Casino Creations

This week I had to create a casino, and an Identity for that casino, for my environmental design class. I came up with a concept for a kind of modern age world oriented hotel + casino. I wanted to do something unique by created a kind of reverse hotel. The hotel is built in the center of a giant round about with parking on 2 sides and entrances on the other two sides. The first 3 levels are a mall/food court, then the next 20 levels are rooms and staff living quarters.

Concept sketches:

This project was pretty awesome because it pushed me to think realistically about how a building would work with the world around it.

Eat Well Campaign

For the final project of my Art Direction class we had to create company based around a cause and create a campaign for that company. I chose Obesity, originally, and began writing down all the stuff I knew about it. I did a ton of research and found out that the majority of most cases stem from a persons childhood. So with this information I decided to base the campaign more around children and their parents.

Facts / concept thumbnails :

As far as design goes, I originally was going to do a campaign using fat version of all the fast food restaurant mascots, inspired by Ron English, but I decided that was extremely unoriginal at this point. So I started thinking that the facts on their own would make a pretty big impact, but as I started thumb nailing out concepts ,with just facts, it felt like there was just a huge disconnect. I felt like something had to have a human feeling to it. Thats when I realized I could just do a visual percentage with simply 2 colors.

Original concept sketch for print ad:

I chose grey and red, these color had an extremely strong contrast especially when left on a white background. The red was meant to pull you in and the grey would hold you and keep you reading.

Once that was finished I had to figure out how I was going to create a commercial, this was a required piece. With this new concept in my sketchbook I sought out to story board out something that would have the same impact of the print ads. This was not easy because I didn't really have any animation skills other than my comic book experience. I did about 35 thumbnails that, in my opinion, were complete garbage. Then decided on creating a Kinetic Type video with a couple of other elements to tie it all in with the campaign.

Final suede storyboard for commercial:

Now that I had the commercial concept I had the even more daunting task of learning enough After Effects to create this commercial. I spent about 3 hours watching tutorial videos on Lynda and Youtube. Then I spent about 12 hours creating the visuals for the final commercial, but then I realized I had not made a decision on what type of audio I would use. I tried creating my own music in Garage Band with no success. I googled FREE SOUND and found FreeSound.org. This place was pretty amazing I searched through their thousands of free sounds and found a 36 second clip of an awesome guitar riff. I added the audio to my AE file and gave my visuals a little tweak to sync it with the new found audio.

Overall It was a pretty awesome experience and it taught me that I could probably learn any program if a job calls for it.

Here are all my final renders of the campaign including the commercial:

Final Commercial:

Thanks for Reading / Watching!

Article of interest

I found this at WebDesignerDepot, I've had to work with a couple of clients just like this, Extremely overbearing clients that just hire you because they think they're designers without the software knowledge. I'm a pretty laid back person so I just get the work done and get out, but I've seen some designers handle this in an extremely bad way, I.E. getting into yelling matches with the client or ignoring the client or even talking down to the client. I recommend to any incoming designers to read this article.


7 Essential Red Flags to Watch in New Clients

Working with clients is one of the most difficult parts of being a web designer.

It’s a challenge which we face each and every day, regardless of whether we work in-house, as freelancers, or as agency owners.

Some clients are great, while others leave us tearing our hair our and wondering why we felt the need to subject ourselves to this line of work.

While some problems with clients can be put down to poor communication by both parties, many times we can identify clients which are going to be difficult before we even start working with them.

Today we’ll take a look at seven ways to make sure you don’t end up as a regular contributor to ClientsFromHell.net.

1. They Want To Argue on Price

This is probably the most common of all red flags. A client who wants to argue on price is a client who doesn’t respect, understand, or value the work of a web designer. If you hear statements such as “I have a nephew who can do the Photoshop for $50″ – run a mile.

Other common issues surrounding price and payment include not wanting to pay a deposit before the commencement of work and trying to get you to agree to payment clauses. For example: “Our new website must receive X amount of traffic by X date in order for the final 25% to become payable.”

This is not acceptable. You are a professional providing professional services, so make sure you are polite but firm with the price which you have quoted. The only way to increase the perceived value of web design as a service is if we hold steady on this issue.

Some clients think that they should be able to pay whatever they feel like for services, because they aren’t products with fixed prices. This is memorably depicted in The Client Vendor Relationship by Scofield Editorial.

2. They Need it Done Yesterday

Probably the next most common red flag encountered: clients who need their project completed yesterday, or at the very least by the end of the week.

Not understanding or caring about the amount of time needed in the web design process is another sure sign of a poor client. Not understanding, in principle, is OK. The not caring part is the real issue. Almost all clients with an immediately pressing deadline aren’t open to suggestion, their mind is made up.

Web design at any level beyond the most basic of sites takes a significant amount of time. The reality of the situation is that in the overwhelming majority of cases it wouldn’t even be possible to meet their deadline if you worked all day and all night.

I once left a client’s office at 8 PM on a Monday and had the client shouting at me on the phone at 9 AM on Tuesday asking why the next design revision hadn’t been completed. Needless to say, for that and other reasons, the project didn’t work out.

