You're so not perfect by Marta Spendowska

This is Part One of “Should you hire a designer or do it yourself?” series.

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Every month I meet with my dear photographer friend Jamie from Modern Tog and we talk business. She shoots weddings and blogs for amateur photographers giving them free and paid advice. She says that today everyone is or wants to be a photographer. I say today everyone is or wants to be a designer.
There is actually nothing to complain about. Internet opened up the door for all of us, we can do whatever’s our heart desire. It’s awesome. You, the client, can choose whomever you want to work with. If you’re a Midwestern and you’ve just decided to marry that dude (congrats!), you’ll probably google “wedding photographer madison wi” and Jamie will show up in the search. You can like her and her work instantly or not. If not, you’ll probably google for another photographer. I’m assuming that all that matters is Jamies portfolio and if she seems nice, approachable and professional. You probably won’t ask her, if she attended any serious photography schools. We stopped asking questions like that some time ago. Btw, hire her. I might consider remarrying for having my pictures taken by Jamie.

Now, if you decide it’s time to have a website, business cards, or logo for your business you’ll take a similar approach. You will first google a local designer, just because it just might be easier to discuss the matter over tea or coffee. If no one specifically will grab your attention and there are no local recommendations handy, you’ll repeat the search, maybe go on Twitter and ask if anyone knows and recommends a good designer. Again, all you need to hire her/him is to see the work and get a good feeling about the particular individual. And again — in your eyes there is no necessity for  the particular designer to graduate with the design degree.
And that’s where we start looking closer at this topic.

If you’re looking to hire a designer you probably want to do so, because you have no clue how to go about it all by yourself. Obviously you rely on the expertise of the designer. On the other hand, the designer, let’s call him Jack, doesn’t know, what he doesn’t know. Jack has a copy of Photoshop and Illustrator, knows how to operate the tools and that’s enough for cranking up some logos and WordPress changes in the premium theme. Well, the news is it’s not necessary enough.

(disclaimer : I talk about it from the perspective of a designer. Design and photography are two different fields).

See, I used to have a business card with hearts. They were purple and overlaid with some pink stars, I guess… I created them to accompany my rawfood website and at that time I was very bubbly and I had some pirate copy of Photoshop.  I knew how to do shadows and gradients and oh-my-god it was so fun to create layers for everything. I always thought I have a good taste because I draw/paint since I remember and I’ve always liked modern and contemporary art. Why then, would I not know how to develop an awesome concept and execute a great business card design?

When I look at that card now I’m so embarrassed I’d like to personally call people who have them and apologize for their nightmares. The important part to that story is that at that time I thought I was gooooood and my biz card was cooooool and I was so taaaaaaalented. You might be at that honeymoon phase and nothing else matters. You make that business card and you bevel some borders. Or, if you’re on the other spectrum and you love the minimalist trend, you just type your name in the middle of that layout and you call it a minimal design. I’m not judging you. But I’m challenging you, let’s look at that honeymoon phase and your business card next year.

I’m not saying one needs to go to school to be a designer and I would never call Google a parasite, but there is some truth in Keen’s opinion about amateurism and that history has proven that the crowd is not often very wise. There are some crazy prodigies out there whom we all envy. How the heck do they do such fantastic design work with the degree in accounting or paleontology? Well, they do—they’re prodigies as I said. But I bet they spent their time wisely studying principles of the design, in libraries, reading quipsologies and by being subscribed to Daily Heller’s. They listen to design podcasts and watch every movie about Milton Glaser or Saul Bass. They cherish this little yellow book. They belong to the local AIGA chapter and get pissed of  when president calls for spec work.  They participate in design this or the other way. Photoshop is just one of the tools of trades. And it usually comes to play later in the game, after sketchbook and research have been explored handsomely already.

On the other hand, I met many people, who end up being in the design school or program by accident and without any purpose. It just happened they though it might be cool or they hate biology. And after studding journalism, graduating with masters in management and marketing, then in web and graphic design, one thing I know for sure — you need to love design to be a designer otherwise it will eat you up alive. It’s a very demanding emotionally field.

Also, if I’d think you need schools, teachers and grades I would not be able to write this post. I’m self-tough in English. 100% self-tough, 100% proud of myself to even take my chances to write this for  you. But I practice it every day, my iPad teaches me a word every day, my husband urges me to read McGuggey’s Sixth Reader, but I’d rather read Ashley Ambirge and Erica Napoletano. I use English as some amateur deigners use Photoshop, but I would not call myself  a journalist just because I write this post. I bet you get all anxious to tell me how my English sucks. That’s ok, now you know how I feel when I’m looking at bad design. Let’s just all agree that in some cases the tool is not enough. You need to either train yourself extensively and understand the basics or call yourself a hobbyist. Yes, please, ditch the “guru” title. And that’s ok too. You can do things for yourself, even design your logo and be proud of yourself, if you want to.
Just understand that the profession is not the same as hobby.

