₦airaland Forum

And another.

And it continues.

I saw these as I was scrolling through my fb timeline. And, goodness! Behold these photos. What I love most about them is how accurate the humans fitted into the sculptures.

Cute and Funny.
Was wondering what the guy in the first pic would have done if those sculpture came to life. im balls for...

Gboyeboy:
your phone number pls

This is it: https://www.nairaland.com/2101020/3d-works

Gboyeboy:
your phone number pls

...

Gboyeboy:
Hi all,
3D logo artists should quote me with their contact.

Hello.
Let's talk.

xchipgraphics@gmail.com

clintonopah:
nice.....this is my account

...

You see eh! I been just dey watch. Anybody wey talk anything wey no make sense, prof800, give am pepper.

Back to the matter, my guy, your moves are good. But, to get it right, you have to understand blending and color matching.

In some of them, there're no shadows. You be winch? How you dey and you no get shadow?
Again, you don't pick details. It's said that "the devil is in the details". Work with your "zOOm tool". To understand and be good at manipulating photos, you need to understand. And know how compositing works.

That one wey you commot your footwear put shoe, you be diver? See as your leg be for there.
Ok. You want hail buhari, abi? Wey your other hand? Choi! Calm down. No dey rush. You have a nice start though.

You're still getting up, but, take it one after the other. Youtube is your best friend. Nairalanders love yabbing.

Oya, my bottle of Orijin.

Extremely awesome. This must have been time consuming.

This is getting interesting.

Nice one. But, the background in not necessary.

Truth be told. There are a designers out there: freelance designers trying to make a dollar, gain experience and get their business to grow at the same time. Being a freelancer is wonderful but the market is so saturated that we often lack what we need to be successful in the venture. I've listed some tips below on how to become a successful freelance designer.

Brand yourself: Nearly any company or organization falls apart without an established style. Without a impressive personalized logo you will simply fade into the background where literally thousands of freelance designers wander.

Create an effective online portfolio: It is nearly impossible to be successful in graphic or web design without having an impressive inline presence. Any potential clients or employers will want to see your work and most of them will prefer to type in a URL and click on what they want to see.

Create an equally effective print portfolio, business cards, resume, etc: This is somewhat a combination of the previous two steps. Be sure to create an impressive tangible portfolio that you can give to those who want to see your work “in person”. Also use your branding and identity to create business cards, stationery, etc. Any time you can slap your personal logo on something, do it.

Be brave, bold, and professional: Don’t be afraid to call people, offer services, email businesses and more. Recently, I was printing a job for a client and at the printing shop, a man complimented me on the design of the piece. After engaging in friendly conversation, he asked me for some tips on the piece he was printing for his own business. Although I was short on time, I was happy to help him and when I got ready to leave, I offered my future services and handed him a card. Have confidence that people will appreciate your skills.

Go the extra mile for your customers: Word of mouth is the most important tool you have. Nothing can help you or hurt you more than rumors and compliments spread by those for whom you have done work before. About 90% of the freelance work I do comes from word-of-mouth advertising.

Take the small jobs first: Doing well at a small job for someone can help open doors for your client to do bigger, better things. I entered a logo contest for a particular organization and out of the four logos I entered, two tied for first place pick. They were so impressed, I offered to design their website as well. Similar offers can be made for an organization’s stationery, business cards, etc. Find a niche and then take courage and offer more.

Don’t underestimate yourself: This goes along with Number 4. Be sure to believe in yourself. No one will ever hire a designer that thinks he may not do a good job as the next guy. Always reflect your confidence in your pricing. If your work is good, charge good money for it.

Network: Graphic and web design are rapidly changing. Every day new techniques and styles are developed and the designer found sleeping on the job is left in the dust. Sign up for social networks like twitter, linkedin, facebook, digg, and more. Start a blog and frequently add meaningful comments on others’ blogs. Creating a name for yourself in the design world takes some time but can be done using social networking resources.

Practice! Practice! Practice!: Nothing will help you increase in confidence and ability more than practice. If work is a little slow, nail down some of those personal projects you’ve been meaning to finish. Join a group at school or in the community where you can freshen your skills. Participate in design forums, contests, and workshops. Nothing can take the place of real life application and experience.

Pay attention: I like to carry a small notebook around with me. Whenever I see an advertisement, photograph, building, person, etc. that influences my creative thinking, I try to write it down. An see if I can come up with something different and better. When you go places, pay attention to new trends. Collect successful design pieces that you find at restaurants, at the mall, or anywhere you go just to relax. Always be on the look out for creative inspiration.

http://cgminds..com/2015/06/becoming-susscesful-freelance-designer.html

Truth be told. There are a designers out there: freelance designers trying to make a dollar, gain experience and get their business to grow at the same time. Being a freelancer is wonderful but the market is so saturated that we often lack what we need to be successful in the venture. I've listed some tips below on how to become a successful freelance designer.

Brand yourself: Nearly any company or organization falls apart without an established style. Without a impressive personalized logo you will simply fade into the background where literally thousands of freelance designers wander.