3. They Have an Existing Website Which Sucks

My own trademarked indicator of how to spot a nightmare client. It’s easy to think that if a client has an existing website which sucks, that they must have had a bad web designer. What is true much more of the time is that they had a good web designer and they screwed up the site all by themselves.

Here’s the thing, and The Oatmeal summed this up perfectly in their comic How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell, clients often have an overwhelming knack for screwing up websites. Looking at their current website can often offer a pretty clear indicator of what sort of client they’ll be.

Along the same lines, also depicted in aforementioned comic, if the client has a poor relationship with their last web designer then it could be a pretty good indicator that they’re going to end up having a poor relationship with you. I’ve personally never met a client who complained about their last web designer and then turned out to be loads of fun to work with.

The best clients already have great websites. They researched what they wanted, they worked with a great designer, the website is great, and now they want to work with you to take it to the next level.

4. The Person Managing the Project Built the Current Website

A sure-fire way to doom a project before it ever gets of the ground. If the person who you’re working for is the person who created the website which you’re redesigning, then they’re going to take everything personally.

Not only are they going to take everything personally, but they are going to want to offer their input, advice, and opinions every single step of the way. This is never more true than if the marketing manager is the person who runs the current site. Statements such as “can we make it flash” and “can we make the logo bigger” were born from clients such as this.

The fact of the matter is that the person who is paying you needs to be at least slightly impartial about the website which you’re creating for them. If they have a personal connection or commitment then the chances are that their own personal preferences will get in the way of important decisions.

For designers in particular, this type of client is guaranteed to be a pain from the get-go. If this red flag is present, then nine times out of ten red flag number three will also be there.

5. They Can’t Communicate

One of the more sneaky red flags, this one can creep up on you and knock you down when you’re least expecting it. Poor communicators come in all shapes and sizes. A client who seems like a great communicator socially does not always translate into a client who is a great communicator professionally.

The best way to gauge this particular metric is through multiple channels of communication. Talking on the phone, talking in person, writing via email, writing via project management software. How well are they able to tell you what they want?

Some of the classic statements used by clients who can’t communicate are “I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it.” and “I want it to have more [pop/jazz/edge/whoosh/sex/shine/glint]“ – these people just don’t know how to say what they mean and as a result it’s almost impossible to please them.

Communication is the most essential part of the web design process and without it a working relationship cannot go smoothly.

6. They Want Constant Meetings

The needy client is sure of only one thing, they don’t know what they’re doing and they don’t trust you to do it. To make up for their insecurities, they want to see you regularly so that you can hold their hand at every turn. With this client you’ll end up spending more time in meetings with them than you will on design or code.

The needy client will eventually drain you of all your time an energy. In extreme cases they’ll even ask you to work at their offices. They don’t trust you, they want to keep an eye on you and they want you to be right there whenever they have a question.

This red flag will often show itself in combination with the “Can’t Communicate” red flag. Their own inability to communicate leads them to believe that you don’t understand what they want, (this part is actually justified, most of the time you have no idea what they want because they themselves have no idea what they want), so they want to see you often to ask about more ‘pop’ and ‘flare’.

7. They Want an Ongoing Relationship

Finally, the ultimate red flag. A client who talks constantly about how they want an “ongoing relationship” is a client to avoid like the plague.

In a healthy professional relationship both parties know that if the project goes well, and if the opportunity presents itself, then they will work together again. A client who is insecure (number 6) and had a bad relationship with their last designer (number 3) wants to hang on to the next guy like he’s their holy savior.

In extreme cases these clients will talk about how they want to make you “part of the team” or “part of the family”. These are also the clients that are most likely to try to tempt you with offers of revenue or stock in the company in place of some part of your fee. They want to lock you in and own you.

This is the client who is going to call you at eleven at night because they had some great (read: awful) new idea that they just had to run past your urgently, just in case you were relaxing and going to bed instead of working on their site. Remember, you’re part of the family now, they own you.

Conclusion

Many of these issues can come down to uneducated clients, and as many other articles in the past have stressed: educating clients is extremely important. It’s your job to help them make the right decision, not laugh at them for not knowing what it is. Sometimes however, they can’t be helped.

We all have bills and mortgages to pay. Sometimes people say that they don’t have the luxury of choosing their clients in so much detail. Just keep in mind that a bad client will cost you money, not make you money. These are the types of people who will waste your time for two months and then with-hold payment.

This is just a blog post, these aren’t commandments written in stone. There are exceptions to every rule and it’s up to you to use your own judgement and common sense to identify the red flags as they come up. Hopefully, this post will have simply given you a few tips on things to look out for.

This post was authored exclusively for WDD by John O’Nolan, a seasoned web designer, writer and entrepreneur based in Surrey in the United Kingdom. John loves to talk to people, so why not @JohnONolan on twitter too?

Simple videos by Animoto

This week we had to prepare images for a video project for Advanced Design. My instructor informed us about this free video editing site called Animoto.com. Its really simple to use and fast. I decided I was gonna put a small video together, as kind of a demo reel, of my print portfolio. I chose a simple and clean foundation video and uploaded a couple of pages from my portfolio. Then I took a look at their selection of music , which is huge and diverse, and I decided on some cool electronic up beat music. I think it came out awesome.

