Sam Brown a freelance web designer and blogger has kindly given up a few minutes of his time to answer a few questions about web design and freelancing.

He talks about how he got his first freelance job to what his favorite color and font is. If you are a designer wishing to enter the freelance world, Sam offers a great insight into becoming a freelance web designer.

Let’s begin

Who are you Sam?

My name is Sam Brown, I am a freelance interface designer and web standards developer from Edinburgh Scotland.

When did you first become interested in design?

It was the mid ’90′s and I was just starting high school, my father brought home a HTML book from I don’t know where and I started tinkering with web sites in Notepad on my Win 95 machine. This was where it all started for me, I then took a Multimedia Design course at a Technology High School then moving on to Computer Graphics College and Uni before leaving to pursue my freelance career.

How did you teach yourself how to design?

Trial and error initially, the few years I spent at Uni helped me learn the fundamentals of design but for me it was all about actually getting out there, doing it and progressing my skills over time.

When and how did you get your first client?

My first real client that wasn’t a site of my own or a family friend had posted a message on my Uni noticeboard wanting a site design for his property business. I called, met and landed the job that same day. This was around 2003, I am still working with this client to date.

Would you rather have a full-time job or freelance?

Freelance, without a shadow of doubt. I worked at a boutique web design agency after leaving Uni in Sydney Australia for a year and while I enjoyed the experience and my time there it left me in doubt that I wanted to continue working as a freelancer thereafter. The flexibility and power of choice I have running my own business means I probably couldn’t go back to working for someone else.

How do you tackle design briefs?

By tearing them apart, I usually print them and end up scribbling notes all over them. Discussing them with the client after receiving them is always the best approach, making sure that we are both on the exact same page and that nothing is misinterpreted.

Do you feel qualifications are more important than experience?

Absolutely not, I completed high school and went to Uni for two years only to leave to do actual work. I had taught myself design and development from an early age and I spent two years at University learning the same things and worse still, not the right way – there is nothing better than actually getting out there and doing what you love to do. Experience over qualifications every time.

How has writing a blog affected your freelance career?

Perhaps by bolstering my name on the web, I started and continue to write my blog the way I want to write it – I never started it to gain new clients or reputation, simply as a place to write my thoughts and opinions. Lately however I do seem to get just as many requests for work through my personal blog as I do my actual portfolio site so in essence it has helped.

Where do you find inspiration?

Everywhere and anywhere that isn’t another web site – I fear to many people rely on gallery sites for inspiration, it’s magazines, books, architecture and physical design that inspires me most.

Is there anyone you look up to in the design community?

Everybody. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big name, or someone straight out of school. I admire everyone in our community, there is a serious wealth of talent out there. People are doing wonderful and amazing things and pushing our industry all the time, no-one should be overlooked.

Favorite colour and font/typeface?

Blue and FF DIN.

What are your top five favorite website designs?

That’s really tough. I absolutely love Simon Collison’s redesign , the new Panic blog is equally nice and the one site I wish I could steal the design of is Wilson Miner.

What’s your favorite style of website design and why?

Clean and simple aesthetics appeal to me most, it is my particular style of choice and I enjoy coming across other sites that pull off this minimalistic style well.

Are there any books or websites you’d recommend for designers?

Dan Cederholm’s new Handcrafted CSS is a real treat, and if you are in need of some inspiring images definitely check out FFFFound.

Where would you like to be in 5 years time?

I’m not sure where I would like to be in 5 months time, never mind 5 years. I’m all about here and now, I’ll worry about 5 years time in 5 years time!

Any last words for the aspiring designers trying to follow in your footsteps?

Work hard, never stop learning, stay on top of all the latest techniques and partake in the community you aspire to.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions Sam. If you have any questions for Sam, I am sure he would be more than willing to reply to them in the comment section.

When Leonardo da Vinci painted, he put his paint brush to his canvas and magic happened. Five hundred years later, nothing has changed. We are still using paint brushes and a canvas but this time its virtual and the magic happens on computers and graphic editing software like Photoshop or Illustrator.

