your Tweets, check it out.
The discussion going on yesterdays comments got me thinking about Evangelist Marketing and how Twitter is a great platform for evangelist marketing, I regularly am promoting services, products or sites that I love — that I find valuable to my life and that I truly believe are SO GREAT that everyone should know about them. Selling your tweets to advertisers is essentially the opposite of that!
I’d like to ask all of you, what are YOU an Evangelist for? What product website or service do you love that you feel so strongly about that you want to talk about it and share it with others? Maybe something people don’t know about, something new or something small that deserves to be shared with online design community?
Click here to tell me what you’re an Evangelist for — I’m gonna put together a blog post to share the stuff everyone sends in. This isn’t just about sending me a link, I want to hear YOUR story, why it’s important to YOU, why do you think it’s so important to share it with the community?
Also, what are your thoughts on Evangelist marketing vs traditional advertising practices, leave a comment!
Would You Sell Your Tweets?
I was just made aware of this Ad.ly – a new online service that puts your tweets up for sale to advertisers. I made a short (3minutes) video on this cause I want to hear your thoughts on this!
The design community on Twitter is so awesome and I wonder what selling our tweets might do to the interaction? What do YOU think?
PS: sorry for the dreadfully messy hair ;)
Question
Hey Liz,
I still have a 9 to 5, but have started moonlighting as a freelancer and eventually want to build up enough business for that to be my main income! What do you suggest I do about the whole financial side of things? I know I need to keep track of stuff, but I’m not sure what the best way to do it is. I do plan on hiring an accountant to help with taxes, but I can’t really afford to hire someone to do monthly bill paying, invoicing, etc. at this early stage! I’m guessing this is stuff I can handle on my own for now, But what kind of stuff do I need to be keeping track of? Do I need to buy Quickbooks? What do you use?
More Money More Problem
Answer
Hello MMMP!
Day to day finances is something that most freelancers keep track of on their own. When your business grows to the point where managing this takes more time away from you WORK, it will be beneficial to hire someone to help manage this – but for me, day to day cash flow stuff is really easy to do on my own and I really only spend a few short hours a month on it! Check out my full video response below…
This is really all about finding what works for YOU – my system is really simple and streamlined for me, but it’s not going to be the right solution for everyone. When you’re first starting out and don’t have the work flow to justify hiring a bookeeper to do day to day things like emailing invoices or balancing your checkbook, you’re going to end up doing it yourself. This doesnt have to be scarey, just stay organized, keep clean records and with the money you save doing your own expense tracking you can invest in hiring a pro to prepare your taxes!
There is a helpful article on FreelanceSwitch, which is a good place to start: Accounting Basics for a Freelancer. There is also some good advice for those of you starting out in the book My So-Called Freelance Life.
Oh and should I just remind you, I am NOT a financial advisor — this is how I handle things and what I have learned from my advisor, you can use this as a jumping off point or to get an idea of the steps involved, but PLEASE – talk with the accountant who will be doing your annual taxes to find out how they would like to receive your numbers!
What’s your advice?
Am I missing something? Do you have experience with a similar situation and would like to share how you handled things? Leave a comment and tell us about it!
This next interview is with Niki Brown, a web designer and blogger living in Boston, MA. Niki works by day at a small web design firm and by night (and in the wee hours of morning) cranks out freelance design and content for a design blog, which I am sure you all know and love, The DesignOBlog.
What do you do when you’re feeling uninspired or burnt out? Do you have any rituals to help you cope? Resources to get you inspired?
One of the first things I do when I feel uninspired is to get as far away from my computer as possible. Last time I felt uninspired I hopped on the subway and headed to an old historical neighborhood of Boston called Beacon Hill. So many old buildings, texture and lovely typography.
Whats your favorite project to date?
My favorite project to date has been my blog, I get to write whatever I want and design things how I like it! :) People say they hate designing for themselves, but I love it.
What do you do at your 9to5?
My 9-5 (or 10-5) ‘day job’ is a Designer at Brunello Creative. We make the internet a better place one website at a time :) We do a lot of web work for Mens Health: (Mens Health Yoga Center, Eat This, Not That.)
How many hours per week do you spend on freelancing/blogging/building your personal brand?
I usually spent 10-20 hours a week freelancing and blogging. Right now its skewing more towards blogging :)
What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and the internet did not exist?
I’m sure I would attend more local networking events if the internet did not exist, and I would probably go crazy…
What do you think of the Tropicana packaging Re-design?
I think Tropicana’s new packaging is horrible.* My friend Steph wrote a good blog post that basically sums up my opinion. I think that drastic redesigns are not the way of the future. Realign, not redesign.
* since my interview with Niki, Tropicana released word that because of negative feedback, they’ve received. The newly designed cartons would be discontinued. Read more about this at NYTimes.com.
Why do you think design is important? How do you see design effecting the day to day lives of ordinary (non-designer) people. What makes “good or bad” design?
Design affects everyone because it influences our decision making. It can be as trivial as a choosing carton of orange juice, or as serious as a way of finding design for a hospital.
I think good or bad design is sometimes in the eye of the beholder (although there are definitely rules that design should follow)
Favorite HEX? #ff0000 although I never use it :)
Do you say “font” or “typeface”? I use both interchangeably, I like breaking the rules like that :)
When setting live San Serif text, which do you choose more often; Helvetica, Arial or Verdana? Unlike some people who hate helvetica, its my trusted and true sans font.
Favorite Keyboard shortcut? Apple + tab
Favorite internet celebrity &/or internet celebrity crush? Gary Vaynerchuk, but only for his wine prowess.
Michelob Ultra Packaging FAIL!
Made this short video about some poor packaging design on part of Michelob Beer.
Have you seen packaging that fails in its messaging?
+ I just want to say this isn’t hate for Michelob! I’ve enjoyed your beer in the past — this is just a design thing.