Interesting …
Getty Images—probably the biggest supplier of stock photography—has updated their submission requirements to ban the retouching of photos for the sake of making the model look thinner or larger.
They cited a new french law requiring notification of such changes. But regardless of why they did it, I think it’s a good change.
It doesn’t stop the end user from making the same change to the image. But it does mean we have a supply of truthful body images from which we can work.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
This post is about business, so… you know, caveat emptor.
Probably the single most common thing I do in business is write estimates. If people are even vaguely interested in a project, I can tell them about how much it would cost to have me do the work. No charge for the estimate. And certainly they don’t all lead to paying work. But very few paying jobs proceed without them. The latest one — written today — was around number 550. That’s more than 1 a week, since I went into business for myself.
I dislike writing them. Or at least find it to be difficult, tedious work. I think people look at it as something you can just plug a few numbers into, and then send out. But those numbers don’t just come out of thin air. I have to understand the project. I have to wrap my head around every possible aspect of the project, and be able to approximate how much time and resources will be required for those steps. And if I’m working on 5 or 6 projects on any given day, (and I am), it takes a feat of concentration to be able to push it all aside mentally and focus enough to build this whole project in my mind.
So lets say I’m stupid enough to try. I’ve built myself a kind of formula, to make the calculations a bit simpler. I broke down the average job into phases.
And for web sites, you can add:
Research is the time I spend coming up with ideas. Looking through samples. Finding inspiration. Making sketches.
Cleanup involves taking all those sketches and ideas, and putting them into clean, digital proofs, so they client can look them over and start making choices. Usually after this stage, we have a design direction.
Populate comes into play for long pieces… books, reports, websites. My initial mockups only have a couple sample pages or spreads. So if it’s a long piece… then once a design direction is chosen, I apply to the remainder of the content.
1st and 2nd Author Alterations are the comprehensive sets of fine-detail edits that the client wants to make to the project. They go through and review the whole piece, collect every edit they want, and send it to me. I encourage/restrict my clients to use this “set of edits” method, rather than sending them over piecemeal. Piecemeal edits are a pain in the ass. Either you’re constantly jumping between jobs to make a repeated small edits, or you’re forced to collect and collate all the edits yourself, which can be difficult if they start overlapping. So my estimates include 2 ’rounds’ of edits. Anything significant beyond that gets billed hourly in addition.
On websites, once the design is set, I have to code a sample page with the design. This gives my the basis for the website and lets me work out any programming or interface bugs.(And occasionally to make sure I can actually accomplish some new, ambitious design element). Then I take and merge that sample page into the templates for whatever CMS I’m using.
And if I it appears as if I will have to spend a significant amount of time interacting with client… repeated meetings, or tutorial sessions for a new website, or such, I will add on some small amount of time for ‘Meetings’.
For everything listed so far, I figure out what number of hours, or percentage thereof, I will need.
Occasionally a project is a rush. Well… every project is rushed. But there’s a scale of rushes. Do you need this for your conference in a couple weeks. No problem. Do you need this add in 2 hours? Rush. And the rush is a percentage markup. Usually around 20%, although that can vary based on severity.
So total up the hours. Apply any rush markup. And then multiply by my hourly rate.
To further make my life easier, I have a spreadsheet. It includes the above calculations, already set up, for a variety of job types. So I already have a tri-fold brochure on there. And a 12 page report. And a logo. And a 10 page website. And…
And don’t forget to add in costs. Stock Imagery. Printing. Hosting. Special software. Programmers. Photographers. Copywriters. Editors…
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
you gotta love the world sometimes.
I send my client proofs over a year ago for some new letterhead. It has been discussed a couple times since then, but nothing was ever finalized. So I just sit on it, and will bill it when it’s done someday.
Today, one of their employees send me a file they call their digital letterhead, asking me if I could update the address on it. And guess what the artwork is.
Well nice to know I can now bill the job… and maybe a little extra.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
So here’s a bit of what I was working on. My sketchbook is a mess. It would probably mean nothing to another designer. But I just get enough down so I can remember what I was thinking. That way I can get the idea out of my head and make room for something else.
When I started as a designer, I thought sketching was mostly a waste of time. I felt that it was much easier to modify your art on screen, so why would you waste time with a pencil. And I even had a coworker bitch me out for asking the boss for a sketchbook, because I could ‘just sketch on the back of user copier paper’.
Now… I always have to start with sketches. The computer is too concrete. And once I start messing with something digitally, I have a hard time putting it down until it’s done. Sketching on paper is fast and loose and much more inspirational for me.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
It’s now a bit after 6:30 am, and I just sent off some art to the client. I promised them something by this morning, and unfortunately I seem to be better working on this particular project in the wee hours of the day. But I quite like the design, (*knock on wood*), and the payment for the job is pretty good.