Create an effective online portfolio: It is nearly impossible to be successful in graphic or web design without having an impressive inline presence. Any potential clients or employers will want to see your work and most of them will prefer to type in a URL and click on what they want to see.

Create an equally effective print portfolio, business cards, resume, etc: This is somewhat a combination of the previous two steps. Be sure to create an impressive tangible portfolio that you can give to those who want to see your work “in person”. Also use your branding and identity to create business cards, stationery, etc. Any time you can slap your personal logo on something, do it.

Be brave, bold, and professional: Don’t be afraid to call people, offer services, email businesses and more. Recently, I was printing a job for a client and at the printing shop, a man complimented me on the design of the piece. After engaging in friendly conversation, he asked me for some tips on the piece he was printing for his own business. Although I was short on time, I was happy to help him and when I got ready to leave, I offered my future services and handed him a card. Have confidence that people will appreciate your skills.

Go the extra mile for your customers: Word of mouth is the most important tool you have. Nothing can help you or hurt you more than rumors and compliments spread by those for whom you have done work before. About 90% of the freelance work I do comes from word-of-mouth advertising.

Take the small jobs first: Doing well at a small job for someone can help open doors for your client to do bigger, better things. I entered a logo contest for a particular organization and out of the four logos I entered, two tied for first place pick. They were so impressed, I offered to design their website as well. Similar offers can be made for an organization’s stationery, business cards, etc. Find a niche and then take courage and offer more.

Don’t underestimate yourself: This goes along with Number 4. Be sure to believe in yourself. No one will ever hire a designer that thinks he may not do a good job as the next guy. Always reflect your confidence in your pricing. If your work is good, charge good money for it.

Network: Graphic and web design are rapidly changing. Every day new techniques and styles are developed and the designer found sleeping on the job is left in the dust. Sign up for social networks like twitter, linkedin, facebook, digg, and more. Start a blog and frequently add meaningful comments on others’ blogs. Creating a name for yourself in the design world takes some time but can be done using social networking resources.

Practice! Practice! Practice!: Nothing will help you increase in confidence and ability more than practice. If work is a little slow, nail down some of those personal projects you’ve been meaning to finish. Join a group at school or in the community where you can freshen your skills. Participate in design forums, contests, and workshops. Nothing can take the place of real life application and experience.

Pay attention: I like to carry a small notebook around with me. Whenever I see an advertisement, photograph, building, person, etc. that influences my creative thinking, I try to write it down. An see if I can come up with something different and better. When you go places, pay attention to new trends. Collect successful design pieces that you find at restaurants, at the mall, or anywhere you go just to relax. Always be on the look out for creative inspiration.

http://cgminds..com/2015/06/becoming-susscesful-freelance-designer.html

Knowing the audience of any business will affect every decision you make while designing for the business. Not only will these people dictate what icons or colors you use, but also how you choose to portray it.

It’s obvious that a webpage that’s geared towards the construction world won’t have the same effect on teenage girls and vice versa. So how do you determine what kind of design will appeal to your target audience? Just like a relationship, you have to get to know them better.

Who is Your Audience?
First things first, who are these people? Hopefully you’re a designer, and you're set to run a freelance/agency business. You at least have some inkling, specifically in terms of age, gender and geographical location. But humans are complicated and we get offended if someone doesn’t take the time to get to know us, least of all by which chromosomes we carry and how many years we’ve graced this planet. Obviously you need to do a bit of research and no, not just in the library.

Once you’ve got your basic demographics down you need to determine what interests them, what bothers them and what they want from you. Finding this out could be as simple as conducting a survey, reviewing industry publications or seeing what you can glean off your competitors.
From here, there’s a clever way to really hone in on what your audience need and that is by creating a persona. In a sense, once all the research has been said and done, the rest can be left more or less to your imagination.

Essentially you’re creating your ideal client, people who have names, specific jobs and income, families and struggles and a psyche rife with fear, worry and motivation. But don’t just stop at one, ideally you want to create a cast of characters that will represent your target audience; after all, the plan is to eventually interact with real people and not their statistics. Giving your audience a persona is just one way to help you perceive your own brand from their perspective.

Who Are You?
Once you have a better understanding of who you’re appealing to, you need to have an even better understanding of who you are and what you are trying to design for. A great analogy we came across involved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It goes like this:
If you make a PB&J sandwich, you’re only appealing to the people who enjoy PB&J sandwiches; not everyone likes them and there is really no way to make people like them if they just don’t.

Though if you tried, you’d risk losing the appeal of people who do like PB&J sandwiches. And even within that group there are aspects to consider, like people who prefer more peanut butter over jelly and vice versa. Either way, if you try to alter your sandwich and cater to both parties, chances are you’ll still end up with a sandwich that appeals to one faction over the other.

In layman’s terms it simply means you can’t win them all. Your design won’t be loved by everyone out there and attempting to do so will only cause detriment to your work and possibly your ego. With this in mind, pull your shoulders back, focus on a particular audience and shoot for the stars.

