Just got a recruiter email looking for a "UX Architect" that can also do research, UX design, UI design, product design and front-end.

Agree on the readability. Love the concept and designs!

I recently read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and discovered a concept (cause they don't teach you this in school or internships) called creative integrity. In short, it's putting out work that you're proud of, and only work that you're proud of, at the risk of losing clients or not having any clients at all.

It's something I'm striving towards but find difficult as a freelancer (since you're hired to fill a certain people pleasing role or risk being fired without a second thought).

In the short-term, I've really honed in on the clients that allow me this freedom and trust me to do good work. And for the clients who want to see multiple options (and eventually, I no longer have good options left to show), I phase them out.

I also outline my process in the very beginning. As a UX/UI designer, I present one wireframe of the UX and we iterate, and then three "moodboards" for design aesthetic (color scheme, fonts, examples of combinations). This has helped me go down a more precise path that's closer to how I'd like to operate, and also gets them excited by options without going too far down a path.

Anyone else have ideas about this?

To be honest, I haven't really noticed. They all seem pretty similar, although this weekend I ran across one where the dots were too small/close, which wouldn't work for me.

If you like the dotgrid.co ones, I say go for it! I haven't seen them in person so I haven't tried it out yet :)

I love the ones at Muji because they're so CHEAP (around $5-6). I work through a lot of (crappy) ideas in those things and hate filling a good, high quality journal (love my Baron Fig) with things I'd just toss in the trash at the end of the day.

So, depending on how you work:

Cheap route: http://www.muji.us/store/stationery/notebooks/recycled-paper-ring-dot-notebook-a6.html

Nice route:

Spiral: http://www.theghostlystore.com/collections/behance-action-method/products/behance-dot-grid-book-mini

Bound: http://www.baronfig.com/confidant

The amount of time and effort I've saved from perusing questionable torrent sites = priceless.

+1 on Baron Fig, it's a beautiful notebook. Due to the price, I keep more high quality ideas in there.

If there's a Muji year you, they have super cheap dot grid journals I use for scribbles and rough thoughts. Can't beat the quality and price: http://www.muji.us/store/stationery/notebooks/recycled-paper-ring-dot-notebook-a6.html

A long and not so obvious one that impacted the way I approach design is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Highly recommend and a beautiful read.

My first attempts at graphic design started with doing "graphic design battles" on random forums.

The theme of this one was "angels."

Gawd so embarassing.

http://fc04.deviantart.net/images2/i/2004/02/a/5/Fly_Me_Away.jpg

+1 for custom scroll bars.