A few examples

There are various ways and techniques to create a typographic portrait. A typographic portrait is not limited to just portraits of people. It can also be a social ad, credits of a movie, can be creatively used in music videos, and much more. In this article, I have tried and compiled some incredibly beautiful imaginations of artists along with some of my own work.

Rakta Charitra

Vivek Oberoi

Utada Hikaru

En Masse

With great humility

The Zebra Eye

Happiness

Steven Paul Jobs

White Hand

A Man of his Words

Mos Def

Typomin M

Big Ban London

Typographic Portrait

More than Just Words

Self Portrait

Am I your type?

Beer Directions

Jimi In Type

Thom Yorke

Typography Woman

I want to kill you

homme typo

Trust in you

Let us all dream together

The art of typography in video

These are just some of the many works of art that are out there. Hope they serve as a visual stimulus and here are some video tutorials to get you started.

Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo.

Behind the scenes with Dencii Manayak

His art makes you think that imagination does not have any boundaries. It is as free as the butterfly that spreads it wings and flies across the meadow. He puts his heart and soul into his work and becomes the piece. I have had the great opportunity to interview a young, upcoming and my favorite artist Dencii Manayak.

Dencii, thank you for talking to us at CreativityDen. We appreciate you taking time out for this interview. Please introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi. I’m Dencii Manayak from Parañaque, Philippines. I’m 27 and currently working as a part-time graphic artist at a local company making advertising materials and designing baby t-shirt prints.

How did you stumble upon this form of artist expression? Also, how did you get started?

Mahatma Gandhi

I’ve seen quite a few Typographic works before but I never really got into it until I took Typography 101 class when I was studying at Glendale Community College in Glendale, California in 2008. My professor at the time, as part of the subject course, made us watch the documentary Helvetica and interview a “Master Typographer” of our choice and then present the data gathered in class. I ended up interviewing Dr. Alessandro Segalini who was not only well-educated about Typography but was also very passionate about it. The most memorable thing he said to me during the interview was “Respect the letters and they will respect your feelings.” I guess since that experience I started to subconsciously look at the more classic typefaces in a deeper way. Things like how each single character was designed to work effectively individually and with other characters, how they withstood time since their creation and how they influenced other fonts, were characteristics I once overlooked in favor of grungy and heavily stylized fonts.

John Lennon

The first creation I did with my typographic style was a piece that served as my final project for the Typography 101 class. The challenge was to make a poster using only type characters whether it’s a creative way of writing the lyrics of your favorite song, poem, movie line or a quote. Me being more of the unimaginative illustrator than a creative typographer went for a portrait of John Lennon with the lyrics to his song “Imagine.” Honestly, the result was not the one I had in mind as what I originally planned was something more loose and generic but I was very satisfied with it. At the night of the presentation, I told my professor that it was a fluke to which she replied that I should never say that about any of my work especially to clients. So to see if I can do this challenge again, I made another one with Martin Luther King Jr.’s face in it. A lot of people enjoyed these compositions and encouraged me to keep doing it so I followed my works with versions of Mahatma Gandhi, Rick Astley (although it was more of a self-parody), Mother Teresa and a rework of MLK Jr.

As an artist, what influences your work? Or where does your inspiration come from?

I can’t say there’s a single person or event that inspired my style. I’ve seen an artist do the Mona Lisa by scraping burnt breads and another one smearing burger grease straight from the patty. I’ve seen awesome works made of ketchup and fries, cappuccino, Lego blocks, stamps, playing cards and so on. These feats, using objects that are not meant for visual art, have always left me in awe. A lot typographical works I’ve seen on the web has also showed me a fraction of the infinite possibilities of how far you can push yourself artistically using only letters.

Your style is very unique. Is there a specific font type that you prefer using over the others? What software(s) do you use to develop these projects?

Mother Teresa

When making these projects, I use Adobe Photoshop for cropping, converting to grayscale and adjusting the levels of the images. I then move to Adobe Illustrator to do the rest. I also use Winamp to keep me sane. As for the font, Bickham Script Pro all the way! I just love the anatomy, the natural curves, the structure and its flexibility to follow the shape of the human face. I just can’t imagine achieving the same effect using a different font. I learned to develop a connection with it. When I’m working on a project, I look at a part of the picture and it comes natural to me as to what letters or numbers are good to cover that area. And of course I want to give credit to the great photographers who took the great photos that I use for references. After all, they’re the ones who truly captured those moments. I just happen to be the guy who’s converting it to another medium.

