Sometimes it feels that I am working in a vacuum. I spend hours and hours clicking away on the keyboard. I can go an entire day at work without talking to a single person. However, it is important to remember that as a Technical Writer and Instructional Designer, I am not alone. There are many people on whom I rely for information and collaboration. Make sure that you are fully utilizing your team to create the best documentation and training possible. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) Working with SMEs is an important part of technical writing and training development. They are the ones with the subject knowledge. Often they have the ears of the project sponsors. When you work well with your SME and you know how to filter the content, everyone wins - the client, the audience, and you. Here is a great article on Harnessing the Power of a SME. Illustrators and Graphic Designers Because of budget, I often to do my own illustration and graphic design on projects. I do my best using templates and very basic Photoshop skills, but I am the first to admit that illustration and writing are two very different forms of art. When the opportunity to work with an illustrator or graphic designer is possible, it is good to follow some basic guidelines to insure clear communication and realistic expectations on both sides for a successful project. Here are eight tips for working with a graphic designer, which are also applicable for working with an illustrator. Editors On my projects nothing ever goes to a client that has not been edited. I greatly value my editor and it is not an easy job. An editor is responsible for catching all errors in a project, making valuable suggestions for improvement, and, ultimately, protecting the company’s reputation. That’s a lot of pressure. A few important things to remember when working with an editor are: Proofread your work before giving it to the editor. At a minimum, run the spell check tool. Provide the project standards and guidelines. Grow thick skin. Don’t take revisions and comments personally. They are only to make the project better. Know when an editor’s comment is a suggestion. Sometimes it is okay not to follow the changes. Provide the editor with sufficient time. Do not wait until 4:00 pm of the project due date and expect the editor to be able to do a proper job. Techwhirl has a very detailed article about editors for more information. You can also look forward to more about editors and editing your work in a future blog.

When designing for the web, print design or advertising design, text effects can help make your text stand out and enhance your design. But designing text effects can be a time consuming process. One of the great resources in Photoshop is the ability to utilize text effects, and they can save you lots of time and hassles with design. In this post I’ve collected some text effects you can download and use for your typography, all for free: Plump Text Effect Popcorn Text Effect Lightbox Text Effect Texty: Dimensional Photoshop Text & Logo Effect 3D Text Effect Candy Text Effect Retro Text Effect Cinematic Text Effect Neon Text Effect Isometric Text Effect Related Posts 10 Fun Photoshop Text Effect Tutorials Fun Text Effect Tutorials You Have to Try Photoshop Typography and Text Effect Tutorials Big Header Text in Web Design Illustrator Tutorials for Text Effects

Today I have a set of yellow concrete wall textures. Well, all except one. They are grungy, high contrast and detailed, perfect for adding a vintage effect to your designs. Enjoy! Download all textures as ZIP from copy.com (60.5Mb) Did you like these textures? Let us know by leaving a comment, and you can even post a link if you used them in your artwork. Related Posts Free Texture Friday - Gritty Concrete Free Texture Friday - Gritty Concrete Wall Free Texture Friday - Worn Concrete Free Texture Friday - Smoke Free Texture Friday - Vintage Rust

Bears have an interesting place in human perspectives. On one hand, they are some of the most feared predators on Earth and one of few creatures that is known to occasionally attack humans. But they are also viewed as soft, fluffy and cuddly, and many children have a teddy bear that they sleep with. There are many types of bears, but they tend to share similar characteristics, such as a large build, the ability to walk on both hind legs or on all fours, lots of fur and long snouts with short tails. But some bears like the grizzly bear are carnivores, while others like the panda are herbivores. The combination of the soft fur and the fierce teeth makes bears jaw-dropping to see in person or photographs: Fishing By Sergei Nikolaev Fancy Footwork By Alison Mazur Bear browling By Andrea Izzotti oops, it’s gone By Peter Zala Gone fishing By Jomppa Bear cubs By Lauri Tammik ?????? ???????? ! By Sergey Ivanov Brown Bear By Randy Harris Faith, hope, and love By Nikolai zinoviev Three… By Mac Danzig Guarding Mom’s sleep By Nikolai Zinoviev Private Bear Business By Harry Eggens Two brothers By Luigi Calabrese Stand up By Massimiliano Orpelli Bear with bear cubs By Sergey Krasnoshchekov Hello stranger…. By Gleb Tarro Are You Friendly? By Evgeny Tchebotarev Family portrait in the open air By Sergey Ivanov Lone Bear on Kodiak Island, Alaska, USA By Dean Allman Brother & Sister By Evgeny Tchebotarev Tough Choices By Evgeny Tchebotarev Sneaking A Peak By Buck Shreck oh no, he´s back again… By Kai Glomp Bears war By Valerio Ferraro Hard Look By Buck Shreck Concerned Look By Buck Shreck Polar Bear Gaze By Stephen Moehle Grizzlies By FMJ Photography Sneaking Up By Buck Shreck Who is more important? By Mila Gumnik Related Posts 30 Photographs with Rings 30 Photographs of Arches Around the World In Full Bloom: Flowers in Photography Rocks, Stones and Pebbles in Photography 30 Marvelous Underwater Photographs