To see this video, Check out my YouTube channel:

Here

Speed Test!

Currently I'm taking a class called Advanced Design, in this class we do these beginning of class design challenges, where we are assigned a idea and given 1 hour and 30 minutes to create something using that Idea or concept. I have found these design challenges to be pretty interesting, because they make me think in terms of speed and quality. There have been some really cool results, as well as some not so cool results. Over all though its been fun.

Here are some of the results from these challenges:

The challenge here was to listen to music you don't particularly like and design something based on what you feel or thinking about while you are listening to that genre. in this case I was listening to techno.

The challenge here was "Insects Attack!" we had to take something small and make it look huge. On this one I got done really fast so I added some extra elements to eat up some time and finalize my design a little more.

This challenge was to take images of hats and composite them onto images of people realistically. My instructor told us it would be easier to do 4 separate images, but I wanted more of a challenge so I told him I could do it with one image of multiple people. I also added in a logo to finalize the design a little more.

There were a couple more challenges but they had less than satisfactory results. so I didn't post them. Maybe I will in the future if I decide to show some of my bad designs.

Developing a Logo Personally...

Early in September 2009 I decided that I wanted to design a brand Identity for myself as a designer. In the beginning I kind of designed in a vacuum, I didn't do sketches and I didn't do any research online or in books. Very quickly I realized I was doing something wrong. So I talked to classmates and instructors about how I should go about this process. Everyone that I Talked to said, "Sketch it out." or "Go look at some logo books/websites and get some ideas."

Here is a couple coherent early pages from my sketchbook:

At first I was a little apprehensive towards the idea of looking at other logos and jeopardizing my chances of developing something original. Then I realized almost nothing is original anymore, Everything is just a mish mash of everything. So over the course of about 8 months any free time I found myself with I was sketching out logos and looking for new ideas in logo books and design websites. There was alot of flops and frustration, but in the end I found a couple ideas from a collection of all my resources and molded them together to create my current logo.

Here is a taste of what could have been:

Here is the idea that survived:

Thanks to everyone who gave me advice/critiques.

Seeds of Virtue

This week I got to write and illustrate a children's book for my Advanced Design class. I found some interesting challenges with this project. First I wasn't really sure how to write for children, I did a little bit of research online and at my local library. Online I found a bunch of interviews with writers of children's books, the consensus between the 5 different videos I watch was that kids don't want to be talked down to. At the library I found a gigantic selection of examples, I thumbed through a couple of them and made the decision to do more of an abstract style with a simple "if you can dream it, you can do it" story.

Now for this project we were required to do 10 pages including the cover. I had a little trouble writing for only 10 pages so I went a little crazy and ended up with 22 pages plus a front and back cover.

Give it a read and let me know what you think
Grow Big and Strong

Article of Interest

I found this article on www.webdesignerdepot.com and I found it really interesting. I haven't had to deal with a really bad client yet but I'm sure its only a matter of time before I find myself pulling my hair out over a difficult client. Luckily I found this article to help me better prepare for the inevitable. I want to encourage any up and coming designer to check out this article as well as all of the other great articles on Web Designer Depot.

How to deal with Nightmare clients

Regardless of how smoothly your business may operate, no one is completely immune to criticism and controversy. With BP’s disastrous oil spill continuing to dominate the headlines almost three months after it took place, it’s becoming alarmingly clear that even the world’s most powerful and formerly respected brands can take a hit online.

But what if you’re not a major brand – just a small online service provider? While failed projects and disastrous clients are unlikely to spread the word as far, they’re just as likely to cause a great deal of damage to your business.

From minor fall outs to projects that didn’t quite go as planned, there are hundreds of reasons for formerly solid client relationships to turn sour.

We’ve prepared this guide to help you respond to such situations. With Google’s dynamic search results pushing “scam” terms to the top of the ranks and speculation-friendly social media outlets giving almost any disgruntled client an outlet, monitoring your online buzz is more important than ever.

The five strategies below can help you keep your name under control, and keep your clients from turning against you.

1. Offer alternatives, new solutions, and even a discount

Managing problematic clients is an art that requires practice. It’s also something that requires a reasonable understanding of trade-offs and sunk costs. If a project has gone poorly and ended in what could become public criticism, you’re faced with two possible choices as a service provider.

The first is to leave it be, pushing your client towards other providers and increasing the chances that you’ll end up with a very public negative testimonial. The second option is to offer a solution to clients in private, extending your service and possibly missing out on such a lucrative project payment.

It’s up to you to decide between the two, but we think it’s worth preserving your name in exchange for a slight hit on your company’s bottom line.

If you’re forced into a position where a dispute could result in negative feedback and a search-friendly public posting, offer a discount on the project or eliminate costs altogether. It will hurt in the short-term and you’ll likely lose any future business, but it’s certainly more welcome than a smear post or high-ranked “scam” forum topic.

