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Working as a freelance web designer you’ll find yourself naturally jumping from project-to-project. This quick pace comes with the lifestyle and requires some serious dedication. You cannot get lost in the royalties of extra touch-ups and recoloring textures.

You need to understand how to freelance working with a bottom line. This should be your ultimate goal to achieve on every project. When working for many clients it will be difficult jumping through hoops to accommodate design choices. But in this article I’d like to share a few tips for setting your bottom line and sticking to it.

Envision the Final Product

Before you jump into coding or even open Adobe Photoshop, it may be worthwhile to plan a concept in your mind. If you can see the finished layout in your head then it’s just a matter of fleshing out the details. You’ll save loads of time going back to fix smaller mistakes if you have a plan prepared.

But having a solid finished product ahead of time also keeps you on a single course. You will know exactly what needs to be done and which steps are necessary to get there. No need to side-step your todo list and jump around on extra cool features. Sticking to a tight layout will keep you focused, working dedicated to a single end result.

Understanding Motivation

It’s important to understand why you’re even working on projects in the first place. As a new startup idea the concept is more confusing. When you are building a website for yourself it’s more about building a name, getting traffic and setting up a powerful brand.

But when freelancing it’s 99% about the money. You can still do amazing artwork and make payment your top priority – meaning your work quality will not suffer. But you must be honest with yourself about why you’re freelancing and what the ultimate goal should be. Is it necessary you freelance to keep paying bills, or more like extra income?

Either way you can use this motivation to keep everything moving. When you are stuck on a project and feel lost take a quick break and reflect on the bigger picture. This will reset your perspective on things and hopefully you won’t get caught up in all the small details.

Disregard Perfection

There is definitely no such thing as “perfect” in web design. Or any field of design for that matter. Going into a project with the expectation that it be perfect is absurd. Design is very subjective in its own way – meaning beauty is within the eye of the beholder.

If you aren’t expecting a perfect design from the beginning then you will have an easier time accepting whatever you can build! Because with such a perfectionist mindset you’ll undoubtedly end up destroying your own work with over-analyzation. Go into every project with no predetermined expectations and you’ll be surprised with each outcome.

Stick Within your Boundaries

All too often I see freelancers jumping at any project they can land. Even if the job requires some aspect which they are not familiar with – and this will generally lead to disaster.

You can’t promise work to a client if you are almost totally unfamiliar with some bits and pieces. However you also shouldn’t be afraid to try new ideas which are within your realm of control. For example, if you are already familiar with PHP but have never built an avatar upload form you shouldn’t be discouraged from accepting such a project. You can use your existing knowledge of PHP and tutorials around the web to figure out a finished product that works.

A good rule of thumb is to stay away from techniques you know nothing about. If you have never made a vector in Adobe Illustrator then you shouldn’t promise anything like that in a client’s work. Even with the myriad of tutorials out there, it’s just not feasible to learn an entirely new piece of software on a project deadline.

Accept the Finished Work

One really tough aspect for freelancers is when the project finally comes to a close. Right before you upload all the finished pages, you can’t help but second guess a few choices. Maybe you could flip through a different color scheme or reposition the ad banner?

Thinking like this will keep you holed up in front of the computer screen for too long. Meeting your bottom line is a signal that all the project requirements have been met. Once everything is done you shouldn’t feel attached to the work. This will only make it more difficult to accept the finished piece and move onto your next client.

Overall it comes down to business. Remember that your bottom line is to get paid and provide a service. Once your services have been rendered and the payment is received it’s time to move onto your next gig. If you live for the edge and excitement this lifestyle can be very rewarding! You can get your name on some really cool projects, all while learning new web technologies and getting paid to do so.

Conclusion

I hope a few of these tips can hold a purpose for like-minded freelancers. The field of web design is packed with young, gifted talent. And even meeting new clients can be a struggle with little experience. But when you setup a business around your talents then it’s so much easier churning out tasks and pushing forward as an independent designer.

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Maybe this scenario sounds familiar to you: A few years ago I found myself working an office job that was ok. It paid ok, I liked the work ok, I liked the people I worked with ok, and I was pretty ok at what I did. Like I said, it was ok. But I didn’t love it. I didn’t wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose that drove me to excel at my job. It wasn’t what I really wanted to do, but for the longest time I put up with it because I’d done the math. What I really wanted to do was go into digital publishing, which in my mind required a new computer that would cost at least $3,000, software that my current laptop couldn’t handle, at least one or two creative/business partners, and a camera/other gear I couldn’t afford.

See, my background at the time (creatively) was in film and television. Before my office job I had interned at a small studio where my work over two years ran the gamut of print design, copywriting, scriptwriting, motion graphics and some non-profit documentary work. While the studio itself was small we had a lot of interns and volunteers which meant that our total creative team was around 70-80 people when all hands were on deck.

I loved that atmosphere. I loved racing towards a tough deadline with a team of resourceful creatives at my side. I knew that was ultimately what I wanted in a job. The type of challenging creative collaboration that left you tired to your bones but satisfied in a job well done. So why was I settling for less? I was settling for less because I had bought into a lie. I bought into a lie that said I need MORE before I can start doing what I really want to be doing. More experience, more money, more equipment, a better computer, etc. But then I realized that wasn’t true. I thought about all the projects I had been forced to do on the barest of budgets, with limited cast and crew, with whatever was at hand…and I knew what I had to do.

Instead of looking at my lack of resources as a hinderance, I began to look at them as creative constraints. So I took an inventory of the resources at my disposal, I made a plan of action that began with projects I could complete right away, and I set goals for growing the pool of resources I would need in the future. Then I got to work.

A Lesson Learned

Not long after that decisive moment I left my office job, began writing full time, and started implementing my plan of founding a digital publishing company. In other words, I stopped thinking about how I couldn’t do what I really wanted to because I didn’t have all the pieces right in front of me – i.e. more money, a full team, better equipment, more connections, etc. I began with what I had (which was a laptop and all the spare time I could scrounge up) and I started writing my ass off until more resources became available.

