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Recent Responses
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I previously used Freshbooks, although I never made the most of all its features. The ability to quickly create and send out invoices was all I really needed.
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That's right, it's always arranged over email. Often the people I correspond with behind the companies are people I've come to know previously through my blogging.
At the cost of one of their products these companies benefit from backlinks from a fairly popular site, as well as the little feature of the product in the blog post that helps spread the word. -
I have a document preset at a width of 1680px, with the 960px centre outlined. I like this wider size to be able to see visually how the site would look on a typical widescreen monitor resolution.
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I'm afraid as far as I know the method you've already mentioned is the only way to go.
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It's annoying when similar tools work differently between Illustrator and Photoshop. The Pen tool is another one! I don't have any tutorials personally but check out this tutorial from Creative Curio - http://creativecurio.com/2008/09/illustrator-gradients-simplified/
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You should be able to scale your icons with no problem in Illustrator. Being a vector app it allows the designs to be created at any size rather than being based on pixels. Once it's resized you'll then need to export raster images at the various sizes
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There's all kinds of design jobs available. I've landed some really interesting projects from my tutorials, where clients have emailed for character designs, skateboard deck designs, t-shirts and apparel designs and product labels. If you're familiar with the print side of design it opens you up to a whole world of potential design projects.
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I'm afraid this is a style I'd have to do lots more research on to be able to really help out. I quickly Googled for that Ivy League style but it's not something I'm familiar with.
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Creating a personal portfolio is always tough, by the time you've finished it you'll no doubt want to tear it down and start again. The best approach is usually to base your design decisions on proven stats or techniques rather than going too much on your personal preference.
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Designing for yourself is always hard. There's two approaches really. First you could go with your favourite 'trend' or style and simply keep refreshing it as times goes on, or you can pick out a style that's pretty timeless that you would be happy to stick with for years to come.
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My next purchase is probably going to be a Blue Snowball mic, but otherwise I'm happy with my tech setup. If I won the lottery I'd upgrade my MacBook and iPhone as they're both well out of date now, but they still do their job with no issues.
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A good place to start is the WordPress Codex to get to grips with what each tag does and how it is used. You might also find my WordPress theme tutorials on Line25 handy to see how I build a theme from a static HTML/CSS concept.
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Most of the plugins I have in place are for behind-the-scenes performance. This post lists the large majority of them: http://line25.com/articles/post-install-plugins-to-enhance-protect-wordpress
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I love my Apple keyboard and I use a Wacom mouse/pen tablet. I can't see much else on my desk that I use on a daily basis!
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The key is to post out content that will help people learn. This type of content will naturally become popular and generate its own traffic. This is the main ingredient I've tried to include in all my sites on the web, even down to my Call of Duty gaming videos.
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Visual effects are nice, but it's the core design principles that really make a good website design stand out. Working with grids to balance the page, giving elements enough space and taking the time to perfect your typography are all important factors to consider before slapping on the gradients and shadows.
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Not at all, that's pretty much my skillset too. Anything that requires any advanced programming it would be wise to pass on to a Developer who specialises in that kind of thing. I don't think there are many who are awesome designers, front-end coders AND back-end coding gurus.
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I always enjoy meeting up with people at design conferences. Let me know if you're heading to any future events in the UK
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It sounds like you're using a fairly old browser as most current version have a zoom feature where it actually zooms in as opposed to making the text larger (which can break layouts if the coding doesn't cater for it).
I wouldn't worry about it too much considering most browsers now actually zoom the page. If you're wanting to fix it for yourself, consider upgrading.
What browser and version do you use out of interest?
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Chris Spooner’s Bio
Sheffield
I'm a creative Designer, avid Blogger and I'm generally crazy about pretty colours and shapes.