How long does it take for you to complete a project?

Working on the first few projects took me a few nights as I was still trying to learn how to go through it. The last ones took me about 2-3 nights as I became more familiar with it.

Is there a message you would like to give our readers/artist who would like to explore this type of art?

In the end it was all about practice, practice and more practice. Perseverance is as valuable as creativeness. I know I’m a very flawed artist but I just make the most out of what I have and work around those flaws. I strive to share with other artists and compete more against myself, not the other way around. I guess that’s basically it. Thanks for appreciating my art.

Check out more of Dencii’s work

Summary

In conclusion, letters are no longer used just to create words and words no longer just create sentences. Artist expressions have transcended these boundaries and set a new milestone in the world of art. This is my attempt at giving you a little peek into the boundless world of Typography. So, let your imaginations loose and get creatin’.

Dean Oakley

How do you like to stay creative, what methods do you use?

I try to stay creative by constantly thinking about design and trying to take inspiration from a variety of sources. But I also think you can easily over think design and you can never force creativity.

Briefly describe the process you went through to create your amazing portfolio site.

My portfolio can about quite easily. I created the first version in a couple days. Then have the idea to make it horizontal which lead me to redo the illustration. I was quite a natural process and I remember just being excited not worrying about what the client was going to think!

Do you think creativity plays a large part in design?

I think good design takes a lot of practice, thought and study. However creativity is a different animal. I think you have to be in the right head space. I find I have to feel inspired, be excited that you’re am creating something new.

Carlos Alemany

Today, Visualbox remains a very unique and creative site. Where did you find the idea for the layout?

The design layout is purely related to the brand itself. It is thought around a container box where the real value, the impact, is in the visuals.

What do you think are the characteristics of a creative person?

A creative person should be intuitive, curious, should be able to see the real scope of things and knwo how to elaborate the capacity of expanding and adding details to his work; should be a “free thinker”, take risks and innovate.

Any advice for designers trying to be more creative?

Always be open to new ways of doing things, and also open to new ideas, even if they sound weird or ridiculous, never see them from one unique perspective. They should give themselves time to play, forget about rules and the most important suggestion I could ever give is: look, look more and lookeven more stuff every day.

Bryan Katzel

WeBLEEDdesign is an exceptional concept. How did you come up with the idea for it?

Thanks so much. The We Bleed Design website really came from my passion for paper craft. I love pop-up books, paper automata and theaters, all that kind of stuff. That way of thinking and construction makes sense to me and are the types of things that truly inspire me. They seem like timeless solutions that create a fantasy that is truly their own.

So, I knew I wanted to create a single page site but I can’t really say when the idea first struck me to use my logo and the exact execution that is on the site now. I believe I started with just wanting the paint to drip all the way down the page but as I started to add images that sat over the background image of the paint I asked myself, “What would it look like if I punched shapes out of this image to let the background paint show through?”. So, I started to experiment with cut-out designs in Illustrator, scrolling them over each other until I came up with the png mask images we see on the site today.

I do have to say, I’ve really had no formal web training at all. I feel this was an asset to me. It’s really easy to get bogged down by the technicalities of the task at hand and lose track of coming up with the creative core of the concept. For this website I had to do much research online to figure out how to execute my concept. This website is a constant reminder to me that, despite the medium you’re working in, and despite what you may know in regards to technique and style, the core of any good concept comes down to creativity.

Do you believe creativity is something you are born with, that it comes naturally?

That’s such a hard question. I feel like I’ve worked so hard to develop and get to the place I’m at now while at the same time some of my best concepts, the things I’ve admired the most have appeared effortlessly out of thin air. Creativity is such a personal experience filled with moments the are so hard to communicate. I know myself and the orbits I need to put myself into to catch the big fish… but whether that is something that nature gives to some and not others is hard to really come to a finite answer to. I’d like to believe we can all get there, that creativity is something that everyone is born with but not everyone learns how to express. Something that is naturally inherent in all of us but not socially natural to achieve.