None of this is to say that my input here is the end-all in how to start a creative business or be successful or any of that non-sense. I don’t think there is any sure way to succeed and if there were I would not be qualified to write about it. That said, some of the best advice I have ever heard on “success” and how to achieve it comes from composer Phillip Glass who said, “You get up early in the morning and you work all day. That is the only secret.” While not even that is a guarantee of success, I couldn’t agree more with its principle. In fact, because I’ve thought about that quote so much since I heard him say it in the documentary Glass: A portrait of Phillip in twelve parts, I can attribute much of this post to the implied inverse of his statement; The only sure way to fail is to do nothing.

It is in that spirit that I have written this post. Not as an expert on business or success, but as a fellow creative who has taken action in pursuit of a creative dream and learned something of value along the way. I’m far from the end of my journey – and I’ve done my fair share of stumbling in the dark – but after two years of relentless application (and some fantastic results) I think this lesson is one worth sharing.

Start with what you have – today.

Begin With An Inventory

Whatever your creative goals or career aspirations, you may be surprised at how many resources are already at your fingertips or easily within reach. It’s fruitless and discouraging to constantly think about what you would do “if only”. If only I was a better designer, if only I had that camera, if only I had a better computer – if only. How does that type of thinking get you anywhere? It’s pointless. And besides, is it even realistic to expect that just because we want to do something that we can just jump from point A to point B and be done? In my experience creative work is less like a straight line and more like an unpredictable zig-zag headed in the general direction of your end goal.

I won’t belabor this point too much, but have you ever seen Martin Scorsese’s first full length film Who’s That Knocking at My Door? In all respect to one of my favorite film makers of all time – it’s nothing to write home about. It was low budget, he was working with talented but also very young and inexperienced actors, and the script gives the impression that each scene is little more than an exercise just barely knit together by a central theme and story. But yet, in certain scenes, a glimpse of his unrefined genius is visible. It was only after six more full length films that he created Taxi Driver and blew the door off the industry.

So here’s my point: if Martin Scorcese of all people had to start small, figure things out as he went along, and wait for a budget/cast/crew/equipment – we probably will too. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

When I sat down two years ago to make an inventory of my resources, the list was pretty short. That is to say, ideally, when starting a digital publishing company – a company that would eventually make media rich websites, ebooks, ezines, and the like – you would have the equipment, team, and money required to begin. I had none. As I mentioned above, all I had was an aging macbook pro and a few spare hours each day before and after work. At least, that was what I thought I had. Once I actually opened my eyes I soon realized that for someone looking to carve their own creative and professional path in the world there is an incredible amount of free resources.

At the time I took special note of the following:

• Google Apps
• Multiple blogging platforms such as wordpress, blogger, and tumblr.
• Zoho Client Relationship Management software
• Paypal
• And of course my own creativity and experience

In fact, when I really thought about it I didn’t even need my laptop. I actually had MORE than I needed! If I had nothing but the free resources available online, I could go to the library and start my own business by working off of their computers. Wouldn’t be my first choice, but there it was. I had everything I needed to create content, manage clients, and accept payments. At the end of the day, I decided I had absolutely no excuse not to get started right away.

Make A Plan

Obviously, everyone’s plan will be different. Yours will be unique to your creative endeavor as well as your current resources. But whether or not you want to freelance, start a passion project, create a company, or even just gain the experience and clout needed to join your dream company – the benefits of making a plan are the same. Creating a plan that you actually have to carry out using nothing but the resources immediately available allows you to eliminate the impossible and start winning small victories that will help generate the momentum you need to grow.

In my case, the plan was this: Use my personal network and the creative work I’d already done to get a few free blogging/copywriting gigs that might lead to paid work. In turn, I decided to immediately implement the lessons I learned from writing for others, for myself, so I started a personal blog that would be the hub I eventually grew my business around. My logic was that quality free writing would lead to quality paid writing. Enough quality paid writing for enough blogs and businesses around the web and I would kill two birds with one stone: not only would I be able to pay my monthly bills freelancing but some of that traffic would find its way back to my personal blog. Of course a lot of work on my personal blog would lead to a loyal following. A loyal following that could then be leveraged to form revenue generating partnerships which in turn would allow me to diversify my products/services as well as build out a creative team.

After creating this general direction for myself I wrote out detailed to-do lists that would bring me closer to my end goal with each finished task. And then I got busy.

Get to Work

Looking back it’s sort of hard not to laugh. To say that my plan was a bit circumspect would be putting it mildly. But you know what it did? It got me moving in the right direction. It gave me a path, albeit a roundabout one, from what I had at that moment to what I wanted for the rest of my life. And the best part is that once you get moving you become aware of options you never knew existed before. The plan simplifies. Opportunities come as a result of your work that could not have happened otherwise. Others see what you’re doing and they join in not because you have a ton of cash or connections but because they’re passionate too. Eventually what you find is that the simple act of doing makes just about anything possible.

Final Thought

This post is really about one thing. Whether you’re a web designer, developer, blogger, videographer, or any other creative type – if you’re not doing what you love for a living there’s no reason why you can’t change that starting today. I guarantee you that if you sit down and write out your end goal, there is a way to reverse engineer a path to that goal starting with nothing but the resources you currently have access to. You might even be thinking, “but what I really need right now is cash. I’ve already done every possible thing before my next step which involves $X.” Ok, maybe that’s true. Are you on kickstarter.com yet? Are you working overtime? Have you asked friends, family, and anyone else who supports you to help out? If you haven’t, then your plan and resource list are not complete.

Never settle

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No matter what sort of art you create – whether you are a graphic designer, painter, illustrator, digital artist, videographer, or any other type of artist – being featured on the web’s top art and design blogs can result in a huge surge of active followers, interested fans, and of course – paying customers. For artists, just like anyone else, a good amount of our time is spent trying to wring a living out of our craft and free publicity never hurt anyone in that respect. In fact, I know for certain that there have been some artists who were featured on sites I’ve written for that successfully launched (or in some cases relaunched) businesses that where all of a sudden profitable because they received so much attention they were able to convert some of those new eyeballs into customers.

