have seen I have started my day with breakfast and some juice and I have been

doing it a bit of learning a bit of like business research if you'd like to call

it that and I have become completely hooked if you watch my weekly vlogs you

will see that I have been using a platform called Skillshare and they have

actually given me a link for you guys to the first 500 of you guys to sign up to

a free two month trial using the link in my description you'll get two

months free and you get to try out their services it's a community for fellow

creatives which i presume is why you're watching this video and there's over

25,000 different classes on various different subjects and you can narrow it

down and define which subjects you are interested in I didn't realize that they

had like marketing classes on there they have business related classes

entrepreneurship and those are obviously all really really helpful for me so with

the free two-month trial you get a premium membership and you get access to

all the classes and the different communities that Skillshare has so

whether you're just looking to expand your career or start something new it's

a perfect place and I'm finding it so good because it's motivating me on those

days where I'm like stuck and don't know what to do with my career yesterday I

did a video about kind of finding your voice as a brand and then today I have

just printed off this little worksheet I think it's really cool that you get like

actual worksheets to print off but I've already got full on two pages of notes

so yeah if you're interested in learning more or trying Skillshare out for

yourself I'll leave the link in the description but right now I am gonna

continue my educational journey for the day I didn't actually eat all my cereal

I overestimated how hungry I was I'm gonna

continue doing this and I think I'm actually gonna tidy my office up because

it is ruining my productive vibe at the minute there's just stuff everywhere

now is checking email time which it's the most boring part of my job I reckon

I use Google email Gmail and I really really like it I actually use a color

coding system to keep track of who I've replied to any emails I've kind of

declined or don't want to do I will use a red tag and anything I've completed

will be green and I have it all in categories so I can see as I scroll down

which ones are done which ones need to be done and how far I've got with my

emails and as you can see there are a few at the top that needs sorting out so

that's what I'm gonna do now

emails have been half replied to and I've just got an email from my manager

and obviously I make youtube videos as well that's what you're watching so I have

a sponsored video going up this evening and I've just got approval for it which

is so good which means I can post that as scheduled

tonight it's all ready to go and they've asked for a picture of me to share so I'm

sending a selfie now as you do and then probably gonna work on my website so I

have a website that's pretty much done and I have like the basic bones and

skeleton of it I just need to fill it up with various bits of content so I've

been working on some pieces of content for it which I will show you but

yeah I'm so happy this video has been approved

it is about midday now and I've actually got quite a bit done I've edited a little

bit of a video I've sent some stuff to my manager and now I'm actually gonna

get back onto the life of doing my graphic design stuff which is the stuff

I enjoy the most so I'm changing up where I'm sitting I'm gonna go and ruin this

lovely bed I'm gonna sit there and create some new little elements for my

new website my website has yet to launch is almost ready I've not given myself

like a date or anything yet because I don't want to put the pressure up myself

I'm a little bit scared but if you do want to sign up to be like notified when it

does go live because on there is gonna be freebies and downloads and tutorials

and basically anything you could need as a graphic designer so if you're looking

for something like that you can sign up and you'll get an email when the website

goes live and I won't spam you because spam emails are the bane of my life

this is the time of day actually when I'll put something on the telly because

I usually end up working in silence because I concentrate better when it's

silent but then when I sit on the office bed I will put like a documentary or

something on so I have like background viewing of some sort on but yeah these

are the template things I have been making I've used illustrator and

so far I've got let me just zoom out well I'm using illustrator with the

wrong hand a little sneak peek of other things I've

made there but I have four so far ones kind of half done but these are little

Instagram story templates so I'll zoom in on one so you can see what I mean so

you've probably seen them before you have a little template you screenshot it

and it says like my favorites and you answer the questions and then at the

bottom it has my Instagram handle and my website so it's kind of like a fun

interactive way of promoting myself I'm having quite a lot of fun working out

what to write on these I've got a few different example over on my Pinterest

and I'm kind of grabbing ideas from a bunch of different designs and then

shoving them on here I think I'm gonna make like ten that's five pretend I've

got two hands out I think I'm gonna make like ten of these and then put them

up for like download on my website and then also put them on my Instagram as

blanks so people can have them but that will all be released when my website is

released because I'm not releasing it yet as you guys know

I've done making those little templates and I'm gonna put them on my

website soon but I have just got an email about a logo design and I thought

I'd show you my method for gathering information and getting the right

information off my clients so I have this form here which I created on Google

Forms and I just put my branding in the background and made it kind of my colours

and on here I have various questions that I asked potential clients what

they're after so what is the name of your business

please tell me a bit about it what is the purpose of your logo where will it

be used this one's really important to decide whether you need it to be print

ready or digital ready or both so that's quite an interesting question to ask and

