Design tips for non designers

 

So my lovely Fe-liners lets talk about design and making your business look visually attractive. I know that I am in a privilaged position, when I decided to start my own businesses I had worked in the world of marketing for 8 years, I went on some amazing training courses and knew how to use programs like Indesign and Photoshop.

But on the other hand I am not a designer and I have had to learn on the job, pick up tips and learn how to create imagery for my websites and brands. I know the world of design can be daunting and expensive, but I created the image above for free, other than my time. Basically what I am trying to say is there is no excuse for Clip Art ever.

So here are five free resources that I use on a regular basis to help me with designing material for Fe-line and The Wandering Kitchen, that might also help you too.

Pinterest

Sitting down with a blank page or screen and saying today I am going to do some design and be creative is a difficult thing, what if you aren’t feeling creative at that very minute? We all have busy lives and we have to block out time to do certain things so if you have an hour to design a poster, then you need to get it done in that hour. What I do when I am lacking design inspiration is go back to my Things I love board on Pinterest. This is the board I created when I first got into Pinterest with all the things I need for design, imagery I love, fonts I love, colours I love and the list goes on. So when I have time for design I don’t have to start looking for inspiration from scratch it’s there ready and waiting for my design time. Start your Things I love board on Pinterest now and start collecting for a rainy day.

Pixlr

If you don’t have Photoshop and if you can’t afford it, Pixlr is a great free alternative for creating or editing images. It is a online photo editor so you do need an internet connection to use it but created the image above using solely Pixlr and you are able to use layers, import fonts and create nice looking images to use on your website or blog. As always if you don’t know how to use something there is always a YouTube video to help you. I haven’t watched the whole of this, but this guy has created a 1hour 20 minute tutorial, which I am sure will help you get started.

Font Squirrel

A good font, makes a piece of design and says a lot about your company, brand or blog. There are loads and loads of sites out there for downloading free fonts, one of my favourites is Font Squirrel, and this is where I got the font for the image at the top from, it’s called Harting. Remember that your font says a lot about your brand, if you want people to think that you are modern, fresh and professional you must use a font that says this, not something like Comic Sans. In fact never use Comic Sans, ever.

Design Seeds

OK lets talk colours, I myself was not that good at choosing colours that matched until I found the blog Design Seeds, which basically does it for you. There are loads of palettes with colours that work well together. You can get the hex code for each colour and put that straight into Pixlr. I used the palette Swirling Glow to help me produce the image above.

Images

So where do I source the images that I use to start the whole design process? Well even those don’t have to be expensive or cheesy, if I don’t have an image that I have taken myself then I use the websites Unsplash or Death to Stock, they supply high quality, royalty free images, that are free to download or use.

So there you have it, there is now no need to use out of focus, blurry images on your websites, dodgy fonts on your posters or cheesy stock images in your brochures,

Happy designing,

 

 

Why I love working with my husband

Every day feels like a Friday. This is the best thing about working with my husband. It’s not that we’re down the pub everyday and knocking off early all the time it’s just that my working situation is relaxed. We’re busy but there’s no office environment pressure.

I’ve worked with Eddie for 4 years in our family business, PH Energy Services which has been running for 8 years. People often ask what it’s like to work with your husband. Eddie and I sit side by side in a small office. We don’t have to travel very much for work so we are together a lot. Although I have my ups and downs I love it.

There are some fundamental things that make our working relationship successful, the main one being that we have the same knowledge about the industry we work in, so we can share ideas; help each other with problems and we respect each other’s expertise. The worst thing for me is Eddie being too quick to help when all I’m doing is sounding off and having a rant; and for Eddie it’s my mood swings!

But there’s no definitive set of rules to making it work.

The number of people registering as self employed is growing year on year and businesses run by couples are probably forming an interesting part of this growth. So for a Fe-line guide to working with your loved one, I have gathered some top tips from some great couples who work together.

Jo Woodcock our Fe-line founder has worked with partner Ed for a year with their business The Wandering Kitchen.

Here are her top 3 tips to working with your partner:

1. Be clear about when is work time and when is home life time, make sure that you can switch off and be a couple as well as business partners.
2. Treat each other as business partners when at work, do not bring in personal arguments or home life issues into the work place.
3. Have clear roles and play to your strengths. I look after the marketing, admin and front of house and Ed looks after the kitchen and food. If we start treading on each others toes it doesn’t work as well.

Jo says “It can be a challenge, particularly juggling a new baby and a new business. We try to switch off at home but it’s easy to continue in work mode when you’re both buzzing with ideas.

“We’re also learning to manage expectations: we have different ways of doing things so it’s important to detach personal feelings. It can be amazing though, I see so much more of Ed than before. We have built something truly wonderful together and it is great to see our hard work paying off. Running Fe-line for two years has been great but also quite a solo affair, I like having someone to work ideas through with as it seems that two heads really are better than one!!”

Lorna Kennard and partner Rachel Wall set up Sitting Well 4 years ago but have worked together as business partners for many years.

Lorna’s top tips are:

1. Initially sit down and determine what it is you want as a vision for the business, and how it will affect the rest of your lives. It’s important to be sure you are both aiming for the same goal and to keep checking in on this from time to time.
2. Establish each other’s strengths so you can complement each other.
3. Communication is key – make time to have catch up meetings, this makes goal setting easier and ensures you are both heading in the same direction. Rachael and I communicate very differently, so we have discovered. We now check we have understood what we are saying and move on from there. As such we are able to nip things in the bud without it leading to massive confusion or worse!

Lorna explains: “We have had to set boundaries for our office hours, running a clinic means we are often working late, so we can go along time without having that much needed time together. It took a while to get the balance right and we found that we often worked over the weekend or even on holiday, but now we have Monday mornings home together to plan the week ahead and spend time ‘on’ not ‘in’ the business.

Lorna goes on to say there are many fabulous things about working with her partner

“We love to be around each other and we are very fortunate that we have the same goals and ambitions. To be able to work together for the same vision and support each other is special. We are creating our own future doing something that we love. The fact we work together and in the same industry means we understand the demands of being a therapist and can support each other with those challenges.”

In conclusion I would say the critical elements to working with your partner are the same elements that make your relationship work anyway: communication, trust, respect, and playing to your strengths, oh and enjoying each other’s company. So if you’re thinking about setting up in business check your relationship first and if it ticks the boxes you’re going to be able to ride the road to creating your own future together.