Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Professional Design Practice Lesson 5: Invoicing Clients

First Things First

In•voice:: noun:: a list of goods sent or services provided, with a statement of the sum due for these; a bill

This week’s article is all about bills, no pun intended, honest… Platypus image © Jersey Shooter.

Detailed, ‘transparent’ and designed inbrand. Example of invoice © Hotson Studio.

Let’s get some basics out of the way. Your invoice’s list of services should correspond directly with the services you agreed to carry out at the start of the job. Additional good practice would be to include the original contract offer (in whatever shape or form) itemizing the services you’d agreed to for your client’s comparison. Your invoices should contain the name or studio name (if applicable) of the person providing services, which, for the freelancer, usually means himself. If you haven’t already provided your client with your bank details, include them somewhere on the invoice.

Be scrupulously transparent about costs, both forseen and extraneous, and leave nothing hidden when invoicing your clients. Image used with permission of © Jen Hamilton-Emery.

More than One Way to Skin a Cat…

It’s perfectly reasonable to design a billing template yourself using a package like Adobe InDesign, (see example above) then generate your invoices from this template whenever you need to bill someone. If you care about how your invoices look and work (you should do; they’re part of your suite of materials) then this method allows for the greatest creative control and freedom. If you feel this is the way to go then take as much time over it’s design as you would your letterhead or logotype.

Increasingly though, people are using other means to generate their invoices. MacFreelance is a piece of invoice and billing software made especially for creative professionals, and can allow freelance designers to create very professional-looking templates. MacFreelance and its competitors all come with features for including your own logotype and allow some, limited control over the design of documents. Many are also laden with additional bells ‘n’ whistles for monitoring project developments and carrying out billing administration.

Subernova offers users a “simple and enjoyable way to create and send invoices and estimates.” I’ve used it in the past. It’s not half bad.

Subernova, ‘project management and team collaboration’ software gives users the chance to create ‘insert here’-style invoices super quickly and like MacFreelance comes with additional features for setting project milestones, tracking time, keeping tabs on late payments, setting deadlines and more. A recent development also worthy of note is that Subernova is now syncable with iCal.

For freelance designers who receive most of their money through PayPal, you can now create and save billing templates and store them within your Paypal account. These work in much the same expedient ‘insert here’ way as Subernova.

Extraneous & Unforseen Costs

Picked up any extraneous costs on your journey? Image © Tom Skinner.

Certain extraneous costs should be carefully listed, firstly in the original service offer or estimate, then relisted in the invoice. Extraneous costs, or ‘further expenses’ can include courier/delivery fees, model fees and proof purchasing expenses. To the extent that not all expenses are foreseeable, when embarking on a new project you should also try to negotiate that the client assume all responsibility to remunerate extraneous costs. You might word this line into your original service offer: “The client or commissioning party has to reimburse the commissioned party for all extraneous costs actually incurred.”

Setting Deadlines & Client Transgressions

Educate yourself as to your legal position, but treat late-paying clients with courtesy. Image © Mark Flisher.

The persisting problem of late payment is probably the largest non-creative cause for concern experienced by the freelance graphic designer. Freelancers are unlikely to take legal action against corporations for obvious time-based and financial reasons. The freelancer might also ask himself “why risk losing the potential repeat work by being litigious?” Safe in this knowledge, clients need not worry excessively over paying you on time and in accordance with the terms laid out on your invoice.

Exceeding payment deadlines can put a strain on a small freelance business, not to mention the strain placed on the client/designer relationship. Freelancers need cashflow to survive just like any other tradesperson and chasing after late payments is a regrettably guaranteed part of the freelancer’s lot.

A slow response to pay a freelancer’s fees from a seemingly lackadaisical client can leave many a designer stressed, frustrated and unsure of what action to take. But there is a system to follow. . ‘Lackadaisical client’ image used with permission of © Chelsea Steed

The time period you should allow to elapse before sending out your first reminder shouldn’t be all that long, between 2–4 weeks after the exceeding of your payment deadline is about right. It’s good to know where you stand from a legal perspective, though difficult for me to look into every country’s law practices. In Great Britain, one month after receiving an invoice and having not paid, a client goes into arrears and is obliged to pay the designer for damages caused by delay. Should a disagreement arise, the designer will have to prove the successful delivery of the invoice. The damages, with regard to defaulted payments, is the interest which the designer must pay to his bank throughout the duration of the late payment and for the amount owed. Legal counsel costs may also be charged for here.

It’s important to outline the legal implications above, but reaching a hostile legal situation can more often than not be averted, or wholly avoided. In ‘How to be a Graphic Designer without Losing your Soul’ Adrian Shaughnessy advises freelancer’s to handle the unfortunate chasing role not with aggression, but with courtesy and respect. “…Approach the individuals concerned with the utmost politeness; make friends with your clients’ finance departments, they are rarely the villains. When you get a cheque in the post call and thank them. Designers like to have their work praised, and so too do clerks in accounting offices.” His quote pertains to style over law, but both are worth paying attention to in equal measures.

Repeat: “courteous not agressive, courteous not agressive…” Image courtesy of © Keri Minard.

Summary

The more precarious position experienced by freelance designers over full-time employees, within the context of getting paid, is part and parcel of the life we have chosen for ourselves. For those who send out invoices, benefits include the ability to charge higher design fees and a sympathetic attitude from government tax departments with regard to our annual expenditure and investments. Impediments include a less predictable financial life and, the big fly in the ointment, the tiresome task of chasing late payments.

When it comes to billing your clients, project as professional an appearance as possible through the design of your invoice, include all your relevant terms & conditions and make it a rule to be wholly transparent about costs. Keep track of invoicing dates and deadlines, and should any late payment situations arise, remember to handle your clients in a well-mannered and friendly attitude. It’ll more than likely never happen, but you’ll have recourse to the law should you need it. Follow the advice above and you’ll be doing all you can to ensure a financially secure existence with good clients on board who pay on time, conditions necessary for producing great design and being a happy bunny!

Learning to invoice professionally whilst being aware of where you stand legally makes for happy freelancers! Image courtesy of © Flavita Valsani.

