My color theory students have asked me to explain hexadecimal color notation. Their most often-asked question is “What is it?” I will break it down for you in the simplest terms I can. Hexadecimal is a 6-position numeric identifier used to define color in html, css and other code. Each color is designated by 3 pairs of characters. The system is based the binary numbering system. Hexadecimal includes 16,777,216 unique color code combinations. It is an additive system understanding, meaning it represents colors in the Red-Green-Blue (RGB) environment, not the Red-Yellow-Blue (subtractive) color system, which is also known as the Cyan-Magenta-Yellow system. Hexadecimal is used for the additive color system Let’s begin with why white light is the blend of 256 red, 256 green and 256 blue — the full amount or amplitude of each of these primaries. Each primary is at its most present at full saturation, or the amount of 256.  How do we get the 256? In digital images of 8-bit color density, the amount of the 3 additive primaries varies between 0 and 256. There are therefore 256 intensity levels for each primary: R, for G and for B. When you combine all 3 additive primaries equally at their full saturation, the result is 256 x 256 x 256, or 16,777,216. That’s white light. The hexadecimal notation is 6 characters preceded by a hashtag. The 6 characters are a combination of 10 numerals, 0-9, and 6 letters, A-F. The hashtag ( # ) indicates that what’s coming next in a line of code is a hex color notation. The Hex String #000000 There are 3 pairs of binaries in a hex string. Each pair indicates the amount of an additive primary. As the numerals increase, chroma and/or amplitude increase(s). #000000 The first pair indicates the amount of red #000000 The second pair indicates the amount of green #000000 The third pair indicates the amount of blue #000000 This notation indicates zero amount of each primary. Pixels are all OFF. There is no light, so it’s black, which is the absence of light in the additive color model. Achromatic grays are identified with numbers alone, from 1-9. The higher the numbers are, the lighter the gray is:   Since numerals aren’t adequate to notate the full range of color possibility, letters are used to designate higher numbers so that we can create a full range of colors: A=10   B=11   C=12   D=13   E=14   F=15   Colors that appear lighter (tints) have more luminance and less intensity. Their hexadecimal notations are indicated with higher numbers, which shows that they are closer to white light (#ffffff). You can think of it this way: the more Fs there are in the notation, the lighter the color is.   Hexadecimal and RGB Since hexadecimal is a short form expression of RGB amounts, here is a hexadecimal notation compared to an RGB notation: #FF33CC = 255/51/204 The amount of red is FF or 255, the amount of green is 33 or 51, and the amount of blue is  CC or 204. Here is a screen shot of my Adobe Photoshop

n addition to the face, a person’s hands are the most expressive part of the human anatomy. Movements, positions and gestures help us to communicate and express emotion. A dissatisfying quick sketch experience in a cafe sent me on a few days of study recently to recapture the joy and technique of drawing hands. Hands are not something you can ignore or be lazy about, both due to their complex structure and expressive nature. There is as much personality in a person’s hands as there is in his or her face. So being able to draw hands with some accuracy is important if we want to communicate well when drawing the human form and likenesses. The hand has a very complex structure, With all its joints, planes and landmarks, drawing them is as intimidating as drawing the entire body. It becomes easier if we look beyond all the details to the structure and basic shapes involved. The idea is to reduce complex elements to their simplest shapes. When you do this, you are able to draw even the most complex forms with ease. I was drawing during lunch at a cafe, and picked out a gentleman across the room as my subject.  Since he was also eating lunch, he was moving a lot, and was partially hidden behind the person seated beside him. As I drew, I had to improvise pose and features a bit, including his hands. In drawing the hand, I realized I had lost sight of its structure. What I had drawn wasn’t communicating well. Because of that, I studied up on hands, relearning what I already knew and reinforcing it by drawing a number of hand studies. Begin with simple shapes Since the fingers are attached to and supported by the hand, begin by blocking in that basic shape. The shape of the palm is a square. The fingers extend from one side — each one anchored in its knuckle. Think of each knuckle as an oval, and the fingers as a set of cylinders or rectangles. The thumb extends from the opposite corner, aided by a triangular wedge of flesh. The fleshy base of the thumb is oval or even teardrop shaped, and the pad at the tip of the thumb is an oval.   