Getting Paid to Create

As creative professionals, we get paid to be creative. Some of us get to illustrate; some of us design websites; some of us lay out print pieces, and so on. If you work for a small design firm (or if you are a freelancer), you likely have a constant influx of new projects to work on – and thus new things to create. This beats the heck out of getting paid to clean bathrooms, or hawk shady merchandise, etc. At its core, getting paid to be creative is pretty sweet.

Working in a Constantly Evolving Field

Design – especially of the web or tech variety – is constantly evolving. New devices bring new problems for us to solve; designers have to constantly be on top of what’s happening in the industry. This means new challenges, new techniques to learn, and an ever-growing skill set. Design is an exciting field, thanks to its never-ending march towards progression.

Helping Shape Our (Visual) World

Whether we like it or not, we live in a world where visuals are at and around every corner (piled on top of one another, all clamouring for a fleeting moment of our attention). This moves past the street corner and into our online lives as well. As designers – whether print, web, identity, or else – we all have a role in shaping the visual side of our lives. Sometimes this role is huge and sometimes this role is small, but it’s a role – and one we should be proud of.

Design for Change

If we’re lucky, designers will have an opportunity – or make an opportunity – to design for change. With this, I mean doing creative work that aims to make a positive impact on the world. Maybe this involves environmentalism, or humanitarian work. It could be as big as strategizing, creating and launching an international campaign; it could be as small as volunteering to redesign the website for your local animal shelter. Regardless, the opportunity for us to design for change is out there, and that’s a good part of being a designer of any ilk.

Helping Clients Realize Their Dreams

Somewhat cheesy subtitle? Yes. Truth? Definitely. One of, if not the, absolute best things about working in the design field is helping bring a client’s vision to life. Paper Leaf works with many small businesses and start-ups; the path taken from meeting with the client, learning about their business, helping strategize & set goals through to design roughs/mockups to completed deliverable is very rewarding. There are few things better in work life than seeing a client light up when you knock their visual identity and all related collateral out of the park. Helping clients realize their dreams is an amazing part of being a designer.

It’s easy to dwell on the negatives of something; I mean, we’ve all shared horror stories with friends over a pint. However, I do think it’s important to make an effort to recognize the positives too – an area too often overlooked. What I’ve written here are just a few of the more large-scope, positive sides of being a designer that came to mind as I was thinking about this post. What about you? What do you love about your job?

What’s It All About?

The tagline on the front of the book reads “posts from the crossroads of design & marketing”, and that pretty much sums up the collection. You’re not going to find any list posts; no Illustrator or Photoshop tutorials; no CSS tricks. Instead, you’ll read various cerebral takes on design/marketing and its effect on the viewer. From takes on packaging design to virtual branding; from building trust to limited edition designs; a wide range of topics are covered here.

A small sample of articles inside include:

• Can graphics make a car go faster?
• Even no branding is branding
• Is gender bending ok for brands?
• Can bad taste make for a good design

The jkr Design Gazette has been posting daily for two years; it is a respected source for design & marketing journalists, industry experts & more. The design expertise is applied to offer an informed perspective on branding & marketing topics.

Who’s It For?

The Blue Lady’s New Look is a book for those consumed by design & marketing – those who love to learn the ins & outs, how design & marketing work with one another, and how to apply one to the other to maximize results. This isn’t a “how to do X” book, but this is a good thing; instead, the writing is designed to make the reader think, to make the reader come up with their own solutions. It truly is a thought-provoking read, with worthwhile questions being asked and expanded upon by the author, Silas Amos. While I’d recommend any and all involved in the design industry to have a read, the greatest benefit will come to those who have a little experience under their belts. This experience will help the understanding of some of the topics covered within the book.

While the book is well-written and definitely thought out, it isn’t perfect (nothing ever is). Each article is a bite-sized chunk, save the last one. While this is probably mostly a good thing – our attentions spans are ever-shortening – it does feel like a few articles here and there could have benefitted from a bit more content. However, maybe that’s just me enjoying what I’m reading and wishing for more. The design and printing of the book is done well enough, but it definitely isn’t ground-breaking; it’s a bit bland, to be honest. The design of the book does its job in the sense of staying out of the way of the content; however, the complete lack of color (likely a cost-cutting measure) is a slight visual detriment. Finally, the table of contents is laid out by grouping of articles, not per article. This can make it difficult to go back and find articles you’ve enjoyed and want to reference, which happens often since each article is easily digestible and well-written.