And here is some inspiration for you — the prodigy Thomas Suarez — 12 years old iPhone App Developer.

In the next post we’ll discuss when and why should you be your own designer. I’m going to present you with another point of view. Un/fortunately it might be a very short post.

1. Who wants to be a designer ( You’re here and we answered it already — everyone!)
2. When and why you should be your own designer.
3. When and why should you hire a designer.
4. The truth about budgets.
5. What you need to know about hiring a designer.
6. How to be the perfect client. (Please, be one:)
7. What if you relationship with the designer goes south.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear what is your experience with working with a designer, what are the frustrations, concerns and questions.
Leave a comment below, so I can make sure I answers everything you need to know.

Over to you!

First of all — I love Spirited Away movie! Don’t you? I guess it’s time to watch it again.
But that’s not what I want to talk about today.
Just recently I found this app that would do things for me for free. Free is awesome so I’ve decided to try it.
It’s called Spirited Away and, as the developer says, it’s purpose is to

check each running application’s activity, and if an application isn’t active for a certain fixed time, Spirited Away hides the application automatically. It is, in effect, Spirited Away

Watch the video below to see it in action and make sure to try it yourself.
And btw, if you’re not convinced yet, but you still don’t know how to hide inactive apps in Mac, your favorite shortcut should be :

Command + H

My email box looks like a modern, stylish swedish designed storage. Clean and purposeful — it’s a joy to open it up every day.
It has never been like that before. Before I met Ethan Waldman from Claud Coach.

Who’s Ethan.

Ethan is technology coach, mac fanatic, and multi instrumentalist. We both like hot yoga (sometimes called Power), cycling and WordPress. Ethan’s work spans between email marketing and cycling. I consider him, first and foremost, Inbox Zero guy. He is responsible for my flourishing relationship with gmail.

Background story : my love-hate relationship with Gmail.

I’ve had gmail account for quite few years. I’ve never really learnt to love it. When I started Rawfoodtip, I knew I’d rather communicate with people professionally, using  my own rawfoodtip domain for that. I set up the rawfoodtip and connected it with mac mail. At that time I learnt to love macmail only because I spent insane amount of time researching productivity tips and tutorials about that. I had my folders in place and forwarding ready to go.
I thought I’m a genius.
For quite some time I was sure I get all the email I suppose to be getting into the folders I previously activated. Wrong. The glitches were constant.
I was receiving multiple messages, people started contacting me on using my private gmail email (yeah, I basically published it on the web..) to ask me why I’m not responding. My iMac was doing it’s own thing and my Macbook Pro another.

Insane.

Pretty quickly I realized I’m no genius. I’m a mess. An email box mess.

I’ve dealt with this situation for a while, came back to gmail for some time, set up some nice synchronization between work email and gmail (in Gmail), but — again — there was no spark. I would go back and forth between gmail and mac mail, never satisfied, always buried under junk email, newsletters, spam and alerts.

Nightmare.

And then I found Ethan. I remember I was intrigued by his cloud icon and big blue eyes. They must know stuff, I thought. Don’t blame me, I’m a very visual person.

And oh, he does know his stuff.

First of all, let me tell you something really, really important. Something you might not agree with me right away. It’s crazy. It’s a terrifying truth.

We love getting bunch of emails. We, especially who work online, love to get emails in the beginning of the biz journey, because that tells us that we count. As long as there is an email in that inbox, we have work to do. No matter, if it’s an important one or just another distraction from The Important Work.

So, there it is. The truth of the addiction.

This revelation was very important to me. I only faced it after following Ethan’s guidance. The business of stuff needed to go. It didn’t do any good to my business. Quite the opposite.

Ethan is an incredible coach. He has passion and patience, which is quite a rare combination. Or almost impossible. Thanks to him I’m back in Gmail and it looks preeeeety seeeexyyy!

ENTER INBOX ZERO

living with the cluttered inbox is a choice.

After following Ethan’s work, I let go of stuff, junk doesn’t clutter my inbox, I live in my Gmail with documents, calendars, multiple gmail accounts and professional ones. I got to know how to schedule my emails and I could even undo the sending. Everything received it’s on space and that doesn’t make me feel schizophrenic anymore.

