I am a firm believer that good designing cannot be thought because a good design is a reflection of one’s creativity. But I do believe that work place, surroundings, work habits, and daily life can all have a significant impact on your creativity. Also these things have a great impact on your time. In this post, I will be sharing some tips and tricks that I have adapted and learnt over the past six years. These tips have helped me throughout my career, and I am sure will help anyone who uses them effectively.

I am not going to tell you to buy a better computer, or upgrade your ram. Because that does not make you a better designer. All it does is make you do your work faster. But a good designer, can design on a little they have. When you get the revenue these things do help though.

25 Sure-Fire Ways to Become a Better Designer

1. Never Make an Assumption

Assumptions always get the better of you. And majority of the times, you realize when you have screwed up badly. My teacher used to say when you assume, you make an *Ass – out of * You and * ME. Know exactly what you are doing before moving onto the final step. For example checking the design in all browsers before sending it off to the client. Never assume if it works in Firefox than it will work in IE. Or if it works in IE 7, it will in IE 6. (Tips on Cross Browser Compatibility)

2. Do Your Thing

In the beginning of my web designer career, I would try to do more than what I could which is usually a good thing, but in designers case it is not. It kinda takes you out of your design. Design is a reflection of the Designer, and when you are trying to add something that you can’t it just does not work. For example, if a client wants you to make a super abstract design, and you are more of a simple touch, structural designer then you should stick with what you do. Don’t let the clients push you around.

3. Effective Nomenclature

Ah cool title. No really just name your file well. Organization for designers are a big thing. Learn this advice from me, the world’s most disorganized person. Make sure you keep in track with your client’s work. So if I am making a design for a site called twitter then I want to make sure that I name them twitter1 and twitter2. Make a separate folder for each client. You want to make edits to your filename and keep them updated. This is the best way because if you add words like finalcopy, final, or pro … It does not work because you will have to change it again. Clients often come back after few months, and they want changes, so this would save you a little bit of time.

4. Carry a Sketch Book

I understand it is hard for some people, how about using one if you can’t carry one. I used to just picture the design in my head before. But human memory span is so small that we often seem to forget minor details. Guess what, that is all what the design is about. Minor details is what makes a design a good design. Jot down your ideas. Make little scribbles if you have to. Use words, that will remind of you this idea at a later date. If need be write sentences.

5. Connect Ideas

As time goes on, you will have more and more clients. You might not want to repeat the same style again. But connecting or combining two ideas can sometime result in a new idea. Atleast that is what I learned when I studied religion and culture. This would help when you design also. Just interconnect all these ideas and watch. You WILL end up with something entirely new.

6. Draft: Put it Together

Do you think that your job was done when it was on paper. Alot of art work looks phenomenal on paper and suck on the web. So just roughly sketch it out. Dont worry so much about perfectioning the design at this point. Get the basic infrastructure layed out. It gives you an idea of what you will be working on later. This trick not only save time, but inspire new ideas as well.

7. Save, and Save, and Save, and Save one more TIME

It happens every freaking time when I least expect it. The program goes crazy on ya. Computer is just one of those things. No matter how powerful your machine is, one day it acts gay and you lose everything you were working hard on because you forgot to save. Save after every single move that you are making. Ctrl + S is my most used keys aside from the cursors.

8. Allocation of Time While Brainstorming

Time is of essence. You need to understand that. Whether you are a designer, marketer, blogger, remember there is only 24 hours in a day. You can’t just sit and think for ideas all day. Instead what you should do is brainstorm for a bits, then JUST DO IT. Then if that does not work, brainstorm for more a few bits.

9. Take a Warm Shower / Bath

For some reason whenever I am stuck, I use this option. I have noticed my best ideas came while I am in a shower. Might or Might not work with you.

10. Short Breaks

Creativity is limited when you are forcing something upon yourself. Frustration is a key to disaster. Leave your computer if you are stuck or even if you are not stuck. After every hour or two you need atleast 10 minutes of a break. It helps you with raising your creativity level.

11. Listen to Calm Music / Work in the Wild

Psychologically proven, calm music and wilderness both have a great impact on your creativity. I am sure you can’t take a trip every day to the wildlife but you can definitely listen to the music and work. It just relieves stress. I loved the time when I was in the mountains, and sitting at the top and designing. Snow all around me, beautiful trees. Can’t get any better.

