After a few months of solid consideration, I have decided to drop the freelancer label and as of today am donning my design and web studio hat under the name of Humaan.

This may come as a surprise, given my advocation of freelancing, however I felt it was the right thing to do to be able to move forward.

As some of you may be aware, I’ve been freelancing in collaboration with my partner, Karen, for some time now and she will also be joining me as a director of the business.

So what’s going to change? Nothing really (apart from the name – I’ll get to that in a minute). I still believe in the values I held as a freelancer and they will be an integral part of the way we operate our new business. Apart from providing great service, exceptional design and building incredible websites, we’ll have a greater capacity to get things done.

And the name? Ultimately we wanted our business name and brand to reflect our values – We’re creative, we do things a bit differently and we pride ourselves in exploring designs and building websites for humans. As strange as it seems, to us Humaan was an obvious, memorable choice.

As for freelancing – in all honesty, I still believe that it is a great career path and that all of the points raised in this article are valid. I have been and will continue to recommend freelancers for jobs that I think are suitable.

For me and my situation, moving on from freelancing has become gradually more inevitable – and I’m looking forward to the next step.

When people feel they had to express themselves for originality for its own sake, that tends not to be creativity. Only when you get into the problem and the problem becomes clear, can creativity take over.
Charles Eames, Architect, Graphic and Industrial Designer, Filmmaker

Trying to produce a successful design without a creative brief is like trying to find a solution without first knowing the problem. If the purpose of design is to find a solution, a creative brief is paramount to identifying the problem in the first place.

A creative brief is a fundamental part of the design process and a key foundation upon which successful projects are built. Not only does the creative brief ensure that all parties understand the requirements, background and goals of a project, it helps to inspire ideas and develop an understanding of a project that would not have been possible otherwise.

If you are a client, a creative brief will outline your goals, and help you measure a project’s success. If you are a designer, a good creative brief is your best friend.

The objectives of a creative brief.

A creative brief doesn’t need to be (and shouldn’t be) overwhelming. An effective creative brief can be simplified down into three simple points:

• The Past;
• The Present; and
• The Future

The Past.

The past represents everything that has already occurred, and has bought you to today. This point identifies the constants or known elements of any project. The past consists of the client details, the background of the project, the target audience, the competition, the market position, and the existing brand.

The intention of the past is to develop a solid understanding of the client, their business and the background of the project.

The Present.

The present is today. The present is the reason you have been hired and why you are writing the brief: the present is the problem. The present consists of the intentions of the project, the objectives of the design, the problems that need to be solved and sets the requirements on which the success of the project will be measured.

The present will identify the problem, and set out the objectives that the design will be built upon. Depending on the project, the present could be relatively simple, or quite detailed.

The Future.

The future is the expected outcomes, essentially the vision for the project. The future is not yet known and as such is somewhat variable. The future encompasses a number of aspects of a creative brief, including: the intended style, the budget, the project’s timeline, specific project requirements, sources of inspiration and references.

The future is very much subjective, and it sets the requirements and goals for the solution of the project. It’s important to note that a creative brief shouldn’t prescribe solutions, but just provide suggestions – the brief will be the basis for the designer to develop the ideas of their own.

Using these three key points, you should be able to structure a brief of your own, regardless of whether you are the client or the designer. If you are a designer, it is important to gather as much knowledge about the project first so that the brief can be constructed properly.

Develop a Questionnaire

Many designers (including myself) find it productive to distribute a questionnaire to a client from which to develop a brief. A questionnaire is an effective method of gathering information because you can ensure you’re asking all the right questions to formulate a very specific brief.

A questionnaire doesn’t have to be boring and monotonous either – just keep it succinct and clear. With modern technology it’s really easy to create something engaging and simple. You could use a word document, create an editable PDF, or even develop a web form. Just make sure that the fields you provide for answering your questionnaire are appropriate for the question.

In terms of structure, a questionnaire should cover the Past, Present and Future elements as previously discussed, but in more detail. For example, a typical website design questionnaire could be structured as:

• Company Information (past)
• Company Background (past)
• Market Position (past)
• Target Audience (past)
• Brand (past)
• Objectives (present)
• Requirements (present)
• Specific Information (future)
• Style Information (future)
• Reference Sites (future)
• Budget * (future)
• Timeline * (future)
• Extra Information (future)

*If the project was already approved, the budget and timeline would likely be scoped in the project proposal.

Each of these points above can set the structure of the brief, and you would likely get more specific by adding multiple questions within each criteria. However, there is no point getting too specific if it is not necessary for the project at hand.