That’s what you can learn from Ethan. He’s opening the door to his digital training Inbox Zero and you better jump on board. It’s an opportunity to get organized, calm and live within your means. No one can afford loosing time. Time is money, we know it. Time is precious. Seeing your email box all cleaned up and running like a swedish watch is a dream for anyone.

So go and sign up here.

And since I’m such a fan of Ethan’s work, I’ve decided to giveaway 10 of my junior WordPress programs Create Your Website Fast. Ten!

I never talk about people or program I don’t wholeheartedly support. Inbox Zero is one of those don’t miss out opportunities.  I bet you don’t even know how much more relaxed your personal and professional email relationship could be. Believe me, it can be a joy to read newsletters that matter. It will be a joy to see all the stuff going into the right places, have your clients categorized, have your alerts organized.

BONUSES

Here are $360 worth of bonuses as a thank-you for signing up early:

FIRST 50 People To Enroll in the Inbox Zero Training Program

1. Signatures that Sell: Learn the secrets of creating an irresistible email signature that promotes you, your brand, or your business every time you send an email. ($19)
2. Gmail: The Missing Manual: Confused about the new Gmail look? With this video and series of worksheets, I give you a clear run down of what everything in the interface does, from inbox to archive, settings to labs. ($29)

FIRST 20 People To Enroll in the Inbox Zero Training Program
The first 20 people who enroll in the Inbox Zero Training Program will get everything the first 50 members get plus…

3. A copy of Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus’ seminal new book, Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life ($14.95)
4. Access to Jonathan Mead and Charlie Gilkey’s The Dojo, an incredible audio masterclass on productivity ($67).
(This course literally changed the way I worked, and I told Jonathan that I simply HAD to offer it in conjunction with the Inbox Zero Training Program.) 10 is all I could afford to give away.. Make sure you grab this one!

FIRST 10 People To Enroll in the Inbox Zero Training Program
The first 10 people who enroll in the Inbox Zero Training Program will get everything the first 20 members get plus…

5. Free access to Marta Spendowska’s CreateYourWebsiteFast ($99). Learn how to set up, integrate, and maintain your very own WordPress site in one weekend.

FIRST 5 People To Enroll in the Inbox Zero Training Program
The first 5 people who enroll in the Inbox Zero Training Program will get everything the first 20 members get plus…

6. A complementary Email Clutterbusting Session with me (usually $129)
Ok. That’s it.

So, if you’re still here, I see you there right after 7am  EST.

Below you can see Ethan and his The Automated Inbox Blueprint in action.

Internet giants like Wikipedia, Reddit and BoingBoing, as well as many other sites, go on strike against SOPA. The sites will be blacked out, inaccessible, between the hours of 8AM and 8PM EST. If you’re unfamiliar with these two pieces of pending legislation, please take a minute to read a piece on Problogger.

This is where you can find instructions about the way for contacting your senators.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

I have to say, what’s happening reminds me of the time in Poland when you were not able to trust your neighbors. Is this really the America I came to visit and stayed seeing the freedoms and abundance?
It’s terrifying, where it’s all going, so please, take some action.

After good few weeks and quite a handful of emails to my beloved clients, I’ve decided to split my main website  into two seperate ones : www.martaspendowska.com and www.polishlab.com.

Before I tell you, why you could or should do the same, let me explain the reasoning behind my decission.

PolishLab was established few years back with the thought in mind it’s going to be my business hub. I coded it with Expression Engine instead of WordPress just because I wanted to learn its semantics. The other website, martaspendowska.com, has been redesigned multiple times and I never knew, how to approach it. I wanted to work under my name and establish some cohesive brand, which I did, but after certain time a very obvious problem occurred. Even though most people and my design clients appreciate my illustrative style, I knew that artists and some art directors became a bit confused seeing me talking one day about my favorite colors and the other day teaching WordPress.

Since my illustration started growing (and overcoming my main office), I knew I need to state the difference between being a web designer/developer and illustrator. Additionally, I hope to grow my pattern collection and fashion/lifestyle illustration much more in 2012.

So, even though the design clients didn’t mind the cute, brainless posts about big eyes of Regina Spector, my techie vocabulary became confusing to visitors, who came to my website to only experience my art and illustration. Also, how do I maneuver art directors around such different topics discussed on the same website.

So one day I partitioned my main website and spilt the content between martaspendowska.com and polishlab.com.

PolishLab, from this moment, becomes my web, print design and online business advice hub, where I teach others about web and apps, whereas MartaSpendowska becomes my illustration platform.  This one is going to be much less formal and much more pink and orange. Oh well of course!

Now—should you do the same? And when. And why.