Draw Through The hand has volume. The palm and fingers all have front, side, top, bottom, and back planes. Obviously, we can’t see them all from the same point of view, but we need to understand that they exist and think “through the form” to depict the volume. Overlap Forms to Depict Volume Overlapped shapes, where one is in front or or on top of another, immediately creates a sense of depth. When one thing is behind another they cannot both be on the same visual plane. Therefore, look for places where forms overlap, where exterior contours continue into the interior of the form. Capture the gesture Look for directional lines that unite hand to wrist and fingers to palm. Either the thumb or the index finger will take the lead when the hand is in motion. Look for those

Even if you’ve worked with it for years — on screen or on paper — you will always be in a learning mode when it comes to color. It was about 15 years after I had completed my basic and advanced color theory courses that I first became aware of a visual principle known as the Bezold Effect. Now, this perception is part of seeing things. We encounter this and other visual effects every waking hour. It’s in defining the many principles and elements of design that we can begin to work with them effectively. What is the Bezold Effect? The premise behind the Bezold Effect is similar to Josef Albers‘ color relativity principle, which describes how our perception of a color is affected by its surrounding colors. The Bezold Effect is similar, in that it also is a visual perception. Albers described it in his book, The Interaction of Color: There is a special kind of optical mixture, the Bezold Effect, named after its discoverer, Wilhelm von Bezold (1837–1907). He recognized this effect when searching for a method through which he could change the color combinations of his rug designs entirely by adding or changing 1 color only. Apparently, there is so far no clear recognition of the optical-perceptual conditions involved. In fact, Albers’ theory of color relativity can be considered an expansion on the Bezold Effect principle. And Albers’ colleague, Johannes Itten, reframed the principle in identifying simultaneous contrast. The Behold Effect is simply the fact that the substitution of a single color causes every other color in the design to shift in relationships. Changing just one color in a design changes the entire design in composition, personality, spatial perception and weight. When one color is changed, relationships between all colors in the design are altered. It is important to understand that the color relationships do not change evenly. Some colors will appear slightly lighter, or slightly darker, while others will appear significantly darker or lighter, or more saturated, or desaturated. Design Analysis Here is an example of this change by one of my students. The warm yellow in the left design has been changed to a brown (a mixture of red and green). The only change made was the color change. So let’s take a look at how the design differs  due to the color change. Meet Pattern A and Pattern B:     Intensity: Pattern A has a more obvious spatial depth. The saturated yellow is thrown forward by the olive green background. The desaturated blue also advances toward us, and competes for our attention with the yellow. Value: In Pattern A, the blue and the yellow are about equal in value (the same degree of lightness), so both colors advance to the same degree in front of the dark background. In Pattern B, the brown is not much lighter in value than the olive background, and so sits in front of the background but does not come forward very far. The blue shapes come forward on their own because they are much lighter than the other 2 colors in the design. The first color

What do you do about scope creep? Should you avoid it? Should you agree to it? The affect of scope creep — when a scope of work is increased or otherwise altered after you have started a job — on your bottom line is either positive or negative, depending on what you decide to do, and when you decide to do it. Here is a real-life scope creep scenario. What would you have done if you were the freelancer? I did a job that started out as a 12-page booklet. My client had tight deadline, and I told him I could only accept the job if there were no changes to the copy. I also told him that if I didn’t have to handle the printing it would save him some time. He said he had a printer all lined up. Right after I started the project, he added 4 pages, but informed me he was authorized only for the initial $1,050 fee. He had also made changes to the copy 3 times. I had assumed he would understand that, by adding 4 pages, my fee would increase. He didn’t agree. I could have stopped the work but I felt this was too harsh. He was one of my biggest customers. So I finished the project and sent him the final art file. He then came back with more copy changes and also informed me that I needed to handle the printing. Although he claimed several times that he could pay only $1,050 for this project, should I charge him the actual amount anyway?  