I recently designed a poster and postcard for a Mercedes Benz dealership and their partnership with a local performing arts hall. Here was the brief:

Design a poster that communicates the message that we are giving away tickets to the Broadway series. To be in with a chance to win, they must come to the showroom, and we want the ad to encourage them to also test drive the new 2010 GLK while they are there.

So, I got to work. Firstly, I got the document ready in Photoshop, 22 x 28 inches, 300 dpi. I gave it a .127 bleed to work with.

I decided that a decent stock image of the interior of a theater would work nicely, as the posters were to be placed inside the lobby area of the performing arts hall. This imagery would also give me the upscale look I was hoping to create to tie in with the Mercedes Benz brand. So, I placed the above stock image into the photoshop document, and sized it to take up just over half of the poster vertically.

Then, I added dark grey to the bottom half of the poster, pulling the color from a Mercedes Benz brochure. I then decided it was time to place in the main message of the poster, and the text I was supplied with was, “WIN A PAIR OF PREMIUM ORCHESTRA SEATS TO THE 2009-2010 BROADWAY SERIES”. I added this text and after some formatting, it started to fit nicely. The upper level of the seating in the image needed to be darkened down so that the white text would stand out clearly. The font type used is the the standard Mercedes Benz font, Corporate S.

By adding a slight drop shadow ( opacity=100%, angle=120, distance=37px, size=5 ) and dark outer glow ( opacity=85%, size=32 ), the text now popped and would be easily legible from a distance when viewed in the lobby of the performing arts hall.

The 2010 GLK car image was going to be placed on the stage, so I had to first create a stage and then clip the image of the GLK that I was provided with. I created the stage in three steps. First, I drew an elongated oval shape in light grey, with the pen tool spanning the width of the poster. I then duplicated that layer, and added a filter to it. ( Filter > Render > Fibers ) To give it somewhat of a spotlight look, I masked over right and left hand sides slightly.

Once the stage was complete, I placed the clipped GLK layer, and placed it onto the stage. I carried out some photoshop work on the car to enhance it a little, and you can see the changes I made in the before and after image below.

To finish it off, I placed in the additional text supplied by the client and the poster was ready for print. I flattened all layers and pdf’d it and sent it off. The postcards were designed in the same style to match the posters, and together they make a nice impact inside the performing arts hall on show nights.

Earlier today, my company received an inquiry on our contact form from a 14 yr old simply asking for some feedback on three designs that he has created. I am always more than happy to spend time helping others , especially younger designers just starting out and I am impressed by this 14 yr old for simply sending us an email and asking for some basic feedback.

So, I thought I might as well share my response to him with you, and it may end up helping someone else similar to this 14 yr old that emailed my company.

The three pieces you sent are quite impressive for a 14 yr old (for any age really). You obviously have a natural artistic ability and this is vital to being a good graphic designer. You can only learn so much but you need that intrinsic ability to know what visually appeals and works for the look you are trying to achieve.

It is important to learn how to combine your creativity and natural artistic ability with the business aspect of being a graphic designer. As a graphic designer, you also play a large role as a marketing professional, and you need to learn how to apply your art and design skills to the business world. This is vitally important as this will allow you to make a living from your craft. I know many designers that are extremely creative but lack the ability to use that creativity in a business / advertising environment.

Professional graphic design is all about communicating a message as powerfully and memorable as possible. If you become a professional designer, you will have clients that have messages (products , services etc) that they need to communicate to their market through advertising, and it will be up to you to figure out how to use your design skill and knowledge to present that message in the most effective way possible.

Another piece of advice is to always continue learning and expanding upon your skill set. Never settle for the knowledge you have at any point. Always strive to learn more.

Some other recent posts that I have published that provide advice for young designers are "50 Reasons Why You Will Not Make It As A Freelancer ", "What Not To Do When Designing a Logo " and "Most Important Thing I Would Tell A Design Student "

This is what I hope will be the first of many posts on this topic, "When Clients Get Funny".

Yesterday, my company Brian Joseph Studios received an inquiry from our contact form, and in the "Tell us a little about your project" field, the potential client wrote:

" The usual – totally waste my competition; become filthy rich with my revenue generated from the internet; retire early et cetera "

Someone with a personality and a sense of humor like this makes me like them right off the bat. I want this guy to be a client for my company. We could even give him a "cool guy" discount on our quote.

Designers/Developers etc, have you ever received a funny / strange / odd inquiry? I would love to hear about it in the comments field!