12. Ask Others

Sometimes there are things that you won’t see. Asking another opinion always make your work perfect. You should ask a friend or a family member about their opinion of your new design. I ask my friends for their advices when I am designing because their input really helps.

13. Learn When TO STOP

You need to know this quality as a better designer. Sometimes overdoing is not good. It wastes time and it is very obvious from the design that it has been overdone. It is just like a steak, you need to know where to stop. Dark, but not burnt!!!

14. Simplicity

Don’t make the design too complicated. You need to see it from the reader’s eye. Remember the concept of usability. Because it is one of the key parts of any design. Simplicity might sound easy but it is one of the hardest thing to achieve. Usually as a designer, you have too many ideas, you need to learn how to put them into one.

15. Save your Gradients

When working in Photoshop, you need to make sure that you save cool gradients that you used. Because it saves insane amount of time. This way you will have a reusable library overtime and you can increase your productivity.

16. Colors Combos

It takes a really good eye to get good colors at your first try. You need to play with colors. Because one shade of blue might outdo the other one, and you need to find the best one. I use my favorite resource Colour Lovers when picking colors because they have alot of creative people there coming up with new ideas.

17. Balance in Colors

It is not always about the light colors. Light colors are good and calm on the eyes and user preferred. But you need to add little bit of dark shadows and touches in your design to keep it balanced. Because this way your design does not look too blend.

18. Break it Down

Whether it is a file or a layer, it is always good to break it down. When designing, it seems easier to merge layers because you have less of a mess. Wrong mistake because then you can’t change it back. So here is a suggestion. You can either not merge at all. Or you can make a separate psd file for this little part, and move the folder over and merge it. So in your end copy you have less clutter, but you still have something to go to when you need to make changes.

18. Use Shortcuts

Using shortcuts can save you a great deal of time. I know that, and you should know that too. It gets hard to memorize all the shortcuts because there are TOO MANY of them. But the ones you most use, you need to know. For example duplicating a layer in photoshop Ctrl + J …. This saves you from going to the layer, right click and hit duplicate layer over and over. (Speed up your Designing with these 50 Awesome Photoshop Tutorials)

19. Stay Foolish, and Stay Hungry

I learnt this from my last year’s roommate. When it comes to knowledge, you must stay with this attitude. The day you think you know everything, that is the day of your demise. I am always open too new tutorials, ways to work. I mean I do not need to read tutorials on marketing if I don’t want too. But the thing is you can never know enough with this technological industry. Things update, new things come, you have to stay updated. So don’t think you are an expert because you are not. And you will never be. After 6 years, I stay at this point with a flowing income, I still do not consider myself an expert because I am barely there. I am a student like everyone else, learning from other’s experience and my own.

20. Practice makes you Perfect

Sounds rhetorical doesn’t it. Well it is true, no matter how it sounds. When it comes to coding specially. There would be some problems that you will learn to solve from experience. Experience is key in this business. The more experienced you are, the better you know your audience, your clients, and yourself. So if you have free time, and you don’t have any orders. Then make a free theme and release it. It makes you get more efficient in your work, and you get some publicity.

21. Know your work Inside Out

This is one of the things that I can be proud of. You need to know your work inside out, so if a problem occurs, you know exactly where it is. This is often a challenge when a client comes to you with a prior website, you get to learn another designer’s way of processing. If you are working with a CMS for a client, then you need to know about it just as well as you know about your birthdate.

22. Spell Check

Big bobo if you make an error in the spelling of a logo. It is so common, you would not believe. So you need to learn how to spell check when you are designing. More so if you are printing something, then you need to make sure about ten times. Read it yourself, multiple times than have someone else read it too. And more than one someone elses.

23. Keep a Backup

Keep a backup of everything. Every single client that you had. I have a backup of all the work I have done in the past six years. Yeah that requires 3 external hard drives, and numerous cds / dvds. But that is ok. At least I know where to look if I fall back. Think of backups as a strong step that you make in your career. So if you fall from the top, you are not going to go back to start, you will just fall back to the step below.

