Prototype Packaging using Photoshop Smart Objects.
2008 Annual Designer Salary Survey.
The AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2008 is now available.
This survey is widely recognized as the most comprehensive look into how creative professionals are compensated. The results are drawn from responses from more than 6,200 design professionals across the United States.
Link: Design Salaries 2008
Curious how you stack up with your peers? The website has a location-based salary calculator that lets you compare average salaries using a wide range of variables.
Link: AIGA|Aquent Salary Calculator
Play with this handy tool and you can uncover a wealth of details:
- What’s the average salary for a Creative Director in Seattle?
- How do salaries compare between design studios and in-house design departments?
- How do different cities compare in creative salaries?
- What is the trend for designer salaries over the last several years?
Enjoy the research.
Avoid the Finder’s Odd Sort When Opening Files.
Track Craigslist Opportunities using RSS.
Reader Survey: What Online Workshops Do You Want?
Each week we get emails and phone calls from readers outside of Seattle who want to sign up for one of our workshops. We’ve been promising an online test of these classes for people in other parts of the country.
So we’re opening the question up to you: What topics are you most interested in? Visit this quick survey and simply check off any topics you’d like to see offered as an online webinar:
Survey: Creativetechs Online Workshop Topics
The responses we get to this survey will help us determine whether to offer online workshops. So if you are interested, please participate.
Veer’s Summer Activity Books for Creatives.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Graphic Designers.
On June 20, 2008, we performed a Google search using the phrase “Seattle graphic design.”
Out of about 722,000 total results, we carefully studied the top 10 websites Google identified as the best match for our search keywords.
Then we compared Google’s results to a list of the top 10 Seattle design firms drawn from the 2008 edition of Media Inc’s annual Northwest Graphic Design list.
It’s instructive to consider the differences between these lists. Large prominent design firms such as Hornall Anderson, HL2, Fitch, and Methodolgie are largely absent from Google’s results. While smaller (some relatively unknown) studios managed to grab Google’s top slots.
How do they do it? How do smaller studios like Page 3 Design, Eben Deisgn, and Design Hovie Studios beat out the big Seattle design firms in Google’s search results?
More importantly, can you learn how to accomplish the same results for your own studio?
Preview Color Separations in Acrobat.
Grow your Studio with Google Webmaster Tools.
If you want to attract visitors to your studio’s website (or if you design websites for clients) you really must understand and use Google’s collection of Webmaster Tools. This free service from Google provides you with detailed reports about your website’s visibility on Google, as well as giving you valuable ways to influence how your website appears in search results.
Link: Google Webmaster Tools
In this tip we’ll dig into this powerful resource that is key for harnessing Google as a marketing vehicle for your creative studio. As part of that discussion, we’ll show how you can answer the following questions:
- When was the last time Google indexed your website?
- Are there any bad links or missing pages on your site?
- Does your website’s content reflect your brand and target market?
- Who is linking to your website?
- How can you make your Flash-based site more findable?
- Can you stop Google from indexing photos in your portfolio?
- How do you remove something from Google’s search results?