As a designer, I am constantly networking with peers worldwide using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter . As both services grow, develop and increase in popularity, they begin to take on a similar shape to one another. We can share links, photos and other information to our online friends using applications dedicated to one or both of these services.

So, why use both? As Facebook and Twitter battle it out, users are left in the middle to deal with the overlap, the mess and the frustration of constantly seeing double.

I use Facebook to……

be quite a bit more personal with my network than on Twitter. Facebook’s main purpose is largely to allow you to share pictures and videos with your friends, family, peers and collegues. Of course there are hundreds of other functions on Facebook that allow you to connect with your network, but most of it is all geared towards the ability to get to know others and allow others to get to know you by supplying information about your life.

Here is where it gets cloudy. I have both "in-person" friends and "online" friends on Facebook. The majority of my "in-person" friends don’t care that I found a great site with a list of high res textures . They are not designers nor do they have any interest in graphic, web or logo design . My "online" friends do however. Just like I have an interest in the links and information that they share with me.

Due to this combination of having my friends and my online network both on Facebook, I have made a decision that it is best to make the majority of my information sharing on Facebook more personal than career/design/seo/marketing oriented.

I use Twitter to……

mainly share links, career experiences, and random thoughts with my nework. I currently follow around 500 people on Twitter, with a large majority of them in the graphic design, internet marketing or web design industry. In contrast to the thoughts of the general public, Twitter is far from simply being a website where you tell people "what you are doing". The major media channels have been pretty poor in their half-assed attempts to educate their viewers about Twitter, and it’s potential as a social media tool.

Ryan Seacrest on E! News said that they are now on Twitter but he has no idea what it is supposed to do, Kiera on CNN said something similar, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show claimed to have no idea why anyone would use Twitter….and the list goes on. Many "non-web" people are signing up to Twitter now that it has gained mass exposure, yet most have no idea why they signed up and what they are going to use it for. "I don’t get it" seems to be a popular first tweet.

Here is an excerpt from a monthly feature that I write for a local Chamber of Commerce newsletter, discussing my thoughts on Twitter:

"Twitter is a social media application that allows you to connect with people online. There is a misleading trend in the news media right now describing Twitter as something to simply tell people "what you are doing" at the moment you post an update. Twitter, if utilized to its full potential, can be the most powerful tool to help you advance in your career, or to make your company more successful. By setting up a Twitter account, you can instantly start to connect with other people by "following" them, which means you will receive their updates in your timeline. Likewise, people can "follow" you and your updates to see what you are talking about. This ability to instantly connect with hundreds and thousands of people around the world is what makes Twitter so special. If you are in the real estate industry, you can find other real estate agents around the world to connect with, share links/stories/experiences/advice with, and receive it all back. For us at Brian Joseph Studios, we use Twitter to connect with thousands of designers and developers from many countries, and we share links and advice with our network, and receive the same in return. The community that you can build within your Twitter network is invaluable and the daily industry knowledge you will receive is unmatched on any other social media site, newspaper or magazine. To put it simply, Twitter can connect you with thousands of experts in your industry, and most of them are more than willing to share their experience and knowledge with you. If they find a good link on a website, or an important news story, they will post it to their Twitter account, and you will receive it if you follow them. It is so much more than telling someone what you are doing."

The Result

Most of us that are active on Twitter and Facebook will have noticed an increasingly evident overlap between the two, and I am of the opinion that this is not a good thing. I follow many other designers on Twitter to see the links they have to share, the pieces of advice they have to share, and their general thoughts on their career and experiences. I am also Facebook friends with many of them so that I can get to know them a little more personally and share some personal aspects of my life with them. In other terms, Twitter is for business (mostly) and Facebook is for pleasure (mostly).

Many of us use "Tweetdeck" as a desktop app to update our Twitter timeline, and with its recent Facebook addon, Teetdeck users can now update their Facebook status at the same time that they send out a tweet. As result, I am receiving your post twice. I follow you on Twitter and I thank you for your tweet, but is it really necessary to post it to your Facebook account also? Don’t you think that a huge majority of people that want to receive your updates already follow you on Twitter for this purpose? With a little research, one popular designer that I follow on Twitter has about 10,000 followers. He has about 1,500 Facebook friends. I wonder how many of those 1,500 Facebook friends don’t follow him on Twitter? And if they don’t follow him on Twitter do they really want to know about the logo of the day everyday? (p.s. I think Jacob Cass is an awesome guy, just using him as an example!)

