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Communications Design Industry Discussion, Inspiration, & Tutorials

Aug 26, 2010

One Thing All Creative Folks Need

I just had dinner with a friend, a well-rounded communications professional—who shall remain nameless.  We recently talked over our plans for the future over salads, salmon and Cotes du Rhone at Donnas of Charles Village.

My buddy is a writer - designer - communications kinda-gal with diverse and extensive experience in marketing and communications.  In order to get an idea of the type of work she does you need to ask her to review her portfolio; there’s no one place to find her design or writing samples online.

She’s in the market for a workplace change, but gave me the wrong answer when I asked about her Web presence.


Creative professionals NEED a website!

Using a simple free blog site like Google’s Blogger, Wordpress, of LiveJournal is a great way to get your design and writing samples online and also showcase current projects! These sites provide professional looking templates and quick formatting of images and motion graphics. The two hours it takes to set up a blog is worth it in the long run. You only need to include the link in your cover letter or resume to a potential employer.

Another option is to purchase your domain name and use one of the easy build tools to create your site. This option allows you to create a decent looking site without advanced knowledge of HTML or any Web coding. Register.com and GoDaddy.com are two names that immediately spring to my mind.

My favorite solution is for a creative type to mine their social network.  Fellow students would love the opportunity to work on a visually interesting Web site; it will add to their experience and could become a portfolio piece. Post a job for pro bono design work on a bulletin board on campus. 

For folks out of school, college friends, colleagues, and your BFF all have skills that may be useful to you. Ask them.  Start a conversation on LinkedIn, post a fB status update, find out about trading services; maybe someone can build your website in exchange for using your timeshare for a week in the summer. That is, if they’re not interested in money.

Like I said, creative professionals need a website. If you don’t have one yet, get started today.

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