Non Design Skills You Need #1 Learn to use FTP

There are several skills that all graphic designers should have under their belt. However some of these exist outside learning the Adobe Programs, color theory and the principles of typography. Sometimes designers and the people who work with them struggle with either technical or administrative skills. Over the next few days I will cover some of these skills and provide you with some resources to help you.

What is FTP and why we use it.

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is completely irrelevant but now if anyone ask you can say you know what it means, the bottom line is that its the most common method other than email for delivering files and projects to clients, and collaborators. Now many of you will ask, why can’t I just email it? Most email applications have a file size limit of 10-20MB. Those of you who have done high resolution print work know that sometimes this is not nearly a big enough limit when it comes to layered PSD files. In other cases the client will need the files to be stored in an accessible location to be downloaded and used by many people internally.

Not knowing how to use an FTP site, and not being familiar with several different FTP programs will definitely hinder you and your clients, and its a skill that most of your employers will expect you to have. One Alternative people have been known to utilize is YouSendIt.com but even this service has its limitations and drawbacks.

Free FTP Programs (EASY)

I’ve listed below some of the free FTP programs that I’ve used on a regular basis and found the easiest to handle. Most novices can use the basic settings to get through this and just enter in a domain, username and password, more advanced users will have no trouble getting to other things they need either, like upload and download rates/limits connection timeout settings and file permissions.

For those of graphic designers who have learned there is no drawback to using Windows PCs, I suggest that you check out WinSCP, its a very easy to use freeware FTP program that will get the job done.
You can also try out Filezilla, its not terrible, but the way it handles directories can be annoying sometime, but it is fairly reliable and is available for PC, Mac OSX and Linux.
If you’re using the Firefox browser you can always utilize the nifty plug-in FireFTP. This is actually really convenient.

Also remember that if you’re designing in Adobe Dreamweaver that it has FTP as a feature of Site Management, but this is something that really applies only to web designers.

If you have anymore questions about FTP, or you know of some great easy to use FTP programs that I didn’t mention here, please feel free to drop me a comment!

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Roberto Blake

Roberto Blake is a Professional Graphics Designer and Photographer, living in Fayetteville NC, has work been working with Photoshop® for over 8 years now, and Flash® for the past 5 years.

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