And I would like to finish with one final question: If I sent you an email today telling you about a new website my company launched, and then another email within 5 minutes with the exact same information, would you find that useful?

The crossover between Facebook and Twitter, in my opinion, is causing one of them to start feeling "spammy". I thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the information you provide on Twitter, and I want to get to know you more personally on Facebook. How can we get back to that?

I have seen many of my Facebook friends recently post status updates along the lines of "Please stop posting your Twitter updates on Facebook. I follow you on Twitter for this purpose." etc etc.

I would love to hear the thoughts of all of you, whether you post the same information on both Twitter and Facebook, or you like to keep them separate. I personally have posted the same information on both but this is rare. I typically only post my Twitter updates on Facebook if I they are somewhat more personal than a standard design related link.

What are your thoughts on how the design community should move forward with Facebook and Twitter as they gain incredible popularity?

**UPDATE – June 19th – I have closed comments on this post now as I feel that all sides of the argument have been voiced, and it seems the right time to close the discussion on this particular post. I look forward to the continuing debate on other sites/blogs from all of you. Thank you very much for all of your comments here, the retweets and the re-posting.**

For those of you who have not read or heard about the recent Forbes Magazine article by Christopher Steiner, here is a snippet from David Airey’s site explaining what the article is about:

The high-profile business magazine recently published this article: The Creativity of Crowds , which opens with the following subtitle:

“CrowdSpring aims to slash the cost of graphic design work — and democratize a snooty business .”

Now I’m all for competition, and indeed welcome it, but when there’s such a one-sided article about the validity of spec work , it’s appropriate to mention the other side of the story.

For the unaware, CrowdSpring is a design contest website, where people submit (mainly) logo designs in the hope of winning a prize. Prizes are (not always) awarded by the companies who join and host a contest.

You can read David’s full post here . David puts forward excellent thoughts and opinions on the “Design Contest Websites” and due to a huge following, the inevitable debate is often an important read.

Michael Samson, one of the owners and creators of CrowdSpring, is quoted in the article as saying,

The beauty of our site is that it doesn’t matter if you have a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design or if you’re a grandma in Tennessee with a bunch of free time and Adobe Illustrator,” says Samson. “If the client likes the grandma’s work better, then she’s going to get the job.

Dear Mr. Samson,

“A grandma in Tennessee with a bunch of free time and Adobe Illustrator”?! – in the words of the new “Saturday Night Live” feature; Samson…..REALLY?!

A grandma in Tennessee should not be designing a company’s identity, logo, website, print advertising or anything if she doesn’t have design experience, skill, knowledge, etc. Anyone can get their hands on a copy of Adobe Illustrator and call themselves a designer. I am actually quite shocked that you didn’t use “MS Paint” in place of Adobe Illustrator with your apparent knowledge of the graphic design industry.

Hey, I have a hammer and some wood, anyone need a house built? I have never built a house before but how hard can it be. I’m sure I could put something together that SOMEONE will think looks good. And if they think it looks good, then guess what, I guess I am a builder! Sweet! (just don’t come complaining to me when your house collapses after the first bit of wind.)

Mr Samson, or can I call you Michael? Ok, Michael it is, I feel like we have built up a relationship now that I can call you Michael…..or maybe Mike? Mikey….No? Ok, Michael it is.

Michael, your comment highlights everything that is wrong in the graphic design industry.

Some clients do not know what looks good and what will be successful for them

Of course the grandma in Tennessee can scribble a few things together, and someone out there may love it, but that does not mean for one second that it will be successful for that client, or that it comes anywhere close to meeting their real needs as an integral piece of their company’s identity.

As an experienced designer, clients often ask me to “do this” or “do that”, and often what they want is not what they need . They need skilled designers and marketers to help them to see what they need. Designers and marketers research their clients’ audience, and come up with an educated solution. Some clients love an animated gif of a leopard running in place to be on their website, but you and I know (well, maybe not YOU…) that this is not a good addition to their website. The client is not to blame for this, that’s why they hired the professional .

And that is where your website comes in. If you don’t want to hire a professional who values their work, does not research your company, your market, your clients’ needs, and simply knows how to draw pretty things that are meaningless, then head on over to Michael and his website.

An excellent comment on the Forbes article comes from Eric Hillerns explaining this perfectly.

