Hi there, my name is Harrison and I design things.

7 Tips For Marketing Your Freelance Business Offline | FreelanceSwitch

7 Tips For Marketing Your Freelance Business Offline | FreelanceSwitch.

I walked into Wholefoods this past week with a list of things to buy. I walked out of the store with more than my groceries. I had three new business cards in my pocket. Each with hastily-scrawled notes on the back. I grinned as I packed my groceries into the car and headed home.

I had just generated three great leads.

This is something I find many web developers and designers tend to forget; that there is a whole world of interaction out there outside of twitter, chat, and blogs.  This world uses paper to pass information, and thusly, you need business cards.  They’re not ‘outdated’ if everyone outside your work circle still uses them.  Do you want to attract other web designers, or do you want to attract people who hire web designers?

Design Why; Ditching the Erase Tool

I’m going to come out right here, right now, and say it: there is no reason to use the erase tool. It’s final, clunky, cumbersome, and akin to removing your shoes with a shotgun. Sure, they’ll come off, but one mistake and there’s no going back.

So instead, there’s a much better option called a ‘Layer Mask’. And you get get to it by a few ways. First, have the layer you want selected, then go to menu: Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All. Another way is on the layer window, at the bottom is a little button that looks like this:

Same deal; select the layer, and click this button. What you find is added to the preview window on the layer is a white box and a little ‘link’ between them. This is your layer mask.  Think of it like an alpha channel for this layer.  In case you don’t know, an alpha channel is added to the broadcast color channels (R,G,B) as a grayscale layer signifying transparency.  The easiest way to think of it is “White is What you see”.  So with the layer mask completely white, the entire layer can be seen.  The way you edit this is by selecting the layer mask (as you can see here, there’s 4 bracketed lines on the corners of the layer, meaning I have it selected instead of the text layer), and whipping out your Brush tool.  The only colors you need are white or black, since it’s a grayscale function we’re dealing with here.  Then, you merely paint on what you want transparent or opaque.

The first benefit you see is obvious; you’re not actually destroying the layer.  If you had used the erase tool, then gone back and done some more actions, then realized you needed some of that layer back, you’d have to hope that your history wasn’t filled up, and you could back up to before you erased it.  And even then, you still lose whatever else you had done to the design in the meantime.  With this, you can ‘paint away’ the layer, and it’s saved allowing you to then bring out the white brush tool, and paint back anything you need.

The next benefit is that now you can make transparent things you couldn’t before; namely vector images and text layers.  Using the erase tool (because it manipulates the actual pixels of the image), you would have to rasterize (or convert vector into pixelated/raster images) the layer before you could erase a portion of it.  But now, you are manipulating the layer, not what’s contained within it.  So you can erase sections of a text layer, and still be able to go back and edit that text layer to do whatever it is you want.

Quick note on vector layers brought in from a program like Illustrator: The layer and the layer mask are not linked in this case, so moving the vector image inside the layer does not also move the layer mask.  You can put the vector layer in a folder and put a layer mask on that folder, or you can simply repaint the mask after you moved the vector file.

Now, suppose you want to see your layer mask?  Go into Channels, then look under the Red, Green and Blue: you’ll find your Layer Mask waiting for you there.

Toggling the ‘eye’ to make the layer mask visible.  In this case, since I haven’t drawn anything in the layer mask, nothing is going to change.  Go back to the layer and if you draw a real quick layer mask with the black brush, you’ll see that it in fact comes out as a semi-transparent red (pink in this case, because of the white background).

The pink isn’t on the document, it’s the visualization of the layer mask.  This is the same if you have an alpha channel on the project, it’ll also show up red.  If you go back to the channels, toggle the ‘eye’ on the layer mask again to hide it, then look at your image you’ll see something like this:

The text layer is transparent near the edges.  And since I didn’t use the erase tool, I can edit that text to say whatever I want.  I can even decide later (say, after I’ve closed the project and open it back up) to go back and make it completely opaque, deleting the layer mask all together (right-click on the layer mask in the layer and select, ‘delete layer mask’).  Even better, since the layer mask uses the brush tool to build it, any saved brushes you have you can also use on your text.  Want to make a quick, custom grunge effect on some text?  Easy, pull up a grunge brush make a layer mask, and throw it on the text (and it’s all still editable):

So seriously, ditch the erase tool.  There isn’t a single thing that it can do that a layer mask can’t do better.

FontFontFontFont….

Oh, my love for font
Serif or San, you still rock
Makes me love design

I’m thinking about printing that and mounting it to wood to pass down to my kids. “Here, son,” I will say proudly, “this is a haiku about font I came up with in five minutes while writing a blog post.” He’ll look up at me confused as he introduces me to his prom date. Timing is everything.

Okay, font. Seriously; it’s awesome. Good font work can make or break any design. Sure, color, composition, style, these are all important, but font is what the eye is going to be spending most of its time on. It needs to be legible, fit in the design, and have character all on its own. Font as a concept is very much like food; varied, consumed, and used the world over by everyone. And like food, I’m obsessed with it.

I have an app on my phone that lets me look up typefaces I find on the street. I hit up websites for the latest and greatest from foundries all over the world. Names like Helvetica, Futura and Medio carry the same emotional baggage as Steak, Pizza and Rissotto. They all have unique flavors, stories, sources and uses. Font is so powerful it can even redeem a bad design.

So for every designer out there, you need to leave your comfort zone. You need to constantly fidget when it comes to your design. Look at different typefaces; how they make you feel about the text being shown, how they can fit in a greater design and if they inspire you.

Hey, how about I help with that?
20 Great fonts from Smashing Magazine (bookmark that site now)
Font Squirrel
T.26 Digital Type Foundry

FYI: there will be many more odes to font in the future. You have been warned.