In this round-up we have collected a selection of feature-rich jQuery typography plugins that will give you more control to precisely position and re-size each letter of your web-typography. We have also added in a few plugins for animating your text, some plugins for controlling responsive type, and also a bunch of unique plugins that will recreate some fantastic text effects, that can usually only be created using a graphic editor.

FlowType.JS

FlowType.js lets you configure the font-size and line-height ratios of your typography, helping you improving their overall appeal. You can also specify maximum and minimum width thresholds to control FlowType.js.

FlowType.JS

Everyone knows that education is the best investment a designer can make to further his or her career. But what does that mean, exactly? Should you go back to school (or attend for the first time)? Should you find a mentor or study the greats repeatedly until you perfect your craft?

Perhaps you should do these things… and perhaps not.

Today, we’re going to explore specific ways to further educating yourself as a designer, and apply what you learn immediately to becoming better at what you do, as well as being more desirable to clients.

Marketing and The Unhappy Freelancer

Let me start off with a story about a person I know. This person is a freelance designer who really wanted to get more quality business. His work was quite good, and he worked hard for his clients, but he was struggling with attracting the kinds of people he really wanted to work with. His clients were the lower-end type, always giving him problems when it came to payment and deciding exactly what they wanted him to design for them.

This designer could have benefited greatly from learning how to properly market his services. There is definitely a right way to reach out to top clients, and there is a wrong way, and making an effort to learn the difference can make an enormous difference in your success as a freelancer. Market yourself and your work the wrong way enough times and you can do real damage to your potential to earn more and attract better clients.

Learning your niche – knowing the ins and outs of your client base as well as the customers they serve – is the best way to tailor your marketing efforts for maximum effectiveness.

Get A Design Mentor

Mentors can teach you a lot about design, and can help you greatly improve your craft. But they can also provide a critical look into the industry from a veteran’s perspective, something you’re not likely to have if you’ve been working for less than a certain number of years. Personally, I believe every designer should seek out a mentor – there are tons of experienced designers out there who would love the chance to help guide and foster a future industry rock star. Making time to reach out to people who can help you often costs nothing, yet it’s one of the most important things you can do to grow your career.

The problem is that younger designers often don’t ask to be mentored, believing that more experienced designers are too busy to help them. Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, you need to know one thing about designers who have reached a certain level of renown: they love it when people give them compliments and ask them stimulating questions about their craft. Especially younger designers.

Try it – email 10 of your favorite design “celebrities” and think of a few short but intriguing questions to ask them. The worst that can happen is that they say no, but if your questions are good enough, they almost certainly won’t.

Test, Then Invest

Sometimes you might have to invest a lot more money, time, or resources into learning something than you initially thought. If you hate networking, for example, and know you will have to expend a lot of time, money, and energy going to networking events and building relationships with people in the design industry, you may question whether or not you genuinely need to make that investment and expand your network.

Sometimes, you don’t need to make a significant investment to achieve a goal. If you honestly feel that you can get by without making a particular investment, then test this assumption before going any further. This is an excellent way to learn what works and what doesn’t, both in your design work and in the promoting of your freelance business.

In fact, this is my absolute favorite way to learn anything related to my own design career. Research and mentors are great, but in the end, you must test each and every piece of advice you get from your sources. If it doesn’t work on a practical level, there’s no reason to keep playing the guessing game.

In Conclusion

Your design education doesn’t end with college or university. It starts there.

The acquisition of knowledge to further your career is a lifelong pursuit, if you’re doing it correctly. Remember that education, in whatever form it comes, is never a waste of time, money, or effort. When you don’t invest in your own education, you are losing a game you may not even realize you’re playing. Your competition is certainly busy investing in themselves, and will come out ahead if you aren’t right there with them, putting in the time, money, and energy to improve your edge and win over clients.

It is that time of the week again, a chance for you to sit back and enjoy some of our favorite web and mobile designs from this past week.

You may also like to browse the Web & Mobile Creativity Archives.

Spieker Design

Thomas Vimare

Vimeo Annual Report 2013

Comic Sans Criminal

Thirty Years of Mac

Two Arms Inc.

Medium.com (Mobile App Concept)

Vintape (iOS App)

From time to time we come across a design creation that is truly unique and totally blows us away. Today’s gallery post features one of those remarkable creations.

Daniel Reuber, a 20 year old graphic designer from Germany, has created a unique typeface made entirely of realistic flames, entitled Inferno Typeface. The typeface, based on a bold sans-serif, consists of 26 upper-cased letters and has been designed as part of typographic exhibition in which he aims to create more typefaces using the elements as inspiration.