24. Work with Your Clients

Always a saying, work with your clients and not against them. Both parties need to stay on the same page for the project to go through successfully. At the end day, they will be the one that is paying you. Sometimes you might think that they are holding you back, but really it is you who is holding yourself back. Justify your work to the client and have good communication. Remember your client can be your best resource in the matter of productivity.

25. Stay Updated

You need to stay updated with the world and most importantly Balkhis for the next post of mine which will be on Tuesday. In that post, I will share the websites that will make you a better designer. So stay updated.

That is the end of this long ass list, and I can tell you that there is alot that goes onto become a better designer most of all is experience. I would love to see some of you guys comment and share of what you think to become a better designer.

You see everyone preaching about blog comments. Today I am going to tell you something that I have been doing for a while. I have been forum posting on a few forums. In some more actively than others. Well in the course of my posting, I realized that my forum posting has actually turned out very well. Not only I am helping others, I am increasing the traffic to my site. I am increasing the number of loyal subscribers.

Now on average I am getting 2739 visitors monthly from Forums!

That is a big accomplishment in my opinion. I think the only reason I got this traffic was because I was being real in forums. I was not trying to make up posts, I was not trying to obsessively link to my own sites. I was simply trying to be helpful. In this post I will step by step guide you through the process of forum posting and getting traffic. I will show you exactly what I did and how I did it.

1) Picking the Forums

You would think that you can comment on any forum and get alot of traffic. Well NO! You will only get traffic from forums that are related to your blog’s niche. This plays an important role in the results that you will get. Do not limit yourself to the top forums. Try to get exposure in smaller forums because there your effort will be highlighted. The advantage of smaller forums are that they are more targetted, and there are only so many users. They will bound to check your website out, but in larger forums sometimes your website along with posts get ignored.

You must remember that you should only pick the forum that have interesting categories for you. Place where you think you can write genuinely. A place where you don’t have a problem sharing your opinion. I personally chose to post at a few forums. Because this way I can be active in these communities.

2) Picking a Username

I think a good username can get you better credibility and exposure. Be original with your nicknames. Use the name that you have been using on all forums. Avoid using your website or blog name. Because then if you link to your own website multiple times, then you would be considered a spammer. And even if you don’t link to your websites, majority of the time people won’t consider you an authority figure in my opinion. So go with something generic. I usually take “smub” because that is my initials. Syed MoizUddin Balkhi. Short and simple.

3) Pick Categories

Often times you would see forums with alot of categories. They will have General Chat, and other BS Categories. My knowledge is in Blogging, SEO, Web Design, and Templates, so I will be in those sections. Reason because that is where most of my audience is. So in forums like digitalpoint, I limited myself to these sections. This way I can get more targetted visitors to my website.

4) Posting and Linking

Mostly, the threads I was posting were support posts, so this way the user on the forum knew that I care. They were checking my website out left and right. Since I stayed under my specialty area, I knew what I am talking about. I was able to help the users and this way they came to my website searching for more help or tutorials. If the question is something that I have already answered on my blog, I would link my post occassionally because if you do this heavily then you will get infarctions. I recieved a few of those in my process of learning. The solution to those were you link to a social media page where your post was. So indirectly you are sending the users to your website.

Another thing I did was I linked to the guest posts that I have made on other blogs. This was also sending the visitors to my site indirectly, and it was raising my reputation in the eyes of the other blogger whose site I blogged on because I wrote good content.

You should also use every opportunity where you can link to your social profile like twitter or some other network. Because this way you will get more followers and users will indirectly come to your website.

The important part that you guys should not miss is that all posts must be helpful. They must raise the level of communication. If someone has already answered the question, and you have nothing better to add, don’t go and repeat the person because that is the most annoying thing you can do in my opinion.

5) Forum Signatures and Avatars

Most people don’t know how to use forum signatures effectively. Why? Because they link to their homepage. Yeah that is ok and is acceptable, but highlight your content also. If you have a post that you think will attract new users, then post that in your signature. I have a post that attracts audiences from so many different sources, 13 ways I promoted my blog to success. I usually link this in my signature.

A problem you would face doing this is that there are character limits in signatures. How can you fit these long urls. This is why url shorterning services are here. You use these url shorterning services to make your url shortest possible. Then you link them. This way you can have more posts in the signature. Remember when the user checks one of your post, they will most likely check the homepage if they find the post interesting.