Author: Abby Holmes for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Should I Go Freelance Or Permanent? The Pros & Cons Of Both

Pros of freelance

• Freelance can be an attractive proposition to an employer, as they are not tied to keeping you on. When you’ve just left college, you haven’t established yourself in the industry, so it can be seen as less risky to an employer to take you on to do some freelance work and see how you go.
• Often freelancing can be a foot in the door to a permanent job, a sort of ‘try before you buy’ for the employer. You get to suss them out too!
• Freelance can be a fantastic way to work for a number of very different clients.
• You will be able work with lots of different designers and have exposure to many different design styles.
• Not sure whether you’d like to work in a design agency, advertising agency or even in-house? Freelancing gives you the opportunity to try a bit of everything out.
• You get to choose when you want to work.
• You’re not tied to any employer.
• There’s less chance of getting involved in office politics. You’re not going to be there for long, so why do you care? You can just go in, do your work and leave.
• If you don’t like the job, it’s easy to move somewhere else.
• There’s the chance to earn more money per day freelancing than in a permanent role.
• You may be able to work from home.
• You’re your own boss. There’s a definite feeling of autonomy and independence.
• You get to meet lots of people and build up your contacts in the industry. Once you start building a reputation for yourself, you may find that you don’t have to seek out work so much, but that you get called back by the same places when they are busy time and time again.
• It’s easier to take longer periods off to go on holiday to pursue other creative projects. This can be great if you’re also a budding animator, photographer, illustrator…
• You can negotiate your own rate. Once you start gathering experience, you can up your rate accordingly.

You can sometimes charge for overtime – depending on the employer. You must pre-negotiate this before you start.



Working at a great agency can make all the difference, photography © Lincoln Barbour

Pros of permanent

• You know where you’re going to be working every day of the week. No job is ever stable in this industry, but there’s definitely a feeling of more stability.
• Once you’ve been in your job for a while, you will be given bigger briefs and more responsibility.
• You will be mentored by your creative director. This is particularly important when you’re straight out of college and you’re still learning the ropes. By the same token, you may be given a fair bit more leniency than you would in a freelance role, where you would be expected to perform without ‘learning plates’.
• You will form close friendships with the people around you. Being permanent means you’ll be part of all the social events, Friday night drinks, award nights etc. You’ll really feel like part of a team.
• You’ll have greater creative control over your work and a greater say in how it evolves. As time goes on, you’ll have greater say in how the agency runs and you could be given more leadership responsibilities. You may also start to mentor and manage other designers.
• You know what you are going to be earning every week. This makes it easier to plan your life, paying bills, getting a loan, buying a house. You are considered more stable to a bank.
• A permanent role can look good to your next permanent employer.
• You’ll be able to build up a portfolio of work that you saw through from conception to completion. This will be work that hopefully you’re really proud of.
• You will be able to work and develop a brand over time. You will get to evolve campaigns and have a real creative say in the brand.


Cons of freelance

• You are often called in because an agency is really busy, such as in a pitch situation. This can be pretty intense.
• You don’t get any real downtime or ‘quiet days’ like you would in a permanent role, as if you’re not working, you are costing the company money, so they won’t keep you on.
• It can be hard to plan holidays and other stuff, as you never know when you’ll be working.
• You could be called in to work all weekend and lots of late nights, especially in a pitch situation.
• As you’re often moving around from agency to agency, you often don’t get to bond with co-workers and you always have to get to know new people and suss out how they work. You can consequently always feel like the ‘new kid at school’.
• You may not have such a large say as a freelancer. You can always have a creative opinion, but if someone in the agency doesn’t agree, you often have to go along with what they say, as you are in effect ‘the hired help’. If you become too disagreeable, they can just get rid of you. This can be frustrating, as you often just have to follow other people’s ideas, against your better judgement.
• You can sometimes have less creative input, as you are seeing someone’s idea through.
• You often start a project and you may not get to see it all the way through, so it can be harder to build up your folio.
• You are almost certainly never given the briefs that others in the agency would want. More often than not, you are given the briefs that no one else wants to work on. I once came into an agency for a freelance gig to work on a weight loss client. The creative director had sat on the brief for 5 weeks in the agency, as most of the creative’s were guys and they didn’t want to touch it. Finally my partner and I came in one Thursday and were told we had to present three fully developed concepts to the US heads of this company that flying to Australia for the meeting on Monday morning. Needless to say, we did not get much sleep on Sunday. We charged for 18 hours of work that day!


Cons of permanent

• Sometimes when you start off somewhere as a junior, it can be hard to move up the ranks as you develop more experience. In some ways, you will always be thought of as a junior. I stayed in my first job for just over three years. After asking for pay rises and only getting very minimal jumps, I decided to move agencies. Even though I absolutely loved where I was, I just knew I wasn’t going to be able to move up the ranks there. By moving agencies, I doubled my salary and my seniority.
• Sometimes the demands of the job can be so much that you feel like your job is your life. There can be this feeling that you must stay late every night even if you’re not busy, just so you seem devoted to your job. Some people can thrive on this, but most of us like a little balance.
• It can be harder to take holidays. I remember going to ask for a month off to go overseas and I was told ‘there’s never a good time to take a holiday, so it’s always a good time to take a holiday’. There also used to be this running joke in a few agencies that I worked in that if you went on holiday, you’d be lucky to come back to a job. I know a few people that did lose their job after going on holiday. One poor girl happened to bump into her boss at an airport whilst on holiday and wondered why he was acting so strange and not looking her in the eye. Then the day before she was due back at work, she got a call from someone at the agency saying ‘don’t bother coming in tomorrow’. No wonder her boss hadn’t been able to look her in the eye.
• As you’re on a permanent salary, most likely you won’t be entitled to overtime. Long hours and weekend work can be expected for no extra pay.
• Starting salaries can be low and as you’re just out of college, there’s no room for negotiation. You basically have to accept what is offered to you. Sometimes employers take advantage of this and offer really low salaries. Sometimes you have to weigh this up with the great experience you’ll be getting, especially if the agency is highly regarded in the industry.
• You may only be working on the same two or three clients. In fact a few times, I’ve only been working on one client. This can be creatively mind numbing after a while and once you’re deemed as the so called ‘expert’ on that client, it can be hard to move onto other clients.

As you can see, there are great things about freelance and permanent. It’s up to you to decide what’s right for you now. I started off in permanent roles for the first seven years of my career and then decided to go freelance. Both have been fantastic for many different reasons. Good luck with the hunting!