If you read a lot of art blogs you’ve probably seen this scenario unfold: One art blog introduces a new artist and all of a sudden over the next week, month, or even year various posts about that artist’s work begin popping up everywhere. And because that first post set off a chain reaction in which every major art blog featured that artist, they are also featured on every middling to small art blog as well. This does not just happen every once in a while – it happens ALL. THE. TIME. In fact, it has to happen. It’s the nature of being a huge source for art/design trends. If another huge source posts something new and exciting all the others have to post about it too or risk being seen as irrelevant and out of the loop.

Maybe this results in boring some readers who check a lot of blogs, but if you are that artist being featured it’s an enormous break. One day you’re toiling away in obscurity and a blog post later millions of people are looking at your work! But how do you get yourself featured? Well, the bad news is that nothing is certain. The first and hardest thing you must do is create work worth sharing. That means you actually have to have produced something special. If not, then this post won’t help you one bit because a blogger at any one of those big blogs will look at your work and move on to something else in about 10 seconds flat. If not faster. But if you have honed your craft, produced a body of quality work, and have a mind to get your work “out there” then the following five tips will help.

1. Get Your Work Online

This is so obvious you’re probably wondering why I even put it on the list, let alone as my number one. Two reasons: (1) It’s nearly impossible to get featured without a gallery of your work online; and (2) I am constantly running into talented artists that I would love to feature but can’t because they don’t have their work up anywhere. So for some reason that is beyond me, this needs to be said. Post your work online.

I’m a big believer that every artist should have a blog, but if I’m honest I have to admit that it’s not absolutely necessary. For some of you the idea of burdening yourself with a blog you have to update on a regular basis sounds about as fun as smashing your head against a wall. I get that, and it’s no big deal. But one of the big benefits to having a blog is that it functions as an online hub. One place where people can go to get updates and find out where else to follow you online such as facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc. It’s also a good place to host a shop, publish announcements for your next gallery show, product release, or anything else along those lines. But I’m getting off point. The point is, you need a place where someone like me can easily snag your work and create a post about it and you.

Any of the following platforms will work:

• WordPress
• Blogger
• Tumblr
• Behance
• Flickr
• Cargo Collective
• Dribbble
• YouTube
• Vimeo

Obviously, there are more options out there but these will do for our purposes today. Pick the platform that best fits you and your medium and start publishing your work! It is the first and most important step.

2. Do Personal Projects

Personal projects are great for a number of reasons. They keep you sharp, show your passion for your craft, and allow you room to experiment in ways that you may not be able to on a client project. Here are a few examples of people who started personal projects and wound up creating a name for themselves in the art/design world.

Abduzeedo.com – Fabio Sasso created Abduzeedo in 2006 as a personal blog where he could post the things he was learning as a graphic designer in the form of free tutorials and resources. His blog is now one of the largest art/design blogs in the world. Additionally, in large part due to the attention his blog drew to his work (which is amazing) he is now the senior designer at Google. I’m sure you will agree, that is no small feat.

LostType.com – Riley Cran and Tyler Gaplin began Lost Type as a way to distribute a single typeface they had created. Over time the site has turned into one of the most unique and useful type foundries online. Especially for cash-strapped designers in need of great fonts and typefaces. They are a fantastic example of two guys turning a passion project into a business – and a lot of attention from the design community.

BeautifulSwearWords.com – Theo Olsen – who’s not even 21 until 2014! – began a fun little project on tumblr in which he creates hand drawn versions of swear words. Simple, fun, funny, and man has it got a lot of attention. He’s been featured all over the place for this project, not to mention making the jump to television thanks to a quick feature on Adult Swim.

There are a TON of other great examples like these but you get the idea.

3. Participate In Others’ Projects

Participating in ongoing projects initiated by others can be nearly as beneficial as starting one yourself. It’s basically the same as being featured on a popular blog in and of itself. Here are a few cool projects on my radar that I’ve seen get picked up and distributed in the art/design blogosphere.

• Six Word Story Every Day
• Alphabattle by Lettercult.com
• Beautiful Swear Words (Submissions)
• Lomography competitions & giveaways
• The Sketchbook Project
• And many more.

Most popular blogs are always having competitions and giveaways so take advantage of that. Especially considering that if it’s a blog you would like your work featured on in the future, turning in a noteworthy entry to a competition they took the trouble to organize will put you on their good side and force them to look at your work. Participate as much as you can and if your work is good, people (especially bloggers looking for their next post) will notice.

4. Email Bloggers

Here is the easiest way to get your work noticed by a blogger. Send them an email like the one below.

Subject Line: [Interesting New Project Name]

Body: Hey Nathan,

I just wanted to drop you a link to my new art project.

[link]

Hope you enjoy!

[Name]
[Portfolio/Blog Link]

BOOM. Done. That is all you need. In fact, if you bury your link under an avalanche of words (even if it’s a really awesome explanation of your project) the email will probably go unread and the link un-clicked. The same idea can be executed in blog comments, facebook, twitter, or any other medium for contact.

5. Avoid A Flash Portfolio At All Costs

Piggy-backing off of number four, if I receive an email from someone who would like me to check out their online portfolio and I click on their link only to find that their portfolio is made in flash I will almost always close the window and move on to the next email.

Here’s why: Images in flash do not allow for right-click save nor are you able to drag and drop them into a folder. It’s a given that for just about every blog post an artist’s images will have to be resized, but add to that process a lengthy screen capture session and your portfolio is likely to get passed up. And if you have some sort of animation that cannot be paused the screen capture process just got five times longer because the screen captures have to be in time with the animation. Most bloggers, myself included, will not take the time to take that many screen captures when there are tons of other great resources available where that is not necessary.

