Comment to Win Free Email Marketing Credits from ActiveCampaign!
Published October 4th, 2011 in Site News - 27 Comments
ActiveCampaign email marketing has offered to give $75 of email credits to 3 lucky readers of the Vandelay Design Blog! Email marketing is an important and effective marketing tool for all kinds of businesses, and ActiveCampaign can provide you with the features and functionality that you need to take advantage of the opportunities available.
Design Inspiration: Red Websites
Published October 3rd, 2011 in Galleries - 8 Comments
Continuing our current series on color inspiration, today we focus on red websites. Here you will find 25 websites that feature the color red. Some use a darker shade of red and some use a brighter shade. Some use red as a background for the full page and others use it for a header or in some other prominent way. Hopefully it will give you some ideas for using red in your own work, and for giving you some ideas about what other colors to use in your palette.
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Keys to Effective Web Design Proposals
Published September 29th, 2011 in Business - 9 Comments
Being able to draft an effective proposal is an essential part of staying busy and keeping money coming in as a freelance designer. In order to land client work you will need to be able to break down what you have to offer. Working on proposals is often an intimidating part of the process for new freelancers, so we’ll take a look at some things that you can do to improve the effectiveness of your own proposals for client projects.
Here are some keys to proposals that will help you to land the client’s business.
Meets the Needs and Wants of the Client
Before submitting a proposal to the client you should take the time to get to know their project and specifically what they want and need. A proposal that matches up with what the client wants will obviously be the most effective in terms of landing the business, but some designers tend to rush the initial stages of getting familiar with the client and project. This often leads to a proposal that doesn’t really fit with what the client wants, and it results in lost business and missed opportunities.
In addition to covering the things that the client wants, if you have identified some things that the client really needs you should include them in your proposal, and explain to the client why it is in their best interest. This will help the project to be more successful for the client, and if they choose not to follow your advice at least you have done your part by advising.
Showcase of Urban Decay Photography
Published September 28th, 2011 in Galleries - 14 Comments
Urban decay can serve as an excellent source of design inspiration for textured, grunge-style designs. Taking in these scenes first hand is a great way to get some inspiration offline from your surroundings, but viewing photos of urban decay is a suitable substitute when it’s not possible to experience in person.
In this post we’ll showcase 40 examples of urban decay photography for your inspiration. To see any of the photos in larger sizes or to see more work from the photographer, click through the links to be led to the source.
Photo credit: Jonas Bunten
35 Quality Brochure Templates
Published September 27th, 2011 in Design - 16 Comments
A well-designed and effective brochure can be an excellent marketing tool for any business. If you’re in need of a brochure for yourself or for a client you may be able to find a high-quality template that will meet your needs or at least serve as a starting point that you can customize. In this post we’ll showcase 35 premium brochure templates that can be purchased very inexpensively.
Ultimate Creative Studio Trifold Brochure ($5)
Design Inspiration: Purple Websites
Published September 26th, 2011 in Galleries - 16 Comments
Continuing with our current series on color inspiration, today we focus on purple websites. As you will see in the 25 sites showcased in this post, purple is a primary color in a lot of beautiful websites. The sites showcased here should provide some examples and spark ideas for how you can use purple in your own designs, and show examples of color schemes that can be built around purple.
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Long-Term Considerations for Freelance Designers
Published September 23rd, 2011 in Business - 5 Comments
Working as a freelance designer is appealing to a lot of people because of the flexibility and independence. Freelancing also can provide designers in a wide variety of situations with a way to earn a living, and in some cases the experience that is gained becomes just as valuable as the income. However, freelancing for the long-term presents some unique challenges that should be considered from the start.
In this article we’ll take a look at 10 things that should be considered before you start freelancing full-time, and hopefully they will help you to be better prepared in case freelancing turns out to be a long-term job.
1. Is Freelancing a Temporary or Long-Term Part or Your Career Path?
Everyone has different reasons for freelancing. For some it can be a starting point that allows them to build their experience and their reputation in the industry before a transition to working as an employee at a design agency or as an in-house designer. For others freelancing may be a short-term solution after losing a job. And for some freelancing may be a long-term part of their career.
Freelancing is capable of serving all of these purposes, but it is important to consider what you want to get out of your time and effort freelancing. If it is a short-term solution that you hope will serve as a springboard to a full-time job you will probably approach it much differently than if you plan to still be freelancing 10 years from now. If you’re leaning towards that long-term approach there are a lot of things you should consider, and that’s what we’ll look at here.
33 Photoshop Photo Editing Tutorials
Published September 20th, 2011 in Design - 11 Comments
Photoshop makes it possible to edit your photos in countless ways. With endless possibilities the challenge is knowing how to use the photo editing tools effectively. In this post we’ll feature 33 tutorials that teach different photo editing techniques and tricks. You’re sure to find at least a few that can be put to good use in your own work, whether it be on your photos or on those of your clients.
Master a Professional Photo Retouching Workflow
Design Inspiration: Orange Websites
Published September 19th, 2011 in Galleries - 19 Comments
Today we continue our current series on color inspiration by focusing on beautiful orange websites. When it comes to layouts and color schemes, orange can be a very strong color, which often makes it more challenging use it effectively. If you’re looking for inspiration of the use of orange, or if you are looking for other colors to use in your color scheme, the 25 sites showcased here should help.
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Client Follow Up Tips for Freelancers
Published September 18th, 2011 in Business - 2 Comments
Freelancers are always looking for new ways to attract clients and to land new projects. There are any number of ways to find new work, but the ideal situation involves not dedicating a lot of time or money in the search for projects. If you’ve been freelancing for a little while you should have a number of clients that you have done some work for in the past, and they can be a great source of new projects. Maybe they need a full website re-design, or maybe they need some related services that you could also provide.
An effective approach to client follow up will help you to stay in touch with those past clients, to keep them aware of the range of services that you offer, and to secure their business when their need arises for some type of work. And best of all, with an organized approach it doesn’t have to be time consuming or costly.
If you haven’t been making the most of follow up opportunities with past clients here are a few tips that will help you.
1. Keep Track of Contact with Past Clients
In order to be effective with your client follow up you will need a method to keep track of clients’ contact info and to record the dates and details of follow up. You could use a customer relationship management app like Highrise or Zoho CRM, which will help to organize your contacts and all relevant data. For freelancers or independent designers simply keeping an organized spreadsheet could do the trick.
Whatever works for you is the approach that you should take. The important thing is that you have all of your clients’ contact info organized and that you can easily see the details of your recent contact with them. This will help you to know when to reach out to them without going overboard and emailing them too much because of poor organization and record keeping.