You should charge him the actual amount. But you may not be able to because of the decisions you made along the way, and what you allowed to happen. How you do business and how you value  your work and experience have a direct affect on your profitability and on your reputation. Scope creep is very common, and uninformed freelancers often panic and fear losing the client when more work is requested. Don’t be one of those. Instead, establish policies and put systems in place that enable you to respond well and create a mutually beneficial outcome. In this case, the mutual benefit is that the client receives a quality finished work and you are compensated appropriately for doing the work. That’s good business. Never assume anything! Ever! Communicate with your client immediately when they change the project. Pick up the phone if  you need to, and then follow up in writing. Tell him or her that you certainly can and will do the add-on work, and it will cost this much in addition to the initially agreed-upon amount, and it will impact the production schedule by adding this number of days. I embrace scope creep, because it means more income for me! When a client adds things to the project, I do a happy dance. I communicate the details of the additions and the additions fees and time in a written change order. I do nothing until the change order is approved. In fact, I stop all work on the

Every independent creative professional should have a web site. Hands down, WordPress.org is the most popular self-hosted content management web site framework. Over 50% of self-hosted web sites are built with the software. CMS software in general is a common target for hackers and spammers because of its popularity. So, if you have a self-hosted WordPress web site (meaning you’re not setup on WordPress.com but are using the software downloaded from wordpress.org on a hosting service of your choice) web site, you should take steps to harden your web site against hacking. No web site is completely hack-proof. Although you may think your site or blog is so insignificant that no one will attempt to breach it, every web site is a target. Think of your web site as your online home where  you keep the front and back doors locked and install extra protection to keep your stuff safe. Whether you have valuable stuff internet thieves want to acquire, or squatters come along and want to set up a base camp, your site is never out of danger. That’s just the way it is. So you want to do all you can to deter and discourage hack attempts. Take these 12 steps to strengthen your web site security. 1. Host your site on a platform that specializes in WordPress. Why? They will understand the software’s idiosyncracies and will have knowledgeable support to help you when you need it. Here is a solid list of the top 10 hosts for WordPress. My own sites, and my clients’ sites, are hosted on SiteGround.* 2. Use a https site. An SSL certificate is a bit of data that encrypts (hides) information about a web site.  It ensures personal information is kept safe during transmission, and increases visitor trust for your web site whether or not you run an online store, a membership site, or just collect emails for your newsletter. Be sure your WP login page is also https. 3. Use a security plugin to monitor activity on your site, scan for malicious files and block or throttle suspicious activity.  Securi is effective and popular. I use WordFence. Look here for a host of other options. 4. Install a WordPress firewall. A firewall is a blockade that sits between your WP installation on your hosting server and the rest of the internet. You will want to use a firewall that does not muck up your .htaccess file and that shuts down brute force attacks on XML-RPC. 5. Use long, complex passwords, and require them for anyone else with admin access, and any member/subscriber. Secure passwords include uppercase, lowercase, symbols and numerals. WordPress allows the use of very long passwords. It will never limit you to “between 7-12 characters in length”. 6. Use strong passwords for your database. 7. Limit login attempts. You can do this through a security plugin or through a separate plugin that offers this function. Basically, you want to block anyone attempting to log in more that X number of times (X is an amount you specify in the plugin’s settings.) 8. Visit your site often, even though you’re not adding new content.

