Coding and Design Tips & Tutorials

[caption id="attachment_7884" align="aligncenter" width="620"] via ArtandAroma.

Life as a freelancer looks different for everyone, and it doesn't look very much like what non-freelancers think it does. No, we don't sit in our pajamas all day, and no, we're not kindly saying we're "freelancing" when what we mean is we're unemployed.

In 2007, Walk Score appeared out of nowhere and built a way of looking at the world that was so useful and intuitive as to become, at once, completely manifest and familiar. By pulling the shapeless abstraction of “walkability” out of the sky and giving it a life through numbers, a life that could now be communicated and compared and concretely aspired to, Walk Score democratized the esoteric field of urban planning and built a tool everyone could use.

When you've been in an industry a long time, there are two things that are certain: You've made some mistakes, and you've seen a lot of the people coming up around you make mistakes, too. And, eventually, you see so many people make so many of the same mistakes that you start to keep a log.

[caption id="attachment_7821" align="alignnone" width="620"] Photo: Sophie Asia via Flickr[/caption] Anyone who's tried to make the leap from hobbyist to professional photographer knows that the business side of things can be murky and hard to navigate. Even one of the most basic, seemingly obvious elements -- which, in other industries, is standardized and pretty easy to research -- of your business plan is strangely shrouded in mystery and even controversy.

In the last, oh, hundred years, education has both changed a ton and also not changed much at all. At least, that's the lesson we're learning from these vintage school photos from the Flickr Commons.

DIY lunch bags aren't exactly an invention of the crafting set; since kids have been trucking off to school, resourceful parents have been wrapping their snacks in pieces of cloth and old paper. But since Jil Sanders had the audacity to slap a $630 price tag on what appeared to be a pretty pedestrian lunch sack a few years ago, crafty moms have been coming up with more and more cute ways to send their little ones to class with handmade style.

[caption id="attachment_7787" align="alignnone" width="620"] Image: Robert S. Donovan via Flickr[/caption]   For all the griping about the end of summer and then dread of a new classroom and a new teacher, back-to-school is also a time of excitement for a lot of kids (and even adults).

Wedding photographers are used to shooting in all kinds of locations, from rustic barns to less-forgiving community halls and event spaces. But sometimes, they get lucky, and they get to shoot a storied old building with gorgeous light, amazing architecture -- and civic workers milling about.

For me, nothing is more satisfying than coming home to several rooms full of stories. A few framed concert posters conjure up musical memories and good times had at various times in my life.