Productive = Tangible?

I didn’t get much tangibly done this weekend, but I learned a lot. I finished reading one of the new books I ordered online – The Principles of Successful Freelancing. Great book. After reading it once through, I had a better understanding of what I was getting into, how I want to pursue it, and what goals I wish to accomplish by doing so. To summarize, I want to freelance outside the boundaries of corporate red tape in Winnipeg, taking as many projects as I can reasonably handle, and then eventually improving my design skills enough that I might become exclusive enough to pick and choose my clients. I see so many creatively designed sites that I want to eventually be able to design in my own style. As a Chinese artist, I will be expected to represent by including some sort of a symbol in all my works, kind of like how John Woo puts doves in all his movies.

I started my master plan by going through the book again, this time trying to put down what I specifically need to do on paper (virtual paper, that is). I already put together my SWOT analysis and the makings of a business plan (the old one was just too dry and complicated for my needs).

The second thing I did was join the SitePoint Forums. Hopefully, I will be able to put some time aside for participation, as I will need to pool as many resources as I can if I want to be able to ask for help in the future.

I found a couple of new CMS frameworks – MODx and ExpressionEngine. MODx is interesting and looks simple to use, but ExpressionEngine didn’t seem as such. Regardless, I installed MODx and was already quite impressed at the default theme and dashboard. I’ll poke around a bit before deciding further. My issues with Joomla and Drupal left a bitter taste in my mouth about CMS frameworks in general. How are my clients going to figure out how to administer such a labyrinth of unnecessary terminology? Still, if there’s a better way to follow the CMS path, I will find it.

Although I designed a logo for my company, something has been missing from it, and after perusing several articles about logo design and applying the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle, I also came across Lealea Designs, which turned out to be a godsend for corporate branding DIYers. Also, Lea is quite cute in her writing style (and she’s also quite cute in person), so her “blogblog” is fun to read.