Well, not just photographers--visual artists too.

I stumbled upon a great wall paper sharing site called Open Wall (www.owall.net). I was looking for creative commons and clicked on the unfamiliar link and got floored. People are sharing their work, rating others, and downloading like crazy.
Well, obviously, this image wasn't posted by the photographer, but it likely began life as one of the gorgeous, royalty-free images of space available on the NASA website.  Good deal.

I've come to use Open Wall as a resource for fun images, wall papers and even as inspiration for compositing in photoshop. Take a look and enjoy.

AND Speaking of NASAs royalty-free space shuttle/Hubble images...
Be sure to read the Image Usage Guidelines

JQuery is functional and fun to look at but—by god—it’s a ton of coding. A metric ton if you’re a graphic designer not well versed in the development side of JavaScript.
Thankfully, others saw the demand and have come to your rescue. Here is a Creative Commons solution to get your lightbox portfolio up and running:

prettyPhoto Lightbox Clone

To see this professionally executed JQuery clone in action,  view the PORTFOLIO page of the Robust Web template.

...my  site has one, anyway.  This new design is courtesy of TemplatesDock.  The design is called BestFolio released under a Creative Commons license. I know what you're thinking, "A Web designer using another designer's template!!! Unheard of." I disagree.


I often view great Web templates created by talented developers. These sites are functional, creative,  and technically  exceptional. Bestfolio is a simple one with all the elements that I needed to revamp my site in a timely manner ---it took me approximately 6 hours to customize the template.

Learn more about : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Kudos to TemplatesDock

I went to the design studio on Friday to print some comps and ran into a student I knew from grad school.  *Randy, who will graduate soon,  had one question for me while I adjusted the print setup. He queried, "You just graduated, right? Is it really tough out there?" I know that's 2 questions, but the important one is obviously the second. Randy was referring to the job market.

My answer: yes, it's tough as hell out there. You need to know what  kind of design job or work environment you're looking for.  Apply only for jobs that you want, instead of casting a wide net and applying for positions that either a.) don't interest you, or b.) don't match with your goals and aspirations. Be selective and only take the time to  go after jobs that you actually want. It'll make you happier in the long run.

This is something I've always believed and it hasn't let me down yet.

The second part of my recommendation went: don't wait for graduation to begin looking. If you've already identified your ideal work environment, start your job search now. This means:

1. update your resume, 
2. print and format your portfolio, 
3. network and make inquiries, 
4. and apply.

Here’s another 2^nd person account of a terrible interview. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.