This was yesterday’s “picture of the day”. I took it on my way down to Penn Photo to get some pictures developed. I like it, though I’m having a hard time thus far saying why. It has nothing that jumps out at you. But it’s distinctly city, and of a street not yet made up totally of homogenous boxes.
Gawd. It’s getting light out. I really need to go to sleep now. I have a hard time sleeping in daylight.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I felt kinda good about today. Was an overall positive day. And I felt like I accomplished something while working. And Refresh was entertaining, if not educational, tonight.
So it’s unfortunate when I got home that my email was clogged with messages from clients whining about a pile of petty little things. Doubly depressing when, after handling what I immediately could and filing anything undeserving of a response, I had only 1 email left. So not only did they piss on my mood, but it wasn’t in the least bit productive.
This calls for a photo collage. My recent favorites:
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
There are a few tricks to getting a good logo. In this case, when I say “good”, I am strictly referring to the technical nature of the digital artwork, and not the artistic merit nor communication capabilities of it. The basic traits of a good logo file are:
First, tell your client you need the logo. Yes, they probably sent you a GIF off their website that wouldn’t even look good to Helen Keller. But often they just send you the first thing they can find, because they don’t know any better. So the first option should always be to simply tell them the specifications of good art, and ask them if they can find it in their own company or files.
And occasionally when the logo is from someone other than your direct client, (a sponsor, for example), you can always find their communications department and call them. Explain to them about your project, and ask if they can provide the artwork you need.
Unfortunately, fewer and fewer companies even keep good copies of their identity package around. But if you’re lucky, and the client is fairly well known or large, you can download their logo. First, check the “About Us” section of their website for a page made just for this purpose. Bigger companies and organizations often have their whole identity standards manual online.
If that doesn’t work, check out Brands of the World, (formerly logos.nina.ru). It is a unaffiliated archive online for vector-format logos from anywhere. Their searching and browsing interface is pretty weak, but their archive is very extensive. Even when you can’t find the exact logo you’re looking for, you can often find a variation on it.
Many companies are ignorant of what they actually have in the way of artwork. Or their “regular designers” simply don’t share their files with the client. So a good copy exists, of course, and is being used. They just don’t know it. But thankfully, everyone is obsessed with the internet, now, without really knowing why. So every major document and announcement is posted to a company’s website, and most often in PDF format. Download a PDF of their annual report or similar document, and you can often open the file in Illustrator and grab a perfect copy of their logo.
Don’t know where to find the PDF on their huge corporate website? The easiest solution is to use Google. You go to the “advanced search” section of google, and you can tell it to show you all the PDF files available under any given domain name. It’s amazing what will turn up.
If their logo is bad enough that you really don’t think it should be printed, tell them. Tell them if it can’t be found, it needs to be recreated. And if you really don’t feel up to it, hire me. 🙂 And once you do have a good copy of the logo, do yourself a favor, and as I suggested in my last post, start a logo archive of your own.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
As a designer, you tend to be involved with many logos over time, both your own and others. Everyone and their sister’s lesbian roommate’s cousin has a logo, and you will eventually probably use them in some project. And if you have any sense at all, you back up all the art from your projects anyway. But I recommend keeping a logo archive, preferably in a convenient location for immediate use. Logos, when done right, are very small files, so they won’t take up much space. Not a week goes by that I don’t go back to my archive to pull up a logo. If it would otherwise take 5 minutes to dig up the right file, that’s a savings of over 4 hours, over the course of a year. But most importantly, it will inevitably improve the quality of your work. It never ceases to amaze me how many companies — large or small — can’t provide you good copies of their logos. By saving the best copy you can find of everyone’s logo, your work improves and you exceed your client’s expectations.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I need to be more efficient about tracking what I estimated a job to cost. Whenever possible, I generate a “real” estimate with Quickbooks (QB), so it’s all in there, waiting for billing. And for smaller, “promo jobs”, I’ve taking to creating an empty folder inside the job folder, with the price I estimated in the name of the folder.
But the bigger jobs that don’t make it into QB also don’t get that little pricing folder. Ideally, I should just promise to always input big jobs into QB. But yeah… let’s be realistic about what I actually will do. And having to go back and search through emails 6 months old for a price just isn’t cutting it.
So price-labeled folder or…?
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I’d like to thank Hecht’s for making my Saturday, by telling me, when my credit card wouldn’t swipe through the magnetic reader, that they’ll only manually punch in the cards for people with Hecht’s or Macy’s charge cards.
