Archive for September, 2010

How to Choose and Maximize Use of Free Fonts

Graphic designers understand their way around the Internet. With branding and graphic design becoming more and more important for companies, it is also becoming more highly competitive. To keep up with new software, new techniques and trends, graphic designers read design publications and network online at forums, blogs and design communities. One of the ways design websites encourage traffic is to offer designer freebies. Free fonts are an excellent way to offer valuable content and motivate graphic designers to subscribe to what the site has to offer.

Quality fonts are easy to come by, if you are willing to pay for them. However, signing up for the right blogs and forums could help you build your font database for free. There are plenty of websites that deliver all kinds of free fonts as long as you remain a subscriber.

Who doesn’t love free? Even if it is not a font you have a need for right now, having it in your font library could be beneficial for designs in the future. Even if the font is not attractive at first glance, there could be a design at some point that the font is the perfect accompaniment for.

Of course, for every positive there is a negative. The danger with storing and using free fonts is that a free font is much more likely to be overused than a font that designers need to invest in. An overused font is one you can recognize at a glance. If you see a font and can label it as Times Roman, Arial or Verdana, then that font is too common.

There are also fonts that are ridiculed in the design industry. It is important to understand what these are as well. If you are going to use a font like Comic Sans, you better have a really great reason. This font is evokes unfair, but fairly common disgust in the design community. Research a font before you use it to get some feedback about how the design is perceived in the community. Just because someone states that the free font is fun, new, creative and unique – does not make it so.

Also there is some confusion regarding just how free a font really is. There is a difference between a font and a typeface. The font is often offered as free, which means designers are allowed to use it in their designs. However, the typeface is still under copyright protection for the designer who created it. This means the font should not be edited or changed in any way. Some of the free fonts might have a licensing agreement that allows it to only be used privately, which means commercial design for the font is not okay. The majority of the freeware fonts are only free for personal use. Understanding the terms of usage for each font, free or not, is an essential part of using fonts in graphic design.

Another challenge that needs to be taken into consideration is the availability of free fonts. Even with millions of fonts available, it can be difficult for graphic designers to be free to use whatever font best works for them. The reason is that design is often restricted to fonts that the audience has available on their computer. If the targeted audience does not have the font loaded on their machine, the design might not be able to be read or will display incorrectly. Spending hours selecting the right colors, symbols, text and font might come to nothing if the end user is seeing something different than what you have designed.

So, now you are stuck with choosing between fonts that are readily available to your audience but that are not overused and tired. This makes selecting a font not only important, but also potentially frustrating. A great designer can find a way to include the chosen fonts as images so that they show up regardless of what fonts are installed on the receiving computer.

For graphic designers who do not understand the intricate nature of typesetting and font design, it is important to spend some time studying fonts. Designers need to understand the differences in serif and sans serif fonts, what makes a font and a typeface, what fonts are overused and how to balance different fonts. Without this knowledge, the fonts you think are wonderful may not send out the impression you were going for. There are plenty of free fonts available and adding them to your collection for future use is a good idea. However, understanding fonts and typography will stretch out the value of those free fonts even further.


Give water

A few weeks ago I posted a short notice about the fifth birthday of Authentic Jobs and the associated campaign to raise money for charity:water.

The campaign is going well, but there’s still a few thousand US dollars to go before the goal of $20 000 is reached. If you can spare something – even just a few bucks – consider helping out. Visit the Authentic Jobs charity: water campaign to check the current status and to pitch in.

Donations will be accepted until Monday, October 4.

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Breaking Down Doors: Promoting Yourself To Dream Clients

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There’s a saying that the School of Visual Arts in New York City once used in its ads: “To be good is not enough when you dream of being great.� We all have dream clients that we would like to add to our portfolio, but either we don’t know how to reach them or have no idea how to even start. Promotion is not a big subject at art school, and I know way too many creatives who stare at the phone and wonder why it’s not ringing.

There are many ways to promote yourself, and as with any product, you have to target your audience as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible. Let’s go over some problems and solutions.

[By the way, did you know we have a free Email Newsletter? Subscribe now and get fresh short tips and tricks in your inbox!]

Seek Out More Work Than You Can Handle

If you want people to know you and consider you a valuable contact, then you must promote yourself. If you look at your career as a business, then as with any business, you must promote it.

