So my question to you is this: Do you give your clients source files? Do you charge for that? Why? Why not?

Here’s what some of my twitter friends has to say:

None of my clients would know what to do with source files
@travis_king

Thanks to everyone who tweeted back at me! Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments!

One of the things I love most about the design community is the willingness to help other. Often times if I have a graphic design or web development question I turn to twitter, dribble, or forrst for help. In a matter of minutes I usually find the answer or the feedback I was looking for. In order to contribute to this ‘helpfullness’ I’ve started to answer questions via Formspring. And If I can’t answer your question I’ll try to find someone who can!

So if you have a graphic design, web design or freelancing related question? I’d love to answer it!

Some of the questions I’ve answered

What percentage of your clients are great to work with, and what percentage represent the typical inflexible, unreasonable, client from hell?

I’ve never really had a ‘client from hell’ but I do have clients that need some more ‘hand holding’ and convincing than others. I’d say that the majority of the few freelance clients I have (I freelance on nights and weekends) are great clients. I’m also pretty picky about the projects I take on so weeding out the non-interesting projects and spotting unreasonable requests and personality conflicts early on helps.

A little ramble on ‘bad clients’:
I think the picky, inflexible clients just need a bit more time. I’ve had clients that demand more attention, but I’ve found that explaining everything and anything really helps. I’m really open with my freelance clients about my design process. I snap pics of sketches to run by them. I remind them when their feedback is due. I’m upfront about time schedules, delays etc. I think ‘bad clients’ are due to a combination of lack of knowledge, understanding and communication.

I see a lot of vector packs and icon sets and other such items out there to buy. Some of these look really good and a useful way to enhance your designs. I wondered what a more experienced designer like yourself has bought and like?

The only icons i’ve purchased recently are @gedyrivera ‘s social media icons: http://lifetreecreative.com/icons/ and the glyphish pro icon set + font for iPhone app designs: http://glyphish.com/ Both are great sets of icons that serve a lot of different needs and are pretty cheap! Thanks for asking !

I recently found 2 designers who completely stole my website design and content. Do you ever come across this problem with your work (website/blog specifically) and have you any advice on what to do about preventing it besides the copyright symbol?

The first thing you need to do is contact the ‘designer’ that stole your work and send them a copyright infringement letter. Von Glitschka has a good blog post about this with a sample letter: http://artbackwash.blogspot.com/2009/04/writing-copyright-infringement-letter.html Other than that, you need to ask them to remove the artwork or design from their website, portfolio etc. If they don’t you need to get in contact with a lawyer.

I haven’t had that many problems with people stealing my work (aside form a few things on logopond.com) but I have run into other websites stealing my blog content. It’s progressed to the point that I don’t do anything about it anymore. I have better things to worry about at this point in my design career.

Thanks for asking a question!

When freelancing – do you have separate contracts for web-design based projects as opposed to packaging or layout work? I’ve always wondered this, I am in the process of writing my contract and don’t really have motivation to do a second one (I’m lazy)

I use the same basic contract for all design/dev/illustration work I do. It’s a modified version that originally came from rookiedesigner.com You can download the text file of my contract and modify to your hearts content: http://nikibrown.com/sample-contract.txt

*Note that this hasn’t been reviewed by a lawyer and I’m not responsible for anything in the contract. That being said I’ve never had a problem with the contracts language.*

Maybe you don’t have this problem, but… How can i get past my own self-criticism? I’ve been dabbling for years but want to go freelance. Sometimes I feel like my designs are not good enough, and I’ll never make it.

Hey – All designers (myself included) have the ‘self-doubt’ problem. The trick is to not let this stop you from making work. Do your best. Put your work out there and ask for critique on twitter/dribble/forrst etc. You can never get better unless you try. If you’d like my feedback on your work shoot me an email at hi [at] nikibrown.com

How much PHP do I need to know before diving into Drupal?

I did’t know much about PHP when I started using wordpress – I just jumped right in and tinkered and learned. The thing I’ve run into the most is simple syntax issues. For Drupal the same thing applies – I’d say jump right in and figure it out as you go.

Also – I’ve found the Diving into php video tutorial series on theme forest to be extremely helpful http://blog.themeforest.net/screencasts/diving-into-php-video-series/

Remember back when you were in design school and it seemed like all you did was sketch comps for your design projects? (Ok maybe that was just me having to do hundreds and hundreds of typographic sketches per the assignment of an awesome professor @almahoffmann)

How is it that I’ve fallen away from this practice of constantly sketching out my ideas? I blame my computer! Or something like that…

Oh yeah, I remember. Life gets busy. You have real project deadlines to work with and sometimes the sketching phase can get skipped. Luckily the place that I work encourages and includes sketching as part of our design process. I’ll admit that getting used to sketching again was hard for me. I was so used to immediately jumping on the computer and hashing out my ideas.

