SpyreStudios

Web-Design and Development Magazine

Usability And You: The Design Process

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As someone who works at a web design company running a usability tool, I get many questions from interested parties on how we use usability in our design process. Many people seem to see usability as an impediment to a smooth design process, as something that breaks up the workflow rather than complementing it and smoothing it out.

They see implementing a usability testing process as a very time consuming, expensive, arduous task that adds little value to their business or for their clients. This is all very negative sounding, and something I hear repeated rather too frequently for my liking.

Simplify and Improve Your Designs with the Bonsai Tree Method

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Want to simplify and improve your designs? As is often the case, sometimes the best design inspiration comes from outside of the design field. In this case, you can look to an ancient Japanese art form: bonsai trees. You can simplify and improve your designs with the Bonsai Tree Method.

The thousand-year-old Japanese bonsai tree tradition is an art form of cultivating a miniature tree in a pot. Both the pruning and shaping of the tree as well as contemplation is meant to be an enjoyable activity for one’s self, rather than for the purpose of producing food, planting in a garden, or something.

10 quick tips for first time freelancers

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Beginning your freelance career can be a scary time in your life, no matter how excited you are at taking the plunge. On one hand, you’re excited to know that you are going to be leaving your job and doing something you’re passionate about & on the other hand, you’re scared out of your mind because you’ve never done this before and you’re not sure where the money is going to come from to keep your family secure.

Luckily, this article will outline 10 quick tips for first time freelancers, so you’ll be able to put a lot of your nervousness to rest. I hope you enjoy it and learn something from what I’ve written for you.

5 Reasons Travel Can Improve Your Design Work

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Traveling rocks. Practically everyone likes to travel, whether by land, sea or air. And why not? You get excited to see new environments and people, try new things, and be surrounded by fresh and inspiring surroundings. But did you know that traveling can actually help your design work as well? Yep, there are at least 5 reasons travel can improve your design work.

Now, to be clear, traveling doesn’t directly help your designs (except for reason #4 below). Rather, travel can indirectly improve your design work by improving yourself. When you become better/happier/more excited, your work becomes better as well. It’s like fuel for your brilliant work, and traveling constantly refuels you. The reasons explained below will show you just how traveling does that.

5 Ways To Streamline Your Web-Design Workflow

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Productivity and efficiency are all the rage these days – and for good reasons. As a freelance designer, my income greatly depends on my ability to produce quality work, and if I can do that even slightly faster than the other guy, I will not only have happy clients, but returning customers.

In this post I’d like to share some of the things I’ve learned throughout the years that I use or do on a daily basis to help me with my workflow. Of course the more experience you gain the more time you’ll save, but let’s try to point you in the right direction. Those tips might be quite useful especially if you’re getting started as a freelance designer :)

3 Reasons Doing Other Art Makes You a Better Designer

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Want to be a better designer? Silly question – of course you would. Who wouldn’t, right? There are plenty of obvious ways to improve: practice and design relentlessly, try different styles, get outside of your comfort zone and thus force yourself to learn new techniques, and so forth.

But did you know that by doing other art forms – music, film and video, painting, writing, developing – you can actually improve your designs?

Why Freelance Designers Should Use Invoicing Tools

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There are a plethora of tools out on the Internet today that help designers and developers alike. Many times however, we believe they fall short because “we can handle it ourselves” without the extra cost of such tools.

Conversely, we find ourselves spending quite a bit of time trying to complete such tasks which respective tools would reduce the time spent by a fraction. With this being said, within this article we get our hands dirty and discuss several reasons as to why freelance designers should use invoicing tools.

Unlock the Designs You’re Truly Meant to Create

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Are you not your true self? Most designers aren’t. After all, it’s not that easy! We create designs we’re not 100% into or best at. Instead, we withhold our unique design contribution to the world. What we do is simply good enough designs. Good—maybe even great—but not uniquely and insanely amazing.

Do you want to be one of the countless me-too designers, or do you want to add your unique and remarkable contribution to the design world? If you answered yes to the first one, you can stop reading the rest of this article. It’s not for you. That’s okay – some people enjoy the activity of designing and don’t mind stopping at simply paying the bills with it. That’s perfectly fine.