• Home
• Blog
• Portfolio
• Contact

7 Tips for Freelancers Arranging a Holiday

Posted 05 Aug 2010 - 5 Gratefully received comments

I had a very strange experience last weekend. I didn’t do any work! In fact I hardly touched my computer or answered my phone at all. You could say I was practicing for my upcoming holiday.

Not doing any work sounds great, but as a freelancer it’s a doubled edged sword. It’s always nice to take a bit of time out for yourself, but if the phone isn’t ringing and you don’t have a project to work on it can only mean that your income is going to be affected.

I freelance in my spare time, so I’m not too worried by fallow periods, but I always have plenty of personal projects to busy myself with, as well as a lot of informal work that I take on.

In short, even when I decide to take some time off I end up beating myself up by thinking that I should be working. Unfortunately, this state of mind continues into the time I set aside for holidays.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

What is your Go-To Font? – Random Question #5

Posted 26 Jul 2010 - 7 Gratefully received comments

Here’s another opportunity for you to have your say, with another one of my random questions.

I’ve been thinking about fonts a little more than usual recently. This is down to an article that appeared on the BBC News Website titled ‘Do Typefaces Really Matter?’
This was an interesting read that might make some people a bit more aware of the importance of typography in design. However I thought it tailed off badly at the end giving Bruno Maag another opportunity for a bit of Helvetica bashing. You can read more on his views in this article from the Creative Review Blog called ‘The Helvetica Killer’. Mr Maag has an excellent reasons to grind this particular axe, but I don’t think he’ll ever sharpen it enough to chop down the massive oak that is ‘Helvetica’.

Typography is severely underestimated in ‘general’ design. It’s something that needs to be understood and utilised properly for full impact. Having said this, I’m of the opinion that there are too many fonts available that perform the same job.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

Research – Application to the Design Process

Posted 16 Jul 2010 - No Comments - leave yours now!

The end of the research process on any project is always an exciting time. A lot of work has been done, but a lot more lies in wait. I’d be lying if I said the hardest part was over. However, if enough time and effort has been put into through research the rest of the design process should be easier than it might have been.

At this point you will have armed yourself with more knowledge than you had at the beginning of the process. You are ready to pluck the ideas out of the ether and recognise if they are good enough for the needs of your client.

You are ready to make good design decisions.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

Research – Compiling your Findings

Posted 15 Jul 2010 - One gratefully received comment

Excellent brands of vodka are meticulously filtered to improve their flavour and purity. Good research needs the same care and attention.

To get the most out of your collected information you must process it and pick out the most pertinent and important aspects so you can begin to identify the best way your clients aims can be achieved.

At this point in my research I usually have a few full notebooks containing interview answers, a folder of cut out examples, old and current graphic products from the client and it’s competitors, a full camera memory card and a portion of my macs memory with various files and bookmarks waiting to be trawled through.

The task is to knock all of this information into shape and make sense of it so you can begin to draw conclusions.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

Research – Sources

Posted 14 Jul 2010 - No Comments - leave yours now!

Everyday we are bombarded by a constant stream of information. Strangely enough most of us don’t really notice it anymore. Everything is reduced to an odd ‘humming’ background noise. If a message is particularly interesting or presented in an original way we tune into it and take notice.

Research is probably easier to conduct now than at any other time in history, the wealth of information that is readily available is astonishing. It’s not a case of knowing where to look anymore, it’s now a case knowing how to interpret the information that is floating about.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

Research – The Never Ending Task

Posted 13 Jul 2010 - No Comments - leave yours now!

Life is all about learning. There is a common saying: “You should learn something new everyday”. Personally, I think trying to learn one thing a day is underachieving.

When you think about the process of ‘learning’ it’s easy for your mind to wander back to those hazy school days where you were bored stiff trying to wrap your head around quadratic equations while watching another class outside enjoying a PE class. It’s very easy to associate learning with boredom and frustration.

The great thing about being a designer is that I find myself constantly HAVING to learn. I need to keep up with new ways of doing things, using different technologies, experimenting with new techniques, acquiring new skills and of course gathering knowledge to fuel new ideas.

I’ve become a sponge!

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

Research – The Dirty End of the Design Process

Posted 12 Jul 2010 - 4 Gratefully received comments

I get the impression that a lot of people think designers sit in front of computers pressing buttons, whizzing the mouse around and being rather proud of themselves while they’re at it.
To be fair I can’t really argue with that impression, a proportion of the design process can be described as such. Unfortunately for some designers this is the sum total of their design process, whereas it should be the equivalent of a swan.

I haven’t gone mad. Promise.

Continue Reading

- leave a comment!  

© Ken Reynolds Design