One of the most common errors that graphic designers commit is to pursue too many clients at one time. This not only takes time and energy, but it moves them away from their core competency, which is the design work itself. While certainly time should be allocated to not only pursuing new leads but also building closer relationships with existing clients, this should be limited to only the amount of time which is absolutely necessary. And as the experts agree, the focus should be on the quality of the clients instead of the number.

Two or three premium clients is often all that it takes for a freelance designer to meet their living expenses from month to month. These clients should have work available on a continuous basis and be willing to pay a reasonable market rate for the design services. For designers who have gone into business for themselves, one of the primary goals for those first few months should be to obtain just a couple of such clients. After that, the designer can go back to focusing on their work once again instead of worrying as much about the business side of things. After all, very few graphic designers start a business to constantly push sales. Most simply want to focus on their work.

Simply put, an ideal client is worth a dozen run-of-the-mill ones. Even if regular clients are well-intentioned and easy to work with, having to simply manage so many different accounts can lead to inefficiencies and loss of productivity for a solo operation. Instead, it is imperative to land the big clients, meaning those who can afford to pay well and have enough work to keep you busy for months to come. As a matter of fact, the consensus among experts is that designers should have at least one such client lined up even before they make the jump to self employment.

Perhaps even more troubling are the number of freelance designers who indicate they will return back to full time hours once they find a traditional job. For around twenty percent of them, freelancing was chosen solely due to the inability to find work with an employer. While certainly understandable, this means that many of them simply don’t see the full potential that freelancing has to offer and aren’t capable of tapping into the wide open market for design services out there which are available for enterprising freelancing artists.

Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that ultimately many of these same designers aren’t making enough income in order to cover their living expenses from month to month. This isn’t due to lack of opportunity, but instead is the result of a narrow business view that limits each and every one of these individuals from reaching their full potential. Essentially, they view freelancing as something to bide their time over until such date that an opportunity falls in their laps. What these people don’t realize, due to their lack of business expertise, is that opportunities are to be made and not discovered. And even for the designer who earnestly wishes for a job with an employer, freelance work can lead to such opportunities when given time.

Freelancing, more so than any other type of business, requires a commitment to productivity. While the economy is terrible and many of these workers have lost their jobs due to downsizing at firms, the inevitable reason why many of them are still out of work today is that they’re unproductive workers. This lack of productivity can be seen in how they handle freelance tasks. To put it another way, businesses are always looking for the most productive and accomplished workers to contract out work to or hire. For those who are unwilling to fully devote themselves to the needs of clients, they can’t expect anything less than continued financial and unemployment problems. So the graphic designer must not only develop the business expertise necessary to handle day to day freelance operations and manage clients, but also the work ethic to drive themselves to greater opportunities. Success is not luck, but is instead achieved through hard work.

S3 / Glacier

S3 and Glacier and two cloud based storage solutions offered through Amazon.com. The two services are very affordable, with S3 costing $0.095 per GB while Glacier costs only $0.010 per GB. In order to use either service, however, you’ll have to download a client such as S3 browser and add the files manually to your account. The files are uploaded to special folders called buckets, where they will remain until such time they’re deleted. While S3 offers features such as public access to data, Glacier is more of an archival service appropriate for long term storage of data that isn’t retrieved except perhaps a few times per year. Regardless of which one that you ultimately choose, the biggest hurdle of using such a service is uploading all the data, which can take days to complete through a bandwidth connection. Also, if your credit card is ever denied through billing, you run the risk of losing the data forever.

External Hard Drives

Hard drives are becoming less expensive with each passing year. Right now, a 1.5TB Western Digital drive can be purchased for around $125-150. This is an attractive option for the graphic designer who has hundreds of gigabytes of data to backup. The reason being that it is so much faster to move data over a USB 3.0 connection than an internet connection. But the downside is that you have the backup drive in your home. That means if a flood hits your house or it is destroyed in fire, then you’ll more than likely lose both the primary drive and the backup external. Another problem is that many external hard drive models have disturbingly high failure rates. This is particularly a problem for the cutting edge models that offer a capacity of several terabytes.

Dropbox / Box.com

These are two popular cloud storage services. For those of us with under 100gb of data, they’re probably the best solution. Not only are they both quite affordable, but the software of each company allows for continuous backups to occur. This means you can simply add a large amount of data to your dropbox folder, for example, and then go about your work while the backup is running in the background. Over the course of just a couple of days, it will capture all the data and store it away for you, without inconveniencing the user the same way that an S3 client does. Unfortunately, when archiving terabytes of data, these services become cost prohibitive to the freelancer who can’t afford to pay over a thousand dollars a year to store old files.

Each of the services listed above have their pros and cons. Any of them however is a better choice than not using a backup solution at all. After all, what good is a graphic design artist without his or her portfolio. So don’t risk losing your precious work when a solution can often cost less than a few dollars per month.

