Ever since I began freelancing in 2009, I have been reading several articles everyday to gain knowledge about the lifestyles of other fellow designers who were doing work on their own. These articles would cover everything from their daily routine to their design process on a given project. Today, I want to discuss the tools and programs that I use on a daily basis. Some of these are quite popular and are industry standards, while others are lesser-known programs that may interest you.
Productivity
Mail (Mail program of choice)
Chrome (Browser of choice, although I use other browsers as well for web testing)
Wunderlist (Organizing and managing daily taks)
Google Calendar (General planning on a weekly/monthly basis)
Music
iTunes (For listening to my own library)
Pandora (For discovering new music)
Spotify (For listening to new weekly releases)
Design
InDesign (Used for layout such as magazines, books, etc)
Illustrator (For creating vector imagery)
Photoshop (For manipulating photos)
Coda (Web development program of choice)
Bridge (For making contact sheets)
Acrobat (For viewing work, mainly PDF’s)
Utility
WordPress (Content Management System of choice)
1Password (Great application for storing all of your passwords and login information)
Billings (For invoicing)
Little Snapper (Application of choice for taking screenshots)
FontDoc (Application for analyzing several fonts at once in a single window)
FileZilla (FTP transfer client of choice)
TextExpander (Great for reusing common strings of code or text)
Little Ipsum (A fantastic text generator)
There you have it! It may surprise you how many programs you actually use in a single day without realizing it. These are all great tools and programs that help me successfully get through the day. If there are a few on here that you are unfamiliar with, I encourage you to try them out.
2012 is finally here and the time has come again where one tries to better themselves with this “fresh start”. Some choose to become involved in fitness, others try out a new diet, and others may decide to pick up a completely new hobby. Whatever it may be, it has become apparent that many struggle to keep focus on achieving the goal they set for the new year.
Although I am not one who looks back at the past much, I want to reference a new beginning that I had committed to at the start of 2011. I told myself that I wanted to start a design business and pursue entrepreneurship. This was definitely the most challenging New Years’ “fresh start” that I have ever made.
Looking now in the present day, I am just a handful of days away from launching a new company of Chris Steurer’s and mine, “blustoy”. Not only did I have the challenge present of starting a new company, but also a challenge in itself to work with someone else where we would need a mutual agreement on many decisions within this start-up. Fortunately, Chris and I share a similar sense of direction while still having complete different skill sets to bring to the table. The moral of this short story is that while there may have been several times where it was easier to just give up and live in the comfort zone, it payed off more so to take a leap into an unknown and experience an adventure of a lifetime.
For this year, I have four (just as significant) challenges that I will face. One will be to graduate college and receive my Bachelor’s degree. Secondly, I will move to the North Side of Chicago leaving my “comfort zone” of living on the Southside. The third will be to find an exciting job after graduation and finally, the greatest challenge, balancing a full-time job with blustoy.
The commitment and dedication I had towards starting this company most certainly has helped prepare me for the coming challenges that will present itself in 2012. I look to 2012 to be the most successful year of my life so far. From graduating, all the way to working with an exciting company and finally, building up blustoy, 2012 will be an epic year.
There you have my approach to New Years resolutions! What is your approach?