Next thing is avatars. You don’t necessarily have to have a brandable avatar. Brandable one is nice to have. Don’t put your url all over it. Make it eye friendly. Don’t make it bright red thinking it will stick out because it looks really freaking spammy. Use your avatar well.

You do this process for a time period of 3 months and you watch your traffic grow like crazy. You might be wondering why I hid the link to wordpress support forum. Because this post is ranked really high, and I love the traffic I am getting hehe. I don’t want to share that.

Another thing you might notice about my stats is one is coming from Darren Rowse’s 31 Day Build a Better Blog Challenge Forum. It has only been 12 days since the challenge has started and even lesser than that since the forum has been officially launched. I have recieved 157 visitors as we are speaking, numerous twitter followers and alot more contacts. I recommend you all to join. This is a perfect example of how 7 days of posting got me 157 visitors from a small forum.

If you like this post feel free to share it, digg it, stumble it, tweet it, and most of all share your opinion on forum posting.

I was asked a question via email if there are advantages of having random header images. I say why not. If you have a website that contains a header image, it is much better for you to change things up, spice it up a little. I would take the dynamic header image any day.

Most people think this would be a pain in the ass and it requires some plugin. And if you are like me, you don’t want to go through the hassle of searching the plugin. Well how about I tell you that there is no need for a plugin to do this. I say this tutorial is on Beginner Level.

All you really need is a simple php code that I am about to give you in this post.

Get the Header Images

For demonstration’s sake I will be only using three images, but you can use as many images you want. Few things to keep in mind that you must have all of these images in the same extension. Meaning if you have one image as a .gif then the other two must also be .gif. If you have one as .jpg then the other two must also be .jpg. I hope you guys get the concept.

So the three files we would use are:

• himage_1.jpg
• himage_2.jpg
• himage_3.jpg

You do not have to use the same names as I do. It can be header_1 or head_1… anything you really like. Just make sure there is an _ separating the number. Also make sure that these images are the same size, so it fits your design’s dimension and doesn’t make your site W3 Invalid.

If you need help finding stock photos then I have compiled a list of 11 free stock photo sites.

Implementation

This code would work just about work on any platform that is based on php. So if you are using wordpress then you are ok. Anyone else who wants to use it on their php websites, this would work as well.

<img src="http://path_to_images/himage_<?php echo(rand(1,3)); ?>.jpg"
width="image_width" height="image_height" alt="image_alt_text" />

If you are using more images, make sure that you change the number from 3 to however many images you have. All what this code does is it takes your image and choose one randomly. It is that simple.

I hope you guys like it.

Fonts are the backbone of all designs. Without a good font, a design cannot be good. People often overlook the importance of typography in designs. A good logo is highlighted with an astonishing font that makes it stand out and attracts the user’s attention. Most people don’t know how to get these fonts, and some who do find these, often end up finding the expensive fonts.

Professional designers use professional fonts. On average these fonts can cost upto $50/font. Most of them which are only used once in a design. I am sure for bloggers and young designers who do not want to pay that much for a professional font, I have a few free alternatives for you that may fill the need.

*Click on the name of the fonts to download rather than images*

Professional Free Fonts for Designers

1. Pigiarniq

The family includes a bold, heavy, italic, light and regular weights. You won’t understand the website this font is on, just click on the download link.

2. Gentium

Gentium is a typeface family designed to enable the diverse ethnic groups around the world who use the Latin script to produce readable, high-quality publications.

3. Cardo

This font is free for personal, non-commercial, or non-profit use.

4. Day Roman

5. Qlassik

6. Diavlo

This is an awesome font and as you can see this is also being used on Balkhis.com Logo.

More fonts in the full post, so click to open the full post to see the rest of this list.

Apple Craze. How many of you have it? I know a lot of people in the web or in general who are crazily in love with Apple products. No doubt that Apple products are good, but when something attracts users this crazily then it becomes crazy. Well set aside all biases that you will hear from me, check out this cool video about Apple’s new laptop with no keyboard instead there is a one click wheel.

Yes I do know it is a joke .. this post is to highlight the Apple Craze and how this video is making fun of it.