Consider the depth.

A wise man once tweeted: “If the brief in words is more than the budget in dollars, I raise my red flag.” (@maxvoltar).

A brief for a 3 hour business card design probably wouldn’t need a questionnaire or a 4 page brief – it may just require a telephone conversation or a couple of paragraphs in an email. Whereas a 4 month design and development project would likely need a lot more effort and structure to develop a full understanding of the task at hand.

Similarly, if a client sends a lengthy brief for a 2 hour flash job which would probably require half the budgeted time to read and interpret, there is obviously an issue with the agreed scope. This should be identified immediately and discussed with the client.

There is no right or wrong here, just consider the effort vs. the reward.

Free stuff.

Below I’ve provided two example questionnaires similar to the ones I use for my own projects. Whether you’re a designer, own a business, or are just looking to start a new creative project these will hopefully be useful in helping to formulate your own questionnaire or creative brief. There are no restrictions on use, but the copyright information must remain if they are used in their current form.

I don’t proclaim them to be perfect, but they should create a solid foundation for you to develop a useful questionnaire to use in your own projects.

Summary.

The creative brief is one of the most important tools for any designer or client – it will set the foundation for a project, identify its direction and contribute to its success.

Without a creative brief, you’ll be more than likely walking into a project blind. The aesthetic result may be outstanding, but without understanding the problem and nailing the requirements, the solution may have been a waste of your valuable time.

Regardless of the means, I am confident that by following the guidelines and methods described, you’ll be well on your way to developing a useful, structured creative brief that will guide you to success in your next project.

Choosing who you hire to build your website is not a decision your company should take lightly. There are numerous factors to take into consideration – timeline, experience, quality, cost, rapport to name a few.

In my experience I would suggest that the idea of hiring a freelancer for your next project is not given much thought, if any at all. After all, you want the experience, and quality that only an established company can provide, right?

Wrong! Well, in the most part.

I’m sure you’re looking for all these qualities and more, but the idea that only a company can provide them is a large misconception. Freelancers often provide above and beyond the traditional business model, because they don’t have the limitations that most companies are bound by.

You should hire a freelancer for your next project, and I’ll explain why.

Quality

The first and foremost reason for hiring a freelancer is the quality of work. A freelancer is useless without a good portfolio, and to maintain clients, a high standard is a continual requirement. A freelancer is directly responsible for every piece of work produced, and every job must be treated as such.

When you work with a freelancer it’s very much ‘what you see is what you get’ – you will have seen their work, and you know they will be the one working on your project. You will be getting the expertise and quality of work that you paid for directly, not that of whoever has been allocated to work on your project.

Communication / Rapport

Communication in any business is important to the success of a project. As mentioned above, when you hire a freelancer, you know that you will be dealing with that person 100% of the time – not a sales rep, account manager, designer or secretary. A freelancer must understand every aspect of the project, and as such, the project will not get lost in translation. You can rest assured that you will have a single point of contact from start to finish.

Freelancers are also generally available outside of traditional working hours, and will provide you with direct contact details, understanding that clients may have different circumstances, and be able to adapt as required.

Through working closely with a freelancer, it is likely that both parties will develop a solid rapport, aiding in the understanding of the project and contributing to the final product in a way not possible through traditional business models. Developing this connection will also build the foundation for a strong relationship likely to continue for future ventures, beyond the extent of the project at hand.

Experience

A common misconception is that a freelancer doesn’t hold the experience equivalent to that of a business with several employees. While this is most likely true if you consider a time based measure, it can be quite the opposite if the level of knowledge, skill and specialisation is compared. In fact, many freelancers start out because they seek to further their knowledge in their industry, unable to further develop their skills and knowledge in their previous position.

Furthermore, a freelancer’s experience is directly evident and they are often required to adapt to learn multiple skill sets, not being restricted to what is already understood and practiced. A freelancer will work from start to finish, adapting and specialising in all aspects of the project, not just filling in a position on a production line.

Timeline

Another misconception is that freelancers are less likely to meet deadlines, as opposed to a business with multiple staff members, as they can have multiple people working on a single project at once.

In fact, freelancers are more adaptable to deadlines, and able to undertake jobs in a lesser time frame as they are the only person that needs to be available for a project. Freelancers also generally have smaller schedules to manage, and are more available, often working outside the traditional working hours and are less susceptible to distractions from co-workers or company politics.