That’s not to say it never happens. I’ve definitely gone to the trouble of doing this before for someone who’s work I thought was too good to pass up. I’ve also passed on a bunch of people I thought were worthy of being featured because I had a lot of deadlines that day and couldn’t spare the extra time. So why take the chance that when someone discovers your work and wants to put it in front of millions of people they decide not to because of a dumb flash animation?

Final Thought

As I mentioned above, nothing is certain. These are not “five steps to automatically getting your work on top art/design blogs” but in my experience these tips range from absolutely necessary to at least a solid step in the right direction. If you have any tips/tricks of your own that you would like to share, please feel free to do so in the comments below. Or if you think I’m full of it, I’ll be happy to discuss your objections as well

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Working as a digital professional in any field is tough. You have to constantly push towards gratifying clients and rushing through deadlines. Managing tasks in a team allows you to divide up the work much more evenly. However this also means it can be difficult getting everybody on the same page.

Communication is the key to building a powerhouse freelance team. In this guide I’ll share some tips for keeping an open communication with your partners. Freelance designers and web developers especially need to express their ideas clearly. Keep everybody talking amongst each-other and make it a point to stay on task!

Schedule a Meeting Space

Working together is such a different environment compared to working alone by yourself. You can’t magically read everybody else’s thoughts, and they can’t read yours. The best course of action here is to schedule specific meeting times to congregate ideas.

It’s good to plan anywhere from 30-60 minutes, or even longer if needed. Make sure that everyone’s ideas have been expressed and all pertinent issues are discussed. It also helps if the meetings are held in the same area each time. It offers a more familiar space where everybody can feel comfortable joining into the conversation.

In regards to frequency, this will differ greatly depending on the project at hand. If your team can get together once or twice per week then this is perfect! You’ll have more time individually focusing on tasks at hand. However I should point out that a quick 20 minute meeting each day can do a lot for productivity. Try out different schedules and see what feels best for everyone.

Segregate Roles

If you have a small team of 2 or 3 members this idea may not be as important. But understand that each person in your team is specialized in working one area or another. It can be great to have one person helping with design and HTML and backend coding. But truthfully this would be way too much, and your team will burn out sooner than later.

When initially accepting any freelance project make sure you contact everybody on the team in advance. Have a sit-down discussion where everybody can look at the project details and assign themselves with roles. This is the most straightforward approach since you can have everything organized well before even starting the design process.

Keep Everybody Updated

Even if your team is working remotely in different areas of the world, your communication should not pay the price. There are plenty of free instant messaging services including Skype or Google Chat. These also let you send files or other important project data between computers with relative ease.

When focusing on your specific area of the project it’s all too easy forgetting to keep everyone else on the same page. This can lead to problems where one team mate was waiting on your work before proceeding, and now the project is behind deadline. Or even if this isn’t the case it can’t hurt having everybody on the same page.

If you’re building projects for the web consider setting up an online workspace to host your website. This can be hosted on your company server, or even somewhere that the client may setup. Your team can use this as a “live demo” to model the finished project. Plus once you have finished small changes these can be easily updated and appended onto the finished piece.

Use Common Workflow Practices

On the topic of web design there are many common practices we see among professionals in the community. Graphics designers and illustrators understand organizing their .psd and .ai files into separate groups and layers. Naming conventions are also important so that you can easily identify which layers contain which details.

Aside from the graphics you also have to consider working on the frontend code. Most freelance projects contain both a design and coding aspect. Be pertinent and document block areas of the layout which may be confusing to others. This is crucial in a team setting where you may be handing over HTML pages to many different people.

Inline JavaScript and CSS blocks are way too confusing and take up much more space than needed. Always move your custom stylesheets into separate files and organize them accordingly. Inline comments are perfect for delineating areas in your code which style targeted elements such as the body, inner wrapper, or content page text.

Creativity Abroad

The best project works will always be inspired by creative endeavors. Never limit the aspects of creativity until you have tried and exhausted all other ideas. I find that teams with more than enough expendable energy can build some fantastic ideas without even touching a computer.

The best tips for this method of productivity include a healthy lifestyle and mentality towards your work. Be sure that you are eating healthy and getting plenty of sleep at night. Focusing on each project is important in its own time. But you must also be vicarious with your leisure space and inner creativity.

Conclusion

I hope some of these ideas can give your team a leg up in the competition. Freelancing is a tough game and requires a very tough set of members. You need everybody focused and working on the same end result to produce something outstanding. If you have similar ideas for basic team communication skills please do share with us in the post discussion area.

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To work as a freelance web designer requires a lot of patience and perseverance. You need to wake up every day and tackle problems one after another until you can successfully complete your projects. There is a lot of stress and turmoil which goes into this process, but also a lot of compassion and learning.

Many freelancers are only working with clients as a transitionary career into what they love. This could be launching their own projects, or maybe even working in business or management. The problem is about how you can slowly focus more on your own ideas and less on freelancing. In this guide I would like to offer some tips for migrating your project ideas into your hectic work schedule. There is no single answer which works for everybody. You just need to stay productive and have a bit of faith that your ideas will work out in the end.

Prioritize Tasks

If you examine each project as a whole the tasks will appear overwhelming. Unfortunately we can only work so fast and this requires a keen level of attention to detail. I recommend planning out each stage of a project in advance before getting yourself caught up in the workload.

This gives you the benefit of having a simple outline which you can look over each step of the way. Internally you can adjust for how long it’ll take to complete each project and move onto the next item. Having a hierarchy of priority also means you can jump around to different areas of the project by completing the more difficult aspects first. I always find myself procrastinating on the hardest tasks, but getting them done first leaves you a calming sense of self-gratification.

Working for Profit

Initially you have to consider which projects will net you the largest return. There are many different styles of freelancing between writing, coding, marketing, and design. Some professionals will dabble in all of these markets while others specialize in a select skill.

Whatever your system you need to stick with it! Always make sure you can finish projects where you’re getting paid before you jump the gun on your own ideas. It can be exciting to take a leap of faith and work on a spectacular new website. However these will take months or even years to build into a sustainable source of revenue.

