So it’s been pretty much 3 weeks now that I’ve been working on my own as a freelance designer. Its definitely been a learning experience through and through. Right off the hop I had a couple of projects offered to me, one of which I’ve completed already, a fitness site called FitWithUs.com.

That project really made me feel good, one in that I was able to completely redesign a site in a week and a half, but the second reason was more important to me. It was the feeling of getting back on the horse after having fallen off. I found after losing my job I originally wasn’t really upset by it, aside from the fact I’d have to scramble to find a job having very little safety net to fall back onto. Now that I’ve had more time to mull things over I’m more ticked that I wasted 2 years of my career. That job was always just a job to me, as I took the job originally after having been out of work for awhile and I was getting desperate. I’m happy with the work I did in my time there, but in reality that job never challenged me in a design sense. In the last 2 years I had essentially worked on 1 site full-time, a couple freelance gigs and my blog redesign. So getting a new, fresh looking site out the door in short order really served to boost my confidence.

Last week I went out and did something I’ve been meaning to do for forever, which is actually registering a business name. As of last Wednesday I dropped the $60 and registered my business in the Province of Ontario, slideawaymedia. I’m still mucking around with a new redesign of my website though. I’ll get that sorted out one of these days.

I’ve found that drumming up work hasn’t been too hard so far. It’s amazing how simply just talking to people and letting them know that I was now working on my own and I’ve had a bunch of people point me in the direction of new leads. I’m really happy I’ve been able to use my connections and be able to get myself rolling. I find the biggest change I’ve had so far is that I’ve really had to come out of my shell a bit. I’ve never really been a shameless self promoter, but I think if I want to be successful at being a freelance designer I’m going to have to. People who know me personally wouldn’t classify me as quiet, but I can tend to be introverted at times. Maybe I just need to get one of these t-shirts printed up for me to do the talking for me.

So this last weekend was hectic.  Corina and I went to Kristina and Curtis’ place for dinner on Friday, an anti-thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, thanksgiving dinner at Corina’s parents place on Sunday, then finally thanksgiving dinner at my parents place last night.  And all the while fighting off a cold.  So I’m pretty much spent for the week.  And, much to my chagrin, my computer is still in for repairs.  They have now had my computer for a week and a half.  I think they deserve a proper pimp slapping when I do go pick it up.  I took lots of cool pictures this weekend as well, so I will be uploading them to flickr once I get my computer back.

Would you receive a golden shower for an iPod nano?  Apparently some people will.

The battle of mixed tape badness 

For those looking to nail a sexy website layout, here’s a rundown.  I’m definitely using this as a framework for my next site design.

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Today was the day I had pegged to go back to work, but it didn’t quite
work out that way.  Over the weekend I talked to alot of people
and mentioned I was planning to head back ahead of schedule and got a
fair amount of negative reaction about the whole idea.  For the
most part my friends and family felt that it was a bad idea given if I
go back, I might jeopardize my disability claim, or if I had a relapse
of sorts, I would have to start the process again if I wanted to take
time off again.  So I came up with a comprimise.  I would go
into work on Monday morning and feel things out and see where I stood
with regards to working.  So I got up regular work time and got
ready as if I was going to work(which I must say, was hard). 
Showed up at my regular time and made my appearance.  The first
person I talked to was Rob, and we shot the shit for a bit he caught me
up on what’s going on.  Apparently the coordinator who had wanted
me to work was now off for a weeks vacation, and the job I was told
needed to be taken care of was being worked on by the summer student on
my machine.  So that work that needed my attention was being taken
care of.  The other concern workwise before I went off was with
the work that I typically handle that comes in during the time of year
I was off.  I found out this work had dried up and the client was
giving their new agency a shot.  With those bases covered, it
seemed there really was nothing for me to rush back for, which was
pretty depressing. 