2. Have your own public outlet prepared

Don’t have a blog? Start one. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to challenge most companies on their promises, not due to a devaluing of opinions but because of the huge increase in company blogs over the last few years.

Businesses that were once uninterested in blogging and unresponsive to public criticism have taken a different stand, posting weekly to keep a public outlet open.

That one blog can be the difference between a very public fallout and a reasoned response to criticism. With the anonymous nature of the internet and the occasionally shady tactics of many online workers, it’s inevitable that you will one day attract public criticism, particularly if you operate a large business or work with hundreds of different clients.

Prevent that criticism from being the only post on you or your company by building your own public outlet. All it takes is a single blog post weekly – something that takes less than ten minutes and has its own set of promotional benefits.

Control your own outlet and you’ll be prepared for criticism and public disputes, both in the blogosphere and in the search results.

3. Respond to blog posts, “rip-off” reports, and forum bashing carefully

Not every critical blog post deserves a response. Major companies and in-demand online presences often selectively ignore unfair criticism of themselves, instead choosing to focus on their goals and respond to complaints that are justified.

It’s a situation that’s difficult to navigate – when trolls post unfair and inaccurate opinions on your business, many people can take them at face value.

But responding to trollish, untrue comments can sometimes make a bad situation worse. When the complaint is based on nothing but hearsay and anger, a reasoned response can often just ignite fires and push more people to post unfair criticism.

The United States Air Force has a ‘counter-blog’ chart which we’re big fans of – it demonstrates how to respond to the right criticism, and why you should ignore criticism that’s not grounded in reality.

4. Fire your problem clients

Some clients aren’t going to love your service, no matter how great it may be. They’re a type that’s present in every form of business, complaining that extra features aren’t the norm and continually bartering for a discount.

It’s tempting to cater to problem clients and offer discounts to cut down could-be controversy, but doing so leaves you in an annoying and financially difficult position.
Marketing expert and ultra-blogger Seth Godin made the same point in a blog post, stating that you can “put up with the whiners, write off everyone, or, deliberately exclude the ungrateful curs.” We agree with him – it’s best to tailor your business to the clients that bring you more than just long-term projects and income, and eliminate those that could lead to issues.

So take a more forward stance to could-be problem clients, and work them out of your portfolio before they grow to be an annoyance. Some service providers and consultants recommend using your prices to drive away problematic clients, but we think it’s best to just close the door entirely.

Eliminate problem clients before they produce crises and you’ll have more time to focus on those that your business meshes with.

5. Don’t AstroTurf: make it clear who you are and why you’re defending yourself

The only thing more damaging to your business than an anonymous complaint is an anonymous complaint with a very suspicious ultra-positive response.

With most online complaint boards open to almost anyone, users have grown conditioned to think that anyone singing a company’s praises must be a paid shill.

Don’t fight it – there’s no way to overcome online conditioning and the way people respond to controversy. Instead, be completely open about your affiliation or ownership with the business in question, and explain exactly why you’re responding to any public criticism.

Users aren’t against service providers and businesses from the get-to, they just like their information free of bias and false impartiality.

Preventative action:

Responding is one thing – actively monitoring is another. We’ve picked out three strategies that can help you keep your online reputation clean and criticism-free. Think of public responses and visible explanations as a last case scenario, and use these tools and tactics to ensure that you’re never put in a position where it’s a necessity. Here are 3 ways to keep your company’s online image dispute-free:

Use Google Alerts to keep track of your trading name
Google Alerts should be one of the most frequently used tools in any freelancer’s arsenal. Both an amazing marketing tool and an incredibly effective service for reputation management, it’s one of the most immediately accessible tools out there for searching the internet for your name (or your business name) and monitoring the conversation. If you’re in high demand, set a daily reminder and check over the results once every evening. Small businesses and freelancers can get by with once-weekly alerts, which should be configured to email information on their competition, client reviews and public forum posts, and any potential clients with an interest in their services.

Reach out to clients in private if you feel things could turn sour
Never make things public if your name is at stake. Every designer has run into at least one dispute with a client, sometimes over the most minor and inconsequential of details. Even if you feel as if you’re being unfairly targeted or treated poorly, don’t take the matter public unless you’re forced to. Reach out to troubled clients and offer them a solution via email, phone, or an instant messenger. As tempting as it may be to name and shame a problematic client, it reflects poorly on your business to release details of a client’s requests to the public. Aim for private solutions, and let disputes become public only once you’ve exhausted any private options for reconciliation.

Control your search results using social media outlets
Every online business should aim to control their first-page search results. Not the results for their industry, but the results for their trading name, or for freelancers their full name. It’s an exercise that takes surprisingly little effort (unless you’re called John Smith) and is immensely rewarding when it comes to reputation management and handling online disputes. Start with the top spot – one that should be inhabited by your own website – and work your way downwards with social media outlets and other small websites. Controlling your name has obvious benefits when it comes to your online reputation, and it’s also an indispensable method for helping potential clients find your business when referred to you by a trading name.

Written exclusively for WDD by Mathew Carpenter. He is an 18-year-old business owner and entrepreneur from Sydney, Australia. Mathew is currently working on Sofa Moolah, a website that teaches you how to make money online. Follow Mathew on Twitter: @matcarpenter. Follow Sofa Moolah on Twitter: @sofamoolah.