]]> http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/should-i-go-freelance-or-permanent-the-pros-and-cons-of-both/feed/ 0 http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-4-dealing-with-clients/ http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-4-dealing-with-clients/#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:24:19 +0000 admin http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/?p=1640


They come in all shapes and sizes, from all different professional backgrounds, and we rely on them to pay our fees. A large portion of the freelancer’s life is spent looking for them, bagging them, and spending a considerable amount of our daily slog trying to work out what they want. I’m speaking of course about clients, and this article is all about working with them…


Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Professional Design Practice Lesson 4: Dealing with Clients

They come in all shapes and sizes, from all different professional backgrounds, and we rely on them to pay our fees. A large portion of the freelancer’s lot is spent looking for them, bagging them, and spending a considerable amount of our daily slog trying to work out what they want. I’m speaking of course about clients, and this article is all about working with them, retaining them, educating them and occasionally sacking them. Mention the word ‘client’ to a fellow designer and the response will quite often be one of a humourous tutting under the breath coupled with a rolling of the eyeballs, which you’ll be invited to join in with in a moment of good-natured designer-fellow feeling. This is all very well, though a little close examination reveals clients to be a generally good bunch, who, to state the obvious, we rely upon for our livelihoods. At their best they can push us beyond the safe confines of what we’ve become used to, and it’s an oft-quoted phrase out of the mouths of the wise that’s fast becoming a truism, that the very best design comes out of a collaborative endeavour between the designer and client. Let’s look at things here a little more closely…



The Good, The Bad & The Meddlesome. Image used with permission of Peter Lewandowski.

A Marriage, (of sorts…), the Designer/Client Relationship



A marriage, (of sorts…). Image courtesy of Wild Cakes.

“Without clients there is no graphic design and without demanding clients there is no great graphic design.” So says Adrian Shaughnessy. It’s a decent quote and should help pull into sharp focus the sometimes unfair nature of things whereby clients are looked upon unfavourably as this unknowable force, an irritating fact of life and a brake on our creativity. Certain ‘star’ designers are often cited, inaccurately, as having enjoyed unfair patronage by some über-benevolent client early on in their career, but the truth often turns out to be a little different, these well known designers having had to work just as hard as we all do for a certain amount of indulgence.

I’ve attempted to redress the balance here of how clients are viewed, but how should the designer act towards them? Along what lines should the relationship run? The best piece of advice I can give here, and this might strike you all as blindingly obvious, is to treat your clients with respect and attentiveness, in a similar way as you would your friends. This isn’t to say you should befriend your clients (a modicum of professional detatchment is always a good thing) but just as we all have to work at our friendships to prevent them from going stale, and an inconsiderate remark can damage a friendship beyond repair, so you should work on your client relationships to prevent a drift occurring.



They’re not all monsters (very few are) but the clients on your roster will all be as diverse as this bunch here, and will all want something different from the others. Image courtesy of Paxton Holley.

Designers should train themselves to be hyper-sensitive to their clients needs. It’s a mistake to assume that all clients want the same thing, or have the same expectations of you as a designer. No two clients are the same. Some will want to be highly involved in the design process, some will need lots of attention, some will be suspicious of the idea that graphic design has intrinsic value and can help their business. You’ll need to develop empathy and understanding in a bespoke way for each of your clients (no easy feat, but beneficial in the long run). By developing this understanding you’ll strike the right tone with them and be able to better glean what they want, which should be the main goal in any designer/client relationship. You’ll learn about each other and some sort of rapport may blossom. These are the conditions necessary for flourishing long-term relationships to develop.

Retaining Clients



The heights a design-conscious client (The British Guardian newspaper) and a reputable graphic design studio (Cartlidge Levene) can scale together. Guardian offices wayfinding system imagery used with permission of SeptemberIndustry.

Winning new clients is a challenge faced by all freelancers, and will never go away throughout your career. Once you’ve built a solid roster of clients, retaining them is another challenge you’ll have to face. But getting repeat work from an existing client is easier than winning new work from scratch. It won’t happen automatically, and you’ll have to make your client aware that you’re available and looking for more work. Added to this, if you train yourself in the empathy and understanding skills I’ve outlined above you’ll go some way to keeping existing clients on your books. Naturally, as a designer you’ll also have to keep delivering the goods, on time and within budget, to avoid your clients looking elsewhere. Conduct yourself with honesty when discussing problems and briefs with clients, defend your work when it’s questioned and admit to it when you’re wrong. Demonstrate that you care deeply about what you do and be attentive to your client’s wants and predilections. By conducting yourself in this manner and delivering the work you’ve agreed to carry out, you’ll be doing all you can to hold on to the clients you’ve won and get repeat work off them.

Educating Clients



It’s back to school for some clients to design education boot camp. Image courtesy of Alida Thorpe.

There are corporations and individuals out there, skilled in the argot of design practice, who regularly commission design and have a good track record for producing good work. These are often to be found at the top of many freelancers’ ‘wish lists’ of dream clients. They do exist but aren’t nearly so numerous as those clients unversed in professional design practice or language, and who require a little more help throughout the relationship. I hesitate to use the word ‘education’ here, but as formal as it sounds there really is no better term for the learning process which occurs between the inquisitive, receptive client and the articulate designer.

Smaller clients may be used to handing over design work to soulless ‘design and print’ facilities, or having a go at producing logotypes, advertisements, layouts and newsletters themselves. Contracting the services of a graphic designer can be a leap into the unknown for many businesses, who will all possess, at the least, a vague idea of what they want, but often little knowledge of the many aspects of design processes involved in their delivery. Assuming you have an open-minded and receptive client, it’ll be up to you to occasionally explain ‘why’ things work the way they do. This could involve any aspect of design practice, from colour theory and grid systems right through to conceptual-based matters. When called for, guide your clients through the tricky terrain of the design landscape with patience and understanding. Remember that you’re speaking to a client and not a fellow designer and adjust your language accordingly. In return, and by developing an inquisitive disposition (which should be mandatory for those looking for a career in the creative sector) you’ll likely learn lots from the varied types of businesses out there.

There’s No Easy Answer to this Age-old Question…



Look to form long-lasting, prosperous relationships based on equality with your clients (you’ll have to share the driver’s seat throughout your career at times). Image used with permission of Lino M.