Examples of time management software include BigTime, Time IQ, Replicon, and countless others that are available for purchasing and downloading online. Essentially, there are two types of time management software: time tracking and time billing. Time tracking is a more general software. It basically tracks how time is spent on a particular computer and then generates reports for viewing at the end of the day. By looking over these reports, people can easily identify where they’ve wasted the most time and then take steps to prevent procrastination in the future.

Time billing is a more robust version of this type of tracking software. Typically this is used when accounting for every minute spent on a project is an absolutely necessity for billing the client. In a sense, this type of time management software is as much for the client’s benefit as it is for the graphic designer. Many of these time billing programs go a step further and offer integration with popular accounting programs such as Quickbooks and Peachtree.

The great thing about time management software is that it gives you the tools necessary to become a more efficient worker. It is often the case that our routine becomes so commonplace that we aren’t capable of assessing it objectively. But the reports generated by this software leave no room for error or interpretation. You’ll get all the required information in brilliant detail, allowing for you to spot the inefficiencies that have a way of ruining a day’s work. Best of all, there is usually only a small number of changes required to impact time in a positive manner. For example, limiting access to popular social networking sites through the internet browser is a common step. Regardless of what course of action you take, you’ll become more adept at self managing, which always increases a graphic designer’s bottom line.

When used incorrectly, a PowerPoint presentation can be tedious and boring. One of the ways to liven it up is to use PowerPoint templates. These templates come in a variety of designs and it is relatively easy to find one which matches the topic of a particular presentation. Common categories include business, medical, education, and technology, with many others also available. In the unlikely situation that no themed templates can be found, a more general one can still be chosen.

It is a proven fact that people respond to graphics. That is why advertising and marketing materials are filled with them. They catch a customer’s eye, helping to lead them towards the information that a company or business wishes to convey. As a business man or woman, you can use PowerPoint in much the same way. The graphics you utilize during a presentation must be interesting enough to capture the attention of the room while also not detracting away from what is being said. This isn’t the easiest of tasks, but with professional designed PowerPoint templates, it does become a little easier.

Some templates even have animated images placed within them, helping to further draw attention to specific information. These types of images should be used sparingly, however, so as not to induce a situation which is often dubbed “death by Powerpoint”. Even though animations and vivid graphics are a good thing, too much of it will simply add noise to the screen and detract away from the central message.

Fortunately, template sets are designed to use graphics and text in just the right mix, giving you plenty of space to create a message which converts into increased sales and leads. These templates are available for just a few dollars each, and considering that often there are hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars riding on a presentation, the cost is a small price to pay in order to project a more professional image of both yourself and your company.

Having your own funeral programs designed in a needless expense. Not only will you incur hundreds or even thousands of dollars, but the design work will more than likely not be up to the quality you’d expect. This is true for the simple fact that the majority of designers have no experience in creating graphics for the funeral industry. As such, they don’t really know how to go about creating a look which people would find appropriate given the sensitive subject matter.

Fortunately, a wide variety of funeral program templates are available for you to download both free or purchase. These are already fully designed and can be integrated into graphics software in order to add the necessary content. They’re also made to print out perfectly on high quality inkjet and laser printers.

The choices in size vary, but there are three common ones. The first one is the book fold template. This measures 8 1/2″ X 11″ in dimension and should be printed on high quality card stock for the best results. Next, is the tri fold program. It is an excellent choice for families who wish to easily distribute the programs to a large number of friends. Finally, there is the traditional memorial template commonly found in funeral homes across America, which prints out to measure approximately 4″ X 5″.

The important thing is to always provide extra choices for the grieving families. This helps to actually make the process more meaningful to them, as they can choose which one that best reflects the wishes of the deceased. For some people, an elaborate funeral is often required. For others, a more basic service is preferred. Whichever the case may be, funeral directors have to be willing to accommodate families right down to every detail, including the funeral program. Having a variety of templates on hand in order to show them what the end result looks like is a great way to offer a more personalized service without incurring additional costs.

Celebration of life – Funeral Program Brochure Template

Funeral Program Brochure Template

Mothers Funeral Program Template

Child Funeral Program Template

Funeral Program Brochure Template

The majority of DVD label templates are themed. Depending on what type of industry your business is in, you may or may not find a label suited for it. In the unlikely event that you cannot find a themed label which matches your business, you’ll have to choose a more generic design. Depending on your level of expertise, you may be able to customize the labels even more than simply adding text. For example, you can change the colors to better match your own brand. Regardless of the choices you make, customers respond well to such devotion to detail. After all, if you intend to get people to spend their money with your business instead of a competitor’s, then you have to appear as professional as possible.

Once you’ve created the label, printing them is as easy as using an inkjet or laser jet printer. For more vibrant designs, however, it may be more cost effective to use a printing service instead of having to purchase numerous color ink cartridges to accommodate a large job. These services will print the labels for you at a very reasonable cost, much lower than what it would cost to do it yourself. And the quality is guaranteed.

