Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

Deciding to freelance is a big choice. It is not easy and often in the beginning, you will have to have a side job to supplement your income until you can be dependent enough as a freelancer. Even being a freelancer, it can be difficult. There are so many others outside in the same niche that it is very competitive. However, during your decision and right after you decide to become a freelancer, here are some things to prepare yourself for the freelancing mentality.

Prepare a solid portfolio. You might get excited and post everything in your portfolio, but your clients are looking for your creativity, versatility as a designer, and your overall product quality. Your portfolio is very much that first thing, just like a resume, that your client will be wowed by and want to use your services.

Make sure you have a good reputation. You might sell yourself short and degrade yourself, but as I have been told by Marcie Hill on As NOT Seen on TV, you should have faith in your work and be proud of it. Each piece of work should be of the same or greater quality than the previous product. Be knowledgeable in your field and able to break it down into simple terms for clients not as savvy in the subject. Be consistent and also do not procrastinate. While some of your clients may be lax, others have a time table in mind. Be professional and for complex projects, a contract may be necessary. Sometimes a contract is mandatory for clients who require a non-disclosure agreement- meaning that you cannot mention to anyone that you worked on their site.

Be prepared to brand yourself in a way that makes you unique enough to stand out. Do you have a certain way you design that is different? What kind of services can you offer? Do you only do web design, or perhaps you can develope complex websites from scratch? Mention that and how your way could help a client’s site pop. Remember, you are designing for another person and they have expectations of you. Your client has a direction they want there site to take and also goals to reach. Your design could make or break them. Make sure you are clear on your services so you do not have clients who are confused on what you offer for a price. Do not undersell, but also overselling can be as much as a killer. While you would like to make money, underselling could be not worth the time. Remember that your are charging for your time, and creativity, so be confident.

Always be on the look for new clients. You might have a few winning clients, but eventually one or all of them may decide to go with another designer. Do not rely on them as things change. It would not be because you are a bad freelancer, but that the person they chose could bring their website to the next level. Or, it could be the result of the economy. It happens, so you have to be prepared and make sure you are always open. It is not the end of the world if you lose a client unless you lost it because you were unprofessional.

Are you considering to dabble in freelancing? How have you prepared yourself? What other advice can you offer?

Have a love for words put together with an eye-popping design, or just fonts that are clean cut or smooth? Typography is fun, but there are people out there who have a passion for fonts. The art behind making fonts as well as designing words in a unique manner is done with careful and creative thought. Where one person may think a particular font is great, it may not be suitable for use in everyday design. Well, below are a five websites that I gathered that either may or may not be on your favorite sites to visit in regards to typography. Some are for entertainment, and others contain plenty of articles that will enhance your knowledge on typography.

I Love Typography is more of a journal, but a lot can be learned behind the scenes. Like in web design, this is a great little niche for typography lovers to get more for their fix.

Typographica contains reviews on typeface, book reviews, and more. If it is about typography, this site has it.

We Love Typography is a site that allows you to take pictures, or make graphics, and then share it with others.

Use Typography is a site that showcases websites that use good typography practices. Anyone can submit, but not all are featured.

Of course, I had to give something for those still who are newbies in typography – WebTypography or as it is titled The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web.. However, I think for those who are die hard fans and practicians of typography, this is a great reference manual.

Are you a fan of typography? What sites do you visit and enjoy that are strictly about typeface, fonts, or designing with words?

Sometimes simple is the way to go, especially when you are a person not into all the frilly graphics that could bog down your site’s load time. Below I am listing 10 layouts that I found in the WordPress Theme Directory that are simple and sleek, worthy for those who are trying to find the perfect layout for their simple preferences.

The iNove theme is very sleek and contains a nicely designed navigation reminiscent of Mac. The layout has a very Web 2.0 feel too.

Carrington Blog theme is by Alex King has a great code. The layout is very clean, and set up with a great navigation that goes by hierarchy and works almost like a drop-down.

The simpleX theme is an extremely basic two-column layout with tabbed navigation. This layout has a lot of potential for those who like to work with a basic theme and adapt it with their own design. This layout also has a drop-down hierarchy like the Carringtion Blog.

The Titan theme has a lot of clean lines and whitespace to balance out a site. Even attention to the image boards leave this layout as something anyone might want to use.

The StudioPress theme is a simple three-column layout that has a tabbed navigation. The rounded corners throughout the layout making this layout very charming.

The Tropicala theme is a very lightweight blog that contains a parent and a subparent navigation. The lines are crisp and you can either keep or interchange the main graphic for your own.

The Red Time theme has a few interesting elements like a place to either put an introductory paragraph or put a featured topic and even has the courtesy of including a cute Twitter bird so people can click to follow you.

The Stardust theme boasts that it is handcoded for accessibility. Its simple gradient graphics make it very clean and sleek.

Librio theme definitely does remind me a bit of the Mac OS X Leopard.

TweetMeBlue theme is made by the same creator of Red Times. It contains a clean navigation and even makes room for those wanting to use the WP-PageNavi plugin. This layout offers a small place at the top of the site for featuring posts.

Are there other layouts you think that should be on this list that you think are simple and sleek…and of course… free?

I was feeling in the mood to do something outside-the-box with a roundup article. Some web and graphic designers have an odd, but interesting style… or as the title of this article says – otherworldly. Each of the sites featured below contain something pertaining to the world or environment and are done in a unique way. Some of the sites are featured because of their layout, some for the work they have done, and some – a little bit of both.