what is the deadline tell me everything you can about the people that will be

using it so basically what's their target audience who are your competitors

what do you like and then here yeah what do you like so here is a option for you

to add files of logos that you've seen that you like the look of so I can see

what kind of vibe you are looking at and then can I share your logo on my

youtube channel just so I'm checking just in case I do film the process and

then you can answer all them and submit them so basically that has really really

helped me kind of decipher the different things my client wants and I'll know

right from the get-go when it needs to be finished what kind of application

they're gonna be putting it on whether it's gonna be digital or print and just

a bunch of different questions and that can add and edit that template as much

as I need to so probably in the near future I'll be changing that but I found

that super super helpful and then anytime I've sent that out to anyone

I'll get a notification from Google when it's been filled in and I can read the

response download the images that they've attached to it and it's a good

way of me kind of working out what quote to give because I get asked quite a lot

what I charge and it differs every single time honestly it's like how

long's a piece of string because it depends on the project it depends on how

long it's gonna take the complexity of it and like a lot of things so yeah when

people ask how much graphic designers charge it is really difficult to answer

that question I still I'm not quite sure I usually go off people in similar

fields as me I'll go on their website see if they've got any rates and kind of

go off that or I'll judge it client by client so if that client has a bigger

budget I'll probably charge a little bit more spend a bit more time on it and if

they've got a lower budget I will accommodate my services to them so I

will tailor it to fit their budget but also not leave myself out of pocket if

that makes sense so yeah it's hard to describe what I charge because it's very

different and the kind of work I do is very different or hopefully a little

template like that will help you come up with a way and be a bit more clear about

what it is your client wants yeah today's being quite productive actually

I'm gonna put those templates up on my website I've been using Squarespace for

my website a little bit a lot previously I've used like WordPress and I used a

photography one Zenfolio I think I used actually yeah couple years ago and

Squarespace is by far the easiest one I've used so far so I'm gonna go onto

that now and check that everything's okay I'm gonna import those few files

that I've just made and I'm gonna make a little template cover thing for it and

I'll give you a bit of a sneak preview of my website I don't know how much to

show you actually but yeah so this is the behind-the-scenes of my website when

it loads my Internet's being slow and currently if you search my website this

is the page that comes up it's just kind of like a holding page because I don't

want you guys to see the full thing straight away and then down here

is the various different bits it does take a bit of work getting used to when

it's first kind of presented to you but now it is the most seamless website I've

ever had these are my different pages I've got a home page and about page

tutorials page creator toolkit and a shop the creator toolkit is the thing

that is the kind of top secret element and I'm very excited to reveal that that

is where my free templates will be going that is where

any freebies and downloads I will be putting in there and then

anything of a bit more value will be going in my shop

so yeah what page shall I show you I'll show you my tutorial page so

obviously this is the view that I see but you get the idea

so this is the kind of vibes procreate tutorials illustrator tutorials

Photoshop tutorials you can click through there's a drawing I did of my

pal Hannah I love that drawing um and yeah I've been working on creating all

these graphic and it's just been taken along Oh focus I believe in you camera

there we go and it's just been taking a long time to get the various different

elements done and getting it how I want it to be but yeah like I said at the

beginning of the video if you want to subscribe not subscribe if you want to

sign up to my website and be there when it launches just head over to

alicethorpe.co.uk put your email address in and it will

email you when it goes live which is gonna be in the near future as long as I

keep working hard and getting these bits done

it is getting pretty dark now what time is it half past six and I've just done a

few little sketches for some phone wallpaper ideas I am making I asked on

Instagram actually for your favorite girl power like inspirational quotes and

I'm gonna put them in two cute little phone wallpapers so I was just doing

some sketches and stuff to work out what kind of layouts i want and what ideas I

have so that was really nice I am losing motivation a little bit

which is annoying it is half 6 to be fair I have been in the office for like

a full office day I'm gonna carry on gonna power through and I'm watching a

youtube video and I think I'm gonna pick my laptop up again I'm gonna send the

drawings over to my laptop because I drew them on my iPad if you're wondering

by the way I have the iPad pro it's like the original version there's a new one

out now which does look amazing but don't want to break my bank account so

yeah I have the iPad pro in like the bigger size what the size that is and

the Apple pencil an amazing investment I bought it like when I was in my final

year at uni last year and I don't regret it after all I got it on Amazon I like a

refurbished rate it was like a secondhand one and it worked amazingly

so I'll leave the link to that in my description as I always do because I get

a lot of questions about that oh and the case and stuff I'll leave the link to

the case and this thing and I just added this thing on it so I don't lose my pen

it's just like an elasticated thing and then the case turns the screen on and

off when you open and close it the one thing I do really want to finish today

is putting those Instagram story templates on my website that's the one

thing I want to get done

I'm hiding the rest of them because I want to keep that a surprise but I've

got the templates up on my website so you can download them as soon as the

website goes live whoo it is now half past 8:00 in the evening

and I think I'm done I'm done for the day I can't promise I'm not gonna look

at my emails or like edit an Instagram photo but in terms of design stuff

I'm done I have completed what I wanted to complete plus some I actually have