Personal Development = Business Development

I mentioned a few weeks ago, this year I'm really looking to develop my skills in the more technical areas of website optimisation and accessibility.

At the same time, I'm always looking to provide a better service to my clients, in as many areas as possible.

In my office there's just me, no 'specialists', just me and my range of skills which enable me to do what I do, and provide a valuable service to my clients.

If I was a bigger company I might look to employ a specialist copywriter, or a specialist front-end developer, or back-end developer, or something else. But that's not the nature of my business.

So instead, my business development and improvement is directly proportional to my personal development - something I'm always keen to work on.

I've recently ordered 3 new books for this very purpose. One on grids, one on writing and one on typography.

I am a designer - but design is about  so much more than how something looks. Learning to write well, and using that for my client's benefit is a design choice. Design is about answers - not questions. If I leave a website visitor with questions, I've not done by job right.

And writing well goes some way to dealing with that.

I've been reading my grids book a bit over the weekend - I can see myself creating a responsive grid and typography framework for site design pretty soon. But writing - the last time I learned anything 'proper' about writing was my GCSE English course. And that was quite a while ago now.

I'm looking forward to adding to my skill set - diversifying and improving what I'm able to do, so that as my personal skills improve, my business is able to offer a better service too.