DesignSpasm is a portfolio by Sean Geng. If you roll your mouse over some of the graphics, they move, literally giving the page a unique and spacey feel.
One of his designs I liked from his portfolio was his water color effect.

Smriyaz is home to Mohamed Riyaz, a freelance designer from the United Kingdom. His layout features several well done and inspiring photographs. His main page has a photo of a foggy day that it just about looks mystical.

Kinetic Shadows is literally a jungle! From top to bottom, this is every wild person’s dream. If you check it out, be sure to check out the detail of the Seymour look-a-like (Little Shop of Horrors.)

Visual Elixir really is an elixir of design eyecandy! This portfolio by Jim Gunardson contains a lot of illustrations that rock!

Design Disease has a simple but eypopping under-the-sea look. By the way, Design Disease gives out a few of WordPress themes that are well done too!

Studio7Designs is a diverse portfolio that encompasses everything about the natural environment. What I liked first thing was stepping in and seeing their
vector graphics. They are quite unique!

Joolz is the portfolio of Julien Morel. Julien’s site may be simple, but his portfolio packs a punch with abstract graphics that are really bizarre and inspirational at the same time.

Are there any portfolios that you have seen that you believe should be on this list?

Recently I ventured across Twitter Backgrounds Gallery, a website that showcases Twitter users’ backgrounds. The site also allows users to rate each others’ backgrounds on a star rating system. This system does not allow users to sign up to submit, but rather suggest your background to their Twitter account (@TwitterBGallery ).

This is a fun tool for you if you are on Twitter and have spare time to check out other profiles. Some of the backgrounds are a bit inspirational too! They even share some articles to help you make your Twitter background be effective if you want people to follow you. This includes concepts you should consider while designing, which are great for both graphic designers and novices.

Twitter Backgrounds Gallery also has a contest area where there are occasional contests featured.

I love to make emoticons (smileys.) Although I offer a plenty of smiley sets for free download on my own site, here are 5 places with Unique Emoticons. Emoticons are not easy to make, despite the fact they look small. They take a lot of creativity and patience to make sure you can tell what the image is in so few pixels. You will not find them anywhere else.

This cute and yummy looking pixel emoticon is one of several that Kao-Ani offers for download. Each look to be inspired by Japanese anime style characters and a little of the creator’s (Natasja) love of pixelling and cuteness. Other smileys available at Kao-Ani are in the form of animals, girl faces, and even a ghost! Yes, these may be girly, but anyone can see these are quality smileys are worth showcasing.

Sidney Collins of BubblesSOC, also knowns as Bubs, offers a very simple smiley set for those who like simple. It is a variation of typing out anime smiley faces while chatting with others. Example: (o_O). However, some of them are animated and have a few extras. My favorite out of the set is the animated angry emoticon where it is shaking its head with disappointment, and looks quite disgruntled.

DeviantArt user, darkmoon3636 is pretty notorious when it comes to making emoticons. A lot of this graphic artist’s work is used on DeviantArt. Each smiley is unique and some even have scenes like the surfing emoticon. Some are animated. The artist allows her emoticons to be used anywhere only if credit is given.

This graphic artist, LeoLeonardo hails from Deviantart too and named The Emoticon Pope. A lot of detail goes into some of the scenes that involve emoticons. One is an emoticon jumping off a building and there is a Rick Roll smiley too! The Emoticon Pope even gives pointers to others on how to make emoticons. This artist has created more than a hundred different emoticons. Just imagine the time spent on all of them. I would like to say – All Hail The Emoticon Pope!

MazeGuy has a lot of different pixel smilies like Mario, symbols, animals, and more. MazeGuy even has an emoticon balloon maker where you can put what you want your smilies to say in a speach bubble. This allows you to feel like you had a hand in making your own emoticons! Mike Perucci, the site owner, even has written a smiley tutorial of his own.

What do you think of these? What other sites do you think offer great emoticons?

Yep, it is true! I have put together some simple backgrounds you can use for Twitter. These are different from the other backgrounds I have put up in the past as they are full size at 1300×1500 pixels and should cover your entire background instead of tile.

Here are a few examples. The rest can be sen on the Twitter backgrounds page.

It is a new addition to the site since the new layout less than two weeks ago. Please remember to pass the word about them if you like them or think they would be a great resource for other Twitter users.

I have also decided to put on the Twitter Backgrounds page that I offer services to do custom twitter backgrounds since there are plenty of people who are on Twitter for business reasons. I am charging $10, which is pretty cheap. To inquire more about it you can use the contact form here at Blondish.

Well, as usual, I end up stumbling on something by chance and this time is was CrowdSpring.com. CrowdSpring is a site that gives freelancers a way to put their best work forward instead of bidding. How? Well, when you sign up and fill out your portfolio, you can go and browse the job postings. When you find one, click on the details of that job, and you can get right to work.

Instead of putting out a proposal in words, you are submitting your work for the buyer’s consideration. The best work chosen is the person that will be paid. Yes, it seems like a big contest, but how many times have you seen bids on other freelance sites get negative reviews because they could not keep their side of the deal. The great thing is that these places already paid and the money is kept in escrow by CrowdSpring, so if you are chosen, you will be paid.

Pretty cool, huh?

Projects that are posted can be for logo design, web design, general graphic design, and even print design. It is free to join.

Do you participate in any freelance websites? Have you tried CrowdSpring?