Good time management is vital for a freelancer, as missing a deadline has the potential to push out the schedule of other jobs that may be waiting. As such, it is imperative that a freelancer adheres to deadlines and manages their time efficiently as they are directly responsible for the result.

Flexibility

This is perhaps one of the most valuable attributes of a freelancer – working as sole operators means that all decisions are made directly by themselves.

A freelancer is his/her own boss, and can use their own discretion to make decisions based on the circumstance, not policy. They are not limited to specific software or procedure, and generally have experience with a large variety of tools, able to adapt to the project at hand, rather than adapting the project to suit a company’s ability.

Freelancers pride themselves on high availability, the ability to work on projects outside of office hours, and as mentioned previously, often supply a direct contact number to clients.

A freelancer is not a Salesman

This is a point which may often be overlooked, but it is important to note that a freelancer is providing a service, not making a sale. A freelancer will ensure that you are being delivered exactly what you are looking for, and a freelancer will know exactly what they are talking about.

A freelancer seeks a continued relationship with your business, and intends to make a difference. It is in a freelancer’s best interest to make your project successful, and their interests go far and beyond getting proposal approval or making a sale – the freelancer is there with you every step of the way.

Innovation

Finally, freelancers are innovative, and constantly push boundaries because they can, and because they need to.

Freelancers are able to spend more time researching, discovering and experimenting to produce results that deliver beyond the standard. A freelancer is not limited to a standard process, and not bound by a specific procedure.

Innovation is important to a freelancer as they intend to prove their worth – and completing work that is new, different and beyond the capabilities and flexibility of traditional business, ensures this is the case.

To summarise, hiring a freelancer can be very beneficial to your next project. A freelancer is generally a highly experienced individual, capable of producing work that exceeds the quality of competing businesses, able to deliver in a prompt timeframe, and provide exceptional communication.

Freelancers are flexible and innovative, and strive to produce work that surpasses your expectations. Not bound by company policy or limited to one aspect of the project, a freelancer is with you every step of the way. As discussed, the misconceptions inherent with hiring a freelancer are completely unfounded, and in a lot of cases, the exact opposite of the reality.

When you do progress with your next project, consider the benefits of hiring a freelancer, and make sure the solution you choose is the right one for your company.

It’s a feeling quite unlike any other – holding that freshly printed item in your hands, one that you’ve spent hours/days/months slaving over. It’s nerve racking, stressful, and exciting all at the same time – and this is what makes it all the more rewarding.

We recently received the third issue of Relative Magazine from the printers and rewarding it was. This issue has taken us the better part of half a year to get together – collecting submissions, fundraising, photographing, guest speaking, collating, designing, laying out, drafting, proofing and finalising to name a small portion of the work involved. And now, holding that final printed DL, notch bound, 150gsm matt coated, landscape magazine makes it all seem worth it.

Contents

For those who aren’t aware, I am Creative Director and one of four founders of local (Perth) submission based culture magazine, Relative. I work alongside Drew Wilson, Mike Ellis and Mahad Hassan to put together the magazine, to promote the art and culture of Perth that is not often publicised or promoted. We work on the magazine in our spare time, and do it because it’s what we love doing – there’s no reward, the magazine is free, and any money that is raised (parties, t-shirts, online purchases) goes straight back in to printing the subsequent issue. This third issue was no exception, and although it took a little longer than previous issues, we successfully launched the third issue of the magazine on Saturday night.

To be honest, I was a little more excited than usual about getting my hands on the newly printed third issue. The content was exceptional and the magazine was being printed with a new printing company, a different binding process and completely different stock.

Brad Serls – New York

It was a choice that didn’t come lightly – but we made the decision to change from the previous stock of 140gms recycled paper to 150gsm coated matt paper, for both financial and aesthetic reasons. The two previous magazines, although looking great on the uncoated stock, had a dullness to them inherit with printing on this type of paper. We wanted a sharper look for the new edition, and it turned out to be a substantially cheaper option too.

The result was more than what we could have hoped for – apart from losing the natural feel and appearance of the uncoated paper (which we had by this time come to terms with); the third issue came out incredibly sharp, clear and surprisingly beautiful.

Felicita Sala

However the real quality of the magazine was not the paper, or the printing process – it was the content of the magazine, submitted to us incredibly talented from local Perth folk, who without we would have no magazine at all. The submissions received for this issue surpassed all of our expectations and pushed the magazine to another level – and for this reason, above anything else, i’d encourage you to try and track down a copy of your own.

If you’d like to get your hands on the third issue of Relative Magazine and you live in Perth, come down to the Davilak in Freo this Saturday the 12th of December. There will be plenty of mags in supply, live painting, Djs and cold beer.

