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Communication Strategies to Keep Your Projects on Track

September 19, 2011

This is a guest post by Ashley Janssen of AgileStyle. Thanks Ashley!

The success or failure of a project, no matter what industry you are in, often hinges on how effective the communication is between all involved parties. When speaking specifically about web design/development, this doesn’t just refer to communication between you and your client, but also between you and your team.

As freelancers, and even small firms, you are often not only the designer or developer but also the project manager. The following are a few things to keep in mind to keep the communication channels as clear as possible and help keep your projects moving smoothly.

Web Design Communication Strategies

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Found Friday Vol 67

September 16, 2011

Another instalment of Found Fridays, another collection bursting at the seams with awesomeness. The overwhelming amount of awesomeness may be due to the fact that it’s my birthday today. Right guys? Guys? Anyway, this week we have: a little online tool for testing out your CSS code; a project to brand every lake in Minnesota, one per day; an awesome little tool for organizing beer in your fridge; a great article on how to be excellent at anything; and a must-read article for UI designers.

CSSDesk

Sometimes you’re entirely sure what your CSS code is going to render like, and it can be a pain to save/refresh/view the result in the browser. CSSDesk lets you tweak and view live, in the browser. Handy.

Branding 10,000 Lakes

A project to brand one Minnesota lake per day. Apparently it’ll take 27 years. Cool (if a little ambitious) idea, and good work posted thus far.

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Found Friday Vol 66

September 9, 2011

Aww yeahhh…. this week’s Found Friday is a solid one. We have some awesome tees for designers; an ugly but very useful app for scheduling meetings; a must-read article on pricing for designers; some beautiful CSS3 buttons; and some killer free fonts from FontFont. Read on!

United Pixelworkers

Not only are these shirts beautifully designed (not to mention the site!), but they’re printed on American Apparel and reasonably priced. It’s a perfect storm for designerd consumerism!

WhenIsGood

Ostensibly inspired by the phrase “When is good for you?”, this ugly-yet-useful free web app allows a link to be generated that showcases a calendar. This link can be sent out to various parties, who then check off which days are “good” for them to meet. The app keeps track of all parties and narrows down the entries to show the days that work for everyone. Simple and awesome!

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Found Friday Vol 65

September 2, 2011

We’re back! Like Ma$e. Actually, hopefully not like Ma$e. Anyway, this week’s Found Friday is a stellar collection: Wacom’s new digital drawing tool; 2 articles showcasing usability examples (Amazon = Good, Microsoft = Bad); a great site for those wishing to learn how to code; and an article on realigning your views on “stupid” clients.