Concerning clients, possibly the single most common question which preoccupies and occasionally distresses graphic designers is this: How do I stop my client from meddling with my work? An overly-meddlesome client can be a bane on a designer’s existence, and it irks us to have our work interfered with by non-professionals. We all wish, reasonably enough, for clients to defer to our better judgment regarding semiotics, aesthetics and the like, but, alas, this doesn’t always happen. Confronted with a situation like this you could flatly refuse to carry out the suggested amends, telling the client he’s plain wrong, or agree with him and set about implementing the suggestions with the minimum of fuss, keeping silent about your own concerns.

My own favoured, third way is to acknowledge what a client wants to do, tell him you’re happy to do as he asks but voice your concerns, and say that alongside what he’s asked you to do you’d like also to show him the concept you think would work best. Present several layouts/concepts to him and see what happens. As designers we aren’t always right and can’t win every battle, but by keeping in place a system for dealing with these kinds of situations we’ll more often get our work through than not. Be a warrior as opposed to a doormat.



If your client attempts to take control of a project and disregards your opinions entirely, don’t be a doormat…



…be a warrior, and find your voice as a designer to convince him —gently— of a better direction. Doormat image supplied by Rukiasan. Kit Fisto image used with permission of Ted Schwartz.

Sacking Clients



When to press the red button? Image supplied by Luke Robinson.

It’s possible that at some point in your career a client will prove himself to be troublesome enough for you to decide to let him go. Various things can happen to make you arrive at this decision. The client might be well-meaning but hopelessly disorganised to the extent that you start to lose money. Personal factors might make it difficult for you to maintain a working relationship. You may belatedly spot an out-and-out charlatan in your midst. A client might not be able to pay you. If this last thing happens, suspend all work immediately. Waste no more time or energy until your client has got his finances in order. If it’s a personal matter, and you decide that a particular client is simply not worth the trouble, then contact him to explain that you are severing your working relationship, politely but firmly, and provide reasons why. Make sure all loose ends are tied up before doing so (have you been paid up to date?) and then act on your decision!

Useful Top Tips

• Never tell clients what to think of your work
• When defending your work, always argue from the audience’s perspective, never your own
• Take an interest in your clients’ affairs

In Sum…

For better or worse, we as freelance designers are linked in symbiotic relationships with our clients. Good clients keep us on our toes and can provide a check on our egos. They exist as (or propose) puzzles which we as designers must decipher and provide solutions for. It can be a highly satisfying part of the freelancer’s job to seal and then develop a working relationship with a good client, unravelling, deciphering, deducing, reassessing and reappraising matters throughout each relationship. To take less able or design-conscious clients and gently bring them on takes what they called in Victorian times ‘character’. Getting into the habit of forming your own opinions, and defending your ideas will boost your communication and articulation skills like little else.

More than a necessary evil then, let’s hear it for the client!



Unique, diverse, and each with a puzzle for you to solve. Let’s hear it for the clients! Image courtesy of Judy Baxter.

]]> http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-4-dealing-with-clients/feed/ 0 http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-3-project-planning/ http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-3-project-planning/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:41:15 +0000 admin http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/?p=1626


This week’s article on professional design practice concerns project planning. Good, thoughtful project planning can be indispensable to the smooth running of your professional life as a freelancer. By running your business along well-oiled, well-organised lines you’ll be able to wring the most amount of time out of your days, maximise your profits, avoid mislaying things and generally inject some calm into your busy life. A modicum of planning, far from acting as a restraint on creativity, can in fact free us to spend more time on the creative process. It should therefore be an integral part of all our working lives. Follow the guides below, or a life of professional chaos awaits!


Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Professional Design Practice Lesson 3: Project Planning



When devising your project plan, break your jobs down into clearly delineated milestones for best organisation. Image courtesy of JohnnyEnglish

First Things First

To begin with, you’ll need a system for booking jobs in, and allocating project codes/numbers to them as they arrive. This could be termed “Processing”. Designing a system for these codes/numbers can be entirely your own decision, the only rule being that once you’ve devised it you should keep things consistent across all projects. You might take the first three letters of your client’s name, add a numeral(s) indicating which project for this client this job is and apend the year and month the job is booked in.

Create a folder with subfolders on your hard drive. The name of the first-level folder should correspond with your client’s name. Do the same within your email account. As correspondence and attachments starts to flow back and forth between you both you’ll be able to archive and store information, messages and files in an organised manner.

Job bags are useful for storing things in which relate to projects. Plastic A3 folders make good job bags. At the start of each job you might not have a lot of physical ‘gumph’ to fill them with, but once your project is underway, and depending on how you work, you may find yourself accumulating a daunting amount of scraps of paper, printed emails and sketches from meetings and the like which it’d be useful to store all in one place. Attach a label with the client name and project number/code on it and affix to a consistent place on the job bag.

Planning Jobs & Projects

Planning is a set of systems and methods. Good planning is purposeful and clear-sighted, effective and efficient; it helps to avoid mistakes.



Download a free PDF template that you can print out or save and fill in for each of your projects, download HERE

Important Planning Questions

• What am I trying to do? (Aim)
• What is important? (Criteria)
• How do I best go about achieving the aim within the given conditions? (Working method)
• When do I start? (Deadlines and time)


Without having an aim, it’s difficult to score. Image courtesy of Skyline Studio

Aims

As it states in ‘The Little Know-It-All’ “Aims are a decision-makers’s guidelines and signposts.” Without setting your aims, how can you expect to attain them? There’s a good mnemonic which psychotherapists and life coaches use when explaining aims to their clients; SMART. Aims should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based. Put them down in writing, lest you forget things. As repeated elsewhere, once written down, aims and goals take on a concrete life and become commitments. Review them periodically and amend wherever appropriate.

Every project you embark on will need some kind of plan, which should be broken down into a list of jobs based on priority. The most important jobs should be tackled first, and anything that can be done in under three minutes should be attended to immediately.



A good project plan should remain intuitive and realistic and help you find your way around the job. Wayfinding signage from Berardo, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon courtesy of Prentiss Riddle

Top Tips for Effective Job Planning

• Self-discipline will be required
• Little jobs needing less than three minutes should be done at once
• Larger jobs should be broken down into several steps
• Check the job list once a week
• Set up a calendar
• Keep a deadline reminder within your calendar

Note: A reminder system is a good thing to build in to your project plan. At risk of over-stating the point, without writing things down small jobs can fester in the mind, build up so they seem insurmountable and stress you out. Even if you haven’t forgotten anything, you may convince yourself that you have simply by not recording things on paper.