So after yesterday’s run-in with Hecht’s payment policies, I had an interesting, counter-example to the shopping experience. I found the ‘perfect gift’ at Eastern Market, but the vendor couldn’t take credit cards. I didn’t have cash or checks. So she handed it to me, and told me to mail her a check. It was the last one, and she was worried it would be gone if I came back some other time.
She had less reason to trust me, and more to proportionately lose. But she said I looked ‘nice and honest.’
These are the stories I think of when doing business.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
“Don’t fuck the vapid, damnit.” A sage piece of advice that everyone should be taught. It came from an ongoing essay by Kevin Smith, director of oh-so-many innappropriatly funny movies and Jersey Girl. The advice is funny, but the essay is actually interesting. His friend, in the movies and in life, Jason Mewes, is well known for his drug problems. But Kevin Smith is in the midst of a so-far 6 part essay on Mewes’ conflict with drugs. The story itself is sad and touching, but the writing is amazing. It’s not easy to write an engaging and interesting account of an addict’s fight with their demons.
I need to start a list of quotes somewhere.
Beware the approaching vent. May only be legible to designers and geeks:
The saying goes, that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. This week, I again had it confirmed that this sentiment applies nowhere better than in graphic design. Many is a client who’s tempted to try creating artwork on their own, wether because they’re a control freak, or they believe it will save them money. But it usually just ends up making me money. This week’s client is a semi-regular, who sends me their “finished” artwork to make it print-ready. The process reminds me a great deal of decorating the christmas tree when we were little. After spending hours with my sister and I spreading decorations on the reachable bottom 3 feet of tree, my mother would remove everything and spread it throughout the full length of the tree after we went to sleep. We were happy. My mother was happy. And I keep my clients happy. Remove every photo, convert them to a usable resolution, and change them to a printable color space. Correct, well, … every single bit of punctuation in the document. (Come to think of it, in 14 years of English classes, we never were taught the difference between a hyphen and a m-dash). Really… stop writing your annual report text in an email program or raw text editor. The world is already over-run by inappropriate apostrophes and quotation marks. Change your spot colors to process colors, and vice-versa. Switch to the professional version of your MS fonts. Add a bleed… everywhere. And move the text away from the edges of the page. (If you ever wanna see that vein throb in the forehead of your print rep, try putting a 8pt. rule around the outer edge of your page or bleeding off some 10pt. type from the bottom of the page.) Take the 15 text boxes you used to create your donor list, and convert them to 1 box, (columns, baby, columns), so that I can change the spacing on about 2 lines. Remove the hand indents you inserted in all 250 lines and use 1 simple command to do the same thing. Swap your soft-returns and your hard-returns, (Wow… that sounds awfully suggestive), so that the now-singular list can be formatted with a paragraph style. Remove all the double spaces you put in-between sentences because an English professor who studied in the dark ages once told you that it was proper. Convert your (oh my god I can’t believe you had the patience) dotted lines made of hand-typed periods to a simple filled tab.
On and on and on. I’m not talking artistic quality. I’m just talking process and procedure. The sheer amount of time you can see they had to spend to get the document to look the way it did is amazing. And it’s sad, when if they knew the tools they had, it woud take a quarter of the time and an eighth of the effort. There really is a reason that a single page layout program costs three to four times as much as a copy of Microsoft Word.*
*Okay… admittedly, I’ve yet to meet anyone… anyone… who properly uses all the features of even Word. I figured out a few years back that I had recieved and cleaned up, at that point, approximatly 10,000 Word documents. And in all that time, and all the time since, I have never recieved a Word document that was in perfect condition, ready-to-import. If I ever do, I think I’ll marry that person and have super-babies. Although as I get older, I am more likely to just accept someone who knows how to set a tab-stop.
Okay… no more funny. Serious design bother now:
I’ll say up front that I’m picking on no one in particular. It comes around from many, many people. And I myself have been guilty of it at one point. But I really get the urge to pummel people with a t-square who say that graphic design is the process of making things look pretty. Yes, the word used is always “pretty”.
Graphic Design is as much about making things look pretty as carpentry is about cutting pieces of wood, or computer programming is about using clean coding, or writing is about filling a column. Take me. I’m a semi-sucessful graphic designer. But I’m fairly bad as a fine artist.
From strictly the design portion of the job description, the goal is to convey a message clearly. (Or rarely, to obscure a message). That means taking into account the people doing the receiving. How they’re receiving. Where they’re recieving. What you want them to do after they’re done receiving. You take into account a huge history of visual communications. You account for cultural traits and mores. You’re job is to manipulate peoples impressions.