A CAD program does not make me an architect and a copy of QuickBooks does not make me an accountant… And the Forbes writer? You know, the one who penned this article’s ludicrously silly subhead, was likely this year’s lucky winner of Mrs. Winters’ sixth grade journalism competition. Because why would we pay an experienced writer when anyone with Microsoft Word and e-mail can submit a story?

Congratulations, Forbes. You got exactly what you paid for. Sludge. But then again, maybe that was your point.
Eric Hillerns

Mr. Swanson, there is something extremely odd about the article that was written by this Christopher guy. I’m no journalist, but I do understand some aspects of journalism and integrity. When one writes an article about a subject matter that obviously has a strong opposition to it, to merely throw in one single quote from the contrasting side is not only displaying a gross lack of judgment, but also shows that you are an extremely amateur writer, and quite possibly Mrs. Winters’ best student in her 6th grade class. Forbes must have had to lay off the highly paid journo’s and in their place, Westbrook Catholic School got their chance.

I wonder what got rejected…….

Sincerely,

Designers that respect their work, their fellow designers, and their industry

Back in October, I asked you guys for some answers and thoughts on the topic of "What Clients Need To Know When Hiring A Web Design Company ". You can read the comments made here

The article in the business magazine (Gulf Shore Business) has now been published and you can read it here

Only a few of my comments made it into the article. It is interesting to read the first section about the client, "Carbon Net" talking about his poor experience with the first web development company. The company he is speaking about is now out of business, and being sued by some big companies for failure to carry out the work in some agreements with them.

Another interesting note about the "Carbon Net" client mentioned in the article, was that some time ago, he actually contacted my company requesting a quote. After I spoke to him on the phone, and then provided a quote and proposal, I did not hear back from him.

Whether or not our quote was within his budget, another part of "What Clients Need to Know When Hiring A Web Design Company" is the fact that clients are interviewed almost as much as clients interview us and our company. Web designers and any other service providers that provide estimates and quotes appreciate it when a client notifies the company about their intention to move forward with the project or not.

There are many reasons for this, and as a consumer, everyone should attempt to practice this. If you request a quote or estimate, notify the company even if you are not going to move forward with them. Thank them for their time to speak with you and for providing a quote. Better yet, you can even give them a few reasons as to why you did not choose them. This helps the company and enables them to grow.

By simply not replying to an estimate or proposal, you never know when you might want to receive another quote from that company in the future, and by then, the company will have a red mark next to your name.

Designer/Developers, how often do you receive an email or phone call from those clients that don’t end up going with after you provided a quote? Do you attempt to contact them to learn the reasons why they didn’t choose you? I am interested to hear if most of you do want this information.

**update – submitted this article to Just Creative Design’s Group Writing Project for charity along with a monetary donation over at Just Creative Design’s fund raising page **

Static design visuals: all web designers use them as a way to present the designs to a client. I personally upload a jpg of the visual to my server in a client specific folder, and then email the link to the client with a paragraph explaining the design, the inspiration, the purpose of each element and so on.

Along with this explanatory paragraph, I always find myself spending time writing notes for the client about each piece of functionality that they will NOT SEE . Kind of a downer if you are the client I imagine. As these are static visuals, I cannot show the client the cool Ajax stuff that I have planned for the site, the hover and the click effects I plan for the navigation, and the really slick jquery slide show I plan for the homepage! "Client, you will see none of that, so have fun just looking at this bland visual. It looks good though…right?"

With the online technology that is available today, we should all be coding websites more creatively than using simple images and html/css . Our clients have come to expect a higher level of functionality and interactivity as they visit more and more websites that utilize things like Ajax, and JavaScript. So, often a client is disappointed when they receive the very first static visual from you when it has none of this interactivity.

Static visuals are used for one good reason….Time . Once we have designed the homepage of a new website, we can simply jpeg it and upload it to our server or email it as an attachment to the client. Simple, quick and easy. This process does not take much time at all. When the client replies to us with a few changes, we can go back in the layered mockup file, make the changes, and jpeg it again, and send it to the client again, and await approval.

Often clients will struggle with receiving these static visuals, especially the more experienced, high-end clients. My company, Brian Joseph Studios , has grown a lot over the past year, and we are now obtaining clients with bigger budgets, higher demands, and higher expectations. This means that what they see on CNN.com or their favorite online shopping website, they want to see that on their new site that we are developing for them. Imagine their disappointment with a static visual jpeg.

