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After the first update came out, I was more confident in upgrading, so I bought the software from the Apple Canada store and got it delivered within a week (which is fast for rural living). Since I had quite a few projects lined up, the DVD stayed in the box for about a week, but tonight I did it. I upgraded to Snow Leopard, and Apple reassured me again, why I made the right choice to switch to Mac. A painless upgrade without having to answer tonnes of questions or formatting hard drives. Just pop the DVD in, hit install, accept the license agreement and wait.

Ok, it didn’t go flawless. After about half an hour of installation, OSX spit out the DVD, rebooted and it was right back to where I started: 10.5.8. After reading the installation guide (RTFM *hum*) I found out you should unhook all external drives. I had my Time machine backup drive left on, which interfered with the installation.

Without that glitch, the installation took about an hour, including the first update. So I’m running 10.6.1 right now, and so far, everything seems to run faster, but that might very well be wishful thinking and a mind-game.

Happy Camper

Recently I had a conversation with a young designer who told me something like “When my client approves my design, I’m happy, even when I know it can be better”. This inspired me to write this post, because I think he’s wrong.

The client

Usually, clients hire you, because they can’t design their own website. This can be for many reasons like, no interest in computers, not having an internet connection (trust me, it happens), they lack creativity or they simply don’t want to learn. They come to you, because you’re an expert in your field, or at least, that’s what you made them think, ’cause why else would they choose you over someone else? Anyway, they chose you, because they trust you doing a better job than they could.
A happy client is someone who likes what you create for him, but better yet, likes the results, like having customers that tell him “I found your place through your website”.
The other category is the client that was being pushed into getting a website by others, but doesn’t really want one, because it’s costing him money. This is the client that’s likely to tell you “yes” to whatever you design for him.

Both these categories are valuable clients!

Show others

9 Out of 10 times I run my designs through other designers to make sure I didn’t miss crucial design elements. When another designer tells me something is wrong, or there’s something that could be better, I change it, even if my client approved the design already. Of course, I show the revision as well, making sure he still likes it, but a designer’s opinion is worth at least as much, if not more than the client’s.

Why, you ask? Simple: clients don’t see the difference between 10% opacity or 15%. They don’t notice the 1px width-difference. If their site generally looks alright, they’ll be fine with it. Now, again: why is designer-feedback so important? Because it makes yourself grow as a designer, it makes you more of a professional, and your next designs will look better because of the feedback you get from your colleagues. It also makes you more credible as a designer. When you put the site in your portfolio that’s “meh..” because one client thinks “it’s good enough”, other clients may notice the flaw(s) in the design and will not hire you because of it.

Paul Boag mentioned one time: “It’s simple to ask the client for his opinion, but that’s irrelevant. You should ask what his target audience will think of the design”.

Like Andrew Locke says: “Marketing is everything, and everything is marketing”, and that is so true. People can’t tell you’re a great guy to work with from looking at your portfolio. You have to impress them first. Once you’ve achieved that, Mr. Nice guy kicks in.

Let me know how you handle critique from clients and other designers. Do you show your designs to others, beside your client?

1 ) Get a decent business name

Your nickname will not cut it 90% of the time. How would I pick up the phone when “deluzione” is my business name? Potential clients will think I’m a mobster and I can be hired to design their website, or put a horse’s head in their ex’s bed.

The best business names are an actual word or name. Poppen Design (my business), GatorWorks or Point2 Technologies are decent names if you ask me.

It helps if the domain name is available, so keep that in mind as well.

2 ) Hire a book keeper

These people might not be cheap, but they save you a lot of headaches. You can do a lot of finance by yourself. A great invoicing tool is Lessaccounting. It covers proposals, invoices, you can connect your bank account and you can create reports on pretty much anything. You can invite your book keeper to look around in your account, so he or she can do your taxes for you.
It’s also a great tool to find out if you have budget for advertising, or if you can afford a new car.

3 ) Design a solid portfolio

When clients approach you, they’ll want to see a portfolio, so you’ll have to make an impression.

Again the question: Where to start?

• Inspiration: If you don’t have anything in your head yet, visit portfolio sites from other designers. It gives you an idea of what portfolio’s mainly look like, look for things you like, and don’t like, and apply it on your own portfolio. Great examples can be found on CSSMania, CSS Website, CSSLeak etc.
• Some examples of great portfolios:
  iDesign Studios
  Mayhem Studios
  CF Designz
  Chris Powell
  Chris Peters
  Linda Chadbourne
  More here (Velvet Ant blog)
  Even more (Webdesigner wall)
  (Bonus tip: Follow @designfeed on Twitter to get updates on some sweet design inspiration)
• Color scheme: Check out sites like Adobe Kuler and Colourlovers to download color palettes for Photoshop (or whatever you’re designing in). Pick a few colors, and STICK WITH IT.
• Check with others: Once you mocked up a design, don’t go coding just yet. I saves a lot of work if you run it by a bunch of experts first. Don’t be afraid of critique from these guys. They want you to grow.