All in all, though, I’d deem The Blue Lady’s New Look and Other Curiosities a worthwhile addition to any designer’s bookshelf. I know mine is better off with it. I’ve found myself referring back to its contents in successful efforts to start up a stalled creative engine. It’s a breath of fresh air in the design authoring market; if interested, the book is available for purchase on Amazon.

When someone begins his/her freelance design career, all we have are referrals: from our friends, schoolmates, even our parents and family. As we land our first clients and complete our first design jobs, it’s important to realize the importance of referrals and think about how to maximize them. The more clients we get, the more opportunity for referrals, which brings in more clients, and so on. It grows exponentially and, if you take steps to ensure you get more referrals, you may not have to spend a cent on advertising. Ever.

Make the Project Easy

You know that friend of yours? The one with whom it’s always just “easy” to hang out with, no matter how long it’s been or how different your lives have become? You want to be that designer for your clients. Every single decision you make during the project process should help make the whole project easy… even enjoyable.

I remember hearing a quote that’s stuck with me (the source of which I’ve forgotten): “Clients don’t know the difference between good & great, but they will remember how they were treated”. Now, this isn’t meant to say you can get away with less than your best work (we’ll discuss that in the next point); what it’s saying is that how your treat your client (and their project, by proxy) is what they’ll remember most about you. If you make everything easy, they will enjoy the process and your chances of getting a positive referral will skyrocket. On the flipside, if you make things difficult, your clients will not refer you (and probably won’t come back to you themselves).

When I say make things easy, I mean everything: from little stuff (numbering your logo design concepts so they can refer to “concept #1″ as opposed to “the one with the blue swoosh, but not the dark blue swoosh one”) to the big stuff (accepting payment, developing the CMS theme so it functions in a simple, logical manner). Leave no stone un-easied.

Do Great Work

Your work can’t just look great. That’s only good work. Your work can’t just function great. That is also only good work. Your work needs to look great and function great. That is great design work, and that is what you have to deliver to your clients.

Your level of greatness will raise as you get better, and thus your old design work will not be as great as your new design work. However, it’s important to feel that you did everything you could to deliver top-notch work – the best you could possibly do at this point in time. It’s not always easy – some clients want ugly and ineffective things, to be blunt – but do your best. That’s all you can do. Be honest with yourself, as well.

If you do truly great work, and explain to your client WHY it is great (without being a pompous jerk), then your chances of a positive referral will go up.

Make the Referral Process Simple

The simplicity principle (I just made that up) that applies to web design applies to your referral process as well. The more simple it is for someone to do something, the greater the likelihood of them actually doing it. If your goal is to get people to register for a website, make the process simple. If your goal is to get more referrals, make the process simple.

How? It depends on you & your client, but here are some thoughts:

• if you have a page on your site that is frequently accessed by existing clients, perhaps add a “Refer Us!” button to it somewhere
• when you send along your final invoice, perhaps add a note in the email or invoice asking for a referral if they enjoyed working with you
• perhaps you have an email referral template you can share with your clients so they don’t have to spend the time writing it up themselves; they can just throw their name on it and send it out to their contacts

There’s myriad ways to make the process simple; brainstorm, ask your clients, ask your fellow designers. Give one method a shot, evaluate it, and try another. The bottom line is: a simple referral process will lead to more referrals.

Have a Referral Program with Incentive

We live in a me-first society; most people won’t do anything unless it provides a benefit to them. With that in mind, try creating a referral program for your existing clients. The key to the success of this referral program is that it has to have some incentive for people to use it.

A basic version? For every referral someone sends to you that turns into an actual project, you send them $100. Or perhaps you give them a discount on their next design service. Or perhaps you give them a complimentary pass to a tanning salon. Whatever it is, it needs to a) be enticing to the referrer, and b) be sustainable for your business. $100 might seem like a lot, but if you’re referred a client who turns into a $5000 web project, who cares? That’s $4900 profit for you.

Again, test the waters, see what works, revamp what doesn’t. But referral programs do work if done right.

Just Ask

The final point is the most straightforward: just ask. If you have clients whom you know love working with you, just ask them to refer you to their contacts. Better yet, ask if they can send you 5 contacts who might need your services – then the ball is in your court to contact them. Simple, but it works. Just remember to be courteous and don’t be pushy.

What About You?

How big of a role do referrals play in your business? Huge? None? In-between? Do you have any tips & tricks you’ve learned over the years? Let us know in the comments.