Of course, as stated earlier in this post, you can spend time explaining to them all of the things that you have planned for the website, all of that great interactivity….and much more, and that right now they don’t get to see it……(not fun to receive a response as to "why can’t we see all of this now?" even after explaining it already. Open. Can. Worms.

So, for some time now (almost 1 year) and for most projects (not all) , I have stopped sending static visuals to clients during the review process.

What do you replace static visuals with then?

It takes a little extra time to do, but I have found that it greatly reduces the overall project development time and streamlines this process tremendously. I design the homepage after carefully learning about what the client’s goals are for the website, and then I cut it into css/xhtml, and add any pieces of interactivity that I have planned for the site. I upload the "working" page to a client folder on my server, and send the link to them. Again, in this email I explain each element, and it’s function and why I think this is a powerful solution for what they are looking to achieve with their site.

Then I hit "send". No time spent writing notes about what they WILL NOT see, why they won’t see it, and why they can’t see it. Also, I will not receive a reply from the client saying "I understand what you are saying about not being able to see all the stuff you have planned, but why is that not possible? I know you explained it, but I guess I just don’t really understand the web that well". No matter how much you explain it, some clients struggle to understand it. That is why you must find a way to prevent this discussion from even coming up.

After all, do you really want to have any type of negativity in your very first email to the client during the design process?

The words "won’t", "can’t", "unfortunately" etc are not great to hear when receiving a service from someone, and I am sure some clients think that.

So, the client goes to the link that I sent them; they rollover the navigation and see an underline appear or a color change. They click on the latest news tab and see a nice slider effect that shoots over some latest news headlines (that are being pulled dynamically from live news feeds **because this is NOT a static visual!**). The impact of this is much more positive than the static visual I used to send, and because they are able to get the exact feel of a working website, they (100% of the time) have less revision requests.

What if the client wants a lot of graphic changes?

With today’s web standards, usability factors, and all of the other aspects that control how we design websites, in my opinion, modern websites should be low on the image file count on each page . Not only is this better for SEO purposes (visible content, faster loading times), but it also means that the website will most likely be clean and user friendly. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of exceptional, modern websites out there that are heavy with image files, but with the advancement of CSS, a user friendly and interesting user interface can be designed with a few images and excellent use of CSS.

So, if you regularly design your client’s websites keeping image files to a minimum, it will be extremely easy to revise the design you send to a client when they request changes. Your "real" website page that you sent the client may have only 10 image files on it, and the rest of the colors, and format are controlled by CSS. If the client requests changes, you only have 10 image files at the max to modify, or some simple CSS tweaks.

Take this "Surf in Paradise " website for example. It is clean, organized, and very low on image count. The client may have asked for a different water background, or a different girl image. Making these changes takes just as much time to complete in Photoshop as they would in CSS. In addition, you save the time that you would have spent jpeg’ing the image, and uploading it to the server or emailing it to the client.

Another point worth noting about design revisions and working with clients. Clients differ greatly in their approach to a web design company as most of you know. Some hire us and outwardly acknowledge that we are experts in this field and we will provide a solution that we think is best for the client . Other clients, well….they want what THEY want, and it is often difficult for them to be open up to a designer’s opinion. Just today, I saw a tweet on Twitter from a fellow designer that read "doing an advert for a client who has 1200 words to go on an A4 Ad and their company font is Comic Sans".

So, if you obtain clients that more often than not, understand that you are the expert in web design, and once you get to know their company and their website’s goals, that you can provide a design that they need….then you will probably see that they will usually have very few revisions to the design you send them. The working website page you sent them now looks perfect, and they love the way it works. Guess what! Now you have the format laid out in CSS/XHTML and your client is happy with the overall design. Imagine how quickly you will get the project completed now!

What are your thoughts on static design visuals? How do you present your website designs to a client? What works for you?

Some designers make a great career out of freelancing, some struggle to ever pay the bills solely from freelancing income.

If you are already a successful freelancer, you will probably see that you are not guilty of most of the points made below. If you are hoping to be a full-time freelancer, or are currently finding it difficult to get your freelancing going, some points below may help you figure out why!

To explain this post a little better, my personal opinion on when a freelancer knows they have "made it", is when you own your own house, own your own car, and can comfortably pay 100% of your bills from your freelancing income. Some of you may disagree with that description of "making it", but that is how I personally measure it. I encourage you to add your thoughts in the comments at the end, thanks!