I just wanted to post something and remind you guys to remember to sketch – even if its nonsense sketched during a client phone call (which is what the ‘tease me’ button sketch is from). Sometimes our ideas need to be fleshed out in analog before we digitize them.

Is sketching part of your design process?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what role sketching plays in your design process. Feel free to comment below and share your thoughts and sketches!

Julia from Unmatched Style caught up with me after the Front-end Design conference managed to get me to ramble on video for a few minutes. I gave a basic recap of my talk (Design is in the Details) as well as chat a bit about what is currently exciting me in the web world. Watch the video and head on over to their site at unmatchedstyle.com. Thanks for taking the time to interviewing me!

Just a quick post about design feedback since its been on my mind recent. I’m wondering where you get feedback on your designs? I know there are tons of sites out there that offer this service, but I’m interested in learning about the ones that YOU, dearest blog reader, have used and found valuable!

In Person Feedback

I’m lucky enough to have a workplace that values design feedback. Often times in a project someone will be stuck and we will gather everyone (all 6 or 7 of us) around and give feedback or throw out ideas. Our design crew ranges from interns, co-ops, full time designers, an office manager and art director, so a smattering of ideas and opinions come from this type of critique. I find this to be the most helpful since everyone at work is clued in on the project and its goals.

Feedback From The Intertubewebz

When I do freelance work at night I often tweet about my designs asking for feedback which I’ve found to be very helpful as well. (Thanks to my twitter friends, you know who you are!)

I’ve also found sites like Dribbble or Forrst. Although I have to say that these sites aren’t always geared towards feedback.

I have also been using a site called Concept Feedback for helping critique others work. I’m an expert reviewer at the site (meaning I get kicked a few bucks for my awesome design wisdom & feedback) but I’ve noticed that the community is very large, helpful and prompt on providing actionable design feedback.

Where Do You Go For Design Feedback?

So I’m wondering where you go for design feedback: Online? Offline? I’d love to round up a bunch of resources and share them with other designers. Leave a comment and let me know!

I feel pretty comfortable talking about design in most situations. I love critiquing and offering design help, writing blog posts and sharing my design knowledge. One thing I’ve never done is speak in front of a group of people. Blah blah blah everyone has a fear of public speaking blah blah blah, myself included. But this time I’m doing something about it and kicking that fear to the curb.

I’ll be speaking at the Front-End Design conference on July 23rd in St. Petersburg Florida. If you are in the area take the day off and come on out! If not stay tuned – I’m sure there will be a video of me rambling about design and plaid after its all over. If all goes well I’ll (hopefully) have another talk lined up down the road with my super awesome developer friend @unruthless at this small little gathering in Texas. *crosses fingers*

So I just wanted to challenge you guys to grow a pair and do what scares you. This is the only thing that will push you to grow.

I recently participated in Meredith Marsh’s Business card exchange and received a CRAPTON (yes thats a scientific value) of cards. I’ve picked out the cards that caught my attention and talk about the design traits that make them stand out from the crowd.

How Does Your Business Card Measure Up?

What did you do to make your business card stand out and have some impact? Post a link to your design and let me know what you did and why you did it.

Design from different perspectives is a series of short video interviews detailing the different kinds of jobs and environments that are available to designers and the pros and cons of each situation. In this video I chat with interview Chad Engle about his experiences working as a designer at an advertising agency. Stay tuned and grab the RSS feed for more interviews with other freelancers, creative directors, in house designers & more!

More About Chad

Twitter: Chadengle
Website: thechadengle.com

I am a designer & creative consultant. I work on projects large and small. I am also the editor for Fuel Your Creativity.

I created a little thing called Design Community Twitter Hours which, would not be possible without several people. I spend most of my time designing and creating. I try to find interesting and creative things on the web as well as apps that are well designed and fun to use.

What do YOU think?

Do you work at an advertising agency? Wish you could? Want to be interviewed? Feel free to chime! I’d love to hear your take on some of the same questions I asked Chad!

Check out the other videos in this series

Design From Different Perspectives Part 1: Kevin M. Scarbrough – Freelance Designer

Design From Different Perspectives Part 2 – Stephen Olmstead – In House Designer

Design from different perspectives is a series of short video interviews detailing the different kinds of jobs and environments that are available to designers and the pros and cons of each situation. In this video I chat with interview Steven Olmstead about his experiences working as an in house designer and freelancing on the side. Stay tuned and grab the RSS feed for more interviews with other freelancers, creative directors, in house designers & more!

A Bit More About Stephen…

Twitter: @sonatacreative
Website: Sonatacreative.com

Check out the other videos in this series

Design From Different Perspectives Part 1: Kevin M. Scarbrough – Freelance Designer

Design From Different Perspectives Part 2 – Stephen Olmstead – In House Designer

Design From Different Perspectives Part 3 – Chad Engle – Agency Designer