And if you perform as a more full-service designer, those things are actually a small part of your job. You may also coordinate with people supplying resources and ideas, and people producing tangible materials. You deal with design concerns versus technical capabilities versus political realities. (The Dali Lama always goes on top). You organize multiple jobs at once, and meet everyone’s schedule.
And like any service-industry job, you have to learn to communicate. Not only do you have to keep the right people informed, but you have to know how best to communicate to each and every individual person. Some people thrive on bullet points. Some need detailed answers. Some people want to control every interaction, while others just want to be kept in the loop. Until you’re President of the United States, you can’t get away with saying “this is who I am, you need to learn to communicate my way”.
Do designers make pretty things? Sure. But think back to whatever psychology you’ve studied. Think about what goes into the human concept of “attractive”.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
Never ask me if I’m busy. It’s a stupid question. The only time you can definitively answer it, is if you’re so busy just contemplating the question is making you late. Tell me what you need and then ask me if I have time.
If you’re working in the Washington, DC area, don’t use ionic columns in your logos. The icon has been used to such great extent that it’s become meaningless. There are better ways to represent patriotism, government, or democracy. And if you’re looking to represent this area in particular, DC has a much richer history than just some impersonal architecture.
Was listening to Pandora today. Caught a Johnny Cash song I didn’t recognize: 25 Minutes To Go. A little different, but I like it. Been listening to some of his older stuff since seeing Walk the Line.
Cherry Blossom Festival starts this weekend. Given the nasty weather lately, I wonder how the blossoms are doing.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
Tomorrow, what is left of the-company-I-formerly-worked-for will undergo what is likely to be one of it’s last transformations. They’re shedding their office in downtown DC, and the boss and his one remaining employee will work from home. Life was never full of peaches and cream there, but this last year has seen a slow, morbid, circling of the drain, with three employees quitting and another departing for a permanent maternity leave. Previous years had seen people come and go, (over 30 at last count), but this year was all about the go, and not so much the come.
Whether you look at it as failure, or as a drastic scaling back, or just an unwanted change, it’s severe. But in order to fail — in order to go out with a bang — you had to try something in the first place. When you’re bogged down in the day to day drama, that’s the hard part to remember. Someone had an idea, or a desire, and did something about it. And if you fail? Well, you already know what it takes to start again. And this time, you’re that much better educated. People who try and fail will always have my respect. There’s a world of difference between those who plot and plan, and those who try and do.
—
I just finished reading Denial and Deception: An Insider’s View of the CIA from Iran-Contra to 9/11 by Melissa Boyle Mahle. The title, as with most non-fiction, is a bit inflammatory, but the book itself is fairly good. It’s a fairly level-headed telling of the intelligence service culture, from an insider’s point of view. And the book is mainly about the culture. While some major missions and events are discussed, they’re most used to describe their effect on the atmosphere of the intelligence service.
I’d be willing to bet she was the actual author, and possibly editor, of this piece, because any ghost writer would surely be a better wordsmith. The language is dry and text-bookish. But it’s always accessible. While she has generally remains calm and objective, she does have her fair share of axes to grind, (feminism, a nearly pathological hatred of President Clinton. There are numerous grammar and spelling errors in my edition. And she doesn’t seem able to step back and view her insider’s knowledge from an outsider’s perspective.
Overall, the most instructive part for me was the background on so many modern events. She builds logical, if not necessarily agreeable, cases for actions like the invasion of Afghanistan. While the actual actions of Sept 11, 2001 are not discussed in details, the whole book discusses the growth and unexpected nature of Al’Qaeda. And she quickly dismisses Iraq as a complete cock-up on the part of both the intelligence services and the government.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
Slowly catching up on work. I’ll still be busy through at least the end of the year. And I’ve had two potentially lucrative referrals in the past week, which won’t kick in until after the holidays. And still a dozen jobs on back burners.
No… I don’t have a personal life. Why do you ask?
I think I will have to institute some news rules, for a couple clients. I still very much want to be available whenever and wherever my clients need me. But some of them seem to take more advantage of that than others. If you call me at 11:30 PM, it better be a major deadline. If the only time you call me, it’s after 7 PM on a weekday or before 9 AM on a weekend, you better be paying me well, on a regular basis. I can deal with the occasional or irregular call or email. Hell… email at 3 AM on Christmas for all I care. I can ignore those. But I think I’m going to have to set thresholds for proper communication, and when a client exceeds those limits within a specific range of time, I’ll stop taking their calls at unreasonable hours. You can leave a message, and I’ll get back to you at the next possible chance. I’m not trying to punish the clients. The major benefit will actually be keeping me from cringing every time my phone rings, and getting snarky with clients who are paying me good money.