Risk. It’s a small word with big impact. Taking risks involves change and the unknown. We’re not all that comfortable with either concept. I was in conversation with a few other solo creatives talking about life as a freelancer. Inevitably, we came around to discussing the risks we take. We agreed that we risk on a daily basis, simply because we are independent creatives. How we think about risk affects how well we do in business and in life. I think it’s a great topic to share with you, because risk is large perceived as negative. What is risk? Risk is both a noun and a verb. The Oxford Dictionary defines risk as exposure to danger. Risk is what we do when we consider doing something where a good outcome is not guaranteed. Risk can be understood as a barrier to entry. It’s where we weigh the pros and cons of making a move. To take a risk is to make a change, and any change is disruptive. Things will not be the same going forward. Fear of risk creates that barrier. We entertain all sorts of “what ifs”. Do we really want to change, even when we know we need to? For some, just thinking about making a change is risky. When we risk we sacrifice one thing to obtain something else. If you think about it, we do this many times over in a day, freelancer or not. Risk Is Neutral Risk is, in fact, a neutral concept. Whether it’s thought of as positive or negative depends on the person doing the thinking. What’s risky for you is not automatically risky for me. One thing is certain: in order to achieve our goals, we need to take risks. As freelancers, risks can be huge. We hold onto bad clients because we don’t want to risk losing income. When we recognize the need for change, we calculate the potential loss the change will create compared to the potential gain. We risk nothing in making that comparison. We take the risk only when we make the move. The calculated assessment is this: What will I give up to gain something better? When we ask ourselves, What’s the worst that could happen?, we are assessing risk. Risk As A Barrier If taking a risk is taking a chance, there are a number of reasons we avoid it. Each barrier is about being safe and secure. Do any of these sound familiar? Fear of letting others down. Whenever we make a change, we are likely to stop meeting people’s expectations. One example of this from my own experience is when I decided — for good reason — to change the focus and the name of this blog. I originally started my blog to educate clients about design and branding. I noticed that when I wrote about design principles, or offered tips for improving drawing skills, or advice about freelancing, I got more interest from people beyond my circle of clients, So I made a calculated shift in what I wrote about, and started offering tips and tutorials for

Have you ever gotten involved on a project and then realized that neither the project nor the client is ideal? The project that was going to be so great for you turns into a nightmare, and you’re stuck. We’ve all been there. We’ve each had these experiences as freelancers, if we been freelancing for any length of time. How can you avoid the trauma and the drama? By asking these 12 questions before your client signs your contract! When you do a little homework and investigation up front, you can reduce the risk of taking on a client who turns sour on you once the project has begun. When you can make an assessment in advance of signing the contract, you have the information you need and freedom (and freelancing is about freedom, remember) to walk away before you’ve made any commitments. Working with a client means you are in a relationship with that client. Client relationships are more like marriages than they are like dating. You have made a commitment and you have to make it work. You need to see it through. It’s a bad idea for a freelancer to simply walk away from a project out of exasperation with the client. The best thing is to not get to that point in the first place. No matter how great a prospect appears to be, doing some strategic on-boarding can ensure you are working with the best kind of client. Ask your prospects these 12 questions before you agree to work with them: Have you ever worked with a designer (copywriter, photographer, illustrator) before? In asking this, you want to know what the client will expect from you in the way of  a working relationship. You do not want to work with enterprises that have not experienced working with an independent creative. Don’t make yourself the guinea pig they cut their teeth on. If the prospect has worked with a designer in the past, ask 2 follow-up questions: How did it go? Why are you making a change? You really do want to know the reason the prospect is talking with you about their upcoming project and not their previous designer. You also want to look for clues about how they regard that person. Are they speaking respectfully or dissing the person? You can also check with their previous designer, if you know who that is, about how things went with the client. This may be tricky if they have not actually moved on from that designer, but it can be helpful to you. Consider is as checking a reference. When did you establish your business (or organization)? Do not work with start-ups. Let other independent creatives work with start-ups. Again, you do not want to do work with an enterprise that has little knowledge of its market, does not know the viability of its product or service, or does not have history and culture you can draw from for your creative solutions. The one exception is if the start-up is a new venture by an already successful business owner. You can look at the owner’s

