The Collative

A blog for creative freelancers

[thecollative]

I made a desktop wallpaper for y'all. Would love to say it's my own hand-lettering but is actually a gorgeous font paired with an awesome background pattern. Click on the image above for all the details and to download! :-)

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Design finds: This week's best design freebies & resources

Clockwise from top left:

Wanderlust Letters font by Cultivated Mind // Creative Market

Vintage & Eroded font by Aleph Corporation // Behance

Photo by Markus Spiske // Magdeleine

Black & gold patterns by Jess Levitz // June Letters Studio

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Design finds: Watercolour textures

A handy pack of 80+ watercolour splotches and splashes to use in your designs, created by Nicky Laatz. Check them out on Creative Market. 

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Font faves: Carioca

Love this colourful and experimental display type by Tano Veron and Yai Salinas, which is free to download. 

Download Carioca font on Behance

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Font faves: Aroly

Check out Aroly, a free polygonal font designed for headings by Arvind Kumar.

Download Aroly on Behance

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Weekly finds: A round-up of great design freebies & resources

Introducing a new feature: weekly finds - a round-up of the best design freebies & resources on the web. Click on the image above to check out this week’s picks.

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10 (more) things I wish I knew when I started freelancing

If you enjoyed my recent post on 10 things I wish I'd known before going freelance, here's part 2! Click on the image above to read the piece in full.

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Gorgeous wallpapers #1: 'Believe' by CoCorrina

Download 'Believe' desktop wallpaper from CoCorinna.com

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A few gift ideas for the freelancers and bloggers in your life! Click on the image above to get all the deets!

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Sharing a few more pics from my recent street art tour of Shoreditch. You can read all about it and check out some more pics here. 

Top to bottom, artwork by: Avem, Jimmy C, Banksy, artist unknown, SYD, ALO, Jimmy C (a tribute to Trayvon Martin), Ashes57 for Suzzle, Clet Abraham.

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50 awesome free apps and tools for freelancers

Going freelance? Here are 50 great free apps and tools every freelancer should check out. Click on the pic above to read the post in full.

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10 things I wish I'd known before going freelance

I can't turn back the clock, but I hope these lessons (most of which I learned the hard way!) will be useful for anyone thinking of becoming a freelancer for the first time. Click on the image above to read the post in full.

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What to include in your invoice: a handy checklist

Not sure how to invoice your client? Here's a rundown of all the essential info you need to include (click on the image above to read the post in full).

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J.K. Rowling on the importance of practising your craft

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A poem can’t take the place of a plum, or an apple. But just as a painting can recreate, by illusion, the dimension it loses by being confined to canvas, so a poem, by its own system of illusions, can set up a rich and apparently living world within its particular limits.

Sylvia Plath, who would’ve been 82 today, on poetry in a rare BBC recording (via explore-blog)

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30 awesome free fonts to use in your designs

Which free typefaces do you use and love? Here's my pick of the 30 best free fonts on the web - made by designers, for designers. To see the full list, click on the pic above.