Interview with Caroline Murphy
Posted by blueocto on May 8th, 2008 filed in >> Business, designComment now »
As part of the project for group interviews through Estetica Design Forum,
Aaron from www.milienzo.com has posted up the interview he had with yours truly.
You can visit the interview at -
http://www.milienzo.com/2008/04/16/an-interview-with-caroline-murphy/
Enjoy!!
Interview with GraphicIdentity
Posted by blueocto on April 13th, 2008 filed in >> Business, design6 Comments »
I had the pleasure of interviewing the designer behind the website GraphicIdentity, and here is what I found out.
Please can you tell me a little about who you are, where your from and what you do?
Sure, my name is Audee, I’m 30 years old and live in Surabaya, Indonesia. Currently I’m a freelance graphic designer and blogging since June 2007.
So, how long have you been in the design business and what would you say is your ’speciality’?
Design is always be part of my life. I’ve started since I was a teenager, when I and some of group of friends decided to create hand-made greeting cards. I was the one who did the illustration and they sold out in short time :D. Even I’m still not focusing myself to promote my skill on my blog, I always love to create illustration and to integrate it into web design using Photoshop and Illustrator.
I see you make a lot of tutorials for budding designers; how did you get into design yourself?
My basic education is architecture. How I jump into the graphic design world again? Well it is a long story 
Mostly I learn it by doing. It is never been easy, but the internet has tons of resources to grow my knowledge. For now I’m still learning from some other designers blog
such as: veerle.duoh.com and woork.blogspot.com
You have some very beautiful illustrations on DeviantArt - what inspires you the most?
Well, thank you for the compliments. Art Nouveau and Urban Art are things that brought my attention..They are unique because you can find
their familiarity to the shape of your souroundings. Those who don’t understand much about graphic design art in particular would still sense the universality in it…
You are involved in alot of networking site and forums, do you find them beneficial to the work that you do?
As I said before, I still don’t have any plan to make my blog: Graphic Identity as my online portfolio. To join networking sites and forums
is just a way to find something new to share with my readers and to get along with another new designer friends.
What is your favourite book, and your favourite movie at the moment?
I don’t read books but Agatha Christy’s :). If the book is about graphic design, I usually enjoy the illustration in it… About movie, I love action and thriller movie genre, such as: Die Hard, Jason Bourne sequels, and Resident Evils.
Do you have any designers’ quirks or weird habits?
LOL.. always feeling self- proud for their own design? Just kidding..well, for me, many times I stay up all night to find great mood to finish my work..and get sleep in the day 
Where in life, do you hope to be in the next 10 years?
Anywhere, that will bring me inspiration to design.. I love big cities and the crowds..I wish someday I could visit Italy 
Finally, if you could give one piece of advice, what would it be?
Alright, just keep your design original by doing some research and make a good concept from the scratch. Experimenting is the best way to find out!
Thank you for interviewing me Caroline
~ Audee
You can find out about the other interview’s going on at Graphic Design Blog.
Design Interviews
Posted by blueocto on April 12th, 2008 filed in designComment now »
Over at Estetica Design Forum, where you will find me [blueocto] lurking alot, we’ve decided to have Blogger’s Interviews amongst some of the members. This has allowed us to ask some weird and wonderful questions about each other to get to know one another a lot better!
The blogs involved are:
ianm will interview - aaronr79
crazyleaf will interview - LaurenMarie
blueocto will interview - Graphic Identity
Toon will interview - crazyleaf
Graphic Identity will interview - jackc4ss
jackc4ss will interview - Toon
aaronr79 will interview - blueocto
LaurenMarie will interview ianm
I will be posting up my interviews in due course, so watch this space!
Register for pitys sake!
Posted by blueocto on February 9th, 2008 filed in >> BusinessComment now »
I feel like a broken record when it comes to this subject, but a lot of people are either unaware or chose to ignore the fact that once you are self-employed /freelance in the UK, you must register with HM Revenue and Customs.
Why?
Well besides the multitude of fines and interest you would accumulate, you are also breaking the law.
It is really simple. When you work as employed (for a shop, company, call centre etc) you have National Insurance (NI) and Tax taken out of your wages before you receive it in hand.
Tax is to pay for the country, NI is to pay for you. So that when you sign on as unemployed, or you are off sick and need benefits, you have already paid your share.
So working for yourself is no different, you need to chip in, to get something out. Also it would be rather unfair to not pay, else everyone would be self-employed!!
When the Revenue asks you to register within 3 months, this means the first day you start advertising, or open your shop, or take on a contract. It basically means the first day you are able to work. Not the first time you get paid or when you feel like it. Hence the 3 months lee-way.
All you have to do is phone their helpline which takes 5-10 mins max, or download the form CWF1 from their website and you’re sorted.
National Insurance is paid quarterly or monthly by bill or direct debit.
If you expect your first year of income to be less than the required threshold - £4,635 in 2007-08 and £4,825 in 2008-09, you can apply to be ‘exempt’ - because you have not earned enough.
Then they give you a nice little letter called a “Certificate of Small Earnings Exception” to confirm you do not have to pay any NI. Bearing in mind you are not paying for your benefits (unless you already pay in an employed job).
Tax is paid nearly 18 month after you register. What happens is, once you register, the National Insurance department send your details to the Tax Office, whom within a few weeks, will confirm they have recieved your details. When the next April comes, you should recieve a Self Assessment Tax Return to complete.
This is a rather lengthy form, and quite daunting to some, so get help! Ring the helpline, pop into your local office or ask a friendly accountant and they will gladly go through the form with you. Alternatively you can complete it online.
If you send your details (income, expenses, profit) into the Revenue by September of that same year, they will work it all out for you. If you are confident you can do it yourself, you must have it in by the 31st January the year after.
In summary, you register within 3 months. You pay NI every quarter or month unless you are exempt. You pay tax 18 month after you start. Good Luck!
Networks and Forums
Posted by blueocto on February 9th, 2008 filed in >> BusinessComment now »
Fairly similar to advertising; nearly every man and his dog is online now and travelling to events with no car or money isn’t always an option. So get online and sign up to everything!
Forums both design and non-design can be a useful resource as well as a great way to make friends as well as clients. There are many community and networking sites out there than I can list here but a start is “LinkIn”, “Facebook”, “Myspace”, “Bebo” and so on.
In both Firefox and Internet Explorer you can create a selection of links to go along the toolbar; this is useful for every day use, as you can just click one after the other and stay up to date!
Create Advertising
Posted by blueocto on February 9th, 2008 filed in >> BusinessComment now »
Again rather self-explanatory, but you know you, your parents know you, your friends do. But does the rest of the city know you? The local butchers?
I doubt it.
You need to spread the word that you are here and you have some good services to offer. I’m probably telling a granny how to suck eggs here, but a lot of people throw up a website, and assume that hundreds of visitors will flock. Unfortunately it is not that easy. You need to research your market and target them with intelligent advertising, to encourage them why your services are so good and why they should part with a nice wad of cash for it.
Some useful resources :
AllGraphicDesign - 120 Self Promotion Ideas
IllustrationClass.com - Self Promotion: Concept Card
Computer Arts - Expose Yourself