Below we have highlighted our favorites:

The Inferno Typeface Series

Inferno Typography by Daniel Reuber

A few months ago, Apple released their long-awaited iOS7 update to users around the world. It was the single biggest visual update to iOS since the release of the original iPhone in 2007 and as you may already know, a lot of people aren’t too happy with the redesign.

Apple has been subjected to fierce competition in the smartphone market over the last couple of years (primarily from Android) and after more than six years without a redesign, iOS6′s skeuomorphic design was begining to look pretty tired. Not good news in a fiercely competitive market.

Unlike almost all other brands, Apple actually produces both the software and hardware for their devices but Apple’s core product is definitely their software (i.e. iOS). In some respects, the iPhone hardware actually acts as the product packaging as Apple is primarily a software company. It’s the software that makes their devices unique.

As this guide on rebranding and redesigning product packaging points out, brands often opt to redesign their product packaging with the aim of quickly increasing relevancy and to draw attention to their brand, but in Apple’s case, they opted to do the opposite. Rather than redesign the iPhone hardware (i.e. the packaging), they opted to redesign the software (i.e. the core product), even though some would almost certainly argue that the iPhone hardware is just as overdue for a redesign as iOS itself.

Now, given the fact that an estimated 79% of all iOS devices are now running iOS7, iOS7 should offer a perfect reflection of Apple’s core brand, but is this actually the case? Well, yes and no.

iOS6 vs. iOS7: First Impressions

Image Source

When you compare iOS6 and iOS7, it’s instantly obvious that the redesign is far from subtle. Every aspect of the operating system has been entirely redesigned. It’s this redesign that has received quite a backlash from many Apple customers (and design critics of course) with many commenting on how childish the new ‘neon’ colour scheme looks. This is where the problems begin; I mean, since when has Apple ever been remotely classed as ‘childish’?

A lot of people have also commented on how iOS7 appears to take a lot of inspiration from Android and to be honest, there are certain areas where you would have to agree.

Image Source

If you take a look at the comparison of the iOS7 vs. Android Jelly Bean lock screen above, you’ll notice a lot of similarities. Now, I’m Apple’s biggest fan but even in iOS6, it was pretty clear that Apple borrowed aspects such as the notification centre from Android. While many consumers might not have noticed this subtle copying in iOS6, iOS7 has brought the UI of Android and iOS closer than ever before and now it’s pretty much impossible not to notice some similarities.

This is one of the reasons that I personally think iOS7 is a poor reflection of Apple’s core brand. For decades, Apple has been known as an innovative company, the company that simply doesn’t care what their competition is doing as they’re going to do things better anyway. It’s a somewhat arrogant view but it’s almost always worked. It was proven when they released the original iPhone as there was quite literally nothing like it on the market at all, it was a hugely innovative device.

While it’s evident (at least to me) that Google initially swiped many features of iOS for early Android releases, it seems that the tables have now turned. Apple appears to be ‘borrowing’ features from Android and this certainly isn’t what the Apple brand is known for.

It’s Far From Perfect

Anyone that has upgraded to iOS7 (including myself) is likely to have experienced a few glitches in the last few months. While Apple has been quick to issue updates and patches for the most serious bugs (e.g. security bugs), there are still a lot of bugs remaining and to be honest, they’re annoying.

In all honesty, there’s always going to be a few bugs when such a major redesign is released and while Apple certainly hasn’t got things as wrong as Microsoft usually do with Windows (just look at Windows Vista for example), I believe that there’s more bugs than there should be.

The above screenshot is actually taken from my own iPad Mini and as you can see, things aren’t how they should be. I admit this was a one-off but I’ve also experienced problems with iCloud synchronisation and many other aspects. I also personally think the Calendar app is terrible and that there are many inconsistencies in the UI design (the inverse gradients on the Mail and App Store icons for example). It’s also annoying how the old iOS6 keyboard appears in roughly half of the apps used; I honestly see no reason why this has to be the case.

Once again, it’s here that I believe iOS7 fails to reflect Apple’s core brand. Apple is known for releasing products that are as close to perfect as can be, even if doing so means that they’re late to the market. It seems that this time, Apple has given into pressure from the competition.

We also have to remember that Apple is a premium brand and their products are sold at premium prices. An iPhone 5S is almost double the price of Google’s Nexus 5 handset and aside from Touch ID, many would argue that the iPhone 5S falls short in comparison.

The bottom line is that you pay a premium for Apple products because they’re known for their attention to detail and desire for perfection. The current buggy iOS7 certainly falls short of these expectations.