In a way I wanted there to be a big pile of stuff that needed my
guiding hand to see the project through.  Instead there is
nothing, and from the sounds of it, nothing coming down the pipe for me
to rush back to.  In the design world things run cyclically, work
and clients come and go.  You can never predict what will come
next or which direction a client may want to go, ill conceived or
otherwise.  As much as you want to believe you’re indispensable,
really your company will adapt and move on without you.  This has
really strengthened my resolve to get a new job.  I’ve been saying
this for quite awhile, now just to put it into action.

This idea has been floated around for ages.  Apple running on Intel chips. 
Well it’s finally happened.  I’m so torn right now.  I know
I’ve spent a good amount of time and energy in my life(having used the
Mac platform since 1988) in dispelling speed gap myths and generally
bashing Intel.  I suppose it’s not all that different from when
Apple and IBM jumped into bed with each other a couple of years
ago.  Back in the 80′s IBM used to be the biggest game in town,
and if someone talked about the 2 platforms, it used to be Mac and
IBM.  Now that same conversation goes often people comparing Mac
to Intel systems.  Now they’re one in the same.  It’s left me
with a hollow feeling.  It’s like you preached democracy only to
wake up one day and find that the communists won and you’re now on
their side.



I know in the long run it will be better for Apple to run on Intel
chipsets, and this move is basically a stab into Microsofts
territory.  Coincedentally the new OS that will run on Intel
chips, Leopard, will release the same year as Microsofts long
developing Longhorn.  This will lead to widerspread use of the Mac
OS given it would be a fully formed competitor to Windows.  I
doubt Apple will support generic PC boxes for running it’s OS, but
given it’s running on an Intel chipset, someone will figure out a hack
and they’ll be running OSX on a regular PC.

[daily dose of imagery] is a
blog I’ve run across a couple of times and it never ceases to amaze
me.  It’s a photoblog by a guy from Toronto who takes pictures of
all sorts in and around TO.  He takes pictures of the most trivial
and mundane, yet visually interesting things and always inspires me to
want to take more pictures.  When I take photos I try to use the
same approach, though I’m not nearly as good.  I took lots of
great pictures in Chicago that I’m planning on putting together a
gallery of my stuff on my portfolio website.  I think it would be
pretty cool.

The number of reasons I hate Quark increased exponentially this
afternoon.  Inherently I hate QuarkXpress, the loathesome layout
and design program.  I used to use it at work, but after switching
to OSX a couple of years ago, stopped using it pretty much.  I
moved onto using Adobe InDesign and haven’t looked back.

For those who aren’t familiar with Quark, it’s “the industry standard”
layout program that designers have used since before the dawn of
time.  The program itself seems like it was created before the
dawn of time too, given how far behind technologically Quark is behind
InDesign.  That being said, a job I received today required me to
get the newest version, Quark 6 for my computer at work.  Now I
had been getting by without it, but as time has gone on and more people
have started using Quark 6, and I then inherently needed it, if only to
save files back to Quark 5(then subsequently 4), so I could import the
file into InDesign.  I inquired around work and found we didn’t
have any licences available to install on my computer.  So I had
to get a new one.



I figured like most other companies, I would be able to download, or
maybe just use the disks we had already, to install Quark.  Not so
fast.  I need an activation code.  So I phone Quark to see if
I could pay for an activation code over the phone and be able to
install it.  After phoning their 1-800 number 3 times(the first 2
getting disconnected for no reason), I finally get to talk to an
operator for more then 2 sentences.  I tell her what I would like
to do, only to find out this wasn’t possible.  They required me to
pay them, then they would ship out a disk with all the activation info
included.  Well I needed this to be installed today.  She
said they could ship it overnight and get here tommorow morning. 
I told her that was unacceptable and hung up the phone.  Fucking
retarded.



When dealing with Adobe or Macromedia, you can activate stuff online or
over the phone.  Not Quark.  You have to deal with their
moronic policies and crippling licensing agreements.  It’s no
wonder they’ll be a mere memory in the design world in 5 years after
Adobe has finished mopping the floor with them.  They make a
substandard product and think that just because they are “the industry
standard”, they can abuse and neglect their users and expect them to
keep coming back.  It won’t happen forever.  People are
wising up to the fact InDesign is a far superior program and are making
the switch.