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Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

5 Cheap Ways to Find Local Design Clients

September 14, 2009

Thanks to this whole “internet” thing, you can have clients all over the world if you’re a designer. Blogs, directories, and software like Skype, iChat and more have completely reshaped long-distance working relationships. However, there is still a lot to be said for local clients.

Depending on your city (or town, or hamlet, or whathaveyou), chances are there are a lot of locally-owned small businesses in dire need of design work. Luckily, you’re a local designer chomping at the bit to provide it to them. But how can you find these clients (without breaking the bank), and how can these clients find you? Read on for the answers to these questions: 5 cheap ways to find local design clients.

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How to Get Your Clients to Use a Design Brief

August 26, 2009

Ah, the design brief. For those designers who regularly use them, we will never go back. They provide focus to the project for both the client and the designer; they provide a resource to come back to during the design process; they are indispensable to the project. Most designers don’t need convincing on the importance of the design brief – but some clients do.

So, for those clients who need the gentle push towards the design brief – how should we do it? In my eyes, there are three main steps:

Educating the Client
Explaining the Benefits to the Client
Making it Easy for the Client

Remember, the design brief benefits all parties involved! With that in mind, let’s explore these steps towards getting your clients to use design briefs. Read the whole article >

For Our Clients: Logos

August 24, 2009

This is an article in a series called “For Our Clients”. The goal of these articles is to be as transparent as we can with our clients so as to help clarify how we think, what we do, and how we do it. We also hope that these articles can become a resource for clients – sort of an FAQ in article form – that will help broaden the understanding of why certain projects have the characteristics they do.

Your logo is the face of your business. It needs to project the image you want for your business; it needs to attract your target market; it needs to be effective in a range of mediums. Each client is unique, and thus each client’s logo is unique. So how do you know what a great logo looks like? How can you articulate the qualities of a good logo? What goes in to a logo design process?

Logo design by Paper Leaf for Jacek Chocolate

Those questions, and more, are what we aim to answer with this article. If you are looking into hiring a designer to create your logo, or rebrand your business, please read on. This article will tell you what to look for in a logo, and reveal to you exactly how Paper Leaf goes about creating logos for our [many, happy] clients. Hit the jump for more info!

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The Importance of a Quality Website

August 17, 2009

If you own a business, you need a website – a great website.

Blunt? Yes. True? Yes. Great topic sentence? Maybe not.

But it is the truth. Sure, some businesses can survive without having a website. They’re out there. But if you’re a small business owner sans website, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. More and more people shop online every day; more and more people hop on Google to find a local business as opposed to the ol’ Yellow Pages. It’s how the up-and-coming generations operate, and it will only tilt more and more in that direction as time goes on.

Alright, so I’ve convinced you that a website is important (thanks to my majestic abilities as a wordsmith… no?). But here is where we enter the debate regarding “Any Old Website” vs. a “Quality Website”. Tough to define terms, but I’ll try my best.

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