What sites or places do you like to get inspiration from?

A few sites I currently have feeds on are: ThinkingForALiving.org, GrainEdit.com, Coudal.com, Booooooom.com, paperforest.blogspot.com, meathaus.com, fecalface.com, manystuff.org, and so many more that I can’t keep up with reading them all.

Inspiration comes from so many places for me though… graphic novels, movies, toys, games, poster design, puppetry, myth, craft shows, flea markets, website design, music, graphic design, children’s illustration, fantasy, D&D, swords, goats, boy stuff, girl stuff, dungeons, rain, ghosts, treasure chests, bigfoot, barbarians, pirates, the moon, caves, eye patches, finishing moves and special powers (not in that order). I just have a love and appreciation for creativity in every form. Seeing all the creative ways people solve problems or construct fantasy. I guess I’m inspired by the creations of other people’s inspirations.

Thibaud Van Vreckem

Thibaud is an incredibly unique site, how did you come up with something so creative?

it’s not overly creative, the concept was pretty much lying on my desk (color swatches)

What do you do when you get an idea?

The production stage is a sort of refinement process in which I try to keep a strong focus on the application goal and simplify all the means to get to that goal.

some of the things that I realize I often and recurrently do while developing interactive application are:

• Incorporating some natural behavior
• re-question what sometimes may be considered established interactive “standards”
• pay attention to details – or in other words, be painfully perfectionist (that just plain sucks)

Any particular design that has truly inspired you?

just about anything

Niki Brown

Do you believe creativity is important with design?

I believe that creativity is the backbone of design. Design without innovative creativity is just a rehashing of popular design trends and themes. It’s also important for the creative solution to be appropriate to the the project as well.

An idea pops into your head, what do you do?

I usually write it or sketch it in one of my sketchbooks, or type up a note on my ipod. Sometimes things don’t go beyond that, but its always good to document all those crazy ideas! Now…if I could only find time to work on all these ideas

What does it take to be creative? hours of thinking?

Sometimes creativity happens instantly with a fresh perspective, and sometimes it takes hours and hours of work and pondering and attempting different solutions. Going for a walk or a run usually helps me if i’m having a hard time being creative. There are also tons of design galleries out there to browse (ahem… http://creattica.com ) if you are stuck in a rut!

Rob Morris

What does it mean to be creative? Does it mean you can pull ideas out of a hat?

Ideas don’t live in hats. Generally when put under pressure people will do everything but be creative. To be creative is simply to have the ability to make a connection between two things that others can’t / haven’t yet.

Do you think creativity comes naturally, or its something you have to strive for?

Yes, and yes.

Any particular time when you feel most creative? Why that time?

When you have a good balance of freedom and form, you can be most creative. By that, I mean you need to have time and flexibility. But there also need to be rules. Too much flexibility and time can be more hindrance than help.

David Airey

Is creativity essential for a logo designer?

Creativity is essential for a lot more than simply logo design. Life requires a creative outlook, and we can all have one.

Where do you like to be/go to be creative?

Outdoors, be it in a forest, on the coast, or in a city. Away from the office is always good.

Does an idea just come to you, or does it require thought?

A bit of both. Usually the latter.

John O’Nolan

How did you come up with the design for lyrical media?

The design for the Lyrical Media was, in no small part, inspired by .Net Magazine. I was reading an issue one day and simply thought to myself. “This magazine is designed really well, it doesn’t look like anything on the web, I wonder how well this style of print design would translate to the screen?” From that point on I collected over 50 different magazines to try and extract the core principles of print design, and discover what aspects of it were transferable to a screen.

Where do you like to get inspiration?

I used to get inspiration from CSS galleries – these days I visit them only to bookmark reference material, examples of certain styles, etc. One of my greatest mentors has always been my close friend Spencer Lavery, creative director for renowned web design firm YouLove.Us. Spencer takes a huge amount of influence from the subject of the design he is creating. As an example for a recent artist website; he made the actual website an art gallery wall, which scrolls horizontally through framed (interactive) paintings on the wall. The paintings represented at accurate dimensions and proportions to give a very realistic effect. This method has had a huge influence on me, and is something that I myself try to accomplish when working on new projects.