Fragmentation Between iOS7 And Mac OSX

One of the reasons that Apple doesn’t licence their software to other hardware manufacturers is to ensure perfect harmony between software and hardware. If you’re lucky enough to own both an iPad and iPhone running iOS7, you’ll notice that the design is consistent between both devices as they’re both running the same OS.

Obviously, Mac OSX is an entirely different operating system but prior to iOS7, the design of iOS6 and Mac OSX was consistent too. iOS6 featured the same visual style as Mac OSX and many of the icons were the same too (e.g. Safari and Calendar). Now, with the release of iOS7, there’s fragmentation between the two operating systems.

If you look at the image above (which is a screenshot taken from Mac OSX Mavericks: the latest version of Mac OSX), you’ll notice that the design is still reminiscent of iOS6. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the Notification Centre which clearly features an iOS6-like design.

You’ll also notice that the overall colour scheme and many of the icons are completely different in OSX than in iOS7.

For me, this is yet another frustrating reason why iOS7 fails to represent Apple’s core brand. Apple are constantly striving for harmony between software and hardware as well as the various offerings of their product line but clearly, iOS7 falls short.

If you compare the UI of iOS7 and Mac OSX in the image above, you’d be forgiven for assuming the operating systems were created by entirely separate companies. If you compare this to Windows 8 (dektop and mobile), you’ll notice that Apple falls short in terms of creating a consistent experience across their entire product line.

Conclusion

Clearly, iOS7 fails to reflect Apple’s core brand in many ways. It’s far from perfect, there are many design-related errors, it’s buggy, the design is inconsistent with Mac OSX and perhaps worst of all, it almost certainly copies Android in some respects.

Despite the many problems though, I think there are a few ways in which iOS7 is the perfect representation of Apple’s core brand. For a start, it’s certainly a bold and ambitious design and you can clearly see what Apple was trying to achieve, it’s just a shame they fell a little short this time.

What’s more, despite the fact that many of the people upgrading to iOS7 don’t like the iOS7 experience, Apple has offered no way out. With Apple products, the deal has always been that Apple decides what is best; the user has very little control over the visual aspect of the UI when compared with something like Android.

It’s nice to see that Apple are still making bold design decisions and aspiring to be the best, I just hope the bugs are sorted out soon!

The virtual currency Bitcoin has in the last few years truly taken the web by storm. It could just be the curency of the future. Although, and even after reading everything I can about it, I still have no clear idea of what it is, nor how it really works. Anyway, and putting our lack of Bitcoin knowledge aside, we have a cracking freebie for all you guys that do understand it.

Designed by the guys over at Freepik, we have a huge Bitcoin icon set for you. The pack contains 100 icons in many varied styles, comes in SVG and JPG formats, and can be freely used in both your personal or commercial projects.

Here they are:

The Bitcoin Icon Set Preview

Download & License

You are free to use the Bitcoin Icon Set in both your commercial and personal projects.

In my early days — prior to selling my web agency and starting uGurus, a hub helping web professionals build successful businesses — I would read books that advocated “networking” as a means to build your business. Okay, great, so I attended a bunch of networking events.

More often than not, these events were pretty worthless.

One time I went to a Village Inn coffee shop, and as introductions went around the room, it occurred to me that a) I wasn’t in the market to buy a house b) I didn’t need a financial advisor because I was broke and c) I wasn’t going to take any vitamins that required me to sell them to my friends and family once I started taking them.

At one point in my “network everywhere” tenure, I joined a group called Social Selection that met at a bar once a week. The purpose of the group was to form business connections through a tight-knit group of social thinkers. I think it was on Tuesday nights. You see, I don’t really remember, because the real purpose of the group was to get totally drunk under the disguise of “networking.”

While I did form some lifelong contacts in this group, I realized that I needed something more meaningful to really impact my business.

Meaningful networking can be tough though. Especially in the web business. For most of our waking hours, our work ties us to the desk under the glow of the monitor. Getting out and shaking hands can sometimes be a huge leap.

Especially if you are an introvert. I’m not. But before I get into my tactics on how to conquer loneliness and build a stellar network, it’s important to know if you are an extrovert (party time!) or an introvert (hackathon!).

Are You an Introvert or an Extrovert?

I’m oversimplifying this to the max, but introverts build energy when they are by themselves and deplete energy when interacting with others. Extroverts are the opposite. They deplete energy while alone and build it while around others.

I don’t think personality definitions are totally black and white. There is a lot of grey. The important thing is to figure out which way you lean.