With all the options we have available to us for selecting colors, how to create the right color scheme for a situation is still a common dilemma. While we work with color as designers and artists, the need to make a color decision can stop us in our tracks and keep us pondering. We cannot simply use colors that appeal to us personally. This is the issue when working with clients who are going to use your creations to build their businesses. Color choices need to be appropriate for their customers. Appropriate colors work for the purpose of the design or artwork, and are meaningful to the end user. They should not be based on the style preferences of the client or the designer. Here are a few ways to approach color scheme selection as a designer, web designer or illustrator: Use color theory While color theory is a complex topic, understanding the properties of color and how we see color is vital to using it well. Color theory includes a logical, systematic study of color character, interaction, psychology and scheme constructions using the 12-hue and other systems. This makes color selection very practical because it’s based on a system in which colors are harmonious and balanced. An analogous scheme is made up of related hues with various colors created by tinting, shading and toning hues. This example includes orange, red and red-orange hue families: A complementary scheme uses 2 opposite hues with tints, shades and tone variations. Here are blue and orange working together: Choose from existing color schemes Successful color schemes are all around you. “Steal” and modify. One technique I often use is to pick colors from a photograph and create a scheme from them. Adobe Capture is an app you use to collect and share “hidden” color palettes in your immediate surroundings or in photos stored in your cloud library. Borrow color schemes There are a number of online creative communities where you can create and share color palettes.  Color Hunter lets you upload a photo and extract color schemes from it. On Colour Lovers you can create, share and discuss palettes, patterns and more. Consider the purpose of your project Who is the audience? What do you want to communicate? Do you want an active scheme that evokes excitement and vitality? Select colors from contrasting hue families and include wide variations in value among the colors: If you want a scheme that is quiet and peaceful, reduce the range of value contrast: Note that both schemes above use the same hue families, but manipulate value and saturation levels to create very different personalities. Do you need an ominous,  heavy scheme? Select colors that are high value (low luminance) and reduce the range of value contrast. Do you need something that has a nostalgic, old-time feel? Select hues from the warm side of the 12-hue circle and neutralize them a bit to subdue the color. Consider additive and subtractive color Color on your computer and devices is light (direct light), and color printing, paint, ink, pencil, and dyes are pigment. Light involves the additive color

o begin with, social media is not about selling, but about conversations and providing value. Be knowable, likable and trustworthy. To make the most of social media for yourself and your followers, schedule time each week to work on it. Social media needs to be part of your marketing mix. 1. Pick your platforms. It is not possible to be fully present on all platforms. Don’t get wrapped up in the frenzy of what’s trending. For instance, Snapchat is trending. But it may not be right for your business. Where is your ideal customer? Where do you have the time and resources to serve your ideal client? You can totally rock ONE social platform. If your time is very limited, pick the one where you will reach your ideal customer most effectively. If you have multiple brands and some significant time (say, 2-3 hours each week to spend on social marketing), pick no more than 3 platforms for each brand. I have multiple brands: illustrator, designer, instructor and mentor. Here is how I spread things out over my platforms: Illustrator: Instagram, Facebook Page — I post new work, old work, work in progress and related content. Designer: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn — I post new work, blog articles, events, information about working with clients. Mentor: Twitter, Facebook Page — I post content about freelancing, copyright, contracts, working with clients, and such. Instructor: YouTube — I post tutorials and short critiques. I am still looking at Periscope, meaning that I’m not sure what I want to do with it yet. As for Snapchat, I have decided it’s not my best place to be. 2. Decide on a primary message for each platform and stay on topic. Each platform is different, so your approach on each should be different. Instagram is a wonderful platform to show work-in-progress stills and videos. Twitter is not the best for that. If you’re a writer, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are optimal for posting original articles and curated content.  Your Facebook Fan Page is not the place to discuss politics, or anything else that is off-topic, unless your fan page is about politics. 3. Share valuable content that your readers will appreciate. Where you’ve created or curated it, you want to post content that benefits your readers and followers. Who are your influencers? Follow them, re-Tweet their content, promote their work. Eventually you will start getting their attention, which is valuable to you. It’s the give 4. Incorporate live video. Whether or not you’re comfortable with live streaming or creating videos, they are the preferred form of content on social media. Live video is most likely to build your following, especially if you are again, offering value and include a call to action (join my list, buy my ebook, sign up for my training…). Using live video saves time, and it’s authentic. You don’t edit it, you don’t write it, and that’s okay. Periscope, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook all feature live streaming options. If you commit to streaming daily