From the book ‘The Little Know-It-All’: “Self-discipline means being able to overcome our innate laziness and inertia, and to carry out even unpleasant tasks in order to achieve more in the end.” Employ SMT (single-minded thought) as often as possible. There exists a theory called ‘The 80:20 Principle’ which states that for many people we waste around 80 per cent of our time on unproductive activities, and that 20 per cent of our most productive time leads to 80 per cent of our success.



“Time is money.” Image courtesy of Patrick T. Power

Time Management

We’ve all heard the oft-quoted phrase “Time is money”. It’s a phrase that holds water as the more time we squander on useless activities the longer the time period the money we’re earning is made in. Set overall and milestone deadlines for each job within your project on paper, and stick to these deadlines to maximise your productivity and profits.

It may help to keep this overall concept of your projects in mind: A project is an undertaking with a delineated beginning and end, in terms of deliveries and timescales involved. They’ll vary in complexity, but all projects will involve stages and sub-projects within the larger whole, and each will need its own thought-through and planned timeline and defined aim. Assembled together, these sub-projects should come together to help realise the larger, project aim.



Have your expected project start and end dates in place during the initial phase of project planning. Image courtesy of annaleahart

The Four Prime Components of Planning

• Evaluation: What are the challenges here and what needs to be done?
• Planning: How do I deal with the challenges?
• Execution: What will my solution look like?
• Observation: How do I check the outcome?

Without adequate planning, projects can quickly fail in a number of ways. Deadlines may be exceeded, milestones missed, jobs forgotten about and things mislaid. You can find yourself on the backfoot, having to play at catch-up because of your own inadequate planning.



With the best will and design skills in the world, without adequate planning, you run the risk of your project turning into a mess. Image courtesy of Frontline Blogger

Projects usually succeed if:

• Everybody involved in the project has the same clearly defined aims and outcomes in mind
• The project is adequately planned, above all to prevent false starts and having to repeat individual steps
• The work is carefully timetabled and monitored to ensure the project can be concluded
• There are open channels of communication at all levels and at all business locations
• You have in place emergency plans you can fall back on if events do not run as planned

Further Rules of the Planning Process

• Plan ahead
• Consider contingencies and emergency options
• Break projects down into manageable milestoness
• Make a list of resources needed
• Draw up a project budget

Execution

• Review project aims
• Stay motivated and enthusiastic
• Complete the project


By constantly monitoring project progress you’ll be able to stay on top of events. Image courtesy of Lars Schleicher

Monitoring

• Constantly monitor your daily activities and workflow
• Keep an eye on timeframes and progress
• Do the same for events
• ot down any outcomes, both foreseen and unforeseen

Adaptation

• Solve problems as they occur
• Keep plans supple and amend if necessary
• Take emergency steps if need be
• Conclude project on time

The project plan is a detailed description of what is required of each project, and is made up of some or all of the following parts:

1. Project Definition

• A description of the tasks to be carried out
• Project resources needed
• Stated project aims
• Project outcome
• Projected project outcomes

2. Project Variables

• Jobs to be executed
• Project start date
• Predicted project duration
• Predicted end date


Another way to view the project plan is as an intricately-composed system of variable key segments. Image courtesy of Adele Turner

3. List of Milestones and Jobs to be Done

• Responsibilities (if working in a team)
• Jobs
• Predicted outcomes
• Planned start date
• Planned end date
• Actual start date
• Actual end date

4. Project Budgets

• Actual project budget
• Projected budget (if different)
• Any other expenses
• Unforeseen costs

Sometimes things just happen that are beyond our control, so always have a contingency plan in place. Image courtesy of Laura Thorne

5. Supplementary plans

Emergency plans

6. Project approval

Case Study: CFTC Experts brochure

Client: Commonwealth Secretariat

Designer: Poonum Chauhan

Design Agency: The Fink Agency LLP

I recently caught up with Poonum Chauhan, a senior designer at The Fink Agency in London, to ask her about any projects she’d been involved in where good project planning had been essential. Her words on a particularly devilish project, in terms of logistics and planning, are given below.

The CFTC Experts brochure is composed of information supplied by countries stretching from East Africa to the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean.

“This project was quite a large one with a lot of different elements involved, and which all had to be pieced together to produce a highly professional document.

“With countries involved from the entire Commonwealth, and individual experts from these countries each writing profiles, the planning, collation and timing of this project needed to be highly organised and efficient, which, as we discovered, didn’t always turn out to be the case! Time zones, work trips, meetings abroad and the general hierarchy of the organisation proved to be challenge, along with budgets too!

“Also, the print was given away, so liaising with the Commonwealth’s printers to ensure the job came out how we wanted it was imperative. A 152pp, 210x210mm brochure, with a throw-out cover, and a 6 colour job were all things to take into consideration when we started this. Also, having to think about courier costs around the world, we had to drop our original case-bound idea as production and postage costs would’ve been just too high!”

Summary

In ‘The Professional Practice of Design’, Dorothy Goslett writes “Many designers, though admitting its necessity, think that design administration is boring, a tiresome chore always to be put aside for doing second if something more exciting crops up to be done first. But good design + good administration = good fees well earned.” If you don’t pay enough attention to it already, get involved in project planning and administration. The routines will soon become habitual and the benefits will reveal themselves to be substantial. For what designer, or client for that matter, doesn’t want his project finished on time and within budget?

Did you meet your planned end date? Were you on time and on budget? You must’ve been if you’ve followed this guide! Image courtesy of Teena Vallerine

References: A chapter on project planning in the excellent ‘The Little Know-It-All, Common Sense for Designers’ book, which I recommend to you all.

]]> http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-3-project-planning/feed/ 1 http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-2-freelance-fee-structures-and-how-to-quote/ http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-2-freelance-fee-structures-and-how-to-quote/#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:04:18 +0000 admin http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/?p=1609

Knowing how to price jobs and what to charge clients is as essential a component of being a successful fledging graphic designer as any. It’s a delicate thing to get right. Price a job too high and you risk your prospective client remaining just that—prospective. Too low, and the person on the other end might view this as a reflection of the quality of the services you provide in a “you get what you pay for” sort of way. So there’s a balance to be struck, and it pays to have some systems in place. Here in the second lesson of our series on professional design practice I’ll do my best to provide you with some frameworks below. So, without further ado, let’s dive in!

Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Professional Design Practice Lesson 2: Freelance Fee Structures and How to Quote

Let’s begin with the simple part which, if you haven’t already, you’ll need to have in place: Your working rates, both hourly and daily. All freelance designers need to establish their rates, have a good idea of them and be ready to submit them when asked for. We’ll get onto pricing entire jobs below but for now we’ll tackle rates, which you’ll need to have in place before you can quote for jobs anyway.

Your rates are what you charge clients for your time and services. Hourly and daily are the most common, both used and asked after. Some individuals choose to charge their clients by the half hour but in general and for the purposes of this blog I’ll stick to the two rates mentioned above.

When deciding what and how you are going to charge people, there are several factors to consider.

How experienced am I

“The force is with you, young Skywalker. But you are not a Jedi yet.” Image courtesy of Daniel Drisdelle

A fledging junior will charge differently from a middleweight designer, who will charge differently from a freelance creative director. This all comes down to experience. You’ll get better the more experienced a designer you become, and will have to adjust your fees throughout your career to reflect this.

Assuming for now you’re at a junior level, you’ll need to choose rates which aren’t quite as high as those charged by middleweights, but good enough for someone who cares about what they do and considers him or herself a fledging professional. In Great Britain, between £12–15 per hour and £80–100 per day are reasonable rates for a junior graphic designer. Each country will have its own averages. Do your research and place yourself where you feel you belong within the appropriate range of rates.

What’s in my Armoury

Any special arrows in there? Image courtesy of Yo Spiff

If you happen to count certain specialised skills within your quiver of arrows then you may want to think about a range of rates for the different services you offer. In addition to solid typography and layout skills and a decent knowledge of printing processes, (which should all be mandatory), perhaps you’re also a bit of a Flash wizard, Aftereffects Jedi or Processing ninja. Competences in these areas, because so baffling to the majority of people, tend to mean that clients will pay a higher fee for them. Given this, to keep a set of rates for standard graphic design services and another for more specialised abilities is a good idea.

Variable Rates

The Lada, the Mondeo or the Bently sir? Image courtesy of Kristina / Webbelina

There are large and small businesses, rich and poor, and everything in between. A good client list should consist of both small businesses and organisations, where shortfalls in budgets are compensated for by a hefty dose of creative freedom afforded the designer, and larger, more established clients, where typically the work is more corporate in look and feel and designers will have more to rail against, but who usually have more money to spend than their smaller high street brethren.

Bearing this in mind, whilst stopping short of advocating rampant, opportunistic greed I see nothing wrong with keeping your working rates supple to allow for the different types of businesses/organisations who might approach you and ask you to quote for a job. It would seem instinctively wrong to quote a local charity the same fee as you would a blue-chip high street bank for the same job. Given this, it is good to keep a range of fees at your disposal, with a top and a bottom end, to allow for the different types of businesses who may engage your services.

Pricing Jobs. Here’s where the Fun Begins…

With a clear and considered decision made on what rates you are going to charge people, you will be able to quote for jobs with a degree of precision. The same rules regarding striking a balance apply here, and the rates you will have established should form your first consideration when quoting for jobs.

There are several factors to reflect on here, some, most or all of which you should build in to quotes you submit wherever appropriate. The more factors you examine and deem relevant to each particular job the more you’ll protect yourself against unforseen eventualities and maximise your profits. It’s also worth noting here to get as much information about the impending job as possible from the client before returning with an estimate. The more information you have at your disposal the better your judgement will be, and the more accurate your quote.

How Long is this Job Likely to Take?

One of the most basic questions you’ll need to consider and estimate on is how much time the job is going to take up. To give this your best estimate, you’ll need to think about how quickly you can complete the actual task, minus client meetings, traveling times, back-and-forth decisions etc. Start to think about how fast you work, how easily the creative process comes to you and how proficient you are with the software packages you use.

What is my Client Like, and How Much Attention is He Going to Require?

The designer/client relationship is an intriguing process of discovery. Image supplied by Simon Goode

A good client can make all the difference to your mental wellbeing as a graphic designer. They’re people, and people are all different, so all clients will possess varying degrees of certain strengths in areas such as organisation, communication and deferment to your professional judgement. Rarely will a client exhibit strengths in these three broad areas in equal measure. Most will be more adept at one over the others.

All designer-client relationships involve a certain amount of mutual learning and a building up of rapport, which, incidentally, is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job. Before submitting any quotes, you will need to get as good a feel as you can for how much of your time and attention you think your client will need. Having only one or two initial meetings, some emails and telephone calls to go on, it helps to stay tuned in to the microclimate of the budding relationship in its early stages, to best anticipate, then build in, what kind of client he or she is going to be.

“We could do it like that or…”

Visually arresting Dragon poster by Australian designer and The Graphic Design School graduate Reide Iredale

Another thing to consider and worth discussing here is the question of design options. To explain, you might be asked to quote on the design and printing of a corporate brochure and see an opportunity within the brief to do something outstanding.

As well as supplying a quote for a standard design job, you might also offer your client a range of delicious design and printing options, gently informing them that, whist perfectly acceptable to pursue the 4-colour, purely typographical “route A”, isn’t the target audience much more likely to be wowed if we pursue “route B” and spend a little more money on commissioning that designer who did the incredible dragon illustration for our intro pages?

All in the Research

Take a leaf from the scouts’ book and “Be Prepared” when pricing jobs. Image used with permission of Steve Borgerding

How much research will need to be done on this job? A local estate agent in need of a logotype and stationery, who comes to you with a rush of A4 printouts of rivals’ work and instructs you to “make it like these” should require less research than a Qatari newspaper contracting you to translate the Gotham typeface into Arabic script, retaining the characteristics of the roman whist simultaneously adapting the face to suit the cultural sensibilities of its readers. Try to estimate how much research will be involved in each job and build this in to your pricing.

Client Involvement & Collaboration

Luckily, Harmony Medical was a client local to Hotson Studio and traveling costs were kept to a minimum.

This ties in to the ‘what is my client like?’ topic discussed above. Try to establish how many meetings will be necessary throughout the design process. Will these meetings involve traveling costs for you in train fares or petrol? Perhaps you’ll bag a Spanish client who’ll insist you fly out for a meeting with him in Madrid (it happens). Does your client have a computer with design software in his office and would he prefer you to work from there alongside him?

Even if the client agrees to visit you at home home or the studio, client meetings can eat away at time like nothing else. If traveling is required of you, the costs involved can hit the pocket hard.