If you don’t live in Perth or can’t make it, keep your eye out on the Relative Website where we be soon adding the new edition for viewing online and available for order for a small fee.

Using great photography in a design can really push it that extra level, especially when one of your clients commissions a photography shoot specifically for your use.

Unfortunately, working with tight deadlines and limited budgets, this is most often not the case – and we generally find ourselves turning to stock photography sites instead.

When discussing the various online stock photography libraries available, most would be familiar with iStockPhoto. Apart from its less than perfect interface, it provides a useful catalogue of more than 5.5 million reasonably priced stock files. For this reason, it has become a popular source of images amongst many designers & a suitable solution for many of our clients.

Personally, I find iStock has one of the better libraries of good photos available online, and tend to prefer them over other low-priced stock libraries – although I also find it has a lot of flaws. One of the biggest gripes I have with iStock is the tiny image comps that are provided for download – unless you’re designing at the resolution fit for the iPhone, it is almost impossible to use one of these images at a decent size in a concept mock. You could always purchase each image – but if they aren’t suitable, you may quickly find yourself eating away at your limited project budget.

Another alternative, that I’ve often been guilty of, is stitching several zoomed previews together. The downside though – its messy, time consuming and for some reason, I always feel a little dirty afterwards.

That was until I found Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey, an extension for Firefox, makes it possible for you to ‘customize the way websites look and function’ essentially allowing you to change the style and scripts for a specific page to your liking. There is a huge library of greasemonkey scripts available for download at the extension’s website, ranging from style changing of the youtube video player to displaying ebay item locations on google maps.

With this knowledge, and awesome tool in hand, I made a reasonable assumption that the iStock image zoom feature (when logged in) was in fact using full high-res images, although only displaying part of the image in the ‘zoom area’. Based on this assumption, and some playing around with another great Firefox extension, Firebug, I was able to change the stylesheet enough so that the zoom area became much larger, big enough to show the full high res preview image. As soon as I realised I could change the stylesheet, I set upon using my very basic knowledge of javascript to build my own Greasemonkey script.

The outcome – a (very basic) script that allows you to preview iStock images at their full zoom resolutions.

To get this up and running for yourself, all you need to do is install the greasemonkey extension for firefox, and click here to install my script.

Once its all been installed, login to your iStock account and find an image. Once the page for that image has loaded, click on the image as if you were going to zoom, and ta-da! You should have your larger comp on the screen, ready to be used in your next mock-up.

As mentioned, the script is very basic, and only provides the functionality of viewing the full image. I’d encourage anyone keen enough to play with it as they wish.

*On a legal note – I accept no responsibility for people using this script to avoid paying for images – the script is provided for composition purposes only. The images are heavily watermarked, and unless you want your next design to end up on photoshop disasters, please respect the iStock community and pay for those images that do end up in production.

Hope you enjoy.

Working in the field of web design, we develop a certain knack for integrating existing identities and guidelines into our work– as we are often creating (or reworking) an online image for a company that already has an established image elsewhere.

This may be a blessing for some, who prefer just to focus on the website itself and leaving the branding to others – but it can also be quite burden, especially when the identity was not created with online use in mind.

Recently, when working for my previous employer, Bam Creative, I came across this problem. The client, Volleyball WA, had provided a logo which was created some time ago, and was not really fit for the web. As much as I tried to incorporate it – I kept failing miserably.

Realising that I was going to struggle to create a visually appealing concept while the logo still occupied my Photoshop file, I decided not to continue with the website but instead take a 30 minute hiatus and see what I could do with the logo itself.

Although unapproved by the client, I figured that I could pitch a ‘refreshed version of their existing identity suitable for more modern uses’ – and if they didn’t agree, I could always drop the original back in. Either way, it would be no extra cost to them, and it would help me get the design completed.

Understanding that this logo had been their only identity for some time, my goal wasn’t to completely start again, but to bring the logo back to life and make it suitable for the new website. It was important not to change the structure of the logo too much, as the identity still had to be recognisable when presenting it to the client.

Looking at the original logo, it was pretty obvious that it consisted of three parts – a triangle, a figure, and the type – Volleyball WA. It was important that the new logo retained these elements, but not necessarily in the exact same form. To start, I redrew a more uniform triangle and dropped the sharp edges and this immediately gave me a more natural shape to work with. I also decided to add perspective to the triangle, giving a nod to its original distorted form.

