How to keep you at the top of your game, making sure you’re cranking out top quality designs in the most efficient way!
Working from home is something we’ve written about a lot in the past on the Design Range – and I’d highly recommend checking out some of those older articles. But today I’m going to do you the favour of distilling all of that wondrous information and run through my top ten list of tips to […]
People are increasingly choosing to work from home due to the amplified flexibility of workplace conditions. Companies can enjoy greater time and cost efficiencies as this overcomes long commute times for employees who reside in rural or remote geographical locations. Working from home also allows for lower staff turnover, where people can work from home […]
If you work for a web design agency, your process is pretty much out of your hands. Your project runs through a project manager, gets assigned to you, and it’s your job to get everything written, approved, and set up. But what happens if you don’t have a clear copy process set up? How are […]
Have you ever been working on a project and thought, I could be doing this at home? Well, that’s probably because you can. For creative professionals especially, it can be beneficial to be able to work from a space that is designed to facilitate your creative process, like your own home. If you are a […]
Working as a graphic designer is a pretty awesome job, but it is a job that requires a lot of self-motivation and productivity. Most graphic designers work freelance, which means trying to please several clients and meet various deadlines at the same time. It can be difficult to focus and achieve the high productivity necessary […]
If you’re founding a startup, getting your small business off the ground, or working as a freelancer, you’re going to need office space. Unless you came into a large chunk of change, you’re probably not ready to rent a posh office in a major city. If you need to economize but you also need to […]
How many New Years resolutions have you abandoned? How many bad habits do you still have? In this article I want to tell you why this year I decided to ditch New Years resolutions all together, how I altered my approach to bad habits and how it has possibly been one of the most successful […]
If you’re a designer, you probably already know how important a great t shirt template or mockup can be for your client – and for you. Being able to display the awesome design that you’ve created in an appealing way is crucial for them to be able to sell their products. But have you ever thought […]
A reader of the Design Range called Jules Richards got in touch with me recently with a really straight up simple question that I (and I’m sure a lot of you) can related to. “I am creative but not commercial, I am good at production but not business… How can I survive?” How can I […]
I’m having a great work week right now. I’m snapping necks and cashing cheques. I’m getting shit done. We all love weeks like this, weeks where we’re so crazy productive, where we manage to tick off whole projects ahead of time, where we naturally wake up early and dive straight back into the mix every day […]
Working in the design industry you’ll be no stranger to deadlines and you’ll have, no doubt, ran afoul of one or two over the years. It’s a familiar experience to us all: Getting near to the end of a working day with a sizeable chunk of an important brief still to be finished; it’s enough […]
Professionals in the creative industries, by and large, like a challenge. We see something that inspires us and we want to play with it, test it out, break it and remake it again. We like new things. It’s not uncommon for people in our line of work to learn a whole host of skills (full […]
As I’m sure many of you do, I harbour a love for computer games – particularly RPGs – that moment when you level up and watch the golden sparks fly is addictive. Perhaps I’m revealing too much of the geek in me, but seeing those numbers next to my various skills tick up is just… moreish. Often […]
So anyone who read my article on tips for working from home will know that one of the things I struggle with is getting started, or rather getting up. I’m not a morning guy, I’ve tried it and it ain’t me. On the rare occasion I manage to drag myself to my computer at a […]
Last week I posted an article about the absolute disaster I made of working from home when I first started freelancing and went over some of the reasons why I’ve recently packed in my office to try it again. Thankfully this time round has gone much much smoother, but it’s not been a roll of […]
When I first started out as a graphic designer many moons ago I did my first few jobs from my bedroom. At the time I was living in Manchester city centre and had a rather nice apartment, I miss that apartment, it had a balcony and everything. However working from there was anything but ideal. […]
Sometimes as a consumer who is in the market for a particular product or service, you can easily see that there’s a market leader in whichever field you’re searching. It’s virtually impossible to think of an instance where this position isn’t deserved, since market leaders are leaders for a reason, namely innovative product design and […]
Gradients offer a way of jazzing up everything from website backgrounds, form buttons, DIVs and more. Whether it’s a real estate website, e-commerce site or even a personal blog, the CSS aspect of your theme greatly affects the user experience. But not everyone has the time or desire to hand-code the CSS that is necessary […]
As a web developer/designer it’s important to work with as little overheads as possible, especially if you are a freelancer. Saving money on software and tools is a great place to start since the internet is full of useful tools and resources for just about anything! There’s only one problem: many online tools only offer […]
Sometimes it can feel as though there aren’t enough hours in the day to get done what you need to. When you’re a busy person, every minute of your time is essential and needs to be harnessed so you can use it in the most productive way possible. For some, managing time simply doesn’t come second nature, and for […]
I‘m not sure where I stand when it comes to the ‘born’ argument. It’s a phrase that’s thrown off the cuff a little too easily for my liking; “they’re a born athlete/leader/artist ect…”. I know that I certainly don’t like the idea of it. I remember reading ‘Crush It’ by Gary Vaynerchuck for the first […]
The services of a professional printing company can prove highly useful when you need to complete a large or complex project, such as creating a banner or mass producing a brochure. But not all printing companies are created equal, and if you want to ensure the maximum value for your hard-earned dollar, you must do […]
So we’re hitting that mid point in January now where we pause for a second and look back to see how we’re doing with the myriad of new life changing resolutions we resolved to follow a few weeks prior. If you’re anything like me you’re probably starting to realise that maybe you took on a […]
Every time I edit a photoshoot, I begin with the “yes/maybe/no” process. It’s the process of sifting the wheat from the chaff, of tagging the gem photos and disposing of the rejects. And I notice that whenever I see a reject, I have a temptation to blame someone (or something) else for it. When a […]
Tax is like an Doberman. Daunting and a bit scary if you don’t really understand how to deal with it, but once you get over the basics, it’s pretty tame. I had a phone call today from a friend of mine who’s recently become self employed asking for a spot of advice about his taxes. He […]
When you get to work in the morning, whether it be in a nice office somewhere, that little coffee shop down the street or simply in your spare room, what’s the very first thing you do? Grab a coffee? Yeah, me too, but after that what do you do? I know one of the first […]
Whilst I was recently redecorating the Hunting Town offices I spent a bit (ok, a lot) of time trawling through sites like Flickr and Pinterest to see what other design offices looked like. To me, a design studio needs to balance on that fine line between fun and professional, veer too much to either side and clients […]
Thinking back to when my family bought their very first PC I always remember the salesman blowing my dad away with the fact that this machine had over 40GB of space on the hard drive and that we would “never be able to fill it”. Today, my phone has 64GB and I’m still having to […]
As a designer, you’re workspace, whether it be in an office, your spare room or just on the couch is an important place. It’s not an important place, like the place you asked your wife to marry you is an important place, or like the place you learned to ride a bike as a child […]
Ok, first of all I apologise, as this article title may have been a little misleading. You see I’m not talking about the kind of procrastination where you stare into space for an hour wondering how does the Iron Man suit fire it’s repulsor rays without any buttons to press? (-click to tweet this) Nor am I talking about the kind […]