Anything You can’t Handle Alone?

Some jobs will almost certainly involve you subcontracting parts of them out to professionals from the affiliated trades. Illustration, photography, copywriting, translation and motion graphics are typically, and frequently, subcontracted out to others. In this scenario, before submitting a quote to your client you will need to gather your own and work it/them into yours. When doing this, as a rule a 10–15% markup on subcontracted costs is viewed by the profession as acceptable.

Printing commission

Some printers, usually after the development of an ongoing relationship, allow their customers to build in some commission to the quotes they generate. Here, after supplying your printer with a job specification and requesting a quote, then receiving one back, you would ask the printer to re-quote building in an extra cost of between 5–10%. This would be your commission. You would supply your client with the amended printer’s quote and on being paid their fees the printer would pass on your commission to you.

Creative Generosity

On a case-by-case basis, you might decide to offer a discount of between 10–15% for the first job undertaken for a new client, as a gesture of goodwill and in the hope that your generosity at this stage might incentivise him to keep feeding you work in the future. Make a judgement on how likely you feel it is that the relationship will be long-term, generating prospects of further design work for you.

If you can get away with it…

Lastly, and if you feel you can get away with it, add a little extra in to cover yourself, because even with the best planning and pricing in the world, you can never predict for certain what is going to happen to timeframes and budgets. One ex-client of mine springs to mind who, throughout initial meetings, was the very embodiment of good organisation and courtesy, yet who, once the job was underway, revealed itself to be exasperatingly disorganised and at times discourteous. I wasted a lot of hours as a result of their disorganisation, but the job had already been quoted, agreed on and fixed. Their having a limited budget for my services made it difficult for me to add in additional costs retrospectively.

In Sum…

Whilst seemingly a lot to take in, by studying the factors outlined above and bringing to bear as many as you feel relevant to each job you are asked to price, you’ll find yourself more in pocket and more prepared for unexpected hiccups than you would if you simply went through the motions. Fixing your hourly and daily rates is a good and necessary first step. From there, question every part of each potential job you can think of to assess what it’s going to cost you, in time and money, and work out your best estimate. Quoting is sometimes seen as a mildly dull aspect of the freelance graphic designer’s lot, but by viewing yourself less like a sales clerk in a partitioned deskspace and more like a tactical commander on the battlefield, you’ll be well prepared and less likely to fall behind with bills. One final piece of advice from copywriter and blogger Holly Knowlman, who herself is passing on advice that she had heard: “If it’s a crap job and you hate the client … quote them a fortune. It’s much better than turning them down.”

Cool and unflappable, because she has all the bases covered in her estimates. Image used with permission of Laura Vancane

]]> http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-2-freelance-fee-structures-and-how-to-quote/feed/ 3 http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-1-self-promotion-amp-winning-work/ http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/general/professional-design-practice-lesson-1-self-promotion-amp-winning-work/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:51:18 +0000 admin http://www.thegraphicdesignschool.com/blog/?p=1542

In the first of a series of lessons entitled Professional Practice, we have sourced one of todays hottest working English based freelance designers to give you the leg up on building yourself a truly professional Graphic Design practice. Look out for the following in the new series; Freelance Fee Structures & How to Quote, Project Planning (Breaking Jobs Into Milestones), Dealing with Clients, Charging & Invoicing, Law in Design Practice, The Portfolio, A Conclusion of Sorts. Being Freelance. Benefits & Pitfalls.

Author: Bradley Hotson for The Graphic Design School The Graphic Design School offers vocational training graphic design courses. Delivery is online, affordable and open to students all over the world to study in the comfort of their own home.

Professional Practice: Self-promotion & Winning Work

In this climate of Olympian-sized competition, compounded, undoubtedly, by the worldwide recession, it’s imperative for us to do all we can to stand out from our peers, to make an impact on those we meet, to conduct ourselves with integrity when meeting new people and to start to cultivate a reputation, in order that we might be remembered by those commissioning design, and chosen over the competition.

The Lesser Bird of Paradise knows a thing or two about standing out. Image courtesy of Bluepeak Travel Photography bluepeakt

Great Expectations

Many children across Great Britain grow up hearing the oft-quoted phrase “from little acorns, large oak trees grow”. This is a worthwhile phrase to remember when starting out on the path to a career in graphic design. Many undergraduates, having spent years reading about star-designers and surfing the websites of their favourite studios, become stuffed to the gills on great work, and may face a rude awakening when, on graduating, they find that Nike aren’t banging at their door to insist on giving them their next international campaign to work on, or that Pentagram haven’t created a job position especially for them.

Starting out rarely involves working with clients of Nike’s calibre. More realistically, your first break might come through a small charity, a local acupuncturist or an acquaintance in need of an identity. These are the kinds of “little acorns” which, though not as glamourous as Nike and its ilk, offer young graphic designers an opportunity to cut their teeth, do some great work and begin to cultivate a reputation. In his best-selling book “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be” Paul Arden writes “We are always waiting for the perfect brief from the perfect client. It almost never happens. You’re probably working on a job or project right now and saying ‘This is boring, let’s just deal with it and get it over with. We’ll make the next one good.’ Whatever is on your desk right now, that’s the one. Make it the best you possibly can.” Paul is right. By conducting yourself with integrity and doing your best on each job you’re commissioned you will be making moves toward building a good professional reputation.

Rather than pursue the big beasts…

…adjust your sights and go after those that need you most! Lioness picture used with permission of Laurent Geslin, photographer Laurent-Geslin Moggie picture supplied by Herbi Ditl www.flickr.com/photos/herbivore

A recent branding project for a newly-formed free church by Hotson Studio Hotson Studio

In any event, it’s a sure bet that the “dream clients” (Nike and, in Britain, perhaps Selfridges) will already have access to award-winning, highly reputable design studios. The evidence for this is there in the quality of their campaigns. Far better to look in the less exposed, more pedestrian corners of the High Street and business world, and to seek out those who could really do with your help. Adrian Shaughnessy in “How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul” puts it nicely when he says “There is more personal satisfaction in taking a client with no apparent potential and producing effective and resonant work for them than there is in working for so-called ‘cool brands’.”

With realistic expectations, and a personal business ethic in place, you can deploy the techniques explored below to help make things happen.

Word of Mouth

It occasionally frustrates me how many potential clients are going about their work unaware of just how much good graphic design could enhance the value of their business. These potential clients are everywhere. One of our jobs is to tap into this rich seam and pull some aboard, just as the brown bear scoops the salmon from the fast-flowing stream in the wilds of Canada.