What is your brand? Let’s not confuse a logo with a brand. Your logo is the visual “name� by which people identify you—your brand is how people remember you as a business. Is your brand personal? Fun? Wicked? Sweet? Choose wisely because you could be married to your brand forever and ever. Use peers and non-creatives as a sounding board. I had a brand that creatives thought was cool but clients just didn’t get (which I’ll write about in another therapeutic article).

Prepare your brand for all digital and social networks before hitting people with promotions. Essentials these days are a website or blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Apps (if that’s your thing), business cards, stationary and envelopes—your business “front� as it were. Don’t scrimp, and inkjet print your own cards. If you can’t afford what you would spend in an afternoon at the pub for good business cards, then you might want to get a pony and dedicate the rest of your days to riding it.

Rainbow in Breaking Down Doors: Promoting Yourself To Dream Clients
“Welcome to Rainbow Pony World! Nowhere near Earth!”

Identify Top 100 People To Work With

You could crawl from small job to small job and make a fine career out of it… if riding ponies is your thing. But you dream of a certain caliber of work, so why not go after it?

Write a list of 100 people or companies you would like to work with. You might want to put a few people at one of those companies on your distribution list. How do you find those people? Start by researching the company. Go on LinkedIn and gather the titles of those people. If there’s not enough there, click on their profiles to see who they’re connected to, or use the “Also viewed� feature to stalk—er, hunt down the names you need. Use Google or a website such as Hoovers to get addresses and more information about the company.

Your city might have a book that list local companies, which could offer valuable information, as might the business section of your local paper. You have to hunt down names, network, steal, ask stray kids if their mom or dad works with designers, and take advantage of family connections (while still refusing to design that idea of your uncle’s that he’s been pushing at family dinners for years).

Don’t forget your own network. Your friends and fellow art school alumni are becoming art directors, creative directors and creative managers, and being on good terms and staying in touch with them is important.

At this point, I hope you’re at least keeping all of your contact information in a spreadsheet, because it can be uploaded to a variety of contact managers.

Get a good contact manager. Many programs are on the market, and even some native computer software will give you good contact management. Track how many times and when you have contacted someone, what they said, if you got work, if you got a referral, etc. When dealing with a client, you should be able to recall how you met, when you spoke and so on, so that they feel a bond, rather than feel like a target.

Some people prefer ACT as their contact manager. It’s good, but the comments following this article will no doubt suggest more management-oriented programs (after berating my negative comments about pony-riding).

Ready, Set… What Next?

What are you selling? What contact information do you have for your top 100? What promotional material can you send them? Are you ready for a follow-up if you do speak to someone? Are you ready for me to stop asking questions and get to it already?

Alien in Breaking Down Doors: Promoting Yourself To Dream Clients
“The Wright Brothers could never have flown if not for the drive and spirit of innovation among aliens.” (by Speider Schneider)

Even if you have print promotional material, there must be a digital component—something you can attach to an email or link to. Some people think you must have a website, and some think the WordPress platform is best… like, say, Smashing Magazine. Whatever the platform, you should have one. And please get a proper domain so that you’re not advertising rainbowponyrider.wordpress.com; rainbowponyrider.com is so much nicer!

Also, avoid email@yahoo.com for your email address. While many single-person businesses use Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and (snicker) CompuServe, don’t be one of them. For a few dollars, you could have a professional email address with your domain name, like name@yourbusiness.com.

Have you accumulated a ton of email addresses? Here’s a fun fact from years of working in a business that depended on communications marketing statistics: only 15% of emails are opened. If you use a mass opt-out email service such as Constant Contact to reach prospects, your costs will go up as your ROI goes down even before hitting “Send.� Still, it can be effective for multiple mailings during a one-month period, which is the membership period of such services.

Sending a link gives the recipient a chore. In addition to everything else they have to do, they must now go through the super-human motion of clicking on your link and waiting for your website to load. As sad as that sounds, this is now the world we know.

Snail mail. Believe it or not, what’s old is new again. People use to rely on source books and mailings for promotion. In the digital age, mail has gotten lighter. Another frightening figure from the marketing statistics folks: 98% of all greeting cards are actually opened (the 2% is for envelopes with printed labels and metered postage). This approach will run you between 50¢ and $1.50 USD per card when all is said and done. You also have to do it every month, but no more than twice a month, or else it’s legally stalking, and your prospects will see it that way. But people love getting cards! I’m constantly told that my cards are up on bulletin boards at companies across the globe. Well worth the money, I say.

