It Will Happen
For many creative pros, 2009 has been a financially painful year. I know one designer who -- despite sending out 100 direct mail pieces to local prospects and cold-emailing scores of other regional businesses -- only scraped by for the first five months. But then things began to pick up. While the jobs were small, the very fact that the word "jobs" was plural was encouraging. And then he received the phone call that made all of his efforts worthwhile: "I've had your direct-mail piece on my desk for a while, and since we're about to start a major new project, I want to meet with you."

He got the job. And so will you.

What have you been doing to get through these lean times? Post it on our forums (stay anonymous if you'd rather not trumpet your situation to the world).

Terri Stone - Editor in Chief

Three Ways to Take Your Web Site Mobile
Retooling your Web site for people who reach it via smart phones and other mobile devices is the hot new trend. Going mobile can range from applying simple design rules to complex programming and custom application development. But as Gene Gable explains, it doesn't have to be hard.

One way to create a mobile-friendly version of a Web site is with the Mobify service, which McDonald's Canada uses:

Free For All: Free for Web Designers
In this all-Web installment, Pariah Burke delivers a massive Photoshop Web elements kit; thousands of Twitter, RSS, and UI icons; CSS compression; Web site spell checking; analytics; and uptime monitoring -- all free!

This is only a small sampling of the many icons people are giving away:

TypeTalk: Change Line Spacing in Word
Microsoft Word makes it easy for you to change line spacing from 1 to 1.5 and 2. But to find more options, it's time to dig a little deeper. Ilene Strizver picked up the shovel so you don't have to!

Related Reading: More type-friendly tips for working in Word.

Scanning Around With Gene: Boxes of Boxes of Boxes
Gene Gable recently bought three giant boxes of... empty boxes. You'd never guess he was a packrat -- er, collector -- would you?

Here's just one of the box lids:

Related Reading: See other artful containers, albeit much smaller in size.

iPhone Apps for Designers
Of course, iPhones are good for phone calls, text messages, email, and games. But the rapidly expanding collection of iApps also includes many truly useful additions to a designer's toolbox. Jeff Carlson shares a few of his favorites, which range in price from free to $9.99.

Jeff uses the Color Expert color wheel to find colors that work well together:

Related Reading: While one of the iApps Jeff tried is for mind mapping, an iPhone isn't a requirement for exploring this valuable creative tool.

An Approachable D-SLR: The New Nikon D3000

Nikon D300s D-SLR Shoots 12.3MP Stills and HD Video

Get Inspired with Flickr Friday

QuarkXPress Updates to Version 8.1

New Podcast! Extract stills from video; iPhone tutes; tips on fonts and Photoshop; more

Sign up for the image-only Friday Round-up, which creator Kate Steciw calls an "anti-blogging exercise."

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