I find it helpful to split my day into two different segments of work. Start in the morning with all of the tasks you really don’t want to deal with. Getting those done by the afternoon leaves you the rest of the day to work on anything you please. This may turn out to be more freelance work, or maybe you choose to do nothing at all. What’s important is keeping yourself in alignment with paying your bills on time and always having enough money to spare.

Slow and Steady

As the old proverb goes, “slow and steady wins the race”. I take this to heart working on my own projects as I often feel a sense of anxiety and disposition towards my regular work. It can feel overwhelming to know you have so many startup ideas and just not enough time in the day to complete anything.

A powerful technique to get your own ideas moving forward is to focus only on a single task per day. If you can complete just one objective on your personal project(s) per day, along with your regular freelance work, you can feel good knowing the project is one step closer. It’s such an unrealistic viewpoint to assume you can you can jump back and forth between projects without the quality of work suffering.

Offer Personal Incentives

Just getting the work done isn’t often enough to keep us focused on specific tasks. You may have to go that extra step and incentivize yourself. Motivation cannot be found beside a lake or under a rock – you have to create your own motivation from within!

That being said, there are still plenty of things in the real world you can use as a mediator. We all have our own personalities and ideas for what keeps us happy. Use these ideas as motivation to push through some of the more lackluster items in your to-do list.

Examples of such incentives may include extra time out during the weekend, a dinner with friends, or even checking out that new movie you wanted to see. The list of activities will differ for everybody but the point is to give yourself a break after working a long tiring day. We have written in the past on keeping yourself motivated working freelance and I feel these tips are still just as appropriate.

Making the Transition

Ultimately the goal is to move away from freelance work and find yourself in a stable position with your own projects. These may be a few different websites, apps, or even just one really good startup idea. Whatever you’re building should be substantial enough to turn a profit and replace earnings as your primary source of income.

Making this transition is one of the most difficult actions to achieve. You need to be extra cautious about when you would leave freelance work behind. That lifestyle will always be secure enough to pay the bills, while your new project launches may come in waves of large profits followed by a few dry months.

I suppose the most important aspect is your mentality towards the whole operation. Never give up on your ideas – especially if you truly believe they provide a value to our society. We need more visionaries like Steve Jobs to follow through with their dreams and truly change the world.

Conclusion

The roughest part of any project’s lifetime is the development phase. After you finally have a product online(or in the app store) you can slowly break attention into distinct areas of study. Freelance work offers a safety net and financial stability for CEOs and startups as they are just beginning to sprout. If you have similar ideas or suggestions for migrating from freelance work onto personal projects feel free share your thoughts with us in the post discussion area.

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jQuery is so easy to use that sometimes we just forget that it’s not CSS. While using CSS, we don’t have to give much thought to performance, because it’s so fast that it’s not worth the effort to optimize it. But when it comes to the real world, jQuery can drive developers crazy with performance issues. Sometimes you lose precious milliseconds without even noticing it. Also, it’s so easy to forget about some functions and we keep using the old (and not-so-good) ones.

Let’s take a look at a few of the most-common-and-easiest-to-fix mistakes while using jQuery in your projects.

1. You aren’t using the latest jQuery version

Each version update means higher performance and several bug fixes. The current stable release is 1.7.2, and I’m pretty sure you know about plenty of sites developed using 1.6 and below. Ok, ok, you can’t just update every old site for every jQuery update (unless your client is paying you to do so) but you should at least start using it for your new projects. So, forget about this local copy and just grab the latest release every time you start a new project.

2. You aren’t using a CDN-hosted copy of jQuery

How many unique visitors you`ve got last month? I bet the number is still under 1 billion, right?
So you’d better use Google’s copy of jQuery instead of yours. If your user still has the cached file of Google’s website (or from many other sites that uses its CDN) his browser will just get the cached version, improving a lot your website’s performance. You can use it by copying & pasting this HTML:

<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js"></script>

3. You aren’t using a fallback for CDN version

I know I said Google is awesome and stuff, but they can fail. So, every time you rely upon external sources, make sure you have a local fallback. I’ve seen this snippet in the HTML5 boilerplate source code and just found it amazing. You should use it too:

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>window.jQuery || document.write('<script src="js/libs/jquery-1.7.2.min.js"><\/script>')</script>

4. You aren’t chaining stuff

While doing common operations, you don’t need to call the element every time you want to manipulate it. If you’re doing several manipulations in a row, use chaining, so jQuery won’t need to get the element twice.

Instead of this:

$(“#mydiv”).hide();
$(“#mydiv”).css(“padding-left”, “50px”);

Use this:

$(“#mydiv”).hide().css(“padding-left”, “50px”);

5. You aren’t caching stuff

This is one of the most important performance tips. If you’ll call an element at least twice, you should cache it. Caching is just saving the jQuery selector in a variable, so when you need to call it again you’ll just reference the variable and jQuery won’t need to search the whole DOM tree again to find your element.

/* you can use it this way because almost every jQuery function returns
the element, so $mydiv will be equal to $(“#mydiv”); also it’s good to
use the $mydiv so you know it’s a jQuery caching var */

var $mydiv = $(“#mydiv”).hide();
[.. lot of cool stuff going on here …]
$mydiv.show();

6. You aren’t using pure js

Specially for attributes modification, we have several built in methods to get stuff done with pure javascript. You can even “convert” jQuery objects back to DOM nodes to use them with simpler methods, like this:

$mydiv[0].setAttribute('class', 'awesome'); //you can convert jQuery objects to DOM nodes using $jqObj[0]

7. You aren’t checking plugins before including in your site

You know, jQuery is not the hardest thing in the world to code. But good JS (and jQuery), that is pretty hard. The bad news is that while you aren’t a good programmer, you’ll have to rely on trial and error to find out what is good and what isn’t. A few points you must be aware of while including a plugin in your project:

1. File Size (the easiest to check!) – if a tooltip plugin is bigger than jQuery source, something is really wrong;
2. Performance – You can try it with firebug and others. They give you easy to understand charts to you’ll know when something is out of place;
3. Cross-browsing – Test, at least on IE7, but Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera are good ones to try also
4. Mobile – Don’t forget that everything is getting mobile. See if the plugin works, or at least doesn’t crash your mobile browser

8. You aren’t open to remove jQuery

Sometimes it’s just better to remove it and use simple ol’ CSS. Actually if you want, for instance, an opacity hover, or transition can be done with CSS along with good browser support. And there’s no way jQuery can beat plain CSS.

