2009—Cleaning up the Year
December 14th, 2009
It’s year end and time to take stock of the biz. Did I accomplish my goals? What is in store for 2010? Are my clients happy? Am I happy?
Overall, it’s been a good year. Though I didn’t reach my income goal, 2009 was better than 2008. In this economy, that’s a win! Plus, as long as my handy husband keeps our 13+ year-old washer & dryer alive, we’re good.
The Good Stuff
Clients
2009 brought new clients. And the best part—4 were new business launches. In this economy! How cool is that? I’m honored to have been entrusted with the design and development their identities, websites and business collateral.
Working with returning clients has also been a treat. Whether working on new projects, or simply being the go-to person for small additions or recommendations—being a trusted resource is wonderful! Great clients makes being in business a delight. I get to design good stuff for good people—win!
Technology
Wow—2009 has seen an explosion of new techie tools & treats! Keeping up leaves me breathless. Where to start? Here’s a few of my favs:
Apps
- Coda: best $99 I ever spent. Dropped Dreamweaver like a hot potato after getting this. Love it. Plus, the constant addition of clips and plugins make it sweeter, still!
- Billings: changed from Billable to Billings mid-year. Overall, a win. Love the timers and record-keeping. However, customizing invoices is a real pain beyond adding logo.
- Jumpchart: used this online wireframing app for Dovetail site. Was especially effective collaboration tool for team of designer/writer/client. Not for visual layout—but great for building content & navigation
- Balsamiq: just purchased this visual wireframing app. (There’s a free online version, too.) It has a ‘sketchy’ look—client is not swayed by visuals prior to functionality planning. Plus, their customer service rocks!
- Jing: a nice little screen capture and share app. Lightweight and free!
- TeuxDeux: I just loaded this last week and am already in love. It’s a to do app. Beautifully simple and free!
- Hourly: just a little Air timer. Free for now, paid service in future. I use it on laptop where Billings isn’t.
- Boks: another Air app. For setting up a page layout grid for HTML and CSS.
- Skype: Yeah, I know—nothing new. Except that I first used it this week!
- Color Schemer: Love this! The best part (after having fun playing!) is that you can output to different palette formats. Photoshop is nice, but having hex numbers is sweeeet!
- Google Analytics: Again, nothing new. Except this year I get it. (And have become a wee bit of an analytic junkie!)
- Google Wave: too soon to tell, just got my invite last week. Looks very promising as a collaborative tool.
Social Media
- Twitter: Yes. Do it now. Nothing to fear. I’ve become quite the fan of #dcth: a weekly chat session among designers.
- LinkedIn: I’m still using it. I’ve made some great connections on LI. But. LI is getting a bit stale and spammy. The jury is out for 2010.
- Blogs: Huge! This is where fresh content lives. NOT in books—modern tech info doesn’t have time to go to press. Follow the right blogs, the right Tweets (to other blogs) and the world’s information is at your door—while you’re still in your jammies!
Web Building
- CSS3: Sites are getting easier to “pretty up” with code, not s.l.o.w. image files. And although IE STILL doesn’t get it, Google Chrome and Mozilla FF are available to PC users for improved web experience.
- HTML5: It’s just cleaner and simpler and less code. Bring it on!
- Typography: Head spinning new techniques this year. I started trying to understand sIFR, stumbled onto Cufón (and used it), then @font-face became simpler, thanks to FontSquirrel, and just a couple of weeks later…TaDa….Typekit! Be still, my heart—and goodbye, Helvetica!
- CMS: (content management system) specifically, WordPress. Last year the writing was on the wall—learn a CMS or die! (Well, in my dreams, anyway!) And the trend (follow the blogs) was definitely towards WP. I learned it. And I’m not afraid of CMSs anymore. HooYa!
Blogs
I read of lot of blogs. Regularly. I’m not going to make a long list. Yet, I’d like to share my 3 fav tutorial blogs. Why? Because these are the guys from whom I’ve learned SO much this year—directly impacting the quality of projects I deliver.
- CSS-Tricks: Chris Coyier began by covering all things CSS, then evolved into other areas, incuding javascript/jQuery, a snippet libarary, and:
- Digging Into WordPress: a joint venture by Chris and Jeff Starr. The blog is awesome, the PDF book, fantastic. Honest, practical, straightforward solutions!
- Nettuts: Chock full of good stuff. Spent a week last winter with the flu and Jeffrey Way’s Introduction to WordPress. My foggy flu brain was a little slow, but I got it!
That about sums up the good stuff. 2009 was full of interesting, challenging and fun projects for great clients. Yeah, I lived on the “bleeding edge” of technology a couple of times. And, yes—pushed myself beyond my comfort zone, technologically speaking. And it paid off. Everything worked together…twitter & blogs led me to new resources, social media connected me to experts & technical assistance, which in turn, broadened my skill set and client base—win!
The Bad Stuff
So, what went wrong in 2009? Hmmm…well:
- I’m still upset with Apple because they didn’t offer the 17″ MacBook Pro with non-glare screen last Dec. Nooooo…they waited until May! And they included 4GM RAM…for less than I paid for the 15″ 6 mos. earlier!!!!
- Stiiiiillll waiting for Apple to offer an iTouch with a camera. Or an iPhone w/o data plan and AT&T. Still. Waiting.
That’s about it. Not so bad, right?
Sure, I still want a new washer & dryer. Maybe I’ll catch a good deal soon. Not worried. It’s going to be a great decade and I’m ready!