Design Tips: Save, Save, Save!

You are working on a logo for a client and they said that they need it done first thing in the morning. It is night time and you have been racking your brain for hours trying to come up with ideas on what it should look like. You finally get a brainstorm breakthrough, try to keep a mental note of it, and start working on the logo. It's 1:00 am, you finish the logo, and then all of a sudden, the program crashes!

It is then and only then that you forgot one key option..to save! Just to make things worse, now you have forgotten all of your mental notes. You feel like an epic failure right now and it has you at a point to where you are yelling at the computer and saying, "Come Back!!!"

Now you feel like throwing your computer out the window. The only problem is that you live on the third floor and then when you look out the window, decide it's a bad idea anyways. You already know that your client would be "thrilled" to hear your story and then leave because they think you have unresolved anger issues now. I know that there are people in this world who would make up a story to cover the truth when talking to the clients to save their tail but that's just wrong. I would simply just say to them, "I am having technical difficulties at the moment" and then hope and pray that I can get on one of my friends' computer at this time(remember it's 1:00 in the morning haha!).

So now you have to start all over again because you forgot one simple little step, to save. Many of us don't even think about saving unless it is at the beginning or very end of a project.

My most epic fail moment in saving

For me, it happened when I was a Junior in college. I was taking Independent Studies and my project was to build a website from start to finish. I remember that I had been using Dreamweaver to build my site, which I was using for 3 straight hours and then all of a sudden, the program crashed and I didn't save anything. I just fell into the trap that our teachers warned us about not saving and for a project like a website...yeah it stung a lot. All I can remember is that I got up, walked away from the computer, drove home and came back two days later and started all over again.

Things to help remind you to save your work

Here are a few tips that helped me get out of the no-save trap

• The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl +S(PC) or Command+S(Mac). Just keep doing it until it becomes second nature
• Set an alarm for every 5 mins and then save
• Place a sticky note on your computer saying, "Save me!"
• Keep a "Just in Case" folder and physically write down all the steps you took in the project and put them in the folder.

Autosave

It would be awesome if every program had this feature but sadly, they do not. Now if the design software that you have includes it, turn it on as soon as you find it! This would really ease a lot of stress and anxiety for people who do forget to save their work from time to time. It's also good to have a recovery file too. That's basically a file that has your work recovered from when the program either suddenly closed or crashed on you.

So just remember to save your work at all times and you will be fine. Now for those of you who did forget to save, tell me what was your most epic failure moment when forgetting to save?