4 ) Fail…

Wait, what…!? Yes. Failing is after teaching the best method of learning.

“The moment you let avoiding failure become your motivator, you’re down the path of inactivity. You can only stumble if you’re moving. If you don’t have a few failures, you’re not taking enough chances. Nobody can be right all the time, and the big companies didn’t become big by playing it safe.”

President of Coca Cola (taken from “The wizard of ads – Turning words into magic and dreamers into millionaires“)

Trust me, I speak from experience. I’ve been laughed at, been called names, got out of a tanked business, and it brought out the business man in me. I say that quite shameless, because it made me stronger than I was before. So, fail, get up, brush off, take the loss, learn from it, and make it better.
Failing brings me to the following tip:

5 ) Teach…

Like I said at #4: Teaching is the best way of learning. When you try to explain something to someone else, you have to know what you’re talking about. That’s one reason why I write tutorials sometimes, just to remember what I’ve learned before. So, write tutorials (trust me, there are always people that know less about a topic than you) and put them on your own blog(you can easily create one at WordPress.com), explain to co-workers how things work and of course, sign up for The Web Squeeze’s forum, which is a great place to teach AND learn.

6 ) Learn…

You’re never too old to learn. There’s always someone that knows more than you. There’s always new stuff to learn. Keep learning. There are 2 sides to this one:
1: Learn more about 1 specific item. Let’s say e-commerce. Make yourself an expert in the e-commerce field. You will be able to charge more if you know the product and possibilities inside-out.
2: Learn a variety of things. Let’s say you know PHP. Try to learn Ruby or jQuery. If you’re an all round person, you have a bigger chance of getting projects based on the variety of knowledge.

7 ) Be confident

Nothing worse than doing business with someone who doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. Replace words like “I think” and “maybe” with stronger words like “I can” and “yes”, but make sure you’re not lying. It’s ok to say you don’t know something though. If a client asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, don’t stumble. Just say you don’t know, but you will get back to him/her, AND DO SO! When I get into this situation in the morning, i want to make sure the client has the answer by the end of the day.

8 ) Network

I don’t mean only social networking like Facebook or Twitter, but create an offline network. Go out, meet people. Join a soccer team, a gym, chess club, fishing club or hockey club. Chances are that you meet people that might need your services, and it gets you out of the office.

9 ) Keep clients clients

This might not always apply, but when clients become your friends, it’s harder to say no. Friends might get discounts for just being your friend. Face it, if a client asks for a discount it’s easier to say you can’t, than telling a friend.
I mean, you can play around of golf with your clients, but be sure you know what you’re getting into.

10) Remember to take a break

Starting your own successful business is a lot of hard work, but to make sure you’re not burnt out after a few months of work, remember to take brakes, and try to avoid 16 hour work days.

I thought that was a great idea, and I started investigating if I could get Skribit on my site. Turns out the service is free! (well, unless you want pro-features like modify your own theme and moderation).

So, please, if you like reading my blog, and have suggestions for me, for let’s say a tutorial, review or any other kind of article, let me know through that little tab on the right side of the site. Thanks.

1 ) Adobe Photoshop

There are quite a few image editing programs out there, but I’m sticking to Adobe’s Photoshop. Simply because “I grew up with it”. Yes, it’s costly, yes it has quite a learning curve, but I’m used to it and I know my way around. Although I’d love to get CS4, I’m still using CS3. I will have to upgrade soon..

Author: Adobe
Platform: Mac OS X / Windows
App URL: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/?promoid=DTELR

2 ) Adobe Kuler

I love colors, but I’m not a color scientist. Adobe has a little app called “Kuler”, which is actually a website, and the app is just a step between the site and Photoshop/Illustrator. In Adobe Kuler you can create color palettes, based on an uploaded image, or from a base color. I use it all the time when I create new designs.

Author: Adobe
Platform: Cross platform (Adobe Air)
App URL: http://kuler.adobe.com/

3 ) Coda

I keep yelling “I’m a designer” when I don’t understand a piece of code, using it as an excuse to let someone else do the coding for me. When I have to/want to do some coding myself, which is limited to html/css for me, I use Coda by Panic. A great app with code highlighting, it closes tags automatically (sometimes this can be annoying though), and the best thing, I think Coda has is the “clips”, which let you define and save custom pieces of code you use often. For instance, I have a client that wants his brand name in red all over the site. I made a clip for ” <span style=”color: red;”>*</span> “. Love it!