Some online printers deliver a good product, leaving you to stuff, address and stamp the envelopes. I use an on-demand printer that comes with a contact manager and allows me to create campaigns and then do bulk mailings using my handwriting font and signature and auto-name-insertion. A few clicks and my 100 cards go off within 24 hours, leaving me with plenty of pony-riding time. Oops!

Rock in Breaking Down Doors: Promoting Yourself To Dream Clients
“I send postcards from vacation spots. What fun for a prospective client!” (by Speider Schneider)

Print-on-demand websites are intuitive, and you can upload images for full-bleed jobs, if you so desire. The fonts on these websites are limited, and you cannot control kerning or leading. Best to create everything in Photoshop and upload it that way.

Advertising And PR… For Free

Blog. An audience that looks to you for information and entertainment makes for good prospects. Write about your design passion. A past article of mine drew a comment from a young man who was upset about the lack of understanding between a designer and developer. There’s a blog right there. With a good writing style or by linking to stories on the subject, this person could develop a great promotional tool and really serve his passion for development and respect for its practitioners.

You could turn trends, type, design, fun, foible or whatever you really love can into a really strong promotional channel.

Volunteer. Personally, I’ve long been fed up with volunteering, but you should give it a try because it does build character… along with anxiety issues (but that’s another story). Try a local art organization or art project. Getting out there helps you meet the people you need to be meeting. I know I’m being hard on volunteering, but I’ve put in more than my fair share of time. Your turn.

Write for something like that “Smooshing Magazine� everyone’s been talking about. Even the local paper needs articles on the design of the new town hall or coverage of the next art event. Get your name out there.

Advertising And PR… But Not So Free

Try Google Ads and the like. Michael Muratore, owner of Store44, which represents illustrators and photographers, is the most plugged-in person I know. His work with global companies and a variety of digital sources and tools force me to defer to his knowledge on the subject:

I’ve been a Google power user for about five years now. As an agency catering to artists and advertising agencies, we can get hundreds of emails a day. The more I used Google for my business, the more beta invitations I received. I use so many Google services on a day-to-day basis that it’s a bit mind-boggling: Gmail, Voice, Docs, Analytics, Webmaster Tools… I could go on. However, in seven years of business, we have never bought Google Ads. One day, another invitation from Google arrived: “$100 in free AdWords advertising if you connect your Analytics account to a new AdWords account.� A hundred bucks? Sold!

It’s brilliant, actually. One hundred dollars is the perfect amount to get started, figure out how it works and experiment a little. Of course, when it’s all dialed in, it’s time to add more money.

The real epiphany for me came when I started managing campaigns by region. I started with the five regions that generated the most business for us: New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago and Phoenix. With region-based campaigns, I could see where our ads were most successful, based both on clicks and inquiries. As the campaign progresses and as our budget changes, so does our AdWords buying. When money is tight, the campaigns that produce the fewest results can be shut off easily, leaving the best performers a greater portion of the budget. Usually, this means New York and LA, because our most popular artists are in fashion and music.

We use this same regional system when advertising our Facebook page.

Of course, it’s not just about regions. Different artists in the group have sets of keywords specific to their media and markets. When they want to promote a series of new works, we simply turn a campaign on for them to drive traffic directly to their new portfolio. We can have campaigns using general keywords to bring people to a landing page that features several artists. For those wanting to explore a variety of illustration styles, for example, they would land here: http://store44.com/illustration.html; if they were looking for something specific, like fashion editorial photography, then they would land right on the artist’s page. http://store44.com/irenepena

Costs vary with campaign, clicks and keywords. Because we’re paying by the click, we need to ensure that we’re not getting bad traffic. We use negative keywords to try to eliminate the irrelevant traffic (words like “schools,� “lessons� and “royalty-free�). We keep a base budget of $3.00 a day for a set of general keywords in our best regions. Three dollars is not much, and some keywords are very expensive to get on the front page. “Logo design� often fetches $10 per click. Having a variety of campaigns helps. I can easily adjust a particular campaign’s budget if an artist wants to spend the money on traffic.

Adwords in Breaking Down Doors: Promoting Yourself To Dream Clients
A weekly graph comparing overall traffic to AdWords traffic.

