Rookie Designer

Rookie Designer 125 - Moving Beyond ‘Rookie’

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:43:32 +0000

Being a Rookie is never an easy task, but it happens to the best of us, whether we’re talking about designers or athletes. In this episode I’ll attempt to lend an article written by an NFL football player for rookie football players, to the industry of design. Along the way we’ll discuss tips for (hopefully) avoiding those mistakes that make us look even more like Rookies.

Links from the show:

Advice for rookies on adjusting to life in the National Football League

In the Bullpen:

Logo Lounge

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Rookie Designer 124 - Freelance Tips, Design for Change and Negotiating for Your REAL Dream Job

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 21:31:31 +0000

Do you design with the future in mind? When building websites, it may benefit you to do so. Adaptability can go a long way in this day and age where new trends and technology are ever changing. We’ll explore this topic as well as the subject of negotiating for your REAL dream job, meaning that you are also getting your dream pay and dream benefits along with it. Finally we wrap up with a nice list of tips for those who are venturing out on their own in the world of freelance design.

Links from the show:

Dinosaur Design vs. Cockroach Design
Is Your Dream Job Really a Dream Job If It Doesn’t Get You Your Dream Pay? (free webinar link)
Self-employment advice for designers

In the Bullpen:

Graphic Design Professionals (on LinkedIn)

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Rookie Designer 123 - Preparing for Emergencies and Buying Equipment

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:43:53 +0000

In this episode we’ll take a look at how you can improve customer relations by planning ahead for emergency situations and I’ll field a couple of topics posed by listeners about how, what, and when to buy equipment for your freelance design needs.

Links from the show:

Rookie Designer on Facebook

In the Bullpen:

Journey Ed

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Rookie Designer 122 - Portfolios, When to Jump to Full Time Freelance and more

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:46:19 +0000

We’ll discuss a couple of questions sent in by our listeners dealing with the topics of what to put in your portfolio and what NOT to put in there, when is the right time to make the jump into freelance as a full-time position and some other red flags to watch out for in freelance.

Links from the show:

10 Absolute “Nos!” for Freelancers (Creative Bits)
Rookie Designer on Facebook

In the Bullpen:

Clients From Hell

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Rookie Designer 121 - Content Strategy, Keeping your Portfolio Diverse & Dealing with Clients in Another Country

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:54:38 +0000

In this episode we’re hitting the mailbag and covering some topics sent in by our listeners. Topics will include coming up with a strategy for delivering content that your target audience can consume and use, keeping your portfolio diverse and keeping your creativity at a high level, even when things get stagnant at your job, and also dealing with payments when you are in a different country than your freelance client.

Links from the show:

Rookie Designer on Facebook
Rookie Designer on Twitter

In the Bullpen:

Web and Designers

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Rookie Designer 120 - Senior vs Junior

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:03:55 +0000

In this episode we’ll cover a topic sent in by a listener who is having a problem at the workplace. What is the role of a junior designer as opposed to a senior designer? Who is supposed to know what, and is the senior supposed to be a sort of mentor for the junior? We’ll discuss these questions and more.

Links from the show:

Rookie Designer forum

In the Bullpen:

Core 77

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Rookie Designer 119 - Voice Your Opinion

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:58:18 +0000

This episode is a bit of a “Part 2″ to the last time I spoke about not being afraid to voice your opinions when it comes to design solutions. We will cover this again, bringing in some new factors and guidelines to make your comments as effective as possible.

Links from the show:

When Bad Things Happen to Good Content Management Systems

In the Bullpen:

Desizn Tech

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Rookie Designer 118 - Content Management Systems

admin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:30:32 +0000

In this episode I will share some of my knowledge of Content Management Systems including WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. We will focus on the definition and purpose of CMS tools, as well as how they can be very useful in helping you design for your own business as well as others.

Links from the show:

WordPress
Joomla
Drupal
Dreamhost (my web hosting service)
Lynda.com

In the Bullpen:

The Pro Designer
The Pro Designer on Twitter

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Rookie Designer 117 - Is Part Time Freelancing a Business

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:11:01 +0000

Again our topic comes from one of the listeners and the question is this: “Do you HAVE to own or run a business to freelance? What if you just do a few projects every now and then, as a side thing apart from your full time job?.” We’ll talk to several different subjects as related to the “casual” or “part-time” freelancer, and what needs to still be covered, even if freelancing is not your primary job.

Links from the show:

Rookie Designer Podcast on Facebook

In the Bullpen:

Work Awesome

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Rookie Designer 116 - Freelance Payment Options & Intense Audience Research

admin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:47:57 +0000

A question from one of our listeners sparks a conversation on accepting cash as payment for freelance work. We also take an in-depth look at research techniques for learning more about how customers/audience members use an application.

Links from the show:

Google Analytics

In the Bullpen:

Photoshop Preset Viewer
Brush Pilot

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Rookie Designer 115 - Internship Problems?

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:31:04 +0000

Have you thought about an internship to finish out your educational career? Do you know some of the challenges that you might be faced with in an internship? We’ll take a look at these topics as I answer some internship questions from one of our audience members.

