I bought Cheetah3D a few years back now when I decided I wanted to try my hand at a bit of 3D. Most of the industry standard apps cost thousands of pounds and that is a massive outlay if you’re just trying some software out. I know most apps offer a 30 day trial but to the novice 3d user that’s nowhere near enough time to decide if you want part with that amount of cash. Step forward Cheetah3D. I downloaded the demo had a play around and within an hour or so I’d made the purchase. I loved the Mac style interface, the learning curve seemed about right and the quality of the renders I’d seen on the website and in the forum convinced me it would be a wise decision.

I’ve now been using Cheetah3D for a few years and while I’m by no means an expert it has become a really useful tool that I depend upon when looking to add some depth to my design work. From creating simple icons to full renders that are used as feature images Cheetah3D has established itself in my workflow.

One of the things I like about Cheetah3D is it’s speed. It’s quick to open and it’s quick to render. This allows me to leave Cheetah open all day ready for when I need it.

There’s a free trial of Cheetah available from Mac3DSoftware.com and if you’re even slightly interested in starting out in 3D I couldn’t recommend it enough.

For years I’ve considered myself to be a web designer based on that exact thinking, but perhaps that’s because I’ve worked in this industry for a number of years. I’ve lost count of the amount of web design projects I’ve been offered that aren’t anything to do with web design and are actually web development projects.

I design websites, I code a little html/css and I tinker with a few off the shelf CMS’s – but what I don’t do is any form of programming. It doesn’t excite me, I don’t enjoy it and I doubt I ever will. I’m a visual person, I respond to the way things work and the way they look. I am of the opinion that you’re either one or the other, a designer or a developer. Great designers don’t tend to make great developers and vice versa. There are of course exceptions but these tend to be few and far between. There are many aspects and roles in the development of a website and design is just one of them.

What’s the answer?

So, back to the original point. What the hell is a web designer anyway? Well that would entirely depend upon who you ask. Ask a designer, they’ll tell you it’s a designer. Ask a developer, they’ll tell you it’s a developer. Ask a client and they’ll tell you it’s the person that does the whole thing from start to finish.

I’ve attended conferences in the past that were aimed at web designers and mostly revolved around code and coding – I felt like I’d totally misunderstood the terminology. Maybe it’s me and my old school ways. I’m old enough to remember when Internet Explorer was the best browser (if you’re under 28 you may not even believe there ever was such a time), maybe I need to update my thinking. Somehow though, that word designer in there always makes me think I’m right.

As always, I’d be interested to hear other peoples takes on this – your comments are welcome!

All the elements are on a transparent background so you should be able to drag and drop them straight onto your own designs.

You can download my web design elements psd right here.

The general feeling on this one from the world’s web designers is that the fold doesn’t exist and to a degree they’re right. Obviously computer screens and monitors don’t fold, the terminology has been adopted from the graphic design world where newspapers were folded for display purposes – hence the important information being displayed above the fold.

Another reason why the fold is considered not to exist in web design is the various different screen resolutions that monitors can display information at, because of this there is no one cut off point after which users have to scroll, it varies from screen to screen.

So while the actual fold doesn’t exist, the concept of the fold does and it has an important place in web design. Not every user that visits your site is going to scroll, that’s a fact, so in general it makes sense to place your most important information at the top of the page where it will be seen by the most eyes. Take a look around a few sites, where is the navigation placed? where is the shopping basket? the logo? All important pieces of information and all at the top of the page.

Obviously you can’t have all your information at the top of the page, you need to prioritise the information that appears on your site and arrange it accordingly, but make no mistake the top of the page remains the most important area on a website.

I love to read design blogs and there are some very good ones out there. There are an awful lot of that offer all kinds of advice and ideas to people in the industry. I respect that, it’s great to give something back. Unfortunately there seems to be little separation between designing and blogging about design.

Most of the prominent web designers out there, the ones who I see appearing in the industry magazines on a regular basis have what I consider to be average portfolios. I’m not going to name names as this post isn’t about that, it’s about looking beyond the best design bloggers, it’s about really finding the best designers out there. The truth is, most of the designers I really respect, those that consistently produce excellent work aren’t blogging about design, they’re creating it and for that very reason they’re often overlooked.

