KC

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-Williams/dp/0321534042/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

KC

I say if you digest Robin’s book, you are ready for some heavier material. I really like this book a lot, #8 on the list:

Universal Principles of Design

http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-William-Lidwell/dp/1592530079/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252681833&sr=1-9#reader_1592530079

Each page of this book is almost a launch pad into another topic you could spend hours on. It takes all the fundamentals of Robin’s book and gets a bit more technical, has a bit more lingo, and gives you some meaty visuals you’ll have to give more than a casual glance. Highly recommended…

Happy reading!

Just as a note, I’m not trying to do the job of a graphic artist, just getting a little bit educated about the process.

KC

P.S. I had an email conversation with Robin about an incident with her book and that incident is in my upcoming book.

The Non-Designer’s Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice

It’s #2 up there.

A better one by the same author, which is the first in the series, is:

Non-Designer’s Design Book

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-Williams/dp/0321534042/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268113313&sr=8-1

This book is a perennial classic with information so fundamental it doesn’t really get old. They are on the third edition (I have the first) which probably includes a bit more info about the web. But, all the basic terms and principles are covered in this GREAT book…

It’s also a very friendly, user-oriented book. You are in good hands if you get it .

You should discuss what fonts come with each OS, such as Mac and Windows because as newbies that where we all start from. Sort of like what can you do with a can of tomatoes, pasta, and spices, what can you throw together to make it work. Then transition into where you like to get your fonts. For instance, I love computer shopping at newegg.com for hardware and software. You?

My method: Before sending anything, I always check it inside a virtual machine with a default installation.

lol

Very useful list of questions you should ask your every new client….

For the rest; great list, very useful!

Keep it up, Doug!

@ Andy: If you go back and re-read the intro material (perhaps it’s a bit too much!), you would see that this list is in NO WAY intended to present to the client. It’s meant for YOU when you are on the phone, or maybe even composing an email offline. It’s a “what am I forgetting” list meant to jog YOUR brain, not scare the bejeebees out of your client.

@ Mark: sounds like you got something out of it! Excellent!

@ Nuno: You got it right that the list is mixed up. That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. Those 3 questions (among others) are not the same question at all. Again, this is meant to stimulate YOUR brain. For instance, you see the client has an ugly logo – might be time to ask for a redesign since you are redoing the site and the logo is hopeless. Another client says “Yes, I have the copy done, the photographs taken, and the logo from my other designer”, to which you might ask “what format is it in?” I’ve gotten logos from “designers” in Word. Oh, I should have asked.

@ Vladimir: 99% of all my clients are terrified by things like forms. I don’t know why this is, but for many reasons, they expect designers to be able to read minds, and they don’t want to think any more than they have to. I have found a free form, bite-sized approach works best. This list of 72 questions is a list of questions you might ask 5 or 6 of in a given conversation, only to go back later and ask a few more later. It depends. Clients can be so random. “One more headache for me…” – that is so true! Yes, clients want to give us their headaches, but they have to do some work or the headache won’t go away. The clients I work with won’t fill out forms. So the best I can do is ask questions, and hope to cover as many show stoppers up front, and then come back in subsequent conversations to fill in the blank. But, getting the show stoppers out of the way FIRST is what I aim for. This list of 72 questions is simply meant to stimulate that right-brain thinking to ask those questions and to ready your mind for that first call with a new client.

And I said already, in 90% of the time is like, “Pfff can my administrator do that”, “Can my office Mng answer them”, “Can you co me tommorow, i have a lot of work now,i need to have clear mind do decide what i want”…etc…and doing it for more than 10 years I can grantee, they didn’t know most of the times what they want because they expect from you some ind of impression work which’s gonna knock’them down, or simple they can decide. Also when it is about wealthier clients, it’s always about competition. So for the end, just to give you advice 100 of my 102 clients you would loose only by chasing them to answer you damn questions, and you know and they assume you do that to make it better, to understand them, to get to know your client, but again it’s some strange fisics, they just don’t want to get bothered like that. mt advice – brae those 70 question is like 6 parts, and after every part do some work, even print that a little bit of work (also I learned and noone can say different, they want to feel their work, to touch it, trust me), so after each question show some wor done and little by little you’ll get the most out of your client. Like this o answer you so much, ha, they didn’t do that much not even for their BA diploma in school. Good luck with those questions – they are realy goo questions, I’m not saying that but too muvch. I hope someone will agree with me?

Thanks anyway

Anyone have any info on the switchover? Is it just an overly-propogated Americanism?