And god’s honest truth… if you’re going to hire someone to do work for you, you should really be AT LEAST as prepared as you expect them to be. Really nothing irks me more than to have clients repeatedly come to me, completely unprepared, needing rushed work, with specs that change every couple hours… and come back again, and again, and again,… in the same manor. Do you have any idea how much money and time you could save; how much better the quality of your finished product would be… if you simply planned ahead far enough? I’m not asking anyone to be anally organized. But don’t tell me you need an ad in 3 hours and expect me to write it and design it. Don’t tell me the black and white tri-fold brochure we abandoned weeks ago now will be an 8-page letter-sized booklet in full color going to press tomorrow. And god… if you really can’t help yourself… don’t balk when I charge you less than any other respectable designer would for half as much work. I want to do the best work possible for you. All I ask in exchange is enough to live comfortably. And my standards for comfort are pretty damn low.
Eh.
I had a good weekend. Holiday dinner with friends on Friday night, followed by ice cream cones in 20 degree weather, and the biggest love sac I’ve ever seen. (It may have even given Kier a back injury). It’s nice seeing friends from school. Just wish we got together often enough to be able to talk about things other than college. (We do stray into the occasional geekiness, but…)
Finally found that last Christmas gift on Saturday. After the usual awkward apartment building party that night, I went to Chiaroscuro for their closing night. Talk about a complete blowout. Over 500 people showed up. It took 5 minutes just to find somewhere to sit at one point. But the music was great, and everyone came out. So many people, that I didn’t even get to talk to some of those I knew. Took off at an “early” 2:30 to catch the last train home, though I hear the party went ’til at least 4 AM. I can’t complain about any night that ends with a kiss on the cheek from a beautiful woman, though.
Sunday was incredibly lazy, though. Really… don’t think I can point to a single productive accomplishment, outside of some text edits to a catalog I’m working on. Never touched the painting. I still want to work on it. I’m thinking if I can get enough work done during the next couple of days, I’ll cut out in the evening and paint. Or at the very least, draw.
Am I really an adult?
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
established June 28, 2004
To be revised and updated many times, no doubt. Last updated
Start with the basics: money. The company finances were started with a $576.68 purchase, with personal funds, of an identity package, (letterhead, business cards, and envelopes). This was the first and only outside investment in the company. It was eventually reimbursed, from company funds.
Using accrual accounting, for the first complete year of business, the company billed $104,369.28. We had expenses of $63.611.05, (including $50,555.11 in printing costs and $6,459 in taxes). This yields a net income of $40,758.23. Of that, $10,500 was withdrawn in Owner Draws.
There were several one-time, or infrequent, investments in the first year, including licenses, permits, accounting software, and the previously mentioned identity package.
If things were to remain steady, and I continue to do some of the major jobs that I received last year, then I stand to make more than I did last year. This wouldn’t be too difficult, given that I made very little money for the first 4 or five months last year.
However, I don’t expect things to remain consistent and steady. Even if it were true, it’s a dangerous assumption to make. One of the major problems at Old Company’s design department was its tendency to rest on it’s history.
Clients come and go. Budgets come and go. I need to diversify the client base this year, enough to ensure a consistent flow of business.
The marketing I attempted to do last year while getting started was a miserable failure. Of the many letters I sent out, and the phone call followups I made, all cold-contacts, not a single job came out of it. I had researched industries and companies that interested me. I searched for organizations with the budget and need for designers. I tried, whenever possible, to find the name of the head of communications or design, and contact them directly.
Nothing.
Which may explain why trying to do the same thing while you’re looking for employment never seems to work.
Primarily through referrals and my existing client base, work finally started picking up, starting in October of last year. Around the new year, I sent out thank you notes to most of my clients. For the top tier clientele, I sent out packages of Christmas cookies. (In my own experience, nothing makes so good a gift/suck-up as food).
Now, I am doing nothing. Up until now my work load has been steady/high. To the point where I either didn’t have time to do any marketing, or was cautious about doing so for fear of being able to handle the extra work it might generate.
Trusting in what you already have is always dangerous. So the “no marketing” approach is not a good idea.
Existing Clients
Nothing is so valuable to a designer as existing clients. Not only are they feeding your bank account today, but they feed your client list tomorrow. Most new design work and clients are generated by word of mouth. I need to find 2 main things: 1) A way to express to these clients how valuable they are to me and how thankful I am, and 2) A polite way to ask them to refer me to other people and companies whenever they get a chance. Need to explore these two items in much finer detail.