If you find yourself totally beat after 45 minutes of networking, then you are likely an introvert. It’s going to be difficult to build a successful business if you just stay latched to your computer. Don’t avoid it, just make sure that you have plenty of alone time directly before and following an event. I would also be careful to not schedule multiple events per week. Probably just one event will do the trick. If you attend a multi-day conference, make sure you find time to fill up your tank by zoning out without people around you.

If you find yourself swinging from the chandelier after hour six at an event, then chances are you have extrovert blood. While this is going to make networking a natural talent of yours, it doesn’t mean that meaningful networking will be easy.

I fell into the early trap, as an extrovert, of just going to everything all of the time. I didn’t think much of my intentions. It was just like, “yeah, I’m going to that, and that, and that.” I failed to be strategic about the types of networking I was doing.

On the flip side, my business partner Steve Thiel, is an introvert. He approaches networking with a plan. He knows exactly who he wants to talk to at an event and the topics he’s interested in spending time talking about. He has the sense to accomplish what he wants to and get the hell out of there.

Both approaches can work great and we can each learn from the other. When I remember to “think like Steve,” I get the added benefit of being more strategic, but still leaving plenty of room for chance introductions.

Get Started With Your Industry

One of the best things I ever did was to start attending industry events. Whether it was local meetups about web design or big conferences like Adobe MAX, I forked up the money and allocated the time to get involved with people shaping the web landscape.

Getting involved in the industry of my craft helped me build a network of other experts around the world that I could rely on for contracting, referrals, and brainstorms.

(Brent Weaver interviews attendee at Adobe MAX 2013)

Networking with other like-minded people is a lot easier than breaking into an industry where you have less in common. I like the idea of starting here because it feels natural. Getting to nerd out with fellow webophiles can help break the sense of work-from-home loneliness that we often feel.

You should look at what technologies you use and seek out local meetups around that. For instance, if you are building on WordPress, check Automatic’s website for listings of WordPress Meetups and WordCamps. Same goes for Drupal. Meetup.com has tons of other related meetups around design, development, and entrepreneurship.

My next move would be to attend events that you think possible channel partners might attend. I identified other marketing and ad agencies as great potential sources of continuous leads. There is a national organization called Ad Club that has local chapters all over the United States. This group was a treasure trove of great contacts that all needed web and digital subcontractors.

While it’s great to meet with other people that speak your own language, make sure you don’t overdo it within your industry. It’s easy to get lost in thinking you are making big progress with your craft, but failing to meet actual customers. Most of our customers aren’t going to be hanging out at events, unless of course you are just working with other web pros and agencies.

I highly recommend attending at least one national level event per year. You can expect to pay a decent clip for your conference pass as well as flight and accommodation, but it’s worth it. These events are going to be the cornerstone of you forming a national and international support network.

They will also give you a glimpse of the big trends. This is important when you are setting your annual strategy as a company. To know what big ideas are happening in web in terms of technology, design concepts, and business models.

I’ve never regretted spending money to attend a conference.

Focus on a Target Market

Keep in check how many of your own industry events you attend…unless of course web is your target market. Otherwise, make sure you allow time and money for attending events that your target market attends.

(Brent Weaver and Steve Thiel attend industry conference on Connection & Collaboration)

It’s possible to have many target markets, but if your marketing efforts are going to be effective, you need to pick a target for a fixed period of time.

Almost every target market has local, national, and international level events. Let’s take the example of restaurants. In Denver there is EatDenver, in Colorado the CRA, then there is a national conference and association. I’m sure you can find a TON of additional events surrounding restaurants if you open your target to food brands, supplies, and hospitality.

These are going to be structured very much like our own industry in that, on the local level, they are going to be driven by informal meetups, association-based events, and fundraisers. On the national and international level, they will be organized by the big associations and typically be conferences.

These events are going to be all about talking to potential customers. These folks probably don’t know much about what you do, so the objective in networking within these spaces is getting to know your customer.

You might find some customers, but I’ve found that conferences typically yield a high dose of customer research. More so than actual business.

Attending target market events always kept my technical brain in check. It also would give me a great sense for what the pains and challenges were in the market I was targeting. To go from a conference like Adobe MAX where I might be talking about the challenge of gracefully setting responsive design breakpoints to an educational conference where an attendee asks me, “why do I need a website?” can keep things in perspective.

The rest of the world isn’t thinking about the web as often as we might think they are. They are doing whatever it is they do and we are the ever-obsessed.

I would always err on the side of attending more customer-oriented events than any other type of event. Your business will thank you.

Do Some Good

Early on in my career, I started volunteering my time and expertise to help out causes that I was passionate about. A side effect of this activity was that I met a lot of really amazing people. These people, more often than not, had leadership positions within companies or organizations that they worked at or owned.

