The Super Productive Inhouse Designer

If you currently work as a designer or have another creative career in-house, you know it. The in-house creative accomplishes more with less. With over 15 years working as a designer in-house, I've learned a few tricks of the trade that have made me a little bit more productive. Unlike some articles on the internet, I won't concentrate on the use of apps or to-do lists. Instead, I will share my designer tips on accomplishing work swiftly and efficiently.

Know Your Stuff

The number one secret to productivity is not really a secret. You can accomplish more when you know your stuff inside out. There are multiple ways to accomplish a task, find the one that works best for you. You can take workshops, go to conferences, or search the internet for videos of what you want to learn. I highly recommend Lynda and Skillshare as learning resources; in addition, there are also plenty of books you can read to accomplish the same. Everyone learns things differently, the key to your productivity is finding what works for you and to keep learning so your skills are not left behind.

Create a Template for Success

You might think I'm kidding, but I'm serious. In order to produce in-house, you'll need a formula for success, and creating templates is part of that formula. The templates will free your time to create complicated projects and will allow you to hand-off easy projects to a non-designer. You can also create templates for your own personal use. This is where a Branding Manual becomes much more than just rules. By using some manuals, you can create layouts with grids at different sizes, you can save color files, and styles.

Reuse and Recycle

We've all done it. We created a million and one versions of a design for a client. And some of those versions were so incredibly bad to us that we refused to show those to our client. Because you're an inhouse designer you have the power to reuse materials used in a different year. If you have an event and are crunched for time, the best thing to do is to start from something perhaps a design used a different year. You can update that design a bit by using a different cover graphic and/or a change in color. The point is to change the design enough so that it's noticeably different but the same. 

In terms of recycling, you can use a discarded design for a different client. Yes, you heard me right. Remember those designs that a client never saw because you decided that there were other better choices, well now's the time to dig those designs from the past and start from there. And if there's something particularly wrong with that design, then you have the benefit of having been away from the project so long that you can easily make changes. 

Take a Break

Burn out decreases productivity. It seems counter-productive but you might benefit from a break to be a bit more productive. Our minds are not meant to be constantly working without a break. If you give yourself space, you'll be more likely to get that work waiting for you completed quicker. I schedule breaks into my schedule. 

I hope you learned a tip or two from this post. I'll keep sharing what I've learned. If you'd like me to cover any topic, please let me know below.

How to Optimize Images for the Web Using Photoshop

I wondered if everyone literally wrecks their brain every time they have to create a Flash animation and it can only be 40k. Is it just me? 

The lucky in my eyes are those of us who have to create ads with flashy content/video served at third parties. I have spent hours finding the best way to get Flash files to look their best at the lowest resolution possible. I will show you how to optimize images but I must note that there are also best practices to follow in order to have the best possible ad at the lowest possible resolution and in this post I will advice on both. I know I know Flash is going out of style but these practices can be used for your website, blog, and it's just good information to know.

Here's the deal in step by step:    

#1 Planning 

Take a few minutes to sketch/thumbnail your idea for the ad. Keep in mind that the simplest message might be the easiest to deliver and may give you the greatest number of clicks. Also, make sure that you think about the placement of text over the image. Most online advertisements specs are for small-size ad, which means that you cannot have very complicated/colorful images if you're going to have text over them. Believe me I know from experience.

#2 Resize your images - 

Using thecrop tool resize the images you're using to your desired size.

#3 Go to File > Save for Web

#4 Last Step is to adjust file size using the Save for the Web option

Here's how to make it small: 

JPEG/GIF/PNG OH MY!!!

You will need to experiment with these to decide which one makes your picture look the best. In general photos look better as JPGs though they may not produce the smallest file size all of the time. I do use them for photos  and change the compression to smaller. Also you have the option of blurring the picture which makes it look better because of interpolation of the image.

GIF/PNG Generally these two options are better for text. The text look clearer than using a JPG for text heavy images. You're able to set the number of colors. The lower the number of color the lower the size of the image. Watch out for some images don't look better with less color. I prefer PNG to GIF because of their size but some e-mail systems do not support them. 

QUALITY: The best option ever invented from Photoshop it tells you exactly what to do. Bicubic smoother or bicubic sharper are the two options to pay attention to. Smoother for photos and sharper for pictures is what I generally use.

And that's it you have the photo you want. The best advice I could give anyone is to experiment with the options available. There's a lot I didn't show because these are my best practices. If you have a tip you'd like to share, please fill the comment section below. See ya next time!