I’ve been working off and on over the past couple months on some icons for a new icon set I am planning on releasing. Below are 12 of the icons I’ve designed. It was meant to start out as a social media icon set but quickly grew in my head (and on my to do list) into something much, much bigger so I am making it around 50-75 icons.

I’m not 100% sure when they’ll be released, but it’s coming – I promise Continue Reading

This post is a sneak peek of the new “Picture Perfect” WordPress theme I’m releasing on May 14th over at Giant Themes. This will be a free WordPress theme and it will come with three variations of the home page. To see a couple other screen shots, head over to the Giant Themes post I did about it and also make sure to check out my Flickr page for another screen shot. I’m dropping them all over the place, so pretend it’s a big game of Where’s Waldo and go find them all Continue Reading

A quick note for those who may be unaware, I am a freelance blog writer – you can hire me to write blog posts for your website. In order to showcase my writing a bit more, I’ve put together a page on this site: Writing I’ve Done Elsewhere where you can view an updated list of the sites I’ve written for and the links to each of the articles.

Thousands of tweets, digg front page hits and thousands of comments come from the articles I write. Here are a select few from that ever-growing list that showcase the excessive amount of tweets, comments and digg front page hits.

Top 12 free Content Management Systems (CMS)
Comments: 177 | Tweets: 333

Biting the bullet: 5 reasons why arguing with unruly clients will get you nowhere
Comments: 47 | Digg: Front Page

20 do’s and don’ts of effective web design
Comments: 82 | Tweets: 971 | Digg: Front Page

20 ways to streamline your web business
Comments: 67 | Tweets: 241

Top 12 free Content Management Systems (CMS)
Comments: 42 | Tweets: 232

Writing I’ve Done Elsewhere – check out the full list and contact me if you’d like for me to write on your blog.

So I’m going through my rss reader, trying to prune some of the feeds I’m subscribed to in order to gain a narrow focus on things and free up some of the clutter (more on this in a future post) and I came across a tutorial from the Grafpedia site, titled “Create a special starry effect“. I clicked into it and the images looked strangely familiar. I knew I seen it before but I just couldn’t remember where.

I knew the style looked familiar and reminded me of Abduzeedo, but I couldn’t find the tutorial with a quick search of the tutorial category. However, when I typed in the url from Grafpedia into copyscape, it brought up the Abduzeedo tutorial that was posted back in November 2009!

Check some of the screen shots below of the Grafpedia article in case they remove it and then I’ll discuss why this is definitely bad for business – coming from a site selling memberships for design related files. Continue Reading

Today I am proud to announce that a little over 24 hours ago I launched my first startup company, Giant Themes. It’s been a hell of a ride for sure, and I am excited to see the positive feedback that’s been given so far. I outlined the ups and downs of launching your first startup over on Guerrilla Freelancing, so if you get a minute to check that out, it’d be greatly appreciated. Continue Reading

Yes, I know it’s Feb. already and this post might seem a little better suited for, say, January 1st, but better late than never So, I want to run down my top three goals for 2010 as it relates to my business. It’s not going to be a long post (I promise), so take a second and check it out and see if you’re in a position to help me achieve my goals – and let me know yours in the comments and I’ll see if I can do anything to help you reach yours. Continue Reading

So, you’d think that being a web designer and having to rely on the countless psd files I create for designs, thousands of fonts I have download as well as the brushes, textures, stock images and other various files that help me run my business, I’d actually have a back up of them somewhere – I don’t.

Until today, that is.

I spent the evening last night (until about 6am) working and realized, what the fuck would I do if something bad happened and my computer crashed? I’ve got a few open client projects as well as my own personal projects that I don’t have any type of back up for, and would cost me a shitload of money if I were to lose the files. Continue Reading

As I write this article, I am listening to some ambient sounds, drowning out the chaos around me, writing in the focused air app and sipping my very first green tea. There’s something soothing about it all.

Wait, let me back track for a minute.

I’m walking through the grocery store and I come across the health food isle. Now, I normally do not spend much time there (if any) but tonight was a bit different. I took a stroll down the isle and started looking at all of the food and drinks they had. I came across the tea section and remembered reading somewhere that green tea was good for you. So, I grabbed a box. 48 tea bags in the box for $4.99 – if I was going to do something healthy, it might as well be cheap too.

But how did I end up here, writing this post and telling you all about my evening at the grocery store? Continue Reading

This past week or so I’ve been trying to put together a new setup on my computer that allows me to track expenses, run my payments from clients into an accounting program, track my to do items and keep track of where I’m at in each respective client project. Today I want to talk a bit about the To Do app I’ve actually picked up – and fell in love with.

The simplicity of this web based to do app is what draws me to it the most, I think. It’s also free (they’ve got a paid plan for “extras” in the future, but what you use now is always going to be free) which is a plus for me as I’m always looking to keep my business bootstrapped where I can. Continue Reading

I’ve been working on a new version of my Tennessee Web Design site here over the last few weeks inbetween client projects and also building my first start up site, GIANT Themes. The design itself is about 70% complete and should be done within the next few weeks. I’m hoping to have the site built some time in Feb.

The best part about the new site is that it features the gorilla every had grown to love (ok, maybe it was just me – but a guy can dream, right?). It’s getting a dominant spot in the design and that is what I’m showing you the sneak peek of here. Let me know what you think and if you’re as excited as I am (if not, it’s ok – I love you anyways). Continue Reading