he current mantra for creative freelancers, and for any independent business owner, is to create or define a niche and aggressively market to that niche. Deciding on what niche you should serve begins with knowing who hires creative freelancers. You will want to have a good idea of the freelance marketplace before figuring out where you fit into it. In my experience, it is a good idea to understand the general landscape of freelancing opportunities and the kind of enterprises that commonly work with freelancers. Why? This knowledge establishes a foundation for targeting prospective clients. By surveying the larger landscape, you are casting a broad net and identifying specific opportunities on which to focus, and also eliminating others. Note: I’ve used the word, Hire in the article title not because freelancers are hired as an employee, but because it is a word commonly used when referring to working relationships. Freelancers are not employees and do not work for their clients, but with them. Clients, Not Customers Freelancers fall into the business-to-business (B2B) sector of the creative marketplace. You are not making things to sell to consumers, which is known as business-to-consumer or B2C. Instead, you are providing professional services. Although you may have an Etsy shop, or sell goods on your own web site, your focus as a freelancer is to deploy your skills, experience and talent in the service of something or someone who is engaged in promoting goods or services to their customers and clients. By surveying the larger landscape, you are casting a broad net and identifying specific opportunities on which to focus A client is someone who uses the services of another. They commission or contract for these services. They communicate their needs, goals and market position to the independent professional, who then creates solutions specifically for the client. A customer is someone who buys goods or services from a retailer or a business. Customers look for bargains, become loyal to brands, and may purchase from a store regularly, but do not enter into contracted relationships to obtain those good and services. Another difference between client and customer is that a client receives a customized solution, while a customer receives something that is offered to everyone in the same form and manner to everyone else who buys it. Customers buy things that already exist. Clients contract for things that don’t yet exist to be brought into existence. Freelancers have clients, not customers. A client is an individual, company or organization who contracts directly with the independent creative. When you work client-direct, there is no agency or firm acting as a middleman. You are not sub-contracted by another creative professional. The client comes directly to you with a specific need or problem, and you create the solution for them. Depending upon the size and type of the client’s enterprise, you will work with an owner, executive director, partner, marketing director, president or vice president. An agent is a middleman, intermediary or representative. Freelancers often work with agencies that place them in short term jobs — part-time or full-time — with the agents’ clients. Depending

is one of the formal elements of 2-dimensional design. By formal we are referring to something that is form-based. Form is the visual appearance of something. In addition to shape, the formal elements of design are point, line, plane, space, color and texture. Designs, and all visual art, are built using these elements. Line, shape, color and texture are arranged in a defined space, positioned at various points within the visual plane in relationship to each other and to the entire design space. Much of what designers deal with involves placing shapes in relationship to each other (a design space) in a meaningful way. These shape relationships help us create and understand space. They are the building blocks of form, and can be combined in limitless ways. These shape relationships are very closely related to the Pathfinder Palette options in Adobe Illustrator. The shape relationships are: Detached Shapes are positioned side by side. They are separated by negative space. Touching The edges of the shapes meet, and there is no interval negative space between them. Overlapped A shape sits in front of or on top of another, hiding part of the shape underneath it. Interpenetration A shape is overlapping another, and is transparent, so that the shape underneath it is visible. United The overlapping shapes combine into a single new shape. Subtraction The shape sitting in front overlaps and removes part of shape underneath. Intersection Only the common area of overlapping shapes is visible. Division Shapes overlap and subdivide or fragment into multiple shapes. Each one is filled separately with a different color. The number of shapes is multiplied.