I just finished designing some postcards to promote my design company, Epik Creative. I’m going to get them printed and mail them out, but I thought I would extend the postcard offer of 10% off your first project to readers of my blog. If you know of anyone else who needs graphic or web design and could benefit, please feel free to share!
Download the postcard: epik_creative_discount_postcard.pdf (428 KB)
Love it or hate it, the “Web 2.0″ look is everywhere these days, and if you are in the design or web line of work, you may find yourself wanting to (or having no choice to) create them at some point. I’ve collected a few tutorials that I think are worthwhile and fairly quick and easy on making Web 2.0-style buttons and shapes. I tried to stay away from Illustrator ones that inlcude a lot of transparencies – they gum up your file and can make it a nightmare to work with. So, without further ado:
Quick and easy with a nice result that can easily have other graphics added to the button area.
Another simple Illustrator tutorial, this time for rectangular buttons or shapes.
A similar effect as the above tutorial, but with a slightly different look, and this time for Photoshop.
A slightly more complex tutorial for Photoshop, but with a great result.
A really quick-to-make square button for Photoshop.
Hope these are useful to you!
Lately I’ve been spending a little too much time on the (fairly) newly launched Crowdspring.com. The site allows people to post creative projects, requesting designs and concepts for everything from logos to photography to entire websites. Hopeful designers can then submit their designs in hopes of coming out the “winner” and getting some cash. Basically what the site comes down to is asking designers to “design on spec” or essentially work for free with no guarantee of getting paid. This is something that most self-respecting designers stay away from. I’ve applied for a couple of different jobs that requested that the prospective employee submit a design with their application based on some specific criteria. As soon as I see anything like this in the job description, I drop it like it’s hot. For one, I’m being asked to take up a large amount of my time to create something that will just “hopefully” meet the employers expectations and get me an interview. I’m a professional and my time is very valuable to me. Secondly, I’ve already submitted what I think is a pretty stellar portfolio full of many years worth of design work for the employer to peruse. Imagine this: you want to hire a carpenter to build you a house, but you first ask him to build you a garage to see if he’s good enough – even though he already has plenty of great recommendations and you’ve seen all the fantastic houses he’s built in the past. Is he going to do it? No. He’s going to tell you, probably in much more colourful language, to take a walk.
So if I’m so against designing on spec, why have I been spending so much time on Crowdspring.com that asks designers to do just that? One thing that got me to take a closer look is the simplicity of the site’s design. “Buyers”, or people who are posting projects, have to deposit the money they will pay the winning designer before the project is posted. They also must agree to choose a winner after the project’s time expires – so there’s no room for the buyer to back out. The designer who wins is guaranteed to get their money. The site is easy to navigate and has an attractive Web 2.0-ish look. But the main thing that got me interested was the fact that a lot of the designs submitted were really terrible, and I’m speaking from a completely objective point of view. A lot of the logos submitted were sloppy and unclear in their message, and I got tempted. What would it hurt to whip up a few logos? The money paid to winning designers is fairly decent (the average payout is around $250-$300). If I spent 30 minutes on a logo and actually won, that would be some easy money! So I admit it, I did submit some logos to a few different projects. And I was CONVINCED that I would win. I even wrote nice succint little creative briefs to accompany each submission. My logos were strong, simple, and sophisticated. I waited for money to roll in…and waited…and I’m still waiting. Nope I haven’t been picked yet. And I’m pretty much done with Crowdspring.com.
And no, I’m truly not writing it off because my designs didn’t get chosen. If anything, that fact made me even more eager to try to step it up and best the competition. But at this point, I’ve probably spent a good three hours total working for absolutely nothing – and so have the other 95% of people who submit designs to the site and don’t get picked.
There’s something wrong here. Part of being a designer is having the ability to work with your client and come up with something that truly fits their needs. We don’t just make pictures, we solve problems and help our clients see what will work best for them. Just because a client likes blue and orange stripes or rabbits, it doesn’t mean that their logo should be a rabbit with bright blue-and-orange racing stripes. An essential step to creating a good logo (or any piece of design), is sitting down with the client and explaining why we did what we did any why the racing stripes don’t communicate what their business is about in the best possible way.
So is Crowdspring.com a good thing in any way for buyers or designers? From what I’ve seen on several of the site’s projects, designers have posted a logo, the buyer has commented back on it requesting a different, image/colour, etc, and the designer changes it to suit what the buyer wants. It sounds good in theory, but since it makes sense that the designer just wants to “win” and get the money, they’re not likely to stop and say “wait…I don’t think that this image really represents the brand – I’m going to explain that to the buyer and suggest we use something else”. The site’s process cheapens the value of really good design and eliminates a large part of the designer’s skills – the essential need for communication and compromise. By the same token, the buyer doesn’t necessarily get the best logo for their business. Even though in their opinion they may have chosen the best possible option, they’ve missed out on a large part of what a good designer can do – not just drawing a picture, but creating a powerful and clear piece of visual communication.
Crowdspring (and other crowdsourcing sites like it) is radidly becoming a phenomenon – it’s been nominated for WiredBiz’s small business program contest and has a radidly growing number of members. At first glance it seems like a great idea – especially for the buyers who get to choose from a wide variety of design concepts. There’s the possibility that if you’re a designer and your concept gets chosen, you’ll have further opportunities to work with that buyer in the future. If you get first place in a few projects, you’ve got a little extra cash in your pocket.
So I guess what it really comes down to is what you want as a buyer or designer. If you’re a designer and you want to spend time doing work without any guarantee you’ll get something back, that’s entirely up to you. If you’re a buyer and want a broad range of options to choose from and the ability to fine-tune designs without much objection from the designer, that’s also your choice. All I suggest is that you think about all your options before you use this site. Buyers, spend some time online looking at designer’s portfolios and see the work they’ve already done. There’s some amazing talent out there and designers who will work with you to create something that’s perfect based on what your business really stands for, not just how you think the logo should look. And designers, remember the example of the carpenter…do you really want to build the garage for free?
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