We’ve all been there, there’s no need to paint you a detailed picture, client chooses to source their own images and their way of doing this is to punch in what they want into a Google images search, find an image, send you a link, you explain the image is copyrighted and cannot be used, client kicks up a fuss, you end up sourcing legitimate images.
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Posted in Blogging, Freelancing, Graphic Design
OK, so I have a small confession to make. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Twitter when it launched, and that is an understatament to say the least, I actually thought that Twitter was a complete waste of time. In my eyes, the people using it were lonely individuals with way too much time on their hands, using it to tell other lonely people with too much time on their hands what they were having for lunch and ironically how busy they were. Yeah right! I don’t care that it’s your sons birthday, I don’t care that you went to Thorp Park for the day and I don’t care that you bought a new pair of jeans. I am actually busy and I don’t see how this enriches my life in any shape or form (apart from make me want to be at Thorp Park!). However, just over a year ago I was being hit left right and centre with articles about the power of Twitter with everyone telling me that I’ve got try it; “everyone else is doing it”. (more…)
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Posted in Blogging, Freelancing
It’s that time of year again where you are assessing your bulging business plan, deciding what new piece of marketing material you are going to use to wow potential clients with in 2010 and, for us, it’s time to freshen up our website and reflect on what work we include in our portfolio. The problem is that we are a particularly fussy lot here at Eightyone Design and not every piece of work we complete makes the grade. In fact, only a mere fraction of our work makes it in to our design portfolio.
This can leave our portfolio looking a little stale at times against others which seem to be regularly changing. It also means that whilst we are always working with new clients, other potential clients are not aware of this due to the work not being included in our graphic design portfolio. This got us thinking ‘what is the best way to build your graphic design portfolio?’ As we see it there are the following options available to any graphic designer: (more…)
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Posted in Freelancing, Portfolio
AIS is an International School based in Sydney, Australia. They provide education to the highest academic standard, and have a practical approach to teaching and learning while catering to both international and local students with its integrated Australian and American curriculum.
AIS were looking for someone to re-design their website and found us through our graphic design blog. Several Skype meetings later they accepted our proposal and had a strong brief to work to. AIS already had a team of programmers in house and required us to design and build template HTML pages that they could use to build, edit and expand the website themselves.
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Posted in Graphic Design, News, Portfolio, Web Design
There have been a lot of articles written about stock photography lately, many of which believe that the use of it damages our creative industry. Rather than finding the perfect solution for a design brief, designers and clients alike log onto sites such as istock, fotolia and shutterstock, complete a quick image search which turns out average images that are far from perfect for their intended use. These photographs or stock vectors are not bespoke and have often been overused. A classic example is the ‘call us now…’ image on a contact page or catalogue showing a man or woman with a headset on! This image screams ’stock’ and should be extinct! (more…)
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Posted in Design Resources, Freelancing, Graphic Design
A client recently came to us with an excellent idea for a site and I couldn’t wait to meet with them and get stuck into designing the visual. However when I thought about building the site I could feel a mild headache coming on. This got me thinking, what’s your favourite part of the graphic design process? I realise every project is different and some projects are a pure pleasure from beginning to end whilst others are just painful from the outset. However I still think there must be one part of the process where you think “I’m really looking forward to working on that…” (more…)
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Posted in Freelancing, Graphic Design, Logo Design, Web Design
After a conversation with Amanda from Truly Ace Design on our post ‘eightyone design christmas card designs‘ (you can see the full conversation here) I started wondering if graphic designers are ever satisfied? In this blog post I look at the design industry and how it may be the cause of our endless search for satisfaction, how online networking and commenting encourages us to re-think our designs and how our eternal pursuit of perfection could just be a mere personal trait of a graphic designer. (more…)
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Posted in Featured Articles, Freelancing, Graphic Design, Logo Design
In the previous blog post in this series, Lu explained the route she took to becoming a graphic designer. In this follow up blog post, I will tell you how my career in graphic design came about.
Unlike Lu, I was not always destined to work in the graphic design industry. Whilst I enjoyed Art at school, I certainly was not very good at it and could never produce the pieces of work you saw in Lu’s previous blog post. Throughout my primary and secondary education I did not show any interest or skill for graphic design and I was certain that I wanted to leave school at 16 and start some sort of modern apprenticeship. (more…)
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Posted in Freelancing, Graphic Design
I think I always knew I was going to slot into the art and design industry somewhere and am so pleased that I have a job I love. I can’t imagine doing anything else. In this blog post I share the route that led me to become a graphic designer and how I always knew I’d end up there.
Like most children I’d sit quite happily at a table colouring or painting away. My brother and sister got bored after an hour or so and would charge into the garden, but I’d continue until I was told it was tea or bed time. (more…)
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Posted in Freelancing, Graphic Design
A few weeks ago we published a post declaring that some designers (namely Lu) produce better work under pressure (see the post Do you produce better graphic design work under pressure Part 1). The post explained how Lu finds she can produce better design work to a deadline because she is more focussed. She is not distracted by the desire to “try something a little different” or the need to discover the worlds most perfect design. She felt that when designing under pressure, nothing is driving her apart from the objectives for the project and the messages that are to be communicated from the piece.
However, in part 2 of this blog article, I discuss why I think I create better work when there is a longer deadline and the pressure is off. (more…)
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Posted in Freelancing