I’m currently working on a website for fantastic women, Amber McCue. She is a photographer and a coach. She contacted me some time ago asking for a basic advice and review of her website. Besides just some functional problems, I haven’t seen any “collaboration” between the two themes: coaching and photography. After talking a bit about Amber’s goals, I knew that she needs to state it very strongly —in her case the two services she provides are complementary. She can coach on it’s own, but she also coaches through photography by helping women to gain confidence. So, as you see, even though her two offerings were kind of similar to mine, I advised her to connect them even more and make sure it’s strongly stated.
Amber doesn’t need to split her website, she should capitalize on both working on the same online platform.

If, on the other hand, Amber’s photography would be focused on landscapes or foliage and had nothing to do with her coaching sessions, she should split it. By keeping them together, she would confuse the clients and dilute her message.

I adore work of Emilie from Puttylike. She was one of the first people that showed me what multi-potentiality is. She was the one, who told me: hey, there are people like you out there, restless, creative seekers juggling multiple interests. And it’s ok. Not every hobby becomes a business, but you get my point. Or Emilie’s. Sometimes, or most of the times you can definitely maintain one website that works on many levels and present several topics, just because they enrich the message. Sometimes though, it can weaken it. Emilie decided to never commit to one career path, but if you read her website carefully you’ll see how focused she is. Even though, in her About page, she says she’s confused twenty-something.

My final advice is to look closer into your business model and figure out, who is your client. Do they mind being updated on different kind of topics, from food to social media? Do they skip half of your posts and never sign up for emails because of the content they don’t care about?

If in doubt, ask them directly and use some survey monkey. 

Over to you!

Syncing iCal calendars between computers with Dropbox is so easy I can hardly keep myself from jumping right into the tutorial.
Let me, though, introduce you to why I’ve decided to look for solution in the first place.

Before we’ll get happy and comfortable with iCloud, we can figure out the way to sync calendars between devices.
Personally, I use three machines that let me work remotely ; iMac (for work at home), MacbookPro 15 (for working at coffe shops & while traveling), iPad (for various productivity apps and general browsing).
After trying MobileMe, I’ve decided not to sign up, because it didn’t give me enough features for $99/year.

As of now, apps for keeping track of what’s happening are :

• Dropbox
• iCal (on every device)
• 2Do on iPad (synced with my iCal using free sync helper)
• Things for iPad (still loving it, but, hey dudes — it’s time to get going with some syncing power!)
• Pen + paper + highlighters

For making sure syncing your iCals between computer works properly you need two lines of code, open Terminal (in your Applications –> Utilities –> Terminal) and Dropbox account.
My only advice before following the tutorial is to do a little clean up. Make sure you have only the calendars that you’re actually using.

The code lines are below the video in the Notes section.
Between minute 6:50 and 7:02 there is a little fun overlap, when I talk about two things at the same time. I’m just repeating the process again, so you’re not missing any important info.

Enjoy and let me know, what’s your approach to syncing calendars and all sorts of productivity apps/tasks.

Notes :

1. Move your iCal File into the Dropbox Folder. Copy the code below, paste it in Terminal, hit Enter:mv ~/Library/Calendars ~/Dropbox/

 

2. Tell iCal to look in the dropbox folder for the calendar files. Copy the code below, paste it in Terminal, hit Enter:ln -s ~/Dropbox/Calendars/ ~/Library/Calendars

Many people have no idea where to start with converting videos to mp4 for making sure they are smaller and of high quality. If you are one of them, this tutorial will help you tremendously.
 
There are few ways for converting movies to mp4 for online viewing and quite an ocean of tools. Today I’d like to share with you one tool, that will take care of this problem for you. It’s called HandBrake and it’s totally free.
Watch the video below (7 minutes), take a look at my settings on the screenshots, and download the correct version of HandBrake  (Mac, Windows, Linux).
I hope it rocks your world, takes away all the worries, and improves the quality and the size of your precious movies.

Notes :

• Download it from HandBrake website.
• Copy my settings from the screenshots above.
• Read about HandBrake on Macworld.
• Have fun!

I confess, I’m a terrible app junkie. With apps I can usually accomplish whatever I want faster, easier and maybe even better.

Apps that help with productivity and workflow are my biggest friends. I’ve tried.. too many (sorry Hubby!).

I found the perfect solution for myself and I want to share it with you.

(I’m working on iOS, so my advice is mostly for Mac users, but not all of it is based on computer, so stay atuned)

IDEA GENERATORS

First and foremost, I shuffled away my notebook that would lie next to my computer with some to-dos in it.

To open it, find the latest important scribble was simply too time consuming.

Some time ago, I’m not sure when I’ve heard this advice exactly, Dyana Valentine was talking about index cards.