New Clients
I want to find some successful ways to directly market my company to new clients. A lot of people recommend joining one of these networking groups. They meet on a regular basis, and do nothing but stand around and talk to each other about what they need. People tell me they get a lot of work that way. There’s got to be some other successful ways. Maybe I can check with other designers.
It’s only come up a couple times, but ethics does come into running a business. A large part tends to deal with the clients you’ll accept. I debated with myself recently when the World Bank was looking for new designers. I’m not reactionary enough to believe they’re totally evil. But I don’t agree with much of what they do. They do, however, pay well and offer regular work. I would say a borderline potential client, because up to a point, it’s not for me to say how a client should do business
Likewise, I would be hard pressed to work regularly for clients that were simply selling useless shit. As I normally put it, I’d rather not make my living convincing people to buy soap. I try to avoid blatantly “consumerist” clients. I have no problem with people making money. But that doesn’t mean I have to support a type of lifestyle I myself try to avoid.
Thankfully, much of the potential client pool in this city is non-profits and associates. You can find a good living with clients generally looking out for the common welfare.
Outside of choosing clients, there’s also the consideration of how you treat them. How much will you excuse in the name of business? For me, the fine line has always been to be as open as possible with the clients, while keeping things and plain and simple as possible. Clients are always given an estimate before work commences, along with the terms and conditions describing how that estimate is applied or disregarded. Line items on estimates and invoices are grouped together for simplicity. I’ll always break it down upon request. I don’t hide that purchases from vendors are marked up, though I don’t feel it’s the client’s business to know how much. I’m always open to debate about any amount I estimate. I encourage clients to express their questions or concerns to me, rather than stay upset and stop using me.
One issue that struck me earlier this calendar year was how clients are treated. With one client in particular, I was annoyed at having to work with another person they hired. It wasn’t ego or pride or any such thing. I simply felt they weren’t offering any additional value. And while I certainly wasn’t being insubordinate or pissy, I simply wasn’t being anything. They got exactly what they needed out of me. Not a word more. And eventually I realized that was really stupid. It’s a business transaction, but I was reacting in a personal manner. My job, as I’ve always defined it, is to make things as easy, fun, and successful as possible for my client. If I don’t like the client, get rid of them. But don’t give them any less than I would another client.
That last paragraph brought up a good point. What is my job? My Mission Statement, if you will, (although I hate pretentious junk such as that). Call it “What do we want to be when we grow up…”.
We create and provide visual presentation materials, be they in print, imprinted, or online. We offer full service, from initial ideas to production and delivery of the finished product. Our service and materials will be as hassle-free and as easy to understand as possible, while maintaining the highest quality of which we’re capable. We’ll be open and direct with our clients, vendors, and coworkers. We want to make things as easy, fun, and successful as possible for everyone.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
In the category of “stuff it took forever to find, so I’m posting a copy here”:
You can apply Alt text and ActualText attributes to images to improve the readability of a document being read aloud with screen-reader software for the visually impaired. The Alt text attribute lets you create alternate text that can be read in lieu of viewing a picture. For example, instead of a butterfly image appearing in your PDF file, the text “Butterfly image” appears.
ActualText is similar to Alt text in that it appears in lieu of an image. The ActualText attribute lets you substitute an image that is part of a word, such as when a fancy image is used for a drop cap. In this example, the ActualText attribute allows the drop cap letter to be read as part of the word.
To apply Alt or ActualText attributes to an image:
When you export to PDF, the Alt text and Actual Text attribute values are stored in the PDF file and can be viewed in the Element Properties window in Adobe Acrobat 5. This alternate text information can then be used when the PDF file is saved from Acrobat as an HTML or XML file. For more information, see your Adobe Acrobat documentation.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I had dinner tonight, in a little “those who survived our old job” gathering., hosted by our former boss. Generally it was okay, for a gathering of people who managed not to kill each other when we saw one another every day. There were just one too many digs, though, that brought back old feelings that weren’t pleasant the first time around, and certainly didn’t age well.
Consciously or subconsciously, I was always left with the feeling that in that office I was ‘tolerated’ and ‘dealt with’ by the people who ran things, rather than as some productive asset. And that they weren’t shy about letting me know that.
There was even a joke tonight about why did they wait six years before firing me. And if it wasn’t for the fore-mentioned years of being made to feel like a drain on the company, I would have surely felt like it was just a joke. But instead, it just left me fuming quietly. Not least of all because saying I was fired was stretching the truth quite a bit. At the time, I was specifically urging them to close down my department. They should give up on the failed side of the business, so that they could focus on what they do best. And I very specifically wanted them to close down my department, instead of me simply leaving, so that I could move on and take the remaining clients with me. Which is what happened in the end. Would I probably have eventually been laid off if I hadn’t made the move then? Sure. But lets remember what actually happened.
