Wednesday 31 August 2016

5 freelance tests you’re probably failing

Marketing is a waste of time. At least that’s how it feels for many designers. They’re not getting enough traffic, clients or sales. In fact, everything about getting customers feels like a slog. It feels like they’re spinning their wheels.

Maybe you can relate.

Marketing is tough when you don’t feel you know what you’re doing. Which is exactly why so many designers are unsure about what to say, who to say it to or when. No wonder we make mistakes. Our mistakes lead to pain and disaster. But marketing mistakes aren’t where things go wrong. They go wrong right from the start. The errors are subtle, easy to miss and very expensive.

It’s horrible because the choices you make, what you do in the beginning, sets the tone for everything after. Clients are like kids. Train them well and your relationship grows. Set limits and expectations and they’ll trust you. Become a worthy leader and they’ll follow.

Clients are like kids. Train them well and your relationship grows. Set limits and expectations and they’ll trust you

I’m going to make an educated guess. You probably want more clients, right? Not only that, you want a consistent stream of new clients every month. When you’re done serving these clients, you want them to buy more. You want to make more money, doing less and less work.

You’d like to avoid predators, tire kickers and knowledge vampires. You prefer to work in a drama free zone that’s enjoyable, profitable and on your terms.

That about right?

If you want some or all of those benefits you’ll need avoid making certain mistakes. Mistakes like…

1. Using the four ears model

Have you ever offended someone accidentally? When you meant to give them a compliment, but it was received as an insult?

That’s the four ears model at work. The four ears model states that anything you communicate, whether it’s written down or read aloud sends four different messages, on four different layers:

  • Matter layer: truth, facts and data.
  • Self revealing layer: something you reveal about yourself.
  • Relationship layer: what you think about your relationship with the receiver.
  • Appeal layer: what you want, your call to action, request or offer.

So why is this a problem? People, professionals, designers, have a habit of sharing damaging information like this.

  • Matter: “Google, please hire me”
  • Self revealing: I’m fine with begging for what I want
  • Relationship: Google, I’m beneath you.
  • Appeal: Please give me a job.

The Google-Please-Hire-Me guy desperately wanted to work at Google. But Google rejected him, choosing to ignore his messages after things became needy. When designers struggle with negative feelings — neediness, insecurity, fear — it seeps into their conversations. Whatever your client sees in your marketing gets filtered through those negative feelings from that point on.

Speak intentionally. Think about the message you send in your marketing. Use the four ears model to create the kind of message you want to send.

  • Want to be seen as in-demand? Create messages that convey genuine scarcity.
  • Looking to create prestige? Share messages that establish hierarchy—awards, validation from other prestigious organizations, wins, etc.
  • Want to show clients you can help them win? Focus on messages that show your track record and your ability to win.
  • Want to be seen as confident? Even if you feel insecure? Create strict requirements showing that you’ll only accept the clients you feel are worthy of your time.

Whatever you do avoid using the four ears model accidentally.

2. Using services to sell services

What do designers, plumbers and attorneys have in common? They all offer free consultations.

The vast majority of service providers offer free quotes, free estimates, free consultations. And the vast majority of them are abused by freeloaders, tire kickers and knowledge vampires.

But this abuse isn’t the worst part. It’s the one-on-one selling. The more “free consultations” you offer, the less time you have to work on your business and the less time you have for yourself. A sharp increase in free consultations can easily double or triple your workload.

As you become more “successful” the free consultation model traps you in your business, taking more and more of your freedom.

Try this instead:

  • Create limits: Set limits on what you’re willing to give with free consultations. Are they only available to subscribers? People who’ve read or purchased an intro product? Make clients jump through (a few) hoops if you want all-stars.
  • Eliminate free: Which clients are serious about hiring you? Which ones are out to waste your time? Ask prospective clients to pay for their consultation and you’ll separate those who are serious from those who aren’t.
  • Create scarcity: If you absolutely have to offer free consultations, create scarcity. Decide how much time you’d like to spend ahead of time. If you can only offer five hours a month. Divide that by the amount of customers you’d like to serve (e.g. five consulting slots per month). Place everyone else on a waiting list, and cut ties with the no shows.

Then, create leverage pieces to market your business. Send people to these leverage pieces and you’ll attract a consistent stream of customers, all without being personally involved.

3. Fixing your solution

Let’s pretend you have a bicycle. You ride it everywhere, to work, to the store, to your friend’s house. You’re in great shape but it’s getting old. When it comes to traveling, a bicycle only goes so far. You want a car, so you buy a car.

