Freelancefolder

Why Bear Grylls Would Make a Better Designer Than You

Posted June 24, 2010 in Graphic Design, Inspiration

Bear Grylls, the star of the hit show Man vs. Wild, defines what every man really wants to be.

For the frequent rock dwellers who don’t know Bear or haven’t been able to catch Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel, picture a man that you could drop out of a plane anywhere on the planet (literally anywhere) and he would survive.

Now picture that man waiting for you when you got back to the airport, probably with some dirt on him, maybe with a little bit of something else’s blood. Bear Grylls can tackle any environment with his keen resourcefulness, endurance, and testosterone.

While I am not entirely aware of Bear’s computer skill set, I am going to go ahead and bet the house that he is a better web designer than you are. Where does my confidence come from? Well first, I have never seen Bear fail to do anything. This guy kills things that kill people and then he eats them… I am serious. He eats them. So am I going to say that Bear sucks at web design? Heck no, I don’t want to get eaten. Apart from the threat of consumption, Bear employs several survival techniques that act as pretty solid advice in the web design world as well. In this post, I’ll share Bear’s techniques and explain how they apply to web design.

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25 Must-Read Blogs for Freelance Designers

Posted June 23, 2009 in Graphic Design, Tools/Resources, Web Design

So far at FreelanceFolder we’ve had a showcase of 20 Must-Read blogs for Freelance Writers, and also a showcase of 20 Must-Read blogs for Online Entrepreneurs — so it’s only fitting to add to this collection of lists and showcase 25 must-read blogs for freelance designers.

It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to sharpen your skills as a vector designer, a photoshop designer, a website designer or if you’re just looking for resources, inspiration and freebies (like brushes & icons), the websites below will give you everything you’re looking for. I’d definitely suggest checking them all out and subscribing to each of their RSS feeds (I’ve got them all in my feed reader).

Vector Design Blogs

Below are some great blogs specifically written for those of us who are looking for vector tutorials and resources.

AI Burn

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Why Most Designers Will Be Freelancers Within 20 Years

Posted April 2, 2009 in Business, Graphic Design, Web Design

There’s been a big trend in the design industry lately, with people from all levels of design turning to freelancing. But the trend is even bigger than a lot of people imagine, and very quickly the industry balance is tipping towards freelancers.

Given the major elements at play, there’s no reason for this swing to stop, or even slow, in the next few decades — and pretty soon the majority of designers are going to be freelancers.

What leads to this conclusion, you ask? Here are three major reasons that most designers are going to be freelancers within the next 20 years:

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Find The Perfect Image For Any Project In 5 Steps

Posted March 19, 2009 in Graphic Design, How-To, Web Design

Finding the right image is a constant challenge for designers, writers, freelancers, photographers — and just about anyone else who works on visual projects. Wading through the myriad of images and websites that are out there is tough, and picking a single one of those photos can be even harder.

In this article, we’ll show you a simple 5 step process that can make finding the right image much easier. It’s a process that’s been used to find hundreds of great images on this site, and it’s been used to find thousands of images for various other projects.

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25 Sites to Find Good Free Vector Files

Posted February 13, 2009 in Graphic Design, Tools/Resources

Finding the right piece of vector art for your project is never an easy task. Trying to find the right vector for free is an even harder one.

Luckily for us, in this digital and open source age, there are quite a few resources floating around the web that make the search a little easier. There is an ever growing number of websites that focus on nothing but free vector graphics. Some of these sites are gold mines, while others aren’t worth visiting.

Below is a collection of websites that are definitely worth checking out — sites that have high quality free vector files as well as showcases of other free vector resources.

Free Blank Vector Clothing

 
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27 Indispensible Resources for Graphic Designers

Posted January 20, 2009 in Graphic Design, Tools/Resources

Graphic designers are always in a battle to create the best looking results in the least amount of time. Constantly trying to make these gorgeous, polished designs without spending an eternity creating them usually requires using some pre-built elements — things like photoshop brushes, illustrator patterns, textures, etc…

In this list, we’ve compiled some of the best brushes, patterns, textures, fonts, and vectors that will help make your graphic design life a bit easier. Read on for more.

Photoshop Brushes

60 Most Wanted Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes, .PSDs and Resources

Another collection of collections, but there are some great brushes listed in the brushes section… you’ll find some other great Photoshop resources as well.

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The “Alfred Hitchcock” Guide to Branding

Posted September 8, 2008 in Business, Graphic Design, Marketing

If you think about the iconic movie director Alfred Hitchcock, the psychological movie thrillers The Birds and Psycho probably come to mind.

There’s a good reason for that. Not only were those two films made late in Hitchcock’s life (making them more recent), they also contain unforgettable scenes that will leave you riveted to your seat. Who can forget the shower scene from Pyscho?

Alfred Hitchcock had the well-deserved reputation as a master of suspense because he was also a master of branding.

If you look at how he earned his reputation, you’ll see that he did a lot of things specifically to enhance his brand. As a freelancer, there is a lot of value in examining what he did.

Here are a few branding tips that we can all learn from the “master of suspense.”

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4 Ways Consulting Can Help Your Design Business

Posted August 28, 2008 in Business, Graphic Design, Web Design

I’ve been a freelance web-designer for a couple years now and I recently started offering consulting services. Honestly, at first I didn’t think it would help me get more design gigs, I just thought it would be one more income stream and figured I’d try it since I was already giving advice about design and usability to my clients.

Actually, offering consulting services is probably the best decision I’ve made in my freelance career so far (after going full-time freelance of course) I get more requests for design projects now than before I started offering it. Why?

There are 4 main reasons why I do consulting and how I think it helps my design business. Keep in mind that these can also be applied to any other business like writing, blogging, programming, etc… [Click Here to Read More...]

Interview With Adelle Charles From Fuel Your Creativity – Design, Blogging And Business

Posted August 20, 2008 in Graphic Design, Inspiration, Interviews

Hey everyone! Today we have an interview with Adelle Charles of Fuel Your Creativity! Adelle is awesome, I’ve known her for some time now and have been an avid reader of her blog since the day I found it. I hope you enjoy the interview! :)

Jon: Hi Adelle, can you please tell our readers a little about yourself, where you’re from, what you do?

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