9. You are using jQuery for server side tasks

I know that masking and validating are good, but don’t rely just on jQuery for those. You need to recheck everything on the server side. That is especially important if you are thinking about using AJAX. Also, make sure everything will work with JS disabled.

So, it’s your turn!

Do you have anything you think should be on this list? Share your thoughts!

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HTML5 has entered our lives for good and it is changing the way we are embedding media on our web pages. Two of the new greatest features are the <audio> and <video> elements. No more do we have to resort to Flash to serve videos and audio to our visitors. The new solutions HTML5 has to offer are really tempting but enough with the introductory words. Let’s see what <audio> and <video> do.

<audio>

The tag’s name by itself says it all. With the new <audio> element we can quickly and easily add audio to our webpages. In its simplest form, it works pretty much the same as the <img> element so we just need to use the src attribute to link to our audio file.

<audio src="audio-file.mp3">
</audio>

It is really that simple. We can even add a fallback message or another fallback solution (Flash player) in case the visitor’s browser doesn’t support the new audio element.

<audio src="audio-file.mp3">
	<p>Fallback message - Your browser does not support the audio element.</p>
</audio>

The audio element comes bundled with some nice options. Below, we will see some of them.

autoplay

With difference the most annoying option. Who amongst us hasn’t stumbled upon a web page that started playing music and you were looking for that one tab that had to close? If we want to be that annoying we can use the autoplay option on our audio element. Please use with caution.

<audio src="audio-file.mp3" autoplay>
</audio>

Notice that autoplay is a boolean attribute, so no need to type autoplay=”true”.

loop

Another pretty self-explanatory boolean attribute. The audio file loops for ever.

<audio src="audio-file.mp3" loop>
</audio>

preload

Preload allows the browser to start buffering our audio file without having the visitor hit the play button first. That way, when the visitor hits tha play button, he can enjoy a smooth playback without loading times. Again, we have to be cautious when we use preload because might not want to buffer data that the visitor might not use.

So preload can take three values, “auto”, “none” and “metadata”. We are extremely interested only about the first too though.

<audio src="audio-file.mp3" preload="auto">
</audio>

Keep in mind that Safari by default has the preload to “auto” so if we want to disable it, we have to use preload=”none”.

controls

With the use of controls, we enable the visitor to use the native controls each browser provides for the playback of the audio file. Of course we are able to use our own control buttons with a bit of Javascript but that is a subject for another article.

<audio src="audio-file.mp3" controls>
</audio>

filetypes

Unfortunately, not everything is as easy as it looks. The problem with audio (and video) filetypes is that the HTML5 specs do not restrict the browsers to support certain filetypes so each browser supports his own filetypes and encodings for his own reasons. What we have to do is, look ahead and provide the same audio file in different filetypes and encodings for it to be compatible with each browser that supports the audio element. More on audio filetypes and encodings on the W3Schools HTML5 Audio page.

To add multiple sources we will use the <source> tag.

<audio controls>
 	<source src="audio-file.ogg" type="audio/ogg" />
  	<source src="audio-file.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" />
</audio>

With those two filetypes we have covered all the compatible browsers. Let’s move on to <video> now.

<video>

As with the <audio> element, the syntax is the same with the <video> element.

<video controls>
	<source src="video-file.mp4" type="video/mp4"/>
	<source src="video-file.ogv" type="video/ogg"/>
<p>Fallback message - Your browser does not support the video element.</p>
</video>

Again, we have to use multiple sources and different filetypes and encodings of the same video file to support all the compatible browsers. You can read more about filetypes and browser support on the W3Schools HTML5 Video page.

height/width

The autoplay, loop and preload attributes of the audio element work the same way in the video element too. Apart from those, we have some other video specific attributes such as the height and width. They work the same way they do for the img element.

<video controls height="480" width="640">
	<source src="video-file.mp4" type="video/mp4"/>
	<source src="video-file.ogv" type="video/ogg"/>
<p>Fallback message - Your browser does not support the video element.</p>
</video>

poster

When our video is not playing, we can use the poster attribute to link to a thumbnail image to display instead of just displaying the first frame of the video.

<video controls poster="video-thumbnail.jpg">
	<source src="video-file.mp4" type="video/mp4"/>
	<source src="video-file.ogv" type="video/ogg"/>
<p>Fallback message - Your browser does not support the video element.</p>
</video>

fallback

Browser support is good considering this is a new feature but of course there are older browsers that we need to take care of. To do so there is only one good and efficient solution, to use a Flash as a fallback. A great plugin to help with browser support for both the audio and video elements is html5media. Read more about html5media on its GitHub page.

That’s pretty much it. Enjoy using the new audio and video elements with HTML5.

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There is a lot of talk about Internet marketing and the new era of social media. It is now easier than ever before to create accounts on many infamous social websites to build up your own brand. But this technique requires strategy and a bit of insight into the WWW community.

It is my goal in this article to focus on a few concrete aspects of marketing via the Internet. Specifically I’d like to look into social media buttons and badges for sharing links from your website. These can easily produce viral content where your links are passed through dozens if not hundreds or thousands of different user profiles. Using these techniques you can quickly build up a presence for your personal website or online blog.

Driving Social Markets

It’s not just enough to throw up a few badges onto your website and expect to see results. Users will really need to enjoy your content and want to share it on their own account. The best way to get them interested is by creating a sense of popularity on your links.