It’s a solution to your bicycle problem, but it’s also another problem. Because that car needs oil changes, cleaning, maintenance. If something goes wrong you’ll have to take it into the shop. Your car was supposed to solve your big problem, and it did. But your problems have suddenly multiplied.

It’s no different with you and your clients. Your clients want your solution to their problem. But that solution creates more problems. If they buy a website they’ll need hosting, maintenance, email, advertising and on and on. Here’s what that means for you: Every solution creates more problems that need to be solved. It’s a never ending cycle but it’s your responsibility to take care of that for your client. Which most designers don’t do because they…

4. Asking for the sale

“I hate marketing. I’m scared, what if they yell at me? I’m a designer, not a salesperson.” It’s a common objection that points to something most designers don’t want to do.

I get it. Being vulnerable, putting yourself out there, facing rejection, it sucks. Especially if you’re not sure how you’ll be received. Add imposter syndrome to the list of struggles and asking for the sale becomes a terrifying ordeal.

Stop selling. Start asking questions about the problem. Questions allow you to control the flow and direction of a conversation. But it also helps you avoid overt rejection. Ask your clients about their plan to deal with the new problems they now have to face.

“You mentioned that your site has to be fast. How are you going to maintain that speed now that the redesign is done? You’ll need…”

If clients are clueless about this, they may feel embarrassed they didn’t have an answer. So it’s important to treat them with compassion. Listen to them, be genuine, be kind. Then, you explain the solution. Problems attract attention on their own.

Problems create stress and anxiety.

Solutions relieve stress and anxiety.

It’s a never ending cycle that shouldn’t stop. Not if you’re looking out for your client anyway.

5. Telling the whole story

Let’s say you’ve found your ideal client. You’ve done all the work you need to do to attract their attention. They’ll have questions, objections, concerns. Something’s kept them on the fence, but you’ve dealt with their problems. You know they’re more likely buy.

What’s the one thing that pushes your customers off the fence?

It’s hard to figure out isn’t it? It could be a bonus you’re offering, your blog post, an email you sent out, anything. You can ask, but most clients won’t tell you—even worse that one thing is different for every client. So how do you know which detail matters most? You don’t know.

Try this instead: You tell the whole story, giving clients everything they need to make an informed decision. You’re not sure what specific detail will get them to buy, so you give them everything. What’s worse, clients bounce around. They jump from point to point on your web page, scanning for details, anything that jumps out at them.

When you tell the whole story, you eliminate information asymmetry. You give clients all of the information they need to make their decision… for or against you. Fail to do that and they simply move on. When there isn’t enough information — pictures are missing on your about page, no uniqueness, poor presentation, clients run.

Tell the whole story and they’ll stay long enough to make their decision. But telling the whole story takes too long, right? Actually no. It’s easy to give clients what they want when you know what they’re looking for.

  • If they want to see who they’re working with, you add pictures.
  • Are they interested in credentials? Put them up.
  • Are they looking for experience in a specific industry? Share your portfolio samples.
  • Do they want pricing and budget details? Explain them.

Most clients won’t get these details. Their designers won’t ask them the right questions and they won’t get what they need.

Start your marketing off on the right foot, and you won’t waste your time. You’ll be prepared to attract the traffic, clients, and sales you need to grow your freelance business. Do it right and you won’t spin your wheels. Do it wrong, and you’ll struggle to get the results you need.

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from Webdesigner Depot http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/08/5-freelance-tests-youre-probably-failing/

Tuesday 30 August 2016

Fixing JPG’s “Photocopier Effect” problem

If you make a copy of a copy of a copy, the quality will deteriorate with each subsequent version in a phenomenon called “generation loss.” It’s easy to understand why this happens with actual copier machines. Scanning and printing are based on noisy sensors and physical paper and ink, and the resulting noise will tend to accumulate.

Digital images should not suffer generation loss. In theory, a file can be copied over and over again, and it should be bit-for-bit identical to the original. However, lossy image formats, such as JPG, can behave like photocopiers. If you simply copy a JPG file, nothing changes. But if you open a JPG file in an image editor and then save it, you will get a different JPG file. Some information can be lost in the process, and compression artifacts will start to accumulate. Do this often enough, and the image will eventually degrade beyond use.

The problems with resaving JPGs

In this video, you can see what happens to image quality when you re-encode a JPG image many times.

JPG offers quality settings that result in a trade-off between compression and visual quality.