Book Review:

Building Design Strategy:
Using Design to Achieve Key Business Objectives

A very good book for those learning how to integrate the “business key objectives” side of the equation into their design process and strategy. Great reading material for the intermediate to advanced design professional with thorough investigation via case studies of specific design solutions and implementation. Click on the book to pick it up at Amazon.

Links from the show:

In the Bullpen:

Six Revisions

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Rookie Designer 114 - Research and Planning

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:32:48 +0000

More life (and career) lessons from my work experience to you! We’ll discuss the lack of research and how it can foil your designs before they even get started, and some of the important information that you definitely want to pick up before you even start a project. We will also dive into the core values of Scrum and how those directly relate to a workflow that can help any designer to end up with the design result they are looking for. We’ll also touch on client relations and a state of mind that can help you relate to your clients and understand better what their goals are.

Links from the show:

boagworld
Paul Boag - Getting your clients to say YES (3rd video down)

In the Bullpen:

I Love Typography

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Rookie Designer 113 - What To Do With Your “Free” Time

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:07:31 +0000

Its 12 o’clock and you break out the sack lunch, but you still feel the need to be productive with your hour away from work. Are there things you can do to further your career in design? Of course, but what can be done in an hour to bolster your skills and design savvy?! In this episode we’ll take a look at some of the things you can do with your “free” (and i use that term loosely) time to help you bone up on your application skills and possibly get a leg-up on the thousands of other designers out there.

Links from the show:

Lynda.com
Layers Magazine
NAPP
O’REILLY

In the Bullpen:

Creattica

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Rookie Designer 112 - Should You Hire a Salesman?

admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:15:20 +0000

Possibly the most difficult part of moving from the “safe confines” of a full-time job into a freelance situation is the ability to keep clients and projects coming in. The logical answer… hire someone who excels at selling to come in and do it for you. A sales person on your team would mean more time for you to do what you do best, design, and less headaches related to obtaining and maintaining clients… right? It sounds great in theory, but I’ll use this episode to explain why I think it might not be such a match made in heaven.

Links from the show:

Outlaw Design Blog

In the Bullpen:

Just Creative Design: 99 Sites ALL Designers Must Know About

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Rookie Designer 111 - Organizing Folder Madness and Flash Grows Up

admin — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:49:29 +0000

Will the REAL episode 111 please show yourself… sorry for the slip up to those of you who were expecting a new episode, only to find yourself listening to 110 for a second time. Here is the real deal!

Social media is a movement that has been building for sometime and now appears at every corner, in your personal life and in business. There is no escaping the technology as it is being utilized by companies to steer marketing campaigns for everything from music to household products you use every day. The good news… you now have a voice and a forum in which to express your opinions. The bad news… everyone is listening, whether you want them to or not. We’ll discuss some of the ramifications of social media on the design field and how it may be affecting you.

Links from the show:

Vans.com
Adobe Air
FaceDesk

In the Bullpen:

JobPile

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Rookie Designer 110 - Social Media and Business

admin — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:56:41 +0000

Links from the show:

Twitter
Myspace
Facebook
LinkedIn
LastFM

In the Bullpen:

Creative Photoshop Brushes

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Rookie Designer 109 - A Better Quality of Freelance Client

admin — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:33:36 +0000

When you start putting yourself out there and share your talents on a freelance basis, your going to come to understand what many before you have already… its HARD to find high quality clients. Its relatively easy to find clients who want you to work for next to nothing, get the work done yesterday and don’t appreciate the quality of your work, but this is not what we want. In this episode we’ll talk about some ways to make your journey into freelancing more successful and hopefully end up with clients that are willing to pay what your high quality of work is worth.

Links from the show:

Freelance Switch
John Nack on Adobe

In the Bullpen:

Web Designer Depot

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Rookie Designer 108 - Speaking at SDSU and Speaking in Public

admin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:42:13 +0000

There was some good and some bad about my speaking engagement at San Diego State U, but all in all I think it was a good idea for me NOT to record it (haha). No, instead I’ll just be recounting some of the highlights of the evening, and sharing some of the questions that came from the audience. Presenting in front of groups is also something I’ll touch on in light of the fact that I think I too need more work in that area.

Links from the show:

Lynda.com

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Rookie Designer 107 - Design Theory and Rejuvenation Through School

admin — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:16:56 +0000

When you’re in design school, a lot of theories, rules and patterns are being thrown your way, and it doesn’t always make a lot of sense at the time. Is there really a point to all this reading material? Will it somehow impact your career in a meaningful way? We’ll try to make some sense of it all - AND - if you hit a creative roadblock, or find yourself unmotivated at work, have you ever thought of going back to school or just taking a class to pull you out of your funk. It may be more effective than you think.

In the Bullpen:

Artician

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Rookie Designer 106 - Tax Time Again & Are You Prepared for Unemployment?

admin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:16:52 +0000

Its that annoying time of the year again, when the state and fed government ask us to tidy up their tax bookkeeping. We’ll cover a few things you may be able to write off as a freelancer that you didn’t know about. Also, living in this unsure economic time can leave us with questions about our job security. Don’t be left out in the cold without a job and even worse without a plan. We’ll look at a few tips to be ready for that depressing day, should it come.

Links from the show:

10 Tax Deductions Freelancers Can Make - Freelance Switch
Prepare To Get Laid Off - graphicPUSH

In the Bullpen:

Freelance Radio (Podcast)

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