Beginners Design Tips

Beginners Design Tip #2: Use Google Products

by Lisa Casson on August 12, 2010

Aah Google, she is an old friend of mine and we go waaay back. I’m not even jealous that my husband is her slave – She has even saved me from disaster on a couple of occassions! Most people only use Google to either search the World Wide Web, or they use Gmail and Gtalk, but Google offers SO much more FREE products that can help designers, or almsot any business.

1. Gmail

I don’t just own an @gmail email address, nor do I actually really use it. I actually use Google as a backup to my professional mailboxes. Google has a lovely option under ‘Settings’ for adding your POP/IMAP mailboxes. Like most mail programs, you just need your email details and voila, in comes your mail. Now I still use my main mailbox on my Mac, but Google is recieving my mail as well. It doesn’t automatically download attachments when you log into Gmail, so you can relax about your bandwidth and downloading multiple huge emails. Now if one day my main mailbox decides to explode and I loose everything, I have an entire backup in Gmail. To date, I have mails from 2007 and I am only using 7% of Google’s limit. Lovely.

2. Google Docs

Google Docs are probably my second most used Google product. For designers who really can’t pay for Microsoft Office just to open a client’s text for their website, Google Docs really rocks. It is compatible with ALL formats from Office (.docx, .xlsx and even .ppt) as well as others, such as PDFs and JPEGs. Better still, once you open documents in Google Docs, it stores a copy online.

I also use some templates from Google Docs to manage my budgets, create invoices and quotes, among a hundred other things. Again, the best thing about it is everything is stored online. No need to stress about lost documents when your precious PC kicks the bucket.

3. Google Calendar

Another great online tool from Google Products. I store all my important dates, meetings and reminders in Google Calendar. Again, everything is stored online and is safe. My calendar can be private or public, it can be incorporated into a hundred apps, including iPhone and Blackberry, and it can email you reminders.

The best thing about all these Google Products is, because they’re online, they can be accessed from anywhere that has an Internet connection. I can check my mail and calendar from anywhere in the world, without my computer. I can resend invoices urgently from my phone and update meetings at the push of a button.

There are tons of Google Products out there in addition to my above mentioned favourites. I’d love to hear what else you use and how Google Products help your productivity.

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Beginners Design Tip #1: No Job is too Small

by Lisa Casson on October 18, 2009

The most important thing I have learnt from being a junior designer is no job is too small… When I was just starting to do work in the ‘real world’, I worked on many projects, big and small, for free. I did odd logos and websites for friends and family and took on several charity projects. I was also busy doing an internship at a small web design company where I mainly did maintenance on existing websites (such as updating copy, details or adding pages). At this stage, my designs were amateur and my web knowledge was very limited. I had not yet finished studying graphic design, although I was in my last year.

Basic Brochure Website Design  One of the first websites I created free for a horse riding school

Because I was doing an internship and didn’t really possess the skills to do more than maintenance, I didn’t get to do many designs. However, even doing the maintenance taught me how the programs associated with web worked, such as FTP programs (FileZilla) and code editors (Dreamweaver). I was also working in and around experienced web designers and developers, who were very helpful (and patient) with all my questions. I did get discouraged a lot because even with these small maintenance jobs, I was making mistakes. I didn’t check my work properly and I didn’t have that ‘instinct’ to see errors. It was really tough and I often thought I’d never be able to design decently or make it in my industry.

As the internship continued and I did more odd print and web jobs for friends and family, the quality of my work increased. I was becoming more ‘fluent’ in the programs I used and this helped me work faster, even though I was still making mistakes. Because the speed of my work was increasing, I was finishing all the little jobs faster and was constantly asking for new work. Eventually, the design company gave me an actual website to design, because I had the time and they thought they’d give me a shot at it. Their main web designer was doing the design anyway, so I think they thought if it sucked, there was no loss in trying. They landed up sending both our designs off to the client and mine was chosen in the end. I’m not saying I was a better designer at all, I was just lucky to have done the right look the client wanted. This was the first of many websites I did at the internship and I got better and better with every job. Here are some of the web designs I did at my internship. You can see from here how my work gradually got better:

At the same time as my internship, I worked on various jobs for friends and family. I redid my dad’s website about 3 times and here’s where I experimented the most (I look back now and I can’t believe my dad let me do that to his professional website!). I was also doing a free website for a horse riding school (in exchange for some free horse trail rides) as well as charity work for a client in the UK. As the quality of my work increased and I worked on bigger and better projects, these free / small jobs started to look insignificant and I didn’t want to waste my time on them anymore. I look back now, and although the quality of my work was better, I was being a little arrogant and still had a lot to learn. I stayed with these small jobs and continued doing free work here and there, while working on bigger projects as well. Today, both the UK client and the client from the horse riding business are paying clients. They were so impressed with my work and attitude during the small jobs I did for them, that when they had bigger ventures with a budget, I was the person they brought it to.

Although I still do free work for my family (because they are family), the experienced I gained in my early days is priceless. I got the opportunity to do work I didn’t get at my internship for many months, and by the time my company did give me ‘bigger’ jobs to do, I was actually prepared for it. I used the knowledge I gained from my internship to do my first, successful portfolio website, Nizzleworkz, and this ultimately got me my current job as a junior web designer. I was now not only equipped with good design skills and good HTML practices, I was also fast and less prone to error. I am still learning new things with every project, but I know I am well on my way to being Senior Designer someday.

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