But if you just save the JPG at a high enough quality setting, there won’t be a problem, right? Not exactly. Information that is lost when JPGs are re-saved cannot be magically recovered. So if you take a JPG image that was saved with a quality of 70, then re-saving it with a quality of 90 will, of course, not make the image look any better. In fact, it will even be worse. Every additional JPG encoding will introduce additional loss, even if it is done at a higher quality setting than the original JPG.

To understand this problem, we have to appreciate how this format uses several mechanisms to reduce the file size of an image, some of which don’t accumulate while others do.

The first is a color space transformation. Digital images are typically represented as pixels containing three separate 8-bit RGB (red, green, blue) values, which are statistically correlated in most images. For example, in a grayscale image, the three channels are completely identical. So if image compression is the goal, RGB is not the best representation. Instead, JPG uses the YCbCr color space. The Y channel is called luma (the intensity of the light, i.e. the grayscale image), the two other channels, Cb and Cr, are called chroma (the color components). Besides decorrelating the pixel information, this color transformation has another advantage: The human eye is more sensitive to luma than it is to chroma, so in lossy compression, you can get away with more loss in the chroma channels than in the luma channel.

The color space transformation itself already introduces some loss, due to rounding errors and limited precision. If you transform an image containing all 16.7 million different colors from RGB to YCbCr and back, and then count the number of different colors, you’ll end up with only about 4 million different colors; most of the loss is in the red and blue channels.

The YCbCr color transformation by itself does not result in generation loss. It’s a relatively small, one-time loss in color precision, but it does not accumulate. JPG also does “chroma subsampling”—sometimes called “4:2:0”—that results in only the Y channel being encoded at full resolution; while the Cb and Cr channel resolutions are cut in half both horizontally and vertically. As a result, chroma channels are reduced to one third of the total.

Chroma subsampling contributes to generation loss and can lead to color bleeding or color drifting. The chroma channels become increasingly blurry with each iteration of subsampling/upsampling. For example, this is what happens if you take an image and save it with a JPG quality of 100 with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling:

While color space transformation and chroma subsampling can lead to generation loss, it isn’t the cause of real loss in JPGs, though.

The core of JPG compression is quantization, which is a very simple yet effective mechanism. If you want to compress some sequence of numbers—it doesn’t actually matter whether these numbers represent pixel values, DCT coefficients or something else—the amount of space you need to encode them depends on how large the numbers are. For smaller numbers, less bits are needed.

To make those numbers smaller, you divide them by some number—called a quantization constant—in the encoder, and then multiply it again by that same number in the decoder. The larger this quantization constant, the smaller the encoded values will become. But the image becomes more lossy because we’re rounding everything to integers here (otherwise the numbers wouldn’t really become smaller).

This also explains why re-saving a JPG file at a higher quality setting than the original is always a bad idea: you’ll get a larger file with more loss than if you would re-save it at the exact same quality setting.

Issues with other image formats

You might expect that JPG suffers from generation loss because it is a 25-year-old file format, and newer formats are better. But that’s not so. Modern image formats, such as WebP (released in 2010) or BPG (released in 2014) suffer even more from generation loss than JPG. WebP and BPG use variable-sized, larger macroblocks, which is good for compression, but can result in an error in one part of the image more easily propagating to other parts of the image. This does not mean that WebP and BPG are bad image formats, you just have to be careful in how you use them.

FLIF is a lossless image format that outperforms other lossless image formats. FLIF also has a lossy encoder that modifies the image so that the lossless compression works better on it. It is much less sensitive to generation loss because the format itself is lossless. Generation loss commonly occurs when you significantly modify the image between generations, for example by performing a rotation or resizing.

The color space of FLIF is YCoCg, which does not introduce loss, and there is no chroma subsampling, nor transformation to DCT that introduces rounding errors. Instead of using quantization, FLIF rounds small values to zero and discards a number of bits. This works because the values it encodes are differences (between predicted pixel values and actual pixel values), not absolute values (of DCT coefficients).

Avoiding generation loss

There are only two ways to avoid generation loss:

  1. Keep the number of generations as close as possible to 1—the generation count has a larger impact on the image quality than the actual quality settings you use. (For example, if you save an image first with a JPG quality of 85 and then re-save it with a quality of 90, the result will actually be more lossy than if you saved it only once with a quality of 80.)
  2. Don’t use a lossy format—when editing images, it is best to store the original and intermediate images using lossless image formats like PNG, TIFF, FLIF, or native image editor formats like PSD or XCF. Only when you’re done should the final image be saved using a lossy format like JPG to reduce the file size. If you later change your mind and want to do some further editing, you can go back to the lossless originals and start from there. When this is not an option—say, you find an image on the internet that you want to edit and reuse, chances are the image is a JPG file, and the original cannot be found. In this case, one thing you can do is track down the image using Google Image Search, and try to find the earliest generation, i.e. the oldest and highest resolution version of the image.