Getting into page layout Constructivist Style!

Recently I got the October issue of Game Informer Magazine in the mail and I found an awesome article on Call of Duty: Black Ops in it. The funny thing is, I wasn't interested in it for the game or even for the content of the article I was interested in it purely for the page layout. I'm not sure whose idea it was to go for a constructivist look, but I have to give them major props for taking the risk and pushing the envelope.

So after I saw this article I decided I wanted to try and take a similar approach to page layout, with a magazine assignment I made up for myself to help me hone my long doc skills. First I had to come up with a subject. which I chose Gran Turismo 5, I chose this because when I think of driving games I think of the crazy twists and turns that are done at high speeds and this would make the tilt of the article make sense.

Now that I have a subject, it was time to search for content. First I googled Gran Turismo 5, and then I remembered that IGN.com has tons of articles and screen shots on Gran Turismo. So I went over to IGN.com and scooped up 3-4 articles and 10-20 images. After this it was time to do some sketches, I did about 15 sketches before I found a layout I liked, During this process I determined the best ways to deal with my biggest problems.

My biggest problem, I realized, was obviously Readability, the major problem that would cause unreadable type was going to be the tilt of the article, as well as the transition from page to page over the spine. So to solve the problem of readability I decide that I would only tilt the article 15 degrees up or down. As far as the transitions I decided to run only the images across the spine and let the type stay in the live area of the page.

After solving my biggest problems all I had to do is make it look good, so I decided that I wanted this article to look super clean and sleek. with this in mind I chose a simple color palette of gray, red, and blue. I chose the red and blue because these are the Gran Turismo colors and the gray was to spice up the negative space so it wouldn't look so plain.

I ended up doing a cover plus 3 spreads (6 pages). and I think it turned out pretty good.

To See it in its entirety download the PDF Here

Warm up sketch

Warm up sketch

Article of interest

I found this article on Webdesigner Depot. I thought it was pretty interesting, as well as Inspirational, check it out if you get a chance. Come back soon, I have a whole bunch of sketches and work that I'm going to be dumping on here in the next couple weeks.

15 Bad Habits That Could Kill Your Design Career

Being a designer has never been easy. Working with clients, creative directors, marketing managers and other designers can take a toll on your patience and passion.

It's important, as a professional designer, to avoid practices that could hurt your career or the company you work for.

Whether you work as a freelance designer or in a firm, avoid the following 15 bad habits that might be killing your design career.

What other habits do you think should be avoided in your design career? Please let us know in the comments section.

1. Poor People Skills

Few things will kill your design business faster than poor people skills. Clients want a friendly face to greet them and someone who is enthusiastic about their project. Avoid complaining, bad-mouthing, whining and making excuses.

Maybe you're a whiz at social media, and maybe you've got a fancy email signature, but sometimes being able to interact professionally with people online just doesn't cut it. In order to succeed as a designer, you must have strong people skills: you must be able to communicate a thought, frustration or message clearly and efficiently.

Learn how to handle difficult clients, overbearing creative directors and pestering marketing departments—you'll have to do it all, while managing the inevitable stress of deadlines.

2. Not Setting Boundaries With Clients

If you work on a per-project basis, avoid excessive revisions proposed by clients. If you fail to set limitations, your clients will request frequent revisions, which can eat away at your time and patience.

Allowing clients to request anything might seem like a good policy, but you'll come off as more professional by setting limits with them during the design process. These should be outlined in your terms of agreement or contract.

3. Complacency

I once worked with a designer who insisted on using tables in the design process. We all know that tables have a place in the work flow, but we were dealing with a layout and style that could have been achieved with some pretty simple CSS. This designer had become complacent; following the same path will kill your own design career.

Begin by identifying aspects of the job that you've grown complacent about. Perhaps you are satisfied with your current number of clients, so you make little effort to market your business. Perhaps your standards have fallen, and you've stopped giving your best and care to do only enough to get paid.

Whatever you're complacent about, conquer it. Start caring. Shift your paradigm, and arouse in yourself a desire to always do your best.

4. Laziness

Laziness is the brother of complacency. A lazy designer essentially stops caring about whether their designs look good, whether their clients are happy and whether their career will go anywhere. And designers who stop caring become selfish.

They take more time off than usual, put off deadlines, put themselves before their clients and, therefore, lose clients, forfeiting referrals and killing their business.

5. Procrastination

Putting off essential tasks that will help your design business thrive is extremely easy. After all, there are always tweets to read, emails to answer, articles to read and personal projects to experiment with.

Do your paperwork on time, try to hit or beat deadlines, keep contacting potential clients and stay on top of other important tasks. The more you procrastinate, the easier it will be in future. It's a slippery slope.

6. Copying Other Designers

Copying design masterpieces can be tempting–especially when a client comes to you with a particular idea ("I love the look of this website. Can you do something similar?").