Putting Two and Two Together
Repeat after me, “design for my audience”. Even if this seems like a prime opportunity to experiment a little you need to pull back and consider the people, because ultimately this is for them. If your out-of-the-box creativity can be justified and has value to the project and consequently the audience, then go crazy, however if it doesn’t it’s probably best to pump the brakes on this one.

Having a good understanding of your audience is one of your greatest assets in implementing good design. Your design should make them feel a certain way and to achieve that you need to know what they’ll respond to. It’s pretty likely that floral patterns and pastels won’t appeal to the world of corporate law but neither will ambient black & white photographs or subdued earth tones. When designing with an audience in mind everything becomes a factor, from the colors and fonts you use to the way it’s laid out and how it’s written
.
The ultimate goal in designing is to get people to move. You want them to reach out to you and by using design to relate to them in a way that’s relevant to their demographic and audience, you can achieve it.

http://cgminds..com/2015/05/how-to-design-for-particular-target.html

Knowing the audience of any business will affect every decision you make while designing for the business. Not only will these people dictate what icons or colors you use, but also how you choose to portray it.

It’s obvious that a webpage that’s geared towards the construction world won’t have the same effect on teenage girls and vice versa. So how do you determine what kind of design will appeal to your target audience? Just like a relationship, you have to get to know them better.

Who is Your Audience?
First things first, who are these people? Hopefully you’re a designer, and you're set to run a freelance/agency business. You at least have some inkling, specifically in terms of age, gender and geographical location. But humans are complicated and we get offended if someone doesn’t take the time to get to know us, least of all by which chromosomes we carry and how many years we’ve graced this planet. Obviously you need to do a bit of research and no, not just in the library.

Once you’ve got your basic demographics down you need to determine what interests them, what bothers them and what they want from you. Finding this out could be as simple as conducting a survey, reviewing industry publications or seeing what you can glean off your competitors.
From here, there’s a clever way to really hone in on what your audience need and that is by creating a persona. In a sense, once all the research has been said and done, the rest can be left more or less to your imagination.

Essentially you’re creating your ideal client, people who have names, specific jobs and income, families and struggles and a psyche rife with fear, worry and motivation. But don’t just stop at one, ideally you want to create a cast of characters that will represent your target audience; after all, the plan is to eventually interact with real people and not their statistics. Giving your audience a persona is just one way to help you perceive your own brand from their perspective.

Who Are You?
Once you have a better understanding of who you’re appealing to, you need to have an even better understanding of who you are and what you are trying to design for. A great analogy we came across involved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It goes like this:
If you make a PB&J sandwich, you’re only appealing to the people who enjoy PB&J sandwiches; not everyone likes them and there is really no way to make people like them if they just don’t.

Though if you tried, you’d risk losing the appeal of people who do like PB&J sandwiches. And even within that group there are aspects to consider, like people who prefer more peanut butter over jelly and vice versa. Either way, if you try to alter your sandwich and cater to both parties, chances are you’ll still end up with a sandwich that appeals to one faction over the other.

In layman’s terms it simply means you can’t win them all. Your design won’t be loved by everyone out there and attempting to do so will only cause detriment to your work and possibly your ego. With this in mind, pull your shoulders back, focus on a particular audience and shoot for the stars.

Putting Two and Two Together
Repeat after me, “design for my audience”. Even if this seems like a prime opportunity to experiment a little you need to pull back and consider the people, because ultimately this is for them. If your out-of-the-box creativity can be justified and has value to the project and consequently the audience, then go crazy, however if it doesn’t it’s probably best to pump the brakes on this one.

Having a good understanding of your audience is one of your greatest assets in implementing good design. Your design should make them feel a certain way and to achieve that you need to know what they’ll respond to. It’s pretty likely that floral patterns and pastels won’t appeal to the world of corporate law but neither will ambient black & white photographs or subdued earth tones. When designing with an audience in mind everything becomes a factor, from the colors and fonts you use to the way it’s laid out and how it’s written
.
The ultimate goal in designing is to get people to move. You want them to reach out to you and by using design to relate to them in a way that’s relevant to their demographic and audience, you can achieve it.

http://cgminds..com/2015/05/how-to-design-for-particular-target.html

willbob:
Cc: velociraptor, bornmekus, felixchip

Here.

chudy144:
In need of a good graphics designer that is very creative in his or her work.
Pls drop previous work here and your contact I will contact you.

Thanks

http://pinterest.com/felixchip
http://behance.net/felixchip

xchipgraphics@gmail.com
Whatsapp: 07033177777
Phone: 08073879543

You see eh, I'll just say the truth.
I Love these. Lovely works with precision.

“Sorry, but until there’s a programmer on the founding team, this discussion can’t move forward.”

Trying to raise money as a non-technical founder was an uphill battle.

One where I kept getting pushed back with politely-worded attacks of “you don’t have what it takes.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys.

Even though I had a product, I wasn’t a developer. And despite my efforts, I didn’t have a technical co-founder, either.

In the technical world, non-technical founders risk being seen as unqualified.