Once I was happy with the shape of the triangle, I set upon finding a useful image of a volleyballer that I could use for the silhouette. I found this was one of the greatest drawbacks of the original logo, and felt the new silhouette needed to be immediately obvious to the viewer. Once the image was found, I quickly outlined in illustrator and I was suitably happy with the outcome.

Another strong element of the previous logo was the bright yellow colour, although I felt it to be slightly overbearing. Using a very light yellow to orange gradient presented a much softer appearance, but also gave extra impact to the silhouette in front.

At this point – I was quite happy with the overall appearance of the updated mark, all that was remaining was the type. After experimenting with a couple of typefaces, I went with a familiar favourite – FF Meta – for its strong, clear form. To fit this in with the rest of the logo, the type was also given some perspective and the new logo was complete – 28 minutes later.

With the new logo in hand, I proceeded back to my original Photoshop file and what was quite a painful process to begin with, ended up proceeding smoothly with a final concept that I was very happy with.

After presenting the concept to the client, they agreed with my decision for the new logo – and decided that it would be gradually introduced it as their new identity, starting with the website (which they also approved, after a few minor modifications).

Overall, I was very happy with the result of this project – and I made a significant realisation – if something’s not working, change it. You’ll feel much better about it, get your job done more efficiently and if successful, your work will be much better for it.

Way back when I started the design of my website, I had a few ideas that I wanted to explore. One of those ideas was that I wanted the website to be surprising – taking back users with something they weren’t expecting, but did not compromise usability.

Through the use of jQuery this was very possible, and due to the high availability of free plugins and examples, really quite easy. The authors of these plugins and examples spend a long time developing them for our use, often without credit – but without them, we designers wouldn’t be building the websites we are today. Below, I have listed all of the scripts and examples that have been used in the website, hopefully you will get something out of them too.

jQuery Infinite carousel

http://www.catchmyfame.com/2009/08/27/jquery-infinite-carousel-plugin-1-2-released/
This script powers both the sliding ‘featured’ items on the homepage and the portfolio previews within the portfolio item pages. There are numerous sliding graphic jQuery scripts available, and I did experiment with several of them – but this one worked the best for my case. This script has been customised slightly on my website.

jQuery hover fade

http://greg-j.com/static-content/hover-fade-redux.html
This example was used for all of the animated hovers throughout the website. The basis for this was also used to slide up the portfolio previews on the home and portfolio page.

jQuery anchors

http://www.position-absolute.com/articles/better-html-anchor-a-jquery-script-to-slide-the-scrollbar/
Although quite simple, this script provides the automatic smooth scrolling from the ‘Back to top’ anchor link in the footer.

jQuery Tools – Tooltips

http://flowplayer.org/tools/demos/index.html
This is a very useful library of jQuery tools I use regularly. In the case of my website, I used the tooltips plugin to aid in the understanding of my process on my about page.

Easyslider

http://cssglobe.com/post/3783/jquery-plugin-easy-image-or-content-slider
Another plugin I use quite regularly, this script powers the form choice sliding on the contact page – although it has been customised slightly.

jQuery validate

http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/
This plugin provides the validation for required fields in my forms – very simple to install, and very powerful.

jQuery filter

http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/a-jquery-plugin-to-create-an-interactive-filterable-portfolio-like-ours#zip
This plugin provides the filtering functionality on my portfolio page, filtered based on the class of the images.

Reject ie6

http://www.sandaru1.com/2009/10/17/reject-ie6/
Although most users won’t see this – this script lets users running ie6 know that the browser they are running is out of date, and provides a number of options to upgrade. I made the decision not to support ie6 with this website (for personal and professional reasons) and this tool provides a valuable solution for those still using the obsolete browser.

That lists them all (I think) – I encourage you to try some of them out, hopefully they will be as useful to you as they were to me.

After months of procrastinating, and a few weeks of solid work, my brand spankin’ new website is live.

The new website comes two months after my move into full-time freelancing and fills a great void of not having a common place to house my body of work. Added to the new folio, the website will also be a place to communicate my thoughts on design, freelancing, and anything else I find along the way.

It has been almost 3 years since I last published any kind of personal portfolio, and trust that this is a big improvement over anything I’ve done in the past. The new website completes my new brand, and the transition into my full-time freelancing career.

For all those who are interested, the new website is powered by Wordpress and hosted by Media Temple. Both of which are truly awesome.

Finally, thanks to my incredible girlfriend Karen, for putting up with me while I worked through the day and night, on and off, for the past 4 weeks.

Please take a look around, and be sure to let me know what you think of the new site below.