Graffiti fonts are great for adding an urban or stylish feel to your designs. They can be used for logo designs, but are most often used for event promotion flyers, websites and other graphic designs. Graffiti fonts usually have elements like drips and splatters, with a spray pattern to them, but they can also be rounded letters or etched effects. Here you’ll see a collection of stylish urban and graffiti fonts for download: Graffiti Sprite Brock Vandalo Urban Jungle Brooklyn Urban Decay Sprayerz The Graffiti Font Wassimo Misdemeanor Inner City Related Posts Awesome Free Fonts You Should Download Out of this World Futuristic Sci-Fi Fonts 10 Great Free Fonts from 2011 Adobe Photoshop On the Web 10 High Quality Free Script Fonts

Hey guys, today’s textures are a bit different from what I usually post. These are taken a couple of years ago from a huge cooling mechanism from a power plant near the Blue Lagoon in Iceland. There is a constant flow of water from the top of the generator that creates a mesmerizing waterfall all around it. Well, I thought it might be cool to share them and maybe you can find use for them. Enjoy! Download all textures as ZIP from copy.com (25.7Mb) Did you like these textures? Let us know by leaving a comment, and you can even post a link if you used them in your artwork. Related Posts Free Texture Friday - Smoke Free Texture Friday - From Wood to Metal Free Texture Friday - Crystallized Silica Free Texture Friday - Old Tile Glue Free Texture Friday - Grunge Screens

Arches are curved structures with a gap below them, often serving as entrances to buildings, but also occurring naturally in rock canyons and caves around the world. In architecture, arches are some of the most important structures, and the development of the pointed arch as a refinement of the rounded arch was a major development for building taller and bigger buildings. In this post, we’ll look at 30 photographs of constructed and natural arches around the world: Turret Arch through North Window Arch By Kenneth Keifer Delicate Arch By Nick Chill Double-O Arch By Scott Barlow Delicate Arch II By Jeff Burton The Star of Broken Arch By Jerry Patterson Souvenirs des jours. By Fábio Brandão Train Bridge By XRISTOS GIOFKOS Old Bridge By Bez Dan Corona Arch By StockFootage .com Saints and Sinners By Pravin Sitaraman The 7 Arches By Priyank Patel Reverence By Nate Ng Pine Tree Arch By Rodger Podlogar Delicate Arch By Stas Aleksandersson Coliseum By Claude Gariepy Placa del Rei in Barcelona By Andrey Omelyanchuk The India Gate By Anadi Chaturvedi Lady and the mosque By Daniel Murphy arches and stairs By Peter Bigorajski | fototectura.de The Shoemaker By Leah Kennedy Old World By Ali Khataw Misty Mahal By Leah Kennedy The Abbey By Mal Smart Arch View By Sean Bailey Mystical gateway By Milan Panchal View of famous Arc de Triomphe at sunset By Frederic Prochasson L’Arc de Triomphe By Hemant Goyal Gateway By Dan Cornock Pigeon Conundrum By Simon Linge Ruins of Kirkham Priory By Anthony Dezenzio Related Posts 30 Photographs with Rings Bears in Photography: 30 Jaw-Dropping Photos In Full Bloom: Flowers in Photography Rocks, Stones and Pebbles in Photography 30 Marvelous Underwater Photographs

