http://writetodone.com/2010/07/05/a-secret-black-belt-technique-for-writing-knock-out-posts/
This post suggests that you write, just to get words on the page, then go back and later and run a second pass on it, making sure that grammar is correct, make it more formal, make it flow. —I actually used this approach when I was writing papers in college. I would get so frustrated because I would try and do all those steps at once. I had a lot of success in writing in passes.
http://designshack.co.uk/articles/graphics/the-designers-guide-to-taking-better-photos
As you know, I recently bought some new camera equipment. And I’ve been trying to post a photo every day. I enjoyed reading this post because I am a design and I want to take better photos.
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/resources/t-shirts-designing-tutorials/
I’m getting ready to design some Tshirts, so I enjoyed looking at some of the examples listed here.
http://designm.ag/freelance/long-haul/
This is a good list of items when you’re building up your freelance business, such as:
It also talks about contracts. I just wrote a post about writing creative briefs and contracts. But, this post also suggests creativepublic.com which is a membership site that provides legal forms and pricing guides for the creative industry.
http://line25.com/inspiration/line25-sites-of-the-week-for-july-30th-2010
Here are Chris Spooner’s sites of the week. New Adventures in Web Design and Time for Change are particularly beautiful.
I took this picture with my wide angle lens. I love the almost green color the sky takes on and how yellow / peach the clouds look.
Earlier, this week, I wrote a post about when I meet a freelance client. I had more traffic go to that post than any other post that I’ve ever written! (YEAH!) So, thank you to all the people that visited the site and read the post and / or bookmarked it for later.
In that same vain, I thought I’d talk about the next step in the process: sealing the deal.
Once I hand a creative brief to the client, I give them a way out. They can either accept or reject my proposal. No hard feelings. Disappointment, maybe, but no hard feelings. If they agree to move forward, I write a contract.
I know there are some companies that might have the client literally sign off on the creative brief, which is probably a good idea, but the Creative Brief still misses things—It doesn’t say what happens if they want out. It doesn’t say what will happen if you want out. Or what happens if one of you dies? (morbid, I know.)
Last year, for Christmas, my parents gave me a book called Put it in Writing. It’s all about (you guessed it) putting stuff in writing. Before you fire your lawyer and replace them with this book, know that it’s an elementary contract writing book. In fact, most of it is for personal contracts – roommate agreements, loaning money to a friend, taking care of elderly parent, etc. But, I like it because I can understand it. The last contract that I wrote, I used the last form in the book, a blank contract for any arrangement. I can’t include the form here (copyright shout out…again!) But, I will tell you the basic elements it included:
Make sure you get a signed copy for you and a signed copy for the other person.
Also, when the agreement is over, you both sign the contract again, signaling that the agreement is over. (I thought this was brilliant!)
Check out the book. It has more details about what you need to make sure you include, plus the forms are fantastic for other common day arrangements, not just business related.
Yes, a lot of the information from the Creative Brief carries over: payment, schedule, meeting deadlines. It is a lot of copy and paste, but I like it because it is more formal.