For years, this is some of the only networking I did. I didn’t attend industry events or events organized by my target niche. And I got tons of clients from doing it.

I didn’t just volunteer to move stuff. I had my company build websites for organizations, fundraising events, and auctions. I created branding packages, flyers, and business cards.

I went all in.

(Brent Weaver presents donor plaque to library in rural Ethiopia)

I went to Ethiopia on four different occasions. I helped raise hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Served on two different board of directors and eventually was President of a non-profit that built libraries in Ethiopia.

The point wasn’t to network. It was to help save the world and leave this place in better shape than I found it. But, I built an amazing network.

Good people do good.

If you have any feelings of loneliness or lack of network, then start volunteering. Ride the wave for as far as it takes you. Even if that’s a tiny village in rural Ethiopia.

Create a Mastermind Group

My last and final suggestion to help you overcome the loneliness of web entrepreneurship is to form a mastermind group.

Mastermind groups can come in a variety of different formats, but what is a mastermind?

“Mastermind groups offer a combination of brainstorming, education, peer accountability and support in a group setting to sharpen your business and personal skills. A mastermind group helps you and your mastermind group members achieve success.” – The Success Alliance

I have participated in a few over the last several years, but the most effective has been a monthly group that I meet with under strict confidentiality. My group is made of only four people. I have seen successful groups of up to about twelve, but smaller is usually better.

I have also heard of one-off events that attract thirty to forty people for an all day session filled with bar camp presentations. This is a great format for sharing a lot of ideas in a short period of time, but this size of group would need to be broken into smaller sub-groups for higher touch, confidential sharing to happen (which I highly recommend).

At my regular group, we block three hours over an extended lunch for our meeting.

We never miss a meeting. No matter what. We even have a structure of fines for being late, answering your cell phone, or needing to reschedule a meeting. If you are late: $50. If you answer your phone: $50. Rescheduling a meeting: $100. So whatever it is that might make you inconvenience others in the group better be worth the fine.

Every month we get together and review a four quadrant square of our life: business best, business worst, personal best, and personal worst.

My group digs deep to find that top 3% and bottom 3% in our lives that we don’t want to tell anyone. We review our biggest hopes and fears and share stories and experiences as a method to learn from each other.

This absolute top and bottom needs to be covered by a group of peers that meets under a strict confidentiality agreement. You either need to join a group like EO to hop into an existing structure, or create one yourself. I was in EO’s incubator three years ago, and even though I am no longer in Accelerator, I continue to meet with my group every month.

Our group steers clear of advice and focuses on experience share through Gestalt-based leadership. Typically, each month one of us presents on a topic that is important to our life. These presentations usually get a few hours of prep time from the presenter and a coach prior to our monthly meeting.

Over several years of having a monthly mastermind group that is confidential and safe, I have found that I have a place to voice concerns that I would have otherwise kept bottled up. Things about my relationship, family, and business can get perspective from my group prior to bringing them into the light of the rest of my life.

Confidentiality is the strongest of contracts in this group, so I can’t really discuss specifics of what we’ve uncovered. But I know that my personal and business life would not be able to achieve what I can today without them.

I think having a regular, confidential mastermind group is a requirement for any entrepreneur.

Event-based networking and doing good will only take you so far. Masterminds get into the deep and meaningful topics. You might opt to participate in a business or idea-specific mastermind instead of a business and personal focused-group like mine. That is totally fine.

The basis of a mastermind group is that you share. Ideas do best when you shine the light of others onto them, and they usually get even better when the
two different ideas have sex (think “video + internet” or “encyclopedia + internet”). Masterminds are a great place for this.

Overcoming Loneliness is a Marathon

When I first moved to Denver, I didn’t know anyone. Seven years later, it’s hard not to run into people at the art museum, book store, or grocery store. One time I was out in LA at Hotel Standard on the roof playing ping pong, and I ran into one of my Denver contacts. Now this doesn’t really mean anything except that I feel anything but alone.

My network is the first place I go when I need something. If I’m making an important hire, thinking about a new idea, or wanting to meet new customers, my first question to myself is, “who do I know?”

From there I find the best people, answers, and customers.

If you are feeling alone in your pursuit of success…or if your only human interaction happens in less than 140 characters, then it might be time to think about your network. But take my advice, don’t go to a “networking meetup” at Village Inn.

Be intentional about how you get out of the basement. Make it meaningful by attending industry events, meeting customers in your target market, volunteering for a great cause, or creating a mastermind.