Cloudinary can help with minimizing the photocopier effect. You can upload the highest resolution, highest quality original image you have available (lossless if possible), especially if you’re using automatic format selection. Cloudinary always keeps your original image as is (adding zero generation loss) and each derived image is encoded directly from the original (adding one generation, which is inevitable). With that approach, you can ensure that your image assets are futureproof. When in the future, higher image qualities and/or resolutions are required or desired, or new image formats become available, it will be an effortless change.

 

[— This is a sponsored post on behalf of Cloudinary –]

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from Webdesigner Depot http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/08/fixing-jpgs-photocopier-effect-problem/

Monday 29 August 2016

Essential design trends, August 2016

Color and layers. This pair of design elements has been the driving force behind many of the year’s trends. While we haven’t seen anything take over, like flat design a few years ago or more recently Material Design, elements of both styles are pushing designers to explore new things.

Both color choices and layering seem to have roots in those bigger trends and are being used in design schemes even without totally flat or material aesthetics. Here’s what’s trending in design this month:

1. Lots of layered elements

Layered elements and three-dimensional effects are the must-have technique in the 2D web space. Thanks to the fun techniques, and even better how-tos, introduced primarily by Material Design, layered elements are popping up in projects of all types.

What’s particularly nice is it gives a website a more realistic feel. The user can almost reach out and grab the elements on the screen. (And that’s a good thing!) The trick is that every layer should look real and light, and layers look natural.

Here are a couple of ways to start experimenting with layers in your design projects:

  • “Lift” elements off the background with a simple shadow or animation. Olle does this with multiple elements on different planes, but they all pull together and look natural.
  • Allow elements to intersect. Text can crossover into the space occupied by an image.
  • Parallax scrolling features are an interesting way to create layered elements (a foreground moving over a background) without being too overwhelming.
  • Use geometric shapes, animation and color variation to mimic depth in the design. Users should feel like they can almost fall into the visuals, such as the experience established by Delete Agency.
  • Create layers by going outside of the canvas, with elements that go beyond the background or edge of the screen.
  • Allow elements to rest on top of a textured background to create separation between the top layer (which users can imagine actually touching) and background layer.

2. Dark color schemes

For a while it seemed like every website was a minimalist ideal, including a stark white background. That trend has shifted as more dark color schemes are emerging as the design favorite.

And for good reason. A nice dark color scheme can be attention-grabbing and isn’t as harsh on the eyes of some users as bright white. On the flip side, dark aesthetics can be a little more troublesome if text is small or on smaller screens (so make sure to pay particular care to how elements render on mobile devices).

Elements that really stand out on dark color schemes include the use of cool video and animation, even if it is hardly recognizable; bold white typography, pops of bright color to accent calls-to-action or important information and the appropriate overall mood.

Remember as well, that dark doesn’t always mean black. Dark color schemes can be rooted in a variety of hues from reds to blues to greens. While black options are the most common, it is important to choose a rich black that is made from various color combinations. A flat black (or “K black” as print designers call it) will leave something to be desired in website design.

When working with dark color schemes take special care to make sure there is proper contrast between elements and that colors and images don’t get lost inside the dark nature of the design. White can be a good option as well as other primary colors with a lot of brightness or saturation. Remember to think of size contrast as well. Consider bumping up the size of all text elements by 10 to 20 percent when working with a dark framework to ensure readability.

 

3. Gradients make a comeback

The gradient—one of the techniques shunned by flat design—is making a comeback. (And it’s even being used in mostly flat design patterns.)

Gradients work because they do something that many people thought flat design lacked, which is to help create and establish depth. What’s new about gradients this time around is that they are not used to mimic textures or without purpose. Today’s trend focuses on bright-colored gradients that emphasize the content. From full-screen gradient overlays to backgrounds, almost anything goes when it comes to the technique… as long as it is bold.

Designers are making the most of the gradient comeback in a few distinct ways:

  • Gradient-“flat color” pairs mix both design ideas for a bold look, such as the website for WPcrew.
  • Two-tone gradients are a fun color overlay to add interest to a photo that might be somewhat lacking or to add depth to a background.
  • While many of these gradients seem to be on a more grand scale, they are being used for smaller elements as well, such as buttons or to bring attention to specific content.