Overcoming the temptation to copy other designers in order to please a client can be difficult. Instead, meet with the client to discuss what about the work they like. Once you have determined why they like the design, you can create something that satisfies their needs, without infringing on another designer's copyright.

Deliberate copying can result in huge fines and lost credibility, and it will ultimately kill your business. Avoid it like the plague.

7. Doing Spec Work

Spec work is a hotly debated topic in the design industry, and we won't get into it here. Suffice it to say, it can really hurt your career if not done properly.

Some argue that spec work is good for novice designers with little experience, but you can lose time and work by participating in crowd-sourcing contests. Look for alternative projects that guarantee payment for your work.

8. Casualness

Designers often wear worn-out jeans and wrinkled t-shirts, and frankly, most of the time, I say embrace it. But when dealing with clients, make an effort to dress and act more professionally.

When sitting at your desk, working away on the Wacom, you are a designer, and the jeans and sandals fit that role perfectly. But when meeting with clients, you are an account manager, so at least put on a nice shirt.

When you dress and act professionally, clients will see that you take the business seriously. This will build trust.

9. Workaholism

Being a workaholic can actually hurt your business. Good design requires an enormous amount of creativity, and let's face it, getting the juices flowing is sometimes difficult. Some days, coming up with a great logo concept or sharp marketing material seems impossible.

Instead of pushing the limits of your creative powers, take a quick break. If you can't get away from work entirely, alternate projects so that you don't get burned out by a one.

10. Shyness

This may not sound like a "bad habit" per se, but shy designers usually don't see their business thrive. If you are shy, you're unlikely to charge what you're worth, to stand up to clients who treat you poorly, to market yourself efficiently or to jump at every opportunity to find new clients.

Step out of your bubble and embrace your career. Make things happen for yourself, and you will see huge success that you can be proud of.

11. Jumping "How High?"

Nothing's wrong with being ready and willing to help clients when they call or email, but some clients take advantage of such kindness. Ever heard the expression, "When I say 'jump,' you say, 'How high'?" Some clients feel like you exist solely to cater to their every whim.

When a client tries to take advantage of you (whether by not paying what you deserve or asking for a lot of work in a short period of time or whatever), don't let them walk all over you. Stand up for yourself. Respect yourself as a creative professional, and they will respect you, too.

12. Being Disorganized

I used to let my office space get disorganized and messy. It would stay that way for a few weeks, and then I'd dedicate an entire Saturday to reorganizing all the paper and materials I had neglected.

Not only did I lose a whole Saturday every few weeks, I found that getting work done in a disorganized space was harder. I couldn't focus well, and I didn't feel productive.

Stay organized. Create the perfect work environment for yourself. Make an effective filing system for your paperwork (both hard and soft copy), and keep your desktop clean (both the physical and digital ones). You'll find that you work better, find things faster and have more time to do things that actually make you money.

13. Not Learning From Mistakes

If something awful happens to your business, evaluate the situation and determine what you could have done better. If you've lost a client, determine how to avoid losing others the same way. If you haven't been paid for work you've done, re-evaluate your payment structure so that it doesn't happen again.

Refusing to learn from your mistakes, whether out of stubbornness or arrogance, is a quick way to kill your career.

14. Mixing Personal and Professional

This bad habit might be obvious, but I've met a number of designers who have been ripped off because they let a client become more than just a client.

Nothing's inherently wrong with taking your client out for lunch or coffee to discuss the progress of a project, but be wary of getting too friendly. Turning down a request for a lower price is awfully difficult when it comes from someone you hang out with every weekend. Watching a big game on their plasma screen might be a little awkward after you've disagreed on a price.

Mind the division between personal and professional especially if you work from home. Avoid getting too familiar with clients. Maintain a professional relationship with them, and your career will succeed much more.

15. Being Cocky

I'll be the first to admit it: designers are cool. We make cool things. We amaze people with our Photoshop skills and wow clients with phenomenal websites. Still, no one likes a show-off, someone who brags or thinks they're better than everyone else. Don't be that guy.

Designers come in a range of personality types, but don't think you're right just because you've been a designer for 10 years. Be open to new ideas, new ways of seeing things and new styles. Accept change with humility. Hear people out, and take time to appreciate differences in the way people work.

Article of Interest.

I found this article on LogoDesignLove
Its a pretty awesome article because the writer talks a lot about what most up and coming designers feel. Its really good advice and I think all designers that are starting out with freelance should read this before they make an attempt to tackle that which is the Freelance Beast!


Facing your toughest client




The following article is by Giulietta “Julie” Nardone of Fearless Design.

——

I read lots of freelance blog posts about handling difficult clients. They all seem to gloss over the most difficult client of all.

YOU.

The way you feel about yourself and your talent sets the tone for all your client interactions. Think of your clients as mirrors. If you complain they don’t treat you well it’s probably because you’ve taught them not to treat you well. If you complain they don’t pay you on time, it’s probably because you’ve taught them not to pay you on time. If you complain they expect you to do work you didn’t agree to, it’s probably because you’ve taught them give you work you didn’t agree to.

