Posts Tagged ‘business of design’

Today I was looking through the article archives on A List Apart, and I came across the article When You Are Your Own Client, Who Are You Going To Make Fun Of At The Bar? written by Jim Coudal. As many of you may know, I find Jim to be a revolutionary in thinking outside the client / designer relationship and fully embracing entrepreneurship. I have written about him numerous times. In this article Jim raises the question “Should my blog have a business?” which instantly stuck with me.

When was the last time that you had a great idea, but never saw it realized because you got too caught up in all the details? I have entire Moleskine books full of great ideas that were never realized because I got lost in the minutia. I was so caught up with all these details that nothing ever happened with the idea. Inevitably someone else comes along with a similar idea, and I have lost the competitive advantage I would have had by just getting started on the project. The repetition of this process over and over again has led me to one conclusion; stop thinking and start doing.

Why bother worrying about what could happen in the future, when you can get right into the project and actually see what will happen. Chances are that you will figure out whatever problems may arise, when they do. By over thinking what could happen, not only do your persuade yourself not to take risk, you also plan for contingencies that may never happen.

Why you may be worried about what the consequences of these actions could potentially be, I ask you to think about what you could be missing out on instead. What if your idea does take off? What if you get 300 potential clients knocking your door down asking you to work for them? Those are great problems to have, much better than worrying about where you will get your next client from, or what kind of project you will have to accept just to pay the bills. So next time you think you may have a good idea, why not try it out before writing it off? At the worst you will learn something along the way.

How many times have you attended a meeting and realized that by the time left you have actually moved backwards in your progress on a project. Because of this and other reasons, I have come to the conclusion that meetings are just utterly pointless. I have come up with a few reasons that hopefully may help you see my side of the situation.

What can I say, the event was just spectacular. Each presenter had their own memorable and interesting points however to me the overall underlying theme was taking control of your business. Carlos Segura persuaded us to take control by setting precedence up-front with our clients. He suggested that we as designers inform our clients about how we function, and give them a take-it-or-leave-it mentality. Jason Fried gave us ten tips of starting a business and how having a small business can be more productive. He also stressed simplicity in everything we do, from our business models, to the products we develop. Finally, Jim Coudal presented the idea that a short attention span can be a good thing, leading you to new and interesting ideas. He also urged everyone to take greater control of our own crafts or means of production to create new business opportunities.

Every designer I know has a list of self marketing plans that they hope to accomplish, however for numerous reasons these projects always find themselves on bottom of the stack of priorities. We as designers create marketing materials all day long for our clients, however we find creating these same materials for ourselves to be some of the hardest tasks to tackle. There are a number of reasons why this is the case…

I have just received an email from 37signals that gives the schedule for the SEED Conference, so I thought that I would share…

8:00 - 9:15 Registration and continental breakfast
9:15 - 10:00 Carlos Segura presentation
10:00 - 10:30 Audience Q&A for Carlos
10:30 - 10:45 Break
10:45 - 11:30 Jason Fried presentation
11:30 - Noon Audience Q&A for Jason
Noon - 1:15 Working lunch with Edward Lifson
1:15 - 2:00 Jim Coudal presentation
2:00 - 2:30 Audience Q&A for Jim
2:30 - 3:00 Break
3:00 - 4:30 Panel

I will be reporting on the conference, immediately following. If anyone else is going to be attending feel free to post in the comments below, maybe we can meet up!

Something I learned very quickly through freelancing is that being faster than the competition, cheaper, or more direct are not selling points for your services. While in theory these may seem like service benefits for customers, they do not work as a business model. I have taken the opportunity to translate what each of these statements really say to the client.

Let’s take a look back to two and half years ago. Back then I was a senior in College with one extra semester of school left to complete my degree. I had 3 co-op work experiences under my belt and a partially completed portfolio that needed to be refined and finalized. However, I was aware that if I wanted to stand out amongst other candidates in the job market, have some more real-world design projects in my book would help differentiate myself. So being recently turned on to Craigslist for researching potential apartments for my big move to the windy city in the upcoming months I thought to peruse the “gigs” section.

Up until this point I had enjoyed the Craigslist concept, a free open place to submit wanted ads. For physical objects such as products and real-estate this model seemed to be a legitimate Laissez-faire environment. However I soon realized this is not the same case for the creative gigs section. Numerous posts offered the promise of experience, and book building projects, however failed to offer any form of compensation. The ones that did offer compensation either did not offer enough to even be close to a respectable wage or were promising “profit sharing.” In the rare occasion that there was a request that was of enough compensation to consider doing, the details were always sketchy and not very promising.

I just recently purchased my tickets to the SEED Conference that is going to be held at IIT campus in Chicago on January 18th. Jason Fried, Carlos Segura and Jim Coudal are hosting the conference that is about discussions on design, entrepreneurship, and inspiration. As a designer and a self-proclaimed entrepreneur I can’t wait to see what these design greats have to offer. Apparently the first SEED Conference sold out extremely fast, and according to the blogosphere was a huge success. At only 145 attendees it should prove to be a very interesting and welcoming conference. I will be sure to post my review here after the event. As of writing there are still spots available, to sign-up visit the event page at: http://www.seedconference.com/

Freelanceswitch.com has been a great resource for me over the past couple of months when I first noticed it through a design inspiration site. Every article that they have posted has always served as a great resource, and now they are putting that knowledge into an amazing eBook. The book covers every aspect of freelancing, from establishing yourself as a brand, to setting your hourly rate. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking to get started in freelancing, or even be more efficient and profitable if they already freelance.

Click here see the official product page and find out more!