Bottom line? The AdWords campaigns bring the website’s unique views from a usual 500 to 700 a month to over 1,000. When we get a call or email, I always try to find out their source. An active campaign can bring in three to five calls a month for $50 to $100 in ad spending.

The Most Difficult Thing For A Creative: Telemarketing

Cold calling is the hardest thing for anyone to do. If I hadn’t worked in telemarketing as one of my various jobs to put myself through art school, I would dread cold calls. Cold calling, for those who aren’t familiar with the term, is calling someone you don’t know to sell them something. Sounds easy, right? It is. They are just people like you and me. They need freelancers, and you’re a freelancer. If they don’t need a freelancer, let them tell you so. I’ve been after a client for three years; they’re in my top five of 100 names. I call and leave messages; I email images; I mail greeting cards with images and sales pitches. Why do I keep doing it? Because the prospect hasn’t told me to stop and go away. It’s sales, not dating.

The trick to telemarketing is to work from easy scripts:

Hello, Mr. Jones. My name is also Jones, and I’m a Web-developing, graphic-designing photographer. I’d like to set up an appointment at your convenience to show you my work. May I set up an appointment with you this week?

Mr. Jones will then either tell you that he is not interested, or ask you to call him the following week or set up an appointment right then and there.

Maybe you’ll have to leave a message for Mr. Jones. “Hello, Mr. Jones. This is Mr. Senoj. My number is 123-4567. Please call me at your convenience.�

Don’t tell him why you are calling or you’ll never, ever get to speak with him. Haven’t hear back? Call back. After a while, it becomes a guilty pleasure because you’ll wonder what they’re thinking.

Look at it this way: the client I keep trying to reach probably has a great story about this persistent person who calls, emails and sends cards. I wonder if anyone has ever said, “Why don’t you just talk to the guy?�

Another telemarketing ploy is called objection-response, and telemarketers make three responses before they stop asking. Have a script or two for that, too. Here’s some classic objection-responses:

Objection: “I don’t have time to meet.�
Response: “It will only take 15 minutes, and I’ll even bring coffee.�

Objection: “I really don’t have the time.�
Response: “May I drop off a packet of my services and keep you on my mailing list?�
(They’ll agree just to get rid of you. Take advantage of this by getting more information: “I don’t have your current email. Would you update me on that?�)

Objection: “I have all the freelancers I need right now.�
Response: “I really appreciate your loyalty to your regular freelancers, which makes me want to work with you even more. I understand and wouldn’t want to displace anyone, but people move on, and more work than your current pool can handle might come in. I’d like to stay in touch and see what the future holds, if you don’t mind?�

Meat in Breaking Down Doors: Promoting Yourself To Dream Clients
Don’t forget a thank-you note. A lot is at steak. (by Speider Schneider)

Out of desperation, I once told a person who had uttered those words of rejection to me that the entire pool of freelancers had choked to death. When he stopped laughing, he made an appointment and became a pretty good client. I don’t recommend this approach, though.

Think of any objection you might hear, and prepare a response of a sentence or two, printed out in large type in front of you. It really helps.

By the way, the best way to get rid of a telemarketer is to tell them either that you already have the product or that there is no way you could possibly use it. They will apologize, hang up and never call you again.

Not Such Crazy Ideas

Find a mentor. Some established professionals believe they owe it to the next generation to mentor them into replacing them. We teach and write, and then you take our jobs and spit on us as we crawl for safety. You young punks! Still, we do it because it is in the natural order of things to pass on our experience to the next generation, however ungrateful it is.

Socrates had something to say about this:

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Plato had Socrates, and you should be able to find someone who takes you under their wing and introduces you to people and teaches you wonderful things. Ask a teacher for a referral, or just write someone an old-fashioned letter asking if they would be your mentor. You won’t look strange, and your good manners will be appreciated, even if the person is unable to mentor you. A referral could hook you up with a terrific mentor, too.

Do work that really impresses. A friend of mine once said that if you ever take on a $200 job that should pay $2,000, do $2,000 worth of work and it will lead to a real $2,000 job. He also told me that he paid $2,000 for his house, so don’t take these amounts at face value. But his point is valid. A great job, whatever the pay, might lead to a spectacular portfolio piece.