Do you think creativity is the most essential element to good design?

In a word, no. You don’t have to be at all creative to produce a good design. Anyone can clone a “web2.0″ site very easily, and as a result produce a good design – but that doesn’t make them in any way creative.
But to rephrase the question slightly, “Do you think that creativity is the most essential element to exceptional design?” – Yes. Absolutely.

Chris Spooner

Where does you creativity come from? Were you born creative or do you need inspiration and time to think?

I suppose in a sense I was born creative in that I’ve always enjoyed making things – And taking them apart! Although when taking on design projects time to research a particular subject and dwell on some thoughts does help pull together a few ideas and often develops them into a core plan of action!

How do you like to stay creative?

I find blogging a great way of staying on top of the creative game, not only does it help keep me up to date with the design community and the latest industry changes, but it also gives me an incentive to work on personal projects and designs to continuously churn out blog post topics. When browsing galleries for sites to include in weekly roundups, it often provides plenty of inspiration and develops ideas that I can’t wait to try out myself.

Is there anything that tends to make you a bit more creative? For example a certain place.

My office/studio space is probably where I delve the deepest into projects. I sometimes work elsewhere, such as the garden or the sofa with my laptop, but I’ll always have to revert back to my desk and big screen to really get into the flow.

Osvaldas

You have a very creative portfolio site, could you give brief explanation about the design process, where the idea came from, what you did when you got the idea?

Thanks – it’s very pleasing to hear positive words about what you do. Well, the design process of mine is quite interesting as I’ve been creating my portfolio website for a little bit less than a year. No, I wasn’t spending eight hours a day putting pixel by pixel. Once I came up with an idea and spending few hours a month I finally brought myself to the real actions. During this period of time I had my studies and lots of client works going which denied me from creating something for myself. What I have learned from this situation is that firstly you have to start from yourself to move forward successfully with others. I have always thought the minimalism is sexy and I still do therefore pouring some interaction into it for me was like detonating a bomb – this is what we get combining a specific style and XHTM/CSS/JS power. Did you ask for a brief explanation?

Does every idea of yours turn out a success?

Logically, it all depends on the idea. Anyway, I wish I had an answer “Yes”, but the reality is slightly different. Sometimes you think you’ve got an amazing and unique idea but thirteen minutes later you find few online existing realizations. Badly if the website is about to be perfect and you don’t see anything to improve on your own potential project. More often, the idea is not the one in the world but simply it’s born to work, however, if you don’t catch it immediately while adrenaline is running through your veins the idea then is condemned to failure. Any means to solve the problem? Sure, the simplest “just sit and do” can cause a huge miracle.

In your opinion is it difficult to be creative?

Generally, creativity is a relative term, and object of philosophy. It’s related to what type person you are, your lifestyle and many other factors. Yes, you can influence your creativity by finding the most energetic hours of a day, regularly taking breaks, not overdosing coffee and so on. Also, you can destroy your creativity by being nervous for a few seconds. I can’t say that it’s easy nor difficult to be creative. It’s something that just happens.

Hi there Fabio, if you could give a brief introduction stating who your are, what you do and where you from.

I’m a graphic and web designer from Porto Alegre, a city in the very south of Brazil. In 2006 I started my personal blog, abduzeedo after one of the worst moments in my professional like. My office was robbed and they took my laptop and my 2 backup drives. I had lost all my work literally.

You are very talented across a range of software, from Photoshop to Cinema 4d. How did you learn and what do you do to improve your skills with these programs?

I think the best way to learn is practicing but with clear goals in mind like I want to do this or that. Not simply I need to learn Photoshop for example. In the case of Cinema 4D, I’m always creating some challenges to myself so I can learn it, the water image was one of these challenges

What did/do you want to achieve from your ability in these programs?

I’m always trying to create effects that I like. If I’m watching a movie for example and there’s a nice effect that motivates me to try that. I have a folder full of images with images and effects to try.

What inspired you to set up Abduzeedo?

