Viva la Content

For the last few weeks I’ve realised more and more how I need to start blogging again. It’s a common thought with me. A few days ago I realised how over run my blog had become with widgets, links, or other information and I realised if I was going to blog again that I want the focus all about the content.

So I removed everything I saw on the page, drew a narrow grid and slowly added more as I saw need for them. I then went a series of reiteration. I

1. Design Page.
2. Remove stylesheet.
3. Go to step 1.

It was not necessarily that I was unhappy with what I had done (although it wasn’t what I was hoping for) it was more of a case of I started anew with the lesson’s I had learnt from the last redesign. Slowly things stuck. The centre alignment, the yellow behind the subscribe link.

I chose a picture I took while in Canada as the background. I felt that the most important thing on the page is the post, secondary is the discussions and third is the Subscribe. So I kept those the most important things. I wanted to add more links in the navigation but I felt that if people really wanted the other information, then they can find that.

I want to get back to blogging and I think this is the way to do it. Focus on the content. I hope you continue to read and give feedback. All is welcome.

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New Personal Blog

I just started a new blog for the personal posts I just do not want to post here. Things like Recipes, Video Game Tips and Opinions.

If you are interested, head over to zachinglis.me and Subscribe now!

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Want to be better at your job? Be a hybrid

In most industries, you are asked to do one thing, and do it damned well. Those industries usually need months of full-time training to get anywhere near another discipline but in our industry of the web, we have the fortune to be able to learn outside our current role easily and at our own pace.

Being a hybrid (knowing many aspects of the web including web design, front-end development and programming) means that you have a better understanding of two fundamental factors of running a project:

  • What your client needs, over what they want.
  • What your employees or contractors are going through.
  • What future problems will arise.
  • How to save yourselves and your clients money.

Since early in my career I have marketed myself as being a hybrid. I know it gives me a very unique position to run my web development company well and grants us the ability to put out the great work we do. I also know that my startups are going to benefit from it.

While I would consider myself skilled in my multiple disciplines, you need not be to gain the advantages. Knowing a subject very broadly will give you a tremendous edge.

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The Bad Client Tax: The Rate Increase That Hurts You

My last post on Clients From Hell had me thinking about ‘Bad Client Tax.’ For those not in the know: Bad Client Tax is when a web designer or developer increase their rates up to 50-100% extra because they know that the client will be troublesome. This is an activity I have never partaken in because I find a few major flaws in it other than the obvious unethical issues.

My pontification is if you truly suspect a client is going to be bad, enough that you would essentially screw them over with your pricing, why would you work for them? Not only is your client probably aware of what you are doing, already hurting your working relationship, but they now have higher expectations of you and are more likely to bad mouth you.

Even if you are desperate for the work, you have already decided they may not pay you and they will ask for more work than they are willing to pay. The time would be better suited to getting better work that you are not apprehensive about.

Great client relationships are essential in being the best you can because the happier you are with the client, the better work you are going to do. It is simple psychology.

Bad Client Tax hurts everyone, including you. Do yourself a favour, choose who you work with depending on how you connect with them and how much you like their idea

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Response to Clients From Hell

Recently Carl Smith did a video blog entitled “Clients From Hell? Blame Yourself!” (If you’ve not watched it, you should.) It’s something I agree with and something that my mind ended up thinking of again today as I read my feeds and read the new Clients From Hell. This one in particular:

A client wanted an e-commerce store designed. We asked if she had a budget, and she said, “No; it…

A client wanted an e-commerce store designed. We asked if she had a budget, and she said, “No; it costs what it costs.” My partner and I proposed a very reasonable price and in the proposal, we stated that additional hours would be billed at $60 per hour. She refused to even look at the proposal, handing it off to one of the interns to “deal with it.” The project wore on for about three months and we still hadn’t been paid for our initial invoice. We called the client and she assured us that her intern was handling it and that we would get a cheque in the mail. About a week later, we hadn’t heard from her. So we did what we usually do: halt work and send them a message. The client phoned me after receiving the message, basically screaming at me that it was too expensive. She said, “spend no more than 10 hours designing and programming it; I don’t want to spend more than $600.” We had spent 10 hours in meetings alone.

See, in this post the person is blaming the client. Saying they are “from Hell.” When truthfully there were red flags from the beginning. The first, of course, being that the client did not read the estimate. Secondly, not only did they start the work without receiving the initial upfront deposit, they carried on for three months(!) without stopping work to receive the payment.

So many of the posts on there are in this similar vein. If you are not smart about your clients and about the money, then you can not expect them to go smoothly or to go correctly. If you feel a client is “from hell” at the beginning, then go with your gut feeling and try to move on to another project.

