December 14, 2009 | Published by Chris |
Being a freelance designer requires you to wear many hats but there are certain hats you MUST wear in order to protect yourself, who you are, and your image as a designer.
1: Before you do anything, make a contract for you and your clients
No matter who it is for, even if its a friend of a friend, make a contract. Of course it’s a bit dramatic to throw a contract at your relative that wants a website or business card designed for their business, however if you do not know the client requesting your services, you need to have a contract. If you would like to use my contract as a template or an sample, you can download HERE. You can even use mine for yourself (just make sure to change the header or delete it so it doesn’t say my studio name on it).
Now I know as designers we don’t want to write a paper, let alone a legal document, however you spending that one weekend afternoon writing up a contract will last you forever. You only have to write one up once, and you can keep using that over and over with making small adjustments once a while to fit the project. It will be worth it in the long run for these reasons:
1) It protects you, the designer, from a client running off with your work. With this contract, you can take them to small claims court. Either way, it will put your client on a moral decision to run off with your work and disappear or be being summoned by a court to pay up (which would make them look bad.)
2) It protects the client and makes them feel safe to do business with you. It also reflects professionalism on your end. A designer who just jumps on a project without any communication of conduct screams “amateur”, and you don’t want that.
3) It helps you get paid. When they sign that contract, they have fully accepted in how the payment is going to be made. Currently I work at 10% deposit at the beginning of project, another 10% at the final cycle of revisions, and full payment at final content delivery. They have to follow this payment cycle when they sign that contract.
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Posted in art + design, designers resource 
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December 11, 2009 | Published by Kjell-Roger |
Imagine you’re sitting at a hilltop watching the ocean. Then suddenly you find yourself down by the shore enjoying yourself, chilling out. Simply taking life easy. Walking around with the warm sand under your feet. That’s what Tycho’s latest track Coastal Brake makes me feel.
Scott Hansen is the guy behind Tycho. And some might know him better under the name ISO50, wich is design alias. Scott Hansen isn’t only a musician, he’s a designer as well. And a damn good one at that. He makes all his music artwork himself, even most of the posters for different shows. Most of his work has that retro feel to it, but with the obvious modern day touch. Check out the Coastal Brake coverart:
Back to the new track. Tycho’s music is like made to listen to for inspiration, chilling out and when needing to “escape”. Now, this is just my humble opinion, but after a few listens in you’ll might start to agree with me. There’s a distinguished sound in Tycho’s music I have never found anywhere else. With Coastal Brake he continues with the well known Tycho-sound. The liquid arpeggios running throughout the song, the easy guitar strumming, the beats; it all matches perfectly. There is no error whatsoever in the track. The songs doesn’t exactly surprise, but there are something new throughout the song. Something untouchable that fits Tycho’s music so well.
Listen:
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Posted in art + design, music No Comments »
December 8, 2009 | Published by Kjell-Roger |
Years back, I believe it was somewhere around 98-99, when I first started droodling with my own websites and graphics I came across Chris and Dream Infinity. I was quite awestruck and he has, since then, been a big inspiration to me. Later on we got in touch, as he spent time frequently on communities on IRC and so on. So it’s an honour for me to be a new author on his blog.
My name is Kjell-Roger and I’m a multimedia designer, photographer and social media & music junkie from Norway. In the spirit of this blog I will be writing about just that. You can find my works and a inspirational blog on my site. In my blog I usually make a mixtape with some, hopefully, great music once a week. I will post these here as well for you all to enjoy!
A photo of mine
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November 29, 2009 | Published by Chris |
I usually post a load of materials once I update the site, but this time around I just been busy with so many other things it’s been difficult. Either way, I have long been working on new tutorials and those changes will be coming soon. Also I am sure many of you are wondering where web design tutorials are so just want to make it clear that those are coming too, and it’s not something that will take 3 years.
One controversial topic on the internet and any Photoshop user is the idea of using the program as a beauty modification program. Although there are many things done before final product towards models (especially towards females), it is important to highlight that I do not take practice in using Photoshop to make females look skinnier, or someone that they are not. I state this due to the fact that some of the tutorials that are coming soon are strongly based on how to apply virtual make up, dye hair, and add body tattoo’s using strictly Photoshop. Although this does “enhance” the models into a more attractive perspective, I don’t find this to be ethically wrong because everyone applies make up, dyes their hair and gets tattoo’s. What I find to be ethically disturbing are tutorials that cover how to change nose shapes, give models stronger jaw lines, or even as far as enhancing breasts using Photoshop.
This blog post over at Smashing Magazine is stirring quite a controversy among readers based on their list of tutorial round up. Although I don’t particularly agree to MANY of the tutorials listed on that site, I do find the hair dye tutorial to be exactly the same method that I have been using for a while now.
Tutorials that cover other subjects such as text effects and more are also coming soon. Thanks for the patience.
Posted in art + design, site news, tutorials, upcoming releases 3 Comments »
November 12, 2009 | Published by Chris |
Well this looks promising. Although I am not a big Disney fan, this movie looks like it’s going to be decent. The only problem is the trailer giving away practically most of the story in about 3 minutes. Boo to trailers. I am a big prince of persia fan in terms of the video game and this is getting me a bit excited for next summer. I am not sure if Jake Gyllenhal is the answer for the prince though.
Posted in film + movies No Comments »
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