In as little as a few days, a buyer will receive the labels in the mail and can then begin the process of applying them to each disc. While this can be time consuming and even a little frustrating, the increase in sales and leads will more than make up for it. Studies have shown that consumers are attracted to interesting brands. As such, it is your job to effectively build your business brand. Having labels for your DVD which reflects that brand will go a long way to making a positive impression on the recipient. Not only will they be more likely to recall the name of your business at a later date, but they’ll be more inclined to order your product or service. That’s the power of branding. Using DVD labels is only a small but essential part in effectively promoting your business.

The themes for such labels are nearly endless and range from funny to traditional. Whichever type of template you choose, it is important that you have one which can be easily customized as the need arises. Being able to incorporate imagery into the label can give it a more personal touch, particularly when you’re giving it to people close to you. For example, you may want to place an image of your grandfather on the label when gifting a large number of bottles to family. In this situation, the gift would be more meaningful and better appreciated because of the customization.

On other occasions, however, the homebrewer simply wants something that looks unique but is interesting. Fortunately, hundreds of templates are available to choose from with different graphics. These are all professionally designed and can be downloaded in just a matter of seconds. From there, it is only the matter of having them printed. Fortunately, many printing services online offer beer label printing at highly affordable prices. The labels can be printed in a variety of different sizes. All that is required is for the design to be uploaded through the printer’s website. Next, you simply choose how many of the labels you want to purchase. The turnaround time is great too. In less than a couple of days, you’ll have your own labels ready to apply to the bottles.

Creating your own brands of beer to be shared among other homebrew enthusiasts is a great way to foster an atmosphere of friendly competition. Homebrew clubs are available in major cities across the United States. Members meet and share their own unique beers with one another. By having your very own label, you’re taking the homebrew experience to the next level. Not only is it fun having your very own recognizable beer, but it may even lead to commercial opportunities. Many of the popular micro breweries began with just a few guys in a garage trying to make the perfect beer. So who knows where your passions may lead?

Beer Label Design

Oktoberfest Girl Beer Label

Oval beer label design

One of the advantages of newer templates is that they often utilize what is called responsive design. With this type of design, it doesn’t matter what type of browser is accessing your site, the site graphics adjust to the resolution. For example, a browser from a cell phone would access your site at 320px width. At this width, all the graphics and content would render wonderfully and the customer could access the required information. With many older templates, however, instead of responding like this, the website appears on the mobile browser to be huge. As a result, the user has to scroll sideways in order to find information. For many mobile surfers, it simply isn’t worth the frustration, so they’ll just go on to another competing website instead.

Modern responsive WordPress themes also allow for content to be organized to where it is less bulky. Given the limitation on screen size, mobile users can only access so much information on the screen before it becomes unreadable. With many older sites, the content appears oversized and chaotic. With new templates, however, this content is better arranged so that it is easily accessible from any browser.

Finally, these newer templates also have the added advantage of being sleek and less graphics intensive. As a result, they load faster and are cleaner looking on all browsers, but especially the mobile ones. When it comes to attracting customers, you don’t want some part of your website to be too distracting to them or render their browser unusable. These templates allow for the content to be served without disruption, helping you to better sway the customer to purchase a product or service.

With the rise of tablets and smartphones, mobile computing is poised to take over the internet. Those who don’t respond to these changes will eventually be left behind. As a business, you either have to evolve or die. It really is that simple. The good news is that professionally designed templates are available at very affordable rates.

You can find interesting responsive wordpress templates here.

One big advantage is that a template offers a quick solution to what is a non essential business decision. In other words, it really isn’t that big of a deal to cut costs and use a template for a letterhead. Not only do you get the results immediately after you purchase the template, but you can also have complete control over the aesthetics. After all, you’re choosing from the hundreds or even thousands of different letterheads available for purchase, so you get to decide what is appropriate and what isn’t. The alternative is taking hours of your time while you go through edits with a designer, asking for changes and waiting often days to see new submissions.

Obviously cost is the other advantage. A template can be purchased for usually less than twenty dollars. While these templates are as professional looking as those you’d receive when hiring a design house to make a custom letterhead, they also tend to be more generic. So that is the tradeoff. Then again, when you simply don’t have the money to spare, the template is an excellent choice nonetheless. And since there are so many different ones available to buy, the chances are good of you finding one that matches your company’s field or industry.

As far as disadvantages, it is harder to incorporate unique trademarks and colors into an existing design. While you can place your company name and even logo on the letterheads, usually you’ll have a difficult time updating the colors to better match your brand. While this may be a minor problem, it can also greatly affect the way a brand is perceived.

Finally, letterhead templates simply can’t offer the degree of individuality that many businesses yearn to have. Keep in mind that since the design is not unique, any other business, including one in the same industry as yours can also purchase and utilize the template as well. Then again, for many companies, the letterhead really isn’t considered to be top priority. In those situations, it makes little sense to spend hundreds of dollars on a custom design when a few bucks for a template will have the same effect.

You will find below a few samples of letterhead templates to get an idea:

Tile Letterhead & Envelope

Letterhead and business card layout

Photo Letterhead

Fresh Corporate Business Card + Letterhead

Letterhead for a Professional Photographer