business
Should You Divorce Your Designer? Five Signs It’s Time to Find a New Creative Professional.
While many readers of this blog are designers and other creatives, many individuals looking to gain a little self-promotional know-how are regulars as well. I wanted to take today’s post to communicate directly to the latter audience. Perhaps some of these points can serve as good refreshers for us designers though, and remind us of [...]
Feature Article
I subscribe to the FunctionFox e-newlsetter and this week’s article was really good. Take a look: …………………………………………………………………….. Estimating Pitfalls By Creative Business Pricing and estimating are inextricably linked. All the benefits of valuing your firm’s activities properly will be lost if the process of estimating the effort involved in individual projects is incorrect. Listed below [...]
Scenario 9: I’m Just Going to Get Some Feedback via Facebook…
Social networking sites are certainly shaping the way we communicate with people around us. They’re great for networking and for locating other professionals. Only once have I been asked to provide Facebook-ready images that the client could post for their “friends” to approve. This was a new one. After rounds and rounds of revisions on [...]
Scenario 8: Can We Use This?
If you’re a designer, chances are at one time or another a client has come to you with a design or image they love. They’re sure it’s going to solve their design challenge and can’t imagine themselves using anything else. The problem? It belongs to someone else. Copyrights surround us daily, yet sometimes, clients can [...]
Scenario 7: Let’s Go A Different Direction
Say you’re pretty far into a project. You’ve asked for the client’s approval and have received it over and over along the way. You’re just about to wrap things up and then one day, out of the blue, the client tells you the project solution isn’t what they really wanted. I once ran into this [...]
Scenario 6: No Contracts Allowed
Sometimes contracts can be a nuisance. There’s usually a lot of legal jargon followed by confusion and questions. But by presenting a contract to your client at the beginning of your working relationship, you’re making sure everyone is on the same page and all possible issues are out in the open. My contract is quite [...]
Scenario 5: Similar Industries
Your client loves you to death; good. Your client gives you work regularly; also good. Your client isn’t crazy about your working with similar clients; not good. This one’s a sticky one. Have you heard when you’re job hunting as a designer you’re supposed to put together a portfolio of work samples that cater to [...]
Scenario 4: Let’s Make a Trade
Bartering is a great way to keep some client work flow in this economy while saving a little money yourself. Those prospects who may not be able to afford you can still benefit you by compensating you and your business with services or products you may be purchasing otherwise. So, how can something so great [...]
Scenario 3: Dropped Off the Face of the Earth
Things were progressing along just fine. Everything was great and cheery. The feedback was good, the communication was there, so what went wrong? To this day, I still haven’t a clue. This is one of those really rare occurrences I referenced in the first section of this 9-part post, that leaves your heading spinning. A [...]
Scenario 2: The “Can I Get An Estimate?” Client
I think it’s wise when working with clients to supply them with an estimate and to receive approval from them before starting work. This keeps time and money confusions at bay while keeping both you and the client on target. For those clients that have worked with me for years, they’ve learned my time lines, [...]
