Mark Forrester - Independent digital designer and online entrepreneur

It’s been so long since I actually wrote anything on my blog it feels like I’m writing my first blog post again. 2009 has got off to a flying start, hence this is only the second post I’ve published in it.

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I saw the last few sunsets of 2007 over the African bushveld on a private game reserve and brought in the New Year with friends in Cape Town.

In February I had my first ski experience in the beautiful resort of Livigno, high in the Alps of Italy. One of my favourite holidays of all times! Refreshed I then settled back into my design work and began my first collaborative project with Adii on a premium wordpress theme called Gazette. Not realising this was going to be one of the biggest turning points in my freelance design career. (more…)

Quoting a client for a project is never a fun task. Crunching numbers, trying to figure out how long a design is realistically going to take you, pushing your diary around to find an open slot, deciphering how easy/difficult the client is going to be and how much feedback they are going to bombard you with, and then sitting on the “Send” button nervously for a few minutes before gathering the guts to send it on it’s way.

Then you inevitablely get a mail back from the client, explaning how they didn’t expect it to cost that much to put a website together. Trying to bully you into dropping your price somewhat, promising you “great exposure” and promoting your services to their “huge network of business contacts”.

Well here is a lesson to be learnt from the Welsh rugby team.

It looks like it may be time for a blog post seeing I have been quiet for just over a month now. I’m currently not freezing cold, as per usual, in my London abode, but enjoying the sun in Cape Town, South Africa.

A little over a week ago I was sipping beer, eating loads of red meat and driving open-top landrovers, without any game rangers or protection, around a beautiful private game park near the Kruger Park. We stumbled across a herd of elephant, twice, had a rhino almost charge us and sat smack bang between a big lion and it’s cubs the other side of the “road”. I should also mention our landrover was about 40 years old and would not start on numerous occassions, including the rhino and lion incidents. We also were lucky enough to see a cheetah, as well as all the usual sightings of zebra, giraffe and buck.

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