Are freelance designers really suckers?

expert freelancer

When someone tells you they’re a freelancer, be it freelance graphic design or another profession, what are your immediate thoughts?

Does the freelance job title portray an impression of expert, or of someone who is new to the field, perhaps picking up some earnings to make ends meet? There’s an excellent discussion happening here in the reader comments.

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Advertising to children: right or wrong?

McDonalds apple

To a kid, everything’s better in a McDonald’s wrapper.

The Chicago Sun Times recently reported, Are your kids McDonald’s brainwashed?

The article follows research by Stanford University’s associate professor of pediatrics, Dr Tom N. Robinson. The study, involving 63 children aged 3–5, had the kids taste the exact same McDonald’s food, wrapped in branded and un-branded packaging. Every time, the food in the un-branded wrappers lost the taste test.

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Use your avatar to build brand recognition

Your personal brand is everything about you and what others think about you. With the increase in social networking sites, avatars (those little images you upload from your computer to visually identify online profiles) play an important role in brand recognition.
A recent article by Andy Beard, How To Find The Digg Friends You Never Knew […]

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Here’s the re-design you asked for, any better?

When I asked what you thought of my blog, I had no idea you’d provide such great suggestions.
This post is to flag my change of design to those of you who read through a feed reader or your email subscription. If you have some time I’d really appreciate your thoughts on the new look for […]

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How SONY killed their brand? A case study

Nowadays corporations need consumers much, much more than vice versa. SONY have been making the headlines lately for all the wrong reasons.
The Campfire blog gives these surefire tips on how to kill your very own brand:
1. Treat your customers like criminals and install malicious software on their computers.
2. Create fake blogs that pretend to be […]

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Just how good are LogoPond’s logos?

This Hilton Construction logo is by Bart O’Dell aka. Senter. Bart is based in Texas, USA and has been designing for 13 years now. I’ve actually featured one of Bart’s other logos as my logo of the month #3. At the time of writing Bart has uploaded 34 logos to the LogoPond website and you […]

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Not IT my name - Italia logo

Italy’s graphic designers are up in arms about this one. I don’t blame them one bit.
Italy has unveiled it’s new identity with the ‘it’ logo design shown above. How in the world this was decided upon is beyond me. I just don’t find it appealing in any way.
The tender for the new Italy logo and […]

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What are the top aspects of successful branding?

Interbrand have released their 2007 Brand Marketers Report. It’s available now for PDF download and makes interesting reading.
Here’s an excerpt from the findings:
“The best practices are now clear. It is equally clear from the report card that the current shape of the branding practice does not put the discipline at the top of the class. […]

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Logo of the month #4

Sinkit is a tool used to improve a golfer’s putting skills.

I enjoy the anticipation of the ball (dot on the ‘i’) waiting to drop into the hole (negative spaced ‘i’). All great logos should work in black only, without the need for colour. This is a point that’s missed on so many logos I see […]

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How important is a logo?

Nick Rice over at Small Business Branding wrote an article today titled 9 Branding Tips For Small Businesses.
There are some excellent points listed although I find myself having to disagree with his first point, in which he states:
“The design of your logo really doesn’t matter.”
What do you think? Is he right, wrong, somewhere in between? […]

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