Most of us learn this wimpy behavior early in life and it gets reinforced as we march into adulthood. I was taught to defer to parents, teachers, lovers, bosses and government leaders. Rumor had it that if I stood up for myself something awful would happen – I’d get punished, dumped, fired or thrown in jail. Is it any surprise that I deferred to clients too?

When I toiled in a cubicle for a larger corporation, my submissive behavior appeared to be expected, applauded and rewarded. When I opened my own business, the same submissive behavior had me working like a dog for wages even a dog couldn’t live on.

It took quite a bit of mental strength training, but I finally told my toughest client – the wimpy me – to take a hike. This allowed my greatest client — the powerful me — to advocate on my behalf. Now I set and maintain clear boundaries and decide how I wish to be treated. The result? My clients get a more confident designer, a far better design product, and a partnership grounded in honesty rather than fear.

Some aspects of the working relationship bring out the wimpy you more than others.
Sales conversation

The sales conversation is just that — a compassionate time for you and your potential client to get to know each other. You try to help the client figure out what his or her real problem is and whether you’re the best one to help them solve it. Sometimes you are, sometimes you’re not. Be brave enough to ask all the questions you need in order to make an informed decision.

Don’t be afraid to walk away from a client if you get funny vibes, request for a ludicrous deadline or a balk at your fee. Better to find out now than halfway through the project that the client has a history of being indecisive or controlling. Remember, desperation is only real if you give it life.
Pricing

Don’t sweat the fee. It isn’t up to you to decide how much the client can pay. Nothing worse than undercharging a client who told you a sob story and later discovering they live in a 2 million dollar mansion while you’ve got a leaking shower and no kitchen cabinets.

The bulk of your fee needs to be determined by how you feel about your work and the benefit it provides. If a client wants to haggle price with you, simply tell them you don’t haggle. They can either pay your price or look for someone who doesn’t believe in his or her own work. I actually found it easier to sell more expensive design solutions than bottom-of-the-barrel ones.
Contract

Make sure every client — even if it’s a family member or friend — signs a contract or a memo of understanding. This document outlines what the client will and will not get. If the client asks you to do something beyond the scope of what you’ve agreed to, that’s considered a change order. Tell them it will be extra. They do it in engineering firms. You need to do it in your design business. And beware of phony deadlines and phony decision-makers. Tight deadlines, if you choose to take one on, need to cost extra. Nothing more disheartening than working day and night, weekday and weekend, to find your design stalled for three months because the real person making the decision suddenly stepped out from behind the corporate curtain.
Indecision

Some clients start the design process with a lot of energy. Everything’s going great and then BOOM, they hit the indecision wall and disappear for weeks/months at a time. You call them and don’t get a return call. You email them and don’t get a return email. If this goes on for more than one month, bill them for anything they owe you and be prepared to move on. Make sure you have a progress payments/cancelled projects section written into your contract in the event this happens.

Standing up to your wimpy-client self may be hard at first. The whining, blaming and excuses circulating through your brain may get to you. Remember, that’s just fear yakking in your ear! Stay the scary course. Soon you’ll build enough courage to give your business-defeating behavior the boot.

——

Giulietta “Julie” Nardone, of Fearless Design, offers branding and graphic design services to small/medium-size companies and non-profits. Julie is based in Ashland, Massachusetts, and you can read more encouraging articles through the Fearless Design resources page.

Article of Interest

I found this article on Webdesign Depot I Thought it was pretty interesting.

Self-Motivating Through Creative Blocks

As designers, we need to be creative in order to be successful at our jobs.

Coming up with ideas and creative solutions to problems is what we do on a daily basis. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to do so.

Sometimes we get blocked creatively, and it seems like no matter how hard we try, we just can’t come up with a creative solution to anything.

The good news is that there are plenty of things you can do that can help you overcome a block in your creativity. First you’ll need to understand why you’re blocked, and then try some simple techniques to get over that blockage.

In this article, we’ll also cover a few ideas for finding motivation when your lack of desire to work is the root of your creativity problems.

Reasons for Creative Blockages

Before we can overcome a creative block, it’s important to figure out what is causing it. Without knowing the root cause, we don’t really know the best methods for getting over a blockage. In most cases, blocks are caused by one of four things:

1. Working Too Hard
If you find yourself with a creative block, think about how much you’ve been working lately. If you work ten hour days or never take days off, you may be blocked because you’re just working too hard and too much. Most people don’t have an unlimited supply of creativity. After a few hours or a few days, we need time to replenish those creative reserves.

2. Lack of Sleep
Being tired tends to zap creativity faster than anything else. If you’re not getting enough sleep every night, you can’t expect to be as creative as you would be if you’re well-rested. Not everyone necessarily needs eight hours of sleep a night, so it’s important to figure out how much sleep you need to be at your optimal creative levels. Note: Sometimes too much sleep can be just as bad for your creativity as too little.

3. Stress
Whether it’s things in your personal life causing you stress or something at work, stress is a major killer of creativity. Finding ways to minimize the stress in your life is a great way to boost your creativity. Whether you do that by eliminating the things causing you stress or simply by finding ways to deal with it (like meditation or exercise) is up to you.