Depending on which badges you’re using it may be smart to share the links on your own accounts first. When visitors land on your page and notice blank sharing badges it’s almost a turnoff in most cases. Unless your site is already pulling hundreds of thousands of pageviews monthly you just can’t pull enough traffic to start a natural marketing campaign.

There are a few staple websites to consider when first implementing these badges. Facebook and Twitter are easily the two most popular networks which can bring in a lot of attention. If you have a couple different Twitter or FB accounts don’t be afraid to get the ball rolling! Users are more likely to follow suit if your links already have a couple shares in place.

Presence on Social News

Let’s now take a moment to look into some of the more popular websites for social media sharing. Viral content can only work when your link goes popular on a heavily trafficked social community. This used to be the case on digg.com except their new V4 redesign has killed a lot of the core traffic.

Many old-fashioned Diggers have actually moved onto the website Reddit. The community is built around many subreddits on different topics which can give you a fairer shot at getting your article popular. Check out their buttons page to see all the different styles and implementations you can choose from.

Other than social news there are tons and tons of solutions for marketers. You need to take a second and think about what your targeted visitors would most likely be using. As an example, the social news community DZone is focused on application development and server hardware. So your photography blog probably wouldn’t do very well – but a web development blog such as Developer Drive could see an enormous amount of traffic.

Some Alternative Examples

Other than social news communities there are other networks which allow you to implement a badge-style share icon. It’s still true that not all of these networks will work for everybody. It may just take some trial-and-error before you figure out which badges appeal to your target market.

Below I’ve put together a small list of popular brands along with a link to their buttons/badges page. Many of these websites have a special implementation method for WordPress and Blogger users. Consider these options if you are running a blog and wish to try out a different set of networks & marketing tools.

• Pinterest – http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/
• StumbleUpon – http://www.stumbleupon.com/badges/landing/
• The Web Blend – http://www.thewebblend.com/buttons
• Google+ – http://www.google.com/+1/button/
• LinkedIn – http://developer.linkedin.com/plugins/share-plugin-generator
• BallTribe – http://www.balltribe.com/blog/badges/

How to Go Viral

This process is more of a waiting game than anything else. You can only actively share your articles between so many accounts in one day. Viral web traffic is built through repetition and most importantly a dedicated fan base.

You need to continually market your website and draw attention over a few weeks. Whether this means posting new blog content or updating with fresh downloads/freebies – either way you need to offer something to keep drawing in visitors over time. Prove to your audience that your website is going to be around for the long haul. This will naturally build credibility with a finicky userbase.

There is no “set” time limit for expecting content on your website to go viral. It has a lot to do with the quality of your posts, but the stars also need to align in the proper order. Just keep submitting your content around the web to your favorite social media networks and eventually one of your posts will catch on. You’ll notice a huge spike in traffic from some of the bigger networks like Facebook and Google – maybe even a few websites you’ve never heard of before!

Connect with Other Users

Don’t be afraid to get your name out there and start chatting up some other Internet marketers. The World Wide Web is a big place but you’d be surprised how easy it is to meet like-minded people. And other marketers are often happy to help out friends by sharing links around through their different accounts.

Now I’m not saying you’ll need an outside network or marketers to go viral. As I mentioned earlier, the sharing badges can really do this on their own if your content is compelling enough. But working with others will save you a lot of frustration and can actually be very fun.

Conclusion

Ultimately viral social marketing comes down to a whole lot of luck and preparation to see your campaigns succeed. Don’t be afraid of trying new methods which are outside of your normal scope. Look at each new opportunity as a case study to see how Internet traffic runs and how your website performs in a variety of marketplaces. If you have similar ideas or suggestions be sure to let us know in the post discussion area.

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Getting started in freelance web design is an exhilarating process. Along with the added stresses of daily work you actually become your own boss, set your own hours, and even choose who you will work with. It’s truly a great way to earn a living!

Now consider the steps required to move from a freelance artist into launching your own design studio. Under your own brand name you can land much higher-quality projects and build up a solid portfolio of works. In this guide I would like to share some tips for planning out your own web design studio. How should you begin such a project and what are the most important tasks to complete?

Well there is certainly a laundry list of answers here, so I’ll focus on just a select few. But we should begin with discussing your first steps in getting started.

Creating a Brand

When sitting down to plan your business model you’ll have to consider a number of factors. Of the most important ideas is your studio branding. This would include your company logo, domain name, and possibly alternative references(logos, mascots, etc).

The official branding for your agency may only take a few hours to complete. Except not a single brand was created and popularized in a day – or even a week or a month! Plan to be in this for the long haul if you venture into working professional design. Below are just a couple more ideas to consider when building your company branding:

• custom profile avatar photo
• accounts on social networks(Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest)
• business cards
• contact e-mail addresses

Build What you Can

The biggest factor in failure rates of startup design studios is overextending your workload. If you plan on starting out on a solo venture then you’ll be performing all of the web work by yourself. This includes wireframing, prototyping, building the design and coding the frontend interface in HTML/CSS/JS.

Be realistic with yourself and your clients. When first getting started keep focused on one single project at a time. You’ll feel a lot better as you complete the work and you won’t be distracted by stress and looming due dates. It may be worthwhile to over-estimate the initial time frame to give yourself a bit of room for slack.

Working on demanding client projects is also the best time to force yourself into new areas of web development. We are all constantly learning new things and this requires a lot of patience to keep up. Don’t be afraid to accept a project which requires you to work in a new area such as PHP, MySQL, Flash, or even smaller topics like designing e-mail newsletters.

Work for Consistency

If there’s any one trait to aspire towards it should be consistency in your project work. The longer your agency is up online the more credibility you can build as a designer. You want to prove to any potential clients that you’re in this for the long haul.

The best way to accomplish such a goal is by managing your workload properly and communicating honestly with clients. If you need to work with another designer or developer then reach out and contact someone! It can be really fun to collaborate with others and you’ll generally produce higher quality work in the end. Plus you may learn something new in the process.

