Entries by Prescott Perez-Fox

Friday Links, vol. 42

2016.04.15 /0 Comments/in /by

The week in Internet. Useful resources for creative professionals.

Tools

  • Expresso is a web app that will analyse your writing.
  • Worklife is an free online app to manage and schedule meetings. Looks great for teams!
  • VersionPress looks to be a nice tool to use Git version control on a WordPress site. Still in development, though.
  • Open Foundry is a collection of great open-source (free) fonts for use on the web and desktop.

Techniques

  • The Pain of Trying to Set Up a Business That Could Last Forever by Alex Bec

Habits

  • Todd Henry speaks about habits and rituals on his latest episode of The Accidental Creative

Everything Else

  • Finally, a free-to-enter competition for freelancers.

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The Trouble with Workplace Hierarchies, and What We Can Do About It, with Jonathan Raymond — The Busy Creator Podcast 81

2016.04.11 /0 Comments/in /by

Jonathan Raymond (@JonathanRaymond) is an author, coach, consultant, and CEO of Refound, working with business leaders and managers to install better workplace habits and company culture, including mentoring. Over the years, he’s seen numerous workplace dynamics, not just within the creative fields, and shares some of his patterns with us.

In this conversation, we search for definitions of culture, discuss the differences between mentoring and simply bossing, and offer some advice for both the employee and the manager to build better relationships and in turn, a better team. […] Full post →

Friday Links, vol. 41

2016.04.08 /0 Comments/in /by

The week in Internet. Useful resources for creative professionals.

Tools

  • 10 Handy Snippets to Add to Your WordPress Site by Dustin Hartzler
  • The World’s Longest Invoice by the Freelancers’ Union is a running total of all outstanding sums owed to freelancers. Add yours!

Techniques

  • The Second Leap: How to Go from Lone Freelancer to Full-Fledged Entrepreneur

Habits

  • Paul Pierson’s 10 Commitments to a Great Work Experience
  • To ensure happiness and a healthy life, meet people in person. (Hint, online groups don’t count)
  • The Onion nails working in an office vs.

[…] Full post →

Friday Links, vol. 40

2016.04.01 /0 Comments/in /by

The week in Internet. Useful resources for creative professionals.

Techniques

  • Ben Willmore’s 5 Photoshop Tips to Make Your Travel Photos Pop

Habits

  • Strengthening Your Intuition: 5 Ways To Hear Your Inner Voice
  • Harvard Nutrition Researcher OKs five-a-day coffee habit

Everything Else

  • Mar 31 was International Quit Your Crappy Job Day. So what are you still doing at that crappy job?
  • Architect Dame Zaha Hadid dies, aged 65

[…] Full post →

Examining The Modern Creative Workforce and the Ongoing Struggles of Productive People, with Prescott Perez-Fox — The Busy Creator Podcast 80

2016.04.01 /0 Comments/in /by

Prescott Perez-Fox (@scottperezfox) is an independent brand consultant and designer based in Brooklyn, NY. Following ten years as a scrappy freelancer in New York’s design scene, he’s built a number of eccentric workflows and organisational structures.

This conversation loops and swirls a bit, covering career observations, podcast production, personal productivity struggles, and Prescott’s possible plans for becoming a consultant … and perhaps an agency.

Catch up with Prescott on his crumbly old website, perezfox.com or, um, here on The Busy Creator.

Listen Now

[…] Full post →

Friday Links, vol. 39

2016.03.25 /0 Comments/in /by

The week in Internet. Useful resources for creative professionals.

Tools

  • A List of Great Productivity, Security, and Storage apps for Mac
  • Adobe XD — their new UI design tool to rival Sketch — is out in an early form. Take a look.
  • Lingo is a desktop app to manage/organize your brand assets. See also: Frontifty, Brandisty

Techniques

  • Become A Manipulator
  • 5 Things to be Mindful of When Returning to Full-Time Work from Freelancing
  • An explanation of Features vs. Benefits in copywriting, from Susan Gunelius

Habits

  • 11 Things Ultra-Productive People Do Differently
  • Maybe You Should Check Email in the Morning
  • 3 Time-Wasting Social Media Habits You Need To Stop Immediately, featuring this week’s guest Laura Roeder

Everything Else

  • Retro packaging designed, examined
  • A Conference Call in Real Life
  • Jonnie Hallmann discusses being a freelancer and hiring a freelancer to help build an app for freelancers.