I’ve seen the attitude from potential investors, employees, partners, advisors and even fellow founders who have no stake in the business.

You can’t build a software business if you can’t make software.

Bullshit.

While we’ve got a long way to go, I’m damn proud of how far we’ve come at Groove.

And we’ve done it with an outsourced prototype, a killer team and a ton of hustle.

And me. A decidedly non-technical founder.

This isn’t a woe-is-me cry for non-technical founders to get more respect in the industry. Respect is earned, and there are a lot of groups far more maligned.

But this is now the third time I’ve been a non-technical founder, and I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way.

Lessons that have helped me work more effectively with my technical team members, add more value to our product and become a better entrepreneur.

I hope you can learn from them.

Note: a lot of these are great skills for technical founders to have, too. And many technical founders I know are really good at them. But from my experience, for us non-technical folks who can’t contribute to the codebase, I’ve found these to be absolutely critical.
[size=18pt]
The Skills That Have Helped Me Succeed as a Non-Technical Founder[/size]

1) Research and Validation
Before my first startup, I started my career as an assistant to my brother, a financial advisor.
Soon after that, I began to get frustrated that there was nothing out there to help us automate the customer management side of things.
Everything — followups, lead nurturing, tracking — was manual.
I thought that maybe if I was having this problem, then others might be, too.
So I put a PowerPoint deck together about the solution I envisioned — a CRM for financial advisors — and then I picked up the phone.

I called other financial advisors in my area, asking if I could have five minutes of their time.
Then I asked them about their own experiences and pains, and learned that dozens of them shared the same burning frustrations that we did.
It was then — and only then — that I decided to team up with my technical cofounder and get the product built.
It’s a process I’ve repeated for all of my startups, and the time I put in early on has paid off exponentially in building a better solution than we otherwise would have.

Takeaway: Without the ability to hack together a prototype, the easiest way to validate your idea is simply to go talk to your potential customers first. You’ll be amazed at how many people are happily willing to share their time and opinions with you.

2) Building Visuals:
I was lucky to team up with one of my best friend developers who had just left Yahoo! and agreed to join me.
Before he got started, I tried to sit him down and explain all of the features and functionality I imagined our app would have.
After about five rambling minutes, he stopped me.

“We can’t build from a list,” he explained. “Let’s organize your thoughts and map this out so that we know what it’ll look like first.”
And so I did.
I started to draw sketches. And then those turned into wireframes. And finally, I learned how to use Photoshop and built mockups of the app.
It bridged the gap between the thoughts in my head and my cofounder’s understanding of them, which meant that we saved a lot of time on changes and iterations early on.

And while these days I’ve ditched Photoshop and switched to Balsamiq for mockups, it’s still my favorite way to show our team exactly what we need to do.
For example, I might point to a part of the site that needs fixing:

https://www.groovehq.com/attachments/blog/non-technical-founder/fixing_typos.png

Or I wireframe up a whole page to make it easier for the team to understand my vision for it:
https://www.groovehq.com/attachments/blog/non-technical-founder/wireframe.png

These are much more helpful to our team than a description could ever be.

Takeaway: Wherever you’re able, showing is better than telling. Pick good tools for mockups and screen captures, and use them to show your team what you want.


3) Giving Bulletproof Feedback:
When you do tell instead of show, learn to tell as descriptively as possible.
Early on at my second startup, we were trying to build a login page for our customers, and it was going…poorly.
“The form needs to be bigger, and we need fewer navigation links,” I emailed our development lead.
If you have product development experience, you’re shaking your head in disgust right now.
“No problem,” he’d say. And an hour later, I’d get a new version with a too-big form box and critical links missing from the header.
We had been dancing this dance for days; me flat-footedly asking for vague changes, and him dutifully matching my steps.

Finally, I was fed up.

“Why on earth would we remove the link to the home page?,” I quizzed him.

“Um, you were the one who told me you wanted fewer links.”

And so I was.

That afternoon, we had a long discussion that was incredibly helpful for me.
I learned the importance of giving clear, thorough feedback.
After all, if someone sent a blog post back to me with the comment “needs to be shorter,” I’d be just as lost.
Now, instead of “fewer navigation links,” I might say “let’s remove the About, Contact and Features links, and increase the size of the form submit button by 20%.”
Things move a whole lot smoother.

Takeaway: There’s no excuse to give vague feedback. It slows down your team, creates confusion and hurts your product. Be clear, concise and direct.


4) Pre-Selling:
At that first startup, while my friend sat coding, I, again, hit the phones.
I called more than 1,000 financial advisors around the country, and just as I did in our earlier stages, asked them about their frustrations.
And while I was able to get some amazing insights that helped us in our development, I also got something that massively increased our chances of success once we launched.
In those conversations, after hearing about how much the agent hated doing their follow-ups by hand, I’d say something along the lines of:

“Just so you know, we’re building a tool to automate all of that. It’ll do [X, Y and Z]. When it’s ready, I’d love to show it to you and get your feedback. Would that be alright?”
That effort got us a list of hundreds of highly qualified leads, and dozens of paying customers within weeks of our launch.
Takeaway: You can be selling even before you have anything to sell. In fact, while your product is being built, that’s one of the best uses of your time.