There are still a few gradient don’ts to consider as well. (Since you don’t want that design to looking like it jumped right out of 2012!)

  • Be wary of small gradients. Use in icons is still not recommended.
  • Don’t overwhelm the content. A gradient overlay on a photo can be nice (just think of some of the cool effects that Spotify features regularly), but the photo still needs to be discernable.
  • Bold color gradients tend to have a light, cheery feel. Make sure this meshes with your content.
  • Pay attention to color combinations and contrast when it comes to readability. Some gradients can get light and white text can present a problem. Make sure to test readability against color, different responsive breakpoint and on multiple size devices. (With gradients, readability issues can sometimes pop up in places you wouldn’t expect.)

Conclusion

There’s nothing more fun than color when it comes to design. Trends in color are nice because they are elements that you can add to almost any style of design without a full-scale overhaul. The same is true of layered elements. This is a technique that can be added to an existing design to give it a more modern feel.

What trends are you loving (or hating) right now? I’d love to see some of the websites that you are fascinated with. Drop me a link on Twitter; I’d love to hear from you.

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from Webdesigner Depot http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/08/essential-design-trends-august-2016/

Sunday 28 August 2016

Popular design news of the week: August 22, 2016 – August 28, 2016

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. 

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that were posted, so don’t miss out and subscribe to our newsletter and follow the site daily for all the news.

20 Amazing CSS Text Effects

 

Designing a Website Ten Years Ago

 

How Spotify’s UX Changed Over a Decade

 

Better Web Images

 

Designers Should Learn Marketing

 

Site Design: Android.com

 

Why is Health Care Design so Terrible?

 

CodeDammit: Learn Coding by Looking at Real Examples

 

All your UX are Belong to us

 

Landing: Free UI Kit for Sketch and Photoshop

 

What I Learned Working with Jony Ive’s Team on the Apple Watch

 

Apply Pixels: Industry Standard Design Tools

 

The Internet of Poorly Working Things

 

Canvas for iOS: In Realtime, Using Markdown, Instantly Shareable

 

Site Design: Wtfshouldidowithmylife.com

 

Design.blog

 

LinkedIn ProFinder Expands Nationwide to Help You Hire Freelancers

 

Stranger Things Type Generator

 

Linux Took Over the Web. Now, It’s Taking Over the World

 

Clever App Brings the Food Label into the Modern Age

 

AI to Help You Write Emails People will Actually Read

 

TeamMood: Track the Well-being of your Team, Easily

 

Lydia 6.0: The Payment App, Redesigned

 

Why AI Consolidation will Create the Worst Monopoly in US history

 

Apple Zero-days Mark a New Era of Mobile hacking

 

Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.

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from Webdesigner Depot http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/08/popular-design-news-of-the-week-august-22-2016-august-28-2016/

Saturday 27 August 2016

Comics of the week #354

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

Doctor font

Tomato, tomatho

 

Not so clean office

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

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from Webdesigner Depot http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/08/comics-of-the-week-354/

Friday 26 August 2016

Twitter’s new button lets users DM you direct from your site

Twitter wants to be your everything. In the grand tradition of social networks since time immemorial (read: the mid-‘90s?), Twitter is putting a greater emphasis on its messaging feature, and trying to become your primary “portal” in the process. It wants to be the way you talk to people, and not just your colleagues.

Amongst the many different Twitter-related buttons that you can put on your site, you can now also use a button that takes people to a dialog that allows them to send a Direct Message (DM) on Twitter. It’s already being tested on the customer support accounts of a few different brands, and that’s an indicator of this feature’s target audience.

Twitter is already, in many ways, the place to go when you want some online support, or just want to complain about how it’s been a week and your new router/microwave/cellphone still isn’t working. While Facebook’s business pages are often used for much the same thing, tweets are “doubly public”, which is great for someone who really wants to complain. This messaging feature, however, gives brands a way to funnel people straight into a somewhat more private conversation, while still communicating with them on a platform that they already use.

It is also reasonable to assume that Twitter is using this feature to compete with Facebook. While nearly all Facebook users use the chat feature to talk to friends, Facebook has been pushing for brands and businesses to use the chat as well. They’ve redesigned their business pages to emphasize messaging, the integrated chat bots for businesses, and more.

For many people who actually use both services, Facebook is how they talk to friends and family, Twitter is how they talk to the world. Now both services are angling to be the way people do business online.

Man, LinkedIn had an opportunity there, and they really dropped the ball.

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from Webdesigner Depot http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/08/twitters-new-button-lets-users-dm-you-direct-from-your-site/