And so, the 50 reasons why you will not make it as a freelancer:

1. The thought of working a 16 – 19 hour day makes you feel violently ill
2. You sleep in past 12pm most mornings
3. You don’t know what the word "typography " means
4. You hear the word "Hex " and you think someone is talking about dinosaurs
5. When meeting clients, you wear jeans and a t-shirt
6. Your hair is a mess, all the time
7. Your phone manner is terrible (you answer with "hello", and nothing else)
8. You don’t understand what a "bleed " is
9. Your business card is a home-made Microsoft Publisher job
10. You have never started conversation with a stranger
11. You are not confident
12. You are not likeable
13. You do not manage your personal finances well
14. Your mum doesn’t even like your design work
15. You want to be successful, but your drive is completely lacking
16. You are not self-motivated
17. You don’t have a desire to be the most successful person you know
18. You don’t have a website
19. Explaining the difference between 300 dpi and 72 dpi is like speaking a foreign language to you
20. You think white space is wasted space
21. The bevel function in Photoshop doesn’t work anymore because you have worn it out so badly
22. You struggle to actually complete a project
23. You have to give your clients money back because you over promised on your ability
24. You have 0 business skills and have no idea how to develop them
25. You really dislike sales and feeling like a sales person
26. You don’t make your clients sign contracts
27. You think it’s cool to be flaky and disorganized because that is what "us creative types are like"
28. You think you are right, and the client is wrong
29. You think that your prices need to be lower than anyone around so that you can get the business
30. Your people skills are terrible
31. You don’t have a plan for your freelancing career, you are just floating along
32. You don’t really understand what marketing is
33. You haven’t developed a brand for your freelancing career
34. You are unable to save money
35. You don’t have a desire to continue learning all the time
36. You have never worked more than 40 hours a week in your life
37. You have never worked for a design company
38. Seeing a logo you designed on a billboard or on tv doesn’t give you a rush
39. You design things that look good but don’t match the brief whatsoever
40. You spend most of your time working on entries for silly online design contests
41. You let clients name their price
42. You’re not a risk taker
43. You do not manage your time whatsoever
44. You are not disciplined in a daily routine
45. You don’t study your competition
46. You don’t even know who your competition is
47. The word "crop " makes you think of the farm
48. You suck at Photoshop
49. You are guilty of over 20 of the points above
50. You are angry at me after reading this

Do you have any to add? How many of the 50 are you guilty of?

Related links and helpful articles about freelancing

How To Fail Miserably as a Freelancer

How To Fail at Freelancing in 5 Easy Steps

Why Failure as a Freelancer can be a Good Thing

The 7 Deadly Sins of Freelancing

10 Tips for Getting More Personal Interaction as a Freelancer

There are a a few ways that you can achieve this in Photoshop, but this tutorial will simply go through my personal process of how to create a post-it note pretty quickly. I tried not to use too many shortcut keys when doing this just so those with less Photoshop experience could follow what was going on.

However, here are some of the shortcut keys used and what they do: (MAC controls in grey)

CTRL/CMD + N = create new document

CTRL/CMD + T = free transform (then right click to select "Warp")

Press 5 and 0 on Number Key = drops opacity of selected layer to 50%

ALT/OPTION + Click + Move = duplicate the layer

Would you like some more Photoshop shortcuts? Check this out

(If you are reading this in your feed reader, the lightbox function will not work, so you will be brought to a new page displaying the video. Please visit the post link first to view in the lightbox, thanks!)

Click here to view tutorial

Difficulty: Easy

The quality of the video is a little on the scratchy side, I am still new to creating video tuts and all of the export settings when publishing it. It will get better the more I do, thanks.

Previous Video Tutorials:

#1 : Die-cut Business Card – How To Mock Up for a Client

Later tomorrow (September 2nd), at 5pm US Eastern Time (10pm in England & Ireland) a business magazine will be interviewing me for a story on the topic of:

"providing businesses with the basic information they need to make an informed decision about creating/updating a web site as well as how to avoid pitfalls and avoid bad decisions that could harm the business down the road. What kinds of things should businesses be aware of when entering into a contract with a web site designer?"

So, I am calling on all web designers to participate and be part of my answers tomorrow. I would be delighted to hear all of your thoughts on this question, and help me to form some really good answers for this interview.

If and when the story is published I will post it here and also give some link love to those that take part. Time is of the essence! Please place your comments as soon as possible, and thanks for getting involved!