And how well the company did while I was there, and what decisions were made back then, were really none of my concern. I can, and have, spoken at length about the problems my old company had. (Read some of my old entries for details). After years of trying to help make improvements, and years of asking for the authority to improve things and be responsible for the results… and every single time being rejected…
Don’t even come to me and try, before I was fired, or at a dinner afterwards, to say that I was somehow responsible for … anything. I wanted more than anything to be responsible.
It’s easy to look back now see how stupid it was to stay in a situation like all that. I even knew it at the time. But regret is the biggest waste of an emotion. I love what I’m doing now. My clients are so much happier than I ever saw at the old company. Economically, I’m doing about 250% better that the old company was by the end. And my skill, technically and artistically, have dramatically improved.
And the hell I went through is one of those things that lets me be happy today. I’m a definite believer in the idea that you are a composite of everything you’ve experienced. I couldn’t have had the wonderful year I just did, without the things I learned at the old place — both the good and the bad.
Plus… you know… I’ve got hookers as neighbors. And when is that not a good thing?
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
My sister may be suffering from penis envy. Or… wallet envy. Whatever. The basic idea is that I have something at the moment, that she doesn’t. And in a manner that could seem random and unfair.
I’ve been in business for a little under a year now. (I’m about 2 weeks shy of the full term). And while it was a rough start, today I am doing okay. I can’t foresee tomorrow, but I take my concerns one day at a time*. And… you know. Starting a business is an incredibly risky and stupid thing. Even more stupid is my insistence on sticking to my work as a business rather than to myself as a freelancer. (As a freelancer, I could pick up a lot of work by going into other people’s offices and working on short-term projects for them.)
Meanwhile back home in New York State…
My sister and husband bought a house, which even in a small town, ain’t cheap. Shortly afterwards, her husband was fired for questionable reasons. Spent probably six months on unemployment. He’s found a job, but a job that pays considerably less than the previous one. In the mean time, they had an accident that wiped out their only vehicle. They’ve since replaced it with two more. And these are people who say they never had much money before.
I’m aware enough of my roots to easily see how it could seem unfair of life to to treat each of us these ways. Shouldn’t dedication and hard work be more greatly rewarded than risk and dissatisfaction? I see how I could have those same feelings, had small things in my life gone differently. I just think they’re crap, though.
First of all… relatives or strangers… we all live our own lives. Like an explosion set off at birth, we all take off in our own directions, right from the start. To wonder why you don’t have Donald Trump’s life misses the point. You have you own life to make do with what you will. Outside of a bad Disney movie, you’re never going to trade places with someone else. You’ll always be you. Stop giving a fuck about what the other person did, and do something with yourself.
Being brother and sister, raised in the same household, we did share as much in common as any two people could. Nothing outside of chance and genetic mutation favored me any more than her. You have no right to be pissy just because I temporarily have some success that you don’t. Not when we were both given the same building blocks. Not when you have successes in your own life that I only wish I could achieve.
And what if you aren’t pissy, and you just think I am full of myself? Well.. I probably am. You gotta be a little conceited to try some of the things I have. But honest-to-God… what’s the point of being family if we can’t be there for each-other. And right now, I’m probably more needy than my sister. I have great victories, wonderful successes, and brilliant ideas. But who can I share them with, without coming across as a braggart. And for every joy I wish I could share with someone, I promise you I have a dozen fears, misgivings, and doubts. I spend more time now doing things that I have no idea how-to than I ever have in my life. So, yeah, many of the things in my life, good or bad, I want to talk with someone about. And if not family, then who? I’m lucky enough to have a couple friends with whom I can share some of it. But family are really the people who should offer you their shoulder regardless of what has transpired between you. (The battles and resulting cold war between my sister and father are epic. But even so, I can tell they would both drop their harsh feelings instantly if one of them could muster the strength to be the bigger person. But you want to talk about a pig-headed family? I have aunts still arguing over who took care of who 35 years ago.)
And if you think I am conceited about whatever commercial success my business might have, then you have no idea how I’m gauging success. The money has always been just a means to an end; not an end unto itself. Even running a successful business is just another means. A-#1, right there at the top of my “why I’m happy” list, is the amount of self-determination I now have. I no longer cede 40% of my life to someone else to dictate how it should be spent. I no longer leach money from someone else’s cycle, but instead generate it on my own; like enjoying the fruits of planting a vegetable garden. Nobody has the power anymore, to use the phrase “or else”, with me. I am also now able to live my life completely by my own ethics. And as far as getting something good out of all of this, when a client comes to me and says how happy they are with the results of our projects, it’s all about me. “Look… I did that. I made someone else happy!”.
