Many people can struggle to find the budget for design. Posts that start with ‘I’m new, I haven’t got much money and I need a designer. Can I trade skills/do I go to a low cost site/competition or pitch site/do you know a cheap designer/can you work for exposure or haggle?’ concern me as it not only devalues design, it could also end up a false economy. Here’s a better way.

How you direct the question and handle the responses matters. How you feel about it matters too. After all, this is putting your brief to your designer to the test. How well do you know your clients?

How do you know which is best for the work you’re doing? In general, there are graphics formats suitable for printing which have a higher resolution and those for on-screen viewing or online publishing. Within each group, there are also formats that are better than others for the same task. Here’s the Hello Lovely run down on file types.