web factory
Delivering under tight deadlines is pretty much what you’re in for, if you’re a web designer. Knowing how to handle it, is what will make you a designer of the web. As many times as I’ve wanted to pull my hair out with unrealistic deadlines and “last minutes”, I also get my adrenaline fix out of it (not that I care to share this with clients ~ these are invisible pixels). I’m guessing, if you’re a web designer, you’re with me on this (don’t worry, you don’t have to admit it out loud).
Well, being as much a junkie as the next developer, I’m the first to to admit there is a limit. So here are some simple tips for how to manage your time so that the next time you get that “I needed it yesterday” call, you can calmly deliver in 3 days (seriously, nothing takes less than 3 days, whatever the task). When all is said and done, your 1 hour rush project is going to occupy you to some degree, over the next 3 days. Accept this. Plan for it. It will make your life less stressful.
That being said, a 3 day rush is almost unheard of. You’re probably looking at something that will take 2 or 3 weeks at least. So what can you do to help reduce the time you need to spend and squeeze this extra project into your schedule (and produce something that doesn’t suck)?
topside down
The war was on. Time was short. And on May 6, 1918 Congress set the rate for air mail postage at 24¢. In a mad rush to beat the inaugural flight on May 15, the fine artists at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing produced the finest example of rushed product ever. But don’t think you’ll be so lucky. In fact, the USPS was frantically trying to reacquire the 100 out 2 million air postage stamps that went out inverted. Turned out to be one the most lucrative mistakes ever.
So, you may have noticed the changing logo in the header. It’s not entirely related to this post. It’s an ongoing project I starting when I first published repeatPenguin. Though making time for it is at the very least, challenging, the idea is to continuously add to the header logo throughout the year. I’m keeping a record of the variances in the graveyard.
the seat of one’s pants
That’s not the way things work for web designers. Mistakes are generally considered bad. You can’t avoid them entirely, but if you cut the fat out of your process, you’ll have that extra few moments to QA, and that can be the one thing that lets you hold tight to your sanity.
Systems will save you. I still struggle with this every day. The hardest thing in web design is managing. Prior to starting my own design firm, I was fortunate enough to work in variety of outfits, from design lackey to creative consultant to managing my own team of designers. Each place I worked, I learned something new, got a little bit more proficient. That said, I still find myself flying by the seat of my pants nearly every day.
The tricks that have helped me a great deal fall into 2 categories. The first being organization.
Having systems in place will earn you your wings. Have a system. From naming files, storing files and managing time lines.
These tasks should be wrote. You don’t want to waste your time looking for emails, hunting for files or saving out file versions. There are loads of tools out there to help you. Personally, my life depends on two. First, Office Time and Gmail. Between the two, I can track my hours (very important) with the click of the mouse and find all my correspondences. Throw in Google Calendar and you’ve got the basis for a business.
The second category could be labeled quite simply “don’t reinvent the wheel.” This is where we can talk about frameworks. I’m not talking about prefab templates. I’ve never found them very useful and if your goal is to become a stronger designer/developer, I don’t think they are very helpful. Rather than templates, I’m talking about usable frameworks. We’ve all seen frameworks for Javascript, PHP, Java and so forth. They are designed to serve as a set of tools and libraries to assist in conventional tasks. If you apply this thinking to CSS, you can save yourself a lot of work.
Every project I’ve worked on, there are basic style sets in common. I have always preferred keeping all my CSS in one document, thus limiting server hits and giving myself a visual cascade I can see all at once. Clearly commenting your styles and using a standard naming convention goes a long way.
if it floats (your boat)
Stick to what works for you. In the midst of writing this article, I came across this brilliant article by Jeff Croft on ALA. Go figure. But he hits on some great points on this topic, if you want to pros and cons. Me, I’ve found a single CSS file with clearly marked code works best. I have a core framework CSS files, that zeros out all the browser defaults and sets up all of my globals and typical architectural classes. This is just a framework, I haven’t actually applied style to any of it. This step gives you a leap into the next project. You can start with something clean and organized, right off the bat.