There are various methods of finding clients at our disposal, and to maximise our chances of building a solid client base we need to exploit each of them as best we can.

As a freelance graphic designer you’re your own shop front. Image courtesy of Colin Turner

Even in this digital age one of the surest ways of making contacts and finding work remains plain old-fashioned word of mouth. Make sure family members and friends all know what you do and have at least some idea of what the profession entails. They will then be in a position to mention your name (and perhaps pass on a well-designed business card of yours that you’ll have supplied them with) should they hear of anything going. Between you and everybody you know, you probably know more people who commission design than you’d think.

There’s no reason why the same rule cannot apply to clients. If you have an existing client then ask him to keep his ear to the ground for you and recommend you to his associates. By ruthlessly exploiting every contact you can think of things can (at the best of times) develop for you in an exponential manner.

Your Online Presence

Some graphic designers still pride themselves on running a thriving business without the need for a website, but they are now a minority breed. In the digital age it pays to work at your online presence, through your own site and the larger, networking-based ones. At the bare minimum, a well-designed single webpage can act as a message board through which potential clients might email, telephone or write you. You can also supply a link to a website like Flickr, where you can keep an up-to-date online portfolio of your work. If you use Twitter, or run a blog, then leave the links on your webpage. If you’re a web-savvy designer then I won’t need to stress how beneficial and impacting a well-designed and planned website can be.

Letterpress printers Typoretum work hard at their online presence and have an integrated approach, each page giving links to the others, forming an intuitive whole www.typoretum.co.uk

I have found Twitter to be a useful tool for making contacts. Twitter seems to be like Marmite in that people either love it or hate it (or don’t “get” it), but through persevering with Twitter, winning followers and following the interesting Tweeters, advertising your work and leaving links to useful online stuff, you can gain a valuable network of online contacts, some of whom may contact you when they need creative services. With a copy & paste you can publish the same information you tweet through Facebook, LinkedIn and Bebo, your own blog or website. Once you get going this can take seconds, and it pays to disseminate your information as widely as possible.

There are dedicated businesses such as View Creatives in Britain where you can upload a cv and selection of work, which prospective clients can then download for a small fee and view respectively. Some of these sites, for a small monthly standing order, give the option of being a premium user which guarantees a place near the top of the list and offers more space to upload images of work. This too, parallel to a networking-based online presence, may be worth considering.

Link each account, blog and website back to the others. The more relentless you are at publicising yourself, informing your followers and friends of recent work and advertising your wares online the better your chances of making a successful go at gaining a substantial pool of contacts.

Self-promotional Material

Back in the real, tangible world of print and paper, you will also need to engage in the production of printed promotional literature. This too, when starting out, can be a useful tool in generating leads and contacts. Be prepared to work hard to make whatever you do visually arresting and distinctive. The world is awash with printed, moribund detritus and amongst all this you’ll want to get noticed. You might start with a postcard, displaying an image of a favourite piece of work on one side and your contact details on the reverse. The more ambitious-minded might want to experiment with an intricately folding piece displaying a choice selection of work. This adds a tactile element for the end user to experience.

Graphic design studio Turnbull Grey letterpress print their own greetings cards and frequently use them for self-promotional purposes Turnbull Grey

Your promotional piece should be used to leave behind at interviews and meetings, and to send out to people. Direct mail should be considered, and the same rules about making your piece visually compelling apply. Just as I’m advising you all to do here, I myself recently designed and had printed a 16pp A3 poster, which folds down to postcard size. One side contained a selection of imagery from my portfolio with explanatory text, and the reverse some typography and contact details. I sent this piece out, combined with a handwritten letter on my own letterhead, to existing and prospective clients and London-based studios whose businesses I admired. In two months I’ve been invited along to several portfolio reviews with design studios (advice and criticism given at these are invaluable) and pulled a new client on board who I am now working for. My database of contacts received a considerable boost through the endeavour.

I learned that details with this sort of thing matter. Be sure to have a well-designed, cohesive suite of stationery with which to use when writing to people. Find out your contact’s name and record it accurately to avoid the dreaded “Dear Sir/Madam” at the top of your letterhead. Another tip from Adrian Shaugnessy “…when you write a letter, especially a letter promoting you or your company, always write the address on the envelope by hand. It is so fare to get a letter with a handwritten address that most people instinctively open these first.”

Your stationery needn’t be gorgeously foil-blocked like Build’s is, but put as much effort into its design as they did www.designbybuild.com

The Self-initiated Brief

“Self-initiated projects are often necessary for the individual’s … psychic health, and the urge to experiment and explore is perfectly reasonable”. So says Adrian Shaughnessy, who then goes on to make clear that we should be under no illusion that self-initiated projects impress in the same way that a real, commercial project will. He has a valid point, although there are no hard and fast rules to what works in graphic design. I have met people in studios who have politely leafed through my commercial work unconcernedly and only really displayed any interest when coming across my letterpress work, which is largely self-initiated. One past client even took me on for a summer on the strength of a student sketchbook.

Though rare, if good enough (and out there online) your work may be spotted by the editor of a design journal and images requested for inclusion, and this can happen for personal projects just as easily as commercial ones (see the record sleeves by Hector Pottie below). My own feelings on the matter are that self-initiated projects allow the designer to give full reign to his creative impulses, allowing any potential client a better insight into who the person he may commission really is.

These fictional, silk-screen printed record sleeves by Hector Pottie were deemed fit for inclusion in an issue of British-based Grafik magazine

Summary

By pouring sweat, blood and tears over the various means and methods described above, you will be laying the sound foundations of a healthy freelance life. Maintain realistic goals, be aware of the zeitgeist, of all that goes on around you, and try to act with originality and precision when working on self-promotional and -initiated work, and your online presence. Treat self-promotion as an ongoing process rather than a sequence of one-offs. By maintaining a critical, striving attitude to your own work and acting with integrity and professionalism in your dealings with people you’ll soon be on the front foot and cracking open the champagne!

*Pop!* “Whey!” *Splash* *Fizz* *Pour, pour, pour* *Clink* “Cheers!” *Glug, glug, glug&ellip;*. Image supplied by Alessandro Termignone

Next week in our series of Professional Design Practice…

Freelance Fee Structures & How to Quote

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