Perhaps the most fun part of the whole contest is the client writeup, where you get the most jargon-laden client brief to work from ever. Full of contradictions and punchlines seemingly pulled straight from ClientsFromHell, I had a good laugh reading it. Here’s a few sections pulled from the client brief, so you can see what we were tasked to create:

Meet the Client

Excellencico (established in 1996) is a global leader in providing a focused, broad range of services to a world-class, international, region-centric clientele. Excellencico harnesses evolving, dynamic e-technologies to provide unparalleled levels of synergistic e-products to a heterogeneous set of unperpendiculated e-applications…

Direction

Our logo needs to be simple and yet detailed, complex yet spare. We prefer that the logo convey the forward-thinking nature of our company without looking too futuristic or flashy but we also don’t want anything too conservative or neutral. “Just right” is the vibe we are looking for. We believe that “e” best defines our unique approach and core company culture. We’re very drawn to the colors one finds in a rainbow but color wheels are a significant turn-off. I have attached a picture of our puppy. We don’t want the puppy incorporated into the logo but we do want you to capture her spirit and attitude and expect that to be conveyed through design elements.

Pure designnerd comedy gold, I tell ya. Armed with this information, I opened up Illustrator and, with much thought, created this monstrosity of a logo:

Now, while you’re admiring my masterful creation, I’d like to touch on a little about what makes this logo so bad. Of course, I set out with the general goal of creating a gaudy, overdesigned pile of junk. However, I also wanted to add in a little bit of horrible details that I’m sure other graphic and logo designers will notice and appreciate. Have a look at this handy graphic explaining what makes this logo so bad below (click to enlarge).

It actually took quite a bit of thought to make a logo that bad. I had to make sure to scale/squish the type; kern the type poorly; choose two typefaces that have nothing to do with the client’s business (whatever that is, exactly) but still don’t work together; ensure gradients are used excessively and that they don’t follow the same direction (or else there would only be one light source); find stock art and scale/squish that; and I had to make sure to distort/transform the whole logo to make it “just right”. Plus, there are the other touches like a heavy drop shadow and the standard corporate swooshes.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. Head over to the gallery to view all submissions – here’s mine, specifically - and let me know your thoughts on how I could make this logo even worse in the comments! Also, if you want to vote for my logo as the lowest of the low, please do! After all, I did put barely any work into it.

Communication = Speaking + Listening

For the purpose of this article, “communication” entails both sides of the coin: speaking and listening. Many people assume being a clear communicator is the same as being a clear speaker; however, as communication is a two-way street, a true clear communicator is one who is a clear speaker as well as an active listener. These traits are found in great designers.

Clear Speaking

You can design ’til the cows come home, sketching out epic illustrations worthy of the Sistine Chapel or creating websites that best any CSS gallery out there. However, if you can’t clearly articulate your design choices to your clients, co-workers or bosses, you might as well be designing in tables or drawing sketch figures. Being able to articulate that your decisions for that call-to-action button on the homepage – including size, shape, color, surroundings and placement – were designed in a thoughtful manner in order to meet pre-determined goals means two things: a) you’re already showing you’re an active listener, and b) you’re a strategic designer who cares about measurables, not just “making things look nice”.

By showing you’re a strategic designer who cares about client goals, you’re already speaking your clients’ language: business, not design. By doing so, you’re on your way to cultivating a strong client-designer relationship.

Active Listening

All that being said, it’s sort of pointless to be “speaking your clients’ language” if you’re not actually listening to their wishes & goals. If you truly understand the problems that need to be solved, the wants & needs of the client, you will already be on the path to a successful design.

I remember one of the project management classes I took a few years ago. Out of everything I learned in the course, there was one quote that stuck with me: “Are you really listening, or are you just waiting for your turn to speak?” (a quick Google search says this apparently is attributed to John Milton Fogg… I have no idea who this is). Regardless of source, it really hit home for me. If you’re a good listener, you’re actually listening as opposed to waiting for your turn to speak. It’s a great way to make sure you’re accurately listening; try applying it in your next conversation.

Anyway, being an active listener is the other half of being a great communicator. You can’t be a great listener and poor speaker if you want to be a great communicator; likewise, you can’t be a great speaker and a poor listener either. If you really want to succeed in the world of design, you need to be strong in both areas; luckily it’s something people can, and should, strive to better about themselves.

How to Improve Your Communication Skills

There’s no easy path to improving your communication skills, but there are a bevy of articles, books, and even courses out there in your city you can use on your quest. Your clients will respect you; you will have a stronger body of work; you will have an easier time getting client approval; and most importantly, you will grow as a designer.

What tips & tricks do you use to ensure clear client communication?