[…] Full post →

Escaping Web Design to Build a Software Business, with Edger Co-Founder Laura Roeder — The Busy Creator 79

2016.03.21 /0 Comments/in /by

Laura Roeder (@LKR) is the co-founder of Edgar, a social media scheduling and management tool. Laura began her career as a web designer, moving first to solo practice, and then to social media consulting.

From this conversation, you’ll learn how Laura transitioned away from work-a-day design and into entrepreneurship, how her team at Edgar manages their software development, and some of the philosophies behind their hiring and company management.

One thing we don’t cover are the features of the software itself, and the idiosyncrasies which separate Edgar from competitors like Hootsuite or Buffer. […] Full post →

Friday Links, vol. 37

2016.03.11 /0 Comments/in /by

The week in Internet. Useful resources for creative professionals.

Tools

  • Awesome Screenshot is an iPhone app to capture an entire website in Safari and save it as an image. And it works.
  • There’s an update to InDesign (now CC 2015.3) Here’s some of the bug fixes/improvements.

Techniques

  • How to Make Your Brand Cool (Again)
  • The Creative Process of an Oscar-Winning Screenwriter

Habits

  • Habits of the World’s Wealthiest People (Infographic)

Everything Else

  • The Myth of the Neurotic Creative
  • Apple’s new campus is absolutely ridiculous. See the construction in beautiful HD drone footage.

[…] Full post →

Evolving a Blog into a Brand and a Business with Writer and Clients From Hell Chief Bryce Bladon — The Busy Creator Podcast 78

2016.03.07 /0 Comments/in /by

Bryce Bladon (@BryceBladon) is a freelance writer and editor of the popular blog Clients From Hell. Bryce has been editing and curating the site for years, and has overseen dramatic growth both in blog readership and in creating outside partnerships, products, and offerings.

In our conversation, we discuss the origins of Clients From Hell, how a blog can become a viable business, and how all of us who provide services can avoid clients from hell to have a better working life.

Bryce has recent authored the second book from Clients From Hell, Hell To Pay, concerning the ever-popular topic of getting paid for freelance work and avoiding money-related drama. […] Full post →

Friday Links, vol. 36

2016.03.04 /0 Comments/in /by

The week in Internet. Useful resources for creative professionals.

Tools

  • Noizio is a free app for Mac that plays configurable white noise
  • Slack is introducing video calls as a native feature. Goodnight Skype and Hangouts!
  • FacedIn is a Chrome extension to turn your Facebook into LinkedIn (so you can use it at work?)

Techniques

  • A Method to rip TypeKit webfonts for use on the desktop. Caveats galore, this is a hack, and a convoluted one at that.
  • Designing for AppleTV — a guide

Habits

  • Paul Boag, Marcus Lillington, and Leigh Howells discuss their daily productivity habits and hacks, especially aimed at staying motivated and productive when faced with the option of doing nothing and going back to sleep.

[…] Full post →

Friday Links, vol. 35

2016.02.26 /0 Comments/in /by

The week in Internet. Useful resources for creative professionals.

Tools

  • The Must-Have Tools Set for Every Apartment or Dorm
  • TunesToTube is an easy way to upload an audio track with a static image to YouTube. (Seriously, this should be way easier).
  • Google Resizer is an online tool showing multiple screen sizes for your site
  • Logo Evolve shows a quick glance of large companies’ original logos

Techniques

  • A Maker-Hacker’s Method for creating a 118 GB Floppy Disk

Habits

  • 10 Podcasts to Spark Your Creativity

Everything Else

  • Etsy has “office hackers“.

[…] Full post →

Culture and Habits for a Three-Person Design Studio with Designer and Agency Boss Kristine Neil — The Busy Creator Podcast 77

2016.02.22 /0 Comments/in /by

Kristine Neil (@TheKNeil) is head of branding and design company Markon Brand Design. She purchased Markon when it was an old-fashion sign company, and has since transformed it into a small creative studio, now boasting a team of three.

In our conversation, we cover the quirks and rituals used by the team at Markon, Kristine’s personal productivity habits, and the general challenges that face all busy design teams nowadays.

Listen Now

[…] Full post →

Friday Links, vol. 33

2016.02.12 /0 Comments/in /by

The week in Internet. Useful resources for creative professionals.

Tools

  • This to That is a website that recommend the exact type of glue you should use to adhere substrate A to substrate B (e.g. Wood to Leather)
  • Buy Me Once is an online retailer with the simple aim to only sell things built to last

Techniques

  • Why you shouldn’t include a carousel on your website
  • What to do when your design company fails
  • Using Medium to gain 20,000 in six months

Habits

  • The Daily Habits of Creatives, visualised with cheeky cartoons and statistics.

[…] Full post →