I started abduzeedo back in 2006. My office had been robbed and I had lost my computer and my backup disks with lots of photoshop experiments and personal projects. It was terrible, so I decided to start a blog to sort of publish those files and ideas so it would be a nice to way to backup my experiments. Also as I was always looking for inspiration then saving in my computer, I thought that it would be cool to share that with everybody.

What do you think the main reasons are towards the success of Abduzeedo?

I think the tutorials are very helpful and also the fact that we’re always trying to share our experiences from real work.

Are their any other sites you like to regularly visit?

Definitely, I could list smashingmagazine, psdtuts, noupe, fubiz, flickr, behance, deviantart.. and many more.

How do you decide on what to do next? For example, what led you to creating that stunning realistic water text?

Well it depends, that day it was raining and I wanted to do something using Cinema 4D so I thought that a nice water effect would be very challenging.

Can you give any tips to the readers who would like to follow in your footsteps?

Well I think the most important thing is love what you do and keep always learning and opened to the new.

A typical day, what would that be for you? Does planning and thinking ahead play a major part in your life?

Well I like to wake up pretty early, usually around 6am, then I work on Abduzeedo and on other projects till 5pm. After that I practice some exercise and then back to abduzeedo till midnight.

Finally, where do you see yourself in 10 years, do you have any goals that you would like to achieve?

In front a super thin and powerful laptop working on nice projects, and I hope, speaking a better english

Thank you very much for allowing me to interview you Fabio. I wish you all the best for the future

As you are the first “contestant” on CreativityDen to be interviewed, we will first explain the rules. There are 10 quickfire questions, which require one or two words max. Then we will get into more depth with longer questions. If you get any of the questions wrong, you will become the weakest link and leave with nothing…

Quickfire round

Name: Jacob Cass
Age: 21
Favourite Browser: Firefox
Favourite Song: At the moment, I am loving “MGMT – Electric Feel”.
Favourite Holiday Destination: Hmm that’s a hard one, maybe Greece!
Favourite Film: Another hard one, maybe 300? Seen that one a few times!
Coffee or Tea: Both
Mac or PC: PC
Pen or Pencil: Pen
Scon or Scone: Jam!

In Depth

So J (if we can call ya that?), where did it all begin for you? Were you born with creativity running through your veins or has it just developed over the years?

J is fine! My first taste of design was when I was 12… I remember putting up my first web page – it had animated gifs all over it! Anyway, fast forward another 4 years and that was when I started getting serious about design if you can call it “serious”. Since then I believe my skills have definitely developed… it is an on going process.

Thanks J, and what was your first success and how did it come about?

Well being born was pretty swell! I would have to say that that was my first success? But in the design world, it probably would have been creating a website for my government high shool? Nothing too special but I felt pretty good about it at the time.

Whats the weirdest thing you’ve been inspired by? and why?

I have a tendency to mind wander looking at logo designs and typography. I always find myself playing the “guess the font” game with what I see around me. I guess that is inspiring.

What do you do when you get an idea?

I am usually scribbling when I get my ideas so I guess scribbling!

What environment do you prefer to work in?

My own office without a doubt. I have everything set up the way I need it, plus I can get into the ‘zone’ when I am in my office.

Your portfolio is very good, what tools did you start off using and use now, are they good at turning your ideas into a reality?

I started off with the Adobe Creative Suite at the start and am still using it! However, in saying that these programs do not make ideas… they are just tools. Ideas come from somewhere else.

Apart from creativityden , what are your top 5 favourite websites?

1. http://gmail.com – Love gmail.
2. PSDTuts
3. Vector Tuts
4. FreelanceSwitch
5. Smashing Magazine

Out of all of your inspirational works, what is your favourite and why?

My own logo design, because it encapsulates exactly who I am and what I do! I’ve written about the design process in length over at my blog for those who are interested.

What are your plans for the future?

I’ve just started a new blog soon based purely on logo design so that should keep me busy. I also have another big surprise however that is under wraps for now and probably won’t be ready until the end of the year. I have also got quite a lot of work on now as I am at University. In the short future I want to see more of the world and also do some work experience at a Sydney based design studio. In the long term… start my own studio.

A big thanks to Jacob for being our first interviewee! All of us here at CreativityDen wish him the best of luck with his future projects. Tune back here later for more great interviews!