5) Selling:
I’ve found that my job as a non-technical founder, more than anything, has been to sell.
Want to raise money? You need to connect with investors who see hundreds of pitches each week and make the case that your company is worth betting on.

Want to sell your product? You need to connect with your customers and deeply understand their challenges, hopes and fears.

Want to hire the best? You need to connect with talented prospects from a variety of backgrounds, understand their goals and show them why your company is the best fit for them.

Want to secure a profitable partnership? You need to connect with the person you’re exploring the deal with, know what they’re looking for and convey how you can help.

Want to manage effectively? You need to connect with your team and stay on top of a number of markers: happiness, productivity, obstacles, goals and schedules.

The list goes on and on.

Selling is a skill that can absolutely be learned. A couple of my favorite books that helped me do just that are Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling and Yes! by Noah Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert Cialdini.
But beyond studying, the most important thing is to practice. Early on, every day you spend selling gets easier than the day before.
As I’ve learned from my own experiences, and from talking to people who are much better at sales than I am, you’ll always run into new challenges and frustrations. But over time, you get much better at dealing with them, and the process becomes a whole lot easier.

And as a non-technical founder, it’s where the bulk of your value to the company will come from as you grow.
Takeaway: The biggest job of a non-technical founder is to grow the business through customer acquisition, hiring, managing and more. Get very good at connecting with people; it’s a skill that can be learned through practice.


6) Cheerleading
In each of my three startups, I’ve come up against people telling me that I have no shot because I’m not a developer.
Frankly, naysayers are a challenge that every founder deals with.
But they always sting the most when they harp on the things you know are true; like the fact that you can’t code.
I’ve had to learn to be my own cheerleader. To motivate myself to push through those fights and focus on what matters.
And through that, I’ve learned to be a cheerleader for everyone else.

When our developers are focused on a nasty issue that’s holding back the company, there’s not a whole lot I can do to help on the technical side of things.
But that’s when I can be a cheerleader for our customers, helping them get through the problem with constant communication.

https://www.groovehq.com/attachments/blog/non-technical-founder/cheerleading_customers.png

And for our team, sharing every win I can to boost morale and keep everyone happy and motivated.
https://www.groovehq.com/attachments/blog/non-technical-founder/cheerleading_team.png

As the one who can’t dive into the server and fix things, it’s the biggest contribution I can make.
Takeaway: It’s your job to be a cheerleader for yourself, your team and your customers. It’ll keep you sane, your team motivated, and your customers happy and loyal.


7) Knowing the Tools of the Trade.
Like everyone else, developers use tools to help them do their jobs better and easier.
To avoid disrupting people’s workflows and stalling the development of product, I’ve had to learn how to use those tools.
Every team will use different tools, but no matter what your team prefers, being familiar with those developer tools can help the whole team.
When I find a bug, I don’t send a productivity-crushing email for each little issue. I write a descriptive user story and put it in Pivotal Tracker, which puts my feedback seamlessly into the development team’s existing workflow.
https://www.groovehq.com/attachments/blog/non-technical-founder/user_stories.png
Most of the tools out there don’t take very long to learn (for example, Pivotal Tracker has great, easy-to-understand video tutorials), but it’s an effort that will contribute massively to the success of your team.

Takeaway: Don’t try to bring your development team into the tools that you use. Those probably aren’t built for development. Instead, streamline the process and make life easier for your team by learning their tools.


Doing “Everything Else”
I’ve had to learn to wear hundreds of hats.

Do we need to build a spreadsheet and find contact information for blog engagement?
That’s my job.

Do we need to research and pick an app for screenshare product demos?
I’m on it.

Does a developer need me to email Pivotal Tracker support and find out why our updates aren’t syncing?
Right away, boss.

I can’t afford not to do everything in my power to make everyone else’s job easier.
Takeaway: Ego has no place here; your job is to do absolutely anything that isn’t a good use of your developers’ time. Otherwise, you’re putting your growth at risk.
[size=18pt]
There’s Lots More to Learn[/size]

I’ve been a non-technical founder for almost ten years now, and I’m still learning new lessons every single day.
But right now, if you asked me what I wish I had known when I started, this would be it.
If you’re a non-technical founder (or thinking of becoming one), I hope these lessons help you succeed in working with technical people.

And if you’re technical, I hope this helps you understand the perspective of the non-technical people you work with, and how you can help them help you more effectively.
More than anything, I hope you understand that not being technical should never be the reason you don’t pursue a startup.

Get out there, get started however you can, and learn the skills you need along the way.

Source: https://www.groovehq.com/blog/non-technical-founder

willbob:
Yeah. I somehow impatient. Thanks for your words sir

You're welcome.

Knowing the audience of any business will affect every decision you make while designing for the business. Not only will these people dictate what icons or colors you use, but also how you choose to portray it.

