Here comes the “This blog is coming to an end” message.

I started this blog five and a half years ago to share what I knew to help other freelancers, particularly direct market designers and copywriters.

I’m still going to share, but likely not in this spot. (Notice how I qualify that just in case I change my mind six months down the road?)

Let me give you a bit of background, and then tell you where you can find me if you want to continue taking advantage of what I’m learning.

If you haven’t noticed, the main site of www.mikeklassen.com has just gone through a total redesign. My old site was HTML-based, and while it was fine and did the job, I wanted to take the appearance up another notch.

Goodbye HTML and Dreamweaver. Hello WordPress.

The change allowed me to add some new areas that I’ve gotten into: speaking and consulting. (This goes back to my last article on Expanding Your Business Boundaries.)

As part of that change, I didn’t really feel this blog had a place. All the content for this blog will remain for now. But there won’t be a link to this blog from the main site. The only way people will find it is through searches that link to the content.

Having said that, helping people is still a part of what I do. And it hasn’t just been happening here.

You may not be aware of where else you can find me…

1. The Magalog Guy’s MagaBlog. This is updated weekly. It’s geared to businesses in general, not just freelance designers and copywriters. But since you are a business, the content applies to you just as much as anyone else.

2. The Increase Sales & Build Deeper Connections Podcast. These are short messages from me, covering similar areas to what I cover on the blog. I’ll include interviews from time to time.

3. The Neanderthal Marketing Radio Show with co-host Traci Hayner Vanover. This is a weekly podcast, about a half hour in length, where Traci and I talk about different business-related topics. Very informal and a lot of fun for Traci and I.

4. The Magalog Guy Facebook Page. I try to share a few links of interest or bits of business info each week. I don’t believe in using this page to send out dozens of messages each day. So if you “Like” this page, don’t worry about me flooding your FB stream.

As you can probably guess from that list, it takes some time to put together that content on a regular basis. Between that and my work for clients, something had to give. And taking the hit was this blog.

I appreciate everyone who has read this blog. I hope you did more than read it… I hope you took action on it.

And I hope that you’ll find at least one of the other avenues I mentioned to follow me as I can continue sharing what I learn.

Thanks!

I continue to be amazed (and thankful) at the quality training podcasts that are available for free.

A new one dedicated to Adobe Illustrator has surfaced called Gradient Mesh. As I write this, the podcast is only two issues old, so time will tell if this is a podcast that direct market designers will get some use out of that they can directly apply to their projects.

But as someone who has been having to spend more time in Illustrator recently, I welcome anything like this that’s going to make me more comfortable moving around in the program. (Side note: I’m seeing a Lynda.com subscription in my future very soon to get some extra training.)

Gradient Mesh is presented very professionally by Justin Seeley. It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite podcasts, The InDesigner which is a similar style in terms of solid information without what my kids call “silly business”. “Silly business” is what you see a lot of in Photoshop User TV, another great podcast, but one that I find myself fast-forwarding through a lot these days to get past the silliness and on to the tips. That type of silliness gets old quickly and, frankly, I don’t have time for it anymore. (Still, it’s free so I hate to complain too much about it.)

Justin also has a Photoshop podcast, but I have yet to check it out.

In my mind, this new Illustrator podcast fills an underserved arena. I just haven’t run across many Illustrator podcasts that are updated consistently. Of course, when people are doing these podcasts and offering them for free, you want to cut them some slack. But I’m hoping Justin steps into this void with lots of great tips and hints.

The Christmas/New Years holiday allowed me to get caught up on some podcasts that I had fallen behind on. And in one case, it allowed me the chance to watch all the podcasts of one title I had mentioned here, but never had the time to watch. (It was put on the back burner during my recent move.)

WOW! Was I ever missing out by not watching it sooner.

The podcast is The InDesigner .

Again, allow me to say WOW!

As you might guess from the title, the podcast is about Adobe InDesign. The first few episodes were audio-only, but it’s now video and what a difference it makes.

Unless you consider yourself an InDesign expert, you’re going to learn something. And unlike some of the Photoshop podcasts I subscribe to (which are excellent) each InDesigner episode is going to give you something that you’ll probably be able to put into use immediately.

Host Michael Murphy is an Adobe InDesign Certified Expert and works as a designer for a what I’m guessing is a trade magazine. When you see samples of his work that he uses to illustrate InDesign techniques, you’re going to understand just how amazing InDesign can be.

I subscribe to about eight design-related podcasts, all of them valuable and full of stuff I can use in my business. But The InDesigner is the only one of these podcasts that I actually save on my computer so I can refer back to it if I have to. (Some of this stuff is easy to forget unless you use it everyday.)

The podcast is free, so if you’re an InDesign user and not subscribed to it, you’re flat out missing the boat. Get yourself started on the right foot this year, download all the “back issues” and then keep up with the new ones.

I tried finding a podcast related to Quark since I do have to use that software from time to time, but came up empty. If you know of something, let me know.