Prove Your Knowledge

In today’s age it’s simple for even a teenager to setup their own portfolio online. It’s a cheap trick to explain all of the skills and development languages you know as “design services”. Instead prove to your clients that you know what you’re talking about.

This is obviously best accomplished through a portfolio of past works. If you have been working freelance for a while then you should have even a couple of projects to show off. Building your own website ideas is another route for populating decent portfolio content. But you shouldn’t just leave this area blank, even if you only have 1 or 2 works to show off.

Another method for proving your design knowledge is through a company blog. It seems like everybody is blogging nowadays and it’s more common than ever before. Design studios can get a crazy amount of attention from just a few blog posts going viral. Your best bet is to offer free content like open source code or a free PSD download.

Network Like Crazy

In this world it’s all about who you know and what you can put together. Designers need to stay close and have each other’s back, but we also need to communicate efficiently with other digital professionals. Never be afraid to open a new relationship with a project manager or web developer.

Sometimes these connections can land you a gig in ways you would have never imagined. Working in the digital world it seems like everybody knows everybody else one way or another. And the best method to promote your agency is through targeted marketing and word of mouth. Happy clients will recommend friends, and this can snowball into a huge opportunity for growth.

Showcase Gallery

These tips can only get you so far in planning your design studio. But at some point you’ll need to sit down and actually code a site layout. This will most likely require some keen inspiration. Check out my small showcase below consisting of some personal favorite agencies. These companies may give some insight towards how you would setup a business model and what type of content would appear on your design studio’s website.

SimpleBits

Weightshift

45royale inc.

N.Design Studio

Frexy

Hicksdesign

Clearleft Ltd

Wake Interactive

Teehan+Lax

AgencyNet

Icelab

Lighthouse London

2Advanced Studios

Happy Cog

MetaLab

Justalab

Pixel Thread

Drexler

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Clients come in many varieties. Some are thoughtful, professional, cooperative and ALWAYS pay on time. Then there are the other ones. When a client goes beyond “difficult,” to being such a burden on your resources that your other clients suffer, then you may have no choice but to cut the cord. There are many legitimate reasons to end a client relationship, including non-payment, poor communication, client procrastination, and plain old-fashioned disrespectful behavior. Sometimes these situations can be solved with a little conversation, sometimes they can’t. For the purposes of this article, we will assume that you have already decided that you no longer want to work with your client. In that case, here is my action plan to gracefully bow out of a client relationship at any stage of the project.

Read The Contract

Before you attempt to discuss the impending doom with your client, read the contract (you made your client sign one, right?) to see exactly what each party’s obligation is. Ideally, you will have already lived up to all of your obligations, but if not, figure out exactly what deliverables you may still owe your client. Similarly, figure out any compensation that they still may owe to you. Being armed with the facts is the best way to get what is owed to you, so be sure not to leave any loose ends.

Find a Suitable Replacement

If you are parting ways with your client due to personal chemistry, or if you just feel another designer could put up with this client better than you could, then it is usually a good idea to have a few lined up that you can recommend to your client. This helps ease yourself out of the situation, while appearing to genuinely care about the future of the project. You probably already have others in mind that you could pass this client along to, but if you don’t, a little bit of research should turn up plenty of designers whose specialties line up with the needs of the project. Of course, if you are firing your client due to non-payment, disrespectful behavior on your client’s part, or if the problem is so severe that you could not in good conscience subject another designer to it, then you should skip this step. The last thing you want to do is create a similar problem for a fellow designer.

Set up a Meeting

While you may be tempted to just fire your client in an email or over the phone, the most professional way to do so is always face to face. You should set up a meeting with your client, and simply say that the purpose of the meeting will be to discuss the status of the project. Use your best judgement about where to hold the meeting. You might suggest their office, or if you think it might get ugly, you can hold it at a neutral location, such as a Starbucks. People are much less likely to cause a scene in a public setting.

Pull the Trigger

It’s the day of the meeting. Bring your contract, and any other evidence of money that is owed to you, as well as evidence that your client has not lived up to their end of the contract. Above all else, remain calm and let your head, rather than your emotions dictate the proceedings. When explaining your reasons to your client, there are two ways to drop the bomb:

Option 1: Honest & direct

Whenever possible, being honest is in the best interest of everybody involved. It allows you to speak your peace, and tell your client exactly what your reasons are. They may protest, but if their behavior is to blame for impeding the process, then they should know that. What they choose to do with that knowledge is their own business, not yours. After delivering the blow, always allow your client the chance to explain their side, even if you have already made up your mind. It is only professional to allow them their chance to speak. After you have listened to their side, and if you still want out, just politely keep things moving.

Option 2 : Sugar-coat it

While I always recommend being truthful with your client, there are times when you may not feel like it would be worth the drama it might cause. In these cases, you can always give a general, all-purpose excuse, such as that you are booked solid, and cannot continue with the project.

Once you have made it clear that you are no longer willing or able to work with them, this is where you would provide your newly-ex-client with information on other designers if you choose to do so. Explain to them that you feel these designers might be better suited for this particular project. You will then want to discuss any open obligations that have not been fulfilled yet. Has your client paid for anything specifically that you have not yet delivered? Does your client owe you any money for work completed thus far? Be sure that before the meeting is over, you both have a clear-cut understanding of what needs to be delivered to each party, and by what date. These may be touchy issues, particularly if you are asking for money, so be prepared to show exactly why you are owed what you claim. In some instances, it may be worth it to you to just walk away and not demand any additional payment from your client, even if you feel you are owed it.

Conclusion

Firing a client is never a happy process, which is why I always recommend weeding out potentially problematic clients before taking them on in the first place. There are all kinds of red flags that pop up early in the process, most of which you can see in the initial consultation. Always trust your instincts, and you will very rarely have to go through this unpleasant process. But if and when you find yourself wanting to fire a client, always do so in a graceful manner that reflects the professionalism that you have worked so hard to build. If you don’t owe it to your client, you owe it to yourself and your business.

Have you ever had to fire a client? How did you handle it? Do you wish you had done anything differently? Leave your comments in the section below.