It’s obvious that a webpage that’s geared towards the construction world won’t have the same effect on teenage girls and vice versa. So how do you determine what kind of design will appeal to your target audience? Just like a relationship, you have to get to know them better.

Who is Your Audience?
First things first, who are these people? Hopefully you’re a designer, and you're set to run a freelance/agency business. You at least have some inkling, specifically in terms of age, gender and geographical location. But humans are complicated and we get offended if someone doesn’t take the time to get to know us, least of all by which chromosomes we carry and how many years we’ve graced this planet. Obviously you need to do a bit of research and no, not just in the library.

Once you’ve got your basic demographics down you need to determine what interests them, what bothers them and what they want from you. Finding this out could be as simple as conducting a survey, reviewing industry publications or seeing what you can glean off your competitors.
From here, there’s a clever way to really hone in on what your audience need and that is by creating a persona. In a sense, once all the research has been said and done, the rest can be left more or less to your imagination.

Essentially you’re creating your ideal client, people who have names, specific jobs and income, families and struggles and a psyche rife with fear, worry and motivation. But don’t just stop at one, ideally you want to create a cast of characters that will represent your target audience; after all, the plan is to eventually interact with real people and not their statistics. Giving your audience a persona is just one way to help you perceive your own brand from their perspective.

Who Are You?
Once you have a better understanding of who you’re appealing to, you need to have an even better understanding of who you are and what you are trying to design for. A great analogy we came across involved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It goes like this:
If you make a PB&J sandwich, you’re only appealing to the people who enjoy PB&J sandwiches; not everyone likes them and there is really no way to make people like them if they just don’t.

Though if you tried, you’d risk losing the appeal of people who do like PB&J sandwiches. And even within that group there are aspects to consider, like people who prefer more peanut butter over jelly and vice versa. Either way, if you try to alter your sandwich and cater to both parties, chances are you’ll still end up with a sandwich that appeals to one faction over the other.

In layman’s terms it simply means you can’t win them all. Your design won’t be loved by everyone out there and attempting to do so will only cause detriment to your work and possibly your ego. With this in mind, pull your shoulders back, focus on a particular audience and shoot for the stars.

Putting Two and Two Together
Repeat after me, “design for my audience”. Even if this seems like a prime opportunity to experiment a little you need to pull back and consider the people, because ultimately this is for them. If your out-of-the-box creativity can be justified and has value to the project and consequently the audience, then go crazy, however if it doesn’t it’s probably best to pump the brakes on this one.

Having a good understanding of your audience is one of your greatest assets in implementing good design. Your design should make them feel a certain way and to achieve that you need to know what they’ll respond to. It’s pretty likely that floral patterns and pastels won’t appeal to the world of corporate law but neither will ambient black & white photographs or subdued earth tones. When designing with an audience in mind everything becomes a factor, from the colors and fonts you use to the way it’s laid out and how it’s written
.
The ultimate goal in designing is to get people to move. You want them to reach out to you and by using design to relate to them in a way that’s relevant to their demographic and audience, you can achieve it.

http://cgminds..com/2015/05/how-to-design-for-particular-target.html

willbob:
Late last year

And, you want to quit for not having a paid client? That's funny. I worked for 12 months or more before my first. Just focus on building your skills. The clients will come.

winta2007:
Thanks Dear,Do you have the software?

Nop.

winta2007:
I mean software that have predesigned logo and Business cards that you can easily edit to your own choice.

For Logo, check AAlogo.

mgolo:
@felixclick your email please. Thank you

My email address is:
xchipgraphics@gmail.com

winta2007:
can you recommend a very Good Logo Design,Banner,Business Card Software i can use that is Recommended and Highly Effective.

CorelDRAW. Illustrator. Photoshop.

willbob:
I just tired of designing for nothing . Seek and tired of designing flyers to programmes that don't exist . I just thought I can't move on with my Android graphic design.

Do you think it is wise design fake Magazine covers, Flyers ?

I just discouraged to continue when I see others design for clients: churches, musicians (track covers), Weddings etc.

The energy to continue my Nairaland portfolio is no more. Please help.

How long have you been in Design?

In a free world where businesses fight for market share and recognition, your brand can be your most valuable asset. It aids your ability to stand out from the competition, gives your business a clear sense of place and purpose and it’s an important element of customer loyalty.

There are millions of recognizable brands in the world, but, when you think about how many different companies exist to serve different purposes, you realize that the number of truly known brands – legacy brands – is tiny.
A truly great brand goes beyond a great logo and color palette. A great brand has a singular idea/story behind it, a purpose that drives everything the business does.

Once you come up with that idea/story for your own business, you can determine the personality of your brand; the logo and design guidelines will come much more easily. Design is that element that stands out initially, but it’s your brand story that is going to give that design and your company’s identity resonance.
Your goal doesn’t need to be as ambitious as creating a legacy brand, but it should be threefold:

For you to have a clear and concise idea of what your brand is
For your employees to be aware and believe in your brand
For your customers to be loyal to your brand and what it stands for

Branding your brand is not an easy task. A lot of it requires introspection and commitment.
Thinking about your multi-faceted business and trying to come up with a singular idea of what it stands for, is a difficult and time intensive process. So where do you start and how do you go about getting to a brand promise, brand story and design guidelines?