4. Fear
Fear can freeze your creativity more solidly than virtually anything else. Sometimes you might be afraid to finish the current project because you have nothing else lined up after it. Other times you might be afraid the client isn’t going to like what you’ve done, or that your peers won’t appreciate the design. In either case, overcoming your fear is going to be paramount to getting your creativity back and finishing the project.

Ways to Overcome Creative Blocks

Hopefully you’ve been able to nail down exactly why you’re suffering from a creative block. Now it’s time to get down to overcoming it. There are a lot of techniques you can utilize to get over almost any kind of creative blockage. Here are some of the best:

Take a Break
If you’re creatively blocked, taking a break from whatever you’re working on can do wonders. Work on something else for a bit, or take a day off. When you’ve got some distance from your project and aren’t thinking about it anymore, you might be surprised at the ideas that will start flowing.

Take a Nap
This is particularly important if you think your creative blockage might be due to a lack of sleep. Taking a nap, even if it’s just for twenty or thirty minutes, can let your creative batteries recharge and give you new ideas. Even if your creativity blockage isn’t because of a lack of sleep, a nap can still give you a fresh perspective on your work. If you’re a morning person, an afternoon nap can even help reset your creativity levels to what they are when you get up in the morning.

Take a Walk
A change of setting can often open up your creative flood gates better than anything else. Walking can also let your mind wander, which can result in finding new, creative solutions. Some people like to take long walks, maybe for an hour or two to free up their creativity, while others find just a quick, ten-minute walk around their block does the trick. You’ll have to experiment to see what works for you.

Do Something Mundane
This is one of the best tricks out there for unblocking your creativity. Doing some mundane task allows your brain to relax and wander, much as it does when you take a walk. Cleaning is often one of the best mundane tasks for overcoming a creative block, whether it’s vacuuming or washing dishes or dusting. The bonus here is that in many cases you’re completing other work that needs to get done. Make sure whatever mundane task you choose requires some physical activity but little or no concentration.

Switch Your Tools
As designers, we generally use the same tools over and over again for each project. The same software, same hardware, same notebooks, pens, etc. If you change the tools you’re using, you may find ideas flow a little better. Try hand-coding for awhile in just a text editor, or use a different graphics program for a little while. If you normally use a computer-based wire-framing program, considering switching to paper for a bit (or vice versa). Making a small change in how you work can have a remarkable effect on how creative you’re feeling.

Look for Inspiration
Finding new inspiration can do wonders for your creativity. If you’re blocked on a certain project, try looking at similar projects others have created. You can also try to find inspiration in other design work or outside the design world. If you want to create a new website layout, for example, maybe spend some time looking at magazine layouts for inspiration.

Force Yourself
Sometimes the only way to get over a creative blockage is to push through it. You might have tried all the techniques above and still not be able to find your creativity again. If that’s the case, then just keep moving forward with the project. Sometimes, once you get past a certain part of the project, you may get over your creative block. You might also be able to then look at the part of the project that was giving you problems once it’s finished and figure out a better way to redo it. Or you might find that pushing through results in a perfectly acceptable solution that you and your client are both happy with.

Self-Motivating Tricks

Sometimes it’s not so much that we don’t know how to overcome a creative block as it’s just that we have no motivation to do so. For freelancers, especially, finding motivation can be difficult at times.

Even if you normally have no problem motivating yourself, almost everyone gets hit by a lack of motivation at one point or another, and this can often lead to a creative block. Finding motivation again can be tricky, but there are a few things you can do to get yourself working again.

Small Rewards
Using small rewards as you reach certain milestones in your project can be a great way to get your creativity flowing again. If you know that after you complete a certain bit of your work that you can go out to eat, or go hang out with your friends or family, you’re more likely to just push through the creative block (which can end up freeing things up). These small rewards should be something you enjoy that you maybe don’t get to do every day or every week. The key here is to stick to it and not take your reward until you’ve met your goal.

Big Rewards
Big rewards can be a great motivator for getting over a more severe creative block and finishing a big project. What this big reward is will depend on you. For some people, it might be taking a day or two off. For others it might be buying something you’ve been eying for awhile. Regardless of what the reward is, it can serve as a great motivator for loosening up a creative block. And if nothing else, it can motivate you to push through the block and get the work done.

Music
Don’t overlook music as both a motivator and a way to free up your creativity. Put on something with a good beat, especially something fast, and you might be surprised at how much it can motivate you. Try to tailor the music to the project you’re working on. If you’re designing something young and hip, put on some club music or pop. If you’re designing something elegant and sophisticated, put on classical music or something like Frank Sinatra. Music that fits the project can get your creativity moving in the right direction.

Don’t Let Yourself Work
This one seems counter-intuitive, but sometimes forcing yourself to take a break and not work can free up your creative flow. A forced hiatus can leave you eager to get back to work and filled with new ideas. If you can, take a break of a couple days. Do anything but work, and try not to even think about your work. You’ll probably find after a day or so, you can’t not think about your current project and your head is full of new ideas. Don’t got back to work as soon as that happens. Force yourself to take another day or two before you start working again so you’ve got so many ideas they’ll keep you going for awhile.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.