From the Description:

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Without really getting into the back story as you can read about that in depth elsewhere, here is a quick glimps. I am basically at the point where I feel I need to make a decision. The decision being that I either A. continue to go with what seems to be working (that is freelancing) or B. toss out that type of thinking to realize my true vision for where this business will go. With the awful state of the economy you might think I am best to stay where I am at (comfortable income), wheathering the storm and saving my idea of granduer for another day. And that is why I am confidently betting on my plan, while most spend their time thinking aobut recession I envision expansion.

The Build

Having a few failures as an entreprenuer under my built I am finally starting to recognize the importance of the build. The build is the foundation, it is your first day of business, it is your daily operations and it is where your business will be ten years down the road. It comes in the form of vision and it comes in the form of extensive documentation, but it is necessary.

Example 1
Some months ago I recognized the impending failure of my at the time , current employer. Failure not as a business but as a company able to keep me on the payroll long term. When I recognized the future I started planning for it. For me it was as simple as getting the name out there, starting a blog, joining the social community. Advertising in small chunks and securing a small customer base to build off. When the day came, I gave myself two weeks to start generating income as a freelancer. At the end of those two weeks if it didn’t look promising it meant searching out new employment. Two weeks! That’s not nearly enough time to recognize anything substantial, but it worked, the build that had led up to that day paid off and I have not had the time to look back since.

Whether it be vision or a 50 page document, formulate a plan and start building a foundation. Now make it happen, execute. Yes you are crazy but you are also confident in your plan. If I would have listened to everybody else’s opinion when the day came that I found myself unemployed I would be still be wondering what if, not to mention sitting in yet another job with an uncertain future. Fortunately for me I was confident in the foundation I had put down in preparation for building.

Forward

When I saw the opportunity I moved on it, I went forward. Again I was confident that I had built a sturdy foundation and I was not willing to listen to “the others”. I did so without questioning failure, in fact it never even crossed my mind that I would fail. You need to go forward positively and with confidence. Now here’s the key to why I am once again at a crossroads faced with the question of which way I would like to go next. While I was enjoying my newfound career as a freelancer, plenty of jobs, good money etc, I did not lose site of vision. I continued the building phase, one foundation on top another setting my self up for the next step. The 110th floor can not exist without the 109 floors below it correct?

Fast

Remember foundation, fast does not mean skimp and skip, it means to act on opportunity when it presents itself. Waiting around to see what the other guy is gonna do will lead you to one conclusion, he acted before you did, period. Opportunity waits for no one. It’s comes, it goes and it’s gone.

As long as you have given attention to detail in building your foundation the next move can be made quickly when the opportunity arrives. There is always time to revisit the floor below to tweak the lighting or add an espresso machine.

Next Post: “A Plan in Action – Moving Forward” Coming Soon…

I recently contacted someone who had put an add online requesting some very simple web design work, around 5 pages nothing to spectacular, looking for a web designer that wants to add to their portfolio. (I should have seen the red flag there.) However being that I am in the early stages of branching off and taking on clients of my own outside of work I decided that I would reply. In my reply I gave a rough estimate that was quite low compared to what one might expect to charge for professional web design out of a bigger company. I also opened up the discussion for negotiation in my initial email but at no time did I indicate that I would be willing to do pro-bono work. The reply I received was “would you be willing to do it for free and add it to your portfolio?” Ok here is the kicker, this company advertised itself as a small finance company. So I stepped back and thought about how I should reply to this one, and here is what I came up with. My reply went something like this, “Unfortunately I am unable to take on this type of work right now, I apologize, I misunderstood your need.” Line 2: Unless of course you are in the business of giving out zero interest loans to small businesses, then we might be able to talk.” The reply I received was a bit funny but ended with “no problem I will find someone to do it for free.”

So why is it so appalling that I might suggest that they provide their service for free if they are requesting mine for no charge? Obviously I did not expect to get the job when I replied in the manner I did, but I wanted to make a point. The problem that I have here is that I run into this time and again, it seems as though there are a great number of business owners out there that greatly undervalue the work that we as designers and web developers do. In some ways I feel like the kid who used to do drawings of animals for his classmates because he happened to be pretty good at it for a 3rd grader. Odd thing is I imagine that a business would have no problem paying for ad space in the local business publication, so where is the line drawn that says design and development work is of lesser value than “real, paid advertising”. Yes I understand that you want to have a line on your business card that starts with the letters www but why not take full advantage of what that www can provide you. Believe it or not more people turn to the internet to find a business, product or service they are in need of than anywhere else. So what gives?

The sad truth is, he is absolutely right. He will in fact find some poor college student who just needs to add a few more work examples to his portfolio before he graduates and he or she will be more than happy to do it for free. I have no problem with that college student doing the work either, they will do what they have to do to get ahead and hang their hat out in the corporate world.

Sorry but web design and development is a service and yes some people actually do it as a full time job and even get paid pretty well. No we don’t all learn to do this after creating our first myspace profile, we actually read books and take classes to stay up on the latest technologies so that we can provide you with a website that will work as a viable business tool.