The brand promise

Basics of Branding for Small Businesses and Individuals
Basics of Branding for Small Businesses and Individuals

What do you believe? What gets you up in the morning and gets you to work? What problem does your company solve for your clients?
Creating a statement by filling in the blank: “We believe….”

Do this over and over again, targeting different aspects of your company and of yourself (if you’re branding yourself). This is an exercise in identity, and it’s important to start as big as possible and then get smaller over time so that you’re sure to cover every aspect of who you are.
Coming up with answers to this question is easy for some and hard for others, but it’s the most important step in creating a brand that resonates and has lasting value.

I want you to keep in mind that this statement is not a tagline. It can be, but it’s better to think of it as a guiding principle from which a good copywriter can derive a tagline – an idea that a great designer can turn into a beautiful logo and design guidelines, and a feeling of purpose that your company’s employees can support.
Once you have a good number of “We believe that…” statements, start looking for patterns. Combine similar statements and discard any that don’t feel true.

Look for buzzwords (e.g. “inspire,” “innovate,” “best”) and replace them with more precise synonyms. The purpose of this part of the exercise is to hone in on a handful of truth-bearing statements that you can then bring to different stakeholders and gut check them.

You know you’ve found your promise when you land on a statement that reminds you of your company when read entirely out of context. Don’t worry – if you land on something that feels 85 percent there, you might come up with ways of tweaking it to perfection as you move along through next steps. This isn’t written in stone, but it will guide the remainder of your brand discovery process.

How do you do this? Why do you do this?
Once you’ve landed on a statement you’re comfortable with, you’re ready to expand on it and give your brand a story. Answer the questions “How do you do this promise?” and “Why do you do this promise?” separately.

Again, go through the same exercise as before – create many statements that answer each question, using many different synonyms, variations on sentence length, etc. This way, as you create more statements, you’ll discover more about your brand and be able to hone in on the truth behind the work you do.

Like you did with the brand promise, make sure you run your how and why statements by stakeholders and people you trust. Set them next to the brand promise and see how they all live together.
Look for patterns that lead to a story. Is your company the hand-holding security blanket-like service you wish you had during your own personal experience in the past? Or are you a luxury-focused company that’s inspired by years of study in human behavior and needs?
These are the kinds of stories that build brands with purpose, and this part of the exercise exists for you to find your own story.


Personality is where your brand takes shape

Once you have three statements you’re comfortable with (your brand promise, your “how” statement and your “why” statement) and the seeds of your story have been planted, you start to have the beginnings of a brand personality.

What words are you using? Are they more complicated and academic, or are they simple and straightforward? What tone are you gravitating towards – clever, comical, serious, trustworthy?
Pull together all the synonyms you’ve been looking up and pick out a dozen that speak to your brand personality. Be precise. Are you simply “friendly” or are you “affable”? Are you “trustworthy” or “dependable”?

Over the course of the previous exercises, you saw your brand take shape. Now it’s time to nail down all your particulars and get ready to start creating some tangible brand pieces.
The result of all this introspective work is a single document that can be handed off to a designer, a copywriter, a marketer or a stakeholder as a brand brief that can easily guide the creation of design guidelines, internal or external communication, or business decisions.

This document now has three parts – your brand promise, your why statement, your how statement and a dozen or so stand-alone words that describe your brand’s personality. This is an internal document that will guide all external facing brand elements and keep them grounded in your company’s core truths and ideals.

[size=14pt]
Design guidelines (The fun part!)[/size]
Congratulations, you have your brand identity brief! The hardest part is now over, and it’s time to get a logo and accompanying brand guidelines that reflect everything you’ve put together.
Whether this means designing it yourself or have decided to hire an outside designer, be sure that the person you hire understands your brand brief. Finding a designer with a style that reflects the personality you put together is difficult, but crucial.

There are three ways to go about it – explore Behance for talent with a style that works for you, find a brand you love and try to find the designer who did their work, or reach out to designers on 99designs and get a slew of crowd-sourced designs to choose from.
No matter which you do, ask for three things in your guidelines: a logo, a primary and secondary font, and colors with codes. This will allow you to infuse your brand in all of your communication without having to go back to the designer every time you need a new document done.

At this point, the brief should be in stone and should not be changed to yield different design results. This is a blanket statement – there are plenty of times where tweaking one word or another, or adding a bit to explain something further, can yield better results. But be careful that doing so isn’t distorting the message you created in your brand identity statements.

Branding your brand is an incredibly difficult task to undertake, and it’s one that you can do yourself or hire professionals to do. Regardless, you should be incredibly involved every step of the way, as you know your brand best.

Use the brand identity statements to help drive communication internally and externally, because the strongest brands have a bullet proof and consistent identity that permeates every element of their businesses. Strong brand recognition is powerful, so do your best to reinforce its use as much as possible to create a coherent identity.