(Looks like I am not the only one either)

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Introducing designblo.gs – Catch up on the best design blogs

Last weekend I spent about 5 hours testing out Heroku and MongoDB and I created designblo.gs. The idea behind it was to create a resource that I could point the people who asked me who else to follow for advice. Not only that, but as I plan to include popular blogs and even non-popular ones, even the Vet’s can find blogs they’ve not heard of before.

I have a few more people I would like to ask. Any suggestions on features or people welcome.

So check out designblo.gs now.

As for MongoDB. I still am of the same belief that I was before. It works somewhat fast for development but it’s not really for production. The ORMs are also still too immature.

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More time with the Apple iPad and list of apps you need to buy.

This will be my submission to a nerds reading comics site.

I have now owned my iPad for just over 5 months. I already wrote a post shortly after I bought it entitled Is It Worth It? My initial decision was to buy the iPad so that I had a portable email/calendar, the ability to work in places like the park and a home media centre.

To be honest in my life, it has eventually turned into a glorified media centre. I use it for watching TV (BBC iPlayer or Bought/Rented Movies and TV) and for the games. I also use it largely for reading books, which my Amazon Kindle did fine. Working on it is fiddly and until I buy a bluetooth keyboard (which semi defeats the point of owning one in my opinion,) I won’t be using it for any large quantities of work.

Even though it is not as useful as I hoped nor integrated into my life as I hoped, it has many positive points. Such as being able to open have emails and IMs open all day, out of the way. Along with the iOS 4.2 update, this is is far more easier now too.

I do not regret my decision to buy the iPad. It does what I want it to do very well. It is worth every penny in that regard. It is also an extremely durable advice; it has sustained many knocks in its lifetime and left unscathed apart from one scratch left by a girl’s fingernails.

Along with the iPad, I bought the official case. The official case is good, especially with the ability to turn it upright, but it attracts dust and dirt within an hour of having it. I do love the look of the BookBook but you lose the functionality of having a stand.

I promised Anup, Pete and a few others that I would link them to all the apps they should own. It’s hard to work out the great iPad apps from the bad ones, I have waisted money so hopefully people this will help others.

List of iPad Apps You Should Own

Productivity Apps
Information Apps
Fun Apps
Games

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Considering designing Premium Blog Templates for sale?

I have long been considering creating blog themes for sale. My first idea is to sell them myself but I am open to doing it through companies.

  • Has any of my readers had experience in this?
  • Is it good money or average money?
  • What sort of percentage cut do the theme sellers make?
  • Is it good publicity? (I imagine it to be comparable to writing a book; that you do it for the status.)

Thanks for all your help.

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The new London Made redesign.

We have redesigned the London Made website many times in the last year but we have expanded very fast. We have aimed to embody the new state we have reached and I think we have done so well.

We commissioned a custom illustration piece, as you can see on the front page. We really love it and I since we have had enough interest, we have decided we’ll use it on some t-shirts too.

We have removed the old blog in favour of keeping all our posts on this blog. We figured there was too much cross-posting and it makes sense to just have guest posts on here.

Unfortunately as initially planned Jonathan won’t be joining as he is looking out for his family and not wanting the risk that comes up with a startup, which is totally understandable.

London Made currently has some really exciting clients and a product coming out soon. Make sure to keep your eye out.

Click here to see the new website in action. I’d love to know what you think.

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Just Ship It!

One of the biggest problems many designers have is being a perfectionist. If it was left completely to us; nothing would ever ship. “Oh, there is just one small change I want to make” or “Oh, now I don’t like it. I want to start again” are often cried by many designers.

The beauty of the web over print is the ability to iterate, to change and to tweak. Most of the most popular websites like Facebook were not pretty when they launched, nor did they have as much functionality as they wanted or have now. They all have one major thing in common; they launched! They got to the scene early, captured as many people as they could and then built their features while they were getting feedback and usage.

That is also another great point to make. Their community helped shape the features they had not launched yet. It allowed for them to prepare for different usage and edge cases. They could decide which feature to launch next due to a combination of their own intuition and the knowledge they uncovered from being live.

What if people judge my website for its looks? Have you seen Google? MySpace? People use anything as long as it works. People are fickle. They’ll forget how ugly it is when you bring out a prettier version later.

You only get one launch? I think David Smalley did a good job of explaining it in my latest post.

There are many reasons why you can not ship it, but unless it is something extremely vital, then just do it. See if the idea sinks or swims. You may decide that it is not worth it after all.

So what are you waiting for? Just ship it. Good luck!

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