Over the past 4 years I have established a method to my work, a set of rules that have formed my working code which have now become habit…

• Communicate Well And Often – in my opinion this is the single most important attribute a freelancer has, I value it higher than quality of work. If you effectively communicate on all levels this can alleviate the fears of clients. You need to communicate, what you do, how you do it and the way you work. Communication is often the key to retaining clients and being re-booked.
• Work Quality & Consistency – you don’t have to be the world’s best designer to make a freelance career, what you need to do is be consistent. As with any industry there are requirements for all levels of capability. If you continue to produce work at a consistent level, this will define your standard and it takes the risk away from hiring you.
• Maximise Your Possibilities – if people don’t know of your existence then it doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do, you won’t get booked, you won’t get any work. Get your folio online, start using services like Twitter, LinkedIn, comment on blogs, keep in touch with everyone you meet – hand them a business card – you never know when they might need your services or know someone that does!
• Be Adaptable – all agencies and clients differ in the way they like you to work. You need to adapt to their methods and quickly. You may be asked to do things that may not be your niche from time to time, if you effectively communicate this but also adapt to the requirements then this will reflect favourably on you.
• Use Your Initiative – hugely important in the design world. There will be times where if you’re working in-house there will be no-one around to answer any questions you may have. You need to take the initiative in these situations and use your experience to make the right decisions.
• Be Pro-Active – when you’re closely involved in a project you will see opportunities to aid your project, you need to recognise these as early as possible and capitalise on them.
• Listen To Your Instinct – there are good clients and bad clients, you need to work out which category any potential new clients fall in to before you agree to work with them, this is usually a lot easier than it sounds. Look for signs in early communication you have with a client, whether it’s on the telephone, by email or even face to face – the signs are almost always there to see and they’re not usually hard to spot. As soon as the alarm bells start ringing you need to take action fast, your instincts are usually spot on.

Hopefully these methods may help you out with your freelance career. They’ve kept me busy over the years!

The way I see design, it’s all about educated decisions. From the very start of a project you will make numerous decisions and you will discount certain things based upon a combination of the current brief, your experiences from the past and what you believe is right for the project. Producing multiple varying visuals goes completely against this.

Putting myself in the clients shoes for a moment, were I to receive 3 different visuals from the same agency I would question it. It would send me the message that the designer/agency weren’t confident in their approach and trying to cover all their bases. I would question whether it was the best use of time and resources. If I’m paying someone to design something for me, I’m paying them to make these decisions and present me with their answer to the brief.

And finally… anyone who has submitted multiple design variations to a client in the past will know that inevitably the same thing will almost always happen. The  client will select elements from each of the designs submitted and ask you to put them together – something that you should have done in the first place.

If anyone out there has any interesting takes on this I’d love to hear them!

A quick search for web design trends will return you a huge amount of results. Many of these show examples of these so called trends in use – big fonts, photographic backgrounds, handwritten fonts to name but a few. It’s very easy to focus on a particular element of a website you like and to find other websites that also do this (the countless css galleries out there will help you out), but that to me is more indicative of the scale of the web design industry than of designers jumping on a particular style bandwagon.

Of course, we operate in a very fast developing industry and technology will play it’s part in dictating some of the guidelines but design to me is not about trends, it’s about solutions. It’s about finding the best possible solution to the brief regardless of current techniques and trends.

Anyway, here is a round up of 5 sites that I’ve stumbled upon lately that I think for one reason or another really make the best of texture.

Envisionext
This is the first site I came across that I thought really executed some very controlled use of texture.

Jared Campbell
I don’t know who Jared Campbell is but he’s got himself a tidy little website. I particularly like the way the texture is carried through to the typography without going over the top.

Starbucks Coffee at Home
I must have seen a hundred websites that attempt to recreate a chalboard effect over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one as sweet as the Starbucks site – I love the chalk marks and the use of colour on the board.

Von Dutch Originals
Ok, I admit it, of the 5 this is my least favourite of the designs shown here, but there is still something about it that I like. Somehow this site feels like it’s on paper rather than screen – achieving that is very difficult!

Guillaume Pacheco
Initially, I didn’t like this site – then I clicked a couple of the buttons. I love the transitions between different textures and the use of typography – well worth a look!

A few years ago I accidentally stumbled on a very simple technique that seems to combat design block and as a result I’ve never suffered from it since.

It happened when I was working on some graphics for an online kids game in Illustrator. I hit the invisible wall, I tried all the usual techniques to combat design block – made a cup of tea (old design favourite), had a surf around for some inspiration, tried stepping back from the screen a bit – nothing worked. Then it happened. For some reason, I zipped the file that I was struggling on down to the dock and sat behind it was the last project I was working on, a very corporate site for a solicitors. I knuckled down to do some work on the site and everything was going great, design block gone! I was flying through it. A couple of hours later I switched back to the game graphics and again I was flying through it. It seems that the contrast of work style did something to my brain that took the block away.

To this day I still use this technique, I always try and work on two contrasting projects simultaneously. Obviously it’s not always possible to work on such contrasting projects, but it is usually possible to work on contrasting parts of different projects – i.e. if you’re struggling with design on one project, switch to coding on another project or if you’re struggling with some code, put your design hat on for a while.

Ok, it’s a fairly obvious technique in theory, but in practice we designers are stubborn beasts. We hit the block and we keep pushing against it not getting anywhere because we become consumed by the problem. So the next time you hit the wall – give this technique a try, I’ve been using it for years and it’s never failed me yet!