They’re only cheap treatments with Illustrator…

see this: http://zemalf.com/1262/the-games-we-play/

see this too, as a precursor to the state of graphic design blogging: http://bonfx.com/top-10-annoying-graphic-design-bloggers/

as far as commenting among the commmenters as bad form, I really don’t know what you could mean by that. my favorite blogs are the ones where the authors get right into it along side of the commenters. David Airey and Jacob Cass come to mind no doubt. that’s why i keep reading them…otherwise they’d be pretty boring and useless.

“This is just stupid” = CORRECT
“if you actually worked on it” = INCORRECT

1 out of 2 ain’t bad

Talk to the silly dog in the upper left corner. He’s wearing a crown and will listen

It might’ve been funny if you actually worked on it.

As for JCD, it won’t be as fast paced as Smashing Mag but hopefully one high quality article a week and then we’ll see where we got from there. I’ve already done the design however I am waiting for the developer to put it together… they are quite busy atm so it may be around March. I am excited to see it come out and the reactions people have to it.

I can also relate to you with the extra effort of going the next step in blogging… it really takes a lot of commitment and hard work. Though it does pay off in the end, people like Walter (Web Designer Depot) and Vitaly (Smashing Mag) are great examples of that.

October ‘06 was when I started a blog on davidairey.com. Prior to that I had a static portfolio that wasn’t getting me anywhere.

The blog roundup ’so far’ is a nice idea. Leave it with me.

Well, if you had the gumption, I’d love to read a “David Airey blogging roundup” that sums up your blogging thus far. How long has it been for you? 4 years?

Thanks for stopping by – always a pleasure!

I think list posts are great – they just need to evolve into 1) niche material and 2) very interesting, article oriented lists. 10 examples of “cool coffee mugs” might not cut it, but “10 fascinating textile designers and their profiles” might do better. The first example takes about 45 minutes of work including Photoshop and twittering. The second example might take a good 10 hours of research and writing. Not that blogger have 10 hours for individual articles, but if it’s important to the audience you are going after, it might be worth the effort.

It will be very interesting to see what you do with JCD. Are you taking a Smashing Mag approach?

Thanks again Douglas

Do you think there is (or would ever be) a “critical mass” or saturation point for the design blogging community, and if so, has it been reached yet? It certainly seems possible… Especially if more and more freelance designers are spending more time blogging and making lists than they are actually designing anything for a client?

Though I quickly learned about the intricacies of social media through sites such as DailyBlogTips, Problogger and Copyblogger and yes, list posts were highly recommended. List posts are always going to bring in the traffic and you probably should have a few of them, though in the long term you need to decide what sort of traffic you want to bring in. For this reason, I have tried to steer away from these list posts and focused more on quality / original content with an occasional list post thrown in for good measure.

On the other hand, websites such as Vandelay Design do very well on providing purely list / inspirational posts. Yes, blogs are posting more and more the same fluff, but I also appreciate some of it, especially when looking for inspiration (I find myself coming to Steven’s posts so often). I think it depends on the blog’s ultimate goals.

But like you say, “A series of well done articles on something that hasn’t been beat to death with go a long way towards getting you some subscribers and bringing you up in the ranks”. The trouble is finding and writing these articles… you’re definitely on the right track Douglas.

It’s timely that you bring this up as JCD is about to undergo a major change this month (or March), including much more emphasis on selling ad space, that will allow us to pay writers for quality content. I’ve chosen to go in this direction as I now have a full time job and have much less time to focus on my own blog / work.

I guess what I am trying to say is that once you know what you want to achieve out of your blog, you set the strategies in place to make it so… it’s an ongoing process.

I didn’t invent the list post, no doubt about that. Copyblogger and Problogger were preaching the benefits long before I launched a blog.

Lists served me well back in the day, but I tend to steer clear of them now, due to the huge amount of regurgitated ones you see elsewhere.

As for popularity, maybe I just hit the ‘design’ niche at the right time, on the cusp of blogs becoming relatively mainstream. Still a long way for me to go, though.

Thanks for the reply to my DSLR recommendation ‘tweet’, by the way.

I’ve learned so much in the last five months from doing this, and also from both of them along the way. They both will say too, that nothing beats great, original content. I might add that the “perfect storm” they both seemed to have benefit from is the advent of the “super list post”. I’m not sure if they invented it, but they certainly perfected it in regards to graphic design for many topics. My one bit of advice would be to find a particular niche topic within the broader topic of graphic design and simply own it. A series of well done articles on something that hasn’t been beat to death with go a long way towards getting you some subscribers and bringing you up in the ranks.

Good luck – and do stop back!

For some more info, check out this article about Hybrid Theme Framework I wrote and then visit the Theme Hybrid website for more info. I’m very pleased with the support directly from the author…