Website

Today I'm making improvements to my website and establishing a Facebook presence for my business. Hopefully, the gallery, web examples and 'At the Movies" can be on one web page. A linked in icon has been added to the "About Me" page and, when I'm done with Facebook, a Facebook icon will be added. The content on a couple of pages will be changed for SEO purposes. The background for the body will be changed and possibly the banner will be changed. I just think my website could look better and I want people to find the site when they search for graphic designers. 

Also, on my to do list is get added to online directories.

Potential Client

A financier was introduced to me for a website project. He wanted me to sign a non-compete agreement for just talking about a possible job. I thought that was odd. Those agreements are usually signed when someone is hired and when there is potential competition between the employer's business and the contractor's business. Basically the agreement ensures the employee or contractor doesn't steal clients away from the employer. My business doesn't compete with his. I did not get a good feel for this guy and decided not to bid on the project.

Art Walk

I created a piece of digital art for an art walk. One of my photos was used and I painted in the fairy, wings, gown, added glow effects and used a brush from http://celestial-star.net/. This took me hours and I'm still not quite satisfied with it. But tomorrow is the art walk and I need to get it printed and framed.

Meeting with Client

A meeting today with a client was very productive. She gave me the rest of the materials needed to launch her site. Now all that's needed is the ftp info. We started with looking at free website templates. I customized the one she selected which used a sliced psd file. I need to learn how to manipulate the slices and minimize the number of pieces used in the design. Both the client and I are excited about how the design is turning out. A snapshot of the home page will be posted here when it's done.

She also agreed to pay me for optimizing her images. Originally, she was going to optimize her images to minimize the amount of time I spent on her web page but she was swamped being a student (summer student to boot which is much more challenging) and a business owner. She had been giving me money for meals for our meetings and was going to give me gas money. I told her that her money would be better spent towards me optimizing her images so her site could get launched rather than on food and gas for meetings. Her work load was preventing her from completing her task with the images and the meetings weren't expediting what she needed to do.  It's mutually beneficial to have me take care of the images. She gets her site up and running sooner and I get to add another website to my portfolio.  I also pointed out that she could start out with a few images per gallery rather than trying to get all the images she wanted on her site. She can always add more later.

Websites are not and should not be static. They are dynamic and should be updated regularly. Images can be added and text changed over time. As a designer, it's a good idea to refresh the online portfolio with recent work and sometimes it's a good idea to totally revamp the site.

Class Assignment Revisited

I revisited a class assignment that used 3D coat to paint a table created in Lightwave. The shadow was added in Photoshop but I wasn't happy with the shadow direction. The new version shown here looks more realistic.

Garden Club Flyer

A flyer was recently created for an emerging garden club at Lake Wilderness Arboretum. I was going for a by-gone era feel for the flyer and found an image in the Commons on Flickr. The photo was black and white but was tinted and masked in Photoshop. Floral brushes were used to add interest, depth and texture. The challenge to this was the amount of text used. The woman who wanted me to do the flyer gave me permission to rearrange the text. I consolidated and simplified some of it and organized it into smaller paragraphs. The name and phone number were changed to protect the innocent.

New Client

This last Saturday I signed on another client to do their website. The client sells insurance which will be very different than the murals and portraits website being done for another client. Variety is wonderful to have in a portfolio. It stretches design sense and the focus becomes what is best for the client's business not the design style of the graphic designer.

Research is often done before doing a layout. Research into the industry the client conducts business in and the look of related business websites is done first. Sometimes it's research into functionality I haven't encountered before.

Above all, I believe in honesty and letting the client know my capabilities and what I have to research. Some people have cautioned me not to divulge too much. There are some things the client doesn't need to know. "Just do it" then become the motto.

Farmer's Market

The PR person at LWAF is starting to come to me with graphic design requests. She recently asked me to do a "brochure" for a farmer's market. The farmer's market people wanted something colorful and eye catching that used their logo and cow icon. To save moeny, they also wanted to be able to print two brochures on an 8.5 by 11 piece of paper so each brochure was about 4 x 11, double sided. Indesign was used to create this and the results are shown below. Unfortunately, this design wasn't used because the PR  person decided, at the last minute, to use black and white and this was not designed for black and white. She didn't have time to contact me to make a black and white version and created another brochure.