Now as a disclaimer, there are some instances in which I would create a website for free. Here area few off the top of my head. I would consider doing work for a viable non-profit organization for free. I would also be more than happy to create a blog design for a young cancer survivor who wants to share his story with the world and touch other children dealing with cancer. This is not an extensive list but you get the idea.

So my question is how do we combat this plague on our industry?

For those of you that may have the money to invest in a professional web designer but are having mixed feelings about parting with the cash I want you to seriously consider you decision. If creating a web presence is an plays an integral part in the future of your business and you are not already web savvy then my suggestion to you is go for the pro. Yes you may save a ton of cash by learning to do it yourself, but you also may spend a ton of time before you are good enough to make your website stand out on the web. Time that could have been better focused on your strong suits like developing product and marketing the brand.

Now for those of you that are like me and are dead set on doing it yourself either because you do not have the money or you are just stubborn and have a hard time letting others do the work for you. (I tend to be both.) I can not stress the importance of really taking the time to learn everything you can related to creating a web presence and carefully planning your course of action. By taking the time to learn everything I am not only referring to creating the structure and design, I am speaking of the inner workings of having your page found and indexed. This is actually a bit hard for me to say, as I tend to really enjoy the coding and design, but I feel that learning how to market and have your page found is a bit more important at this point. Why? Because like I have read time and time again, you can create the most beautifully functional page on the internet but if no one knows about it than it may as well not exist when it comes to running a business on the web. Get your page found first and then you can worry about keeping them there with your amazing design abilities.

Here is just a few of the things that I suggest you pay special attention to when creating your internet plan.

Google: Whether we like to admit it or not Google is on of the most important factors in having your web page found. Take the time to learn about how they crawl your site and what they look for. Pay close attention to things like, tags, titles, keywords, content and incoming links. These are the elements that create page rank. Learn about analytics, adwords and even adsense. Google has a ever expanding list of useful tools and they don’t look like they’ll be going anywhere any time soon.

Blogging: Learn about it, it’s not the be all end all for getting your site listed but it can be a very useful tool. The inner workings of blogging itself can give you volumes of information even if you don’t plan to incorporate a blog.

Social Networking and Bookmarking: Get to know these sites, they are some of the most visited on the net and they can be a big help in getting you found. Hang out and pay attention to the order of things. Watch how people interact and what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable. Learn what it takes to get people interested enough to deem you a useful member of the community. If you eventually make use of sites like these it is important that you know where you stand so that you don’t get booted for spamming your first day around.

Analytics Software: You need to understand how and why your visitors are getting to your site, why they view the content they do and most importantly why they leave. I personally make dual use of Statcounter and Google Analytics on a variety of my sites. The knowledge you can pull from all the fancy graphs and numerical tables is indispensable.

Site Submission: There are a ton of search engines and directories out there, do some research to find the ones that are necessary, the ones that will give you a boost and the ones that may hurt your chances.

Blogs in your niche: There are blogs out there for just about every niche you can think of, find a handful of them that relate to your product or service and visit them often. Look for the type of posts are frequent and the ones that seem to attract the most attention. Getting someone to write up an article on your site, product or service can be a great way of obtaining some zero cost advertising. Don’t be afraid to get involved here, add a few comments of your own, but again be sure that you are adding something that is actually useful to the readers. And DON’T SPAM, it’s irritating to have to go through and moderate a bunch of advertisements, trust me.

Last but not least Design. I put this at the end because it is so important to retaining your visitors. Get out there on there and do some research on design and functionality. Check out sites like cssbeauty.com for some design inspiration. Or head over to Sitepoint for volumes of info on both. Learn what it takes to keep your readers clicking and make it pleasing to the eye.

Well I do hope that this gives you a good point to start from when setting out to create your own internet presence. Please feel free to visit my del.icio.us page for tons of info on everything I have covered.

When I started to really focus on becoming a better designer I began searching high and low for any tips, tutorials and thoughts on the subject. Recently I stumbled across on of those infamous lists that seem to be dominating social bookmarking these days entitled “50 Ways to become a better Designer“. I have never been one to believe that one source of information will provide that breakthrough to the next level of study or professionalism, however this article got me thinking about how I actually come up with a concept for a design or piece that I am working on.

This article seems to focus primarily on those who have been given a commission to bid on, which I will say has always made it easier for me to conceptualize an idea. When I am given the direction with a few suggestions or ideas generated by the end user then I can usually come up with something that is headed in the right direction. However what about those of us who design for ourselves? I often find myself in this predicament as I attempt to design a t-shirt or perhaps the web site you are looking at right now. Of course I have to take certain things into consideration when creating these designs such as what kind of t-shirts are people looking to buy or what would I be more likely to stop and take notice of while browsing the web. When it comes to this type of design it is never completely for self there is always that marketability factor involved.