A wild imagination can come up with some crazy ideas, but think twice before acting on them. Thankfully, my infamous “time bomb� promotional piece, touting “Dynamite service with explosive results,� died long before I mailed the first package, or else I’d have faced bomb scare charges and might have been writing this from prison. Be creative, but be sensible. Think of your aim: to be at the front of someone’s mind when they have a job to assign. Could you send a toy that sits on their desk or a calendar they keep handy? There are some great possibilities.

Keep moving forward! Sales is the hardest thing to do. You get a burst of energy, make all your calls and then get depressed when people aren’t beating down your door. It’s natural. Keep up your task of calling, emailing or whatever you do on a regular basis. Do something fun to break the mood, surprise your prospect, and don’t take rejection personally. A rejection today could be a job tomorrow and a repeat client further on. Just keep moving forward with the sucky part of the creative business.

(al)


© Speider Schneider for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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Webfonts.info

Webfonts.info. A nice resource dedicated to webfonts & @font-face embedding. Handy.

Creative Examples Of Infographics

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Today we have an exciting and enticing post which covers handy and innovative infographics. Infographics is basically derived from two words: ‘information’ and ‘graphics’, and it stands for the graphical representation of data and information.

Data visualization techniques have been often used in modern maps to incorporate variety of information, for instance for network designs, destination points, and local landmarks. Let’s take a look at some creative examples of beautiful infographics.


Stunningly Creative Infographics

The Most Dangerous Cities for Walking

Infographics76 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

What People are Doing Online

Infographics74 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Glass Half Empty: The Coming Water Wars

Infographics21 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Which Countries Have the Most Vacation?

Infographics77 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Bank Infographic

Infographics84 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Where Will the Next Volcano Erupt?

Infographics79 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

On Driving: Automobile History

Infographics10 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Current State of Twitter

Infographics65 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Software Wars

Infographics82 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Who Has Given the Most to Haiti

Infographics3 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Social Media Effect

Infographics73 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

An Infographic Guide to Buying Your Own Island

Infographics861 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

SSSMOKIN! The Global Tobacco Trade

Infographics4 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Most Prescribed Psychiatric Drugs

Infographics7 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Rise of Walking and Biking

Infographics11 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Subway Science: 500 Years of Great Scientists

Infographics70 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Resume Infographic

Infographics83 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Which Countries Invest the Most in Alternative Energy?

Infographics14 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON – THE GLOBAL ARMS TRADE

Infographics15 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

RED TAPE – THE GOVERNMENT GRIND

Infographics16 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Visualizing the US and China Trade Relations

Infographics17 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Google Maps for Mobile timeline

Infographics71 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Stealing the Show – The Global Movie Biz

Infographics19 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Coffee Drinks Illustrated

Infographics1 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Men At Work

Infographics2 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The GlobalWarming Infographic

Infographics9 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Piggy Trouble

Infographics8 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Infographics23 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Where Are All The Fish

Infographics24 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

A Humorous Look at Infographics

Infographics26 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Top World Football Earners

Infographics27 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Digital Lifestyle

Infographics28 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Underskin: The Human Subway Map

Infographics29 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Google Facts and Figures

Infographics38 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Historical Browser Statistics

Infographics31 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Earth : As Seen Through beer

Infographics85 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Flickr User Model, v0.3

Infographics22 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

my web 2.0 by chris watson

Infographics32 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The 2010 Social Networking Map

Infographics68 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

What is HTML5?

Infographics75 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Twitter Users Profile

Infographics25 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Where the Stuff on the Internet Comes From

Infographics12 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Why do freeways come to a stop?

Infographics35 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Periodic Table of Typefaces

Infographics13 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

US Money

Infographics33 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Happiness in countries

Infographics34 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Human Storage

Infographics37 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Evolution of Storage

Infographics36 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Geological Time Spiral

Infographics39 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Life cycle of a Blog Post

Infographics40 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Country Codes of the World

Infographics41 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

A Modern History of Human Communication

Infographics62 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Boom of Social Sites

Infographics60 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Open Source Open World

Infographics63 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

What are People Really Buying Online?

Infographics64 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Web 2.0 Points of Control Map

Infographics67 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Labor Day by the Numbers

Infographics69 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

The Most Powerful Colors on the Web

Infographics66 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

People on Web Trend Map!

Infographics72 in Creative Examples Of Infographics

Which Governments Demand Google Remove Information

Infographics78 in Creative Examples Of Infographics


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