On a recent episode of the Honest Designers Podcast, they had a wonderful discussion about knowing when you're good enough. I was intrigued because its so common that people expect they need a certain number of followers, likes or amount of money to be successful. How do you know when you're actually good at something? I fully agreed with their points and I had my own two cents to add to the discussion.

At some point while you work with clients, it become inevitable that you'll need to bring in a third party product, service, or company to work on the project. Aside from how to hire or find that resource, one of the biggest questions I hear is how to handle paying them. There's usually two avenues you can take: make the client pay them directly or pay them yourself and charge the client back. Both options have their pros and cons.

Whether you're starting out or you're a seasoned graphic designer, one of the biggest headaches you might have is what to put in your portfolio. We get decision paralysis, because in most cases you're pretty close to your projects. It can be difficult to decide what needs to go into your portfolio and what may need to come out.

At some point as a graphic designer, you'll find yourself needing to print stuff. Naturally, there's a whole lot of choices out there. Some are best suited towards a small run project, like business cards. Others favor fancy projects like a brochure with a cutout or spot varnish. Your two options are either finding somebody local, or going online. Each of them has their pros and cons. In this episode, I'm going to go over my experiences with both.

For some of us school was a rough time, especially when it came to things like the playground, when we found ourselves on the receiving end of a bully's wrath. If you were like me, there was always those moments where you wondered to yourself what being an adult would be like. It was easier to imagine a world where you didn't have to deal with that kind of stuff anymore. But bullies grow up like the rest of us and find jobs like the rest of us. And in some circumstances, we're forced to deal with those same people in the workplace.

Sometimes the most nerve racking thing outside of actually doing the design work for a client is handing the design off to them once it's finished. One of the most common questions I see asked by new designers, is what do you hand off when you're finished up with a design project?

If you ever watched a designer or an artist create something super fast and wonder how they did it. If you look up the answer to this question, it usually boils down to experience. And while that's true, there's a few other things that kind of mix into that as well.

As graphic design software becomes more accessible, it's more common that clients and potential clients expect designers to work for cheaper or free. Like others, I always say that you should never work for free. It's called spec work: work defined as producing a piece for a potential client with no guarantee that your work will be chosen and/or paid for.

As users demand more out of their smartphones, websites, or computers, it's becoming even more important for designers to help them get through challenging tasks. It's important that they can take to the interface in a simple, efficient and easy manner that doesn't make them want to give up.

There's been a few episodes on this show where I've talked about how people respond to design. In a couple of episodes, I even talked about some of the feedback. It's a tricky thing to get right. It's even more tricky when people are super-passionate about the existing thing you're redesigning.