Author: Panic
Platform: Mac OS X
App URL: http://www.panic.com/coda/

4 ) Firefox with Firebug

Of course, as a designer you need a browser, which for me is Firefox. In addition to Firefox and Coda, I use Firebug. Whenever a website I created looks kind of wonky, I “fire” up Firebug (no pun intended). It’s the best Firefox add-on I’ve used since the Web developer toolbar, which is also awesome. The cool thing about Firebug is that you can edit the css, and it updates the site as you’re making the changes. No, don’t worry, it’s not a WYSIWYG editor. You can’t save the changes you’ve made, that’s a bit of a disappointment to me, but other than that, I think you should try it.

Author: Parakey
Platform: Cross platform. Works in Firefox. There’s also a “lite” version for Opera, IE and Safari
App URL: http://getfirebug.com/

5 ) Tweetdeck

Social networking is a big part of my business. No, I’m not a social marketing guru, social marketing expert or whatever lame name you can give it. I use Twitter to connect to other designers, and get a lot of inspiration from them. Tweetdeck helps me sort the most interesting people, the search terms I want to monitor and keep track of replies and DM’s in a quick and simple interface. They should do something about their hideous logo/dock icon. The latest version has a friggin’ yellow icon, so I exchanged that with another one. (Follow me: @deluzione). It also updates my Facebook friend-status.

Author: Iain Dodsworth
Platform: Cross platform (Adobe Air)
App URL: http://www.tweetdeck.com/

6 ) Adium

To interact and collaborate with other designers I use Adium. An open source Mac OS X app that combines all the instant messengers into one. Live messenger, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Jabber, Yahoo, AIM, Myspace chat etc. The list goes on and on. You can connect all of these in 1 contact list. It has a clear interface and yo can group your contacts. The only thing it lacks is a webcam feature (which I’m sure you can add on through the Adium community), and file transfers tend to fail every once in a while, but since I only use it to chat, I don’t really give a rat’s ass..

Author: (Community driven)
Platform: Mac OS X
App URL: http://www.adiumx.com/

7 ) Things

I recently started using Things. It’s a Mac OS X app that’s more than a todo list. Ok, It’s mainly a todo list, but it does it in a very slick manner. You can categorize your todo’s into projects. You can add notes to those projects, which I use to write down what I agreed an with a client, let’s say after a phone call. You can schedule todo’s, tag them, and when you’re done with them, they get logged in the log book. I’m the forgetting kinda guy, so I guess this saved my business right there by doing what it does best: remind me of stuff.

Author: Cultured Code
Platform: Mac OS X
App URL: http://culturedcode.com/things/

8 ) Quicksilver

I almost forgot about inclusing Quicksilver, because it’s so much in the background, but it’s an app that I would miss if I turned it off. It’s a quick launcher, which launches programs in a touch of a hotkey. I have Option-ESC to open up the quick launch screen. I enter the first few letters of the app I want to open, and Quicksilver finds the app instantly. I also set “Option+F” to open a Finder window. It makes switching to unopened apps a lot quicker.

Author: Blacktree
Platform: Mac OS X
App URL: http://www.blacktree.com/

9 ) Dropbox

Backup, backup, BACKUP! I have an external hard drive for backups, but just in case my house burns down, or gets hit by lightning, frying all my electronics, I use Dropbox to backup all my work online. I’ve been using it for a while, and I really like the fact that it’s pretty much invisible, until you need it, and that it instantly uploads as soon as you made changes to a file. It also uses revisions, so when you need to go back a few versions of a file, it’s right there, in your dropbox. I can still manage with the free 2gb, but as soon as I hit my limit, I will for sure upgrade to the 50gb.

Author: Dropbox
Platform: Mac OS X / Windows / Linux
App URL: http://www.getdropbox.com/

10) Rescuetime

You know you have those days, when you ask yourself at the end of the day: what did I actually do today? You shrug and think: “Not much.. I think”. Don’t lie, yes you do! I found Rescuetime to solve that problem. I was asking myself quite often that question, and was wondering why I didn’t get the work done I wanted to do, asking myself: “Where did time go?”. Rescuetime is an app that logs every 2 seconds which screen you have opened and puts it into a secure dashboard where you can figure out what you’re doing wrong. It gave me a clear view of things I was doing during the day, and where I could be more productive. It categorizes programs and sites, and you can rate those categories as productive or not.

Author: RescueTime
Platform: Mac OS X / Windows / Linux
App URL: http://www.rescuetime.com

11) Cashboard

Last, but certainly not least. It’s probably the most important app I use: Cashboard. Cashboard is an online invoicing app that does everything from adding clients, create estimates, track time (through a widget on your dashboard), create invoice, send automatic reminders, you can set late-fees, or early payment discounts, send PDF-invoices, it makes graphs and.. it makes me happy every time I open the app

Bonus: Enter code “CASH_ALPHA” when signing up, and you’ll receive a 60-day trial (instead of the standard 30 days).

Author: Subimage LLC.
Platform: Web app. The widgets are available for Max OS X and Windows Yahoo Widgets.
App URL: http://www.getcashboard.com

And, what about you? What apps do you use to keep your business going?