Certainly all that freedom and choice comes at a cost. I work incredibly hard and suffer from the previously-mentioned, self-induced stress. I take great chances with my own standard of living. And while I’ve been incredibly fortunate so far, not every project will end with good results. Even with the best of intentions and all due effort to succeed, fate will occasionally slam you face-first into a brick wall. If I stay on this course, I’m bound to have clients someday that go completely blinking nuts and try to reek havoc in my life and business. And as my careful wording of all this rambling probably betrays, I’m careful never to forget that all my business could simply disappear tomorrow. I will have finished everything I was working on, and simply not be able to find more work. It’s a thought I’ve gone to bed with on more than one night.
So yeah… we’ve led completely different lives. I genuinely hope my sister is as happy and satisfied with her choices as I am. I may find myself working at McDonald’s a month from now, and she could win the lottery. But as long as we can talk openly about why we are where and what we are… well… that’s family.
*I blame my parent’s for never-ending exposure to that slogan.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
I think salespeople are the last humans on earth who still email people Word files as a default method of communication. As if putting the text in the body of the email, so that I didn’t have to launch a huge, slow, ugly, expensive program just to read it, would make it any less official. Yes… they’re often contracts with a line for a signature at the bottom. But I haven’t signed one of those in years. A verbal okay or written confirmation has become standard. And you know… I really don’t care about your logo so much that needing to see it outweighs my desire to have instant access to the information I requested.
And for God’s sake… if you absolutely must email me a document, make it a PDF! They’re cross-platform, light-weight, and easy to use. Never has a PDF crashed my computer or infected my machine with viruses.
Why do salespeople suck so much at the little things?
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
If you’re gonna post a gallery of images on consecutive pages of a website, make sure I can get to the next damn image by clicking on the current one. I so do not want to waste time looking for whatever form of navigation you came up with.
This was not a good day.
I should simply refuse to participate in any appointment or event which requires me to utilize an alarm clock to wake myself. The only time I ever enjoy waking up early is when I’m going to the airport. Late night or early morning airports have a kind of haze about them. The muzak has been shut off. The cleaning crew is more prominent than the guys with the guns. You feel like you’re floating down the hall. People act like people, and not like employees, and the tension is all let out of the place like an unknotted balloon.
But anyway…
I had to get up early. I had conned persuaded Drew into driving me around so I could take pictures for one of Jon‘s projects.
[Note to self: download the damn pictures before you lose them]
So up early, I was. Very early, if you ask me. I had to have time to do laundry before Drew arrived, since all my pants smelled of cigarette smoke from the clubs this past weekend.
[Note to self: heater always dries clothes faster than dryer]
My shower was prematurely interrupted by a client calling to panic. And while I shared her concerns, and was myself worrying, there is very little I can do, since the people hired to handle this portion of the project are still within their standard time-frame. However, there is no good way to point this out to a client without coming across as though you had said “Fuck you! I did my part, so give me money and bugger off!”.
So it’s a difficult situation to begin with, that I can in no way remedy. But these projects said client has been giving me are my favorites (and best) among my recent work. So I must find some way not to lose same said client for something I no longer have control over. Like I needed another reason to be paranoid about my business.
Shower completed, and other minor disturbances in the force quelled, Drew arrived an hour late as per usual. However, all that quelling had caused delays on my end, as well.
Throw bag together, put on shoes, grab keys, grab coat, put on pants, lock door, take elevator down, take elevator up, grab glasses, take elevator down, and meet Drew.
I had checked the weekly weather report at the beginning of the week. “Shit. Shit. Cold Shit. Shit. Wet Shit. So I chose the least shitty day–today–and decided I would take pictures then–er–now. But damn if it isn’t cold. And not just nipple-stiffening cold, but windy as hell, as well. But since I’m going out to take pictures, I’m wearing only a thermal shirt and a light windbreaker, (’cause trying to work with a bag and a camera and lenses while wearing a padded suede jacket is just ridiculous).
So I was forced to use the most inhumane of human inventions: the alarm clock. I have a nearly irate client whose work I adore that I will not be able to satisfy. I’m left in no mood to shoot guns, much less photos. And the weather is so frigid I can’t even press the shutter properly because my finger has stiffened up.
But thankfully a nice man at the yacht club pointed out that I shouldn’t be shooting photos in a national park without a permit.
This was a bad day. I am so sleeping-in tomorrow morning.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!