Source: http://cgminds..com/2015/05/Basics-of-Branding-for-Businesses.html

smajatt:
all simple server as been blocked this aftunoon

Still rocking my boat.

Lovely piece.

Logo design is not Learnt, it's studied. And, Understood. As for Photoshop, head to youtube. You can also get vids and blog posts on what is involved in Logo design.

https://www.arts.ac.uk/media/arts/study-at-ual/international/images/preparing-portfolio.jpg
Discover how to impress a creative director and win your dream design job.
New design graduates face a unique set of challenges of which "how to present a portfolio" happens to be one of the biggest.
Portfolio formats are evolving all the time. Just as big agencies and studios struggle with how best to present work to potential clients, designers hunting for jobs have all sorts of decisions to make when it comes to creating a portfolio that'll stand out when shown to a creative director.

Should I put it up on Behance and email out a link when you apply for a job? Should you make a flashy iPad presentation to swipe through in the interview? Would it be better to buy a big, old-fashioned folio book and fill it with high quality print-outs of your latest and greatest projects? Maybe something even more imaginative is what's expected? These are some of the questions that'll pop up on your mind as you try to find the best way to present your portfolio.

Let's checkout some of the best portfolio crafting practices.

01. Who's doing the hiring?
It would be lovely if there was one sure-fire answer to all of these questions, but really it depends hugely on who's doing the hiring. Every creative director has different needs in terms of the job itself, and they all have different tastes when it comes to presentation. But instead of trying to guess what's expected of you, the best thing to do is to focus on your work and let it guide your decisions.


02. Be versatile
"I do like a physical portfolio – an iPad presentation can be good too," muses Karen Jane, head of design at Wieden+Kennedy London.
"Ultimately, your discipline is likely to dictate how the work is best presented. If you have a range of work you may want to present on screen but have some printed pieces too. Or your work may be entirely screen based. It's about putting the work across in the best way."

03. A range of work is important
Working in a big, global agency with so many different clients, Jane oversees a huge variety of projects. So it makes sense if you're aiming to work for a big agency to develop a portfolio that demonstrates your versatility.
"A range of work is really important, one that shows off how you tackle different projects. The range of projects we work on here at Wieden+Kennedy is pretty broad so it's good to be able to see versatility in a portfolio."

04. Show some personality
Employing 10 people – though they're hiring a few more designers – Leeds-based Golden is much smaller than W+K, so co-founder and creative director Rob Brearley takes a slightly different approach to portfolios. Personality often plays an important role in a small organisation, and showing that you understand the studio and its mission helps.
"We're looking for 'golden people' who share our vision, talented visual thinkers, who can turn their hand to anything," says Brearley. "Initially I'd prefer to be contacted with either a link or PDF attachment of work examples – a brief, well-presented taster of who you are and what you can do," he continues.

05. Let the work shine
"For face-to-face interviews, I don't mind what format the work is presented in, either print or digital. The format should be invisible, allowing the work to shine through," says Brearley.
"It should be bold, simple and ultimately relevant to the work and the personality of the presenter. Folio presentations should flow smoothly, without awkward paper folds or software glitches. Think it through carefully."

06. Give a snapshot of important skills
It's a similar story if you apply to Steve Richardson, co-founder and creative director at Mr B & Friends in Bath. The agency started off small but has grown fast and roles they're recruiting for include artworkers and middleweight developers. There might also be a spot coming up for a senior creative.
What Richardson looks for is a practical and direct form of presentation."I don't mind how someone shows their portfolio, as long as it gives a really good snapshot of their skills and talent," he explains.

07. Be engaging
If impressed, a creative director like Richardson will then want to find out what you're really like via an interview. As with Golden, it's a case of proving you're the person they're looking for in terms of work and personality.
"I'm much more interested in the individual, hearing from them what they have achieved and what makes them tick, to make sure the cultural fit is right for my team. Then it's about the portfolio, how they present, is the candidate engaging, do they look interested, have they credibly done this work and can they talk about it fully," says Richardson.

08. Craft a narrative
Telling your story, as well as the stories behind your work, is a crucial criterion for a successful portfolio if you're applying to Kjetil Wold at the Norwegian agency Anti.
Wold is co-founder, creative director and consultant with the company, where there's a growing emphasis on motion at the moment. Because motion work requires narrative, Richardson is keen to find designers and animators who understand this. The ability to explain concepts and show purpose is what he looks for.

09. Don't neglect your online showcase
"We always look for people who understand concepts and storytelling, and can make excellent visuals. We want to see work that's anchored in a reason for being there. Right now we're searching for more motion-graphic designers because everything needs to be in motion these days," he says.
"The best thing is to start off with an online reference to give us a reason to say, 'Hi'. It could be a link to your work on Behance, or impress us even more with a well-designed personal site. Then we might meet up and see if your personality and the arguments behind your solution actually match what we're looking for."

Source: http://cgminds..com/2015/05/how-craft-craft-perfect-portfolio.html