As I recall correctly her way of working with them was very similar to what I’m doing with mine :

INDEX CARDS STRATEGY :

• On your Index Cards scribble ideas through the day (freely, with no particular order, just go with it)
• By the end of the week, throw away the ones that aren’t good enough to keep them near you.
• Put your weekly Index Cards somewhere is a display (illustration board for example)
• By the end of the month, go through the accumulated Index Cards and — again  — strip the bad ones (the ones that are just hokey-pockey or don’t make your heart sing)
• Either start working on implementing the ones that are ripe and ready to act upon or put them in the manila envelope or any kind of folder.
• After 3 months go through them again and decide, which ones are worth keeping.

It’s good to have a separate folder for bigger goals and dreams. You can put those index cards inside of them and check up after 6 months or so, to see if the ideas are still valuable.

WORKFLOW + PRODUCTIVITY

So, as you see, I must have my Index Cards on my desk at all times. I will write on them my ideas, super-thoughts, but also upcoming webinars (if there is no way to save the date automatically in my iCal). At the end of the day, I’ll put the dates in the iCal, but not during my work hours.

Let’s talk apps.

2 apps + 1 software I can’t live without.

THINGS

It’s a paid app. It costs some mulla. But it’s worth every penny.
I’ve been deciding on using it for far too long. A year maybe. In the meantime, I spent an insane amount of time finding the perfect solution for my to-dos. Remember the Milk (too clunky), TeuxDeux (too small, hard to categorize), pen+paper (I would end up with lists in 3 of my notebooks, simply, because I’d forgot to take it with me somewhere, where I’d need to update it).

I needed an app, that would allow me to categorize everything I want, create separate projects, make my to-does easy to update, warm me about the due dates, show me, what’s upcoming, visually minimal.

Now, there is additional rule I follow. Unfortunately, this one will only work for those of you, who own iPad.

I bought THINGS for iPad. The WHY comes in a sec. If I wouldn’t have an iPad, I’d still buy it for my iMac ight away.

The WHY (STRATEGY)

A bonus advice for the iPad lovers.

I’ve decided to check my emails, to-does only on my iPad, only during my brake time, and only if I feel it’s time to see what’s pilling up in the gmail (just recently switched from macmail — Thanks Ethan!).

My iMac is for work related stuff only, until 6pm. Period.

Same happens with Things. They only exist on iPad. With one touch I mark what’s been done and scan through what’s next. It’s also much cheaper to buy. Things for iPad cost 20 bucks. It’s like 5 times at Starucks people!

DEJAL (TIME OUT)

This app blew me away.

Dejal will alarm you when it’s time to take a brake, which basically means that you’ve worked for certain amount of time.

You are the one who sets up your brakes. After you decide you want to have a time out every hour, you are going to see a tinted screen for certain amount of time.

On top of that you can set up which song should start playing, when the brake starts. My choice ? Lisztomania of course! Additionally you can create mini brakes for your stretch ups and to just rest your eyes on the tree above your desk.

Some of you might be feeling anxiety right now. Tinted screen? While I work? No way! I need to save that sucker! Well, you can, scardy kitty, you can. Take a look at  this tinted screen attack on my monitor right below. Neat, huh?

Sorry for the noise in the 2nd part of the video, but as I said — I unplugged my mic for some demonstration time

Those 2 apps, 1 strategy and 1 stock of Index Cards get me organized and on top of the world.

I’d love to see, what helps you with staying on track with workload and what kind of fun I might be missing by not using what you’re using.

Btw, I’m writing this post in Journler. But that’s another story..

When you’re about to edit your post on your WordPress blog, you are probably going to your Dashboard, then Posts, then Edit Posts, and finally you choose the post that needs to be modified.

Did you know you can speed up this workflow and get rid of all unnecessary steps to edit your posts, pages, and comments?

It’s really easy, requires just a snippet of a code, super simple actions like copy + paste, and after accomplishing this task, you’re going to have much more easier access to editing.

Watch the tutorial below, share it with others, and, as I say in the video, if you have trouble with implementing this strategy, make a comment below and I’ll answer that for you.

Notes are posted below this tutorial.

Notes :

• Copy and paste this code  into single.php : <?php edit_post_link(__(‘{Quick Edit}’), ”); ?>
• Look for something like :  <div class=”entry”> or <div id=”content”> or look at the structure of your posts and paste the snippet somewhere close to the top content (in my case : “Posted by Marta Spendowska”)
• Post questions in the comments below
• Have fun!

Ever wonder how you can customize short url into something more memorable?

Well, I’m here to show you!
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