Isn’t it funny how the universe sometimes seems to align? Today I read an article because the title made me laugh and caught my interest. Well, the planets must be aligning. It turns out that the article fits in very nicely with last week’s post, You Are Not Alone - Fully Utilizing Your Team, and the discussion on working with SMEs. The artilce is If men are from Mars, where ae SMEs from? by Tim Elliott. It is worth a read.

jQuery remains one of the most powerful languages for adding dynamic functionality and interactivity to your website. There are plugins for everything from lightboxes to animated loaders, form validation, timers, modal boxes and more, and with repositories like GitHub, many are available for download for free. For your next website project, consider using one of these ten new, powerful and useful jQuery plugins and take your website to the next level. Easy Autocomplete lets you add autocomplete text functionality to your site. Round Slider lets you add round sliders to your website. LoadGo is a plugin for creating a loading effect using your logo. Mmenu lets you add a mobile style menu to your website navigation. AudioControls is a plugin to add a music player custom to your website. Pongstagram is a bootstrap method of displaying Instagram media on your website. jsSocials is a plugin that lets you add social media sharing options to your website. ComboSelect lets you add searchability functionality to your select boxes. jPicture is a plugin that loads only the image size that is needed for the given display. Circular Loader lets you add circular loading dials to your website. Related Posts The Most Useful jQuery Scrolling Plugins jQuery Date and Calendar Plugins Useful jQuery Menu Plugins and Scripts Awesome New CSS3 Tutorials to Try Out The Best Free HTML5 and CSS3 UI Kits

When you read the Acknowledgement section in a book, you always see a big, heartfelt note to the author’s editor. "This book wouldn’t have been possible without the patience and help of my dear editor…" However, have you ever received comments back from your editor and thought that he bled all over your writing because there is so much red ink? Sometimes don’t you feel a little offended that she questioned your work or made a comment like "Consider making this section more engaging by…" Who’s the writer?! Ok, take a deep breath and let’s look at this objectively instead of emotionally. Yes, you have worked hard on writing the course or manual. You take pride in your work, but you are a writer not an editor. The editor is not there to change every word you write or to question every paragraph. He is there to make your writing better, make valuable suggestions for improvement, and to protect the company’s reputation for quality. Proofread In my post You Are Not Alone - Fully Utilizing Your Team I provided some tips on working with editors. I would like to expand on one of those tips; proofread your work before giving it to the editor. Before you provide your work to your editor, make sure that you have reviewed it. If you catch the simple stuff then the editor can concentrate on the meat of the writing. Run the spell check tool to catch any obvious spelling and grammatical errors. Reread the entire deliverable; one sentence at a time, one word at a time to make sure it makes sense. Look at the formatting of every page. Make sure it is consistent and there are correct headers and footers. Make sure page, section, and chapter numbers are consecutive. I strongly recommend that either you or your company adopt an Editing Checklist to insure that all projects receive consistent and thorough editing. Here is an Editing Checklist you can download if you do not have one. Before giving the project to your editor, go through the Editing Checklist yourself. Edit Levels Not all projects require an in-depth edit, especially if it is a revision of a draft the client has reviewed or updates to an existing manual or course. When you provide the project to the editor, make sure that you state what level of edit is required and make sure that you provide adequate time for the editing process. Here are some guidelines: Edit Type Time Estimate Description Light Edit 8 pages per hour Usually used as a final review of the project materials. It includes typical proofreading, conformance to style guidelines, and checking for errors in headings, tables, figures, and references, plus basic grammar and punctuation errors. The text is skimmed. Medium Edit 4 pages per hour Usually used as a first review of the project materials. It includes everything from the Light Edit, word usage errors, overly complex sentence structure, and overly complex (long) procedures. Every word is read. Heavy Edit 1 page per hour Rarely used. It includes everything from Medium Edit, plus rewriting to improve sentence and paragraph structure, and overall document organization. Online Learning / Help 4 screens per hour Includes a Medium Edit plus usability, functionality, and special requirements checking. Final Word on Editors Editors are Superheroes. They make your writing the best it can be. Developed a collaborative relationship with them so that the final project is a result of a team effort and not a one-man-show. The editor is not your archenemy. If you do not agree with a change that your editor recommends, then do not make the change. You have the final power to accept or reject the editor’s comments. However, that also means that you are responsible for that final decision. Make sure you do not let pride make the decision for you.