January 1, 2010 by Jeff
Welcome to 2010, people! Weren’t we supposed to be in flying cars and eating meals in pill form by now, a la the Jetsons? Alas, these things have yet to come to fruition. However, it’s a new decade, and time for a new tradition. Allow me to present to you the first in a new feature on the Paper Leaf blog: the Free Calendar Wallpaper Series. Each month, we’ll post a free calendar for you to download and use on your desktop. How handy is that? This month’s is inspired by the new decade – 2010 sounds futuristic to me! Enjoy, share and subscribe to the RSS feed!
Click to download the January Calendar Wallpaper in 1920X1200, 1680X1050, 1440X900 and 1280X800. Pass it along!
Category: Calendar, Free Friday Wallpaper, Freebies Tags: 2010, calendar, Design, january, wallpaper | Comments (1)
November 23, 2009 by Jeff
Up until recently, I like many was juggling part-time freelancing and part-time design/photography. The client base wasn’t there and I didn’t have the confidence to make a proper jump to full-time freelancing. However, there are plenty of clients and opportunities in Edmonton and abroad; projects kept coming in, clients kept growing and eventually it made sense to make the leap and go full-time.
With going full-time, Andy & I decided that working from home would be best. No office rent overhead meant it would be easier on us, and lower overhead means a cost savings for our clients too! But working from home, despite what my friends might tell you, isn’t all Call of Duty, pajamas and getting up at noon. Nope – in fact, it takes a lot of discipline both to work from home efficiently and to not let your work consume your life. Thus, I bring to you 6 Tips for Working from Home – hit the jump for some great practical info!
Used under Creative Commons- link to shooter's flickr.
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Category: Articles, Business Tags: Design, freelance, working from home | Comments (15)
November 16, 2009 by Jeff
Graphic design has an amazing community. Comprised of both the vets from the pre-computer era to the newbies who were raised on the internet and computer-editing applications, there is a huge gamut of people sharing their work and expertise online. I know when I was starting out in design, I found tons of inspiration and information from sites like JustCreativeDesign, DesignNewz, and more. If there’s one issue, however, it’s that there’s almost too much great information out there. I know – good problem to have, right?
But for those designers just starting out, or for those designers who are considering getting into design, the amount of information can be a little overwhelming. Couple this with Paper Leaf’s desire to give back to the design community, and this is what you get: the All-in-One Graphic Design Starter’s Kit. The idea behind this kit is for it to be a one-stop shop for those getting into design – and for it to be completely free. It includes free software (for both Mac & Windows – photo/raster editing, vector editing, and HTML/CSS WYSIWYG editing), eBooks, textures, vectors, brushes, and awesome fonts. If you were to have no idea where to start, you could come here, download everything, read the eBooks and corresponding software guides, and have a great starting point.
This “kit” was originally intended to be a zipped file containing all of the links below; however, it clocked in at about half a gigabyte, which I thought most people wouldn’t want to sit and download (plus it would put a strain on our hosting). Thus, I’ve broken down the kit into the elements that made it up, and linked to them all below – and making this All-in-One Graphic Design Starter’s Kit a series of links and downloadable sections, which allows people to pick and choose what elements they want.
All of these items are free, open-source and legal for both me to share & you to download – however, please don’t claim any of them as your own. All of the items in this design kit required a lot of time & effort from their respective creators, so give ‘em some love! Hit the jump for all the amazing links and downloadables that make up the Free All-in-One Graphic Design Starter Kit!
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Category: Articles, Design, Fonts, Freebies Tags: brush, Design, Fonts, free, graphic, kit, software, vector | Comments (19)
November 6, 2009 by Jeff
Welcome to what I believe to be the final installment of the typography-based series of free Friday Wallpapers. Don’t worry, I’ll still do free wallpapers, but I’m not sure entirely what kind next. I’m thinking a calendar one, once a month, come January – but as for weekly, I have no idea. Too many deadlines these days!
Anyway, this week’s is Georgia (regular). The challenge here was to take a font seen all over the place – a font that’s sort of bland – and make it interesting as the sole item in the design. I think it worked! Enjoy, share and subscribe to the RSS feed!
Click to download the Georgia Wallpaper in 1920X1200, 1680X1050, 1440X900 or 1280X800. Pass it along!
Category: Design, Free Friday Wallpaper, Freebies Tags: Design, free, green, typography, wallpaper | Comments Off
November 2, 2009 by Jeff
Ah, the world wide web. It’s kind of like a cyber-world tour pass – we can go virtually anywhere, at anytime, with a good internet connection. Luckily for us designers, that means the amount of potential clients has increased exponentially. I’ve written about how to get local design clients before; now, I’d like to focus on how to work with long-distance clients.
The fundamental principles of good project management remain the same, whether your client is local or international – trust & communication. If you can gain one another’s trust, and if you communicate effectively with one another, then a project will run smoothly. But how can we do that if we’re working long-distance, giving up face-to-face meetings and focusing on internet and phone-based communication?
Well, let’s approach a long-distance project the same way we’d approach a local project, and I’ll point out ways to combat the small roadblocks that come up. Hit the jump to read the rest of the post!
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Category: Articles, Business, Design Tags: clients, Design, long distance, project, working | Comments (4)
