Archive for the ‘Client Management’ Category
Take the Lead in Your Remote Work Relationships Found this post in WebWorkerDaily today. Terrific tips about managing your project…whether you work remotely or not.
After one of my regular visits to the JohnsonBanks (UK design firm) website’s “Thought of the Week”, I was directed to this post in DesignObserver (that I somehow missed). It discussed the seepage of the title phrase into the client’s lexicon and the potentially destructive quality to encouraging this. Below are some excerpts, but here’s the full post. Today, the term has seeped into everyday usage, and it has become widely used by commissioners of graphic design. Why? Is it because it’s a piece of useful shorthand that emphasizes the importance of usability in modern strategy-driven communications? Or is it a babyish term that reduces the designer to the role of decorator — someone who gets asked to “color-in” strategic plans made by smart marketing wonks who think design is a no-brainer? British designer Michael Johnson … noted an increase in usage of the term: “Yes, people use it a lot,” he says. “I’ve always mistrusted it as a phrase — apart from sounding vaguely pornographic, I think when you succumb to ‘look and feel’ you’re only a hop and a skip away from mood boards, and that really is the end of design as we know it. It’s the kind of phrase that researchers love to throw around in focus groups, a process almost always destined to remove the last hints of creativity from a project.” Ever since W.A. Dwiggins became the first person to call himself a graphic designer, designers have agonized over the nomenclature of their trade. In recent decades, they have been dumping the word design as fast as they can in favor of more business-friendly terms such as corporate image, corporate identity, and most recently, branding. Does any of this matter? If clients are happy to refer to the output of graphic designers as “look and feel,” where’s the harm? Well, the harm is that it’s a euphemistic term that no better describes what good design can do that “nip and tuck” describes the work of a skilled brain surgeon. We encourage its use at our peril. Resist, I say
… at least where design RFPs are concerned. I just read a great article on the IdeasOnIdeas blog about just that. It detailed why RFPs are not only bad for designers, but also for those who are “purchasing” creative services as well. I’ve included a few excerpts below, but encourage you to check it out. As a bonus, they’ve even included a well-crafted (and quite polite) boilerplate response. If for no other reason than that, their blog entry is worth the read!
I attended a lecture today at Medill at Northwestern University given by Cathie Black, president of Hearst Magazines, who discussed her new book Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life). I have not read the book yet, but took away several tips that could be applied to the freelancer/small business owner:
She also spoke about a balance between work and personal life. With that in mind, most of these tips can also be applied to our lives outside of work.
Since fees and how to charge are two topics that always pop up in our group, thought I’d share a good, really short article from MarketingProfs newsletter on setting fees. The take on hourly is a good one! |