My thought process – Often an idea will just hit me, it may have been something I read or saw while walking down the street. A t-shirt that caught my eye perhaps. Then I will spend hours looking at related images, perhaps similar projects or products that come close to touching on that idea. No matter what the project I tend to search out what other people have done in the past not only to get ideas but to be absolutely sure that my idea is at least somewhat original and styled upon completion. The next step is to begin doodling. Just putting down ideas and every once and a while something clicks, I say to myself “that’s it, that’s what I have been seeing in my mind.” This process tends to take a little longer than I would like as I have any number of other tasks inherit to running a business waiting to be completed, and I am consistently in awe of those who can put the pen to paper and conceptualize an idea in what seems like minutes. I personally have never been one to do this and often find myself reworking until I find perfection and then two days later reworking again. So in my quest to become a better designer while attempting to manage my time more effectively I would like to learn to cut down on the idea generation time.

Some things I learned from this article that may aide in achieving this goal.

The most useful idea I came away with was to carry a notebook with me at all times sketching down ideas and thoughts keeping them fresh. I often find that those ‘aha’ ideas come to me at the worst times and I either have to hope I will remember them or they end up on a loose piece of scrap that almost always gets lost in the shuffle.

Secondly is the idea of brand thinking when it comes to design, I need to be more aware of what or who I am targeting with a particular design and realize that it is not entirely for me. I will always have other forms of artistic expression that I can do for self.

Third is the idea of getting away from the medium with which I am creating the work. This is one that I have attempted to do more often but I still find it hard to leave something less than perfect in that unfinished state.

Feedback: Something that is hard to comprehend for a lot of us in that it hurts somewhat to here someone tell you that they are not really feeling your idea. Listening to what others think is very important when creating a work that appeals to the masses and not just a few or even one person.

Keeping a library. I actually purchased a external hard drive for exactly this purpose and began saving things more often no matter how unpleased I am with their outcome. Stop crumpling that sketch before you step away and come back to it. You may find later that there is something there that may be useful in a future project.

Read, take classes and learn. Reading has been key for more to learn the little bit that I have in the past year. I find reading and teaching myself to be my most successful learning model , but I encourage you to do whatever it takes to get better.

Lastly I would like to recommend you read the article “50 Ways to Become a Better Designer” as well as anything else you can find and to apply the practices that work well for you. Never believe that you are as good as you are going to get. There is always room for improvement.

Since writing this post I have compiled quite a list of relevant links on del.icio.us so please feel free to browse through when you have the time. The quest for knowledge is infinite.

First and foremost, learn CSS. CSS has become the standard for design in the internet arena. Knowledge of it can save you from a lot of sleepless nights in the future. Buy some books, do some Google research and when all else fails don’t hesitate to hire a professional!

Secondly, take a look at what is already out there. Some helpful resources like cssbeauty.com or this post I recently found over at Smashing Magazine may point you in the right direction. There is a never ending source of information out there so use it. Pay close attention to the design of the featured sites, what are they doing to accomplish seamless transition from one page to the next. These are some of the best in web design and not only do they follow current trends but often times they set them. Look at the elements of each page; colors, link placement, images, content etc. I am not saying to go out and copy a design in it’s entirety, however it’s not necessary to completely redesign the wheel either. Pick out ways that may suit you well in your own ideas for content arrangement and don’t be afraid to adapt them.

Further expanding on the key elements of your page I would like to touch on a few in detail. One important aspect is the placement of navigation throughout your site, something that I still tend to struggle with. Try to keep it simple, put the important page navigation right there in front of the user and keep it consistent. If the first link on your navbar points to your home page, keep it that way on all of the pages throughout. Constantly changing placement frustrates users and discourages them from exploring any further. Hiding your navigation system all together and you might as well create a single page website. Make your important navigation obvious, this is extremely important for any site set up with e-commerce in mind. If they can’t find the product you might as well not even have it up for sale. Think of it as establishing a traditional brick-n-mortar store and then putting up a barrier around the door. Invite your customers in, in fact encourage them to browse and it will pay of in the end. Next is layout, try to keep your layout of content similar from one space to the next. If you are going for a center aligned site then keep it that way, don’t suddenly left align on page 3 because there was just to much info you wanted to share. Layout can be expanded into much greater detail but you get the idea. Take a look at how a magazine is set up. Lastly for this discussion is color. Try to keep it simple, stick to a few main colors and be sure that they are complimentary to each other. When I refer to color I am talking again about the general layout of your site not the products or the portfolio work itself. (Maybe I will try that though, produce all of my t-shirts in the same color scheme and then set the website up around that?) Drawing attention to a certain area with a brightly colored web 2.0 button is not uncalled for just make it work don’t make it an eyesore.

Oh and one more thing, take advantage of your white space or the blank areas of the page. Avoid to much unneeded clutter. More and more web design is turning towards simple well thought out design, showcasing one or two key content elements per page. don’t be afraid to spread out a bit when you have an overwhelming amount of content, you are not paying for extra pages in a catalog here (well that is debatable, it does in the long run depend on your web package). Ok now lastly, don’t be afraid to edit, like any good magazine, book or movie out there some scenes just don’t belong.

You can check out what I have created so far at www.asoneclothing.com it is by no means any where near perfect but it’s coming along at a decent rate of speed. Feel free to comment, suggest or even criticize it in any way.